![]() ![]() I would lie on my cot at night with my hands outside the sleeping bag to get some relief from the heat and throbbing caused by all the bruises, lacerations, and blisters. The only bath I took during that first two-week course involved running down a slipway into the frigid Atlantic. With us were several dozen stagiaires – students – who were also reinforcing basic keelboat skills. During the days we were thrashed around on thirty-foot cutters in full Atlantic conditions during the nights we curled up on cots, trying to recuperate. Water was collected in a cistern fed by rain that percolated through the sod roof. Home was a fort built in 1756 on the island of Cigogne. The next thing I knew we were heading for a group of rocky islands ten miles off the coast. He took a flying leap, landed in the water a few feet from the stern, grabbed the dock line and monkeyed his dripping hulk aboard. I was paying out the starboard stern line when Hobbman came running down the quay - bare feet and shorts, no shirt, his backpack wrapped in a plastic garbage bag. Tim took a locking turn on the bitts, and the anchor rode stretched like bungy cord as Tappan Zee was driven back towards the breakwater. In a few minutes we were under the hammer of a howling gale. It was as if a giant invisible fan swept down from the mountains and drove the static air into chaos. Hobbman would have to find his way out to the boat on his own. I took in the port stern line, and Tim and Rick began hauling in the anchor rode. Rick and I went below to start the antique Ailsa, and after routine invocations it finally growled into life. There was no gentle lapping against the massive cut stone, not a soul walking, dog barking, bird singing. We were the only remaining vessel stern to the quay. Shop owners were shuttering windows and closing doors. The staff at the Miramar were collapsing umbrellas and carrying chairs off the veranda. ![]()
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