copyright 2007 Rebecca Peck

As the morning sun peeks through the porthole, she slowly climbs out of the berth.  She can hear him up above, singing to himself over the hum of the idling engine. With a heavy heart and hesitant footsteps, she forces herself to climb the stairs, forces herself to climb up into the sunlight, forces herself to face her worst fear – there are still three days left of …. The Sailing Vacation From Hell!

Moby Dick sits in the cockpit of the sailboat, sipping his coffee and looking at a chart.  I rub my eyes and look again.  Yes, he is actually consulting a map!  I’m more than a wee bit surprised, so I sidle over and nonchalantly ask him what he’s doing.

“I’m just trying to get my bearings after yesterday’s storm, and plot our course back to the marina,” he says. 

 “Why are you running the engine?” I ask.  “I thought this was a sailboat.”

“Very funny, Miss Smarty Pants.  I’m running the engine so I can charge the batteries; we only had it running for… OH SHIT!!!!” he exclaims as he jumps up and shuts the engine off.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“I had the boat in gear!” he yells as he runs to the front of the boat and starts to pull up the anchor line.

As I watch him, I realize that the line is coming up suspiciously fast.  Then, as the end comes out of the water, I realize why – there is no anchor on the end of it.  Yes, Moby Dick has struck yet again!  By having the boat in gear while we were anchored, the boat was moving forward and ran over the anchor line, which the propeller just happened to cut in half.  Ching, ching, ching, another blow to the wallet. 

“How the hell are we supposed to get through the rest of this trip without a f@#%$* anchor???” I yell.

“I think I saw an extra one under the seat,” he says hopefully.

Yep, he was right, there was an extra one, so he went up and tied it on the end of our much shorter anchor line.

“Great,” I say.  “How much is this going to cost us?”

“Oh, don’t worry,” says Moby Dickhead, “we’re going to snorkel for the lost one.”

Lesson #7:  If your harebrained boyfriend ever hatches this sort of plan, jump off the boat and swim.  Swim for your life.

So, against my better judgment, into the water we go with all of our snorkel gear on.  I, of course, am blind because I’m afraid to put my contacts in, and my glasses won’t fit under the snorkel mask.  Due to the storm the day before, the water is still a little cloudy, even thought it isn’t very deep.  I grope around blindly for about fifteen minutes, then I spot something long and skinny moving in the water.  Could it be the rest of the rope that’s attached to the missing anchor?  I eagerly swim toward it, and just as I reach out to grab it, I realize it’s not a rope at all – it’s a long skinny fish with GIGANTIC SHARP TEETH!   Holy Crap!! I have never swum so fast in all my life!  I scramble up onto the boat and gasp for air.  Meanwhile, Moby Dickhead pops his head up and angrily asks me why I am back on the boat.

“I just saw a big fish with gigantic teeth!  There’s no way I’m staying out there, “ I say.

“You’re full of it,” he says, very pissed off indeed.

I sit on the boat and watch him out there, snorkeling around in what I know will be a futile attempt to find the damn anchor.  All of a sudden, he starts swimming like the hounds of hell are after him.  As he climbs up onto the boat, I ask him why he’s back.

“I just saw that fish you were talking about,“  he gasps.

Lesson #8:  He who laughs last, laughs best.

I was rolling on the deck of the boat, laughing so hard I almost peed my pants.  Needless to say, that was the end of the search for the anchor.  We hauled up the spare and set sail. 

 Is this the end of the adventure for the day?  Absolutely not!  This was just beginning. 

P.S. Check out the Archival Techniques page!