Under the weather was how I felt whenever the Cap’n decided he wanted to sail on a cold breezy day with a lot of spume and whitecaps. He felt flush with the excitement of the ketch heeling over with all sail set. I merely repressed my feelings of dread that he’d sail us under a convenient swell. But of course, he never did.
We both belonged to “wet” families able to tie ourselves to the ranked generations of seamen before us. But no matter whose offspring we were, he had most of a lifetime ar sea, and I would always be a new hand -except for one week.
I had developed water on one of my knees, and the advice I had was to stay off of it and rest with it elevated. Above all, I was not to aggravate it by doing something stupid. My interpretation of the stupid and absurd was going up on a foredeck to haul in staysails and jibs. High on the list was clambering over lines and deckhouses to pick up a mooring as the boat whipped past.
my take on this neither matched my wife’s nor the Cap’ns views. ” Wes. Daddy really needs you today.” No. So I sat in front of the woodstove with the cat in my lap and thought very little of spume, whitecaps, and half-frozen hands.
The Cap’n resorted to various replacements; one day, his brother went out with him, but the former Navy Chief Petty officer resented being so far away from a pot of hot coffee. Next, his friend Lowell went out with him, but he begged off the next day because he felt the need to check his lobster pots a day earlier than usual. And that was how it went the whole time I was laid up. He was not an easy man to work with.
At last, there came a time when the doctor decided that I could resume regular duties. My ever-faithful wife dutifully reported this to the Cap’n, and that Saturday, I was informed that we’d be going sailing. Once again, it was a blustery day, and the Cap’n quoted to me a favorite saying: ” a calm sea, never a competent sailor made.”
On taking up the mooring and dropping the sails, he offered about as close to a compliment to me as he was likely ever to deliver. Filling his pipe, lighting it, and then puffing, he opined that ” one of these days, I expect you’ll learn to hand reef and steer. Then we can start in on pilotage.”
As I had heard one of my former Royal Navy professors intone: ” Oh Lord, may we be truly grateful for that which we are about to receive.” Amen.