Runaway Boats

Our two oldest daughters, the Horse Lover and the Chef, are learning to sail this week at a local lake.

The first day, they had a general overview of sailing, they learned some important knows and had a swim test. They spent the second day in the water learning how to right a capsized boat.

Today . . . they sailed.

Our commute gives us about 45 minutes of good, uninterrupted conversation. This morning, our conversation gave me a chance to teach a small science lesson about on-shore and off-shore winds. We talked about the Horse Lover being nervous about steering the boat and the fact that they may be sailing in the rain – which they’ll do as long as there’s no thunder and lightening.

It made me remember all the fun I had at sailing camp when I was their age.

I went to Camp Don Lee, a sleep away sailing camp located on the Neuse River which is about three miles wide at that point.

The first two years, I was a weeker. The next two years, I was a tweeker . . . camp terminology for a two-week camper.

Weekends were the times when one group of campers finished camp and went home and a new group arrived. There weren’t any group activities planned at the camp, so the tweekers and the freekers (four-week campers) would go to an outpost and camp for the weekend.

We sailed on Sunfishes and each sailboat had two sailors. Anytime we sailed, there was at least one motorboat of experienced sailing instructors keeping up with us . . . herding us in the right direction, relaying messages and helping us with technical issues. They also carried our gear and food on overnights.

One summer, when I was 13 or 14, our group was coming back from an overnight at an outpost. A fierce thunderstorm came up from nowhere. The motorboat came around and told us to head towards a small village which was straight across the river. We were making progress, but it soon became a race. The wind picked up, thunderheads got bigger and darker and closer, waves grew fiercer and quickly turned into whitecaps. Soon, the rain began to fall in sheets which pelted us like handfuls of gravel being shot out of cannons. Boats ran into each other . . . several tipped over. Masts bent, booms broke . . . we were all terrified . . . and we had to keep sailing.

Eventually, we made it to the village.

I don’t know if the motorboat had driven ahead and asked for help or whether someone in the village had been watching us and had alerted their neighbors.

Regardless, when we got to the shore, there were angels there to take us into their homes. They gave us dry towels and hot chocolate and listened to the stories of young teenagers who were trying to be brave.

The storm moved on - as most summer thunderstorms do. And as it did, all the sailboats were tied together in a long line. We boarded our vessels, and the motorboat towed us all back to camp. We looked like a line of ducklings following their mama duck.

As we were being pulled back to camp, Amy, my sailing partner, and I sat on the deck of our boat and relived our adventure. As we relaxed into the knowledge that we’d survived, we looked back at the little village that had soothed our nerves and calmed our fears . . . and there, in the sky above it was a rainbow.

Photo: Abandoned boat on the coast of NC