My Life's Dream Took Me To Sea

By Ronald Epner, MD

This book is an engaging tale about one man's journey of self-discovery and the adventures of living his life's dream. It was written for three types of readers. Throughout the book, the author shares life skills that brought him a fulfilled and meaningful life. It's written for the blue-water sailor with insights from seventy years of sailing experience, and it's written for the armchair sailor who wishes to experience what it's like to sail one's own boat across oceans to foreign lands.

Life skills learned and shared by the author enabled the manifestation of a life of challenge, fulfillment, and adventure. These skills can be learned and applied successfully by anyone choosing to create for himself or herself the lives they wish. These same skills saved the author's life on multiple occasions and could be the greatest gift from reading this book.

Experienced sailors will come away with detailed knowledge of how to avoid some common emergencies at sea, some not so well-known boat maintenance tidbits and ideas and a strategy of how to survive a heart attack far away from help at sea for several days.

The armchair sailor will have many of his questions answered about what it's like to be on long-distance open water passages and visiting unique and fantasy islands like Bora Bora, Tahiti, and the Tuamotus archipelago of French Polynesia. The voyage transports readers to vicariously experiencing islands like Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, to name just a few.

A synopsis of the blog of the author's vessel Always Saturday provides a contemporaneous account of the highlights of the passage starting from the transit of the Panama Canal and continuing all the way to Asia.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9781684981199

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Preface

Acknowledgments

The Dream

Many Years Later

My First Big Trip

Homeless, Jobless, and Boatless

The Cruising Begins

Reentry

College

Living the Dream

Heart Attack at Sea

Hurricane Ivan

Trinidad

Venezuela

Bonaire

Curacao and Aruba

Back to Bonaire

Virgin Islands

Change of Plans

Panama

Panama Canal to the Las Perlas Islands

Galapagos Islands and the Big Passage

French Polynesia

Cook Islands to the Kingdom of Tonga

New Zealand

Fiji

Summer in New Zealand

New Caledonia and Australia

Indonesia and Singapore

Malaysia and Thailand

Afterword

About the Author

cover.jpg

My Life's Dream Took Me To Sea

Ronald Epner, MD

Copyright © 2023 Ronald Epner, MD

All rights reserved

First Edition

NEWMAN SPRINGS PUBLISHING

320 Broad Street

Red Bank, NJ 07701

First originally published by Newman Springs Publishing 2023

ISBN 978-1-68498-118-2 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-68498-119-9 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

For my uncle David Epner. This would never have been written without his love, influence, and interest.

Preface

This book describes one man's journey through life and at sea. An uncommon skill, intentionally taught to me and learned in childhood, powered several transformative decisions in my life. As a result of contact with two important teachers and years of self-discovery, I acquired life skills that can be used to create the reality that anyone chooses. As I consciously applied this new understanding, my life took several unexpected twists, sometimes in magical ways. The skills necessary are relatively easy to understand but require a life's work to master. In that pursuit, I try to share what I have learned so far.

Acknowledgments

Iwant to acknowledge my father, Gerald Epner, who skilfully taught me how to sail; my mother, Pearl Epner, who taught me two special gifts that I used frequently throughout my life; Lisa Epner, my former wife, whose love and support facilitated my early life and is the mother of my children; Nancy Bertha, who was my loyal and loving crew. She had the courage to head out to sea with me to sail around the world, never having sailed before in her life. She also wrote several of the blogs in this book; My sister, Sylvia Kirk for her editing and advice, and Annie Andreson, my present partner for life, whom I met after my blue-water cruising days and has become not only a loving partner but also my companion on our quest to become more mindful.

The Dream

1990 Skipper at the Wheel

My most vivid memories as a child were the times when I was on a sailboat. My father became interested in sailing as a teen and was soon a competent sailor, navigator, and racer. He owned four boats over the years and, when I was born, he owned a thirty-six-foot Alden-designed cutter. He used it mainly for day sailing and racing but occasionally went cruising up Long Island Sound as far north as Nantucket. He sold his boat when I was four years old, about the time my brother was born. Since he had established himself as a winning skipper and navigator, after the boat was sold, he was in great demand at the yacht club for racing with his former competitors every Sunday during the summer.

My mother was a reluctant sailor. The prospect of being left alone with three youngsters every weekend was something she wouldn't tolerate. She made a deal with my dad. He could race as much as he wanted, but as a requirement, he would have to always take his older son—me! At four years old, I wasn't much good at anything, but I was good with the stopwatch!

At the start of a sailboat race, the cannon on the committee boat is fired three times. The warning gun is fired ten minutes before the race formally starts. Five minutes later, the preparatory cannon shot is fired. Exactly five minutes later, the race is started with the cannon again. The starting line is usually between a mark and the committee boat, and all of the participants struggle to arrive at the starting line headed in the right direction at full speed as soon after that last gun is fired as possible. If a boat is too early, it must go around and pass through the starting line again in the correct direction. Everybody tries to time their start to the second as there is a significant advantage to the lead boats, as they have clear air to sail by whereas the boats behind are each competing for unobstructed wind and have to maneuver to avoid collisions. I would sit in the corner of the cockpit of a thirty-five-foot or so sloop, and I would be responsible for timing our start! My father had taught me how to read the time. He told me when to push the button to start the watch. And as we made our final turn toward the starting line, he would have me read out every fifteen seconds how much time remained before the starting gun went off. For the rest of the race, I pretty much watched and listened from my corner in my harness and life preserver. Sometimes the weather was nasty and sometimes beautiful. Sometimes I got seasick, but mostly I just hung out with my dad. I always got to go swimming afterward with a line around my waist in my life preserver and in the waters of Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn.

When we got home from the race, the first thing he would always do was to cut out a paper arrow with scissors and place it on the kitchen table. With the salt-and-pepper shakers as marks and other utensils to indicate the current and obstacles, he laid out the strategy of the race—what we did right and what we did wrong. What we should have done when such and such did whatever. I learned racing strategy early.

He was very good at this, and he had done this, years earlier with my uncle, his brother, who was almost twenty years his junior and a surrogate son. He, too, became an experienced and competent sailor, and between my father and my uncle as my mentors, I very quickly learned.

As for me, I was ecstatic. My father was always working and usually had little time to spend with me during the week, but on weekends, he was mine at whatever cost, even getting seasick wet and cold.

When I was about eight years old in around 1955, my classmates would ask me if I enjoyed playing sports. I always told them I was a sailor. None of them knew what that meant. It was not until Alcort introduced the sunfish and sailfish into the market that much of the population learned about sailing. It was an esoteric sport for the wealthy. No one took sailing lessons then. The best way to learn how to sail at that time was either to be a child in a sailing family or show up in a yacht club with a six-pack of beer on the weekend and ask around until someone needed an extra hand. If you were liked, persistent, and competent, eventually you might find yourself as a novice crew member on a small racing boat. With time and experience, you then moved up the ladder to crew on a larger boat. So I was lucky!

When I was about ten years old, I went on a three-day Labor Day weekend cruise with two of my favorite people, my father and my uncle.

We were shipping out on a thirty-four-foot Hinckley Sou'wester, the Merry Miss, the same boat that my father and I were crewing on regularly.

We left Saturday morning and unofficially raced with four other boats across to Sandy Hook, New Jersey. Rafting up on anchor, we barbecued our dinner and enjoyed the day. The next day, we raced to Great Kills, New York, and on Monday, we came back to Dead Horse Creek, close to home. The weather was glorious, and after sundowners for the adults, we headed back the five miles to Sheepshead Bay. I was standing at the tiller in charge of this powerful boat. I remember it as if it were yesterday. The sun was behind us, giving everything a warm-yellow glow as it was setting. You could feel fall coming. There was no wind, we were under power, and I felt like I was on top of the world.

Someday I want to sail around the world, I said for the first time.

When I was ten, I found myself racing nine-foot Dyer Dinghies with and against the children of full yacht club members. I decided that I wanted to race my own boat. I didn't think the other kids knew what they were doing. I proposed this wonderful idea to my mother. She and my dad should buy me my own dinghy to race. I knew exactly what I wanted!

Needless to say, my mother thought I was far too young to own a boat, especially considering that I would sail it in a crowded and potentially dangerous Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn. Every nook and cranny in the harbor contained a moorings. The moorings were overcrowded, and commercial fishing boats were continuously steaming up and down the channel—transporting fisherman out for a day of entertainment. So my mother played it safe and decreed that she and my father would not buy a boat for me, and only when I could afford a boat of my own is when I would have a boat. She was always strict and demanding of my best efforts in whatever endeavour, but she was also fair and almost always followed through on her promises. I took that decree to the bank!

That statement changed and shaped my entire life. My mother also had repeatedly stated to her children that we could accomplish anything that we set our minds to do. It was not until after she died that my brother and sister and I were reminiscing when we each shared with each that we each thought we were her number one!

She was an unusual woman. She was not formally educated but a voracious reader from childhood. Because she was forced to quit high school to help work in her father's restaurant supply store, formal education was her highest aspiration for us. She was a wordsmith, and she challenged us with new words all the time. As an adult, she was into reading psychology and personal growth books way back in the 1950s. My father was convinced she was mashugana, especially when she traveled up to the Catskill to, of all things, go to a yoga retreat!

It was right then and there that I decided that I was going to not only buy my own boat, but I was also going to do this as soon as possible. I started mowing lawns and delivering newspapers on my Schwinn bicycle. I found weeding and gardening jobs and started shovelling snow in the winter, occasionally working in my father's factory, doing odd jobs, and at Christmas selling American Youth Sales cards, especially to people on my paper route. I even recruited my younger brother as a salesman since he was so cute that no one would turn us down. I saved all my presents and requested cash. My grandparents were very generous. I even got two birthday presents in the same year from them after they had a misunderstanding. My grandmother told my grandfather that she would give me fifty dollars, and when my grandfather heard that, he volunteered to give me fifty dollars too. One hundred dollars! That was a lot of money back then, at least for a few months of work!

By the time I was twelve years old, I was so competent that I was shipping out with a family that had two young children, six and three. Marcia had her hands full taking care of the children, and I was the second mate for Marvin, our skipper. Occasionally I was the babysitter as well. Marcia became my surrogate mom, and I had the opportunity to cruise New England for several weeks per year a few times with my adopted family. Marvin had bought a brand-new Hinckley Pilot thirty-five-foot sloop named Shangri-La. She was sleek, fast, and pretty. This was the early sixties. I adored the boat, and I was especially proud when Marvin told me I could have the boat for free if I married his six-year-old daughter when she grew up. Heaven!

I had my first of several near-death experiences on this cruise coming back from New England. We were in Newport, Rhode Island, and needed to move the boat to Stonington Connecticut, which required a passage around the famous Point Judith. Sometimes the weather in this particular area can be challenging, and on that day, we had to motor into about four-foot seas with a twenty-knot breeze, a point or two off the port bow. A point on the compass is 11.25 degrees.

The going was slow and monotonous. Both young kids were seasick below with Marsha while Marvin and I were in the cockpit. I was at the tiller under power, and Marvin decided to go below to check on the family. The weather was miserable and cold. I was dressed for it, however, with long pants, a sweater, foul-weather gear, and nautical boots. The boat lurched, and the tiller and I went flying. I was thrown under the starboard lifeline, and as a Hail Mary, I threw my left hand up and probably saved my life by just catching the wire with the distal tip of my ring finger.

As a child, I didn't dwell on my experience at the time, but I certainly didn't want to repeat it. My father always told me, If you go overboard, you're dead and One hand for the boat and one hand for you. That experience helped me stay safe when conditions at sea were far worse.

By the time I was fourteen, I had earned and saved about 1,300 dollars. Borrowing everything my brother had brought me up another 100 dollars, and that was all that I needed (I thought) to buy a boat being advertised in the classified section of the local newspaper.

My mother knew this day of reckoning was coming a lot earlier than she had anticipated, but she had the wisdom and the courage to hold to her promise; and despite her fears, she allowed me to purchase a sixteen-foot Snipe sloop I named Checkmate. I not only bought the boat, but I also got an ownership of a coveted city mooring in Sheepshead Bay that the boat owner included in the sale. These mooring applications were wait-listed several years, even back in the early sixties. My dad helped me trail the boat back home, and when spring came, I thought I was ready. I created a real stir at the yacht club when I applied for membership at age fourteen. Their bylaws had no provision for minors, and they forced my father to become a non-boat owning full-paying member just so that I could have privileges.

One of my first memorable experiences was when my mother wanted to check me out on the boat. She wanted to go sailing with me to see how I handled myself. We picked a day during the week and got down to the boat and got her rigged up and ready to go. Unfortunately, there was very little wind, so it wasn't feasible to sail out of the harbor. We might have a hard time getting back. So for the next hour or so, we weaved in and out and around all the moored vessels. We decided to call it quits early, so I headed back to my mooring. We were on the other side of the channel, so it had to be crossed, and wouldn't you know, as we were doing this, two things happened. The wind died, and we became becalmed.

And then a large fishing boat showed up, barreling down on us. Did he slow down? What do you think? Well, my mother started giving me the eye, and I knew this was the test. I looked around for a cat's paw to save my butt, but no luck. A cat's paw is that wrinkle in the water from a zephyr of wind. At the very last moment, I whipped out the paddle that I had surreptitiously had held in reserve under the deck and with great motivation paddled out of the way. I, of course, pretended that it was business as usual, disguising my butterflies; but the facade worked, and she never doubted my sailing ability after that experience—and there were experiences that were never shared with her! Like the time I went out with a non-sailor in thirty-five knots of wind with life preservers on and instruction with the tender operator to call the coast guard if I wasn't back within the hour. There was not another vessel crazy enough to be out. If we capsized, we would be on our own for a while. It turned out to be a hell of a sail—one that I have always relished, but that was the last time I ever heard from that friend again! I guess he didn't think as much of his first experience as I did!

Probably my most embarrassing experience occurred the next season. It was a very windy day, and I sailed up to the yacht club dock to pick up an inexperienced teen sailor. I decide to stay in the harbor as it was blowing maybe twenty to twenty-five knots.

We weaved in and out around the crowded moored boats, and as we were maneuvering, we got hit with a gust. I quickly released the main sheet, but my friend had his feet in the coil, and we ended up going for a swim. Unfortunately, the boat turned turtle, and to my dismay, I watched my stainless-steel daggerboard slide backward out of its slot and go to the bottom. We were in no danger, and help arrived shortly. The boat was righted, and we bailed her out, but of course, our sailing that day was done. I sheepishly telephoned my father, and with his help we hired Corky, an industrious young man who made some extra money diving. Over the next week, he finally was able to locate and raise the daggerboard. What a relief! I didn't have the money to replace it. So the following weekend was a race weekend, and after the race with my father resting and schmoozing in the cockpit, I decided that I would get my board and reinstall it. He asked me if I needed his help, and I smiled and thanked him, but I could do it myself. It weighed about sixty-five pounds, and I wasn't very big. In fact, I was less than five feet tall when I started high school.

After I got the daggerboard back to my boat and just as I was lifting it up to drop it in place, a huge wake hit me. I fumbled, and over it went again! To make matters worse, a man on a nearby boat, who was also a snipe owner and someone whom I respected because he was a lawyer and a fierce competitor, looked up from what he was doing and inquired if that was what he thought it was!

I burst into tears as I reported back my misfortune to my dad. One of the things I loved about my dad was he didn't judge me for my foolishness for not accepting his help.

My daggerboard was always safely secured after that experience.

I remember the Romer Shoals race a few years later. Romer Shoals is a shoal area at the entrance to New York Harbor. Each season, our yacht club would sponsor a race around Lightship Ambrose then around Romer Shoal's and then home.

The Lightship Ambrose was the name given to many ships that served as the sentinel beacon marking the entrance to New York Harbor. In August of 1967, it was retired and is now open to visitors at the South Street Seaport in New York City. It was a grand structure painted red with a large Ambrose on its hull and was a revered landmark to sailors returning home to New York Harbor. To earn the view, you had to sail in the open ocean (blue water), something pretty rare for me in that era.

Well, the weather that weekend was blowing like stink. There was talk of canceling the race, but the race committee chose to keep the schedule. Some boats dropped out. The seas were about ten feet with twenty feet between the peaks and troughs. It was probably blowing thirty knots. The fleet consisted of about ten boats each, somewhere between twenty-eight to forty feet long, and all were theoretically blue-water sailors. At that time in my life, these were the roughest conditions that I had ever encountered at sea.

My dad and I were going to be on a thirty-four-foot Hinckley Sou'wester. Not a great boat for this weather because it had been constructed during WWII when lead was unavailable. They had cast the keel out of iron but never compensated for the difference in density, so the boat was always quite tender (heeled easily), especially noticed in heavy conditions.

The race started in protected water, and we beat up in the lea of Rockaway Inlet. When we got out from behind protection, we were exposed to the open sea and all of its fury. I remember being clearly awed by our views. When we were on the peak of a wave, we could look across to our competitor from the level of his spreaders, and when the trough swallowed us, we were looking below his keel. We were in close to each other—in fact, too close—and there were some close calls. After we rounded Ambrose, we fell off onto a run on the starboard tack. I had been practicing my knots, and I was ordered to rig a preventer for the boom. This meant going up on the bow and securing a line from the aft end of the boom to the bow cleat that would serve to protect us in the event of an uncontrolled jibe and possible dismasting. Well, I got up there, and zip, zop, zip, zop got that line cleated in no time flat!

Not a second later, we were hit with a gust. The boat lurched to port. The wind caught the mainsail on the wrong side, and we jibed and were knocked down to starboard. Since the boom had been secured, we ended up with no headway and healed over onto our ear. The mast top was perhaps ten feet above the water. The tiller was hard over, but the boat had no headway, and we couldn't turn back to starboard. We were in no man's land waiting for the next gust. Boats passing us were able to see our exposed keel with its barnacles. All we could do was wait. To head up would be a disaster, and we couldn't fall off. We stayed on our ear for perhaps a minute, but it felt like an hour. I was pretty much vertical, suspended from the port lifeline with two hands holding on for my life up on the bow. The owner of the boat was in the cockpit screaming in a fit, but that was normal for him! My dad had the unresponsive helm thrown hard over, and we could only wait. Finally, the wind shifted and jibed us back, allowing the boat to right herself!

I remember surfing down the rollers at hull speed on a dead run wing on wing far too close to our competitors for comfort. When we hit a trough, the boat lost speed and then stalled, trying to fight its way up the backside of the wave that had just passed us. To control the boat from slipping sideways while going backward, we had to reverse the rudder to avoid sliding into each other. It was wild and exhilarating being young with no fear. I was not sure if I ever wanted to do that again though.

Many Years Later

Iwas sitting with my wife in a classroom with about thirty-five other adults, many who had travelled across the country all the way to California in hope to improve their lives. Our instructor of life mastery had put together a weeklong program to teach life skills that would guide people to make different choices in hope of finding happiness and greater fulfilment.

I wasn't sure that I actually belonged here, but I knew that something in my life was lacking. I was about forty-two years old and had accomplished virtually everything that I had set out to do in my life. At least that's what I thought at the time. I had a beautiful loving wife and two wonderful, healthy, and happy daughters. I was a successful orthopedic surgeon and hand surgeon. I had built a lucrative boutique orthopedic practice from scratch. I had fine partners. I had a big house with expensive cars in the garage. I had a big bank account. I had a sailboat, and I even had a gardener. But something was wrong. I just felt it. I seemed to be an observer in my life, doing all the right things that should normally bring forth joy and happiness. But I was never at peace.

This seminar was the beginning of a multiple-year process that was intended to wake people up and lead them through self-discovery. It took me over a year to actually believe that I belonged to this group because so many of the other people came because of obvious pain that they experienced from either medical problems, sexual abuse, painful divorces, or economic upheavals. Their pain was obvious, and many made great progress, but that wasn't my path.

My wife and I would travel and meet a few times a year for a week of enlightenment and then return home to experience re-entry back into the world of ordinary consciousness where everyone seemed to be bouncing off each other like pinballs. We were on a mission to discover who I am. We learned that we were not our thoughts nor were we our bodies. In fact, we were no-thing. We were spirits living in a physical body living in earth school. We discovered that, to attain true happiness, we needed to discover our uniqueness, and that meant to communicating with our heartfelt emotions to discover what was truly important to ourselves.

One of the programs that forever changed my life was a week spent in the desert. A group of about forty of us traveled to the four corners region of the southwest US and camped out at an Indian reservation reserved by our group. We had come to participate in a vision quest. This experience was carefully choreographed. The timing coincided with a full moon. The scenery was drop-dead beautiful with long views of the canyons and valleys. We all selected our own campsites that had been laid out in advance so that no participant would be in eye contact with anyone else. After a day of preparation, we all backpacked into the wilderness with everything we needed. Three gallons of water were delivered to each site.

The rules were established: We would fast for three days so as to not to be distracted by food prep and consumption. We could not bring any books or music or games or any other diversions with us. All we were allowed was our journal. We could wander and explore the area as long as we made no eye contact with any other person. We were free to build bonfires with the wood we scavenged. All we had to do was to construct a small pile of rocks on the perimeter of our site, and our neighbor would disassemble the rocks each day. That was the way we could check on each other without contact.

Well, if you were like me, the idea of nothing to do, no distractions for three days seemed onerous and almost overwhelming! I can only relate accurately my own experience.

My mind was in constant motion. One thought after another, some random and many repeating concerns, observations, discomforts. A cacophony of thoughts that would not stop, like a runaway train. For the first two days, I went exploring during the days and built huge fires at night while I looked out at the full moon and gorgeous landscapes. I wrote in my journal some various observations, but there were no revelations or discoveries. It was the only distraction, so I wrote and wrote nothing important though. After two days of this torture, something magical occurred.

My mind chatter was silenced! I was quiet for the first time in my life! When I asked myself questions about what was most important to me, I could feel without a doubt my heart singing or nothing depending on what I asked of myself. I had never been able to communicate with heartfelt emotions except when I was young and hopelessly in love. Some of my answers came to me as a surprise.

It became crystal clear how important my family and love were to me. I had devoted most of my time to medical training. After medical school and five years of internship and residency, I took an extra year to do a hand fellowship then opening a new solo practice while studying for my orthopedic boards. My family never saw me, except when I was off-call and studying.

All this time, I was an absentee father, and it only worked because of my wife's love, encouragement, and commitment to our family. I wanted to ameliorate some of the damage caused by my absence and rebuild my relationship with my kids.

They were still young enough, nine and twelve years old.

I discovered that what I most wanted to do at that moment was to reconnect with my family and take a three-month sabbatical on our sailboat up to New England. Since I was an excellent sailor and the family had grown up on the water, the actual mechanics of the trip would not be an obstacle.

My biggest problem was that as an overworked physician and surgeon, the idea of disappearing for three months seemed overwhelming and impossible. I had several fears. Would my patients feel abandoned? Would my partners resent my absence? When I came back, would I still be their mentor and friend, or would they team up against me? Would my referring doctors resent my leaving? Would they refer patients away from me or away from our practice? I would obviously take an economic hit. What about the crazy call schedule? Would my partners resent me for the extra work they would need to do to cover for me?

I felt that the only way for me to accomplish this was to be prepared, to risk everything, and to do whatever it took. I had to believe this was possible and I could do it, but I would be throwing the dice, and I could lose everything.

When we all came down from our campsites, we had a couple of days to acclimate to eating again and shared some outrageous machinations that we all experienced. For about a third of us, the chatter did die down, but not everyone was ebullient.

Re-entry for me was difficult. I now had a new awareness of what was really important to me, and now it created conflict. I either went back to my old way, or I had to tackle my fears and muster my courage to move forward and align my actions with my dharma. Dharma is an ancient Indian word that means something like higher self or true self or the gift (of God) and has been used for hundreds and maybe thousands of years in the practice of yogic principles.

My wife was enthusiastic; however, the children were reluctant to leave all their friends for three months to spend time with Mom and Dad…uh. We all had to agree on this path for it to work.

I pondered my predicament for months. It became a predicament because I knew what I must do but was paralyzed by fear. I finally mustered the courage to start talking about it with my first partner, a good friend and a kind man. After some discussion, we agreed to see if there was a way that we could make this happen. We had a fourth doctor who was to be leaving our practice (we had not invited him to become a partner, and he was resentful), but if he could be convinced to delay his departure for three months, then he could take my call schedule and take over some of my patients, and my other two partners wouldn't feel too much of a burden. Of course, the added income would help to grease the way for everyone.

As to my other concerns, I could see no way of front-running any of those issues. The feeling of abandonment would either be there or not.

The kids warmed to the idea, and as time passed, we all became more comfortable with disappearing; however, it was still up to non-partner number four. Perhaps he enjoyed his leverage or his revenge, but the day came to leave, and he still hadn't committed. Since we only had three months, I had arranged for a group of five other sailor friends to help me sail the boat up from North Carolina to Connecticut. The family was going to fly up to meet the boat a week later.

My First Big Trip

1990 Family in Block Island

My friends all had scheduled a vacation week, so c ancelling out would not be an option. I was ready. The boat was provisioned and ready. I decided to leave anyway and sail up the coast around Cape Lookout and Diamond Shoals and Hatteras up to the Chesapeake Bay entrance. That would take maybe three days. At that point, I figured I would find a harbor and call to find out if we would continue north or turn around and head home. We had a nice dinner ashore, and then I held my breath as I called my partner. The trip was a go !

The next morning, we set out to sea through the Chesapeake Bay entrance, planning to head up the Maryland Coast. We were all gung-ho anticipating a wild ride as the weather was threatening. We expected about twenty to twenty-five knots from behind.

I got seasick and was off watch in a good sea berth that night, and one of the less experienced crew was up forward in the V-berth. It must have been two or three in the morning, and all of a sudden, we heard a crash. The fellow up forward jolted awake, ran past me to the companionway yelling, We just lost our mast! I knew he was obviously wrong but something big did happen.

When I got up on deck, I learned from Mike, my watch captain, that we had just been hit by a rogue wave that swept over the portside of the boat, maybe five feet above the boom. The side curtains that had enclosed the cockpit protected the fellows on watch, and no damage was reported. Mike is and was the consummate sailor. He could fix anything that broke and in a later passage helped save my life. Everyone had followed orders and had been hooked on with their harnesses.

The next morning, we discovered that the outboard engine mounted on the starboard stern pulpit had been rotated 180 degrees on its mount by the force of the wave.

We fought our way north and arrived at Ambrose Tower at night, bringing back memories to me of that incredible experience I had as a youngster sailing in twenty-foot-high waves. By dawn, we were passing under the Verrazzano Bridge and passing Liberty Island. I, of course, had been here many times, but for my North Carolinian crew, it was a heartwarming experience to view the Statue of Liberty at dawn. By the time we were viewing the New York skyline, the sun was up and bright. Poetically, one of the crew compared the view to a coal town just after a snowstorm, looking clean and pretty.

We had to time our passage through Hell Gate carefully, referring to the tide tables to ensure we hit it at slack. Sometimes the current is as much as ten knots with eddy currents, and it would be relatively easy to get caught up in a whirlpool.

When we arrived at Knickerbocker Yacht Club in Manhasset Bay, we were ready for a sit-down meal and rest. The next day, I was the envy of the members. All five of my crew were ripping the boat apart, fixing electric and electronic malfunctions, and giving her a good scrubbing. In one day, five men can make a huge impact.

The next day, we said our goodbyes and proceeded up Long Island Sound, reaching New London about two days later. My family arrived, we thanked our crew, and our expectations were high.

Nothing in life seems to turn out as planned. We sailed up to Fishers Island and paid the DuPonts a visit, metaphorically speaking. Barlovento* was there only in my memory from my cruises up Long Island Sound with my surrogate family years earlier. We hit Mystic Seaport and did the tour. We worked our way up to Block Island. One of the enjoyable traditions of visiting Block Island by pleasure boat is provided by Aldo's Bakery. Every morning, I believe seven days a week, we would hear "Andiamo… Andiamoooo… Andiamoooo!" And we could buy pastries. What a luxury on a sailboat! They did that for about thirty years, I think. My parents flew up, and we spent a few days bicycling the island, and all was well.

As the trip progressed, however, the kids started fighting with each other. They flew paper airplanes into the main cabin, asking to go home. They would sabotage each other, and it generally made for an unpleasant situation. My wife and I wondered if this trip had been a mistake. We even called up Jill's camp director to see if he would take her back for the second half of the summer. The boat had constant maintenance issues, and I was relatively inexperienced in maintenance. Our dream trip was turning into a nightmare.

After visiting Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard and Newport, we found ourselves in low spirits and bickering with one another.

On our way east of Newport, Rhode Island, we had a light wind day, and we were heading down the coast a couple of miles out. We were all relaxing and reading in the cockpit. The boat was on autopilot, and we were ghosting along at maybe four knots. All of a sudden, for no reason, I know I looked up and saw that we were one hundred yards from running the boat right onto the rocks. I grabbed the wheel, but it was jammed! I for my life could not move it. My only thought was to get the anchor down. I threw the engine in reverse, and to my amazement, the boat stayed on the same course as it backed away perfectly from the rocks. We shut the engine down, dropped an anchor, and pondered what had jammed our rudder. It finally hit me that the autopilot was still engaged and had never been overridden. I felt foolish, but the kids learned that when you are on a boat, you always have to be observant of what is around you, and even Dad can screw things up. They got a good laugh over my foolishness.

Lisa, my wife, had old family friends living in Watch Hill, Rhode Island, and we arranged to meet them and introduce them to our children. Well, a miracle occurred. They had a sixteen-year-old son, and both of my daughters were smitten instantly. They went crabbing, collecting mussels and went fishing with Kenny. Boy, did their mood change!

Our dinghy drifted away from our boat one day, and a neighboring boat got in his dinghy and rescued our runaway. I had to admonish the kids for not setting their bowlines! Well, the very next day, Sand Dollar again retrieved our drifting dinghy. This time, it was my fault! The kids enjoyed lecturing me on setting my knot!

Overlooking Watch Hill one evening at dusk, we were awed by viewing a full moon over the town, and in the opposite direction, the sun was setting. We had never experienced both of these phenomena simultaneously before. I later learned that this occurs monthly on a full moon. The image of the town under the moon was one I've remembered to this day.

One night on the Fourth of July, when my parents were visiting, I suggested that we set off some old flares to celebrate