SPIRIT ON THE SAIL
Chapter Eight
Risky Decision
It is decision time…continue on to the SD buoy, free of the kelp forests, or take a short cut, weaving through its outstretched fringes. Entering the channel from the SD buoy will take two and one half miles further south, before we can turn north into the San Diego Bay channel. The other option is to enter the channel at its midpoint by cut through the relatively narrow bands of kelp between here and there. While not as safe, it could save a half hour. The first time I tried it, I had a seasoned surfer as a crewman on the bow, pointing the way. We twisted through the mess un-snared. Surely, Chubasco and I can do it solo.
"Chubby, here's what I'm thinking. Even if we break through the kelp, your keel and rudder may foul with some stipes. Dragging even a small portion will really slow us down."(The kelp stocks, called “stipes" are attached to the ocean floor can be over one hundred feet long, with leaves averaging four inches and a foot long called blades.)
Today’s solid breeze promises the maneuverability and power needed to dodge the thicker patches or push through if we must. With bad weather merely on us, reducing our arrival time is a major consideration.
Besides, this close to the channel a distress call, though extremely undesirable, could be used to bail us out, if needed. However, a charter-boat captain guilty of bad judgement needs to look for another carrier. A quick conscience check assures me that confronted with the facts before me I'm doing the right thing for a very good reason. The price is high if wrong, but the risk is low, and beating the coming storm is a worthwhile reword. It seems reasonable, with God approval, to take such a low risk gamble.
Besides, this close to the channel a distress call, though extremely undesirable, could be used to bail us out, if needed. However, a charter-boat captain guilty of bad judgement needs to look for another carrier. A quick conscience check assures me that confronted with the facts before me I'm doing the right thing for a very good reason. The price is high if wrong, but the risk is low, and beating the coming storm is a worthwhile reword. It seems reasonable, with God approval, to take such a low risk gamble.
“OK that settles it. Let the games begin!”
With a turn of the wheel and the adjustment of the sails, I point Chubasco’s bow toward the midpoint of the channel. My target is a “can buoy,” a mile and a half on the other side of the kelp hazard. (“Can Buoys” are the green buoys marking a channel’s boundary. An inbound vessel leaves “Cans” on their left side.) I plan to enter the channel there, much like an off-road vehicle might take a shortcut through a thick patch of undergrowth to get on a highway…but this is legal and the undergrowth is rooted three fathoms below.
As a swell lifts Chubasco, I detect patterns in the gray-green mat floating on the surface ahead. Dropping back down in the trough that follows, I plan our approach. Another lifting swell confirms our line of attack. Veering slightly to port, we hold steady until Chubasco’s beam is alongside the first narrow patch of mat. “Now, hard to starboard!” Running inside that tangle of blades and just this side of the next, we prepare to split two patches with a hard turn, again to port. Plowing through that opening, the next swell reveals more patterns in the maze. A narrow stretch of uncluttered water separating parallel mattes provides a corridor leading to another little brake, about two boat links ahead. “Steady, steady, steady, now!” Reaching along that gnarled mass, a clearing appears in the direction of the green-can, and we shoot for it. “Oh, that’s no clearing!” A quick downwind sail adjustment and we slide free with a heavy swing of the wheel. Tightening the sail again moves us back to starboard, we ride the next swell past more would be hitchhiking stipes. Having spoiled their chances to catch a ride, one disappointed blade flips over in our wake, as if to give us the finger as we speed bye.
“Yahoo, this is fun! OK, Chubby, here comes another tiny passage. Go!”
We continue darting back and forth in the general direction of the can. What a thrill. As we enter the channel at last, I feel as if we
crossed a marathon finish line. Looking over the transom, I note that there is not a single stipe trailing in our wake. I cannot help shouting, “Chubasco, we did it!”
crossed a marathon finish line. Looking over the transom, I note that there is not a single stipe trailing in our wake. I cannot help shouting, “Chubasco, we did it!”
.
Motivated by a Vision
What a privilege being a charter boat captain. Here inside the channel with the picturesque lighthouse now on our port beam and the ragged tips of a rock jetty on our starboard, we reenter waters subject to the U.S. Inland Rules of Navigation. While sailing offshore, a moment ago, we were outside the demarcation line separating two different navigational jurisdictions. Offshore traffic follows the International Navigation Rules, while inshore traffic abides by the United States Inland Rules.
Thinking back over how I, a landlocked Midwesterner, ever qualified for such a profession, takes me back to the age of sixteen. It started with operating the family ski-boat on weekends during the summer. Later the sailboat became my favorite weekend pastime. By the time I joined Seaforth at fifty-nine, I had accumulated two hundred eighty-seven documented days at sea. However, none of the required 365 days were in the ocean, and 90 of those had to be in the ocean. Here in San Diego, with an income insufficient to purchase or even rent a boat, sailing professionally was unimaginable.
Without a doubt, I owe my charter-boat carrier to the owner of Seaforth Boat Rentals, Andy Kurtz. That remarkable man's probing wit habitually discovers the best and the worst in everyone in comes in contact with. Well known for is heroic honesty, generous nature, and sincere compassion he runs his multimillion dollar corporation with the jubilant good nature of a man on vacation. Even though his belief-system has no room for god, he sparkles with the visible attributes of God.
Noticing my passion for sailing, Andy secretly instructed Jeton, the manager, to give me a tour of the local Maritime Institute, a school specializing in training mariners to become licensed boat captains.
Without a doubt, I owe my charter-boat carrier to the owner of Seaforth Boat Rentals, Andy Kurtz. That remarkable man's probing wit habitually discovers the best and the worst in everyone in comes in contact with. Well known for is heroic honesty, generous nature, and sincere compassion he runs his multimillion dollar corporation with the jubilant good nature of a man on vacation. Even though his belief-system has no room for god, he sparkles with the visible attributes of God.
Noticing my passion for sailing, Andy secretly instructed Jeton, the manager, to give me a tour of the local Maritime Institute, a school specializing in training mariners to become licensed boat captains.
Upon returning from the tour, I overheard Andy ask Jeton how it went. Quoting my summation, Jeton reported, “John said, ‘It gives the idea of becoming a licensed captain a sense of reality.’” I heard Andy responded, “That’s what I hoped.” Andy, through Jeton, went out of his way to turn my daydream into a vision and it worked.
Unable to afford the institute's tuition of immediately started logging ocean-time on Andy’s boats, while studying for the written exam. It took about three years to reach that goal. But being a novice, I did not realize I actually needed a coach to master the navigation section of the test.
After failing the navigation exam a third time, I knew I needed the help of an expert. Upon returning from the Long Beach test facility near LA., I drove right passed my home and went straight to the Maritime Institute. Unapologetically and unannounced I walked past the secretary into the office of the institute’s president. Expressing my frustration, I pleaded with him to explain what I was doing wrong. By the way, “Rags” is the president’s nickname, derived from the Navigation Rules and Regulations, which is often referred to as RAGS. Instead of dismissing my interruption saying, “Dude, this is a business. We teach for a living here. Take a class. I’m a busy man.” To the contrary, Rags stopped what he was doing, rolled his chair away from his desk, and took a half-hour, right there in his office, explaining the institute’s approach to solving the otherwise elusive nuance stumping me. Applying the institute's approach, I passed my next attempt with flying-colors.
After failing the navigation exam a third time, I knew I needed the help of an expert. Upon returning from the Long Beach test facility near LA., I drove right passed my home and went straight to the Maritime Institute. Unapologetically and unannounced I walked past the secretary into the office of the institute’s president. Expressing my frustration, I pleaded with him to explain what I was doing wrong. By the way, “Rags” is the president’s nickname, derived from the Navigation Rules and Regulations, which is often referred to as RAGS. Instead of dismissing my interruption saying, “Dude, this is a business. We teach for a living here. Take a class. I’m a busy man.” To the contrary, Rags stopped what he was doing, rolled his chair away from his desk, and took a half-hour, right there in his office, explaining the institute’s approach to solving the otherwise elusive nuance stumping me. Applying the institute's approach, I passed my next attempt with flying-colors.
Just as I rely on the direction of the Holy Spirit in deciding to take Chubasco through the kelp, I witnessed Andy, Jeton, or Rags perhaps without consciously acknowledging any divine source, spontaneously respond to the same Spirit directing me. They were, I believe, choosing to follow a light, a voice, a force beyond the authority of pure human self-interest to assist fellow sailor in need. God, exercised His authority over circumstances and human nature, including my own nature, granted me favor with those key men.
"Chubasco, that is what the Bible means when it exhorts us to have faith in God's word. I will be forever grateful to those three guys, and their sensitivity to the unacknowledged Spirit of God speaking within them."
"Chubasco, that is what the Bible means when it exhorts us to have faith in God's word. I will be forever grateful to those three guys, and their sensitivity to the unacknowledged Spirit of God speaking within them."
Startled by the view ahead, my serene nostalgia suddenly shifts to an intense present focus. There is anything but peace in the normally calm bay of San Diego at this moment. Crazy winds dropping from Point Loma's cliffs above fall furiously on the water below, creating so many foaming crisscross patterns that it looks like a monstrous hungry whirlwind was waiting to eat our lunch. Evaluating the evidence, I feel compelled to comfort Chubasco. “OK girl, stay calm. It looks like the wind is going to be, more playful than usual in there, today.” I am pleased Chubasco was not with me the day fluctuating winds, like those we are facing, nearly took my life. Setting that memory aside, I quickly check the rigging, and quietly breathe a prayer…“I’m ready Lord.”
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