Ted Streuli, The Daily Record Newswire
Richard Bode’s 1993 memoir, “First You Must Row a Little Boat,” reveals life lessons through the study of sailing, an activity even more prone to metaphor than baseball.
I had to judge where I was headed from where I had been, an acquired perception which has served me well – for the goals of my life, and especially my work, haven’t always been visible points of light on a shore that looms in front of me. They are fixed in my imagination, shrouded and indistinct, and I detect them best when my eyes are closed. All too often I am forced to move toward them backward, like a boy in a rowboat, guiding myself by a cultivated inner sense of direction which tells me I am on course, tending toward the place I want to be.
I was reminded of that book recently in Canada, slowly recovering from the disappointment of a border crossing that failed to produce a stamp in my shiny new passport. In a fit of optimism, I had sentenced myself to 3,340 miles of driving and a week trapped on a sailboat just 26 feet long and 8 feet abeam. The brochure probably said it slept six; it might, but you better be on pretty good terms with the other five.
We sailed the North Channel, where July’s average high temperature is 71 degrees Fahrenheit, the water is crystalline, and the fish-and-chips shop might run out if the boat doesn’t return soon with another catch. Dave Craigie has spent about 15 summers there on Incipient, and this year he wanted company. It sounded like a chance to improve my cruising skills and log some time with my son well beyond the reach of Wi-Fi-enabled video games.
As departure neared, I began to imagine bathing in glacial water, the inescapable boredom of an 8-year-old boy and the promise of a porta-potty. Dear God, would I have to clean fish? Fifty-four years of city life has prepared me for no such rigors! I am to camping as Donald Trump is to hair: No matter how hard I try, it’s going to turn out awful.
For the truth is that I already know as much about my fate as I need to know. The day will come when I will die. So the only matter of consequence before me is what I will do with my allotted time. I can remain on shore, paralyzed with fear, or I can raise my sails and dip and soar in the breeze.
Our first night out took us to an anchorage at Heywood Island. Dave, who has 18 years of experience on me, helped polish my anchoring skills. After dinner, Raymond wanted to ride in the dinghy, which became an excuse for his first rowing lesson.
Dave makes sailing look easy compared to my struggles to find just the right trim. He was surprised that I knew how to row, which Raymond thought looked easy until he fought to keep a pair of weighty wooden oars in synch; we spent some time going around in circles before we got on course.
See what I mean about the metaphors?
Dinghy rides became an after-dinner tradition that led us to new friends at each anchorage and to great explorations of impossibly cut granite and wild blueberry patches, as we watched loons fly underwater and sunset rays make a light show of wooded shores.
By week’s end, Raymond had mastered rowing the little boat. I was confident with the anchor. And while we were glad for a warm shower and a hot meal at The Anchor Inn, we both sensed our journey on Incipient was more than sailing about the North Channel.
