Yuppy Sailing

Yuppy Sailing
A Short Story
by
S. T. Hedges

Date: Friday October 21st..19...
Position: Onboard. Tollesbury Marina, Essex Marshes.
Time: Evening (2030 hrs)
Weather: Calm but foggy. (Thick foggy). Visibility, 10 metres.

Left Hampstead 1845 hrs. (i.e. this evening). Drove with hood down in
new Porsche. (New car, new girl, can't be bad, you old devil you). Mind
you, colder today, Indian summer must be over.

Picked up the bella Belinda. (Haven't got her last name yet.) Didn't
realise how pretty she was/is. Nice flat. Good-looking pair of mates
too. Could be regular stop-over with luck. Odd, though; thought her
complexion darker when we met last Saturday. Then again, Jack's pad -
all that smoke, only candles and josssticks - you do well to find the
loo without barking your shins on some recumbent female's earrings, let
alone tell a person's complexion.

Knew she smoked Benson's. Made sure I had plenty. Could tell she was
impressed with the new Dunhill. Bet her a fiver it'd light first time
ten out of ten. Wouldn't take me on though. (Hope she's more
adventur-ous later. Don't like making all the running. Like 'em
ACTIVE!). On the way, tried getting to know her. Asked all usual
questions. Mistake, in hindsight. Said it was obvious I hadn't taken in
a word she'd said last Sat-urday. Spent rest of journey painting nails,
monosyllabic answers, nod-ding and shaking head a lot, that sort of
thing.

It's a real boring drive to here, across country down those narrow
ghost-ridden roads and over these rotten dreary marshes. Specially when
it's foggy. Impossible to open her up. Never got above eighty. Had to
talk about something. So now she knows who I am: a bloke who left
school at sixteen with five GCSEs at C grade, and here I am, top-class
future's bro-ker, fifty grand a year, yacht, solid gold underwater
watch, Gucci shoes, and now a Porsche! What more can a man do?

That's when I noticed she was wearing high heels. She took a dim view
when I said she'd be sailing in bare feet all day tomorrow. I did tell
her to wear rubber soles. "Anything else," I said, "you're a danger to
yourself and everyone around you." Made a big thing about it, like it
says in the book. (Good buy that, 'Dinghy Sailing for Beginners').
"Make sure you dress appropriately," I'd said. "Rubber-soles, good
thick pair of socks, three layers, all that." I told her, "That's the
first thing they taught us at sailing school that day. Have to be
prepared for anything once you put to sea. Wind can get up any time."
(Mind you, not much sign of that at the moment). "No," I said, "high
heels won't do - even if they have got rubber soles."

Of course, it hadn't helped - not being able to get the hood back up
when she asked. Have to admit the wind did play merry hell with her
hair. Specially it being all damp and foggy and everything. Says it'll
take hours - combing out the tangles. Which is where she is now - up
the 'heads', as we sailors say - getting herself tidied up for a good
session up the club-house. Boom! Boom! (Gradually taking onboard these
nautical terms. `Heads' - I like that).

I know I told her it would seem a bit cramped in there at first, but
she still banged her head on the deck beam. (Perhaps that's why they
call it 'the heads'). Nasty bang by the sound of it, too. Found out
something though: she knows how to swear. Al-ways feel more comfortable
with girls who know when and how.

When we arrived I could see from her face she'd expected something
bigger. (I suppose I did over-egg the 'yacht' bit). I reckon she
must've expected private cabin, bo'sun - all that stuff. Her own common
sense should've told her Peewit couldn't be that big, or she'd never
get up a creek this size. And I mean to say, it's not as if it's
costing her! It's not as though I'm charging passage money or
anything!

"She may not be the biggest boat in the marina," I said, "but what's a
few inches? It's not size that counts, it's how she performs." I told
her I'd had no com-plaints so far. She gave me a look and said, "Yes,
some things just take your breath away, don't they?" which I thought a
bit odd.

"You'll forget all this tomorrow," I said, rubbing her head. "Once
we've 'bent' on the sails, left the marina, and we're chugging up the
creek to the river. Wait till you see all the different birds paddling
about on the mud banks, and moonscape marshes flat as a chocolate
pancake, far as the eye can see. Yes, it'll be up with the sails, out
of the Blackwater, and into the North Sea! You'll love it," I said.
"I've only been sailing a month and I'm hooked already. Feel as though
I've been a sailor all my life."

The forecast says clear by early morning. We'll go on the 'flood' or
just before. High tide is 0630 hrs (a.m.). Some boring old fart reckons
you need to watch out on the bends, keep to the marked channel. Keep
between the withies (?) I think he said. Don't want to be going up
there on a falling tide. "Never get off if you ground," he said.

So I've set the alarm for five. Gives us a good hour to have breakfast
and get tacked and rigged and out into the creek before 'slack water'.
(Like that too).

Date: Friday (Still)
Position: Tollesbury Marina
Time: 2345 hrs
Weather: Still calm and foggy.

In all fairness, I can't say this first grand seduction on board has
gone completely to plan. For instance, I never expected to be making
log entries at this time of night. By all that's right and wonderful I
should be? well, let's just say I could certainly do without further
mishap. Hey, ho! There's still time I suppose. The bella Belinda's
bound to need a bit of company later. By the early hours she'll start
to get chilly inside that sleeping bag all by herself.

Yes, I suppose I should've taken a torch with us. But I could see the
clubhouse lights plain enough through the fog when we started out.
Blazing away through the mist they were, all fuzzy and everything.
Different on the way back, of course. Nothing to aim for. (Hate to
admit it, but I'd have been in the drink for sure if she hadn't grabbed
me in time). Daresay she was right though. A proper old salt would've
realised that after 'eight bells' finding your way back along jetties
and boardwalks in pitch black fog is a different kettle of fish. With
crystal clear hindsight, she says, "You might've tied a hurricane lamp
to your rigging or something. That might've helped." "Okay, okay," I
said, "keep your hair on. It's a learning curve, right? We all learn
something new every day, you know."

To mention hair was not good. Even so, if she hadn't walked into that
greasy wire hawser running down from the dry-dock, I bet I wouldn't be
writing this now. I'd be inside that bag of hers, with a nice warm
belly warming my arse. I owe her a new dress, she says. Reckons she'll
never get the oil out. But she still fancies me. I can tell. Wouldn't
mind betting she'll find an excuse to wake up before morning.

Date: Saturday, 22nd October.
Position: Tollesbury Creek. (Still)
Time: 0400 hrs.
Weather: Still dark, but now cold, and still foggy.

To whom it may concern. I have to admit, it is only the strictest
attention to my duties as skipper of this vessel that obliges me to
relate the following incident.

The first thing I wish to record is that, in consideration of the
weather conditions pertaining, (as already described), and in
scrupulous adherence to obligations towards the safety and comfort of
my passenger, I felt it incumbent upon me to close and tighten down all
hatches once we returned onboard.

Anyway, with everything cosy, and what with the few drinks we'd had,
after making the last entry I actually dosed off here at the chart
table. Needless to say, I soon woke up. Pissed off, and still half
asleep, I tried to light up one of her Benson's. (Which just goes to
show I wasn't in my right mind, because I much prefer my king-size
Marlboroughs). But I couldn't light the bloody thing. There's me,
thinking, 'I've spent two hundred a fifty quid on a lighter and the
bloody thing's packed up on me in less than a week!' I must've flicked
away ten or twenty times before - all of a sudden - Madam unzips her
sleeping bag, leaps off the bunk - in just bra and pants (fantastic
body) - and rushes to the hatch in a right old panic to stand stamping
her feet, screaming and fiddling with the bolts!
Finally she unlocks it, throws open the doors, and stands there heaving
great gulps of air. (Actually, it was all rather pleasant - breasts
heaving up and down and all that). But for a minute there, I think I'm
sharing berths with a lunatic.

"You crazy fool!" she screams. "Didn't you realise we were suffocating?
Why d'you think your posh lighter wouldn't work? Eh? No bloody air!
That's why!" All as if I wouldn't have realised that myself in due
course! Well, it stands to reason.

Log

Date: Still Saturday, 22nd October...
Position: Still onboard Peewit, Tollesbury Marina.
Time: 0700 hrs
Weather: Less foggy! Daylight now. Visibility 50 metres. (Should be
sufficient to pick out channel markers in the creek. Whoops!
Withies!)

I find I have time to note our late departure while the bella Belinda
puts finishing touches to face, nails and feet. I can't believe it.
This girl has taken two hours to get ready! Who does she think we're
going to run into out there? Sir Walter Raleigh?

Log

Date: Still Saturday.
Position: On board Peewit, half-way along Tollesbury Creek.
Time: 1100 hrs
Weather: Clear, bright and sunny. Visibility - infinity. (!)

For reasons of insurance - just in case some unscrupulous salvage
hunter should suddenly appear and throw a line over us - I wish to
record that though we, (that is, Peewit and I), are aground, we are
aground under control. We have sent no distress signal, and we do not
require assistance. And if we'd left on time (referring to my previous
entry you will remember I did intend slipping the mooring by six
o'clock), we wouldn't be stranded here in the mud on the side of
Tollesbury Creek.
No, I would've been cool and calm if that was the case, knowing that,
even if we were to miss the channel and touch bottom with the port
keel, it would've been no problem. Because on a rising tide you can
always motor off. But as it was, not leaving till 0830 hrs, after the
dear Bella had practically rebuilt herself, and with the tide falling
inches by the minute, once we touched bottom I just knew we had no
chance. I knew that and yet, amazingly, the sailor's instincts took
over. Thinking it just possible I could push her back into deep water,
I leapt over the side without a second's thought for personal
safety.

And had the mud been less deep, who knows, I might still have saved the
day. But I dropped like an arrow. Once I was up to my armpits in mud,
it was always going to be hopeless. And if only to prove I wasn't
foolhardy in attempting to put to sea so late, let me record that
others more fortunate than myself were still passing seaward in the
centre of the channel for a good fifteen minutes after that. (Waving
away, they were. Know-alls)!! Thank goodness I came prepared for any
emergency, while waiting for the tide to come back I can try out the
pocket chess I bought at Harrods last week. (Nice too. Very nice.
Hand-carved ivory and ebony, and own book of instructions bound in
genuine Morocco hide). But, more importantly, and sad to relate, (but
true to form), while all this is going on, (me up to my armpits in the
water and everything), the rats are leaving the ship.
Can you believe my passenger unilaterally accepted an offer from an
incoming vessel?!!
(A rather larger boat than Peewit it was, with two highly bronzed crew.
Back from deep sea, I shouldn't wonder).

Presumably I'm no longer responsible for that particular passenger.
Anyway, from a skipper's point of view, I shouldn't think there's any
doubt concerning her safety and comfort any more. I should think she's
more than shipshape and well satisfied by now.

I begin to wonder about women. Although I think the lesson here is
quite simple. I obviously need a bigger boat. Or something. Anyway, in
the circumstances, I feel justified in declaring this voyage well and
truly aborted - officially.

End