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 SHAKEDOWN CRUISE |
By PAUL HERTELENDY
of TheColumnists.com
The restless boat
confined to moorings for a month
Was chewing at the bit, straining loudly at the tie-lines,
Yearning to get free and run,
So sure of stature even in the face of howling weather.
Led by skipper “Skip,”
The sails began to ripple
Like the pectoral muscles of gymnastics champs.
The sailboat set off tacking,
Banging like a bucking mustang
Headed into white-capped waves
That sprayed her cockpit
With a salt that dried to snow.
The trip began that morning with the zephyrs
And the sunshine, tailor-made for casual bay-day visitors.
A sheltered cove for tranquil lunch
Then masked the freshened winds and rising choppy swells.
Skip at the ready,
Cheeks at the ruddy,
Hands on the rudder,
She emerged and flew,
Slammed hard by forces
Tilting us until the gale had dipped the mast
Like country flag before a king.
Our portside, too, depressed before the unrelenting blow.
The surging waters licking at our cockpit
Washed the decks immaculate
While passengers, exhilarated, donned their life-vests,
Scrambling to the high side.
Grizzled Skip with salt-spray beard
and devilish insouciance
Slacked off the jib and reefed-in mainsail,
Fending off the worst of tipping pressure.
Where to go when ocean hell breaks loose,
When cockpit’s full, the cabin’s guaranteed to lose
your lunch,
And on the pitching bow,
To kneel and pray would get you catapulted overboard?
With the roll and angry undulating waves,
And rudder barely functional in pliant foam,
The bow bounced whoompah, whoompah.
Land-lubbers braced and hung in
With their whitened knuckles sticky from the salt
While Davy Jones showed one and all
Just who was boss in roiling seas
That, unrelenting, kept us paralyzed
Till entry to the harbor
Where, by flagging energies,
We tugged at lines to lower the reluctant sails
And bring the craft to rest
While beasts beyond kept up
Their fury and their briny roars.
---Day on the Bay
©2004 by Paul Hertelendy. The illustration is from IMSI's Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA. Paul Hertelendy is a critic with the San Francisco Bay Area arts website www.artssf.com. To visit his website, click here: PAUL
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