It all started with a sailboat. 

I just watched my friend die, tonight.  He knew it was coming.  So did I.  That’s how we parted; what I want to tell you about, is how we met.

Bear with me on dates.  It was ten or more years ago.  You see, we used to live in Southern California.  And, one day looks pretty much like the next.  Hard to tell April from October most of the time.  And, to make matters worse, we lived on a power boat on San Diego Bay, with a flock of sailboats, rowboats, and kayaks packed into the water surrounding our “house” boat, in other slips up and down the dock, and even in additional slips of their own.  Yes, and the dinghy rack had a couple boats with my name on ‘em too.  The reason this clouds my recollection of time is that I was living in that sort of suspended animation that can happen when you have reached your goal in life.  Mine was to live on a boat, where the water was warm, and go sailing every day.  If you live someplace where you can remember events by snow on the ground, or the beginning shoots of spring, or you occasionally do something out of the ordinary - say a boat trip, or vacation, or something - it’s way easier to peg the date.  Anyhow, that’s the gist of it.

One night, I was coming in for a landing into my “sailboat slip” with my little Newport sloop.  A heavy-built little spit kit of 20 feet.  There was a bit of a trick to it.  I had to enter the marina through a break in the seawall, where the wind often swirled and did strange things to how a sailboat behaved.  Most everybody else brought their boats in under power.  But where’s the fun in that, wouldja’ tell me?  Typically, after entrance behind this really-big concrete wall on the end of the combo fishing pier and sea wall; it was a run down a long fairway.  I would usually carry the main off to starboard, even if it required sailing by the lee for a quarter mile or so.  Two of the complications with this route home was both the wind direction being confused by layer cake-leveled motor yachts, and boats emerging from connecting fairways.  At the downwind end of this entrance run I needed to make a sharp turn to port.  Before that, I would usually drop the jib and start making preparations for entering port.  As a result of multitudes of tasks aboard my boat, and the constant ebb and flow of other boats in my traffic pattern - well you see, I almost always stood up.  Tiller held between my knees, hands full of sheets, and with a short reach for halyards coming back across the cabin top.  

I could see where I was going better, and simply “feel” the boat better in a standing posture.  Nothing particularly noteworthy.  Just the way that I did it.  Somehow, notoriety came in large measure by being “the guy who stands up in his sailboat…” 

At the end of this run-segment, it was necessary to put the helm over sharply and come hard to port.  I would then be reaching up another fairway.  Here, the boats were moored on both sides in finger piers with outboards, BBQ’s, bow sprits, boomkins, and whatnot extending out to snag the unwary.  And, there was the constant possibility that somebody would be suddenly backing out of a slip along the way.  That was my biggest concern, as I would be close-reaching or even beating - often at hull speed - in these narrow confines, and would not be able to do a crash back as I might under power. 

The last of this maneuver was pretty dramatic.  I would be sailing hell bent for election, aimed directly at the main walkway at the end of that last fairway.  Often people walking along that section of dock would stop and get ready to fend off from what looked a lot like a runaway boat that was going to impale itself.  Occasionally, someone meaning well would grab the bow pulpit when it got in range, and I’d have to yell my standard refrain, “Please don’t do that!  The boat knows what she’s doing!!”  Because, the last of this maneuver was to slam the helm over just as the bow was overhanging the dock and still proceeding at 5 knots or more.  This is that turn known as a “hockey stop.”  The boat would come abruptly head to wind.  She’d stall quickly, luff up, and then sail backwards into her slip.  As the boat was gliding backwards, I’d simply step off onto the dock and set the first spring line on its cleat as the boat passed me.  A couple more breast lines, and a second spring and she’d be fully moored.

This little ritual of mine was often carried out under the watchful gaze of patrons in the outside dining/drinking establishment directly above my slip.  My audacity was often “scored” with additional expectation that the entertainment might include a collision or man overboard event.  Anyhow.

On the particular night in question.  I looked up from securing my last mooring line, and there was a couple standing there.  Quite silent up to that point.  One of them said something like, “We’ve been watching you from our boat.  We just bought this old sailboat.  We were wondering if we might watch you do that again some time.  Now that we’ve got this boat, we’re hoping to learn how to sail.”

Cliff and Sheryl had this quite-ancient Columbia 22.  After a short discussion in the gathering darkness, I offered to go out with them on their boat the next morning.  What followed was one of the most enduring relationships I’ve ever been blessed to have.  It started with a sailboat. 

They were not only willing students, they became accomplished sailors and enthusiastic boat people in a very short time.  Let’s just say that folks like that are in very short supply.  They even learned to do the rush-the-dock and flying moor; I do have to admit that very few people in my acquaintance are ever willing to try it with a boat of their own.   I could always count on Cliff and Sheryl to come out and spend time on the water, at the drop of a hat.  I could count on them for a whole lot more.  Friends like that are one in a million.

Cliff and Sheryl were an inseparable team, when it came to sailing, seamanship, and general boat handling.  Very much of what I was able to pass along came by the “monkey see, monkey do” method.  That’s essentially how they learned to anchor under sail, land without drama at a dock, shorten sail, short tack up a narrow channel.  Stuff like that.  Perhaps one of the coolest things we used to do with two boats, usually involved darkness, a hot tea pot, and a coffee cup.

Once upon a time, I was a conning officer aboard a couple of the navy ships I was assigned to.  One of the first skills I had to master was this thing called “keeping station.”  Essentially, this involved keeping your ship the prescribed distance and angle from the one in front of you - while everybody behind was supposed to do the same.  Lots and lots of hurry-up-slow-down maneuvering.  I think it’s a useful skill for recreational small boat skippers and crews to add to their inventory.  Not so much that you will ever be called upon to sail your boat through a mine field or something we navy boys get to do now and then.  But, the idea is that once you have been able to steer a course and maintain a speed in proportion with somebody else, you have a very implicit understanding of how your boat works.  I do have one “hidden agenda” in all this.  And, Cliff and Sheryl were willing “co-conspirators” many, many times in our days sailing together.  Agenda?

There just could come the day that you will need to be able to pass equipment, stores, even people from one MOVING boat to another.  It’s actually safer to do it this way, than to attempt to raft up in a seaway.  We used to sail our boats in company a great deal at night.  Most of this was in the approximately 5 by 5 mile area of what’s called South Bay by San Diego boaters.  Dirt on three sides, the landmark Coronado Bridge on the fourth.  About half of it is only about 4 feet deep at low tide.  Most of the boats we sailed, in those years, drew about three-foot-ten-inches.  Give or take.  We sailed, literally, thousands of nautical miles together.  Lots and lots of it at night.  And, there’s nothing quite so just-right as a hot cup of coffee to enjoy along with the sounds and synergy of a well-trimmed sail boat slushing and sloshing off into a moderate chop when the only local light is coming from the stars, and your running lights.  At least early on, my boat was the only one with a swing stove. 

The basic idea was that I would heat the water, come alongside and pass the tea pot over to Sheryl who would be standing at the leeward shrouds.  She’d make the coffee and pass me back a cup.  It’s not quite that simple, but almost. 

The “receiving’ boat would normally settle into a course and speed that allows the “delivery” boat to close with.  The hard part was to both dump wind with the main flogging and not tangle with the other boat while sailing side by side about a foot apart.  Like I said, they were really good students!  I was invariably alone on my boat.  They did have each other to split the work of steering, sail handling, and tea pot passing.  But, this is a little trick that just about nobody ever really gets proficient with. Cliff and Sheryl mastered it, early on.

The agenda part I alluded to has to do with my incorrigible habit of helping people.  Just can’t seem to help it, as it were.  I get people unstuck from sand bars, tow them in with broken motors, and generally perform the Dudley Do-right billet when I’m underway.  Cliff and Sheryl have helped me with quite a few of these DIY coast guard ops.  So many times, that I sort of loose track of those events.  You know, it just could have to do with a lousy memory.  But, I’ll cling to that notion about the Land of Endless Summer effect.

Cliff and Sheryl upgraded from a 22 footer to a 26 with standing headroom and other creature comforts.  My “small boats” steadily grew over those years from 20 to 27 feet.  We cruised with other boats now and then.  But, it was the team of “Chimera” and “Plum Duff” that completely dominated the radio chatter most nights on San Diego Bay.  Thousands of miles of light winds and storms, short hops and longer cruises.  A long and lasting friendship.  One that started with a sailboat.

There was the night that I got snookered into attempting to help another guy from our marina who had literally gotten his 27 foot deep-keel boat mired with the entire keel stuck in the mud on an extreme high/low tide cycle.  He swam ashore and left his boat.  This was now the next day, when I got pressed into service.  The general notion around the marina was, “Go ask Dan.  You can talk him into just about anything…”

I took the hapless skipper out there in my RIB to see what we could do to help him get his boat back.  When we got there-no-lie-there was a guy with a parrot on his shoulder pulling stuff like the boat’s tiller, compass, and anchors off and dumping them into a ratty old skiff.  He grudgingly put the stuff back on the stranded 27 footer when we insisted.  Believing in human nature way too more kindly than most people I know, I figured he would then do the honorable thing.  The guy impersonating Long John Silver was just sort of drifting around in the dark.  I was frantically attempting to get kedge anchors out in such a fashion that we might get the boat unstuck at the magic, but ephemeral, moment the tide reaches the neap.  Time was of essence.

So, anyhow, I yelled at the guy in the skiff to come over and take an anchor out on a particular radial and set it.  Yup.  You guessed right.  The guy cut the anchor and chain free and made his way off into the dark.  Now, we’ve REALLY got a problem.  I told the boat owner that we were really gonna’ need some outside help at this point.  He called everybody he could think of on his cell phone, and NOBODY was willing to come down to the marina, get their boat underway, and come and help their putative friend in a moment of real crisis.  I called Cliff.  They lived about 30 miles away.  It was about bed time.  They both  had to go to work the next morning.  Thirty miles in Big City traffic.  “We’ll be there in an hour.”  How cool is that?

We did manage to get the stranded boat plucked from the mud and back out to deep water.  Cliff and Sheryl pulling with the small outboard on their now-bigger boat, me in the RIB, and the other guy playing a “G-sharp” on the remaining anchor rode with a cockpit winch.  The pirate was long gone, and I’m certain figured we’d abandon the effort, and he could claim salvage rights.  Not that night.  Thanks, a lot, to Cliff and Sheryl!

And, so it went, over a bunch of years.  Quite a few rescues and assists between us.  Lots and lots of great overnight trips.  Hundreds and hundreds of short hops.  Until, like all good things, it had to end.  Through total coincidence, Kate and I moved to this place, on the hard, here in Almostcanada - about a dozen miles from where Cliff and Sheryl had already moved to take care of Cliff’s ailing parents.  I’ve kept a fleet of boats.  They went on to “other things.”  

Cliff’s cancer dominated much of the past half dozen years.  He taught me patience, and good humor in the face of an implacable foe.  By the time I went off on the 4,000 mile roundtrip towing a boat to Sail Oklahoma, 2014, this past October, I was quite certain I wouldn’t be talking with him on my return.  He said, simply, “You should go, so you can tell me about it…”  So, I did go.  And, we did get to talk about it. 

But, more surgery, more radiation, more chemo, more torture and misery finally did their horrid work.

Now, he’s sailing his boat somewhere with a perfect breeze, on the most beautiful of endless nights, in truly a Land of Endless Summer.  I’d like to think that he’s tending his main and trimming his jib, like I taught him to do.

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