Sailing

I am not what one would call a "sailor." I am not even what one might consider a "boat person," but my dad is - both a boat person and a sailor, and a boat owner, and at one time, he even sold sailboats. St. John was a sailor at the time in his life when I met him, so for that reason alone, I really wanted to have some "boat person" blood in me. I knew I was doomed when I refused to wear the boat person shoes...those little rubber soled, leather topsides or whatever they were called. UGLY and uncomfortable!

The real problem is, sailing makes me throw up. I have decided this is due to the ineffectual experiences I had in high school. I relate my similar reaction to sex to the ineffectual lovers I wasted time with in my 20s, but that is a different story.

My dad got the boat bug in 1980. At the time, he was the president of a small American Oil and Gas company in Denver, and for whatever reason decided he wanted a boat. So he bought this lovely 42' Hans Christian sailboat, stunning in design with a low to the water canoe keel, and elegant lines, all teak and brass, heads turned when this boat drove up! (the link is not to my dad's boat, just so you can see how pretty the boats are)

When did my daddy ever learn to sail, the thought crossed my mind as we flew down to spend Christmas in Houston. Never, was the apparent answer, after spending a couple of days out in Galveston Bay with him shrieking orders at my mom and my siblings. Even me chumming the seas did not seem to allay his fierce command of his inability to sail! I thought, gosh, maybe cornflakes and orange juice are not a good pre-sail meal, so the next day, I tried just a biscuit...no, without the liquid, I just turned my stomach inside out. It was a miserable time, and I was never so happy to get back to school after winter break in my life.

We tried it again, I think the next summer. I have blocked it out apparently. He bought a condo in Seabrook to keep the boat, and I do remember him freaking out when Hurricane Amelia came through in 1983, trashing the condo....it got rebuilt and shortly thereafter, he gave up the oil and gas business (along with everyone else in America - thanks windfall profit taxes), and moved to Florida, where he bought a sailboat brokerage - exclusively Hans Christian. Just sell a couple per year, and you are set. My daddy is NOT a salesman...at least I know where I get my inability to sell chocolate bars to girl scouts at a campfire - i just can't do it!!

I would visit at spring break and Christmas and every once in a while, I'd go out on a trial sale sail, or help him move a boat up from Miami or down from Palm Beach....He got very good at steering while holding onto the back of my shorts while I disgorged whatever miniscule amount of food I had injested over the last 48 hours. My family became "invested" in the sailboat industry. I even got a job chartering sail boats out of Tortola with another company!

When my parents divorced, he gave up the boats and holed up in the Big Thicket of East Texas. He started online dating and a few years ago he met Carole, who just so happened to have gotten the boat in HER divorce and was in need of a big strong man to help her sail it around the Caribbean. So she and my pop embarked on a 6 month journey through the islands.....When I heard he was going, my first thought was I hoped this woman was fat, cuz she was not going to be eating much over the next 6 months and I would have hated her to have to waste away due to starvation!

Dad invited everyone and their brother to come down to the Caribbean and stay for a week or more, and my Aunt Paula took him up on the offer....and then he told me they were in french speaking countries. For some reason, I had an uncontrollable yen to go...not to go "sailing," per se, but just to go where they spoke French. I do NOT know what possessed me to go SAILING, but I got a ticket and headed south.

My next post will be a complete recount of the trip, but I can sum it up to say that I know NOW what all the years of puking was about. It wasn't so much the up and down and rocking and inner ear crap, although that DOES have something to do with it...It was my dad, and his ranting and raving and bellowing orders at my mom and me, that made me so nervous and discombobulated that it made me sick! With Carole, they worked like such a team, it was actually a PLEASURE! It was, dare I say, FUN!? Sure, yeah, I still threw up, but it was because I ate and not because something was eating me up...It was truly insightful about how connected my guts are to my emotions!

Would I do it again? go to the Caribbean, and lay on a sail boat for a week? Watch the sun set behind an island, watch fog curl around a lighthouse? If I don't have to sand teak or clean brass, yeah sure, why not....I just have to remember to NOT eat!