Each year we have at least one new crew member and half a dozen apprentices that we train over the course of the summer. And while we all like to consider ourselves individuals and not terribly predictable, sometimes the same conversation can be heard year after year or from household to household, and for that matter boat to boat.
It’s a bit like having children, you think YOUR children 1)won’t behave like that in a restaurant, 2)will always know where their shoes are and never ask you to find their personal items that are RIGHT there in front of them 3)would never try to flush a pair of slippers and rain pants down the toilet at school. And then they do, and you realize that at the same time that families can be very different, they have so much in common.
Its the same thing on boats. Captains have been having similar conversations with their crews for decades if not centuries. One this trip went something like this. Captains Jon asks Toni as she’s sitting in the peapod filled to the brim with lobster bake items that we are taking ashore for our island feast, "Do you know how to row?"
"Yes."
"Do you know how to row an open oar lock boat?"
"Yes, it’s the only kind I’ve rowed." (This is said with firm confidence.)
"Okay, Julie, cast Toni off."
And then we see Toni (insert any new crew member’s name here) drift off away from the schooner toward the lee shore and in the opposite direction of the bake island. She (or he) does the spastic spider routine with the oars more in the air than in the water for a while as the peapod drifts further and further from the desired destination and finally, after giving ample, safe and valuable learning time in the peapod, Captain Jon comes around to give her (him) a tow with the yawl boat to the island.
THEN, when they DO get the hand of it, they are so proud – and so are we. This is a picture of Toni after she’s made her return trip to the schooner – with lots of determination and effort but no assist at all.
Annie
Good for you, girl!
