May 28 2009
April 7th. 2009: 24 Hours in the Chesapeake Washing Machine
We do wake up at dawn, but the howling winds and white-capped waves are still thrashing. It’s been about twelve hours since this madness began and it shows no signs of abating. We eat our last roll of Ritz and consider our situation. This weather is too savage for us to make a second attempt at sailing.
“We’ve got to find something to do,” Garth says. “I can’t stay in bed all day.”
Garth gets bored easily. I worry that too many days like this one will drive him insane and he will begin to regret this whole venture and want to give it up. For the present, we sit and gyrate like hula dancers with the rocking of the boat while wondering what to do with ourselves.
“I don’t mind it much,” Garth says after a few hours. “At least no one’s bothering us.”
“Yeah,” I say. “We don’t have to pay money to stay here. This is our home and we don’t have to deal with other people. And we don’t have to worry about time.”
We have just over one thousand dollars, that is, if Avis didn’t take the rest of Garths’ money. They said nothing about the crack in the windshield when he returned the car, but called last night and left a message. We never called them back. We have most of a bag of oranges, two cans of spinach and three jugs of water.
The air is frigid. I don’t like being cold. I bring myself to do anything when it’s cold. Despite the hurricanes, I’d like to go south and stay there just so I can be warm.
Garth goes back to bed. “It’s too rough to do anything,” he says. “I’m afraid this is the only option. And my toes are cold.”
We spend the entire day inside the cabin. We develop a routine: sleep a few hours, wake up, use toilet, eat orange, Garth smokes cigarette, back to bed. The Chesapeake Bay is a washing machine. Gonzo, Garth and I are the clothes. It’s been stuck on the ruckus setting for nearly 20 hours. My eyeballs are rolling in their sockets because everything I look at is bouncing and swaying. The tipping and rolling is constant. Garth can barely roll cigarettes. Ropes rattle against the mast. Waves, increasing steadily in size, beat the sides of the boat. The sky, which started out partly sunny and then cleared almost entirely, has now closed the door on lite again. Things are becoming dark and bleak. Rain approaches.
“What do you want?” Garth asks the wind. “You know, lately I’ve been noticing, this wind has an attitude. But I can’t punch it in the head because it’s air.
We sit up on the edge of the bed and look out the portholes at the waves, listen to the howling and rattling, sway back and forth.
“It’s a lot less annoying when there aren’t any people around,” Garth says.
