A Grateful Hornpipe - Ashley on the Hornpipe

My faith in humanity is restored.

If you do no believe that people are good, if you have lost faith in the—treat others as you would be treated—love thy neighbor mentality—if you think the world is full of people looking out for number one, selfish, driven by their own self-interests, then you need to do what we are doing.

Get yourself on a 75 percent renovated (this is an approximation I heard Rob give the other day) sailboat, in the middle of January, run it night and day, despite sea sickness, despite shallow waters, despite it being so cold that there are no other boats on the water like you, do this until morale is dwindling. Do this: motor, sail, go. Get out into a world where things are likely to break down, where things are likely to become difficult, frustrating, and occasionally, down right impossible to deal with. Do this, like we have, like we are doing, and you will find an incredible, undeniable truth about people:

People are good and kind. People are generous.

People want to help you, despite the dire, ridiculous absurdities of your situation, despite the fact that you willingly put yourself in these conditions. People want to make you dinner. People want to buy you groceries. They want to drive you around until you find what you need, or call their uncle, their friend, the guy they know who has just what you have been looking for, who knows everything about the thing you need to know about. They want to give and give. They jump at you from out the woodwork. Unexpected. Everywhere. Because you need help and they want to help, they will help you.

This is what I have learned in my first three weeks on the Fishers Hornpipe.

We arrived in Southport, North Carolina late in the afternoon of Friday the 28th. Just past Cape Fear we re-entered the Intracoastal Waterway after 26 hours on the open ocean.
Thursday we had left Beauford, NC after spending the night waiting out some torrential gale force winds to pass in the safety of a cute little downtown harbor—where, it should be mentioned, we dined on some downright decent North Carolina BBQ.—This most recent leg of our journey, returning to the open ocean out of Beauford, turned into the roughest night we had faced yet. We were back to motoring overnight where the crew rotates through a watch schedule that has each of us working two hours on, four hours off, all night and day. We went back into the open ocean hoping to make better time, but what we found out there were swells and waves, crashing and lurching, this swell going this way, that swell going that way, and the FHP in the middle going impossibly both ways at once.

Overnight the waves coming at us were big and rolling. Up and down and up and down. Bow first, you second. Wave up and you down. Wave down and you up. We crashed forward, through the big waves, through the night and the dark. We had to stand at the helm as we steered because the wheel pitching and heaving this way and that could only be combated by the full force of our bodies holding against it. We navigated by aligning our sight with the stars, eyes forceful peaking over the bimini, willing the bow to go where we wanted it to, not where the waves continually crashing over it push it towards. On watch with Nadine, she looked like a wave cowgirl riding the ship up and down as it tried to buck her from her sailboat giddyup stance: legs bent, arms forward, eyes wild. We spent the night wrestling the boat against the ocean. Anyone who gets seasick got seasick that night.

As daybreak hit, the swell coming at us became two swells that we were caught in the middle of. The wave rodeo grew more intense and the FHP pushed forward, sturdy but insignificant, like a rubber ducky going down a class three rapid. The mast swayed like a great pendulum in across the sky, arching over the horizon, back and forth, this way and that. People were sick and growing sicker. Rob and Tracy had to take over at the helm, being the only ones experienced enough to navigate through the wave conditions that had built. Though I do not get seasick (and I mean seriously not seasick, I have an impossibly sea-worthy stomach) I was seascared. I was seafrightened, sea-damn-nervous. Though the sun had come up, we all continued to wear harnesses because it was actually seeming possible that, with the FHP going practically sideways and all, one of us could honestly fall off. Man overboard. I was more scared than I care to admit. I actually started doing the “I am really scared” indicators: thinking about my priorities in life, reconsidering the life choices that got me into the situation, wishing I could tell everyone I love just how much I love them, thinking about the logistics of my inevitable funeral, etc. So in order to deal with my seafear, I went down into the cabin, wrapped up in a safe cacoon of blankets, put in my ipod and listened to the comforting sounds of my favorite NPR podcasts. I stayed in this cacoon until the FHP regained noticeable equilibrium. Once the regular starboard lurches stopped, once I was able to take my foot off of the table that had been propping me in place against the sudden sways of the cabin, I returned to the deck and saw that the waves had reduced and that after a sleepless night and a frightening morning, we were returning to the safety and calm of the Intracoastal Waterway.

***I should mention, so as not to unnecessarily worry family members that might be reading, that the FHP was built for much stronger and bigger waves than we faced here. We were in no real danger. The cement hull of the FHP ensures maximum stability and ability to regain equilibrium in the face of high seas. The only things on the boat not built for waves like that were possibly a few members of the crew (i.e. me)***

Three hours later we were pulling into a calm section of the Waterway, arranging the FHP into proper positioning for anchor, when the propeller fell off.

The propeller FELL OFF.

Off. It just came off of the motor. Rob put ‘er into reverse and: “bing!” there goes the prop. Gone. Off. No more propeller. Except, we didn’t realize that this is what happened. When the boat failed to move forward, or respond to Rob’s direction, we assumed that we ran aground. So, we spent the next half of an hour trying to unground our non-grounded sailboat, before Rob had an idea. He popped on his wetsuit, jumped overboard to inspect the FHP’s underbelly and realized that, yes, we were no longer in possession of a propeller. They—those who know more about boating and boat mechanics that me—tell me that this is not something that happens very often. This is tantamount, I was told, to the time that Nadine was driving down the road when her hood popped up and smashed in her windshield, causing it to shatter. You hear that this kind of thing happens to cars, but it is certainly not an ordinary occurrence. And so, unlikely, unimaginably, our prop fell off.

And this is how we arrived in Southport, North Carolina. After a day of motoring through rough seas, with little sleep, and much seasickness and some sea-scaredness, we arrive here and our PROP FALLS OFF. This demoralizing little cherry on our sailboat sundae was difficult to swallow.

And as hard and frustrating as it was to arrive here and face this complication, as weary as we were, our spirits were lifted, rejuvenated, and downright shocked at the hospitality and generosity that we have found in the face of this adversity. People are good, generous, and kind.

Saturday morning we split up into two crews. Rob, Jonny and Tracy stayed to search for the prop. We had GPS coordinates for where we lost it, and so the team methodically searched for it in varying patterns around a buoy. They raked the area, poked around with long metal poking tools crafted for the search, and even put on their wetsuits and went diving for the sunken little piece of motorized treasure. Though the location was not too deep, from 5-10 feet depending on the tide, the water was cold and murky, and the silted bottom could have sucked up the prop as quickly as Rob downs a mini Snikers bar before his midnight watch shift. As the team battled to recover the prop, Nadine, Matt and I went into town in search of help and some supplies.

And boy did we find help. We found help of every kind, every shade, 41 flavors of endless help. We immediately found a man at a coffee shop willing to drive us around in his car. Once we arrived at a hardware shop, a guy working there volunteered to loan us his car if we needed to borrow it for a few hours, drive to the next town, whatever. Everyone we met gave us a card of a person that they thought could help: someone who knew about propellers, someone who knew about boats, someone who had a cousin who had a boat, someone who might possibly be able to locate a device for underwater metal detection (this apparatus is called a Magnometer, and no, there is not one to be found in Southport, trust us, we’ve called around, though one man does have a Magnometer that doesn’t work anymore. Bummer.) One woman, the proprietor of a local dive shop, that Nadine spoke to on the phone, offered to buy us groceries. Seriously. None of these people had the least obligation to care in the slightest about the Yankees who had just arrived one prop short and a day late, and who were stuck anchored in the middle of the Intracoastal Waterway. No one had to care but they did. As the day passed, the generosity swelled into tidal waves of unparalleled kindness. After an afternoon crew meeting, we all took the dingy into town to find a laundromat and some dinner. At the dock, a girl we had met earlier that day offered to drive us to the laundromat (the closest one being 3 miles away) while her boyfriend and a buddy took the boys around to do a few errands. After our laundry was done, this girl even returned to pick all of us up, bags of laundry in tow, and drive us to a restaurant for dinner. Her goodwill did not go unrewarded; at her request, we bought her a case of Miller Light as a little “thank you” from the crew.

We walked into a restaurant and pub that came highly recommended from locals all over town. It was bustling with activity and chatter. The door opened and the record stopped. Hush. Everyone looks at us: hair greasy, laundry bags, looking disheveled and distraught. Everyone looked and knew instantly who we were. We were the talk of the town, kind of a big deal. At the restaurant, as we drank beers and made good company, people approached us to say hello: “Oh! I didn’t think I was going to get the chance to meet the stranded sailors!” –said one lady. People offered us every kind of help and hospitality imaginable. People wanted to drive us around for errands, invite us over to use their showers (we must really have looked like we needed showers), have us over for dinner, or sleep in their guest beds or couches or their floors. At one woman’s insistence, we signed a birthday card that was being passed around for a jolly, rotund man with a mustache wearing a Mount Gay Rum racing vest (description via Tracy). Had we stayed a little longer we likely could have walked away with a brand new car and someone’s first born. These people cared about us and wanted to help. Genuinely and with dignified kindness.

Maybe this is a southern thing. Maybe this is why the south is known for being so hospitable. But, the thing is: everywhere we’ve been, people have been like this. Everywhere we go people are bending over backward to help, to make our lives easier, and our little voyage a success. People are good and kind. People are generous and welcoming. Everywhere. Our voyage started in Rhode Island where Rob’s aunt Marion and uncle Dean let seven crew members live and work out of their house for a week. We slept everywhere and ate everything, set up projects in every room, and yet they graciously welcomed us. They even gifted us with a box of musical instruments to entertain ourselves on the FHP including a dolphin adorned ukulele and a nose whistle. We arrived in Sandy Hook, New Jersey and were again welcomed by unparalleled kindness and benevolence. Tracy’s grandmother Barbara and step grandfather Gary took us in, with only a day’s notice, even though they already had house guests. They too drove us around, fed us, cared for us, and gave and gave. People are good and kind. And then, there were the Overmans. Will’s family extended every form of kindness to us imaginable. The crew was spread out between their home and Will’s grandmother’s house down the street. Denise Overman cooked us incredible meal after incredible meal. She ruined me with banana pudding until I lay motionless and overstuffed, next to the fireplace, on the living room floor, wallowing in gluttonous glory. Bill and Will played music for us, graced us with their songs, and their father-son charm. Bill treated half of the crew to a yoga class with him. Yoga. Really, we joked that we were staying at the Overman guest house and spa. Royal treatment, I tell you what. They let us borrow their cars, they drove us around. We occupied their home for an entire weekend and all we got was more offerings for more and more gifts.

I have renewed faith in the goodness and kindness and humanity in people. After three weeks in the most uncomfortable of situations, after three weeks of wearisome problem after problem, bad weather, and the complications of life on a sailboat in January, I have found one grand triumphant truth about people: if you need them they will be there. People are good and kind. People are generous. If you have forgotten this, if you have learned otherwise, open your eyes and put yourself in a tricky pickle of a situation, do the ridiculous, find yourself in a pinch, and watch what happens…

I leave you with good news: the boat is being put back in the water (it was hauled out to work on it) with a replacement propeller in place. We are well on our way to being back underway tomorrow. And our success here has been in no small way, due to the kindness of strangers.

On behalf of the Fishers Hornpipe, we are welling with gratitude from the benevolence of others. We will sail forward riding tidal waves of thank you. So, thank you. Thanks.