Bird Droppings
by eaglebeak

Gather 'round me hearties, and I'll spin ye a tale of Christmas at the Golden Oldies Yacht Club.  First of all, let me tell you that mixing a nice vintage Merlot with egg nog mix just isn't avery good, and I don't recommend it.  Not, of course, that I've ever tried it, but this very good friend of mine, who will remain unnamed, did, and he told me that it was pretty awful.  Nor should one order Scotch and Coke when bellying up to the bar.  It insults the Scotch, makes the Cole taste terrible, and you suddenly find that all of your fellow partyers are beginning to shun you.  But avast there, matey, I didn't come to tell you about 'ol demon rum, I came to arrggh, - tell you about the time we had ourselves a little bit if a holiday while marooned on the island of el Nino.

Now my 87 foot ketch had foundered after going through the eye of the hurricane, but, expert mariner that I am, was able to reef practically everything -- including the telltales attached to the shrouds -- even while going through 110 mile an hour winds.  Using sea anchors composed of wash buckets and fishing lines, I was able to keep her nose into the waves, rising up 97 feet or so to come crashing down into the slough of another wave.  After several days of this, and with absolutely no sleep, the storm passed, and, laying to on flat, steel gray seas, I was welcomed to the South Pacific island of tel Nino by a herd of albatrosses.  Just as I was expertly bringing her in, this great huge thing, I think it was either a UFO or something, rammed the side, sending her to the bottom in less than 17 seconds.  In that amount of time I was able to gather up food, supplies, flares, radios, matches, a couple of extra batteries, my chainsaw, first aid kit, and the solar panels and stash them in the power dinghy, shoving off with only moments to spare.

Wellsir, as I motored into this desolate and unoccupied island, I spotted a perfect place to dock my boat, so hopped off on the dock, cleated my lines and turned off the engines in order to conserve petrol.

I noticed on my mega-Casio watch that it was Christmas, low tide, just past the winter solstice, and that the sun was over the yard-arm (so to speak).  So, I figured that I'd celebrate in my own fashion.  I went down belowdecks in the dinghy and fetched a couple of bottles of perfectly chilled chateau-neupfdepape.  After chilling my wine glass, I uncorked the bottle with the corkscrew that was part of the first aid kit, and poured out a libation (or maybe two).  After several more trips to the basement of the dinghy, I saw this really beautiful silver tip in the middle of the island, so, having a tree stand handy, decided to cut the tree down, even though it would be frowned on by environmentalists.  Though it was the only tree on tel Nino, and even though the island only measured 100 feet square, I thought that it just wouldn't be Christmas without a real, cut tree atop my mast.  Well sir, a couple of bottles of chateau-neufdepape later, and the old chainsaw was a buzzin'.  I tied the tree to the top of the mast of my 187 foot  sunken ketch (well, it sunk in shallow waters), turned on the lights and sang carols until midnight.  At that point, a Coast Guard seaplane spotted my glowing tree, and came in to pick me up.  I set the flares out along the runway, and they barely had room to taxi to a stop.  But they were a good group.  We went below and fetched a few more cases of bubbly from the basement, and toasted the New Year quite right.  Oh.  I forgot to tell you that the seaplane was a Harrier.  Yeah.  That's right -- a Harrier.  Anyways, they took off and hooked a line to the top of the mast on my sunken ketch and literally pulled it free.  As water spilled out, and everything became dry again, I loaded it up, waved a fond farewell to my Coast Guard friends and decided to continue on my Christmas voyage.  It was really swell.  Though when I pulled into Cairo, they couldn't figure out why I had this red tree without any needles attached to the top of my mast.  (I simply told them that I was with the Bureau of Forests and we were seeding the entire Pacific Rim one needle at a time).

How did I ever get the tree off?  How did the airplane unhook my boat after raising it 45 feet above the water?  Just how far down is the basement on the dinghy?  What in fact did hit my little ketch in the first place?  I guess that these questions are all going to have to go unanswered for the time being, and will probably be the subject of a future article.

So, you're probably wondering what all this has to do with the GCYC Christmas party/  Why, nothing at all.  In fact, it is probably one of the few tall tales told at the party that had even an ounce of truth to it.  I mean, this story pales in comparison to some of the racing and cruising stories that were being bandied about.  Well kids, it's been a fun year writing this article for you.  Hope you've enjoyed it -- even though I took some personal affront to seeing some of you fold it into paper boats and set them on fire at various raft-ups.

-- eaglebeak