Shadowfax is a thirty-five foot sailboat currently docked at Long Cove Marina in Rock Hall, Maryland. It (or she - should I call the boat a she?) has been in Paul’s family for eighteen years and fostered countless weekends of sunburns, relaxation, and inebriation. Despite feeling achy and sick on Friday, I just had to stick to my plans to go sailing. I like to live my life like I may never have the opportunity to do something again. Besides, I’d never slept on a boat before or spent any significant time on eastern waters. Clearly, a land lubber.
Paul sealed the deal when he referred to Shadowfax as a yacht. I hadn’t yet seen the boat and I have no real concept of numbers, so telling me a boat is thirty-five feet long isn’t very helpful. I imagine thirty-five plastic rulers from school back to back. Then I start thinking about something else in my mathematically-challenged, scatterbrained way.
What I knew was this: If Shadowfax was a yacht, it wouldn’t be anything like P. Diddy’s yacht. Still, it’s cool to talk about yachts. To say you spent the weekend on a yacht. To pack a bunch of sweaters and wait at Penn Station, sighing wearily, “I can’t wait ’til we get to the yacht.”
*A yacht is an independent boat that people can eat, poop, and live on. Shadowfax is definitely a yacht, albeit not one with linen sheets or feather mattresses or the trappings of la vida Diddy.
Cade and I scrambled to Penn Station, got separated somehow, reunited, met Paul in New Jersey, and started the long trip to Maryland. When we arrived at the marina, Paul’s dad was hanging out. I tried not to fall off the dock and quickly got acquainted with the cabin. It’s actually quite cozy. Paul’s dad assured me that “what happens on the boat stays on the boat” with the exception of the the time the third stooge, Alex, clogged the boat’s toilet and it had to be taken apart. That one is a story for the masses.
I was the one girl on the boat, and the one person that didn’t get to enjoy the screwdrivers everyone was drinking. I sniffled and watched the guys play cards. Paul’s dad showed me how to use the pump to flush the toilet. I willed my kidneys and colon to hibernate for the night, as the rest of us soon did once the cold medicine and alcohol (not taken together, mind you) kicked in.
The next morning, our crew awoke. I took a hot shower in the marina’s shower facilities and proceeded to blow necklaces of mucus out of my nostrils. Mmmm, it was time for breakfast. We all rode in Paul’s dad’s beloved Jaguar to some cafe called Pasta Plus Breakfast or something like that. It was a very small, uncreatively named place. Cade was surprised to see that the coffee was self-serve. This was the universe’s way of asking him to overstimulate himself to the point of near-death, so he did. I ordered eggs, bacon, toast, and other typical fare. The night before, I’d mentioned to Paul, “I wish we had Scrabble to play.” Paul looked at me quizzically, “Scrapple? That’s food.”
Paul’s dad perked up. “I love scrapple!” Have you ever heard of this before? Apparently it’s an eastern thing, perhaps just in Pennsylvania. Scrapple is like Spam, Paul’s dad enthusiastically explained, “except like, three notches down from it.”
So yeah. A variety meat worse than Spam and hot dogs. The mateys insisted I had to have some the next morning for breakfast. Come breakfast, Paul’s dad didn’t forget to get me my side of scrapple. At one point, the waitress came by and asked why I hadn’t touched the thin brown rectangle on the plate. “Oh, she’s from Texas. She’s never had scrapple. She’s nervous,” Paul’s dad explained.
The waitress looked at me sympathetically, “Yeah, my son won’t eat it anymore. He came home one day from school and said, ‘Mom, scrapple is pig penis!’ What can ya do? Do you guys need more coffee?” She beamed.
Pig penis? Gulp. I had the tiniest bite, because I felt I had to try it. What if I never got the chance to try it again? What if it really was a tasty delicacy? I shouldn’t be such a sissy about it, I guess.
It wasn’t. It reminded me of that time I ate dry dog food some years ago, only worse.
Post-breakfast, we went to the grocery store to stock the boat and then took off sailing. We were bound for Lovely Cove, which is somewhere near the Chesapeake. I really have no grasp of northeastern geography, so I need this whole blog entry fact-checked.
It had been chilly in the city on Friday, and was in the forties when we’d arrived in Maryland. Saturday morning and afternoon were windy and cold enough for jackets, but the sun was shining. It was really beautiful with the sun glittering off the water and the changing leaves in the background. I didn’t play much of a part in getting Shadowfax sailing, but I did help raise a sail or mast (my nautical vocabulary is horrid and inaccurate, I’m sure) and unwind some rope. At one point, the boat tipped way to one side and most things on the shelves of the cabin fell to the center. Cade screamed and ran away. Exciting.
I felt sick, but I could’ve stayed on the deck for hours. I stretched out with a blanket and felt the clear air and sun on my face. It was soothing. I didn’t relax in the quiet for long before some family friends of Paul’s dad came by in their speed boat. We all had lunch on Shadowfax, during which we saw a humongous stinkbug on one of the guests. Photo opportunity!
After lunch, we went out on the speed boat and eventually watched the sunset and cooked dinner. I felt really tired at this time, but how cool is it to be out on the water and cook on a boat? Paul’s dad and I talked while he grilled and decided that it was going to be too cold to stay out in the cove overnight. Docked at the marina, we could plug in the heater. In the middle of water, we didn’t have that luxury.
I did some steering and managed not to run Shadowfax aground. We headed for the marina, visited the home of the family friends from lunch, and then went back to the boat to sleep. Paul’s dad fell asleep pretty early. I was sick and passed out. Paul watched TV for a while and bundled up. I pretended to be a groundhog and curled up in my little boat burrow. The motion of the boat was relaxing and not at all sickening. Back in my own bed Sunday night, I felt like I was still rocking on the water.
On Sunday, I took another hot marina shower. Cue mucus drainage. Cade and I spent the rest of the morning eating breakfast and walking around taking pictures. Sunday afternoon was a blur of managing the time and getting back to New York, which is sadly how weekend trips always end up. I could’ve done more sailing, had my white blood cells had better sea legs.
I enjoyed my yacht adventure, but for the sake of the Cap’n and the rest of the crew, won’t be back until I’m not germing up the cabin. For that reason, I hope what happens on the boat doesn’t stay on the boat. My berth needs to have that shite Lysol-ed out of it.
Rrrr!
