The Mirror of the Sea

As is my custom now in the summer weather, I make the twenty-five minutes’ hike from the house to the boat ramp behind Greeley Park in Nashua in the predawn darkness on Sunday mornings.  Twilight has started to fill the neighborhood by the time I arrive.  The perfectly flat surface of the Merrimack River reflects the multi-colored sky above, acting as Nature’s mirror and displaying the beauty of the sky a second time.  I sit on my favorite fallen tree trunk as I watch the colors of the sky change and the twilight brighten into full daylight.  Except for my own breathing, there are no sounds of human activity.  Birds chirp, ducks quack, fish splash, and occasionally something drops from a tree branch and plops into the water.  These sublime sounds of silence generate an other-worldly atmosphere that serves as a welcome respite from the usual daily fare of canned music, blaring televisions, and incessant blabber from folks who have mostly nothing to say.

Going to the boat ramp once a week is like going on retreat.  In the time that I have before the first boaters arrive, I like to think quietly and reflect on whatever comes into my mind.  Usually this involves remembering time spent at sea, and I admit that I may tend to idealize, perhaps even romanticize, these years of my youth.  One recent morning, though, two early morning boat launchers caused me to reconsider this.

After thirty or forty minutes of peace and quiet and solitude, a pickup truck towing a trailer rattled noisily down the dirt road to the boat ramp.  One man got out and began directing the driver as he backed the trailer with the boat down the ramp.  In a voice as strident and stentorian as a drill sergeant’s, the traffic director barked orders at the driver: “Go straight back!!  Fifteen feet!!  Don’t turn it!!  Five more feet!!  Go straight!!  Don’t turn!!  Stop!!  You’re in the water!!”  With impressive military efficiency, the two men launched the boat, parked the pickup truck and trailer, and then accelerated upstream with a deafening roar from their oversized outboard motor.  Of course, my treasured peace and quiet and solitude were temporarily shattered by this invasion.

When I was left alone again after their departure, it occurred to me that what I had just witnessed mirrored to some degree life aboard ship.  Going to sea was not always peaceful.  I was not always quietly taking star sights from the bridge wing.  I was not always quietly plotting the next transatlantic voyage in the chart room.  On every ship, some crewman got into mischief, and in the newly restored serenity of the boat ramp, a few such episodes came to mind.

On Thursday evening, December 13, 1979, the General Hoyt S. Vandenberg was shifted from one of the piers to the drydock at the Todd Shipyard in Brooklyn.  A pilot came aboard to direct this operation, and he worked with a tugboat to guide the ship.  Drydocking is a routine enough procedure, but it does require precise workmanship with everyone involved paying strict attention to business.

As the ship was getting underway, there were difficulties with the linehandlers on the stern.  Communicating with the bridge personnel via walkie-talkies, the third mate in charge there became increasingly incoherent and nonsensical.  This useless and distracting verbiage confused the pilot and infuriated the Master, Captain C. H. Harriman, a no-nonsense, iron-willed legend from the old school.  At length, one of the deckhands got the walkie-talkie away from the third mate.  He informed us that he was taking charge aft because his boss, the mate, was so hopelessly intoxicated that he simply could not do his work.  On hearing this news, Captain Harriman exploded in a fit of rage and let loose an unprintable stream of invective that I was certain all of Brooklyn could hear.  The pilot, however, remained completely calm, and with the linehandling situation resolved, he expertly brought the General Vandenberg into the drydock with no further problems.

I had been on duty since 8:00 o’clock that morning.  The move to the drydock started at 5:00 in the afternoon.  The third mate directing the linehandlers was scheduled to be on duty from 4:00pm to midnight, at which time I would relieve him.  The chief mate and second mate, as I recall, had gone ashore earlier and were not due back on board until the next day.

With no one else to turn to, then, Captain Harriman apologetically asked me if I would remain on board and fill in for my inebriated colleague.  He assured me that I would be paid overtime for it and added that it should be a quiet night.  I accepted his invitation, and so I worked a twenty-four hour shift.  By morning the next day, I was very, very tired.

Five years later, in January of 1985, I was the second mate on the four to eight watch aboard the oceanographic survey ship Bartlett in the Gulf of Mexico.  Engaged in a routine operation, the Bartlett was proceeding back and forth through her designated area.  With warm weather, a slight swell, no traffic, and a gradually brightening twilight, it was a very pleasant morning.  I walked out onto the port bridge wing to check on something, and I noticed Gordy, one of the steward’s boys, manhandling an exceptionally large cardboard box on the stern.  This was an odd sight.  Wondering what exactly he was up to, I waited and watched.

The stern section of the Bartlett consisted of a wide expanse of open deck space with removable railings not far above the waterline.  This area was used for launching, monitoring, and recovering survey equipment.  Along the port and starboard sides stood several fuel tank ventilators.  These did not interfere with the survey operations, but with the possible presence of fuel vapors, one did not clown around near them.

Gordy set the box down on the deck and then reached inside it.  In an instant, he pulled his hand out and a giant fireball erupted from the open box.  Then he picked up the flaming box and awkwardly threw it overboard.  I gaped in astonishment as this brilliant conflagration danced on the waves astern of the ship.  Gordy remained in place and gazed at the spectacle, too.

I dispatched one of the deckhands on my watch to go aft and bring this pyromaniac up to the bridge wing.  He arrived with a very sheepish expression on his face.  “What do you think you’re doing?!”  I asked him.  “What’s the big idea?!  You could have incinerated yourself with that stunt!!  You could have thrown yourself overboard with that box!!”

He replied that he just happened to think of it, and it seemed like it would be fun.  He didn’t mean any harm.  He did not know that flames at sea are an internationally recognized distress signal, nor did he realize that a pilot seeing them from an airplane would radio a report to the FAA, who would then relay it to the Coast Guard, who would then send ships and aircraft to the scene.  He was nineteen years old, uneducated and irresponsible, and he just did not foresee the possible consequences of playing with fire.  When I finished reprimanding him, he apologized profusely and promised to never do it again.

News of this event traveled around the ship quickly.  Captain Kim Giaccardo came up to the bridge an hour later to say hello and check on things, as was his daily custom.  He had already heard the news in the chow hall.  “Six in the morning and this is how I start my day,” he commented sardonically, and added that the Chief Engineer was especially annoyed about it because of the fuel tank vents.

When I got off watch and went below to eat breakfast, Gordy was on the job, serving food and clearing dishes.  Normally a very cheerful and upbeat shipmate, this morning he seemed uncharacteristically subdued.

In the restored peace and quiet of the Nashua boat ramp, I remembered these and other episodes that punctuated my seafaring years.  They certainly made life interesting.  More importantly, they contained valuable lessons.  “Happy is the man that findeth wisdom” (Prov. 3:13).  Aboard ship we often discerned wisdom through its absence in the annoying and occasionally dangerous behavior of others.  The tumultuous boat launchers, while not drunkards or firebugs, mirrored benignly some of the commotion and consternation of shipboard life.