There’s barely a breath of wind on Lake Michigan. The forecast calls for calm, clear, warm weather during the next three days, an Indian summer gift at this time of year, when the Great Lakes can turn nasty in a matter of seconds. Favorable weather expands my options.
Yonder, across the lake to the east, lies a myriad of easily accessed Michigan harbors stretching from Petoskey to Grand Rapids where I could find shelter and privacy, or conversely, be in contact with friends who knew me when I was myself. Maybe they care about me still. But I haven’t talked to any of them in years. They couldn’t accept the cowed and edited version of Hailey that I became with Derek.
What it comes to is this: I don’t want anyone to save me but myself. I don’t want to owe anybody anything.
I have tried, and am trying again, to picture a new life in Michigan where a better version of me lives free, fulfilled and at peace. But Michigan sucks right now, economically and spiritually, and so do I, as desperate as the homeless vagrants freezing in abandoned Detroit city schools as menacing dog packs roam the streets. To turn back to Michigan would be turning toward the flat-broke police state that is holding my driver’s license and awaiting payment on the thousands of dollars in court penalties and the Michigan Treasury’s so-called “responsibility fees” for the fender-bender I caused while under the influence of three Miller Lite beers.
Derek laughed in my face when I broached the topic of his help to pay my debt to society. “You’re lucky I bothered to bail you out,” he said. To avoid higher insurance payments he took my name off the policy. “You don’t have a license, anyway,” he pointed out.
Michigan in its current crude, cruel incarnation is as dead to me as the Big Three automakers skulking away from shuttered factories and broken blue-collar dreams, all the while feigning concern for alternative energy sources, the gasping ozone layer and global warming.
A honking, irregular V of Canada Geese passes overhead, animated compasses pointed south. “One way or another, I’m going with you,” I tell them.
This jump up the shore is a necessary detour. There’s nowhere to go from Lake Michigan’s southernmost end. No sand softens the industrial structures that manhandle the natural landscape. Factories spew, ominous nuclear domes and cooling ponds loom exotic on the horizon; near shore the water turns a lurid milk-chocolate brown. The low-tide stench of the ocean is perfume compared to the smell.
Out from Hammond shines the brazen gleam of Chicago’s skyline, about 15 miles up the coast. There are thousands of boat slips and mooring balls in the rocking, rolling, designated anchorage that is constantly strafed by the wake of passing commercial and pleasure craft.
Out on Lake Michigan sailing solo I talk to myself and the boat. Boats have souls, just like you and me.
“OK, so we’ll mosey up to Shytown and suss out the situation, yes?” I ask Seawind.
There are docks to be had in Chicago. It’s not an option. I can’t afford a marina on my $1,572 nest egg. The tip stash has to get me wherever I’m going, even though I don’t know where that is yet. Also, any attention is unwanted; I have to stay where I won’t attract it.
The decision to pick up a mooring ball — a floating anchor of sorts attached to a long line bolted to the lake bottom — or to drop anchor from the boat itself, an anchor I’ve yet to examine closely, can wait. Worst-case scenario, I can simply idle all night out on the lake, free floating as Derek and I once did on the Atlantic Ocean off the shore of Sandy Hook. Deep fog had obscured New York Harbor; rather than enter the shipping lanes we drifted outside the danger zone, waiting for the morning light.
As long as I keep an eye out for lake freighters and avoid the shipping lanes, nothing will slam into me here.
I don’t want to go where others will predict I’m headed. This idea of Hailey soloing on a sailboat won’t be anyone’s first guess. Or anyone’s guess. Period. Derek will assume I ran home to mama in Toledo. There’s a train station next to the marina and cabs run regularly from the casino. Either option would get me to a bus station. Mom will figure, when I don’t show up at her place on the Michigan-Ohio border, that I’m staying with a friend. She doesn’t know I don’t have any.
I’ve never been considered the sailor in this family. Sailing is Derek’s thing. For a decade, I have taken on the roles of deck monkey, cabin girl and galley slave, cranking a winch here, tugging a line there, poised for docking like a birddog quivering at the edge of the marsh, waiting for the command to retrieve her master’s kill. Derek is the king of inarticulate instructions. When I don’t understand what he wants me to do, he shouts, as if the higher volume will lead to comprehension. My perceived lack of prowess is a running taunt. “Can’t you do any better than that?” “Move!” “Hurry up!” “Oh my God you’re useless.”
A Canadian sailor out of Thunder Bay once told me, “You know more than you think you know, Miss Hailey Marie.” Maybe. But I still have a lot to learn and zero confidence in my boating abilities. Putting Ontario Dan’s theory to the test scares me spitless; still, I’m nowhere near ready to turn around. I keep repeating, “You know more than you think you know.” Surprisingly, it settles me.
When Seawind is a couple of miles offshore in reliably deep water, I dig the autopilot out of my escape sack. “Otto” was stowed in working condition when Derek upgraded to a fancier, sturdier model capable of controlling Chinook’s steering in heavy seas and freeing us from hand-steering during 12-hour or more travel days. The clever gizmo attaches at the base of a sailboat tiller, allowing steerage at the click of a dial or push of a button, keeping the boat on a set course. “Otto” fits Seawind’s steering stick to a T, and I take this as a lucky sign. After setting the course and watching the boat steer herself for five minutes, I’m confident we’re holding a straight deep-water path up the coast. Chicago is about three hours away at current speed. Seawind moves smoothly through the 1-2 foot waves. It’s time to acquaint myself with Seawind’s systems, supplies and provisions. Especially provisions; there will be no going ashore in Chicago.
Popping up on deck for a quick scan and back down below, an exercise by necessity repeated in prairie-dog fashion every five minutes, I complete a preliminary inventory showing one dog-eared copy of Skipper Bob’s Cruising Lake Michigan, Richardson’s Lake Michigan charts, a better set of binoculars than mine, working radar, a decent GPS and a looks-new marine radio. I turn the latter on; it’s set on Channel 16, the international hailing and distress frequency. The depth sounder and wind indicator gauges also click on with no problems. I will know how deep the water is and how hard the wind is blowing.
A finicky, matchy-matchy homemaker’s touch is strongly evident in the immaculate interior. The royal blue-and-white striped miniature lifering affixed to the teak cabin wall in the salon, a combined living-dining-bedroom, cheerily assures that all are “Welcome Aboard!” The woven galley (kitchen) floor mat features a montage of Lake Michigan lighthouses, as do the kitchen towels and potholders. I haven’t peeked in the head (bathroom), yet but I can guess what kind of towels are on the rack. There’s probably a lighthouse toilet paper holder with matching night light, too.
There isn’t a boater alive who doesn’t fall prey to cheesy nautical décor of one kind or another; this vessel seems particularly hard hit. The “less is more” theory of design is not known here. The galley cupboards are full of neatly stacked lighthouse motif plates, bowls and mugs as well as stemless clear plastic wine glasses, no-tip tumblers, a half-full bottle of mid-priced Cabernet, a full bottle of Pusser’s Rum, eight cans of Campbell’s Select Italian Wedding soup, two cans of salmon, three of water-packed tuna, a half-full packet of saltines (most likely gone stale, because that’s what happens to dry crackers on a humid boat) and three cans of Chef Boyardee spaghetti and meatballs. I grab one of the going-brown bananas from the copper mesh hanging produce basket, displacing a mini-swarm of fruit flies. I must not ignore the need for sustenance even if I don’t feel hungry.
In a hanging locker redolent with the spring-mountain scent of dryer sheets used to combat must and mildew, I find two size-large sets of men’s foul-weather gear and oh, blessed be, a set of women’s red foulie bib pants. The lady-sized Neoprene overalls are accompanied by a matching offshore-rated waterproof hooded jacket. I’ve priced out this gear; the jacket alone is about $350. Derek has a top-of-the-line set of foul weather gear. He’s never seen fit to upgrade my sweaty rubber fishing bibs, white footless waders with adjustable elastic straps purchased on eBay for $14. On rainy days I wear the rubber pants paired with an orange vinyl Wal-Mart rain jacket. The pants keep my butt dry but suffocate my lower body, giving literal meaning to “sweatpants.” The jacket, a type favored by municipal crossing guards, turns sodden after 10 minutes of steady rain, relentless moisture wicking from the sleeves up in anything more severe than a light drizzle.
“When the going gets tough the wimps go down below,” Derek said. “Only serious sailors need serious gear. You’re not there yet. Probably won’t ever be.”
Here, now, on Lake Michigan, I have entered the serious realm, if only on borrowed time on a borrowed boat. I will strive to take good care of Seawind, leaving her safely in a place where she can be easily found and reunited with her rightful owners. Like the perfect friend with benefits, our fleeting relationship should end on a mutually positive note with no recriminations, all secrets intact and no harm done.
The jacket fits. It’s not needed in 70-degree sunny weather, but I shrug it on over my white turtleneck anyway, having a fashion moment, armored in snazzy competency, very America’s Cup. “Hey, fake it ’til you make it,” I whisper to myself. “You know more than you think you know.”
The deck is stable and comforting beneath my bare feet. Moving forward to check out the anchor system, I make a mental note to rig a jackline while the lake is behaving. If the waves kick up and the ride gets bouncy, the flat, strong length of rope firmly affixed on both ends to a permanent object can be used as a handhold to move around the boat decks. In rough seas, sailors clip on to jacklines from their safety harnesses, allowing them to be fished out if they fall overboard. Since no severe weather is predicted in the near future, I will wait to see if there are any safety harnesses aboard.
The anchor is a hefty Delta, the best of its kind and good for holding in any kind of condition from sand bottom to river mud. Securely lashed to the bow, the anchor is attached to about 100 feet of chain wound around a manual windless. The hoisting mechanism is a bonus as I doubt I could pull up the anchor under my own power. There is also a back-up Danforth plow anchor, a claw-like 20-pound hunk of metal that I have absolutely no faith in after numerous draggings using the same type of anchor on Chinook in tidal waters down south. As the water rose or fell every 6 to 12 hours, the boat would swing crazily around in the ensuing current, easily dislodging the Danforth and causing us to drift too close to other boats, too close to shore, too close to shallow water, or, on one rainy night in Georgia, right up onto a muddy reed flat.
“Securité! Securité! Securité! Hello All Stations. This is the U.S. Coast Guard …” The staticky burst of the radio startles me and I realize that I need to pee. The Coasties are merely reporting an overdue vessel that was supposed to arrive in port several hours ago. Listeners are “advised to keep a sharp lookout and report all sightings to the U.S. Coast Guard.”
Roger that, as we say in nautical marine radio lingo.
The only boats on my horizon are a collection of sport-fishing go-fast day-trippers, distinguished world ’round by their bon vivant bridge decks where the Captain’s chair, accessed by a ladder, perches dizzyingly high above the water, the better to see the fish, my dear. “Otto” continues to hold Seawind’s helm with aplomb; an occasional mechanical “rrhn rrrrhn rrrhn” assuring the device is still on, making minute adjustments to keep us on course.
Down in the head (bathroom to you landlubbers) I perch on a commode nicer than Chinook’s, featuring a one-button flush instead of the callous-producing elbow-stressing primitive pump handle I am used to.
Surprise, surprise, the bathroom scheme is not lighthouses. It’s fish. There are also two framed plaques: “If you sprinkle when you tinkle please be neat and wipe the seat,” above which reads, “If it didn’t come out of your body, don’t put it in the toilet.”
I do not flush the toilet paper. It goes into a Ziploc bag thoughtfully positioned next to the toilet in a tiny wastebasket featuring a swathe of striped cartoon clownfish circling its circumference.
It occurs to me that I have no idea how full the holding tank is. Chinook’s 50-gallon waste tank overflowed on one occasion two years ago. Brown sludge, known to cruisers as the “stain of shame,” oozed out of the tank valve onto the starboard (right) middle deck. Gross doesn’t even begin to cover it. Pump-out facilities are few and far between and on the rivers. When they can find one, boaters pay as much as $45 a pop to get the toilet tank sucked clean.
I could go in a bucket and dump it overboard. A retired South Carolina doctor that Derek and I met in Tampa bragged about his “virgin holding tank.” He’d been sailing for years with his boat rigged to bypass the tank, dumping waste directly into the water. Doc, who keeps his surgical skills sharp by operating on dogs in foreign countries when humans aren’t available, informed us that urine is sterile. Fecal material is another matter.
You can actually get a ticket with hefty fine for peeing or pooping, aka “dumping,” overboard. Laws vary by body of water. For example, on the Atlantic one must venture a few miles offshore before legally emptying sewage. A sailboat’s piddly tank is nothing compared to the Big Boys out there. Chinook has skirted around huge sludge slicks deposited by freighters and cruise ships. In contrast, Lake Superior waters are a zero discharge zone. That means nothing is allowed to go in the water. No pee, no poop, not even food. And of course, no trash.
I confess to freely violating this rule playing a game I call “What Floats” with anything biodegradable. Banana and potato peels float. Pasta, meat and coffee grounds sink. Crabs love eggshells, which may float for a while but will eventually sink. “What Floats” is especially amusing and instructive on waters with a strong current. I was preparing to take a dip in the Tennessee River on a hot autumn day until I watched the outer leaves of a head of iceberg lettuce whisked downstream and out of sight in a matter of seconds. “Go ahead, Hailey, jump in,” Derek taunted. “If I tie a rope to your ankle I might be able to haul your skinny ass back.”
When I first decided to quit smoking cigarettes, (a project still underway after a decade of yo-yo success) I stopped throwing butts in the water. Each Smokey Treat is counted as it is deposited in an empty beer can tucked behind the bailing bucket near the back rail. I am down to five Smokey Treats per day now that I have given up beer. There are two $15 cartons of an off-brand Lights Kings in my ditch bag. Thinking about them makes me want one. To counteract the urge I take a few deep yoga breaths.
Center. Ground. Calm. Clarity. I close my eyes and inhale-exhale to the rhythm of Lake Michigan.
A beer would taste so good right now.
When I was thrown in jail in June for operating under the influence, my sister Layla, a renowned psychiatrist who mostly works these days in the upper echelons of public policy, informed me in cold clinical terms that I “need to evaluate my relationship with alcohol.”
So alcohol and I are no longer dating. We aren’t even speaking. The break-up ensued quietly after the cop drama at the accident scene and later at the jail, when the nastiest cop came back to take private pictures of me.
Downing three or four or five beers after work had become automatic. It was my habit to have one or two at the restaurant, thriftily using my employee discount, and then two or more when I got home. It felt deserved. As a mother, trapped in a marriage that had been a bad idea to begin with, and an Information Specialist at the Keweenaw Peninsula Tourism Bureau by day, AND a waitress by night. Alcohol softened sharp edges, drowned dissatisfaction. In times of great stress or jubilation a shot of Crown Royal or an Absolut and tonic did not seem overly off the rails. I never suffered blackouts or delirium tremens.
During my court-ordered counseling after the accident I gave all the proper responses to the kind, scholarly, comfortingly zaftig lady psychiatrist. Privately, I decided that if I am an alcoholic, I’m a high-functioning one.
I wanted to see how I functioned without a beer crutch. There have been moments of quiet pleasure in my clarity experiment. But the pain of living with Derek became intolerable. Put simply, it was a lot easier to put up with his constant criticism, harsh judgment and selfishness when I had a buzz on.
While first forming an escape strategy, it occurred to me to choose the illicit lover route. You know, running around instead of running away. As I have done before. As a lot of potential runaways do.
My friend Nancy ran away like that, to another man, and then another. She explained her absences to her husband by explaining that she’d taken up kayaking. He caught on because she always came home dry. Tall, lanky, beautiful Nancy wound up with a divorce that segued into another unfulfilling marriage, followed by more cheating and another divorce.
Then there’s my friend Lynnae, a 40-something petite blonde princess searching the internet for her Knight in Shining Armor. She was outraged when one of her internet matches expected to have sex with her on the first date. Never mind that they’d already been having virtual nookie online.
My waitress pals Mary and Patti ran away by closeting themselves in celibate solitude. Sex is too important to me to choose that route. I have firmly believed since womanhood that an orgasm per day is medicinal both psychologically and physically. Never interested in sex, Derek in recent years had degenerated from premature ejaculation to erectile dysfunction. When he did get hard, about twice a month, all attention was paid to getting him off during the brief seconds the sacred erection lasted. While not averse to other drugs of all kinds, Derek thinks Viagra is stupid and dangerous, snorting in derision at commercials that warn of priapism. He wouldn’t know what to do with an erection that lasted for more than four minutes, let alone four hours. Once I accomplished my bi-monthly duties as semen receptacle and he was snoring I could sometimes get myself off with a few quick twiddles to the clitoris. More often I had to wait until I was alone behind the locked bathroom door. Other than the occasional hand-held or well-aimed high-pressure shower nozzle, I have never used props other than electric toothbrushes. I’ve actually considered buying a vibrator. I’ve checked out the models but resisted an actual purchase in the hope that the real thing will someday be reliably accessible. Sex for one without artificial props does the job for now. Feels less lonely and desperate than electric stimulants. Given the proliferation of erectile enhancement drugs on the market these days, I do not think I am off-base in assuming real-life penises are still available. It would be a certified shame if I never had another lover.
There have been four lovers in the last two decades if I don’t count Derek, which I don’t. The Cynic, the Carpenter, the Chef, and the Contractor. Each served a purpose. Each affirmed that I was worthy of a lover, that I could inspire lust. It embarrasses me now, my compulsion to prove myself attractive through a series of impermanent affairs with a quartet of men with their own serious dysfunctions. In the end, the mini-escapes provided no lasting relief.
But I digress as the boat pilots herself. Reverie is a dangerous condition on a moving ship. Constant correction is required. A lazy sailor, a preoccupied sailor, a bored sailor is a bad sailor.
Our morning and afternoon together has established a measure of trust and comfort. The wind indicator shows a benevolent 10-15 knot west breeze. Such light airs encourage further bonding with my borrowed ship. Deep yoga breaths in and out, lines in hand, I unfurl the headsail at the tip of the boat, which is rigged so it can be controlled from the cockpit. As the fabric unfolds, Seawind tilts almost imperceptibly to starboard. I idle down the engine, disconnect the autopilot and let the wind take us. I’m afraid to shut off the engine for fear it won’t start again. Motor-sailing is not regarded as “pure.” Derek would be shaking his head and huffing in disgust at my tactics, as he has so many times. But I am grinning. Seawind is for now my boat and here and now I am proving myself an able captain.
I am sailing alone.
The citified western shore of Lake Michigan is a concrete contrast to the sandy shorelines, forests and artsy northwoods communities on the opposite side of the lake. Chicago makes itself known by sight, sound, smell and vibration long before the harbor proper is in entry range. There are eight harbors in and around Chicago, encompassing more than 20 miles of shoreline. Skipper Bob’s guidebook indicates that there are 1,200 transient mooring balls in Monroe Harbor. I’ll wait until sunset to attempt to hook a ball and tie up Seawind for the night. Phoneless, I will keep an eye out for any harbor patrol boats collecting mooring fees. Perhaps the expense can be avoided if I arrive late and leave early. I am still too wired to feel hunger or fatigue, but I must eat and sleep — and decide what to do next. Seawind cannot make it under the Chicago River & Sanitary Shipping Canal bridges with her mast up.
Catching a mooring ball is a tricky business, even with more than one pair of hands aboard. Chinook’s maiden mooring took place in Fort Myers Beach, Florida, with Derek at the helm and Yours Truly on the bow, frantically brandishing a long aluminum boathook, trying to nab a floating nylon rope pendant tagged by a numbered ball in the close-packed field of bobbing numbered balls all the while avoiding other moored and maneuvering boats.
“Here — get that one, no, THAT one, can’t you do anything right, Jesus Christ you’re useless … it’s right there …” Cringing from the barrage of jeers, derisive laughter, criticism and shouted commands from the cockpit with an audience watching from nearby boats and dinghies, I nearly fell overboard before I managed to snag pendant and accompanying ball. Because Derek thinks that rigging lines and bumpers ahead of time is anal retentive and overly fussy, I was forced to stand there stupidly with the pendant hooked, awaiting my next order. “Get a line, get a line on it. Are you stupid? No, not THAT one…” I finally held up a line from the rope box that met his approval. “Now get it around the Sampson Post — fuck, forget it, I’ll do it myself.”
The public humiliation of the peanut gallery was actually a comfort. He never hits me when other people are watching.
Many women with otherwise kind husbands give up boating because the captain of the ship is verbally abusive, or as my new “husband” Robin will describe it “an out-and-out asshole the minute they push off from the dock.” There’s a very popular “Don’t Shout” t-shirt specifically designed for long-suffering boat wives. Some enlightened couples invest in “marriage savers,” electronic headsets that allow them to communicate calmly, quietly and efficiently via walkie talkie from the steering station to the person stationed on the bow. Other brave wives take seamanship courses and become as competent as their husbands. In Canada, many of the lady sailors choose to man the engine while the male aboard handles docklines and hauls anchor. Early on, I tried to tell Derek that his fortissimo vocal performances turn me into a fumbling bumbler but he is unable to control his hot-tempered cursing. I actually counted how many times he said “Fuck” one day. Forty-seven. The barrage is even worse when he’s nervous about his approach into a new harbor; I become the object against which he can smash his uncertainty. I cannot count the times I have docked, anchored or moored with tears clouding my vision, nose running, and red face hot with humiliation. Even kindly comments from the peanut gallery, “Good job little lady!” cannot counteract the ache. Holding back tears still hurts but is now second nature. Derek has no patience with histrionics, or any other expressed emotion. My tears cement his conviction that I am manipulative and whiny. He does not melt when I cry; he freezes. Any sign of weakness makes him angry. Almost everything makes him angry.
“Never again,” I say out loud, punching the autopilot button twice to make a slight course adjustment. I am smiling. I do know more than I think I know. “Nice job, Seawind!” I pet the tiller.
As the sun begins its late afternoon track across the western sky, I round the outer breakwater of Chicago’s magnificent harbor and pull in the headsail, rolling it up in preparation for a solo mooring. The only witnesses are two smallish speedboats fishing just off the Chicago lighthouse pier. I hank and uncoil a line on each side of the vessel, plunking the boathook in the middle of the deck atop the bulkhead for easy grabbing from port or starboard. Back in the cockpit, I shift the engine to idle, allowing momentum to propel the boat alongside the big white floating ball I am angling for on the outermost corner of the mooring field. Seawind gently coasts alongside it, miraculously (to me) in hooking range. I hurry forward to secure the ball attached to the line, hooking the looped pendant on my first try. Yay! I thread the rope through the giant bolero, cleat the line back on the boat and let out my breath, which I hadn’t realized I was holding. I savor this tiny success that feels huge to me. “You know more than you think you know” may well be my new mantra.
Trepidation does not fully abate as I shut off the engine and sit, rocking in the harbor, absorbing the enormity of the day’s ventures. I still wait to be discovered, apprehended, jailed again, publicly reviled, and privately scorned. Every element of my escape thus far has gone smoothly. There must be a pill to swallow amid all this jam. My life has been such that I cannot think otherwise.