She was 30
years old and beaten
Her best days
had been seen long ago
She was a 22
foot long sailboat
When I bought
her in 2004
I had just
turned fifty,
I needed a
hobby or two
Better than
buying a Miata
And it would
get me out of the house too
She was laid
up in her cradle in Oakville
Twenty five
miles away
I went out
there to see her with Patrick
Decided to
buy her that day
Two weeks
later, we masted and rigged her
Brought five
gallon jerrys, both full
A couple of
sandwiches for lunch
And we gave
the motor a pull
She started
quite nicely and ran
We thought it
would be easily done
To motor her
thirty miles to Toronto
And get home
with the setting sun
It never
occurred to me to think
While we were
getting ready to go
That the
motor was a complete mystery
That I’d
never sailed Lake Ontario
We had a VHF
radio,
and a bearing
compass and chart
We were never
out of sight of shore
No navigation
needed, no art
But the
things that could have happened
That could
have gone awry
Including
fog, squalls, breakdown and drifting
Just never
occurred to us guys
We arrived in
Toronto at sunset
Found our
berth and tied up tight
Blissfully
unaware of our triumph
And then we
called it a night
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