I’m pleased to share an excerpt from Susan Cole’s cruising memoir, “Holding Fast.” I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the book, which from its title and first few graphs promises to be a reflective look on the cruising life. Coles recently moved to the Northwest (Portland), and joins the many sailing and adventure authors already here, including Wendy Hinman, Jordan Hanssen, Jim Lynch, Jeffrey Briggs and others. KH
Excerpt from Chapter 1: Underway
We still lived in Connecticut that Saturday my husband John and I took our seven-year-old daughter Kate to Mystic Seaport. As we reached the town of white picket fences and tidy window boxes of petunias, geraniums, and zinnias, John turned to Kate and said, “In a few weeks, we’re going to move on Laughing Goat and go sailing.”
I sprang to attention in the back. We had discussed breaking the news to Kate, but I hadn’t known when John would do it. He waited until we came under the spell of the tall ships and recreated nineteenth-century village where blacksmiths and carpenters plied their trades. As usual, John took his time, raising a cigarette to his lips, inhaling, flicking ash in the tiny metal tray, flashing a grin at me, and waiting for Kate’s response. Though the smell of his cigarette smoke no longer intoxicated me as it had twenty years ago, I still loved the sensual curve of John’s hand around a cigarette.
John was six when his family moved to Africa. Before they went, his mother told him about lions and tigers and elephants and snakes, anthills as big as houses, and the wild bush that would surround their new house where he could play. He couldn’t wait to go. He wanted to impart a similar excitement to Kate about our voyage.
“Where are we going?” Kate asked.
“South. First to Florida. Then we’ll figure out where we want to go from there—somewhere in the Caribbean. We’ll snorkel. There are fantastic coral reefs, like nothing you’ve ever seen.”
“What about school?”
“You and Mom will do it on the boat.”
“What about our house?”
“We’ll rent it out.”
Kate glanced at me. Passing the schooners on Mystic River, I could imagine sailing down the Intracoastal Waterway through charming towns like those on Long Island Sound.
“It’ll be fun,” I said, feeling like Judas. I didn’t share my doubts and fears.
Kate told her class the next day that she was sailing to the Caribbean and snorkeling, and she wasn’t going to school anymore. Her teacher, a sailor, was thrilled for her and asked her to write the class about her adventures. She promised they would write back.
I wish it had been that simple for me. I did not want to go. John would tease me and say, “I’ll have to drag you out kicking and screaming, clinging to the garden.” I imagined myself red-faced and shrieking, my fingers black with dirt, while John yanked my legs and Kate stared open-mouthed.