Treason on the High Seas part 2 of 3

I’ve spent plenty of time on boats, but, we were dealing with seven, eight, nine-foot swells. Michael got sick first, which was good, because I was able to study his technique on how to lean over the edge of the sailboat without falling in. When Michael pulled himself back in and the color started to come back into his face, I knew that it was only a matter of time. I nonchalantly raised my hand and said “I got next.” I may be starting on a slow descent toward sure death, but at least I still had my sense of humor. My sense of humor was about to make a quick exit. Sure enough, ten minutes later, it was mine turn. For the next two hours, Michael and I took turns being landlubbers. He took port. I took starboard.

Daughin is actually a pretty good guitar player. He had perched himself on top of the cabin –how he managed to stay put amidst those big swells, I will never know- and started to strum away. He played a blues riff. It was pretty good; for a while there, I thought we had B.B. King onboard. So while I was leaning over the edge of the boat, crying for my momma like a school girl, I had Daughin in the background singing with great gusto his improvised blues tune to which the chorus was “I got the Koala Pukin’ Blues.” If I hadn’t been busy contemplating whether or not to simply throw myself in the sea and end it all, I might have been able to see the humor in it. Everybody else on board seemed to.

So in this 24-hour sailing and foot race, I lasted just over six hours. We didn’t even make it to the first scheduled stop. Steve made an unscheduled stop at the Clearwater Bay marina so that all of us could get off the ocean, settle our stomachs, and ready ourselves to push on. But I knew that once I got off that boat, there was no way in heck I was getting back on that thing; not for love or money.

The guys had mercy on me and graciously let me bow out. They called me a taxi. Ninety minutes later, wet, tired and nauseous, I was knocking on my apartment door wanting my family to let me in. I was hoping to return the conquering seafarer. Instead, I was returning the defeated puke-meister who just wanted a hot shower and to crawl into bed.

The worst part is that the race requires teams to finish with all the people that they started with, so when I bailed, it effectively disqualified “The Koala” from the race.

Knowing that they were no longer in the running, the rest of the crew was demoralized. Things quickly fell apart. Now that I had taken the brunt of the shame, Michael decided that he too would bow out. And Brendon, our one highschooler on board decided that –now that he thought about it- he had a lot of homework to do. Our seven-man crew was now down to four guys and a guitar. They got back to port at midnight having not attempted a single climb on any of the peaks.

There was going to be heck to pay back at school on Monday.

-Jack