Trouble at Twilight

My husband and I have lived on a sailboat for a few years now. Life on a boat is, in itself, a very strange existence. But when you add in the fact that we live in a marina full of colorful characters, which is also connected to a public park full of even more colorful characters, life gets so much stranger.

So, a few months ago I was down below in our boat, working on my computer. It was about 8:00 pm and I had my noise cancelling headphones on because Rance had gone to bed early.

As I was sitting there in the dark, clacking away on the keys with the sound of gentle rain funneling into my ears, I was startled by an incredibly loud bang right above my head.

My heart instantly started to race, and I ripped off my headphones. Then everything tilted to the left. Someone was on the boat. If you don’t or have never lived on a boat before, this is akin to someone climbing up onto the roof of your house.

In the few years that we’ve lived in this marina, there have been several instances of theft and attempted theft. Just prior to this, our neighbor had a drug addicted woman try to steel his e-bike. When she thought there was no one aboard, she stepped up onto his boat to look for more items to steal. The cops came, she was arrested, and life went on. Just another Tuesday night in the marina.

With this instance fresh in my mind, I lunged toward the companionway and threw the hatch open. In hindsight this was a crazy thing to do, given I am 5’ 0’’ with the upper body strength of a 90 year old woman.

Halfway up the stairs, I popped my head up to see who was on our boat. As I peered through the old and scratched up isinglass of the dodger, I saw a very thin woman struggling with a large, bright yellow object. She was trying to steal our diesel jugs!

At this point my fear morphed into anger. I’m generally an easy going person. I almost never yell, I haven’t sworn much since my 20’s, and I rarely act in a rash manner, though it does happen on occasion. The thing is, it’s mentally exhausting to feel like you always have to be on guard, ready to deal with someone who doesn’t respect boundaries, personal space, or common courtesies.  

Well, I guess I was at a tipping point that night because I ran up into the cockpit and yelled at the top of my lungs, “Get the fuck off my boat!”

As I climbed out of the cockpit and onto the gunnel, everything came into focus. The tiny little woman was still a tiny little woman, but the large yellow diesel jug became a large yellow dry bag. She looked at me with utter confusion on her face.

At this point, I heard a gentle voice say, “Oh no, Charity.” I turned my head toward the sound of the voice. Now that I was standing up higher on the boat,  I could see my neighbor and his wife down in the water, in kayaks. I could also see that there was another man on the dock, looking flummoxed.

“We are so sorry!” the neighbors said, as they explained that they were busy tying up the kayaks and had told their guests to go ahead and board their boat. But it was dark, and she had mistaken our boat for theirs. So she tossed her dry bag onto our boat, and climbed aboard.

This had all happened so fast, I was still keyed up and hadn’t really processed it yet. So I put my hands up in deference and said, “No problem. I’m sorry. I just thought this was another e-bike bandit situation.” Then I went back down below.

I sat for a long time that night going over what had happened, feeling worse and worse as I thought through the chain of events.

The next day, I went over to their boat to tell them I was sorry for yelling at their friend and try to explain why I came out acting like an apoplectic ape. They were so gracious and understanding. They even apologized to me for startling me. Then they told me that their lovely friend has pancreatic cancer and she had taken a really strong pain killer right before the incident. That was why she had such a confused response to my verbal assault.

So not only did I yell at a complete stranger for making an innocent mistake, the poor woman was also struggling with cancer. Sometimes, I really am the worst.

I walked back over to our boat and sat in the cockpit for a while, going over in my head how I could have handled the situation better and vowing not to just react to things in the future.

I heard a motor and looked up to see a man in a dinghy motoring past our boat. He was wearing a fedora and grinning from ear to ear. There was a chicken perched on the center console of his boat. He gave a little wave. I chuckled, waved back, and went down below to get some work done.

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