I hope everyone enjoyed my first article! It was so much fun thinking back to all those memories years ago and remembering all the fun (and sometimes not so much fun) times. I have had so many stories to share over the years and wanted to jump right into where we are now, but I thought – what would be the fun in that? Why not start at the beginning and share how it all started? Like I said, I thought boating was definitely not for me (as we all know it is not for everyone), but so glad that even though I said NO in the beginning, I was persuaded to try it out and now I could not imagine life without boating.
So, where did we leave off? Oh yeah…As I last mentioned, you need to be aware of your surroundings, especially when the sailboat anchored right in front of you has black smoke coming out of the cabin. This would be one of those memories that was not so much fun.
It was a Saturday back in the middle of the Summer of 1998. My hubby, Jay, was a volunteer firefighter and there were no fire department parades that weekend, and we had nothing much else going on that night. So now that we have a cabin boat, we figured that we would try spending the night on the anchor, just ourselves. So, early afternoon, we packed up the boat and headed out of our marina in Oceanside. All those years that we were docked in Oceanside, we went right by Zach’s Bay and headed to Gilgo Cove or as others know it, Garbage Cove. Thinking back, I don’t know why we never went to Zach’s Bay…it probably was because our friend Keith (who I mentioned in my last column as being our “high school friend”) who we boated with, always went to Gilgo because he had family that anchored there on the weekends. Keith’s Aunt and Uncle owned this beautiful 62′ Vista Motoryacht “Candlelight” that we would tie up with them. I remember being in awe of the size of it – I felt like we were a dinghy compared to the size of their boat. It was just beautiful and I remember they had a lamp inside the cabin that just glowed beautifully at night.
Why we never tried Zach’s Bay by ourselves, I do not know…but years later, that became a huge part of our boating. But again, not trying to get ahead of myself. Baby steps. But as you will see, my writing is like how my brain gets sidetracked sometimes and goes off on different tangents when I start to think about things….
Anyway, back to the original story…we got to Gilgo and I remember it was not the best weather day, a little overcast, but we were young and, on a boat, so it didn’t really matter. We hung out for a while and had some snacks. Since Jay had to work that morning, he decided he was going to take a nap (he always says even till this day that boat naps are the best naps lol). I sat on the back seat with my feet up relaxing and reading my book. About 20 minutes or so later, I look up and see black smoke off the bow of our boat coming from the boat that was anchored in front of us.
I go down in the cabin and wake up my Hubby. Of course, he is a little disoriented, but I’m like “OMG that boat in front of us is on Fire! It has black smoke coming off the back of it!” He pulls it together, puts on his water shoes and comes up to assess the situation. Next thing I know, he dives off the side of our boat and starts swimming towards the sailboat in front of us. I honestly cannot tell you how long he was gone, but of course, it felt like it was an eternity.
As I sat watching and waiting, I finally saw the smoke go from black to white, which thankfully I knew was a good sign. Minutes later, I finally saw him come out of the cabin. He stands there a minute or so and next thing I know, he dives in and starts swimming back to our boat. I get him a towel and lower the swim ladder for him to get back on the boat. Once aboard, I give him some time to decompress from what happened and I wait for the story. As he is standing there, I realize he is covered in dry chemical from using the fire extinguisher to put out the fire. Finally, he tells me that it turns out that the people in the sailboat were using their denatured alcohol stove in the cabin when their window curtains went up in flames. Thankfully, Jay put it out in time and avoided what could have been a serious situation. They thanked him, but the odd thing was that it was the end of it. They had a dinghy attached to their boat in the water and they didn’t even offer to give him a ride back to our boat! Like really? He just saved your boat and you couldn’t take him back? So…he had to swim back to our boat.
Needless to say, that really put a damper on our first overnight on our boat by ourselves. We were a little taken back by this since all boaters that we had encountered since our first few months of boating were always nice and willing to help others out. I understand that I am sure they were shaken up by what happened (I know I would have been), but you also have to try to pull it together and do the right thing. We were a little disappointed at everything that happened and honestly, I was shaken up myself, so we packed up and headed home.
Just goes to show you that you need to pay attention to what’s going on around you while you are out on the water. Never know what could happen….but it did not deter us from returning to weekends at Gilgo Cove and this was only the start of our many adventures there…