Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
I saw his silly armchair dinghy tethered to the back of his boat and a devilish plan came to
mind.
We had heard a few of the yard hands talk about a rather fast and unattractive woman called
Mary who lived on an old, beaten up tramp of a boat in the anchorage. I had even over-
heard two cronies discussing her antics, and one sang out a few lines of a Beatles song,
something along the lines of, “When you find yourself in trouble… Mother Mary comes to
you….” I had seen this woman a few times walking across the yard to the store; she was as
ugly as sin, almost as ugly as her reputation with the men of the harbor, a regular “docksy”
one might say.
I weighed the dangers of my little scheme, and decided I would risk it. I quietly climbed
into my dinghy, and very stealthily and in a roundabout way, rowed across to where Arm-
chair Steve's boat lay to anchor. I pulled over the balaclava I had brought with me and very
slowly went up to his boat. My heart thundered in my chest; I thought I would have a car-
diac arrest. I very carefully untied the painter which he had tied in a clove hitch around
the stern rail and allowed the slight breeze to drift the two dinghies silently downwind. I
was ready to speed off at any sign of danger. The tension was almost unbearable; adrenalin
raced through my veins; my head hurt.
After a month of agonizing minutes the two dinghies were hidden from view, and the worst
part was over. I rowed over to the armchair contraption which had drifted unattached and
belayed its painter to the stern of my dinghy and quietly rowed over to Mary's boat and
silently attached it to her stern. It now appeared to all and sundry when they awoke on
Saturday morning that Armchair Steve had succumbed to the dubious pleasures of “Moth-
er Mary” and had slept the night there, quite a fall from grace after dining and wining the
lovely miss Liz.
I had to be very careful that his dinghy did not rub against hers. Having secured it thus,
I stole away into the night taking a large circle route back to Déjà vu making sure that if
anyone had seen me, they would not know where I had come from or where I was returning
to; I still had my balaclava over my face, and it was too dark to identify my dinghy.
I climbed aboard and sat back in the dark, shaking with nerves. I had done it! I was congrat-
ulating myself on my successful prank when suddenly I heard a dinghy being rowed ener-
getically towards Déjà vu. I thought the top of my head would fly off. I started up aghast
staring into the night and instinctively stepped into the cabin and out of view. I realized
foolishly it was probably Harry and Gavin returning from Dirty Dan's.
I heard Gavin's voice and breathed a sigh of relief. I heard him clambering unsteadily
aboard, and I went out to greet them.
