AT THE HELM, IN THE DITCH

摘要

GOTTA GO,callyaback!" my pal Tom barked. He was on a voyage from Florida to New England for the season. I'd suggested that he hire a captain to deal with the boring stretches, buthe'dinsistedthattakingthe helm would be an adventure. Now, in a remote leg of "the Ditch" (aka the Intracoastal Waterway), he had found an adventure for sure.Tom has been a boater his entire adult life; however, tending to the worries of building a business left him little time to manage his fleet. He'd delegated bothersome boating chores. Now retired with time to spare and a can-do attitude, Tom insisted on a hands-on delivery. I was enlisted to provide phone support. He'd tricked a college roommate he hadn't seen in 50 years into serving as a crewmember. While a good shipmate, the poor fellow had never set foot on aboat and had no stomach for the sea. Following a field promotion to helmsman, he'd accidentally grazed a log-littered gutter of the Ditch.