Sailing is slow, wet and dangerous
Ben Trovato
May 08 2007 at 02:26AM
Ted rang on Sunday and asked if I wanted to go sailing. Given that our telephones are bugged, I assumed he was speaking in code. But since we both have serious trust issues, we have never been able to agree on a key to unscramble the code.
After some thought mixed together with some beer, I came to the conclusion that Ted was inviting me to partake of a little lysergic acid diethylamide before embarking on a cruise that would take us through the doors of perception, across the lake of implausibility and into the empyrean abode of infinite omniscience.
It is important to dress appropriately for these occasions, so I dug out my purple Dr Seuss hat, blue velvet patchwork jacket and yellow and pink stripy bell-bottom trousers.
Ted told me to meet him at the Simon's Town yacht club. If this was code for somewhere else, I had little hope of ever finding him.
Ted told me to meet him at the Simon's Town yacht club
Taking a gamble, I headed for the Deep South and arrived at the yacht club to find my way barred by a steel gate. This is one of the consequences of living in a town built around a naval base. People live in constant fear of invasion.
Look what happened when the US lowered its guard at Pearl Harbour. The pilots spent their days shagging the locals while the soldiers lay on the beach smoking primo South Pacific weed. Of course the Japanese had to attack them. Hell, if I had been there, I would have attacked. Pretty girls and good ganja are wasted on Americans.
Clinging to the gate, bewildered as an Afghan shoemaker marking his fourth birthday in Guantanamo Bay, I started shouting for someone to let me in. Across the wharf, I could see a jeep full of military policemen set off towards me. They were 100m away when Ted appeared and opened the gate. He pulled me inside and we ran for the clubhouse.
Hiding out in the bar, I ordered a couple of coked-up Klippies and whispered into Ted's ear that I was ready to go \"sailing\". I rolled my eyes theatrically and raised my glass. \"To infirmity and beyond!\" I shouted. Ted grabbed my arm, spilling precious liquor all down the front of my velvet jacket.
\"Be quiet, you fool,\" hissed Ted. \"Mary's coming along. Try to act normal.\"
'Mary loses control after two glasses of wine'
I was stunned. Nobody brings their wife along when they go \"sailing\". I took him by the face and made him look at me. Brandy leaked from his lips.
\"Have you lost your mind?\" I said. \"Mary loses control after two glasses of wine. She will never be able to handle three or four hits of dangerously hallucinogenic chemicals.\"
Ted broke free from my grasp and fell backwards into a salty old sea dog, knocking him clean off his bar stool. There was no reaction. The dog simply got up, sat down and carried on drinking. I suppose he is accustomed to all manner of objects smashing into him on the high seas. Judging by the contents of the bar, yachting must be the only sport in the world in which the participants look like homeless people.
Just then Mary walked into the bar. She was wearing a pair of gumboots, an inflatable life vest and a pair of tight oilskin pants. It is never a good thing when one starts freaking out before one takes acid, so I began making my excuses and headed for the door in a crab-like fashion.
Mary rushed over and asked if Brenda was coming. Oh, what a great idea. Go on a mind-bending drug spree with a woman whose personality disorder has crossed the borderline and is now racing headlong towards a bottomless pit seething with phantasmagorical creatures and other demons that inhabit the female psyche.
\"No,\" I said. \"Brenda's not coming.\"
Ted bolted his brandy, took me firmly by the arm and marched me outside. \"We're going sailing,\" he said, \"so picture yourself in a boat on the water.\" I closed my eyes. \"Yes! Yes!\" I shouted. \"With tangerine trees and marmalade skies!\"
Ted smacked me across the head and told me to open my eyes. He pointed at a 25-foot yacht moored to the jetty and told me to get on.
\"No girl with kaleidoscope eyes?\" I asked, hopelessly. \"No Lucy in the sky with diamonds?\"
\"Maybe an octopus's garden, if you're lucky,\" said Ted, springing on to the boat and taking hold of the tiller, a position he refused to relinquish for the next five hours.
As we chugged out of the harbour, I tried to spit on one of the warships that I had unwittingly helped the defence ministry to acquire so that we might repel the Zimbabwean navy when they eventually come for us. Like my hopes for clean government, my spit fell hopelessly short.
Ted told me to behave myself and killed the engine, then set a course for what looked like Brazil. Mary swarmed across the deck pulling on ropes, winding winches, unfurling sails and generally scaring the life out of me. I am not a natural sailor. Although I am accustomed to being unsteady on my feet, it's not often that I drink enough to get the floor tilting at a 60? angle. Sailing is slow, wet and far too much like hard work. Besides, hostile crew can push you overboard and leave you to drown. Sharks often jump right into the boat and take your legs off without even giving you a chance to put your drink down.
Captains of container ships have no qualms when it comes to crushing your vessel rather than steer around you.
Vicious storms will rip your sails in half and split your mast down the middle. Enormous waves can crush you in your sleep and giant squid will suck on your bones.
I went below deck, adopted the foetal position and prayed for safe passage back to the bar where I fit right in.
* This is Ben Trovato's On The Run column, published in the Cape Times
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