Reaching Toward Freedom

Reaching Toward Freedom

Reaching is a sailing term. Reaching is the point of sail where the wind comes over the side of the boat. It is the fastest and often the smoothest point of sail.

This is a story about betrayal and moving forward alone. It bears some similarity to an earlier story of mine called "Ghost on the Wind", so if you didn't like that one, you probably won't like this one. It is a slow and introspective piece about starting over. I wrote it to see if I could manage story telling with a changing perspective from the here to the before and back.

This story contains no sex.

>>> >>> >>>

Some sailing terms:

Starboard: the right side of the boat.

Port: the left side of the boat.

Wind direction: the wind direction is always referred to as the source direction, i.e., a northerly wind blows from the north to the south.

Close hauled: to sail as close to the where the wind is coming from as possible. The resulting angle is normally about 45 degrees in modern cruising boats.

Reach: to sail with the wind coming over the side.

Run: to sail with the wind behind you.

Tack: to change direction through the wind and bring the sail from one side of the boat to the other.

Jibe: the wind comes across the back of the boat from one side of the sail to the other causing it to violently cross the center line of the boat.

Beat to windward: to sail close hauled, tacking from starboard to port and back, to reach a windward destination that you cannot reach by sailing directly to it.

Veering wind: clockwise movement of the source direction of the wind, for example from east to south.

Backing wind: counterclockwise movement of the source of the wind direction, for example from south to east.

Lee shore: land downwind that can represent danger if the boat fails and is blown toward land.

Bow: the front of the boat.

Stern: the back of the boat.

Transom: the very back of the boat's hull.

Sole: floor of the cabin or the cockpit.

Dodger: a tent-like canvas structure to provide added protection from the cabin hatch aft.

Berth: either the slip where the boat is kept or a bunk where the sailor sleeps.

Helm: the means of steering the boat, most often a tiller or a wheel.

Mast: the vertical standing pole that holds up the sails.

Boom: the horizontal pole that helps to give shape to the main sail.

Stays and shrouds: the standing rigging that holds the mast in place.

Halyard: the line that raises the sail.

Sheet: the lines that control the trim of the sails relative to the center line of the boat.

Headsail: a sail forward of the mast.

Main sail: the larger sail aft of the mast.

Jib sail: the smaller sail forward of the mast.

Genoa or genny: a larger jib-like sail forward of the jib on a cutter.

Spinnaker: a balloon-like sail that flies in front of the boat when the wind is behind.

Trim: to change the angle between the sails and the center line of the boat so that the wind flows smoothly over the sail.

Furl: to stow the sails when not in use. The main is often laid out along the boom, the jib is taken down, and the genoa may roll on the forestay.

Strike: to bring down a sail, furl, or remove.

Sloop: a single-mast sailboat with a main and one headsail forward of the main.

Cutter: a single-mast sailboat with the mast set far enough back to allow multiple headsails.

Old Bay: a mix of seasonings that is very popular for steamed crabs in Maryland.

Okay, now on with the story...

>>> >>> >>>

I left. I suppose that some would say that I was a coward, but I wasn't. I'd have stayed if there had been anything to stay for. I was a faithful husband and loving father who had lived his life for his family and was too disgusted to stay. My wife had another man on the side, my kids were in college, my parents had passed, and I was free. I had decided that this was the time to start the next phase of my life and I was moving on.

This is the story of my departure.

Day 1: Sunday

It was not long after sunrise when I pulled in my dock lines and headed out to the bay. Like most boat yards, my lines were my own and I would need them when I reached my destination. They were just one more item on the short list of things that were mine that I would not surrender. I had already surrendered too much. For the past three years I'd kept my boat in a marina just north of Annapolis on Whitehall Bay. The Chesapeake Bay had been my home for most of my life and Whitehall suited me just fine. It was a little cheaper than the marinas in Annapolis and I was never in need of the social life in town. She was a thirty-six-foot cutter designed for cruising named Voyager, and she suited me in every regard. I purchased her with hope that someday when I retired, I would cruise the coast and who knows where after that, but now she was the vehicle that was carrying me to my new life.

I'd been a sailor since I was a kid, sailing with my father and siblings in the water around Annapolis. I had raised my kids with boats, and both had become very capable sailors in their own right. They were off to college now, but I had been looking forward to the day when we would sail together again. My wife Sheila never really took to sailing. Once we had the bigger boat, she would go out with us, but for her it was more about seeing and being seen, getting a tan, and looking at all the more expensive boats. Thinking back, I realized how those two realities seemed to define my life and marriage with Sheila - it always seemed to be about impressing others, and whatever she had, she always seemed to want more. I realized now that I couldn't live that way. Whether we grew apart or never really grew together, our marriage had crossed the line and there was no going back.

Most of my sailing was limited to day trips with family and friends. I had cultivated a large group of friends who either sailed or wanted to, and there was always someone wanting to get out on the water on a Saturday. We'd leave the problems and cares of life behind and for just a few hours we'd have nothing to think about but the wind, waves, and markers. Markers are the buoys and pilings that mark the channel and shallow water where an unwary navigator will soon find himself aground. They guide you and keep you in the safety of deep water. The Chesapeake Bay is famous for sand bars and harbor entrances that are anything but straight, but running aground on sand or mud is more embarrassing than dangerous. Seldom is anything broken and once you've endured a few friendly jabs from passing boats you are soon off the shallows and back in navigable water. Depth gauges help and modern GPS is great, but a little common sense will go a long way.

Although I was mostly limited to day-sailing adventures, I did manage to take a few weekend cruises and the very occasional week-long cruise around the bay. Sometimes I had company and a few times I did not, but I had rigged the boat with autosteering by compass and run the halyards aft to the cabin top. One simple, but to my mind critical, addition last year was a safety line that ran fore-and-aft down the center line of the boat from forward of the mast to the transom. It could be rigged with a moment's notice, and I purchased two harnesses to wear in bad weather. If I was ever going to sail long distances by myself, I wanted confidence that I would stay on the boat no matter what happened. Knowing that I was starting the longest voyage of my life, I rigged the safety line and wore the harness before I left port. The line on the harness allowed me to move from bow to stern and go below if I needed to, but it gave me great peace of mind. A sailor comes to think of the boat as an extension of himself, but the truth is that the boat could take on a mind of its own and this is especially true when rigged for long-distance voyaging. No matter what else happened, Voyager and I were going the distance together.

I sailed out of Whitehall Bay and toward the main channel for what way be the last time and turned north to pass under the Bay Bridge. Funny thing that, the Bay Bridge is now two bridges, but all the locals still call it "The Bay Bridge" not to be confused with the bridge/tunnel down by the mouth of the bay. I avoided the main channel because I wanted to avoid the shipping in and out of Baltimore and tacked my way north along the western side of the bay.

As I sailed, I pondered. Less than one month ago I was a husband and father. I was content. How did my life fall to shit so fast and were there signs that I missed? Did I do something wrong to deserve the betrayal? I was adamant that I had not. I wasn't perfect, but nobody is. Was I being intransigent? Hell yes, I was! Should I stay and fight? If I stayed, what would I be fighting for? Was a cheating wife worth fighting for? And if I won, what was I winning? Did I want to keep a cheating wife? Could I live that way? Could she ever be trusted again? Was she even the woman I married? A person changes with the years and a couple is supposed to grow together. How had we grown so far apart? I had no answers, but I had time to think about the questions and perhaps by the time I reached my destination, I would have the answers I needed.

I passed the entrance into Baltimore Harbor and turned northeast. I was still tacking my way up the bay, working my way to windward, but the shipping traffic was less once I passed Baltimore and I felt free to criss-cross the bay as I tacked northeast. The bay narrows north of Baltimore and on a good breeze Voyager crossed the bay easily. That means staying topside and staying alert. It was midday when I reached the Back Creek entrance to the C&D Canal. That would be the likely end of my sailing for day one, so I dropped and furled my sails. You don't sail the C&D Canal and my limited experience is that the Delaware River never has a breath of wind.

You need to be on your toes in the canal because you can cross paths with some very big ships. This day I was lucky, and I had the canal largely to myself. There was just me and one other boat headed toward the Delaware and one small boat headed toward the Chesapeake. It was an easy passage, and I was soon in the Delaware River headed southeast. I was in new territory now. I'd sailed down to the mouth of the Chesapeake and up to the head of the bay, but I'd never reached the Delaware. The traffic was heavier, but I stayed out of the shipping channel and by nightfall I had rounded Cape May and reached Stone Harbor on the southern edge of the New Jersey shore. It had been the first of many long days, and I was in no mood for company, but I'd reached the Atlantic. I dropped anchor in an out of the way cove and turned in for the night. I had a growing list of questions and no meaningful answers, but I had time to think and enough to do that I would sleep at night.

Day 2: Monday

I hitched my harness to the safety line and left Stone Harbor before dawn. I had a feeling it was going to be a rough day in more ways than one, and I wanted to be prepared for it. I'd lived most of my life in sheltered waters, but this morning I was voyaging into the unknown and I was alone.

The wind was moderate and steady from the east, and the seas were higher than I had experienced in the Chesapeake, so I decided to set the genoa in addition to the main and jib. The extra power would drive us through the waves and the wind was not too great to carry the extra sail. I suppose at this point I should probably explain something. The two headsails on a cutter are more properly called the yankee and the staysail, but I grew up sailing sloops with smaller jibs and larger genoas. I've never been able to shake the language of my youth, so I call Voyager's headsails the jib and genoa. Everyone seems to know what I mean.

As I worked my way beating northeast along the New Jersey shore I was also checking the weather prediction. There was a tropical depression coming from the south, but it was still twenty-four hours away and I had time to make a sheltered harbor this evening. The Jersey shore is famous for having too few good harbors where a sailor can seek refuge when a storm comes up, so I was listening to the weather channel on my radio. I had an inexpensive solar array that I could fasten to the cabin top that would produce enough power to run the radio and could charge the engine battery if the alternator went up on me. Voyager had a small diesel engine and so far, it had proven utterly reliable, but when you're offshore, you want to keep your options open. The sailors of the old square riggers were always wary of sailing with a lee shore when a storm was coming, so I kept track of the closest harbors both ahead and behind in case I needed shelter in a hurry.

Voyager's windward course drove her over the crest of the waves and down through the troughs. As the wind strengthened, the spray increased until it was time to erect some shelter for this lone mariner, so I rigged the dodger which offered me the protection that I needed. The Atlantic water is still cold that time of year and the wind can put a chill in a body, so it was the dodger or foul-weather gear. With the dodger up, I could enjoy the warmth of the sun, so it was an easy decision.

Voyager reveled in the wind and the sea. I was making good time and with minimal attention the boat would sail itself. With Voyager settled into a rhythm and nothing further to distract me, my mind wandered back to that first horrible night. Sheila and I had worked together to prepare one of my favorite meals. I was grilling skirt steak that we had marinated overnight and the whole potatoes were wrapped in foil and sitting in the hot coals to bake. She made us a nice Caesar salad and braised carrots with honey. This is how I always pictured our empty nest years! We would indulge ourselves and dedicate our time to one another, but that was not to be.

After dinner, and once we'd cleaned the dishes and grill, we sat on the back porch sipping our drinks in what seemed like the warmest evening of the early summer season. It was then that life as I knew it came to an end.

"Bill, you know I love you, don't you?"

Of course I did. We'd spent half our lives and most of our adult years together building careers and raising two kids and now it was our time. I looked at her and was confused by the expression on her face. Was it fear? "Sweetheart, what's worrying you?"

She looked away and into her glass momentarily. "Bill, I've met someone who interests me."

Twenty-five years of marriage programs a man to think one way and not another. "Why don't you invite them over to the house? I'd like to know them, too."

"It's not that kind of relationship."

Now I was confused. "What do you mean it's not that kind of relationship? What kind of relationship is it?"

She didn't answer my question directly. "I want to get to know him better."

"Sounds good. Like I said, why not invite him over for dinner sometime?"

My wife's expression turned from fear to a look of resolve, almost anger. She took a deep breath and said, "Bill, I'm going to have an affair with him. It won't affect us. I'll still be here for you almost as much as I am now."

As I sat there on the cockpit sole of Voyager reliving that moment, it occurred to me that I don't remember what happened next. I've read about a fugue state, but I don't think I ever understood it. When I came out of it, Sheila was yelling at me. "Bill! Bill! Damn it, are you listening to me?"

I shook my head and reconnected with the world. I mumbled, "Yeah, I'm listening."

"Well? What do you think?"

"What do I think about what?"

"Damn it, Bill, what do you think about what I've told you?"

I was numb and mumbled, "You told me you want to have an affair."

She was annoyed now. "I told you that I want some time to myself. The kids are adults now and I want a little personal time to recharge my batteries."

I thought about saying, "And just exactly where do you plug the charging cord..." but there was no point to it. The very thought of her sex was repellant to me now.

"What's his name?" I could feel the anger growing in me.

"That doesn't matter. You don't need to know."

I screamed, "What's his name, bitch!" I had never raised my voice to her in all the years we'd known each other and at that moment I was wondering if maybe that had been a mistake.

She recoiled and for a moment I saw a look of fear on her face. That passed. "If that's the way you're going to speak to me, I'm going to my room. You can sleep in the guest room tonight!"

I thought, "Well, bitch, it's OUR room, not yours, but right now I wouldn't sleep in the same bed with you if my life depended on it!" In my mind I was screaming, but I used every ounce of discipline within me to remain silent. I sat on the back porch for several hours after that and eventually went to the guest room, but I never slept. I was up and out before her alarm went off.

The boat's motion stirred me from my thoughts. The boat had slowed, and it felt sluggish. It was struggling. I looked aloft and the wind had veered to the southeast and I decided to change my heading. If the wind hits the sails from too far on the side, they can stall like the wings of a plane. Then the boat struggles and the graceful motion of the hull through the water ceases. It was time to head further east anyway, or I would be converging on the shore. We turned east and I reset the autohelm, but the wind was increasing, so I went forward and struck the jib. After that, the boat settled down into a comfortable motion with only minimal trimming of the main and genoa. If the wind increased much more, I'd need to furl the genoa and raise the jib.

I took a long drink from my glass of iced tea, my beverage of choice when sailing, and returned to my thoughts. I had tried to work that day after Sheila dropped the bomb on me, but I didn't get anywhere. She said she was going to have an affair. What wife tells her husband that she is going to have an affair if she hasn't already given him a test drive? If she hadn't already had sex with him, at the very least there'd been a lot of intimate contact. She was already taking time away from us to be with him. I'd known Sheila too long to think she hadn't already had sex with this guy before telling me. She wasn't asking permission! She was notifying me that she was ramping up the affair!

I lost control of my temper, grabbed my coffee cup, and threw it against my office wall. That brought my secretary through the door. "Bill, are you okay? What happened?" She could see the hole in the wall with the coffee sprayed everywhere.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

She looked at the wall again. "That ain't fine. What's going on?"

Carol had been with me for over a dozen years. She as roughly my age and had been previously married to a would-be player who couldn't keep it in his pants. If anyone would understand what I was going through, she would. I asked her to close the door and sit. Then I unloaded everything.

Carol was shocked, but she was also a great deal more rational than I was. "Bill, it sounds like she started a conversation, but never finished it."

I rolled my eyes and began to speak, but she quieted me.

"Bill, you need to hear the rest of the story. Maybe she was just thinking out loud or feeling you out? You owe it to yourself to know exactly what she intends to do."

She wasn't wrong, but the thought of going back to finish that conversation made my stomach turn.

"Bill, are you okay? You're looking a little green around the gills."

I took deep breaths to settle my mind and then my stomach. "I think I'm okay. I just can't believe she's doing this."

Carol thought for a moment. She was the perfect assistant. There were aspects of my work that only I could do, but so many things that I did poorly. Carol was always three steps ahead of me when I needed it. "You need to get your head around this and prepare. Make a list of possible intentions that Sheila might have. List them from least to most hurtful. Then for each possibility, you need to decide how you want to proceed. You can always change your mind, but it will help to get you centered so you know what your options are."