Hops, Malt and a Bicycle

For some ten years, I lived on Ward’s Island, which is situated just south of downtown Toronto—one of the ‘Toronto Islands’. A really neat spot in that it’s a ten minute ferry ride to downtown, yet when you’re over there, you feel completely detached—in another world.

The X is where I lived

From the north shore you can vaguely hear the rumblings of the city but not loud enough to be intrusive. Only service vehicles are allowed there so for the most part, the loudest vehicular noise might be the rattling of a poorly lubricated bicycle chain.

Waterways criss-cross the place and in these, with the help of a small boat you can escape completely—in some places you’d swear you were a thousand miles from nowhere.

About a ten minute walk from my residence is the Queen City Yacht Club, of which I was a member. Many a pleasant summer afternoon was spent out on its balcony quaffing a few cold pints with fellow members—and sometimes we even went sailing.

On the last weekend of July, the Ward’s Island Picnic is held. There’s music, games, good food and a huge beer tent. I was with a bunch of cronies in the tent one time when who should show up but Pat Coyle, an ex-Islander who’d moved to Paris. I hadn’t seen the bastard for years.

After a few glasses of suds had been consumed while swapping catch-up stories, ‘The Coyle’ and I decided to check out some of the other activities. We were walking across the bridge to neighboring Algonquin Island when we spied something that looked rather interesting to our vaguely befuddled minds.

One of the residents on Algonquin had set up his own event and, as we discovered later, had somehow inveigled Air Canada to provide a first prize of a return ticket to Vancouver. I’ve forgotten the guy’s name, but he had a house fronting one of the canals. On the end of his dock, he’d rigged up a plywood ramp.

What Coyle and I saw from the bridge was the spectacle of a cyclist hurtling at great speed down the embankment, onto the dock then up the ramp. Bicycle and rider shot into the air then landed in the canal. The bicycle had a piece of Styrofoam tied to it so it could be swum back to shore.

This was definitely something of interest. Without a second thought, Coyle and I dove off the bridge and swam over to the dock where we signed ourselves in as contestants. The judges—who were perched on chairs off to the side with clip-boards—were looking for three things: Height, distance and style.

Coyle and I were simply looking for some fun.

Most of the contestants were about twenty years younger than either of us and looked like downtown courier types—bulging calf muscles, determined jaws and long-distance eyes. None of them appeared to have touched a drop of grog. Steroids perhaps.

Each rider had three shots and was judged on his best effort. Coyle and I were the last two riders.

Me. Height and distance good. Style? Hmmm.

To get sufficient speed, you had to begin at the north side of the island and accelerate all the way across it. There were people along the way to make sure pedestrians, dogs and small children were not flattened by deranged cyclists.

I must say, the first run was a trifle daunting. Charging down the street you couldn’t see the dock—just two upright sticks that marked the entrance to the rather narrow ramp that lead to it. The ramp went down at quite an angle so you lifted off briefly—and when you hit the dock you squished down.

But you had to keep thrashing away at the pedals throughout—speed was crucial.

The end result: Coyle first, me second. I suspect that the hops gave us our height and distance, and the malt…well, who knows.

 Edited by Davina

Rogue Waves

Rob and I were sailing through the Canary Islands on my twenty-six foot Westerly Centaur. We’d left Gibraltar some four days previous and were headed for Antigua in the Caribbean. It was the last week of July—a bit late to be crossing the Atlantic with hurricane season just around the corner so we weren’t planning any stops on the way.

The wind was blowing a good force seven from astern, kicking up decent sized waves that occasionally broke over the counter and flooded the cockpit. Because of this, I had the hatch closed and the storm boards slotted in so Rob wouldn’t be disturbed. He’d come off watch at six and was doing a Rip-Van-Winkle in the quarter berth.

It was now around eight in the morning and we were running between two of the Canary islands—Tenerife and Grand Canary. I was perched in the cockpit watching the ocean go by.

People often ask me, “Don’t you get bored during these long trips of yours?”

“Never,” I tell them. I can sit in a forest for maybe an hour, watching chipmunks and squirrels darting around and mushrooms and things growing, but then I want to move on. But the sea—I never get enough of it. I guess because it’s as restless as me. We get along just fine.

Anyway, there I was, happily bobbing around as the waves slid under the boat and the wind shoved us south toward the pristine waters of the Caribbean. Then something changed. It took me a moment to figure out what. The wind was still blowing strong but the sea was calm. How could this be?

The Westerly in more placid waters

I looked back and there was my answer.

The ocean was flat as a pond for perhaps three hundred yards. Then it began to slope up…and up…and up…

I’ve been through three hurricanes at sea. They give a few hours warning and I’ve always thought I had a fighting chance. The fact that I’m still here shows I wasn’t off the mark. But this thing…this thing was so big there was no chance of fighting it. This thing was a wall with a little white beard at its top. This thing would crush me like a bug if it decided to do so.

I never wear a safety harness—I find them too restrictive. But with this monster looming behind me, I improvised my own by winding the tail end of the main sheet around my chest and tying it off to a couple of cleats. I felt sure we were going to perform some acrobatics when this bastard got hold of us.

There was no wind now. The wave had blocked it off completely. We just drifted forward under our momentum, sail hanging loose.

Rob - later in the voyage

I disengaged the self-steering gear and clutched the tiller tightly as the wave approached. Before, there’d been the noise of a strong wind—waves splashing about and the creaking of rigging. Now there was nothing but a kind of low hiss made by the breaking top of the wave.

It eased under the boat and began lifting us. Higher, higher...and higher. But we weren’t tipping forward. It was weird—the boat was almost level, with the stern kind of poked into the wave and the bow sticking out. Up and up we went. It was probably one of the most amazing moments of my life. Looking over the side was like looking down the face of a cliff.

We got almost to the top of the thing then the bow tilted down and off we went. We were flying. The bow wave was like that of an old, deep-hulled speed-boat, enclosing me in a tunnel of flying water. But this only lasted for perhaps ten seconds. Then the breaking top of the thing splashed into the cockpit as the peak slid under us.

The wind caught the sails again as the back of the wave eased us down ever so gently.

I looked astern, and there was another one as huge as the first. The same thing happened. It lifted us up to near the top before the bow tipped down and we did our brief mad dash until the wave slipped from under us.

By the time the third one came along I was beginning to feel like an old pro at this surfing business. I took off my improvised harness and stood up as the peak passed under us. Quite amazing. It was like standing atop a huge ridge in the middle of the ocean. For that brief moment, I could see Tenerife and Grand Canary clearly—each of them some twenty miles off.

When that third and last one passed I found myself regretting that I hadn’t had the presence of mind to wake Rob and shift him up forward. Perhaps with his weight up in the bow we might have been able to ride one of those babies all the way to the Caribbean. Imagine that—a three day crossing of the Atlantic!

But then again, with his weight forward, we might have dug the bow into the water and performed the acrobatics I’d initially anticipated. As it was, Rob simply snored his way through our little adventure.

A year or so later, I got talking to a U.S. navy captain in a bar somewhere. He’d encountered a set of waves like I described only once in his thirty-year career. He said they were usually caused by an underwater seismic shift and could be up to one hundred and twenty feet in height. I put my three at around eighty feet.

Edited by Davina

Hot Peppers & A Mutt

I was staying in Coconut Grove, Miami with an ex-girlfriend Patti. Although we were no longer ‘going together’, we had an easy and comfortable relationship and always managed to have a good laugh.

An incident that occurred when my buddy Willie came down for a visit however, provided splendid amusement for both of them. Unfortunately, their hilarity came at my expense.

Patti - ten years earlier

I was cooking breakfast one morning with Patti as my sous-chef, whilst Willie perched on his butt in the living room doing absolutely nothing.

A couple of months prior to this, in Canada, Willie had played some kind of prank on me—I’ve forgotten exactly what it was, but it had to do with a beer I was drinking. Now, I decided, it was payback time.

I extracted the seeds from some jalapeno peppers—the hottest part of them—and crushed them with a fork and my fingers. They were to be a surprise additional ingredient to Willie’s scrambled eggs.

“Two minutes your lordship,” I called gleefully toward the living room when the eggs were almost done.

Ahhh, the anticipation of sweet revenge!

So preoccupied was I with my vision of a red-faced, goggle-eyed Willie with steam hissing from his ears that when the urge for a quick pre-prandial pee hit me, my pepper-smeared fingers failed to register as a threat.

The peppers made their presence felt when Private Part was summoned to action. It was as if he’d been hauled out from barracks by hot tongs. With tears of agony streaming down my cheeks, I somehow managed to finish what I was doing then darted back to the kitchen.

Willie & Me - ten years later

“Quick,” I said to Patti. “Get me some ice cubes.”

“What on earth…?” she began to ask—but my anguished appearance and desperate tone of  voice conveyed the urgency of the situation and she let it go. As she went for the ice, I grabbed a glass jar off the counter and filled it with water.

“The peppers,” I gasped out as I submerged the soldier in soothing water. Patti added the ice cubes. Upon grasping the significance of my predicament, the corners of her mouth gave a cheeky upward twitch, which I didn’t appreciate.

“What’s taking so long?” calls his Lordship from the living room. Patti couldn’t answer—her jaws were clamped shut in order to contain her mirth.

“Won’t be a minute,” I squeezed out through clenched teeth.

Of course Willie picked up on my distress and came sauntering out to the kitchen. His jaw dropped open at the spectacle of me dancing around with my equipment in a jar of steaming water (well, maybe it wasn’t quite steaming, but it felt like it should have been).

He seemed puzzled at first—and I was not about to enlighten him—but when he spied the gutted peppers on the counter he quickly determined their significance. His eyes lit up gleefully as he began to convulse with laughter. And of course this got Patti going.

My misfortune was the cause of much merriment

So while I’m dancing around in agony, the two of them are hooting and cackling like a pair of hyenas.

Now comes the dog.

Those of you who are thinking, hmmm, this sounds interesting will be disappointed. The dog story has nothing to do with the peppers. The two are related solely by time-frame.

The dog came a couple of days after the peppers when I’d partially recovered from my ordeal. I say partially because there were actual blisters involved.

Anyway, the three of us were sitting out front when this thin, mangy-looking canine trotted in off the street, tail thrashing happily in (what I determined later) a desperate attempt to show goodwill. The thing had no tags on it and seemed to be in dire need of nourishment.

Patti gave it water and a bite of something then we scooted inside so it wouldn’t think it had found a home. The message proved to be overly subtle for this mutt though. Next morning, when I went out onto the porch the beast greeted me as if we’d been pals for years.

I was in no position to take in a dog—I planned to head down south somewhere in a month or so—and Patti didn’t want the responsibility. More drastic measures were called for.

I bundled Fido into the car and drove about ten miles to a nice neighborhood in Coral Gables where I dropped him off—figuring someone there was bound to want a pet. For a few blocks the wretched thing chased me, but I’d learned a few tricks from my bank-robbing days (joking) so was able to give it the slip.

Several hours later, as the three of us sat out on the porch sipping Bloody Mary’s—what should appear but our exhausted friend. How he’d found his way back from ten miles away I’ve no idea. And why he’d singled us out as potential parents was equally obscure.

Needless to say though, after that sterling effort, he found a home with Patti.

Edited by Davina