From My Back Porch

The back porch of the boat that is, on its mooring in the Parker River, Plum Island Sound.

It's a scorcher.  The thermometer in my car on the way home reads 99 degrees.  But it's pretty comfortable.  The canvas over my head shields me from the sun, and there is a strong breeze out of the northwest.  Late July in these parts is peak time for "greenheads" -- vicious little horseflies -- but this summer they seem to be sparse and, yes, listless!

Two heart-warming vignettes that make me glad I came to do nothing in particular, both throwbacks to a time and place not tainted by our incessant technology.

First, I spy a classic wooden catboat charging in my direction across the Sound.  The vessel is well known here, sporting as it does a big white mainsail, but with a large blue stripe making a diagonal, and within a stylized American flag.  I don't know the captain/owner at all, but I can say with some confidence, based only on the local culture, that this patriotic display is not of the aggressive, "in your face" kind; it is softer and more traditional than that.

I can tell that our captain intends to split the difference between my boat and the little sloop moored behind me, and then to tack over smartly towards the northeast, making his way up the Sound.  In the event, he can't quite accomplish it; the boat luffs up and loses most of its momentum.  But I can see that the captain is in control.  The boat retains enough momentum to slough off to the northwest, avoiding collision.  Only after 20 or 30 yards of separation thus achieved does the captain let her fall off again to a close reach, fill her sails and indeed tack over smartly.  Twenty minutes later, the big sail is just a dot on the northern horizon.

Second.  There is another such catboat moored to my right, with a light tan sail cover wrapping its boom and lowered gaff.  I know it as a near neighbor, but I have never seen anyone on it.  Abruptly, three young girls in bathing suits, fifteen, sixteen? (I could get a better idea with my binocs but that would invite allegations of creepiness), pop out of the cabin and blow up a very big, pink swan.  Think a poolside Rubber Ducky raft.  They tether it to the stern of the catboat, throw it overboard and jump in for a long frolic.

The Sound is notorious for two things not conducive to swimming -- cold and strong currents.  (I know two grown men who have died in this very anchorage.)  But the tide is now completely slack at its ebb, and one of the girls, her voice carrying with the legendary clarity over the water, declares the sea's temperature "a lot better than it was!"

There is a feature of the lower Sound, roughly 100 yards from my boat, maybe 75 yards from theirs, called Middle Ground.  It is an area of shallows about the size of a football field.  It becomes a little island, "uncovers" that is, but only about an hour each side of low tide.  Right now there are a couple of small boats beached there, and a man walks his dog in water that is maybe three inches deep.

The three girls make the swim to those same shallows, tugging their raft along with them.  There they soak the sun; I notice with admiration that their banter with one another is totally without teasing or malice.

But then another hour has passed.  They have to make it back to the catboat, and an incoming tide has set in.  I worry for them.  What if they have misjudged, and it becomes too strong for them to make headway against it?  And where, by the way, is there any kind of adult supervision to ensure their safety (and, it's true, take much of the joy out of their frolic)?

They have not misjudged anything.  To the contrary, the tether between their raft and the mother ship is slender but very long, and it's still attached.  When they make their way against the tide (which is, in fact, pretty gentle on this day and at this time), if they tire they can jump onto the raft and simply pull themselves back to safety.

I have two thoughts.  One is about how much I wish that my own mother's fear of the water had not prevented me and my siblings from becoming such little fish when we were young.  The other carries the clock forward about ten years from now when, statistically speaking, there is a pretty good chance that I will be gone.  The girls, though, will be in fine form and in fancy dress, together, as each in turn takes a husband.  And a few years after that, the cares of adulthood will have made themselves felt; in Philip Larkin's words, those cares will "gather like a coastal shelf."  But the three, lifelong friends, will still have memories of lazy summer days like this one.