I sank sailboats

Here's a little entry to start things off.

Its no surprise to anyone who went to camp with me that I was not a 'waterfront' type of person. I was much happier spending my days at camp doing activities on dry ground, where the risk of drowning was considerably lessened...plus I tended to enjoy the activities set out amongst the forest and lodge more than those on the waters edge. Nonetheless, waterfront activities had the shiny glossy reputation, no doubt given that you were out under the sun getting a tan for that still well proportioned teenage bod. But I always thought there was certain hierarchical element to it all. The pretty and popular, and yes physically fit people did the water front activities. And no one can deny that he --and note that it was almost always a he-- that drove the ski boat was the camp number two, the chief lieutenant, the most trusted of Skip's lackeys. Those who did waterfront activities were members of the master race.

And then there were the sub-strata of us who were relegated to the deep recesses of the forest, bidding our time in the fern and root encrusted darkness until our next day off. We were damaged goods and bare competents, who despite being trusted with all of Kawabi's marshal and weapon related activities, could only relied upon to make sure some kid didn't flip off the tramp into the B2 tent head-first, or that there wouldn't be some freak gimp accident in the craft shop. We were the proletariat of Camp Kawabi.

All that is utter crap of course. There was an egalitarian mix of activities and staff, but in my hormone addled teenage mind, I saw the world in this distorted Darwinian way. Poor Nick. So to break out of my strata, I decided in August of my second year on staff to procure myself a spot in a waterfront activity. I chose sailing for a couple of reasons. First, I had done it several times as a camper, enjoyed it, and was almost competent at it. Second was that I didn't have the slightest clue about any of the other activities, having never really done any of them as a camper, except swimming, which I hated intensely and would have done extremely poorly in that position. So process of elimination = sailing.

At first I did ok. I remembered enough of it from being a camper that I was able to get the boat out to the middle of Big Hawk; this despite my complete ignorance of the various rope knots that one was supposed to know as a sailor (did admire the 'knot board' by the sailing bench many times though). However, one day the wind was really kicking and my boat capsized. This sucked, but I noticed that a couple of others had capsized as well. While we were sitting there waiting for the windsurfing barge to come and rescue us, I noticed that the hull of our boat was starting to submerge under water. I thought this was a little weird, and looked about to see if anybody else's was doing the same. Hell no, just mine. My first concern was to make sure my campers were ok and then to back them out of the way of the boat so as not to be sucked under with it, along with making sure they were cool with treading water for the next little while. After that was done, I turned around and witnessed an image I can still vividly recall, that red hulled sail boat fading away from sight as it sank to the bottom of the lake. I remember people saying afterwards that it was really unusual for that to happen due to the buoyancies within the boat that should have kept it at the surface. Strike one sailboat from the docks.

The next time happened in much the same way, except that I couldn't blame the wind; I simply screwed up a tack and turtled. However, I was now an expert at capsizing boats so I knew what to do, and did it in a calm matter of fact kind of way. And besides, this time around I thought the boat wouldn't sink so we could just hang on to the hull for a while. No such luck. This time I watched a yellow hulled boat disappear from my sight into the murky darkness below. I was completely baffled how this could happen, again?

There was a third time. It had happened in exactly the same manner as the previous one. Again I watched a sailboat disappear under water. As it sank, I think I turned to the kid next to me and exclaimed in a terror-tinged voice, "what the fuck is going on here!?" This time no one spoke of faulty boats or freak accidents. It was simple, I was cursed, a veritable one man Bermuda Triangle. After that incident I was freaked out and did not want to enter another sailboat again, least next time I sink more than just a boat. Realizing that I had cost the camp three sailboats in three weeks, I think I went to Skip and asked to switch activities, while at the very same time he said he wanted to take me off of sailing, i.e., the feeling was mutual. So back to third period tramp I went, not wholly unhappy; sure it was mind-numbingly boring, but at least you can't sink a trampoline, no matter how hard you try.

Fletch