Mayday

Mayday



I hadn’t thought about that day on the boat for years, until I read a story last night about a boy and his brother at a bus stop. I was about 6, which would have made my brother Greg 5. We had spent the day in Bar Harbor with Dad and were headed home.



We used to go to Bar Harbor to visit friends of Dad’s, Gary and Susan. They had 2 kids, Debbie and Donny, about the same age as Greg and I. The trip didn’t take long, as Sorrento to Bar Harbor by boat was only about 20 minutes. It wasn’t at all uncommon for Dad to round us up in the middle of the rare day off and head across the harbor for the isit.



Dark usually signaled time to make the trip home. The friendship between the families had evolved as both fathers were fishermen, so their day started early which meant late nights were rarities. This night was different though, dark came and we didn’t leave for the dock. The adults sat around the kitchen table, while we kids made tents on the floor and probably watched the “Waltons” or “Little House on the Prairie.” “Come on kids, it’s time to go” Dad finally yelled. He carried two sleepy kids out to Gary’s truck and Gary took the three us down to the dock.



Greg and I had grown up on the boat; in fact it was named for us, the “Sally Greg.” Dad was a single parent and a self employed fisherman, either a tough road in the early 1970s, together a daunting undertaking. Babysitters had never been a part of our life, I’m not sure if it was due to his hours or his commitment to us. We knew our way around that boat, better than we knew our way around our house. Neither one of us could remember when the boat was launched, but he had showed us the movie numerous times. It was an old 8mm movie with the big reel projector and Greg and I could sit for hours watching that boat slide down the launch ramp, then rewind it and watch it come back up the ramp. We would giggle so hard as the champagne bottle put itself back together during rewind. She was as much a part of the family as any of us.



That night was exceptionally foggy, thick and wet; I remember I couldn’t find a single star in the sky. Dad put Greg and I down below in the engine room, he had make bunks for us with sleeping bags and pillows. At 5 and 6, we could navigate around a diesel engine better than most kids could play hopscotch. We weren’t just children of a lobsterman; we were children of that boat.



The engine fired up, and the boat chugged in reverse as we pulled away dock. The familiar feeling of going from reverse to forward and the rolling in our wake, started to lull Greg and I back to sleep. I can recall our nonsensical chatter and giggles were fading, as the boat lurched to a standstill, tossing Greg to the floor. Dad yelled for the two of us to come up above. At that moment I thought we were in trouble, not being old enough to recognize what I now know was panic in his voice. As we poked our heads out of the engine room door, Dad was frantically talking on his CB. We caught words like, “28 foot fishing vessel and off course”. We had no idea what was happening, but we were scared. Two little frightened kids standing in a wheelhouse of a boat, which we would soon find out was in the path of the Blue Nose, an enormous car-passenger ferry (compared to a 28 foot boat) returning from a trip to Canada.



The boat pitched in the waves and Dad continued to talk anxiously on the radio. We were old enough to know what Mayday meant and when we heard Dad say it, we started to cry. I’m sure that is exactly what he needed then; two howling kids to deal with at the same time as he was trying to avoid being hit by a much bigger boat. The “Sally Greg” was a sturdy boat but she was a wooden 28 foot boat in the time before modern electronics were the norm, in the direct path of a much larger metal vessel.



The events that happened next remain clear as a bell to me. He made us put life jackets on. In 2010 that may not seem extraordinary, but in 1970, that was a big deal. Greg and I had been able to swim since we could remember and we had always known where the life jackets where as well as what they were for, but this was our first actual encounter with them. After we were in them, as he was trying to maneuver the boat plus keep communications with the Coast Guard and the Blue Nose, he tied us to the life ring of the boat.



There we stood, two little kids in life jackets, tied to a life ring that ironically had their names on it, Dad at the wheel of the boat, trying to save what he most loved in his life; his children and his boat. The crying had stopped as we stood there like two statues watching this unfold. Over Dad talking on the radio, we could hear the repetitive fog horn of the Blue Nose getting closer, but unable to see anything through the fog.



The noise of the horn continued to get closer and Dad was still trying to get a bearing on their location in comparison to ours. The next thing I remember was hitting the floor of the boat as he threw the boat into reverse and the boat started to roll even worse, which we had enough experience to know it meant the Blue Nose was getting closer causing wake. Dad put the radio down after trying one last time to communicate directly with the Blue Nose to no avail and did two things I had rarely if ever seen him do. He told us he loved us and asked God to save us.



The radio crackled right after that and the Coast Guard was calling the “Sally Greg”. Dad answered the radio to be told by them the Blue Nose had contacted them and relayed they had passed us and we were out of danger. Dad then did a third thing I had never seen him do before that night, he cried. He then picked us up. Left us in the lifejackets and tied to the life ring and sat us on the steering ledge and left us there for the rest of the trip.



When I think of that night, I can still remember how scared I was, and how Greg and I clutched each other. Mostly though, that night evokes memories of how a mortal man became a superhero in 2 little kids’ eyes.