A Day at Alligator Harbor

A couple of weekends ago at the Club’s Wind Ceremony my son Thomas wound up conversing with a couple of members who were high-wind/short board enthusiasts.  These wild-eyed lanky gentlemen spoke of such things as carving jibes, “sinker” boards that required water starting, winds of 25 knots being barely adequate, and other heretical sorcery that had no place in the well-ordered and reasonable world of old-school longboarding in which his father lived.  To Thomas, however, these short-board sailing accounts told by these dashing figures sounded like the greatest thing, much more exciting than anything one might do with a longboard in pleasant winds.  Unconventional launching sites were discussed and phone numbers were exchanged so Thomas could be in the loop on any future short-boarding excursions.

Not one week later texts of “Wind is up tomorrow!” buzzed through the parties’ phones and plans were made to meet at a super-secret launching area on the edge of Alligator Harbor.  The forecast had strong winds blowing from the north-northeast in the sunny late morning and early afternoon, then a relative lull for an hour or so followed by a howling near-gale blowing from the east-northeast under overcast skies.  Alligator Harbor with its mostly-enclosed sailing area was therefore deemed relatively safe.

Thomas, who recently installed a set of roof pads on his Honda Civic, indicated he could go by himself if I was unable to go.  I had planned to work in the yard that day but I quickly reminded myself that should anything happen to Thomas while windsurfing I would surely suffer a fate not unlike that which befell Mel Gibson at the end of “Braveheart” at the hands of his mother so I quickly decided to go and make sure he didn’t get blown away, eaten by sharks, or worse.  Besides, I would have fun on my Windsurfer LT, which all reasonable people know is ideal in all conditions.  Thomas had just gotten a new-to-him centerboard-less short board from another member which to me looked like a shiny blue ironing board, but in his wisdom (and on the recommendation of one of the dashing figures) he thought he ought to start out with a slightly larger board, which we also brought along.  This larger board, a Mistral New Malibu, was in my opinion still ridiculously small but was at least larger than the ironing board and had a centerboard.  The last (and only) time I tried the New Malibu I named it “the 4X4” because to me it felt about as stable as trying to stand up on a piece of 4x4 lumber floating in the water.  I could have also named it “Das Boot” because when I was able to finally get up on it without immediately falling it plowed along virtually entirely underwater, the mast sticking up like a periscope.

Once everything was packed up we headed south and finally arrived at the super-secret launching site.  A couple of the others were there and rigging up in the brisk wind.  The area seemed safe enough—the wind was coming directly at us and the width of Alligator Harbor stretched about two and a half miles to our left and the same distance to our right, and it was about a mile and a quarter to the shoreline straight across.  The only area not fully enclosed by land was a gap of about a half mile wide at the far left side of the harbor.  Warnings were given that there was no good shore to walk back along, so no matter what make sure you didn’t get blown downwind or to any shore except right where we launched from, and also be aware that the wind was expected to shift more easterly later and blow a lot harder.

I rigged up the LT and Thomas rigged up the Malibu and we were off.  Thomas seemed to be doing fine on the Malibu and I was having fun on the LT.  We tooled around for a while, and I eventually headed back towards our launch site.  I had my fun and was tired after wrenching the LT’s sail around and I didn’t want to unnecessarily push my limits.  Thomas kept sailing, going far and wide and back again with the others.  It was a nice, beautiful sunny day.

After a while everyone returned, standing on the sand enthusiastically talking about conditions and gear as returning sailboarders will do.  The others began rigging different gear while Thomas went back into the water to practice water starting, which was difficult because the booms were too high as a result of the mast being about a foot too long.  As I watched he tried to water start over and over for at least 15 minutes, undoubtedly tiring himself out.  By this time the wind had noticeably picked up and veered much more easterly under the now grey overcast sky.  The others went out and were zipping along at insane speeds, and Thomas gave up trying to water start and joined them.  As I stood on the sand watching, the wind continued to steadily increase.  Sand was now blowing sideways and hitting my entire body.  The harbor was covered in whitecaps.  As I watched over the next couple of minutes, everyone was kind of getting a bit downwind ….

Fast forward five long minutes.  Thomas seemed to now be continually falling.  He’s up!  He’s down again ….  He’s up again!  Come on!  Dang, there he goes down again ….  Farther and farther away by the second, downwind, blowing towards the nether regions of either uninhabited beach strand or maybe even to the open gap to the gulf itself.  I figured he has got to be utterly exhausted by now.  How could he not be? The others were back now, we are all watching from shore.  It was not a good moment for me.  Vague rescue plans began forming in my mind.  His mother’s face with that soul-chilling twitching left eye danced before me.   Then … he’s up.  Seconds pass.  He’s still up!  Somehow, he’s beating into that wind and those waves.  Could there be hope?  He’s STILL up!  Come on!  Incredulously, over the next couple of minutes he slowly and steadily beat into that wind, all the way back to us.  He jumps off the board into the shallows and is laughing.  Somehow, he’s not exhausted.  At all.  He said it took him a bit to figure out the right angle of board and sail to be able to beat into this wind and once he did it was no big deal.  As for me, I’m pretty sure I aged a few years in the previous ten minutes, having had visions of late-night Coast Guard searches and being slowly disemboweled by his mother while strapped on a table. 

It was then that I realized he is a lot stronger and more experienced now than he was just a few years ago when we first started windsurfing, when I had to rescue him a time or two.  The others, having rested a while, went back out into what was now an utter maelstrom of froth and sea-wrack.  We watched them do things on their boards at speeds I’ve only seen before on YouTube videos. And then Thomas says HE wanted to go back out too!  I about had a stroke trying to decide whether to beat him with half a mast that was laying there or with the folding beach chair that had long since toppled from the wind.  All I could manage was to yell “NO!  YOU ARE NOT GOING BACK OUT!” 

We watched the others till they came back in, we all talked and joked some more, and then eventually packed up and headed out on US 98 as I listened to Thomas extoll the virtues of short-boarding and high winds.  After stopping for a good meal at Hamaknockers BBQ we made our way back to Tallahassee and home, to a hot shower and for me, having delivered the boy alive and sound of wind and limb to his mother, a well-deserved nap.