A COMEDY OF ERRORS AND MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

[A disclaimer to all mothers and grandmothers reading this post—emphasis in title should be heaped upon the word NOTHING]

If Shakespeare had gotten the chance to combine two of his plays, it would have been about five sailors trying to make a passage up to Anegada. He would have called it “A Comedy of Errors and Much Ado About Nothing.”  Things would have started out smoothly, as all his stories do; Three eager deckhands—Chloe, Connor, and Sev deftly using their synchronized knot tying skills and capably lashing fenders to the starboard side of the boat as it is pulled up to a dock to fill water tanks.  We would see fenders all being tied on in unison, as the audience is introduced to a band of pretty impressive and capable characters they would settle in for an entertaining tale about a passage about to be undertaken from Virgin Gorda’s Bitter End to the island of Anegada.

Unlike our previous transits, this leg of our journey had wind at our backs and provided us with the opportunity to stop the motor, hoist the main, and do some welcome sailing.  They skies were clear, the sea was calm, the wind was light.  But, just as if this were Will’s play for an audience’s amusement, smooth sailing is not what entertains, and therefore bedlam must ensue.  Two deckhands enter the stage, or rather, the top deck and ready themselves to hoist the mainsheet on Mark’s command.

Connor seated the wench handle into the slot and began the laborious process of raising the main.  This can be an exhausting job and so the plan was for Sev and Connor to take turns cranking the halyard up.  Mark positioned the boat at just the right angle to fill it ever so slightly as it rose as not to put too much pressure to make the job difficult yet plenty to keep it taught and not dangerously flogging our deckhands.  As all things do in life and Shakespeare, this is where the plot thickens and trouble stirs. 

As Connor raises the main, it gets caught in the stays.  The stays are the thin wires holding up the lazyjack, or canvas bed, the sails neatly fold into when they are lowered and not in use.  As the he cranked the main up, the wind pushed the topmost corner of the sail into the crisscross of wires and stopped it from being raised any further.  Mark, watching from the bridge called out to have Connor lower it, then repositioned the boat to ease the wind’s pressure on the sail, and then barked at him to raise it once again.  Connor lowered the halyard by cranking the handle counter-clockwise and then re-cranking it back up in a strenuous clockwise motion.  Again it got caught and again he lowered and raised it at Mark’s command.  If you ask Connor, this arduous up and down scuffle between the sails and the stays repeated itself a back breaking million times.  Severin was eager to take a turn but had commenced a vigorous battle against the flapping corner of the sail, which had a grommet and metal ring fastened to it and turned itself into a lashing instrument of pain whipping at Connor’s back as he battled the stays.  From where I was perched, the deck looked like we were hosting a Stake Dance—you know how kids these days dance as a small mob and not so much as couples?—There was Connor shimmying back and forth, arms grinding in a circular motion while Sev, with hands outstretched, continuously raising then lowering his hands at the flapping sail.  All we needed was music and refreshments. 

Sweat was now pouring off Connor.  Severin was dripping too but his was blood. 

Now this is where Shakespeare would have planned an intermission.  Certainly the plot had thickened and the audience’s curiosity has been peaked enough to return for the rest of the story after the break.  But I will not make you wait for 15 minutes since I know the spectators are made up of mothers and grandmothers who are anxiously awaiting Part 2.  These ladies are not interested in running to the loo or grabbing a nice beverage, nor reading the playbill and remarking on the fine job our cast has done thus far.  We shall return to the scene of bloodshed without further delay. 

We return to the scene on deck where Severin has turned the deck into an homage of the great battle scene at Gettysburg, if Gettysburg had been made of white fiberglass decking.  And in our case the blood-soaked battlefield had not come from a legion of fallen soldiers, but instead, just one.  As you can imagine, it was an alarming and gruesome scene.  By this I mean the deck and not the boy.  The boy was cool and calm and unaware he was bleeding.

We return our attention briefly back to Connor (a good playwright must build suspense), who is still entrenched in a battle with the stays, cranking and uncranking.  At the rear, Mark was still barking orders at Connor from the helm and the ever brave battle-wounded Severin still firmly holding his position and acting as a defensive shield for his poor sweaty comrade Connor.  At this point all of us unaware of the bloodshed taking place from Severin’s elbow—the cause of which, at the time I write this, still remains a mystery. 

I then take the helm and send Mark up to help the boys.  They’ve been outmanned by a sail and a stay.  Mark arrived on deck to the bloody and alarming scene as if Carrie had been newly crowned prom queen.  He surveyed the boys, grabbed at the line, and  shouted, “who’s been hurt?”  I’m not sure at that point either boy was aware of there was any bloodshed nor who among them had been injured.  Then Severin realized the bloody trail was leading to him. 

Meanwhile I had taken over skipper duties at the wheel and was mentally reviewing my ‘rules of the road’ as the traffic ahead seemed to be dotted with boats under both power and sail in all directions.  There is an unwritten ocean rule that when I take the helm, all ships must converge and snarl in an LA-like traffic conflagration around any vessel I am trying to command. I was dodging and weaving my way through a labyrinth of boats and trying to decide if being in command of a boat having its sail only half-way up legitimized us as being truly under sail and therefore immune to giving way to boats operating under power.  Technically my engine was still running and I didn’t remember any of the rules for grey areas.

As if the traffic snarl wasn’t enough, (Like any good Shakespearean play all hell must break loose for the finale to truly be magnificent to garner a standing ovation) Mark began barking orders for me to keep certain headings while he helped Connor hoist the sail.  I was focusing on the orders, the snarling traffic, the wind, and our compass when a bloody body slips by me and heads into the boat.  With one eye on the traffic and one hand on the wheel I lean down towards the open salon doors and call out to Sev who has left a blood-soaked trail leading into the boat.  He calls out with a laugh that he is fine and has no idea where the blood is coming from other then the general area of his arm.  Chloe surveys the boy and deems him fine but as a precautionary move recommends I come in for a quick check.  Our wounded deckhand Sev is still laughing as Chloe casually grabs for a water bucket to rinse off the bloody deck—apparently the only thing needing triage is the fiberglass.

Once the sail was firmly and finally in place, Mark took back the helm and I went below to check on Sev who had looted the Ziploc of Band-Aids and Chloe liberally applied five or six to his offending elbow.  Somehow I am always the medic wherever we go, though I haven’t any sound or formal training for the job.  I’m like Leonardo DiCaprio from that movie “Catch Me if you Can” who just fakes it in hopes of not getting caught.  For reasons that defy all logic, the fact that I have used three of my four children as human pin-cushions (of the diabetic variety) for the last twenty years, has rewarded me with the bizarre confidence of others and an unmerited license to practice healthcare by the misguided people around me.  And, given fact that I have an insatiable curiosity for blood and guts, not unlike, say, Jeffery Dahmer, (minus disposition to eat people), which has, for some asinine reason, only served to increase others confidence in the fact that I can deal with the bloodiest of carnage.  Two ridiculous particulars that recommend me to the job but nonetheless mean absolutely nothing.  My resume is a fraud.

However, this doesn’t stop me from practicing my quackery. 

I take the surplus of bandages off Severins elbow, brace myself for blood, bones, and guts, and have a look see.  There is blood still seeping from the wound so I grab a paper towel and dab it.  With the blood gone I can get a closer look.  Except, I need my reading glasses to do so.  To my disappointment (and his mother and grandmother’s sheer relief) I can’t figure out where the blood is coming from.  I squint and look closer and spot a small pimple-like bump and decide this must be the source.  I stand and watch it for a moment and sure enough it begins to bleed again.  Eureka!  I have Sev apply a little pressure while I search to see if Chloe has left any spare Band-Aids in the Ziploc.  I find a mini Band-Aid that is more than generous in size for the job description. 

I search one more time to locate the microscopic cut and fasten it to the offending spot and we all have a good laugh—everyone but Connor that is.  In the end it is Connor who is worse for wear.  It seems raising the sail was a mightier task than he had bargained for and he didn’t have the energy to find anything funny, even Severin’s itsy bitsy teeny tiny blood spewing wound.  Sev was fine, Chloe returned the fiberglass deck to its previous white luster, but Connor…he went below deck and took a two hour nap.  I think he’ll make Sev raise the main next time and opt for the Band-Aid.

Happily, the end of this epic tale finds all five crewmembers happily arriving safe and sound, and more importantly, doing so under sail, in a lovely bay on Anegada’s beautiful shores.

[All five cast members take a generous bow.]