The Last Sail

There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The earth was still. Tranquil. Diminutive waves gently grazed the shore. It was simply not possible to conjure a more perfect late summer afternoon, though you innately sensed the weather was about to turn. The deep green foliage along the coast would soon transform into fiery shades of orange, yellow, and red.

We were young, kids really, my husband and me. Newlyweds. At times it felt like we were just play acting at being adults. We were broke, just trying to survive from day to day. We shared a tiny one-bedroom apartment and both worked at low-paying jobs, barely covering the rent each month.

But there was one indulgence we allowed ourselves as often as we could during the summer months living along the Long Island Sound. We'd head down to the coast and rent a 14' Hobie catamaran for a 2-hour sailing excursion. It cost $40, a veritable fortune for us. But there was nothing that could compare to your fist tightly gripping the sail's rope as the wind inevitably tugged on the sail and pulled the boat up onto one hull, gliding us through the water like a knife through butter, taking us in whatever direction the wind and the sea desired.

Some days the water would be particularly choppy, but not this day. It was smooth as glass. There were no oversized speed boats full of partiers drinking and laughing as they floored past us at speeds of up to 40mph leaving us bobbing like a cork in their wake. And while it was exhilarating every time it happened, it was also quite terrifying. My heart would pound in my chest while I silently prayed that I’d live to see another day. Then, after the water calmed and my adrenaline settled back down, I’d just laugh at myself for being so easily frightened by the waves.

But on this late summer day, it was just us and the sea, reveling in the glory of a perfect summer day. It was so calm we didn’t even bother donning the requisite life vests. Why would you need one on a day like today?

The peacefulness of the day lulled me into daydreaming about what surely would be better days for us someday down the road. We'd have better jobs. We’d buy our very own house. We’d have children. Maybe we'd even be able to buy our very own sailboat – one of those 20’ real boats. We’d take our friends out sailing and celebrate with a champagne toast just like those other people we’d enviously watch flying by our much slower vessel.

But now we were nearing the end of our two-hour rental, so we came about and turned to head back to shore – back to the reality that was our day-to-day life.

It was slow going, given how little wind there was, and it seemed to be dwindling even more. I closed my eyes and tilted my face upward to feel the warmth of the sun and try to store the memory of our last sail of the summer, when suddenly, out of nowhere, came a huge gust of wind.

I laughed at the irony. Now it’s going to get windy enough to sail? Now that our two hours are up? And while it was a little unsettling, I wasn’t overly alarmed. We were only 50 yards from shore. How deep can the water be here, I wondered. Three feet? Five feet at most?

But then a second, stronger gust of wind hit the sail and the boat started tilting, then leaned all the way up onto one of its hulls. We both bent our bodies toward the other side of the boat, attempting to pull it back down into the water, to no avail. Then we quickly shifted the entire weight of our bodies to the center of the boat, but the boat was not having it. The wind tipped us completely over and I felt myself slowly sliding down the side of the hull, fully anticipating I was about to experience a very cold splash before my feet would inevitably hit the soupy, muddy muck beneath us.

But instead, I was shocked to find myself going down, down, down, deep into an abyss. I was deeply confused. Suddenly I was completely lost and had absolutely no idea which way was up. Did I tumble when I fell? Am I upside down? I started frantically swimming the breaststroke, hoping the water would clear and I would see sunlight as I tried looking all around me in the murky water. Slowly as the dirt and sand we had stirred up started to settle, I saw a faint glimmer of light and began swimming with all my strength until I finally popped up to the surface and took in a huge gasp of air, spewing out all the salty, dirty water that had made its way down into my lungs.

I looked around for my husband and saw he was around the other side of the boat, trying to pull it back upright out of the water, while I was frantically treading water, holding onto the hull, and trying to mentally collect myself.

“What happened?” I muttered after I'd finally nearly caught my breath. Nothing like this had ever occurred before when we'd been out in much stronger wind than those couple of gusts so I was just deeply confused.

But he just shrugged and kept trudging through the mud, tugging on the boat until he’d pulled it up onto the shore next to the other boats abandoned there by other renters who’d given up on their day’s sail much earlier than we had.

He only replied, “Let’s go get a drink to celebrate our last sail of the summer.”

I stared at him, waiting for him to acknowledge that his wife had just nearly drowned. But he never did.

"Yes, let's go get that drink," I finally responded.

It was the last time I ever sailed.