And If That Wasn’t Enough

I forgot one crucial happening from our darkest days in Taiohae, which should have been included as an event in the “Yachtie Decathlon”. An event known as “Fish your wife out of the drink.”

As in, Alisa went overboard. Not the metaphorical way that she sometimes does, but actually. With a splash.

It was night. We were anchored in Taiohae. I was below, sweating on some damn part of the boat that was broken. Eli was asleep. Alisa was adjusting the dinghy painters to stop the Fair Dinkum from banging into Pelagic. I heard a splash that sounded more like a commotion alongside than it did the sound of someone falling overboard.

Then I heard Alisa calling my name with an intensity and an earnestness that I hadn’t heard in a while. I came upstairs to find her in the water, holding onto the side of the boat, and very clearly wanting to be back on deck.

I rigged the swim ladder and she was quickly aboard, surrounded by the big puddle of water that was flowing out of her soaked clothes. “All I could think of was the sharks that Eli and I were watching around the boat today,” she said.

(For the record, they were small sharks. But still.)

Someone had closed the gate in the lifelines (the wire fence that surrounds the decks and keeps us aboard) without closing the safety latch all the way. Not Alisa, not Eli, but Someone. So when Alisa leaned against that section of lifeline the safety latch popped open and she went for a moonlight swim.

When you’re on a roll, you’re on a roll.

Going overboard is the biggest taboo on Pelagic. Forgetting to mention this event just shows me how much other stuff was going on in Taiohae.

And so, now you know.