Wharfinger Yarns

THOSE DAYS IN OCTOBER...
by: Ralph E. Ahseln  10/2010

Part 3

October 23^rd…
        It was another awful day of rain and wind. The forecast had been for clearing, but they had missed, again.
Leslie called first thing in the morning. He wanted to know if the Old Wharfinger had heard about the fancy Schooner “Brightness”.
The old man had no idea what Les was talking about.
“Something happened to the mooring lines of that fancy schmansy schooner “Brightness” last night. They let go somehow and the ship got loose.
She drifted down into the railroad bridge and was Dismasted!!”
The excitement in Les’ voice was palpable. “Good god, it’ll cost them 20,000 bucks to get a new one. Special Carbon fiber and all that. What a mess! “
“Does anyone know how it happened?” the old man asked.
“Nope, it had been on video cameras too, nothing showed up on the screen”.
        The old man shook his head. What is the world was coming to?
Les said that he had to run and would call him later on. The old man grunted a good-bye and hung up.

Late that night, the Wharfinger decided that he’d try to make contact with the
“foreign lady” again. He figured that she must be a Night Person and would probably be up.
As he turned the corner of the docks he was shocked to see the big black boat…. Missing. She apparently had taken the boat out as soon as it had gotten dark. The old man was totally confused now.
He’d try to talk to her... tomorrow.
IF... the boat was still there!

October 24^th…

        The old man made a point of getting up early. He wanted to catch the “Lady” as soon as possible. He’d use the excuse that she had given him too much “Bonus” money.
        There the black boat sat in its slip, mooring lines all proper and looking like it hadn’t moved in years. There were Spider Webs! Spider webs in the shrouds. How in the hell could a boat move with webs?
He figured that she must have moved the boat very gently indeed.

        At first he tap, tapped on the hull. Again, there was no sound.
He rapped harder the next time.. Silence.
He shouted “Miss, Miss, I need to talk to you! “ No response.
Walking back to the office, he began to worry about the lady.
Maybe she was hurt or sick. What happened to her last night?
Perhaps he’d missed an emergency phone number on her application.
He’d look carefully to see if he had missed one.
One thing was sure; He was going to talk to her the first chance he got.
Then it struck him. He’d go to her boat late tonight! She seemed to like the night. That would be the time.
 
He started his vigil as soon as it got dark. He would walk a short distance away and be out of sight for about 5 minutes, then sneak back to take a peek at the black boat. Around 2300 hours, he came back from his short walk just in time to see the vessel moving away from the slip. By the time he had run the distance to the end of the docks, the boat was too far away. He watched it move out into the main channel.

October 25^th…

The morning was cold and wet again. The old Wharfinger skipped his morning coffee and quickly walked down to the slip he dreaded to checkout.
There it was Black and, yes, ugly. In his eyes it was taking on a hateful look to him. He still worried about the woman who owned it, but he didn’t like the boat. He wished he could talk to her and convince her to get rid of the Damned thing. He hadn’t noticed before, but besides the spider webs, it had strands of what looked like moss hanging from the head stay and spreaders.
It was an ugly, dirty boat.
He trudged back to the office. Coffee is what he needed and maybe he could get “Stumpy” to eat something. The poor cat had begun to getting thin and hardly moved anymore. The old flea bag just lie under the desk, mewing.
When he got close to the office he saw one of the private port cops. It was one of the Shepherd brothers, Dana.
 

        “Hey, you old rascal, I was about to call the city cops. You’re usually in drinking your morning coffee at this time of the day. Where ya been?”
Dana is one of the good guys and always kept an eye on the Wharfinger.
“I’ve been checking one of the boats. It’s been having some problems”
He lied. Dana continued. “Well, I just dropped by to make sure you were OK. There’s been a lot of crap going on around the docks lately. Break ins, vandalism, mistreatment of animals. A lot of bad stuff happenin’. Be careful! “

“OK, I will”

After his friend Dana left, the old man figured that he’d better check on the boats in his marina. He’d never had any trouble before, but in these times, and with a lot of crazy stuff happening, it’d be a good idea to check the boats anyway.

        The rest of the day he spent walking the docks looking around “his” boats.
There HAD been some oddities and some damages.
One boat appeared to have its mainsail cover ripped open. There was an old Pearson Vanguard , which looked like it was taking on water. Maybe the bilge pump had failed. Two or three other boats had Streaks running fore and aft. It looked like someone had “painted” the hulls with an oily brush. He was going to have to call the owners. Especially the guy who owned the sinking Pearson.
        Back in his office, a warm cup of coffee in his hand, the phone rang. It was his good friend, Leslie.
Les had more stories of boats that had run into trouble out on the bay.
One boat had sunk last night, after hitting a rock that wasn’t on the charts. Fortunately no one was hurt. Another boat caught fire when the owner tried to use his Grill. He was having a party around 1:00 am when the grill just exploded. His hair got scorched and a couple of minor burns were on his hands.
“Boy, a lot of bad boat stuff happening lately”.
        The old man listened to his friend and said, “Les, you’re just imagining things. Stuff like that is happening all the time. People aren’t very careful. We’re just hearing about a few of them now. All you have to do is read the Boat US magazine. It’s full of ‘smash, crash bang’ events of boats. You need to come down here and have a cup of Gin with me. That’ll chase the boogey mens away” He laughed.
Les groaned and ended the phone call with… “Yeah, but there’s been a LOT of them... and they’ve been Very Close to us. Too close!”

"Stumpy", stuck his head out from under the desk and...... Hissed

(Conclusion: to be posted at midnight)

Part 1

Part 2

Part 4