complete surprise the canoe shot away from the dock and started across the lake so fast it made a little bow wave. I slammed the steering paddle across the stern and pushed sideways a bit. The canoe turned, caught even more speed and seemed to leap for the far shore, which lay three or four miles away.
I had time for one gleeful thought of triumph as we zipped to a point almost exactly in the middle of the lake. Then the canoe flipped upside down with a vicious sideways roll that came out of nowhere so fast that I was caught beneath it—my head in the dark—and wondering what had happened. I swam out from under the canoe—it remained afloat because it was made of wood—and struggled to get it back upright. It teetered for an instant and then flopped over the other way, upside down again.
Back and forth we went, like a wounded gull, the sail flopping first left and then right until, finally, I gave up and pulled the mast out, turned the canoe back upright, bailed it out and paddled it back to shore, swearing that I would never, absolutely never, sail again.
So when I first realized I must be on the sea, near the sea, in the sea, I thought of power boats and not sailboats.
Then I began to read about the sea and found that the Pacific Ocean was so enormous it dominated the entire planet; all the land mass in the world could fit inside the Pacific and there would still be sea around it. If I wanted to know this ocean—and I did, desperately—then I needed a kind of vessel that could cover great distances. The only power vessels with adequate fuel capacity were large ships and there was no way I could ever afford to own a ship.
I would have to use a vessel that used free power, the wind. I would have to use a sailboat.
At the time, 1965, I was working in Hollywood, learning to write, and the second thing happened that would change my life forever.
I was part of a low-level party circuit of writers who worked on the fringe of films and were not yet successful. We were always trying to meet the Right People, to be at the Right Place at the Right Time. (Yes, I believed then that was the way it was done, until I found that it was the opposite of the truth and taught nothing.) A very rich and famous star invited a dozen or so of us up to Lake Arrowhead to his waterfront home for a weekend party. I don’t know why he invited us—God knows he didn’t know any of us and never spoke to us—but it was exactly the kind of party we thought it was important to attend and we all drove up on Friday night for “a glorious weekend at the lake.”
Lake Arrowhead is a semiritzy area, a very small lake in the mountains near Los Angeles, a reservoir lake. Coming from northern Minnesota, where I lived among some fourteen thousand lakes, visiting this one was not particularly exciting for me.
Early Saturday morning, having concluded that the whole thing was a bust, I went for a walk along the shore, killing time until my host woke up and I could tell him I had some urgent reason to go back to the city. I rounded a bend in the shoreline and came upon a wooden dock that stuck out fifty feet into the lake. Tied to the dock was a small sailboat. It had one sail, a main, and no foresail and was about twelve feet long. The sail was up and flopping gently in the soft morning breeze.
Now, except for the slapstick attempt with the canoe, I had no concept of sailing.
There was an older man standing on the dock by the boat and he saw me looking at it and smiled.
“You like to sail?”
I shrugged and shook my head. “I might. I don’t know. I’ve never really done it. . . .”
“You want to try it?”
I nodded. “I sure would.”
“Hop in and we’ll go out.”
I never found out his name, and in view of the effect he had on my life it is a shame, because I owe him a great deal.
The boat (a little cat scow plywood racer) seemed to be a welter of lines running through pulleys and eyes. He motioned me to sit in the front of the small
I had time for one gleeful thought of triumph as we zipped to a point almost exactly in the middle of the lake. Then the canoe flipped upside down with a vicious sideways roll that came out of nowhere so fast that I was caught beneath it—my head in the dark—and wondering what had happened. I swam out from under the canoe—it remained afloat because it was made of wood—and struggled to get it back upright. It teetered for an instant and then flopped over the other way, upside down again.
Back and forth we went, like a wounded gull, the sail flopping first left and then right until, finally, I gave up and pulled the mast out, turned the canoe back upright, bailed it out and paddled it back to shore, swearing that I would never, absolutely never, sail again.
So when I first realized I must be on the sea, near the sea, in the sea, I thought of power boats and not sailboats.
Then I began to read about the sea and found that the Pacific Ocean was so enormous it dominated the entire planet; all the land mass in the world could fit inside the Pacific and there would still be sea around it. If I wanted to know this ocean—and I did, desperately—then I needed a kind of vessel that could cover great distances. The only power vessels with adequate fuel capacity were large ships and there was no way I could ever afford to own a ship.
I would have to use a vessel that used free power, the wind. I would have to use a sailboat.
At the time, 1965, I was working in Hollywood, learning to write, and the second thing happened that would change my life forever.
I was part of a low-level party circuit of writers who worked on the fringe of films and were not yet successful. We were always trying to meet the Right People, to be at the Right Place at the Right Time. (Yes, I believed then that was the way it was done, until I found that it was the opposite of the truth and taught nothing.) A very rich and famous star invited a dozen or so of us up to Lake Arrowhead to his waterfront home for a weekend party. I don’t know why he invited us—God knows he didn’t know any of us and never spoke to us—but it was exactly the kind of party we thought it was important to attend and we all drove up on Friday night for “a glorious weekend at the lake.”
Lake Arrowhead is a semiritzy area, a very small lake in the mountains near Los Angeles, a reservoir lake. Coming from northern Minnesota, where I lived among some fourteen thousand lakes, visiting this one was not particularly exciting for me.
Early Saturday morning, having concluded that the whole thing was a bust, I went for a walk along the shore, killing time until my host woke up and I could tell him I had some urgent reason to go back to the city. I rounded a bend in the shoreline and came upon a wooden dock that stuck out fifty feet into the lake. Tied to the dock was a small sailboat. It had one sail, a main, and no foresail and was about twelve feet long. The sail was up and flopping gently in the soft morning breeze.
Now, except for the slapstick attempt with the canoe, I had no concept of sailing.
There was an older man standing on the dock by the boat and he saw me looking at it and smiled.
“You like to sail?”
I shrugged and shook my head. “I might. I don’t know. I’ve never really done it. . . .”
“You want to try it?”
I nodded. “I sure would.”
“Hop in and we’ll go out.”
I never found out his name, and in view of the effect he had on my life it is a shame, because I owe him a great deal.
The boat (a little cat scow plywood racer) seemed to be a welter of lines running through pulleys and eyes. He motioned me to sit in the front of the small
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