Sightings

The sun had gone down and the chill began. Automatically, he pulled the side of his dark blue watch cap down over the windward ear, then zipped up to his chest the faded yellow foul weather jacket. The zip always got stuck there and he always just left it as is. He rubbed his hands together thinking he just shouldn’t have come out here.

The man’s sight wandered out to the river and over to the reeds on the other side. The current moved slowly out toward the bend in the river and his gaze went there slowly also. He rubbed his hands together again. They weren’t cold. Turning his head he looked up river to where the other bend had the current moving toward him.

A boat came around the bend slowly. It was an old wooden gaff rigged sloop with a bowsprit. The large jib billowed, caught up with itself and fell backward toward the mast and repeated, sometimes not successfully, just going or coming half way. The current was stronger than the wind. The mainsail was steady with the slight luff shimmer of also catching up with itself but it stayed steady, just off being full. The person at the helm looked hunched over, maybe trying to see what was ahead under the boom.

A beat of heart skipped and the man found himself hunched over, so he straightened to a proper sitting position. He rubbed his hands. His legs were catching the chill and the gold of sun set was being eaten by the invisible swallow of night. The green of the trees were turning into shadows, closing their eyelids to get some rest, he chuckled at his little poem. Sailors are poets, he said aloud to himself. We see everything; have to.

He was a sailor without a boat so was he still a poet, he asked not aloud.

The white of the boat hull was getting muted and the sails began to look old, the gaff dipping slightly then lifting arthritically but the boat was still coming with barely a ripple of water surrounding what he could see. The person in the boat stood up and the man could only see a dark midsection beneath the boom. The course was slightly moved with the bow pointing straight toward the man, making the helmsman disappear completely.

The man stood up feeling an ache in his lower back and a stiffness along his spine. He straightened up with a satisfying soft crack somewhere near the centre of his back. He didn’t know why he stood up since he wanted to see the gaffer move by and that was a couple of minutes to come. He pushed his shoulder blades together and shook a shiver with his shoulders and looked behind himself to see that there were only two people walking up river looking at the sloop. He grew a bit jealous that they were looking at the boat and settled with the real fact that he liked that they were looking out at the sloop. If he was out there they would be looking at him and he would feel good about that.

The man and woman who were walking stopped and waved to the boat, then continued walking along the dirt path through the tall grass. The grasses was still and the people began to blend in with them as darkness was approaching or maybe his eyes were just blurring. He rubbed them with the index knuckles of both hands. Then he rubbed his hands finding a bit of moisture on the right knuckle.

The boat was abeam him now, or he was abeam the boat actually since he wasn’t on the boat. He was just a guy standing near a bench looking out at a beautiful gaff rigged sloop making its way slowly down river with a flow of current as the day was merging with the night. He found that he was smiling kind of strongly. He tucked in the smile and looked around again to see if anybody noticed. A tabby cat was standing at the end of the bench with front legs straight down and butt placed on the ground. The cat was looking out at the sloop.

The man smiled again and looked at the person on the boat who had a dark watch cap on and a relaxed tilt of head. His hair stuck out from his watch cap on one side and he looked tan in the darkening light. He turned into a she as she unbuttoned her dark jacket and her blouse stood out. The man’s head went back and up in seeing that he had assumed that she was a man at the helm. He spoke to the cat, saying, they need to be sailing more. There should be more women out there on their boats and get into that adventurous spirit. He was thinking about the women that he had taught sailing years ago and how he preferred them on the boats and taking the lessons than the men.

Women are practical. Men are romantic. That balance of the two was the problem but women, being practical, could solve that problem with the right words where men seemed to get stuck in some thought mode that they had to race or do something when there was nothing to do. He never got to have women aboard as crew on his boats which was a pity, he thought, looking back out at the boat as it was moving down river and past him. There was a slight breeze that she was taking advantage of by bringing the boat over here away from the wind blocking hill.

He moved his shoulders around feeling the breeze and put his hand up to signal recognition to the helmsman. Is it helmsperson now? Helmswoman? Times are getting kind of confusing when it comes to this kind of thing. The chill was creeping up his back. The cat was gone. The boat was arcing beautifully contrasted against the distant hills making the bend downriver. There were some tiny bubbles of wake lines veeing away from the stern of the boat as the breeze complimented the current and the boat picked up speed. She had timed it just right and would be down river before dark and out in the sound to fetch up as spot to anchor and have a hot chocolate with a warm dinner at nightfall.

He rubbed his hands.