Dropping Anchor

My maternal grandfather was a ship’s captain, eventually becoming a port pilot for the Los Angeles and Long Beach harbors. A port pilot is a very specialized job that requires them to take control of commercial vessels entering the harbors, and bring them safely into their assigned berths. These pilots not only have to be familiar with the specific dangers and conditions of the harbors they work in, they need to know how to operate all the different commercial vessels they take command of.

When my grandpa retired, he bought himself an old 22 foot sailboat that he fixed up so he could stay on the ocean and keep that salt in his blood. Keep in mind, I’m a writer not a sailor and so when he tried to teach me things like tying knots and trimming jibs, I was spinning as fast as the sailboat I lost control of. He yelled, and he was impatient. He treated me like I was a lazy deckhand on one of the ships he once captained. I decided that sailing with grouchy grandpa didn’t work for me. But…I do love to fish, and I do love the ‘idea’ of sailing because when you do it right, there’s nothing like riding the wind on a sunny day with a shimmering sea. So I came up with the perfect plan. Take the boat. Don’t tell grandpa.

I called up my fishing friends and invited them to go sailing with me. What could go wrong? I knew how to hoist the sails and stow them. If anything went wrong (I figured it would) then I’d just use the motor to get us back in. Friends came and it was exciting to sneak out with the boat. We tried sailing. We went in a few circles and then used the motor to get us to our first fishing destination. That’s when I dropped anchor. We watched the heavy metal plop into the water, the rope falling fast. The rope kept going and going and I thought, maybe it’s a little too deep here, but before I could do anything about anything, the last of the line went in just like that…meaning…the anchor was NOT tied off to anything. What kind of retired captain has an anchor but doesn’t tie it to their boat? Yeah, oh shit. Well there was a very logical conclusion to this problem. If grandpa didn’t tie off the anchor, he most certainly wouldn’t know it was missing.

We enjoyed our fishing, I putted us back into the harbor, proud that I was able to park the thing back into its berth. Everything was the way it was before I took it—less the anchor. I figured I’d tell him what happened on a Christmas Eve so we’d have a lot of witnesses, and people would laugh. Oh how wrong I was. A week later at six in the morning (That’s very early for a 20 year old on a weekend) grandpa was pounding on my bedroom door. He was yelling at me to get up. I yelled back: What’s your problem? He said two words: The anchor!

I got up and confessed to it all. He looked mad but he had a glint in his eye that told me he was proud. Without realizing it I’d gained his respect that morning. He saw me as independent, and a lady’s man because both of my fishing friends were women. Unbeknownst to him, none of us were interested in anything other than fishing. But it was a lesson in the ways of maritime respect and that story plays a huge part in how Laura Bentacour earns the respect of her crew.