It was long ago when I first clapped eyes on McWhirr. I had a strange sense I’d seen him long before in a drive-in movie somewhere. He had this jet black hair with a white streak running across it like he’d been struck by lightening, and a scowl that would strike fear into Blackbeard himself.
One beautiful day we set the big genoa for a broad reach down up-sound. Or is it up down-sound? Anyway, the huge sail drew Old Hand steadily south along Colvos Passage between Vashon Island’s west shore and the Kitsap Penninsula. The north wind was wafting gently from astern like a sweet caress.
So by way of pleasant conversation, I remarked how the current always sets north in Colvos, as if perpetually at ebb tide. I wondered what the old Duammish might have made of that fact. I thought this reversal of the normal order must have caused much speculation on the ways of Great Spirit in setting the bewildering currents through which they navigated.
“After all, according to Swedenborg’s doctrine of correspondences…”
But McWhirr wasn’t listening. After scanning the near shore with a steely gaze he bellowed out: “Ready to jibe!”
I turned the wheel hard to port.
“Not yet! The genny’s fouled on the blasted jibstay. Wait till I say: Helm’s a-weather!”
So I turned the helm alee until the sail cleared nice and neat on the second go-round. A graceful jibe takes a deft touch, me hearties.
Like I say, it was a nice day. It was one of those lazy afternoons that could even lighten the scowl of a horn-fisted coot like McWhirr, and he took the helm while I leaned back to doze against the anchor box.
After a spell, I looked up and saw that it was all wilderness on the port side with animal eyes peering from the bushes. To starboard a big sawmill sent plumes of steam into the sky.
We were closing on the starboard bank when I heard McWhirr again call to prepare for a jibe. I rose to help ease the genny onto the opposite tack.
But this time Old Hand refused to weather and we were drifting fast toward the bank. The acrid smell from the steam mill hung in the air.
“Blood an’ thunder, we’re slack in stays! I never saw such lubberly sail handlin!”
McWhirr was turning red as a gravelled rockfish when Old Hand fetched up on the bank before the mill with a low rasping sound.
“I’ll hang yer bloody hide from the yardarm ya wall-eyed waister!”
With such epithets he draws his rigging knife and comes at me like blue blazes with an attitude.
But I had a sudden…Aha! moment. I said to him:
“Relax Captain, it's no problem.”
“What'ya mean 'no problem?' my ship is wrecked, ya simperin' gilpy!”
And sure enough, I look down to see Old Hand had dissolved suddenly into a little patch of reeking flotsum. But I said with an aplomb which firmly established my lordship over this Hollywood Captain of the Head:
“Saturnius McWhirr my arse.”
And then I flapped my arms and flew beyond his reach while McWhirr tied a bowline in the jibsheet and tried to lasso my leg, saying: “Come back an’ I’ll clap ye in irons. I’m more real than ye’ll ever be!”
Then, breathing hard from the exertion of my flight, I watch the sawmill to starboard again dissolve into the wooded shore and hear McWhirr's voice call from the wheelhouse: “Ready to jibe!”
