Goodbye to a Boat

On the day he said goodbye to his boat, porter got up early and took his coffee to the dock behind his house. The breeze had risen early, too, a fresh and steady 10-knotter that skipped ripples across the water and caused Milady to stir in her mooring. Porter adjusted the lines and lowered the bumpers. No sense sending her off to the new owners with dings and nicks, not when he had her looking so pretty.

Porter looked at Milady and thought: "It's just a damn boat. Some fiberglass and a lot of bother. It's stupid to get all choked up about this."

He sat down in the cockpit with his coffee. Then he took off his shoes, sat back and put his feet on the wheel. When the wind was true and the course well set, that was how he had steered Milady, with his feet on the wheel, freeing one hand to work the sheets, another hand for a beer.

Jackie, his wife, always said: "You get on this boat and you're a little boy again."

Yes, in the nine years since he and Jackie had retired to Florida and bought Milady, the boat had brought them many pleasures.

It was on Milady that their oldest son, the one they thought would never settle down, had introduced them to the woman who would become his wife. Porter had popped the champagne that he always kept on board, and they had spent a night in celebration.

When their daughter came to visit with her children, the outings had been no less boisterous. When the kids were little, Porter had put them in safety harnesses and let them have the run of the boat. It was like a floating playpen.

Most often, though, it was just Porter and Jackie. They spent long hours, often in silence, reveling in the wind, the Gulf and the joy of being together. But Jackie's health had failed. In the last few months, she hadn't been able to join Porter on Milady. He'd been out sailing alone a few times, but it just wasn't the same. Besides, he was getting too old to single-hand it any more.

So he put an ad in Boat Trader, a photo with it, too. A young couple from Cape Coral looking for their first boat together had snapped up Milady without even bickering over the price. Porter had almost backed out of the deal, thinking maybe he should hold onto her longer, ask a little bit more money for her. But he had seen the way the couple had looked at Milady, and he knew he would have to go through with it. They were due at his dock any minute.

Porter stepped down into the galley, pulled out the last bottle of champagne. He left it on the counter with a note: "Godspeed and good wind." Then he walked up to his house and sat down by the living room window.

Porter had told the new owners that he'd be busy that day and unable to meet them. He had already taken them out on a shakedown cruise and shown them Milady's eccentricities. They would sail her well.

So when they arrived, he didn't go down to the dock. He watched them throw off the lines and head down the canal. When they were well away, he took his binoculars down to the dock and followed Milady to the last bend before the bay.

He saw the wind catch her sails and shoot her out of sight. Porter thought she had never looked better.