A Thanksgiving gift from the Sea

[rcvesselstyn]

We were headed back from the Island with a crew of my Mom and Dad, my brother and I. It was November 1965.

It had been a great trip over to Cat Harbor, but headed back the wind had been pretty light. Even with our big Jenny, which was almost a 180, we were still only making a fast drift. In the Islander 24 with the best of conditions that return home would be a six and a half hour trip. We had been out for seven and a half hours and were still barely to the Peninsula. Evening was just around the corner and the wind now died completely. Dad sent my brother and I up to drop and bag the jenny while he pulled the string on the outboard. With the calm winds came flat seas.

Standing on the cabin top I tied off the halyard and was looking around at the horizon. I spotted something floating off to port and gave Dad a bearing. We didn't always check out everything we saw drifting but under power my Dad decided to take a look. As we got closer it was apparent that it was a Redwood picnic bench. There wasn't any growth on it so Dad told my brother and I to pull it aboard and we wedged it on the foredeck. My brother was now on the lookout and he spotted something else. Sure enough it was another picnic bench. As we were retrieving it Mom made another sighting and started joking that it might be the table for a complete set. It was another picnic bench. This continued.

As the sun was setting we had five picnic benches stacked on the foredeck of our 24-ft boat. Mom said that's it! Stop! Don't look anymore! I was saying we've got to find the table. Dad made the final decision that we were already bow down and an hour out from the harbor. It was going to be tough enough trying to land with all this waterlogged lumber on the foredeck. We ended up getting into the slip without any problems. We had to tie the picnic benches on top of the station wagon to get them home. My parents ended up having these same picnic benches artfully placed about the yards at home for 40 years.

Have a great Thanksgiving everybody!