January 1, 2012 Life in the boat yard…

January 1, 2012 Life in the boat yard…

The last year was actually pretty good to us, so I can’t really complain. This year we’re starting the New Year, not with the pirates and friends of last year in Ft. Lauderdale, but in the boatyard. Working on the boat! Getting ready for this year’s adventures... I’m hoping that the wee hours of this morning aren’t a harbinger of things to come.

The boatyard is an eclectic mixture of people from different places and with different lifestyles. Some of us are gregarious souls, and others quite private. It’s the differences and sameness that makes it such an interesting place. There’s always someone new to meet, and if we’re lucky, old friends to meet that were once new friends in the boatyard. About 5pm, last night, we headed over to the patio area to enjoy a wonderful dinner, to celebrate the old year, with fellow cruisers. We met old acquaintances, new acquaintances and an interesting mixture of folks that live and visit here. Most of us have a transient lifestyle in the boatyard, but, not all of us. I love the Saturday night, get-together barbeques that the marina sponsors for its guests. They’re wonderful. They supply the meat and everyone else supplies the accompaniments. When we were here last time, Steve did the grilling. This year – it’s Moose. For the New Year’s Eve dinner the marina had London broil and baked potatoes with all the trimmings imaginable for those potatoes! The appetizers, different salads and desserts that everyone brought (I brought a carrot cake) was a delight to the eyes as well as the stomach. To cap off the dinner and evening, the marina also supplied different sodas and quite a few bottles of champagne! We met and ate dinner with another couple from Michigan. I discovered that she and I share a common interest! Rocks!!! I loved it! Jo is a fellow Lake Superior cobble/agate enthusiast! She’s looking for a book on Lake Superior. I need to remember to look at my books and get her the title of those two Michigan books… note to self – on returning home email the title of the 2 volumes dealing with a history of Michigan. Look for the Superior book too. Old fuddy-dud that I am – we called it a night about 8:30/9pm. Guess I’m last of the big time partiers. Jo wanted to share some champagne with me over dinner & I said just a little. I think I ended up splitting the bottle with her, so I was ready to call it an early night after sharing tales of rock collecting around Michigan and other various places.

I woke up about 11:30 and dozed back off again and didn’t wake up until someone’s car alarm went off around 2am, then 3:15am. Around 3:30am I heard what sounded in the distance a young girl screaming but it sounded so far off… I listened for a few minutes and my entire body became alert. It sounded like someone screaming for help and I heard… my mom… oh my god… help… my mom… I sat up trying to hear where it was coming from and couldn’t quite pin point it. Thought it might be one of the houses in the distance. Then it became louder with a girl yelling and screaming to get away from her. It sounded closer now, maybe in the boatyard. I thought about calling 911… then questioned that… surely someone was going to help her? The screaming continued… If I call 911, will it go to here? Or will it go to my home area code since I’d be using my cell phone? I wasn’t sure what to do… as these thoughts went through my mind nobody seemed to be coming to her aid … Was someone attacking her? Why wasn’t one of the other boaters awakened to come to her aid? If this was my daughter, I’d want someone to help her. She sounded close now. I threw on my pants and t-shirt. Down the ladder I went… I wasn’t sure where I was going, but followed the screaming to the next isle of boats down from us.

A small, frail female with shoulder length frizzy dark hair was standing outside a truck, with not much on other than a t-shirt and boxers. She reminded me of Laura standing there like that barefoot and in boxer briefs, but only for an instant. She was banging on the window and crying/screaming at the truck that nobody deserved to be treated that way. He didn’t have the right to hurt her head. I came up behind her and asked if she was okay? Still weakly crying and hitting the window: “NO, I’M NOT OKAY!” I asked how old she was and did she need any help… She said she was 26, which shocked me since she only came up to my shoulders and looked so tiny. She said, she’d be okay if only she could get some sleep with him. She was crying and saying that he hurt her hands and nobody had the right to harm another person, that it wasn’t right. He’d pushed and hurt her head. I asked her if there was somewhere she could go, if there was someone she could call? She said no, there’s no-one… just him and that didn’t give him the right to hurt her. She just wanted to sleep. “Do you want me to call the police?” “Yes. Call the police.” I headed toward the office area to see if there was a phone or someone there that could help. I couldn’t believe that I didn’t know if there was a phone or phone number that was accessible for help. I didn’t see anyone but one man snoring away in a chair, oblivious to the world, or a phone but thought there was one there, somewhere.

After searching the office area and other parts of the boatyard I returned to the truck. She was still yelling at the truck and I was still trying to get an idea of what happened. The back truck door opened and a young man, also thin, with longish light brown hair and a sparse beard/mustache was looking at me. I said: “I don’t know what’s going on here, but when I hear a young girl calling for help, I have to respond” He thanked me and told me they’d had too much champagne at the dinner/party and she started screaming at him. You hurt my fingers, and head and she was yelling that “he was pulling out my hair”. “Nobody deserves to be treated like this.” She then launched into him pulling his hair and grabbing the skin on his back, hard. She screamed something about just because he has her on this f-ing island… He started asking her to stop, and I tried to pull her off him then thought better of it and was amazed that he didn’t launch back into her. I thought she started to settle down but she started screaming again that she’d be better with some sleep. With him…??? I said that maybe she could get some sleep in the marina office area where the TV. lounge area was? She didn’t like the idea of sleeping outside in the cold. I told her it was warmer inside the lounge area and she could sleep there and calm down. They could discuss things in the morning after sleeping off whatever was going on. She wasn’t having any of it. It wouldn’t be any better in the morning. I just wanted to separate them and make heads or tales of the situation… It sounded like it was some sort of drunken and disorderly domestic squabble and I wasn’t sure of calling the police anymore but thought that if I could get them away from each other, that things would settle down. If she wanted to press charges she still could… She didn’t want to go. So I asked him if he would sleep in the lounge area or boat. I really didn’t want them together at that point. He obviously wasn’t dressed any better than she was and as he looked down at his bare feet, then back at me, I noticed he was crying. He agreed to let her sleep in the truck and he’d sleep elsewhere. She climbed into the truck and he closed the door. He and I both noticed what looked like a prescription bottle, and eye dropper bottle and a plastic syringe (no needle) type instrument on the ground with other items and he proceeded to pick up the items. We talked for a bit and he didn’t seem like he had any intention of hurting her. He kept thanking me profusely for stepping in and referred to me as being his savior? I’m nobody’s savior, but don’t want to see anyone hurt. He asked me my name and where I was from. I told him, and then asked him his name and her name and where they were from. She came out of the truck and screamed at him a couple more times then went back into the truck. I kept trying to get him to go elsewhere and yet listen to him too. He finally said he’d sleep in the boat, after I said it would be better if they slept apart tonight. They both seem to think that it’s over. He said they’d gone through this before – last New year’s. They’ve been together about a year but it sounds like it’s about over now. She screamed at him that she didn’t love him anymore and that seemed pretty clear… He apologized profusely for causing a ruckus and waking up the boatyard. He kept trying to tell her that she was sharing their business with everyone here. All he wanted to do was to be able to fit in to this community. He couldn’t believe I was the only one to help. He was feeling ashamed and commented on how vulnerable he felt several times. I finally got him to go up into his boat and as things quieted down, I returned to mine at 4:30am. I noticed Wayne up top looking for me and we both went back to bed but I must admit, I had one ear at alert. I don’t know how, but I did manage to doze back off at some point… When I woke again, it was light outside.

Happy New Years? I thought about how we’re all vulnerable and yet at the same time can be all powerful too. It’s an interesting thought - how each of us can be so powerful and yet so vulnerable at the same time.

Welcome to 2012… Life in the boat yard.
We all have our stories...
Yep…