The Temptress

Anyone who casts off from a dock is a sailor, but the narratives of those who make the choice to seek adventure rather than settle for the boundaries of the predictable offer rhymes, reasons, and warnings for others who also choose the irresistible.

Within the domain of mariners, there are age-old adages about the seven seas and the oceans of the world. During the winter, the North Atlantic Ocean will always be a grumpy old man. The sea surface of the Atlantic can be an endless wasteland of graybeard breaking waves and crooked fingers of salty spindrift. With every breaking crest, there can be a scowling face offering a warning for any so foolish as to dare the depths and risk a briny destruction.

The Atlantic is predictable, however, just as many aging sailors are set in their ways. The Atlantic Ocean does not do window dressing. There are no false advertisements. The depths of the Atlantic are a resting place of miscalculations, mistakes, and malicious acts of war where the grumpy old man covers every sunken misfortune with the next sweep of a breaking wave.

The Pacific Ocean is a beautiful woman whom no one should ever trust. Her waters are midnight blue, where a seductive charm of the tropics is always waiting just over the next horizon. Many a mariner has been lost in her embrace, just as the song of the siren is a mistress with a promise she cannot keep.

The Gulf of Mexico is all of the above but also a temptress. She is grumpy and unpredictable when the El Nino of winter happens to wander in from offshore, and when she begins to cast her spell and play with the adventure seekers of the sea, she is a witch that can beguile, lure, and forever beckon the unsuspecting and the unaware.

When an El Nino winter weather pattern is firmly in place, all the restaurants and bars are always busy. Anyone who is dreaming of an offshore excursion is seeking refuge from the gray and windy skies, where every gathering place is a haven from the unseasonable and almost daily rain.

El Nino is nothing new and weaves his little boy foul-weather days into winter when many have forgotten the earlier years of the same phenomenon. Coconut palms can die if the overnight temperature drops too low, and iguanas can fall out of trees when their tiny reptilian brains fog with frost and fail to offer anything but a shutdown or, perhaps, a warning. 

During the last very cold winter, the gulf did appear as the grumpy old Atlantic, but when The Temptress finally begin to offer her promise of sunshine and fair weather, the idea for a quick trip to Key West became irresistible.

On the night before the voyage, the sunset was a hazy ball which fell hopelessly below the horizon. On the morning by the dock, everyone was gathering under a clear but crimson sky, and after the coolers and the breakfast sandwiches were aboard, the lines were off, and the 35-foot powerboat was underway. The fuel tank was full, champagne was chilling on ice, and there was enough shining optimism after the last week of dark weather to power a lighthouse.

When the wind began, no one could feel it. The gulf was apparently calm, and the ride was smooth but unbeknownst to all aboard, the boat was traveling the same speed as the wind. The GPS was showing the boat cruising at 22 miles an hour, but with the wind building from behind, and beginning to drive the waves that were also growing, the captain and passengers were only feeling a three-mile-an-hour breeze when the first of the champagne bottles began to pop.

When the boat was two hours away from the yacht club and many miles offshore, the little vessel could not help but wallow in the waves and the growing swell that was now undeniable. Amid laughter and the sound of another champagne cork popping, the captain became silent. He knew the waves were growing. He was praying that Marco might be closer than Key West, but he did not want to alarm the fun-loving passengers who were frustrated with the El Nino winter.

When the second bottle of champagne was gone, so were the captain’s nerves. The little boat was now almost surfing along on the waves that were bigger than ever, and even the most boisterous of the passengers was now quiet and regarding the rising seascape as if regret were the least of all problems. When the captain decided enough was enough, and he began to turn back toward Marco, the 35-footer almost rolled over sideways in a breaking sea. After a few screams and the boat was heading back against the now full force of the wind and the waves that were breaking over the bow, the decision to head back was suddenly and without doubt untenable. The waves were far too big, and the wind was gathering strength. After another harrowing turn to place the boat on a downwind angle and the waves were once again driving the bow down into the valley of wave after wave, everyone on board was beginning to understand - there are no atheists on a boat in a storm at sea.

The little boat rode the waves bravely, with the overwhelmed captain finding every new wave to be a completely new adventure. Eventually, after many tumultuous hours, the little Marco boat found shelter in the choppy harbor and a dockside mooring in Key West.

The Atlantic might be a grumpy old man in winter, the Pacific a beautiful woman no one can trust, but an El Nino winter in the Gulf of Mexico will always be The Temptress waiting for another adventure.

Tom Williams is a Marco Islander and the author of two books: “Lost and Found” and “Surrounded by Thunder—the Story of Darrell Loan and the Rocket Men.” Both books are available on Kindle and Nook.