Once Upon a Gypsy Moon Read Online Free Page B

are the stories of sea danger…Dangers there are, to be sure, on the sea as well as on the land, but the intelligence and skill God gives to man reduce these to a minimum. And here comes in again the skillfully modeled ship worthy to sail the seas. To face the elements is, to be sure, no light matter when the sea is in its grandest mood. You must then know the sea, and know that you know it, and not forget that it was made to be sailed over.
    I eased the Gypsy Moon away from the dock where she had been laid to after launching. The diesel engine kept up a low, steady rumble until I reached the last marker on the Magothy River. When I could feel the wind of Chesapeake Bay on my face, I pulled the kill switch on the engine and raised the headsail, as the world returned to silence. I was off, though only briefly, for the short sail to the mouth of the Severn River, where I would turn into Annapolis for the night.
    As I glided into Spa Creek by the naval academy, my anchor found the bottom with plenty of sea room. I made the rode snug on the bow chocks. The boat turned smartly to the wind and luffed sail. Within minutes, all sheets and canvas were made fast. I was looking at Annapolis from the same place where Franklin, Jefferson, and Washington had viewed the town. They came here under sail, and so did I. Whatever poetry there was in that, I savored it only briefly before the heavens opened with a warm summer rain.
    Annapolis Harbor may be crowded and the town may be overrun with tourists, but I have always enjoyed the convenience of its well-run water taxi service. Hailing a pontoon boat with a canopy to come alongside and take you from your anchored boat to the town dock, for the price of a few dollars, beats wrestling a dinghy onto the foredeck, inflating and launching it, and rowing it ashore—especially because the funds available for the repair of the Gypsy Moon had not included money for a suitable dinghy. Her last tender had disintegrated under the Bahamian sun two years earlier.
    But the comforts of the water taxi extend only to the shoreline. Before I knew it, I was less in need of a dinghy than of a good set of weathers as the rain intensified. Running and dodging barhoppers from one sidewalk awning to the next in the sudden downpour, I finally arrived at Fawcett Boat Supplies in hopes of finally replacing my dime-store vinyl rain gear with the latest technical offshore racing duds. Alas, Fawcett’s has always been extremely proud of their foul-weather gear, and I found the prices no different that night. I settled for some waterproof charts instead, and a waterproof tube in which to carry them. The captain would have to get wet.
    Feeling like a cat scolded with a garden hose, I arrived later that night, a sodden mess, at the door of Middleton Tavern. This is the very place where Jefferson, Franklin, and Washington came to dine not long after the Revolution, although with better clothing, I suspect. Even so, I had declared my own independence and lived through my own revolution of sorts, and I felt in some way a part of that honored tradition in that historic town that night.
    I had plans to meet two old friends—a college fraternity brother and his wife—at Middleton’s. He had been a groomsman in my wedding in 1981, and we had stayed in touch through the years. He’d followed me to the same law school in the Midwest, did exceptionally well there, and returned to the Washington, DC, office of a big, top-drawer law firm, where he worked long hours for his clients and reaped the rewards—as well as the stress—of life as a silk-stocking corporate lawyer. A few years younger than I, he had always been thin and in annoyingly good shape. I could not constrain my disbelief when he told me, at dinner, of his recent heart attack. This was a young man. But he was characteristically upbeat and well versed in the medical science that now required even more careful attention to diet and exercise. In that moment I had the