John E. Conway - Buckrammers Tales: The Continuing Catboat Summers Adventures

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2014 John E. Conway. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 04/10/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4969-0045-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-0101-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014906096

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CONTENTS

To the Conway kids

Abigail, Ned and Caroline

... for tolerating my proclivity to stitch truths together with excessive amounts of yarn.

In the Fall of 2003, Catboat Summers , our modest collection of boating memoirs hit booksellers shelves. Much to our surprise and delight it quickly became a bestseller among nautical books of this nature; praised by reviewers and readers alike.

This new compilation continues in the same mold Why tinker with success? (Well, actually we have tinkered a tad to select tales with a bit more edge and a touch less maudlin.)

It covers the period from approximately 2003 through 2011 a remarkable time for the Conway family as our kids grew ever bigger and smarter, entered and graduated from college and found their respective places in the real world. My wife, Chris and I also grew during these times sometimes a little too creakily and/or sideways for our liking.

Throughout, our old catboat, Buckrammer , continued to serve as a trusty platform for experiencing many of the joys of summers in our beloved Westport, Massachusetts.

As in Catboat Summers weve tried to pace most of these stories so that each can be read one shot. In an impatient world, many of our past readers relished the ability to enjoy the beginning, middle and end of a story in one sitting.

Finally I wish to thank the good people of the Catboat Association (www.catboats.org) for their support and encouragement. It is through their laudable Catboat Association Press that this little volume now reaches you. If you have owned, now own or plan to own or sail a catboat, you owe it to yourself to become a CBA member.

Meanwhile If you favor ghost stories, near disasters, family boating misadventures and/or tales of buried treasure, you will absolutely find something to your liking in:

Buckrammer s Tales .

John E. Conway

Westport Point

April, 2014

PHOTO ON THE COVER

I am indebted to Dr. Lawrence (Larry) Borges. MD for the cover photo of Buckrammer at Slaights Dock, Westport Point, Massachusetts.

This is the latest is a series of representations of this scene; a combination seascape and landscape that has become a virtual motif in the 20 years that we Conways have served as caretakers of our historic catboat. Numerous artists have captured the motif and it has appeared as high-end photographs, oil and watercolor paintings, as mirror headers, drink coasters, napkins, ceramic trivets and even clock faces. Who would have thought?

As far as we know, renowned nature photographer and Westport native, Paul Rezendes (www. paulrezende.com) was the first to conceive and capture this picture.

It came to our attention at the February 2003 annual meeting of the Catboat Association. That year the event was held at the Hyatt Regency Newport hotel on Goat Island, Rhode Island. A number of CBA members staying at the hotel noticed a catboat photograph on page 16 of the Guest Guide located in every room. A few asked if this were Buckrammer .

It sure is! How about that! I was blown away! Except for the fact that the polarity of the photo was reversed (i.e. left is right and right, left), it was a stunning representation of our boat and her Westport environs and we had no idea that it had been created.

(Pauls photograph later appeared in an issue of Cruising World magazine that featured a number of his remarkable seascapes.)

Since then, and as mentioned above, a flood of artists and photographers have sat patiently on the breakwater across from the boat and captured the scene. Most notable among these has been New Bedford artist and gallery owner, Arthur Moniz. (www.arthurmonizgallery.com)

Needless to say, weve been pleased that our olde bucket has received so much artistic attention these past decades and hope we can continue to offer her up as the centerpiece of this popular New England motif.

CHAPTER 1

HAUNTING AT SAKONNET LIGHT

A re we weely, weely sleeping over in your pirate ship, Uncle John?

Grace Perron, my three year old great-niece, with melt-your-heart eyes as big as sand dollars, tugged on my shirttail as I slipped a life jacket over her tow-headed noggin.

Absolutely, I replied. Just as long as youll help us find the treasure.

TREASURE? All four Perron kids, Emma, age 9, Jake, age 7, Connor, age 5 and Gracie and their dad, Andy (ageless), suddenly came to attention.

Trapped, I sputtered, Well, er, sort of. Lets board the pirate ship and Ill fill you all in.

With that, the whole entourage clambered aboard Buckrammer , our Westport, Massachusetts-based, 1908-vintage Charles Crosby catboat.

Months before, while visiting the Perron homestead near Portland, Maine, I had promised the gang a first-rate adventure aboard our old floating woodpile. July seemed ages away in the snow-encrusted depths of winter but here we were, ready to cast off from Slaights Dock, launching site of many a Buckrammer adventure. (Great-Aunt Chris and niece, Betsy Perron, had uninvited themselves in favor of a girls weekend off.)

I started the boats ancient but reliable English Austin-block diesel, Red Jr., and shouted the order to cast off. Andy and Emma let loose the lines, Jake yanked the gear shift into forward and Gracie, from her perch on my lap at the helm, spun the ships wheel to port.

Off and away!

Our cruise would take us from Westport Harbor out past Horseneck Beach and south and west to Sakonnet Point Light a journey of eight to ten miles or so. Experience with my own kids (now all out of the nest) had taught me that short trips provided the least stressful, most compelling boating escapades for small children. This time, with ten miles of open water from port-to-anchorage, we would be pushing things a tad.

Figure 1.1: Sakonnet Light

Conway kids expeditions from years past had revealed the area around Sakonnet Point Light as the perfect site for an extended exploration. The circa-1884 lighthouse, situated at the entrance of the Sakonnet River in Little Compton, Rhode Island, sits atop Little Cormorant Rock and marks a ledge and boulder-strewn reef the size of several football fields bounded by the diminutive East and West Islands. We had learned long ago that our shallow-draft (2-feet board up) catboat could readily tuck herself into one of the many lagoons within the reef and hole up for the night safe from both wind and surf. We had also learned that the shallows and tidal pools of the reef provided a marvelous network of nooks and crannies for snorkeling, wading, splishn and splashn in waters that hovered around 80 degrees in mid-summer.