Dave Roper’s “new” boat is a 1980 Cape Dory 25, a sister to his original Chang Ho, on which, as a younger man, he sailed far and wide. Photo by David Roper
May 2024
By David Roper
I’d wondered if it would ever come to this, selling Elsa and going “backwards” to a little boat, maybe a trailerable one, whereby the seas and headwinds would no longer thwart an old man’s progress. And she’d have a little cabin. But big enough to dream in. One in which I’d dream of venturing near and far. And maybe it would only be a dream. Which is okay; it’s the dream that is the magic. When dreams end, in comes reality. And reality, as we all know, can be harsh. So for now I’ll dream. And maybe someday I’ll go.
Weston Martyr, in his 1931 book “The £200 Millionaire,” wrote inspiringly of an old man he encountered in the canals of Europe:
“Down below in his tiny cabin that afternoon, over a cup of tea, this old man and widower told tales of his solo exploration through the waterways of Europe on his tiny vessel. He talked of “gentle rivers wandering through valleys of everlasting peace; of a quiet canal, lost amongst scented reeds and covered with a pink and white carpet of water lilies; of a string of tiny lakes, their blue waters ringed with the green of forest pines; of a narrow canal, built by old Romans, but navigable still, that climbs up through the clouds into the high mountains; of aqueducts spanning bottomless ravines and a view from the yacht’s deck of half of Southern Germany.” And he talked of the charm of this old earth and the fun of living on it, if “only you understand the proper way to live.”
Years ago I wrote that if my precious wife left this earth before me (thankfully, she hasn’t), and my usefulness to others dwindled, I would sell my “big boat” and buy a small-cabin sailboat on a trailer. I’d fill her with good wine and cheeses, with my favorite books and those I never had the time to read, and with pictures and scrapbooks to relive my old memories. But I would not dwell on these too much; I’d visit them carefully the way one visits relatives, absorbing the richness but not lingering too long. I’d not linger, because I would be off to make new memories each day and each season. I’d travel by land to a launching ramp in Key West in the winter, watch the green flash at sunset, and then depart for the Dry Tortugas. In the late spring I’d trailer my little vessel to Lake Powell in Utah, with its majestic 2000-mile shoreline and its alluring tiny ports of Rainbow Bridge, Wahweap, Hite, and Bullfrog. I would sail into 50-mile-long remote canyons and gaze up at the sandstone cliffs that house ancient Anasazi Native American dwellings. In the summer I’d sail east to Maine and Nova Scotia and re-visit the harbors I always loved. And perhaps one year I’d take an ambitious, international overland journey to Great Slave Lake in Yellowknife in the Northwest Territory; there I’d catch lake trout and watch the Northern Lights while sailing on the fifth largest lake in North America.
And ultimately, when done in this world, I’d be in the middle, rather than the end, of one of these journeys.
David Roper’s new novel, “The Ghosts of Gadus Island: A Story of Yount Love, Loss, and the Order of Nature,” is now available. Dave is the author of the three-time best seller “Watching for Mermaids,” as well as the sequel “Beyond Mermaids” and the novel “Rounding the Bend.” Buy them at Amazon.com or roperbooks.com.
