Grandma and the Boat Anchor.

It all began with Grandma perusing the classifieds at breakfast. The local farmer, with whom Grandma split a subscription to the Northland Advocate, had dropped it off in the box rather early that day.

Granddad was chewing his porridge sixty times and ruminating on an obscure point of doctrine when Grandma let out a yelp. “Boat for sale! Must sell! Good price assured!”  

Granddad swallowed hastily. “A boat? Why do we want a boat?”

“Because you like boats!” Grandma reminded him cheerily. “You were always playing about with them as a boy. And seafaring is in my blood, you know! Remember George Richard Meredith, my sailor ancestor! A boat will make for the loveliest holidays! And it says,” here Grandma peered at the paper as to confirm her good luck, “it says, “good price assured.” Grandma looked at Granddad in triumph. “That sounds like just the sort of boat for us.”

The boat had been purchased. It now bobbed happily down in pretty Taurikura bay. The boat was actually a yacht. But not a super yacht. Not even a regular yacht. Not even one of those freakishly small sail boats that arrived in the downtown yacht marina from all over the world.

Indeed, if one was to classify this particular ‘yacht’ as anything, it would be as an unsuper yacht. About as unsuper as a yacht could get, actually.  It was a bilious shade of orange picked out with a tone of blue that ought to have been illegal. There was a sail and a deck and a tiny crawl space that almost held a bed and a place for making tea. Almost, if you were very petit and didn’t mind hunching over a bit. My grandparents fit both criteria so it wasn’t a problem.

And to start with, owning a yacht, even an unsuper one, was delightful.  “This is the LIFE,” said Grandma, sipping her tea and nibbling at a Toffee Pop. “Look at the mountains! Look at the pohutukawa trees, the flowers are coming in very nicely this year!” She waved a hand at the shoreline. “Very pretty,” agreed Granddad, looking up from his book. “This was a good choice, Shirley.”

Grandma smiled brightly. “I’m SO pleased dear, when I saw it sitting in the library, I just thought of you. It gave me such a sense…” continued Grandma, thinking of how she had shuddered at the title, “The Geopolitical Impact of the Mongol Empire and it’s Implications for the Cashmere Trade Today.”

“Very good, very good,” agreed Granddad. “You can read it when I’m done with it. I think you’ll find the bit on farming the Gobi Desert riveting.”

Grandma stopped smiling brightly. “Err, well, you might not have it finished in time, dear.”

“You can renew it,” Granddad was patiently infuriating. “I have often noticed how easy it is to get a renewal on a truly decent library book. It’s strange really, there should be about a hundred people waiting for this book, but there won’t be.”

“Oh well, we’ll see! Ho hum!” said Grandma miserably.

Except the terror of having to learn about ‘farming the Gobi Desert’, the day passed blissfully. “This is the life,” announced Grandma, as they jammed themselves into the crawl space for the night. “Aren’t the stars marvellous?”

“Marvellous!” agreed Granddad, squirming with difficulty into a green sleeping bag.

“My sailor ancestor, George Richard Meredith would be awfully proud of me,” remarked Grandma. “Fancy sleeping on a boat! Isn’t the rocking feeling lovely? I really don’t know why people do holidays any other way!”

The next morning, Granddad wanted the bathroom. “Take the rowboat, dear,” said Grandma. “And when you return, I shall have your breakie ready.”

“I thought I’d swim,” said Granddad. “It’s not far.”

“Oh Arthur! It IS! It’s such a long way! I wouldn’t swim that far, take the rowboat. It’ll be awfully cold.”

“I’ll be alright,” said Granddad, sliding over the side and landing with a little ‘splish’ in the water. He struck out for the shore with a calm, slow over arm.

Grandma watched him go with concern. She watched him until, looking considerably smaller, he emerged from the bay and padded across the sand to the public bathroom.

“Such a long swim,” thought Grandma sadly. “If only I could help him.” Then her eyes fell on the piece of chain attached to the boat that vanished over the rail into the bay.

“Ah,” thought Grandma. “That could work! If I can just pull the anchor out and then throw it a bit closer to the shore, then I can pull the boat a bit closer. And if I do it again and again, by the time dear Arthur comes back, his swim will be a lot shorter!”

Grandma was never quite sure how the chain connecting the boat to the anchor got undone. Indeed, she was not aware that it HAD come undone until she saw it sliding with a terrifying PLOP into the ocean after the anchor.  

For a brief second, it was as though all the gadgets and gears of the universe ceased to crank. Grandma stood frozen in appalled shock.

Then quite suddenly the yacht began to move. But it was not getting closer to the shore. Grandma lurched around in horror and saw that she was about to go adventuring, all alone in the great blue yonder.

And any calm seafaring blood that her sailor ancestor, George Richard Meredith might have bestowed on her, beat a cowardly retreat.

“OH HELP!” shrieked Grandma, beginning to rush about the deck. “OH HELP! I’M DRIFITNG OUT TO SEA!”

Memories of a hideous tale Granddad had gleefully told her, about a four-bedroom house removal that had tumbled from the Harbour Bridge into the Pacific Ocean and floated off gently to the shores of South America, began to haunt her. She had strongly suspected at the time he was making it up, but now, NOW, it all seemed horribly probable.  

“OH HELP!” yelled Grandma, with renewed vigour. “I don’t want to go to Argentina! I don’t speak Dutch!”

“You alright, Love?” A man’s concerned voice broke into Grandma’s panic. Grandma swung to the left and noticed that she was still in the bay. A man on a nearby unsuper yacht, holding a coffee mug and swathed in a bathrobe was looking at her with concern.

“NOoooo!” wailed Granma. “I’ve thrown my anchor overboard and now I’m drifting out to sea!”

It says much for the character of the man, that instead of asking awkward questions, (and there were several he justifiably COULD have asked), he simply put down his coffee mug, flung off his bathrobe and plunged into the sea. In a few minutes, Grandma was profusely thanking her rescuer as he reattached the anchor to her boat.

A little later, as Granddad sat wrapped in a towel warming himself in the sun on the deck, Grandma handed him a cup of tea. “Drink that up dear, and when you’re feeling rested, I’d like you to row me to the shore. I want to go to the dairy.”

“What do you want at the dairy?”

“A paper,” said Grandma grimly. “I want to check the classifieds.”

Granddad sipped his tea calmly. “What do you want now?” he asked placidly.

“A caravan! From now on, we’ll take our holidays BY the sea. Not ON it.”