42 years old: Sailing to Mexico, La Paz, Vancouver practice, Separation, Dr. Bernie,Dr.Willi, sobriety

Having just avoided a near death experience collision with a tanker (due to my wife’s lying, messing up the radar, not telling us and leaving tthe radar deceptively dysfunctional  entering coming into San Francisco )we were immensely relieved anchoring in San Francisco Bay.  All was forgiven in the ecstasy of safety the harbour gave us. Our crew departed.  My wife sold kittens on the Pier.  We continued on.

She and I did a fine job of sailing to San Diego.  The natural oil springs off Santa Barbara were amazing. When one thinks of oil spills its worth while to remember these natural oil slicks that covered miles of sea. We acquired a fine slick of black along the water line. 

In the Catalina islands off California we found an anchorage but the restrictions on spillage and discharge had ou outputs taped up for the over night stay.

San Diego was another great accomplishment. The most spectacular harbour and navy base.  We were early for travel south as the hurricane season persisted.  At dock a boat came round and removed our waste.  We had water and electricity and stayed several weeks. We were concerned this was the ‘last stop’ so spent ‘unnecessarily’ on boat supplies stocking up on spares and anything else we thought we might need.  There’d be other marine stores south but we didn’t know that then.

Given the marital problems and my wife’s fear of sailing further we had some serious discussions about our marriage life and future. Looking back she would say she was committed but it became apparent that she’d begun conspiring to hide money and make an independent life for herself. She was along for the ‘fun’ but no longer in it for the long haul. She’d learned she was wealthy beyond her wildest dreams after her mother’s death,as would become apparent in the later divorce. I was also unwilling to accept her dangerous behaviour. Without drugs she was not a happy camper. I wasn’t a ball of sunshine either.

Offshore sailing was said to truly make relationships or it could tear them asunder. 

Our crew wanted to continue with us to Cabot and was available. Despite his mutiny I truly felt that my serious talk and expression of grave concern had sunk in.  We would continue now as three.  There was only one night when he’d he’d pull his wing on wing sailing event thereafter. I’d literally give him shit and he’d act like a sulking teen aged. 

The trouble with ‘night racing’ in a foreign country at night is that if anything goes wrong night makes everything so much more difficult. We could hardly see in the water before us and racing we were at risk of high speed collision. I don’t even know why I’m explaining this. No sane person races wing on wing at night on watch with the rest of the boat asleep below.  

Other than that We really did enjoy the sail south.  

(Oops Except  I forgot her getting so drunk on tequila across the border she hit a couple of girls ,denied she did and then I, not sober myself, was told by their boyfriends to control my violent partner. She proceeded to hit them again trying to make it look like an accident and pay them back for them telling their boyfriends. I was furious and was all set to fight but took her back to the boat and returned ready to ‘defend my lady’s honor’.  Alcohol. Thankfully they’d left and I didn’t end up in a 3 against 2 fight as my crew had no experience in fights and Mexico is not tolerant of this sort of ‘gringo behaviour.  Killing each other is more acceptable. We all had horrible hangovers and blamed tequila (to kill ya)

Mexico really was spectacular. I love my memories of the sunsets and sun rises. I loved the sea.  We did amazing things and saw amazing things.

We rescued a couple of guys in a dinghy who’s boat had gone down after a fire. I’d publish the story of our lifesaving intervention in the Latitudes Magazine. I’d write stories for off shore sailing magazines that year. 

My wife and I would help rescue a baby whale caught in the mangroves. Others had pulled it out from getting caught and going aground.  My wife and I swam side by side touching it to keep it from turning back into the beach. We directed it by swimming on either side until it was beyond the point where the mother joined the many ton baby.  What an incredible experience. Swimming with whales, saving a life.

We’d been told to take old playboys for barter with the Mexico fishermen who caught lobster like crayfish. It was against the law for them to sell them but there was a great trade in ball caps, tshirts and playboys. Apparently the ball caps work earlier in the season, then the t shirt but later in the season the gold is playboys. We got a wealth of cray fish and feasted with butter and lemon to our hearts content. There’s never enough of these tasty morsels and we just kept trading all the way along the coast.

Rosa was a favourite harbour when I used my electronic translator to tell the gorgeous custom’s agent that it was ‘hot’ but the word ‘hot’ has two translations. She blushed when I called her very hot and the Mexicans present chuckled.  We had been learning spanish and trying it out as we travelled . Really wonderful days in the warm weather and kindly winds.  Spectacular sailing. 

Somewhere we got drunk and returned to find that the dinghy had been ‘holed’ trapped under a bit of dock by rising tide. We argued about direction and being an idiot I almost took us to Japan insisting this was the way all the while I was headed out to sea trying to keep inflating the leaking dinghy. Eventually she made me see reason, dark before us, lights behind us and despite my drunken superiority I humbly reversed direction and found our boat at anchor.  I repaired the dinghy next day on deck.

I think that was before the crew rejoined us.  

It was always exciting filling with diesel in Mexico as the hoses were usually meant for larger boats. There’s one memorable pump at a place called ‘Gordo’s” which meant ‘fat’s’. The hose dangled from a crane with no where for us to tie up so we maintained the position under this high speed hose by pushing off the piling.  

Great barbecued fish meals.  Wonderful sea birds.  Dolphins as far as the eye could see.  More grey whales. IT was a sailing wonder. Eventually we reached Cabot San Lucas.  What a rush to sail into that harbour!

I loved the Broken Surfboard. I was able to visit there with a dozen other captains and we had many a great discussions. I’m forever thankful for the afternoon when each captain told their tale of their crew mutinies. One wife had actually locked her husband on deck in a storm and refused to let him come in insisting he take them home.  There were story after story. The women on the women’s boat had locked their female skipper in the head and departed in the dinghy 4 of them leaving at the first anchorage. One of the skippers had heard the screams so came along side and let that female captain out of the head and took her ashore to regain her dinghy. She remained at anchor there till she could get another crew.  

With my wife in evening we joined other cruisers. I played my Martin 6 string guitar in the cafe’s at night. My crew played his violin. I mostly sang Leonard Cohen, Suzanne being especially loved.  It was good times. Well deserved. Well won.  

Our marriage seemed on the way to healing as we actually began to enjoy the joy of the south and the reward of the long journey.  Years of hard work and preparation.

One of the natives offered me a joint and here three months off weed I smoked one and took one back to my partner.  She was off on a Castanadas trip and in another world.  I just liked it.  The next many months in Baja would include regular marijuana and mostly Mexican beer.  

We discussed where to go, most boats going on to Puerto Vallarta. We figured we’d sail up to La Paz, the easiest destination and winter in the Sea of Cortez because we didn’t figure we’d come back this way. There was also a possibility of shipping our boat overland to the Gulf of Mexico rather than travelling south through the Canal.  

We sailed up to La Paz where we docked and loved it.  The marina was terrific. We had a fabulous home. We met the greatest folks. It was months of truly great times. We befriended a German sailor who survived by taking out Germans camping in the Baja or sailing on his trimaran.  His girlfriend was a Nashville Country Star who had hooked up with an incredible spanish guitarist. We settled into a routine.  

Shinto loved La Paz despite the heat. The winter months being moderate not at all like the tortuously hot summer months.  For a time we anchored off from La Paz and Shinto and I would go for his morning walk. We’d both jump off the boat and swim ashore. There were tiny rays but his churning up the water before me meant I never needed to worry. He wasn’t stung. After this morning swim I’d take him for a long run then swim back to the boat. I had to wear a light scuba jacket because of the stinging jelly fish.

Thursday night we’d play blues in the local pub. The rule was that we couldn’t drink more than the customers. That’s where I started with 5 cords blues and left when I couldn’t remember what to do after one chord. I also played bongos.  We had lots of fun with different folk singers, the amazing Oceanographer and his wife standing out. Things wnt south when a cocaine crew arrived and the atmosphere changed.  We stopped going there then.

We helped with the cleaning and raising funds for a handicapped riding school. Riding in the old west of Baja Mexico was out of this era. Riding up to a saloon in a town where no cars or trucks came only horses, tying up the horses and ordering a cerveza, this was the life. We did this for months. We’d eat out for $10 a person each night often with three courses and white table cloths.  We were now with the ‘locals’ and no longer going to the ‘tourist’ places.  We did go to Hotel California where the Eagles song was made only because our German friend knew the owner.  There was an artists commune there.

Feliz Navidad. We had all this food prepared but the coke boat won the toss and our friends left us for the coke and tequila night. It was a bit unsettling.  I loved getting the classical flautest to improvise in our Thursday night jam.  I’d practiced Buffet’s Teguila Ville with  Changes in Latitudes, Changes in attitudes. The payment for our playing was free tequila but we filled the place.

I loved the pelicans. Waking day after day to the gently rocking boat and looking out at the pelicans which would literally dive bomb for fish, great splashes,  then they’ d come up with a fish in their funny faces.  The Malecon was always worth a walk.  Huevos Rancheros breakfasts.

I thought we were in love. She was wonderful. Our costs once we were in Mexico plummeted.  Living is cheap in the third world.  I’d meet the local psychiatrist and dine out with him and his wife. Lovely people. I got my Single Side BAnd converted to include Hamm Radio Frequences by the former Navy communication expert. We did boat work and boat maintenance. We had our bottom sand blasted and painted

I guided a captain delivering a baby in the sea of Cortez and with the help of my psychiatrist colleague arranged for an obstetrician/pediatrician to go out with the coast guard to meet the returning guide boat hours half way hours from Le Paz.  I’d give talks on emergency and wilderness Medicien at sea. I’d write an article for off shore sailors with colleagues.  My radio operator friend would call me to assist several emergencies he’d get at sea. My partner did the same. We were really appreciated in the community. I saw a lot of cases mostly general practice. My first ever case of ‘chancre’ showed up when an American insisted I look at his penis.  The tell tale sign was there.

She had  beautiful legs and the cutest ass in short shorts.  I’d never wear anything but shorts ,sandals and  t shirt. At sea we’d be naked only keeping a sarong handy in case another boat came near.  

I’d be asked to see a Canadian ‘psychologist’ who was accused by two American girls of sexually harassing them. The consulate to Mexico asked me if I’d look into the matter because he’d been approached to get the release of the “Psychologist’.  I interviewed the two girls whose story was totally believable .  The community had split and the little girls and their family were somewhat ostracized at this point. I’d actually expected to be able to get a history that would allow me to say they were not telling the truth or that nothing had happened or there’d been a misunderstanding. But I’d listened to hundreds of children and recognized that this was not ‘factitious’ but true. 

I called the Consulate and recommended against him taking any action that weekend.  The man was to face trial on the Monday withthe judge. I typed up a formal forensic psychiatric consultation of my examination of the two little girls . It was in English but I had this Spanish Translation program that I ran it through really uncertain what it said. I gave both to the parents and embassy who had them seen by the judge, the translation being adequate. He kept the man in jail as a result.  

It turned out he wasn’t a ‘Canadian Psychologist’ but a pedophile wanted by the FBI in 5 states with hundreds of victims who’d fled to Ontario then Mexico. The Canadian embassy thanked me for assisting Canada the ambassador being delighted he’d not got between the Mexican justice system and a ‘norteamericano’ on this occasion.  The Mexicans don’t take kindly to pedophiles and apparently I saved the embassy a lot of embarrassment. It really was great to get such thanks. The whole tide changed in the ‘expat’ community and the girls were vindicated with the parents thanking me and literally everyone thinking I was some kind of great psychiatrist as no one had guessed.

I also was called to a hugely wealthy Nazis Yacht. A multi millionaire who was having chest pain. Once inside it was like being in the third Reich. Pictures of Hitler, memorabilia and this old man with chest pain. I was able to assist him and solve his problem. He’d been using the Mexican ‘generic’ digitalis which was half the potency of the ‘real’ drug. I increased his meds and his breathing improved with a little lasix and nitro. He had a veritable pharmacy on his incredibly huge luxury yacht.

We ate. We slept. We gathered for afternoon drinks. We made music. I wrote poetry. She painted .We read in the sun. We made love often. It was a truly idyllic time.

She flew home too. She said it was to manage her affairs.  She and the expoliceman had a grow op in the house the whole time we were away. During her trips back she moved all our money into her name and moved the money out of joint accounts into new accounts.  She was preparing for her future and I was or was not going to be apart of it. She didn’t care.

We sailed north to the top of the Sea of Cortez where there was a marina that would stow our boat on land and we could come back and holiday here or return and have it moved by land to the Gulf of Mexico so we could sail in the Caribbean, the ‘dream’.  We had even planned to sail back up to the Maritimes but that would have been stage 3, thus having circumnavigated Canada and the US. We had rethought the world circumnavigation because it turned out that it was harder to get work offshore. The dream had been to work half the year and sail in the south seas. We were feeling like we’d had enough fun in the sun and ready to return to work. A friend asked me if we could come to the Yukon for locus as he’d had a baby and his mother hadn’t seen the new grandchild because he could never get time off. Like most Northern doctors he had trouble recruiting locums.

I ‘d also want to do a locum in Tennessee. Make money and return for a year of sailing, Work sail.  She was so keen on this, it was such a great idea and life style and we met so many offshore couples doing similar lives.

In Guyamos we’d leave the boat on land and she’d play this game that we had no money .Big act.  I had a credit card so with my $5000 limit I bought a Toyota sport truck,  I loaded up the computers and electronics in the back we’d worried might be stolen and drove north. She was again without drugs and acting very strange.  I loved that truck. I loved the ride back to Vancouver. I loved Southern California desert and the Northern California forests. 

Back in our house in Shaughnassey the ex policeman was there with a bag of dope and she was happy again.  

She said we couldn’t take the job offered in Tennessee or leave VAncouver because we had no money.  I reviewed the accounts and we’d not spent more than a thousand or two a month. The cost of the year was less than $50,000. I had more than that in the bank myself even though she’d always used my income and we never saw hers.  A cute game.  Now we coiuldn’t leave because the money was gone.

My friend in the Yukon ha asked us if we could come north and cover his practice as he’d had a baby and couldn’t get anyone to cover his practice so he could take the 2 year old baby to see the grandparents. I was glad for the task. We’d both cover emergency and I’d do psychiatry. A bundle of money in 4 months. All the while we lived in his spectacular home. 

The hospital nurses and staff had worked with her and these superb nurses had seemed to ‘free’ her up so that she actually performed daily, getting into work and following through.There still were some terrible medical mishaps because of her inexperience and attitude. She’d only worked in the city university hospitals and simply refused to listen to those in the north who said there just wasn’t the same resources. A man died. It was an unnecessary death. He’d have eventually died 6 months later but her aggressiveness in his care, appropriate for a teaching hospital in the south was advised against by all in the north who knew there wasnt’ the means to handle complications. Sure enough he had complications. My friend returning immediately asked ‘why isn’t my patient alive, he had another 6 month in him”.  He was being kind but like a northern doctor he had a sense of prognosis and knew that something had hastened the death. I knew too. I didn’t like her attitude.  There was a callousness that I’d see more of and not appreciate. I’d increasingly face the moral dilemma of covering for her , the impaired physician.

Internal medicine has more life and death and detail than general psychiatry .  We’d drink and smoked dope in the evening but there was no errors I made. I had done DT’s that took more medication to settle than any of the worst cases I’d treated when I’d run the Winnipeg Detox.  Alcoholic DT’s in the Yukon were more common and the nurses and doctor were used to ‘industrial dosages.’  He settled but not before he damaged a room with angry delusional kicking.  

We’d save a life. She would do holy Medicine . When she was good she was very very good.It was a beautiful night. A thing to behold. I would write the story of that life saving event and get a variety of writing awards but really ,it was just three amazing clinicians all working at their best with a Christian nurse and a teenage girl being resuscitated.  She was dead and she came alive.  My wife was at her best. She really could shine in an emergency but she was unreliable and with all the drugs and alcohol simply would not go to work. Except here the nurses got the best out of her and she really did work well.

Based on that I gave her another chance and we opened a clinic together . Having never had a private practice she began countermanding my orders and suggestions and literally screwing up the computer system and the filing system and everything. A private practice is a ‘business’. There’s a successful way to do it. I hired several staff to ‘manage her’ because she simply wasn’t functioning. She didn’t get any of her consults back to the referring doctors so they didn’t send any more patients. The business of private practice is providing the family physicians with timely consults and getting the lab work and such done and making copies for the referring gps. She didn’t do any of that and tried to function like a resident with herself as the only doctor working in a bubble. She didn’t communicate with the patients and very soon she was back in bed not coming to work. I’d arrive and have the office full of my patients and her patients and shed’ gone to have her hair done or to buy new clothes without warning the staff. We had angry staff. I was angry. She was increasingly drugged.

The house was broken into so I had a top notch securty system put in. She kept changing the code and not telling me . All the gaslighting passive aggressive games we’d gone through in the country. My stethesecope would go missing and she’d put it in her room . My patients charts were misfiled. The staff were told I was coming in an hour early so they booked a patient and I wasn’t there. I was up each night charting and she wasn’t doing charting. There was no record keeping. A Ct Scan was necessary for a person who needed this scan to participate in her overseas team. She didn’t forward it and didn’t return calls. I came in one night to get this tearful voice begging me to know the results. It was normal.  Add the report which had come in weeks before and sat on her desk.  The woman’s could climb Everest.  That’s not something you don’t return calls on .It was bedlam.

She was screaming all night doing drugs and drinking and I couldn’t sleep. Twice I went to a motel to get sleep because I had a practice to do. I didn’t do coke. She was up all night. She was furious always.  When she wasn’t she was depressed.  

I had a full practice and 6 month waitlist and she had no patients. After she botched her initial consults there was no further patients. Her patients were angry and complained to her gps who didn’t send anymore patients.  I said we should have a wine and cheese party so that she could expand her referral base. We’d send out an open house statement have wine and lots of cheese and crackers. We had lists of local doctors and who’d be invited.  She failed to invite any of the gp’s who would refer to her but instead invited her drunken drug addicted friends. I had invited dozens of my colleagues who arrived and found dozens of bottles of wine and endless cheese and crackers and no one but them and the her low life drug addicted friends I’d said we were not going to invite.  It looked like we were a wine garden. Now we had dozens of bottles of wine. I was drinking a bottle of wine a night with her, maybe two together and getting marijuana.

 A fellow who dealt cocaine had had a manic or bad drug experience . He was my patient. Shed’ been getting cocaine again from her source and now began to approach my patients for cocaine in the office.That was it for me.

I’d had the alarms on the house go off. I had to work next day . The money I was making hand over fist was going into her accounts and not into the shared accounts. Suddenly $50,000 dollars was missing and our lawyer, who had befriended her said we needed a loan. I took out a personal loan at his suggestion $50,000 to keep the business afloat.  She simply took it. There was no cost. Just a standard mortgage and staff. She and no money coming in and was spending on cocaine.

I was seeing a psychiatrist and we were terribly concerned. He did’t think I had a problem I told him I was drinking a bottle of wine a day and smoking a joint but her cocaine use was terrifying because all this money was disappearing as well and she wasn’t showing up for work , was always angry and completely erratic. She kept breaking my things.  I broke a vase when she smashed my camera ‘accidentally ‘.  I told her I ddin’t believe her fucking ‘covert aggressive’ accident that only hurt me. So I broke a vase and said. “How does that feel’ That’s what you’re doing to me and your patients. Dont’ you feel . Haven’t you any empathy.!” 

And she go off and do more drugs.  

I asked her to go to San Diego . My consulting psychiatrist had told me to get away from town, away from the drug dealers. There was treament in San Diego . She had family. She agreed to fly out. She did but she didn’t go to a doctor. Her uncle phoned me and asked me to leave the house.

“Did she tell you about her cocaine and drug abuse and the alcoholism and her violence.”  

“No’.  

“Well, that’s why she’s in San Diego so she can get treatment for cocaine and drug abuse.”

I felt sorry for this old man who knew nothing about cocaine and the lies and splitting. . He was just concerned for his niece. 

I found that the carpet in t he basement concealed shake ....the electricity had been altered. I’d never have known there’d been a grow op if they cleaned it up. Now here I was a psychiatrist with addiction patients living in a house with all the evidence of a grow op.  It couldn’t get worse.

She’d lit up a joint with a cop car beside her when she was with a friend and he complained me,”It was my car. I would have lost it and everything. She just thought it was funny.”

It was raining the night I left. She was home and in a rage. I didn’t even trust leaving the dog with her. It was raining.  

She’d blown the head gasket on my truck and I’d been reduced to taking the bus to work. Without a vehicle for the first time in decades.

“My dad took the bus to work. You don’t need a car.’ She said. 

I couldn’t find a place where my dog and I could stay the night. I phoned my biker friends on the island knowing that I could take my dog there. There aren’t a whole lot of options when you have a dog and it’s a rainy night and you are trying to get taxies from hotel to hotel. This was before cell phones. 

 I took the ferry to the island. My friends met me.  They’d been doing a lot of cocaine. Cocaine was suddenly everywhere. The year we’d left sailing it had not been around, just marijuana but starting with the cocaine boat in La Paz cocaine just kept appearing everywhere. My former ‘biker hippy’ friends were now a different sort but they wanted me to stay and I was thankful to be out of the insaniety of that house and that crazy coke lady. We sat around and smoked dope and drank wine and watched tv.  We worked on motorcycles. My friend was a motorcycle mechanic. He had some famous clients.  

I told her I wasn’t coming back.  We separated. She dumped my files of my patients in the back of the truck and some of my personal possessions including my guns and ammo and fishing gear and left it unlocked parked on the street.  Friends brought it to the island.  I was so disappointed to see the lack of care and concern for peoples lives. I was talking to my psychiatrist and considering options. I didn’t know what to do.

I had $30,000 in RRSP’s and got $15000 back . I wanted to trade my truck for a car but the guy took the money and claimed it was rent and food but instead spent it on coke.  

It turned out that for a year they’re been inviting people to come stay and then kicking them out and keeping their stuff. He’d been married to a doctor who kicked him out because of the coke habit. My other doctor friend’s husband got into coke and she kicked him out. 

I would have liked coke but it gave me lock jaw, made me horny and all I could think of was sex, but I had ED. I ‘d taken to wearing my Rocky Horror Picture Show black lingerie and wandering around in the fields under the full moon. Things were pretty crazy.  Smoking lots of dope and drinking moonshine from their still.

Following the direction of my friend I backed up scratching my truck. He got furious screaming and threatening. I’d bought a wrecked boat and had been working on that. One of his friends sold it to me for $5000. It was worthless. Nothing got done. None of the motorcycles worked. His new girlfriend never left her bedroom. They did coke all night. I remember liking the morning waking and watching tv drinking coffee and smoking a joint.

I remember a moment of clarity, drinking beer with this hippy farmer friend and thinking he looked really old and sad.There were a lot of 20 year old girls about. Beyond him I saw myself in the mirror and didn’t like what I saw. I looked worse. 

I got a call from a Christian friend and crew. He asked if I wanted anything. Said he’d felt God telling him to call me. I asked him if he could come pick me up . He arrived with his station wagon. We loaded my valuables in the back. We left some stuff but a friend said my coke addicted friend was furious I’d left because he’d planned to take all my stuff and run me off.  I’d jumped the gun and escaped.  God is good all of the time.

Later these friends would threaten to kill me and try to extort money. My friends.  Cocaine does terrible things to people.

I’d prayed to God. I wanted to be alone in a cabin on a hill and stop all drugs and alcohol. My friend had a trailer . I stayed in that. It was exactly what I prayed for.

I had no money .  The money I’d got had been taken and now I was here without any assets. I went with my friend to his church and they gave me food. It was kind of them. Coffee and food. My friend shared his food that first week.  I was hungry and would walk Shinto for long walks on the mountain. He’d get me a futon.  I had a futon and an empty trailer .

I went to welfare and the woman there screamed at me saying ‘welfare isn’t  for doctor’s’.  She threw me out. 

I remember crying a lot.

My friend had asked me if I’d wanted to go home and I said I couldn’t go home because she was doing drugs and alcohol and I needed to get straight. I needed all my wits about me.

The ‘insurance’ I’d paid for for decades with the Doctors of BC had a proviso which said it was based on your previous year’s income. As I’d been sailing and not working for a year I never got any money from the BCMA.

I had all my working life starting in Manitoba paid into a private Great West Life disability  insurance fund. It paid out a thousand a month . I was able to get that going.

I’d gone to see Dr. Willi Gutowski. He was a Christian psychiatrist. I was going to go back to Manitoba where I had family and friends. He suggested I stay and get clean and sober and go to church. We prayed together. I found I only trusted Christians at this time and next I’d trust sober people.  I was detoxing from nicotine and marijuana mostly. I’d stopped drinking too.  I finally met with Dr. Graham a recovered doctor from Physician Help. He was a good man. 

Dr. Graham recommended I see Bernie. Dr. Bernie came to the trailer. I had a bible and a shot gun , a knife and an axe. I was beating a tambourine to keep the evil spirits out. I also was watching out for my biker ex friend who said he was coming to kill me to get the papers for the truck. I wasn’t giving him the papers as I’d never got the car in trade and I’d given them $15000 which I learned he’d put up his nose. I think I had less than10 lines drinking to stay awake at these drunken biker parties only to confirm that. I’d get Lock jaw erectile failure and be horny as hell.  

I joke and say I gave up drinking to give up smoking I was smoking 2 packs of cigarettes having gone from a pack a day a month before. I had a great green bag of marijuana shake from the grow operation and rolling drum tobacco and shake. I had industrial dosages of that on board. All the hiking was clearing my head and lungs. Shinto loved walking his dad.

Dr. Bernie came over in a new truck. The neighbours weren’t talking to me. I’d taken the axe and my tanto knife  and cut and a made a great chair to sit on  the deck. I was sitting on the deck like a hill billy.  Dr. Bernie was a mensch.  

I told him my story minimizing my drug and alcohol use the last month focussing on my previous use. Coming to the church going downstairs, he said .”Hearing your story I’d guess you’re the highest bottom ever to go to AA”. I didn't’ know about his wit and candour and capacity for irony.  I thought he was referring to my ass. I figured then and there that this whole church basement was full of homosexuals and AA was a group fuck and I was about to be group fucked up the ass. I had no where else to go.  

No one fucked me that night. I actually lectured them because I thought they wanted me to teach them about wine and marijuana so I gave an impromptu lecture. Then I sat back and listened. They talked about God and that was good because I’d stopped trusting people almost completely . I trusted God and knew that people who trusted God were maybe okay.  They talked a lot about a spiritual solution.  I liked that too because drugs and alcohol hadn’t helped and made things worse. I was ready for abstinence and not too long later applied for a monastery.  I had had it with the world.  I had had had it with psychiatry.  ‘

They said that it was a ‘one day at a time’ program and I’d not had drugs or alcohol or nicotine for weeks but I was keen on the present. I was back to praying and meditating and reading the Bible. 

They seemed like nice people.  They told me to ‘keep coming back’.  No one else was saying that.  

Orphaned from above 

(I had said fuck it and out of spite showed her that I could open a practice. That’s what I did. I could open a practice and have a full practice in months. I’d done it from a ‘cold start’ in Parksville and in Vancouver . I could do it again.. I work and I have a high success rate with doctors wanting to refer,  and patients wanting to come back. I’ve routinely had 2 year waitlists only paring them down to 3 months by selecting patients according to my interests, trauma and borderline personality disorder. No one wanted to see borderline personality disorder, mysubspecialty  and PTSD wasn’t very popular either. I didn’t have a lot of competition. The smart money doctors we’re seeing depressed middle or upper class housewives..  

She on the other hand had never had a practice. She’d totally failed to work in our Parksville clinic getting no clients and making no contact with colleagues.  She liked to socialize with rich people and drug addicts and alcoholics. I expressed deep concern about her coming into a private practice with me because not only had she failed to attend the clinic in Parksville when she’d worked several months in mental health she never left her office didn’t see patient and had a terrible clinicalreputation. We opened a practice again and she crashed. I could never forget the story of the horse about to swim to safety across a stream, asked by a scorpion but a ride.

 “You’ll sting me. “ 

“No I won’t, we’d both drown”

The horse swims with the scorpion on his head and the scorpion stings him in the middle of the river.

“Why did you do that,” the horse asked “we’ll now both drown »

« It’s my nature, » answered the scorpion.)

42 yo: Cape Mendocino, Shelter Cove, Mutiny, Psychosis, Hawaii, Pra

We succeeded in sailing south to Cape Mendocino. This is a famous cape where we’d learned that the seas could build up and winds could be difficult. That had begun in the night.  I’d been up all night and in the morning we had 6 foot following seas and 30 to 40 knot winds.  The autopilot would not hold the boat in these conditions and required hand steering.

My crew were good at this and I had us switching on and off every few hours.  I’d become scared because the crew had gone on deck without wearing a lifeline. I had to repeat that we needed life line’s on in addition to our off shore life jackets and floater suits.  I had the terrifying realization that if either of them went overboard I didn’t believe I could turn the boat about in these conditions and rescue them. We were beyond my capability as a skipper to go back in a boat against that wind and sea and find them.  

Yet,  they were being ‘cavailier’ about personal safety, a sure fire sign that they were afraid and reacting to fear with aberrant behaviour.  My wife was equally scared and forgetful yet good at the helm.  She was always good at managing the boat in the wind and sea. She had a feel for holding the boat on course. When we let the boat off course a little huge waves would break over the back of the boat and smash down into the cockpit.  With attention these could be avoided keeping the boat on the right course which was taking us now westerly no longer southerly which would have put the seas on our beam. We were slowly making our way round the Cape .

Shelter Cove was our destination, a protected harbour a few hours to the west of us.  The forecast was for increasing gale.  I’d gone below and checked out the charts finding an electronic chart of the bay which showed an easy entrance and anchorage.   Murphy’s  law had the computer fail at that point.    I wasn’t able to pull the chart up again though had the larger scale paper chart showing location and entrance.

While I’d been up all night and the crew and my wife had slept I’d not. Since dawn I”d still been awake and managing the boat.  I felt I needed sleep before entering the harbour. We had rounded the corner and were running with the sea behind us no longer being ‘pooped’ by wind and current. It was a few hours straight sailing. We had no sail up and were managing on diesel power.

“I have to sleep. I’ve not slept in 24 hours. I need all my wits about me for going into Shelter Cove.  We’ve never been in so rough conditions so I need you both to stay on watch.  Two on watch and one below till we get to Shelter Cove. Wake me in one hour. ” 

In the night I’d been on watch and let them both sleep. We’d been doing solo watches until this day, 6 hours each, .

The crew had said he’d been a pilot.  We’d never seen his pilots license or seen him fly and his experience with flying had been years in the past. As doctors we were well aware that people claim to have skills but that their skill set may not be ‘current’ .  The plane he said was his was a piece of junk that had been left on an airstrip to essentially rot.  He had never to our “actual” knowledge been in the air, Neither of us had seen him fly. We believed him but I didn’t know. It’s hard to explain this to folk who aren’t psychiatrists or whatever it is about me that lives in this ‘careful reality’ and is suspect of everyone.   His boat he had never been maintained it  His cabin or his vehicles did not give me confidence about his overall functioning.   On his own he was hardly functional but in a group he managed.  I trusted him as crew but I’d never trust him as a captain. I’d been a leader all my life and neither my wife or he had. It was an important detail on the boat that day. 

He said he’d sailed twenty years before at university as crew on a university sailing team on the lake. He’d never captained a sailing ship.  He’d had a sail boat which he never sailed. To our actual knowledge of him he’d never sailed  in heavy weather  or difficult maneuvering. My wife and I had but not this degree of challenge.    He was capable of ‘fixing things’, a “good wrench” as we’d say, though he’d obsess about decisions, which explained the disorder in his vehicles, lots of unfinished tasks. We’d worked together on projects on boats, his having an engineering degree and frankly knowing mechanical and electronic systems better than me. I deferred to his skill in this regard but he had difficulty with taking direction and major control issues.  We’d considered it taking him as crew. I thought my wife understood clearly the perceived limitations.  I appreciated his skill  should we get into difficulties with equipment failures.  I was also thankful for the manpower.   I did not trust his ‘leadership’ and knew he had major ego issues, being what we would describe as a legend in his mind. I had however been wholly unprepared for mutiny.  

I know now that when people are afraid that they attempt to take control. I’d learned that first life saving.  Lifeguarding when people were out of control ,we don’t get close to them until their psychosis is manageable by talking from a distance.   When are calm enough they will follow our orders  take them back with us to shore.

My wife and he were depressives. Their performances were emotionally based. When they were well they functioned but their life histories were of long periods of dysfunction.  They both had a  tendency to go to bed for days and avoid difficult situations.  

I truly thought I could manage this crew.  I was wrong. 

I believed that my wife who had sailed with me would know that we together had managed all the challenges we’d faced to date on the boat. We’d had crew previously and we’d had crew in difficult sailing situations. We’d all come to shore working together.  My crew was a loner and disruptive and most unfortunately misogynist. My wife was a highly competent doctor, helmswoman and boater but he did not see her as such. He saw her as a woman and did not trust women.  He’d actually say later he didn’t think women should be on ships or planes.  I didn’t know the depths of his anger at the time. I knew he was jealous of me and desired my wife as she was to his mind “high society”. I did that think much of this at the time focused on so many aspects of expedition I thought I could manage the crew. 

While I was asleep, having asked to be woken in one hour ,to prepare to enter Shelter Cove, my crew convinced my wife to go to sleep against my strict orders that two remain at the helm.  She had not woken me to review my order but rather conspired with him to let him take command of my ship.  He was psychiatric and had told her that I was suffering from ‘go to ground itis’, a condition he said people got in planes and that it go them killed. I don’t know what he was talking about. We were in sailboat anot a plane. He altered course and took us away from the coust and out to sea. No one woke me. It was three hours later when we had passed Shelter Cove that I woke and terrified saw him alone on deck. I didn’t know where my wife was but she’d gone to the front and was.in.bed.  

I looked at the navigation position and charted our position on the map, and looked at our course.

“Why have we gone off course!. Why have we gone out to sea! Why is my wife not on watch with you! The gale was blowin g worse in the background.

“I decided you had ‘go to ground itis’ he said with the gleam of insaniety in his eyes. “I decide it was wrong to go into harbour that we had to go out to sea.”

Now we faced a night at sea in a gale off a lee shore  with rising winds and an exhausted crew. My wife looked terrible. She’d woken and come above. 

‘Why did you not wake me?  Why did you leave your post? Why did you let the crew take us off course and back out to sea? “ I asked belligerently and in sheer astonishment. I felt deeply betrayed. I have fear of going to sleep around her for years and nightmares about this night. 

“He convinced me you had ‘go to ground itis’”. He said we couldn’t go to shore.” She was appalling. My friend was a snake. 

‘But why did you leave the watch.” I asked 

“He told me to.”  At that I took her back into the cabin out of his earshot and berated her. I was really scared now he’d kill us. They were both insane. I was betrayed and this was a mutiny. No other name and my wife had put the put the knife in my back and out of sheer stupidity might get us all killed. 

“You chose him as captain over our boat without consulting me. We have entered many harbours in rough weather. Have you ever seen him sail before this?”

“He’s a pilot.”

Have you ever seen him fly? Have you even seen his pilots license. What the fuck is this “ go to gounditis? He’s some kind of amateur psychiatrist. He’s crazy and yo gave him control of our boat we’ve spent years trading and working on and you didn’t consult me. You and he went behind my back to take us south along a le shore at night in a rising gale crew exhausted. “

.lI’ve been sailing with you for years and we’ve managed every situation but now you’ve let our crew take over the boat while I was asleep.”

I was talking to her in the bow below so he couldn’t hear us because frankly I knew I had a mad man on board  who was totally psychotic and a crazy wife who’d lost all her faculties. 

I was a psychiatrist. I had not expected to be using all my skills as a psychiatrist to live throug the night but that’s what it had come to.  This was actually my friend but I knew that fear caused people to err and that he had a serious difficulty with authority and following orders.  

It’s just that I never expected my wife to be so fickle and put all our lives at risk with her willingness to accept what people ‘say’ without ‘evidence and proof’.  I simply don’t care a lot about what people ‘say’. I need proof and evidence of my own eyes.  I’d never gone flying with him because I wasn’t sure he was capable as a pilot and I’d not checked his credentials. I take everything about a person on good faith but if I ‘m going to give them a job I want to see their credentials.

 I have my credentials on the wall so people can check them. I always check the taxi license when I get in a cab.  It’s just ‘basic’ adult behaviour. I don’t ‘believe’ people on ‘face value’ but this had been a recurrent problem with my wife. She’d accepted that this man we hired was a University of Toronto graduate who worked as a carpenter. He did good carpentry but his ‘social standing’ in her eyes gave him some validiity.  He turned out to be a cocaine addict who stole from our neighbours using his position working on our boat to gain access to a locked marina compound. 

My wife was naive and susceptible to con artists. We’d discussed this extensively because I was thoroughly fed up by the people she had around us. In retrospect I’m now aware that her willingness  to accept them ‘uncondtionally’ was because they were drug addicts with drugs.  Our crew wasn’t.  I was there asleep and my ‘order’ clearly stated fully agreed on was 

1. 2 people on watch

2. This is the course we are on

3. Wake me in 1 hour.

They had mutinied.  I’d never sleep again well on boat with her or crew on boat. All my life after years of call I’ve been able to manage exhaustion by an hour nap.  Now I’d be on deck for the next 24 hours in the worst gale I’d encountered with my crew managing the helm as that comforts people, being in control, at the wheel.  I made coffee and watched. My wife slept.  I was a psychiatrist and appeasing. There was nothing more to do but hope we got through the night and got into the next port we’d reach next day. I’d hope that the weather moderated.  

“If you were so concerned about going into Shelter Cove why didn’t you say so. I could have called the Coast Guard and discussed it with them”

“We’re not calling the coast guard for advice. I’m not going to be ashamed while I’m on this boat.we’re alone here and we are going to handle everything alone. That’s what I say.”

Next day we’d reach port and anchor.  We’d come through an incredible storm. As I’d see in future, all this ‘unnecessary’. My wife and I would go through far worse storms together in just a few months. A couple of years later I’d sail solo through a hurricane. 

 My crew had a gift for creating problems which he’d then solve. He’d even admit he liked to break things to see if he could fix them and that way he’d know the ‘tolerances’.  I’d remain friends with him for years to come. I’d never ‘trust’ him to learn.  He’d continue on his own to do the most absurd and dangerous things. I would indeed have to rescue us repeatedly. I’d ‘fix’ the damage his thoughtlessness with people and equipment his damage would cause. His was a friend. He was just stupid and immature. My wife was a different matter. She was even more dangerous and would almost get us killed and me killed with her anger and moods. 

One of his penchants sailing was to be alone on watch at night off an unknown coast and suddenly begin sailing ‘wing on wing’ in gales. I’d wake to feel the boat careeening and pull down all the unnecessary sail and stop the foolishness.  He said he ‘liked to race’.  I said we are not a ‘ racing boat’.  We are a ‘cruising boat’.  We needed to ‘conserve our energy’ and ‘avoid unnecessary strain and stress’ because this was a ‘marathon’ not a ‘sprint.  Like half the men  I’ve known he was completely different with his own equipment than he was with mine.  I’ve actually watched people baby their vehicles while taking unnecessary risks with mine. When I’ve confronted them their basic communist or ‘child’ mentality has been exposed. “I can’t afford to damage me truck but you’re a doctor so I know if your truck is damaged you can afford to fix it.”  

That Canadian mentality has been a trial all my life with people abusing my ‘stuff’ and ‘me’ because there’s a kind of ‘reverse predjucie.’  I just want people to be as loving or caring towards ‘my stuff’ as they’d be towards theirs. . My crew meanwhile wasn’t good at ‘maintenance’ with ‘stuff’ or with ‘relationships.  My father was an engineer and they were fundamentally different on this feature.

I’ll never forget the surgeon  Dr. Ross saying ‘it’s how you handle the tissue’. The little things counted.  Bot my crew and wife did well at times but they lacked this other quality of ‘reliability’.

For a system to work we need the ‘steady eddies’.  All the glory hounding that my ex and crew could manage wasn’t as critical as these ‘mediocre’ people who are the ‘sustaining’ force in the whole system.  Whitaker the great child psychiatrist addressed this in parenting describing the need for ‘good enough mothering’ rather than ‘perfect mothering’.  Both my crew and my wife had obsessional qualities and wanted to be ‘perfect’.  The idea of ‘good enough’ was outside their ken. Yet it’s better sometimes to have almost anybody manning the job than nobody.  As much as I have maligned bureaucrats I’ve known they are essential for these times

With watch keeping a person whose nodding is sometimes better than a person who is simply not there. There’s this grey area which large systems and great managers know. The whizz kids are great but in the 12 step programs ‘spiritual progress’ is preferred to ‘spiritual perfection’.  The whole story of the ‘rabbit and the tortoise’ speaks to this. 

Both my crew and my ex demanded perfection of themselves and when they weren’t feared failure and shut off.  Neither was the team player or captain that learned to use the collective or the skills over individuals to manage the group. I can do this but I’d seen the likes of my own leaders and known that they were highly skilled in this way. My brother and father both fathers and husbands and family men developed these amazing traits as part of their roles as parents. My grandfather was a notorious much admired leader who became a Northern Rieve.

They didn’t learn on the job so easily. Both my crew and my ex were less ‘cooperative’ and liked the ‘glory’ functioning  individually but having difficulty working together and following basic orders. I wasn’t a Captain Bligh. I’m a permissive tolerant leader whose more into giving suggestion but on a boat ‘order‘ were as necessary as they were in surgery. I had no difficulty in either situation. 

My work had been focused on ‘non compliance’ and ‘non adherence to medical regimen’ .  This was the extension of St. Paul’s ‘why do I do what I don’t want to do and why don’t I do what I want to do.’  There’s a concept of ‘cooperative behaviour’.  There’s also the challenge of ‘prisoner’s dilemna’.  People who play prisoner’s dilemna simply can’t succeed because the ‘we win’ situation requires fundamental ‘trust’.  “I win, you lose’ is almost always preferred to ‘we win’ though people love to talk about ‘we win’.  In the actual scenarios they refer to the paranoid position of I win you lose with the common follow up of ‘we lose’.  It’s a wonderful ‘utopian’ fantasy for adolescents thinking but in the difficult situations reality checks in.

I’d remain friends with my friend and crew because I could ‘handle’ his egomania. Guys can function together in groups using each other’s strengths and weaknesses.  He’d actually try to get my ex after I left her . He was interested in older women for their miney but only turned on by young girls who found him creepy. She had  never been interested in him, something he didn’t understand.  That  night she more likely furious at me for getting her into such a dangerous situations, angry at herself for her incapacity and more than willing to hide in bed, her go to place..  She escaped into sleep, her go to place. We were both at this time in withdrawal from marijuana and her cocaine. 

I just never got over her unwillingness to accept her experience, we had surmounted all adversity together, and she chose to mutiny with a crew who’d not demonstrated his capacity.  

The next day my wife and dog and crew would go ashore. He’d be manning the motor and direct them through the surf. 

“Have you ever landed a dinghy in surf?” I asked

“No.” 

“I have. “ I said,” It’s difficult and deceiving.  See that place over there. That’s the best place to land. If you go over here the surf will flip you. People actually break their necks landing dinghies in surf so be careful. You’ve got my wife and dog with you. No mistakes.”

The egomaniac was still in gear. That cocky insaniety that I’m  paid to deal with. Was still riding high.  It’s like ‘possession’ . It comes and then it persists and the person insists on ‘doing it my way’. In addiction work and co dependency this ‘hypomanic’ single mindedness and refusal to take direction is well documented.Whether its chemical and involuntary or psychological and voluntary is the great debate in the literature with psychotherapists taking one side and the psychopharamocologists taking the other side. 

Having mutinied and taken control of my big boat putting all of us at risk and yet getting us through the storm he now refused to take direction in a situation where he had no experience , no skills and insisted psychologically on doing it ‘his way’.  It was an effrontery to go against my clear direction but I figure testosterone and insaniety still held sway. 

The consequence was he took the dinghy into the very place where I said he should not. Consequentlyhe  flipped the dinghy with my wife and dog in it. My wife’s head was hit and she was dazed. The dog came up swimming. 

It was all in his mind a minor thing. He took great offence at any slight but his own behaviour was always explained as others overreaction.   I’d not trust my wife with him again or my dog. I’d remain friends but I saw that he had this adolescent issue with authority and the need to ‘prove himself’.  It was a dangerous combination.

When they got back I not only chewed him out about almost killing my wife and dog in the surf but also abut his mutiny the night before, night sailing, exhausted crew, Lee shore, all bad decisions and mutiny too. “ Do you know why mutiny carries death penalty?”

“ I do,” I said. “I’m the captain of this boat, my wife and I are owners. This is not your boat. You don’t get to mutiny. If you don’t want to do as you are told and don’t want to take my orders I can put you ashore here and give you money to fin your way home.” 

I think the word “mutiny” sobered them up and they’d seen how dangerous they were being,  Dinghies in surf are dangerous. A good dunking and straight facts got us back on an even keel. I’d stay captain and we’d continue but my marriage wasn’t so easily repaired. In retrospect I think a lot it was her coming off coke and pot. 

My wife seemed also to trust words over deeds. For years I’d had her back worked with her and yet again and again she’d believe the next self proclaimed authority.  I wanted this ‘love’ and ‘trust’ and belief that my partner ‘trusted’ me for what I ‘showed’ and that I could ‘trust’ her.  But when I was asleep she couldn’t even be trusted to wake me to ‘consult’me but rather ‘behind my back’ she’d made a unilateral decision, a mutiny as it were, that not only put her life at risk by mine as well. 

The whole history of ‘feminism’ is a divide and conquer of the family by the state which is always the demonic adolescent who destroys the parents rather than working with them for the whole of the trinity.  The whole religion of ‘trinity’ and ‘triangles’ and ‘holographs’ is a central ideological drama that is played out by mathematicians and is basic to ‘systems theory’.  

Here we were three. My wife and I parents. My crew the child. She’d chosen the child over me. They’d both regressed to their own childhood issues. They both had their issues with authority.  I continued to demonstrate competence not afraid of the sea and wind as much as I was now of the people I shared the boat with. 

In months to come I’d sit in Broken Surfboard Bar in Cabo San Lucas and drink beer and laugh as everyone of the Blue Water Crusing Association skippers there described their ‘crew’s mutiny’ when they got into a blow. The marriage problems were rife as well but it was the universality of the crew’s need  to take the helm in bad conditions,  which only we as captains would appreciate , ,that made the hilarity of the situation. 

One fellow told us in the middle of the storm he was ruffling through papers down below for receipts on his yacht which he’d paid for monthly for a decade to make this trip and there he was on deck in a storm screaming. “This is my boat. These are a decade of receipts. This is my dream. I am the skipper. I’m the captain. You will only be captain when it’s your boat and you are the captains. Now we’re going to go on this course.”.

Another captain said how he’d had to threaten to kill his crew to get him to let go of the helm. “He’d never sailed before.”

The stories of Mendocino are equally harrowing. It’s there on the trip down that crews win or lose. We’d survive but from that point forward I’d no longer be able to trust my wife or my crew.  She’d make repeated dangerous decisions alone and they would not follow my orders. I managed but barely. 

Coming into San Francisco harbour she’d altered the radar without telling us. We went off the bow wave of a tanker . I could have touched the side of the ship. Our mast almost hit the water.  It was the most harrowing moment in my sailing career to date. In San Francisco we saw the rigging a a yacht on the cow catcher of a tanker. The Coast Guard went back along the back trail to search for survivors. That could have been us. 

Like the lying about the dope she’d not tell us she’d adjusted the radar or SSB or whatever and then deny until I’d say “you’re lying. You almost got us killed,” Oh alright, I adjusted it. Now both the crew and I for the third time and two other collisions thought thee tanker in the fog in the main shipping lane was by far the worst. “ We can only calibrate the radar in the day when we can see the object we’re focusing on. It simply can’t be done randomly at night.”

“Whatever!”

It was like being on board with a 13 year old at such times.

I’d said then I was calling the San Francisco coast guard to discuss entering the harbour at night and ask them for advice.

“I’m not going to let you. I’m a pilot . A pilot would never ask ground control for advice. I’m not going to be shamed by you. We must do this by ourselves.”

“You’re fucking crazy. I’m called the coast guard myself. I’m captain of this ship and I want more information.”

“You are not.”

“Yes I am. Now go fuck yourself or I’ll kill you right here.” Really that was a conversation I had to have with this guy about calling the coast guard. He had some romantic idea that we were alone in space. I was just wanted to get to the south seas alive. I didn’t have any of this attitude. 

I literally had to threaten him to get to the radio. I phoned the coast guard. “I’m SV Giri, a 40 foot sloop entering your channel at position such . There are three of us aboard. I’m planning on using this channel marked on the map and maintaining this course in this fog. . Would that be acceptable.’

“That would be fine but as you’re a smaller ship we’d prefer you hug the coast. There’s all deep water there but the main channel is pretty busy with tankers so stay as close to shore as you can.”

‘Thank you. SV Giri out.” 

I’ve repeatedly come across people who have this weird notion of ‘shame’ and refuse to ‘seek help’ or ‘seek advice’ and insist that they must ‘maintain face’ even if asking for help can save a life. This ‘egomania’ kills. I don’t have it. I’m always glad to get input and then make the decision. 

The problem that arises now is that lawyers and bureaucrats are doing  what my friend and crew were concerned about. They are tying the captains hands behind his back and blaming him if he chooses a different course than the one advised. I ask for a second ‘opinion’ but then make a decions based on multiple factors but if I go against the second opinion I’m punished more in the silly courts which are a ‘game’ compared with ‘reality’. In reality I want as much information as possible.  I want other’s opinions. But then I make a decision and that decision is mine as a captain. The courts are just Monday Morning quarterbacks, critics who are parasites on reality. They are simply not there in life and death situations so never know for sure. They still are necessary but they are not reality in the real sense.

 The coast guard has over the years been a wealth of information just as police have. I’ve called them and discussed my situation and plan getting their input. I’ve asked police advice and got their input. I’m the one making the final decision. The courts should not punish me for seeking assistance but there’s a tremendous amount of egomania and attitude in that process. But frankly looking back I see pros and cons of different approaches. I don’t have to worry about being ‘ashamed’. I’m not ‘proving’ myself in these situations .I’m just doing the next best thing and mostly just trying to stay alive..  

In San Francisco the crew left and I asked my wife for a divorce. I said this is not working. She begged me to give   her one more chance.  I agreed.  We’d sail together the easy stretch to San Diego. 

I wasn’t willing to sail with her beyond that  because she was increasingly unpredittahble. Every day was a different mood. We discussed divorce again in San Diego.I  agreed to try it one more time with our crew who was willing to do the next leg to Cabot San Lucas.  It was another  ‘easy’ sail.  

That’s when he’d start doing wing on wing at night and I’d be screaming ‘stop it’. She’d begin messing with the electronics breaking things more too and I’d feel like I was in a floating asylum. Only the dog was sane. 

She’s was scared and tired and accidents occur predwhen you’re scared and tired but this was beyond that more willful and adolescent, pouting and angry.   I’d literally now ream everyone out as ‘captain bligh’ and demand that everyone pay attention before someon got hurt. 

“ I’d told her I never again wanted to not be woken in an emergency .such as a course change 

I told him , “you almost killed my dog and my wife in your wilfully wrong decision to countermand my orders as to where to go ashore. You mutinied at Shelter Cove because you’ve never gone into a harbour in a blow but my wife and I have entered harbours in blows a dozen times. I had given you a direct order and no chilvary or ‘go to ground itis’. Bullshit has any place in your taking command from me. I appreciate you were scared but that’s mutiny. That’s why the Royal Navy and the Navy’s all over the world have emphasized discipline so that in tough situations crew don’t do exactly what you did, mutinied.  You both mutinied. That’s the word for it and I don’t want any more of that shit on this boat! “

A few years later I’d solo sail down the coast in winter. Much worse conditions. Higher winds wilder seas coming down. Id already faced 40 foot seas and been knocked down three times in high winds. I’d come round Cape Mendocino in a blow. I’d ride the ship with following seas and identical conditions , maintain the course and take my ship solo into the magnificent port called ‘Shelter Cove’.  I’d anchor . Id go ashore and send them each post cards. 

They’d said it couldn’t be done. They’d said that I was psychotic to want to go to Shelter Cove. They said that they needed to mutiny to save the shop from my desire to take us ashore. That handed explained why they’d not kept to on deck. That hadn’t explained why they hadn’t called the coast guard to say the captain was insane, “Go to ground itis was a novel idea in his mind. He’d never actually encountered it himself. It was however common for scared crew to mutiny. They said It was too dangerous. It was an easier harbour to enter than many my wife and I had entered ourselves. He might not have had such experience but we’d certainly had experience of just this kind Sailing the Charlotte. The clue too was the name of the cove ‘Shelter Cove’. It was a wonderful sheltered cove that had been used for thousands of years by people coming around Cape Mendocino in a blow. Mendacious Mendocino.

I sent them both post cards from Shelter Cove. They never got back to me.  I suppose we agree to disagree. Mutiny is a court martial offence.  It’s a capital offence.  Neither apologized. Neither were the sort to apologize. Never been a problem of mine. I’m quick to admit fault but then I’d have gladly called the Coast Guard before Shelter Cove even,  if I’d been give a chance. 

It’s was a terrible time and my wife and I would divorce after I stopped doing drugs and alcohol and she persisted. I think that were we not going through some withdrawal from marijuana we’d have handled the situation better.  I also believe my wife and I would have done better without crew as we had done so much more before him. Our crew had major  problems of his own and serious issues with taking direction and  with accepting  command. The triangle is the most difficult scenario with great instability but immense potential to change and grow.  I learned a lot about myself that night. Not all of it good. I also promised God in prayer that night I’d do anything he wanted if he get us safely through. I believe that was the prayer that began my journey to recovery. 

It was all just sad.  They thought.I was crazy and I thought they were crazy.  I was the captain and the most experienced sailor.  I’ve discussed this ad infinitum with other sea captains , navy officers and psychiatrists and everyone supports me and my analysis. Still I’m divorced today and believe that my marriage ended that night.  I maintained my friendship with my crew though as with all friends I knew his limitations. I don’t know why I couldn’t accept that with my wife. But I lost faith in her grasp on reality that night and feared she’d forever be fooled by appearance and deny facts and evidence. I didn’t want to be slave to her emotions. She showed poor judgement yet we survived. Maybe we’d have died going into Shelter Cove. Certainly Iago convinced her of that ,his fear being psychotic proportions despite his denial.  I could stay at sea or go into Shelter Cove. I became terrried only when I woke and found that behind my back in my sleep my crew had mutinied. I didn’t trust either of them and knew they had no experience and that they were both psychotic with fear.

I confirmed my own analysis sailing solo to Shelter Cove. I’d go onto sail across the Pacific through a hurricane later that year. But I was clean and sober a few years by then and much more capable of trusting my own decisions and better able to assess others.  I was gentler too and less harsh and more kind.  I was’t a kind man when I was drinking and smoking dope. I was unkind to my ex wife.  I with I had been a better man. 

Life moved on. 

Years later sailing back from Hawaii with my crew and express instructions to reduce sail at night, I always reduced sail at night,  I’d again wake to the boat careening our of control ,arrive on deck and find him with full sails racing in the moon light. I’d scream at him and begin pulling down the sails when the mast broke.  He didn’t learn and I’ve concluded with much discussion with pastors I need to show more discernment.

Of course it could have broken anywhere but it broke 2000 miles from shore ‘unnecessarily’. It had been weakened by an installment flaw when the water bladder interfered with the drainage around the base of the mast which was complicated by the volcanic acid rain while stored in Kona, water leaking down through the mast hole. 

His solution was to call for help and be taken ashore by navy or coast guard. I explained that this would ensure his life and mine but that my boat with all my life’s possessions and would have to be left at sea. I’ve always found people ware less respectful of other’s ‘stuff’ and think first of themselves and their ‘stuff’.  He was seriously cavalier about the terrible situation he caused by continued adolescent disobedience and now with his lack of concern for my loss. I’d seen him have caniptions when he faced a minor loss.

The irony that followed was almost with the damage he caused wing on wing late night sailing against my repeatedly expressed rules. The eventual repair would cost me tens of thousands of dollars. I’d pay him to repair the damage he did to my boat. However, 

My friend is rigidly religious and homo phobic. He had no solution. He was an engineer and he simply had no solution than to abandon ship when the time came. Our fuel would only get us another thousand miles.

I phoned Eric,  my gay sailing friend on the satellite phone. I believe in communication and saw humans as a collection of  computers that could link to greater genius. Eric had sailed back with his partner from Hawaii. I’d seen then presentation at the Blue Water Sailing Association.  I told him my situation and asked for help. He said he knew who would know what to do and moments later marine surveyor friend got back to me.I described the damage and he recommended a Spanish turnbuckle, explaining how to do this on our boat. We did this. It saved the boat. Hundreds of thousands of dollars saved by a phone call after juvenile insensitive behaviour almost cost us that and more. I lost a week more  of work, the income and patients were had Major  inconvenience. 

I’d sailed solo to Hawaii in winter storms, surged hurricanes, now sailed home with a broken mast. My friend would careless cut his finger and I’d suture it up such that he didn’t lose it. He thanked me for that. He plays violin and it brings us all so much joy. If he’d lost that finger he not have been Abe to share his tremendous gift. 

We caught and barbecued some mighty fine tuna, H mead some magnificent bread. 

I was glad to bring th SV Giri into Coal Harbour.