Laboring Day

As the summer wanes, my family abandoned me for the last vacation. They booked a cruise, poised to return just before school begins. I would have traveled with them, but my work was too heavy to provide me with the amount of time that they wanted to expend. Two weeks. Far too long for an attorney to be away from his practice.

Left alone to my own devices, and unable to find anyone willing to travel back down to Atlantic City for yet another poker rampage, I decided to take my old Bic board out from the shed where it had been stored since moving to West Islip. At 9 a.m., I gathered my parts and secured them to the roof of the Windstar to make the 60 second journey to the end of the block where I can launch from the community beach.

There's a fresh breeze and quite a bit of chop, but the tide's coming in and I'm optimistic. Having taken a few lessons on beach starting and harness in Aruba this winter past, I'm eager to ply my new found knowledge on my rig. I chose the bigger 6.2 square meter sail for today, but I question whether I should have opted for the 5.6. Nevertheless, after a quick beach start, I hook in and head across the Great South Bay. But I let the board point too far into the wind, and inevitably it shift, launching me into the soup. My watch unfastened, but remained on my wrist. It's 9:30 a.m.

After securing my watch, I begin to uphaul, but notice that something is wrong. The boom has parted from the mast. I enter the water to find that the pivot arm securing the cleat to the mast has broken. I wave down a jet skier. Jim tows me back to shore. Regretfully, I pack my things and truly believe that summer is now over.