THE WRECK OF THE SUNFISH
Sunset Lake, Wildwood Crest ~
Episode 1: Call him “Captain Joe.” On those occasions when he dragged the sunfish across the yard of the Greater Wildwood Yacht Club and dropped her into the water, he imagined he was a yachtsman. The self-proclaimed captain did not know how to sail when he purchased the sunfish so he learned the hard way: by repeatedly getting dunked into the water.

Eventually, he mastered the tiny sailboat well enough to test his prowess one summer afternoon. On this day, bright and sunny with an adequate breeze, he and his cousin Dave decided to take a ride up to Otten’s Harbor and back.

They set out at a leisurely pace, using wide tacks to navigate past the houses along Lake Street, out into the area around the Wildwood Yacht Basin and into the inland waterway channel, which took them under the George Redding Bridge. As their childhood custom dictated, they leaned back and yelled a hearty “HELLO!” to the cars that rumbled overhead. They rounded the mouth of the narrow harbor, lined with clamming vessels and pleasure craft, and made their way to the head, toward the presently vacant berth of the Sightseer, out on her afternoon tour.

They took their time sailing up the harbor, for it required them to make shorter tacks. Back and forth they went, pointing out familiar boats and enjoying the lazy pace of the day until they reached the Sightseer’s empty dock. Captain Joe knew that the true captain, Captain Stocker, would not mind him tying up to his floating maintenance dock while they went across the street to his father’s bar where he eyed them suspiciously when they walked in, shirtless and bare-footed.

“What are you two up to?” ‘Captain Joe’ ambled up to the bar, pinched one eye closed, and answered in mock-pirate, “Whiskey, for me and my men!” His father just laughs and draws them two sodas, and they drink heartily. ‘Captain Joe’ turns to his mate and, still in pirate character, asks, “Do ye suppose we ought tae acquire some grog for the voyage?”

Back on board the sunfish with six-pack in hand, they set off for the yacht club. The day being what it was, one for leisurely cruising, became even more embellished when they reached the mouth of the harbor and found the wind to their backs. All that was needed to do was open the sail, keep a steady rudder, and sit back.

Out in the channel they decided to take a more westerly route through the inland waterway past Shaw Island into Sunset Lake, and run the perimeter of the lake back to the yacht club. The mood was jovial as they sang,…”Yo-Ho-Ho, it’s a pirates life for me…,” the notes filling the air and obscuring the gathering clouds to the south, large, dark, and closing fast. In an instant a squall erupts, trapping them at the south end of the lake where waves and high winds render any kind of sailing impossible. They struggle to keep the sail from whipping around and knocking them into the now turbulent Sunset Lake, but the wind proves to be no match as a gust catches them and tosses them overboard. In an instant, the sail becomes separated from the hull and it, with Dave grabbing hold, is swept away. Joe has no choice, he being the captain of the sunfish, but to return to the now overturned hull. It is then that he realizes, with some disquiet, that fate has placed them in the middle of a Gordon Lightfoot song.

The squall passes overhead, moving out toward the ocean, and the wind pushes the hull onto the rocky edge of Sunset Lake along New Jersey Avenue. Joe, his captaincy now in ruins, is able to stand and drag the battered sunfish up on shore. He looks to his left and spots Dave, one block away, standing there with the sail at his feet. He waves to him and Dave walks over, resembling a drowned rat but grinning from ear-to-ear, and asks, “What now?”

“I guess,” Joe answers with a shrug, “we’ll walk to my house and get a truck.”