By Kurt Ela
Gold Solas Award-winner in the Family Travel category
We didn’t know it at the time, but we were meant to buy the boat. We were meant to buy and voyage with it, if only to save our family and make another family whole. At least, that’s what my wife, Paige, thinks. In fact, she’s sure of it. My view is less certain, but still, I wonder. As you hear the story of our voyage, you can make up your own mind.
The year is 2020. The world was in the grip of a global pandemic. Our family was in the midst of its own, private crisis. Paige and I both work in industries that are very much in demand. Paige finances healthcare companies, and at the time, her focus was on securing PPP loans to keep their payrolls from bouncing. As a clinical psychologist, I did my part to help with the mental health crisis that accompanied Covid-19. It was as if every patient I had treated in the past ten years came calling. “Dr. Ela, do you have any openings? Things aren’t going too well for me.” And I vowed to see them all. The only problem was that once the adrenaline wore off, the burnout came.
Similarly, our boys were dealing with their own problems. Our rising fifth-grader, Emerson, spent much of his time in a digitally-induced state of numbness following “virtual learning.” A social, fidgety boy, he experienced each day as a sort of private torture. The end of most days found him lying on the floor frustrated and even despondent. We were concerned about his emotional well-being, as he began showing symptoms of depression for the first time in his life.
Our kindergartener, Ben, learned quickly how to turn the camera off and wander to more interesting items in the house that were not virtual (i.e. toys). Since my wife and I both work full-time, he usually escaped notice for much of the day. He showed little interest in books and was unable to identify letters or numbers.
As for Paige and myself, we were not doing so hot ourselves. She was resentful that I was working all the time. We both looked forward to a glass of wine after putting the kids to bed. It soon became a glass of wine before putting the kids to bed, as well as after. We knew we needed to make a change if this family was to survive.
Paige and I both grew up avid boaters. We daydreamed about living on a boat one day. Never mind that it was little more than a fantasy, and a retirement one at that. The pandemic had changed the trajectory of time and dreams and reality. In desperation, we made the leap. We refinanced our home, building in the cost of a Cutwater 32-CB powerboat. The plan was to travel over 1,700 miles from Maine to Florida, all the while living, working, and attending virtual school for the boys. The stage was set for a difficult, amazing, and life-changing voyage.
We drove a rented minivan, one way, to Yarmouth, Maine. It was the four of us and the family cat, Mattie. Normally, a cat and water don’t mix, but Mattie had turned into a de facto pandemic therapy cat for Emerson, so we found a way. The humans brought a duffel bag each full of clothes. We even found a cat (or maybe a small dog) life jacket for Mattie just in case. The boys also carried a few stuffed animals and some board games. The car was mainly filled with food and water, for fear we would not have easy access to a grocery store in Maine during pandemic times.
As I viewed the virgin vessel for the first time, I recalled the words of my father, who taught me how to handle myself on the water.
“Remember,” he used to say, “your vessel can handle more than you can, so trust it.”
With two days training on the boat beside an overqualified captain certified to pilot cruise ships (none were sailing at the time), we embarked on our journey.
We traveled north first. Canada was still closed to Americans, but we came pretty close to the border anyway, docking in Acadia National Park. We were welcomed by a playful seal who followed our dinghy around as we explored the harbor. Things were looking up already. However, after leaving the harbor prematurely in higher-than-average wind and waves, we learned that nature was to dictate our schedule, not work or school deadlines. We spent two weeks in Acadia National Park waiting for hurricanes to subside in southern New England. We expected to spend only the weekend there.
From Maine, we headed south, gaining in confidence that we might make it to Florida after all. The power of the sea was apparent everywhere throughout our voyage. It showed itself in the 20-foot tides in Maine; the gale off Martha’s Vineyard that tore our Bimini top to shreds; and the long, rolling stretch off the New Jersey coast with the waves heading exactly the wrong direction for us. The beauty of the sea was equally present. We saw it in the school of porpoises in the north and sea rays in the south, both trailing our boat; the enormous right whale off Provincetown; and the gracefully odd manatees in Florida. We witnessed the beauty and the majesty of the sea in equal parts.
With its power also came the promise of danger. When we lost one of our two engines in North Carolina, we wondered if the other one would go, leaving us bobbing like a cork off Beaufort Inlet. In the same state, we ran aground and would have been stranded for eight hours waiting for the tide to come back in, if not for dumping all the water in our hold to cut weight. Again, the stretch off New Jersey: we had miles to go until the next cut-in with our fuel dwindling. We rejoiced when he saw Shark River, only to realize we were too tall to clear the bridge there, and it was too late in the day to hail the bridge tender to open it..
With fuel dangerously low, and the light of day fading as the sun dipped over the horizon, we fought five-foot waves that were trying to push us to shore. With my anxiety spiking and my options limited, for a moment I considered running her aground intentionally. I contemplated whether a controlled impact before running out of gas might be better than the high risk of capsize if we lost the benefit of being under motor. The reckless moment passed, and I anxiously carried on. We had three sick humans and a sick cat. They sat in the cabin below, awaiting our vessel’s fate. I likely would have been seasick too, if not for the great responsibility of getting my family to port safely.
Will this foolish journey kill us all? I wondered to myself, and would I alone be to blame? I sat in the exposed fly bridge, pounded by the spray of the sea every third wave or so. My eyes stung from the sea salt, and my fingers were numb on the wheel through my soaked gloves. I remembered my Dad’s words, “Your vessel can handle more than you can.” I never respected, nor feared the sea more than in this moment. We pulled into the harbor minutes before running out of fuel, exhausted but safe.
My biggest concern throughout the voyage was that one of us would fall overboard. In order to reach the bow of the boat, we had to cross a small catwalk, about a foot wide on the side or gunwales of the vessel. There were safety bars, but we were one slip or a large wave away from falling into the sea. Where we often were, in the open water, this would have been almost certainly lethal. We required the boys to wear life vests when traversing the outside of the boat. Still, even a fall with a personal flotation device would have been dangerous. The water was cold enough, especially up north, to induce hypothermia within minutes. Your vessel can handle more than you can. We were to learn later just how dangerous winter water could be.
After three more weeks on the ocean, we saw joy and exhilaration in our boys’ eyes in a way we had not when we were quarantined at home. They jumped from the command bridge, fifteen feet up into the sea, something they were afraid to do initially. We saw countless dolphins, a few seals, and one whale. On the darkest nights, we saw stars we had never seen in our lives. On the brightest days, the sun reflected thousands of tiny diamonds on the water. The voyage brought us peace and harmony with the natural world. It brought us closer together as a family. It reminded us that time existed long before us and our human pandemic and that it would far outlast any other human vicissitudes.
We journeyed from Maine to southern Florida and then ultimately back to our home in Washington, D.C. with the boat docked on the Chesapeake Bay. The greatest challenge came in our home waters. The Chesapeake Bay was calm, and the wind was light that day. Throughout our entire voyage, we never had to call the Coast Guard for assistance. We came close several times, but each time found a way through ourselves. Now is the time. I fumble with our coordinates as we report the body.
“Which comes first, longitude or latitude?” I mutter to myself, “Where are we, exactly?”
It takes several moments for the Coast Guard to calm us down enough to get the information they need.
I had seen something in the water and navigated nearby as I often do to investigate, hoping it was a sunfish or even a whale. The boys and Paige were playing Go Fish below, laughing as the cards slipped everywhere, when I turned the boat around. They were doing what we did countless times before on the boat. It was the fluorescent green shoes that caught my wife’s eyes. I’m colorblind, so I only saw the shape, not the color.
“Boys, go below, and don’t look out the window,” Paige said.
She knew before I did. Simultaneously, I was on with the Coast Guard.
“Is it a rescue or recovery?” They asked.
“The latter, I’m afraid.”
“Can you be sure? Can you get in the water to verify this?”
The position of the body made it clear enough. The emergency responders arrived remarkably quickly, in a matter of minutes. As their captain signaled on channel 16 for vessels to clear his way, it was like Moses parting the Red Sea. Sailboats came about and motor boats zipped away, clearing a sea path for the responders.
They quickly confirmed our assessment. It was a recovery operation. We ask if we are needed or if they have any questions for us. We are not, and they do not. We are barely mentioned in the announcement in the papers in the coming days, and not by name or vessel. We do not need to be named, but we are thoroughly touched by the experience nonetheless.
Our boys have many questions about life and death. Tens of thousands of people had been searching for the sport fisherman who was lost at sea for nearly six months. His family and friends never gave up hope of recovering his body and finding peace. With all those people—locals who know the Chesapeake Bay so much better than we do—why are we the ones to finally find the missing man?
Each of us has our own perspective on this. To this day, we still pray for the family of the man whom we never met in life. We wish his family well and think of them often. The fisherman and I both had two children. We both love the sea, and believe the joy it offers is well worth its many dangers.
Our voyage forever changed us, and we view the experience of locating the lost fisherman, husband, father as a necessary part of it. We only hope it brought a degree of closure to a family suffering from this profound loss. He will never be forgotten to us, and we respect the sea all the more, for it will forever give and take, just as the tide itself.
Epilogue
As a write this, it all comes back to me, and I wonder again why we were the ones to find the man who had been lost at sea for nearly six months. I still feel a kindred spirit with him, as a father and husband, as someone who loves the sea. My wife remains certain that we were meant to play a role in this story. Some people are lost at sea and are never recovered. The family must mourn in absentia. Our voyage made certain that this was not the outcome. A local paper reported the words of the family:
“Our hope, faith, and strength has never been so extensively tested. Each and every day, we feel such a tremendous loss deep in our hearts. [He] is so much more than a father, son, brother, uncle, nephew, cousin, friend, boss, mentor; he was the one who supported so many of us to be the best version of ourselves. Just when our hope and patience were waning, God answered our prayers to bring [him] home.”
Be at peace, my friend. Yes, we found you, but we remain ever grateful that you helped us to find ourselves in the process.
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Kurt Ela is a licensed clinical psychologist and writer. Kurt received his BA in English Literature and Psychology from Amherst College and his doctorate from The George Washington University. A career in psychology has convinced Kurt that the key to happiness lies in nature, relationships, and creativity. He lives with his wife, two boys, and cat in Washington, DC. You will find him outside as often as possible hiking, biking, boating, or skiing with his family.