Sailing a Tin Can - My first time sailing a canoe: the naïve approach

It has been almost 40 years since I first sailed a canoe, and now is the time to share the experience. I’ll ask the reader to do the same when the time is right, especially if it’s a good story.

I was with my Boy Scout troop out of Miami. We went for a canoe trip into the 10,000 Islands area of Florida, a place where the land and sea fight for preeminence over the very southern tip of the state.

We paddled a mélange of canoes out to an island, maybe just a couple three miles or so. We made camp on ground barely above the high water mark, scattered with coral and transient soil. Plants consisted mostly of sea grape and whatever weedy stuff grows in such inhospitable conditions good only for crabs, mosquitoes and the ubiquitous sand fleas.

By that age I had pretty much reached the point where I was too independent to be a Scout anymore and this would prove to be my last trip hanging off the umbilical of a Scout Master, especially one who (in my youthfully arrogant thinking) was better off sitting in front of the tube watching a Dolphins game than trying to lead a hardened outdoorsman like myself. I had already spent many days in the Everglades and practically lived in the drained-swamp pine barrens surrounding our southern Dade County home by then. (Within a couple years of this trip I would find myself held by the foot by trap in alligator-infested, chest-deep water in the Big Cypress Swamp; but that’s another story.)

During one of the many lulls in the camp action, I took off with the canoe assigned to me and my tent mate, a Grumman, if memory serves; aluminum, for sure. Packing a spinning rod and a mullet gig, I went in search of adventure, and maybe some fresh fish for dinner. After sticking myself a black mullet and baiting a hook, I settled down in the bottom of the canoe in my usual repose: horizontal—napping. After a bit, I had a strike. Shark! It pulled hard and began swimming to deeper water with a tin canoe and teenager attached. I hung on and adjusted my rod angle so the boat would stay inline with the fish, knowing a broach would be uncalled for when a shark is on the line.

He pulled.                         I pulled.He pulled harder.                         I hung on, (harder).

And then the line parted, but not until after he pulled me and the canoe into open water. (Could I see Cuba from here?)

How cool.

I paddled back to camp with an air of success having caught, and released, a huge shark. Well, so the story went.

The next day we headed home. As we broke camp, I noted the wind was in just the right direction. Having sailed a little on my Uncle Carl’s boat I had a little familiarity with the whys and wherefores of sailing. Not much, mind you, but it was that little bit of knowledge that engendered the idea—sail—don’t paddle. I convinced my tent mate (smaller than me) that this was the way to go. We lashed two sticks—probably two tent poles—together, square-rigged, and tied to them an Army poncho. We lashed the mast to the forward thwart and he would have to act as the step to keep it vertical.

With steering paddle in hand, (now, I’d never seen this before, only surmised it) we left the beach, hell-bent for leather. Well, not right away. For awhile we sailed while others paddled ahead of us. They laughed. I knew better. Tentmate/mast step complained that we’d get in trouble. I assured him we were being good Scouts and told him to stop bawling and just hang on.

Then…we got wind….

It wasn’t much, but we started accelerating, leaving the paddlers behind. He held on for dear life, I held onto the paddle and steered.

Wow.

The flapping poncho filled and tightened as the wind picked up. The sound of water rushing over tin and rivets increased as the mast step got louder in his complaints. We were leaving a wake...the paddlers fell behind. I heard not a word from Scout Master, who was probably aghast at the site of two of his young troops showing him up in such an obvious (and plainly heroic) manner.

I guess we beat the rest of the Troop by close to an hour. Tentmate was scared we’d be in trouble and he complained about being held hostage and I reminded him he wasn’t a hostage, but Pressed, like the British did to American sailors, and should be proud he was part of a grand adventure.

Scout Master was mad we’d left the others behind and castigated me for being irresponsible and what would have happened if we wrecked and all I could think was he was better off living indoors with others of his kind and he was red in the face and I was sure it was because he was shown up by a boy not yet old enough to drive who was twice, no—thrice—the outdoorsman he’d ever be.

And, that, my friends, is how I came to sail a canoe the very first time...and things haven't been right since....