I hate the cold. Passionately. I would rather be burned, yes burned, than face freezing to death. I get the impression that it is precisely my ferocious dislike of being cold that makes the universe continually put me into situations wherein I am forced to brave the frigid elements. And here it was again.
The snorkeling mask tightened around my face, sucking at my eyeballs and sinuses. Flippered feet were shoved below the surface, instantly electrifying the neurons and sending explosions of electrochemical shock into cerebral pain centers at lightning speed. How could this water still be liquid? I wondered. Must be the salt.
I was on the verge of asking Brian to kick me off the dock, thinking there was no way I could do it myself, when I noticed Eric looking like he�d be all too happy to help. I girded my loins (not that there was much to gird � the cold had crept up to my groin by then) and pushed off���..
���..
���..and I realized I was taking a breath. But I�d definitely lost a couple of seconds there. �Rudder!�
Brian handed down the huge chunk of wood and metal. Eric knelt at dock�s edge, ready to hand down a hammer, crowbar, ratchet, anything that might be required. He was anxious to see the project go quickly and smoothly. Guess who would be next in line to do the dive?
Below the surface, there was a buzzing of passing boats�no, wait, just my ears ringing. I kicked, pushing deeper in the brine, aided by the weight of the wing-shaped chunk I was somehow managing to hold onto. Since we�d attached the upper rod to the rudder it had a slight negative buoyancy. It seemed complicated, but somehow the rod found its way into the slot leading up to the cockpit. I felt the contraption wiggle as Eric clamped it from above with a vice-grips. A quick resurface followed: hyperventilate, grab the lower rod from Brian, deep breath, and back down.
The temperature seemed to be rising, there was no longer the feeling of icy death. That�s one of the things that sucks about cold: right when you think it feels better, it�s actually a sign that it�s getting worse�much worse. After the calm feeling, you start hallucinating, then just fade away. I wrestled the lower rod into its bracket and practically dove back out of the water. Brian handed me a hot cup of coffee, an MRE heater for my chest, and Eric draped a towel around my shoulders.
�Th-th-this is great! Almost d-d-done! Just three m-m-more b-bolts!�
Three more bolts. Just three more eight inch lag bolts to be driven into the lower portion of the rudder�under water while holding my breath and freezing to death. Almost done.
The process stretched out all afternoon. Five minutes in the water, twisting desperately on the ratchet, getting maybe a turn and a half at a time. And then the bolts got stuck with still two inches to go � all of them. Basically, the rudder simply couldn�t be turned far enough to accommodate the head of the bolts against the back of the hull. We were stuck, and until we got unstuck we couldn�t even move the boat.
I went back down three or four more times (the memory is blurry) to chip away the flange of the hull preventing the turning of the screws. At last I could stand no more. Eric resigned himself to his fate with a fortifying shot of rum, donned the flippers, and braved the icy deep. It was he who actually completed the submarine mission, chipping and ratcheting until the rudder was locked into place. As the sun fell like a laughing, fiery dragon he lay absorbing the latent heat radiating from the concrete dock, perhaps worse for wear than I had been upon emerging�an event I don�t entirely recall.
Now we understood how all the marina�s could get away with exorbitant fees for haulouts. Had we to do it over, there may have been no price too steep�
Brian had prepared hot bowls of chili, which we scarfed jubilantly in the aftermath of returning sensation.
Warm beds were a welcome womb in which lay as we let the travesty of the day slip away from us. And once again the Faith awaited release back to the open sea.