Buckrammer's Tales

Preface In the Fall of 2003, Catboat Summers, our modest collection of boating memoirs hit bookseller's shelves. Much to our surprise and delight it quickly became a bestseller among nautical books of this nature; praised by reviewers and readers alike. This new compilation continues in the same mold... Why tinker with success? (Well, actually we have tinkered a tad to select tales with a bit more edge and a touch less maudlin.) It covers the period from approximately 2003 through 2011... a remarkable time for the Conway family as our kids grew ever bigger and smarter, entered and graduated from college and found their respective places in the real world. My wife, Chris and I also grew during these times... sometimes a little too creakily and/or sideways for our liking. Throughout, our old catboat, Buckrammer, continued to serve as a trusty platform for experiencing many of the joys of summers in our beloved Westport, Massachusetts. As in Catboat Summers we've tried to pace most of these stories so that each can be read "one shot." In an impatient world, many of our past readers relished the ability to enjoy the beginning, middle and end of a story in one sitting. Finally I wish to thank the good people of the Catboat Association (www.catboats.org) for their support and encouragement. It is through their laudable Catboat Association Press that this little volume now reaches you. If you have owned, now own or plan to own or sail a catboat, you owe it to yourself to become a CBA member. Meanwhile... If you favor ghost stories, near disasters, family boating misadventures and/or tales of buried treasure, you will absolutely find something to your liking in: Buckrammer's Tales. John E. Conway Westport Point April, 2014 Chapter 1 Haunting at Sakonnet Light “Are we weely, weely sleeping over in your pirate ship, Uncle John?” Grace Perron, my three year old great-niece, with melt-your-heart eyes as big as sand dollars, tugged on my shirttail as I slipped a life jacket over her tow-headed noggin. “Absolutely,” I replied. “Just as long as you’ll help us find the treasure.” “TREASURE?” All four Perron kids, Emma, age 9, Jake, age 7, Connor, age 5 and Gracie and their dad, Andy (ageless), suddenly came to attention. Trapped, I sputtered, “Well, er, sort of. Let’s board the pirate ship and I’ll fill you all in.” With that, the whole entourage clambered aboard Buckrammer, our Westport, Massachusetts-based, 1908-vintage Charles Crosby catboat. Months before, while visiting the Perron homestead near Portland, Maine, I had promised the gang a first-rate adventure aboard our old floating woodpile. July seemed ages away in the snow-encrusted depths of winter but here we were, ready to cast off from Slaight’s Dock, launching site of many a Buckrammer adventure. (Great-Aunt Chris and niece, Betsy Perron, had uninvited themselves in favor of a “girl’s weekend off.”) I started the boat’s ancient but reliable English Austin-block diesel, Red Jr., and shouted the order to cast off. Andy and Emma let loose the lines, Jake yanked the gear shift into forward and Gracie, from her perch on my lap at the helm, spun the ship’s wheel to port. “Off and away!” Our cruise would take us from Westport Harbor out past Horseneck Beach and south and west to Sakonnet Point Light… a journey of eight to ten miles or so. Experience with my own kids (now all out of the nest) had taught me that short trips provided the least stressful, most compelling boating escapades for small children. This time, with ten miles of open water from port-to-anchorage, we would be pushing things a tad.