A Mate is Recruited
Unlike Sophia, it was not love at first sight. It was Christmas Eve in 2009 and with nothing else to do, I thought I would give it a shot. She was pretty in a formal way, but perhaps a bit stiff for my taste. While waiting for our reservation time of 8pm at McCormick and Schmidt in Bethesda, we toured the local Christmas decorations including a live manger scene. I could not get her name pronounced correctly and eventually she gave up correcting me. I found out that she was a real Russian (not a Russian immigrant), on a one-year fellowship program at AU-Washington College of Law, and a professor of Legal English (whatever that is) at the Urals Law School in Yekaterinburg. She ordered the fish special for dinner and I ordered the wine recommended on the menu. One sip and she declared that she did not like the wine. I ordered a different wine and she said she preferred the first. Obviously, a difficult woman and I almost called it a night right then. But I carried on the conversation through the evening and we closed the restaurant. I am reminded frequently that I did get a kiss on the cheek for the evening’s effort.
This was the year of Snowmaggedon and there was two feet of snow on the ground. I was feeling sorry for her with nothing to do over Christmas and no place to go. I had not winterized the boat yet so I invited her to give me a hand at winterizing, expecting a solid “Are you nuts?” rejection. To my surprise, she was game. When I picked her up on Saturday morning, she had a pair of shoes that was definitely not made for snow. We stopped at DSW and got her a pair of decent boots for $80.
We filled the generator and the refrigerator with antifreeze with my new helper climbing down into the cockpit locker (she fit into that tight space much better than I). When we winterized the main engine, she needed to lie down in the after bunk and pour antifreeze into the strainer while I ran the engine. But she could not find the “orange” valve I was directing her to. So I climbed in beside her (lying next to her in a most intimate way), discovering that the valve was actually yellow. The engine was winterized and she did not run away. Maybe a possibility.
The next day, we arranged for more winterization, this time topping off the fuel tanks to prevent condensation from developing and fouling the fuel. I called around everywhere trying to find an open fuel dock, but not one was open. But there was a mild wind, and the temperature was in the upper 40’s, so I suggested a sail, expecting another “Are you nuts?” response. But, again, she was game. So we got underway (BTW, we were not the only fools out there). By the end, we were cuddling to keep each other warm.
Trying to keep a string going, I searched for something interesting for a real second date. The only thing I could find was “Sheer Madness” at the Kennedy Center. “Sheer Madness” is a comedy show with machine gun like dialog and lots of local humor. Even though she taught English professionally, English still was a second language for her. And, as for local humor, even I was going to have a challenge keeping up, there was little hope for someone who had been in D.C. only a few months. This was a formula for a disastrous evening.
During the first act, there was a sweet giggling coming from my right, where Elena was sitting. To my surprise, not only did she hear, understand, and get the humor, but she, a Russian, giggles. A Russian who giggles, that was a truly a rare find. Russians laugh easily, but seldom do they giggle like a schoolgirl. (To this day, I will do anything, silly or otherwise, to get a giggle. from her.)
I finagled tickets somehow for the Kennedy Center New Year’s Eve show “Young Frankenstein” and dinner reservations at Sequoia in Georgetown. While walking to the car after dinner, she fell flat on her backside on a slippery floor while wearing high heels, the first crack in that classy veneer. She laughed at the jokes in “Young Frankenstein” and enjoyed the music. After the show, we danced to live music of Strauss. And I rubbed her aching feet. And we kissed and then we kissed some more.
I took her to Annapolis and my alma mater, the Naval Academy. She was truly impressed. And we saw the Christmas lights at Sandy Point State Park, where she giggled like a kid. A Russian girl that giggles, that is rare.
January 2nd was my birthday and we went to Adams Morgan for blues music where we managed to embarrass all the twenty somethings with our amorous behavior and we closed every establishment in the neighborhood, leaving her off at her Bethesda apartment at 3pm and then getting stopped by police on the way home to Falls Church for suspicious activity.
Somewhere In any other situation I would say that to drive from Falls Church to Bethesda and back was way too much work for any girl, but by then I had been bitten and there was little one could do to recover.
So in a little over a week, it was serious and by two weeks, we needed to talk so no one gets hurt. Where was this going? And more importantly why? What was she looking for? An adventure? That I could provide. A mealticket? I was not that guy. A green card? There were better prospects.
(Note: A couple of years after we were married, I found out that she was dating three other guys when we met. Of this, she reminds me repeatedly when she thinks I am taking her for granted.)
For me, I was looking for nothing. I was sailing and was sailing alone. It was my fate and I was prepared for it.
And nobody would think this was such a good idea. She was on a State Department scholarship program and there would be a pay-back period.
And I hated the idea of getting married again. But it seemed that the State Department was going to be insistent on the subject.
However, she convinced me “it was meant to be”, so, in April, I asked her to marry me, at sunset, in the cockpit of the boat where I pulled a bottle of champagne from the cold waters of Chesapeake, and produced strawberries, as well as a ring.
She began to learn to sail and we sailed to the Eastern Shore and to Annapolis.
At some point, I sent Elena to our lawyer to discuss immigration. The lawyer called me and suggested a “pre-nup” agreement. I mentioned this to Elena at which point she broke down in tears, I said “OK, no pre-nup, but you can’t take away my boat and you cannot take away my dreams. Agreed?” That became our “pre-nup”.
Months after our first date, I asked Elena what was she thinking, rejecting the wine I had selected. She replied, “I needed to teach you a lesson.” Pretty gutsy move.
(Note: There is a marital dispute on this anecdote. Elena : “I never said that, I’m just not a white wine person.” But I stand behind my version. It is a better story. Elena has also said she regretted not getting the $150 dollar boots on our “second” date to winterize the boat, but decided that she did not want to take advantage of my generous nature.)
Wedding plans were a little complicated. We both agreed that there was no need for an expensive wedding that I could ill afford while preparing the boat for cruising. We both had been married before and it was “been there, done that”. But Elena insisted on a “white dress”. I acquiesced, but what were we going to do, go down to the courthouse, dressed up for a wedding and have lunch at the diner? And who would see the dress? Olga, Elena’s daughter, would have to witness the “dress”, but Olga would not travel without Sergey (her boyfriend). So, we would go to the courthouse and then the four of us would go to the diner for lunch? Not likely. So, a real wedding was needed to support the dress. It is all about the dress.
We were married at Herrington Harbour Marina on May 14, 2010. We had a small, but great wedding with a few close friends, daughters, dinner, live music, and dancing. At 11pm, Elena and I marched down the dock and boarded Sophia for our honeymoon, sailing out the marina into the darkness.
We did not go far, anchoring 500 yards off the marina’s jetty.
The next morning, we took Olga, Sergey, my sister Martha and my niece off for a sail. Everyone had a great time.
Elena and I sailed up and down the Chesapeake for about a week, including Annapolis and St Michaels for the best crabs on the Bay.
Toward the end, we were up at the north end of the bay near Rock Hall. I wanted to show her the harbor before we anchored in a nearby creek. I took the first buoy on the wrong side (my GPS chartplotter showed that was the deep water) and we ran hard aground. We used all the grounding tactics in the inventory, raising sails to heel the boat and kedging an anchor out. Nothing seemed to work. Finally, after providing entertainment to the boating community of Rock Hall, we called the towing company for assistance. We retrieved the anchor and the long line attached to it that we used to kedge the anchor. The tow boat had to work hard, but got us off and we anchored in the dark in Swan Creek.
The next morning we pulled the anchor up and were motoring out, when “rrrrrpppphhhh”, an angry and unwanted sound preceded the engine stopping abruptly. I knew immediately what it was, The line I had used to kedge the anchor was still attached, went into the water in the dark, and I did not notice it when we raised the anchor. It dragged behind us until it finally was caught by the prop.
We dropped the anchor and I prepared to dive into the still cold waters of the Chesapeake. Elena was afraid of losing me in the current and had me tie a line around my chest. With a scuba facemask, I tried several time, but could not stay down long enough to clear the line. I needed something to weight me down for a while. Elena found a cast iron skillet and I used that for a diving weight. I was able to cut away the line from the prop.
We started the engine and put the engine in gear. Rummph. We shut down the engine immediately and determined we had done something that we were not going to fix off of Rock Hall.
We had about 20 miles to go, a good 8 hours of daylight and a fair wind out of the north. Instead of calling for another tow, we decided to sail home. It was a wonderful sail, despite our misfortunes. As we got close to the marina we made the decision to sail into the slip, a gutsy move for the two of us. While I maneuvered the boat, Elena would have to do a series of actions to slow and then stop the boat. Any slip up meant that Sophia would go clashing to the dock or worst into another boat.
As we were going down the channel the wind picked up and we ended up going too fast. We eased the sails and slowed the boat as much as we could. As we made the first of three quick turns, Elena let go the sheets on the genoa. As we made the second turn, she dropped the mainsail. We made the final turn, lined up perfectly in the slip. Elena ran to the bow and caught the line we had set up just for stopping the boat and hooked on the cleat, stopping the boat cold. A perfect landing!!!! Elena ran around a gave me a big hug. Not bad, screw up by grounding and wrapping line around the prop, and I still get a hug.
Unfortunately, there was no one on the dock to observe this outstanding show of seamanship. They are only around when things are not going well.
Two weeks later, Elena left for Russia to begin her two year payback period for the year of her fellowship at US taxpayer expense.
We spread the two years to three years and Elena spent summers and the Christmas holidays with me while continuing to teach at her university in Russia. It worked well for us. It gave me time to adjust to the idea of being married. I was working hard and had little time for anything else except the boat. There was much work to be done on the boat, most of it not very pleasant. Occasionally, she would attend a conference somewhere and do a “layover” (pun intended) for a night or two.
In July 2013, Elena received her permission to immigrate and we began a full-time life together. Elena adopted the boat and took an active interest in its preparation for cruising. She has proven to be an excellent shipmate and is becoming a very good navigator, saving us from grounding several times.
Every Christmas Eve (until this year-2016) we would go to McCormick and Smiths to celebrate the anniversary of our first date. And every year we would do New Year’s Eve at the Kennedy Center, just like the first time (perhaps with a little less kissing and foot rubbing).
