Orange Cat Misses the Boat

Orange Cat was careless of his life. Who knows what daemons drove him?

His only loves were Black Cat, who was his full brother by birth and bonding, and adventure. Barbara and I were mere functionaries, bowl fillers, granted an occasional rub and purr if the mood struck.

Orange Cat hid when strangers came aboard Maruba. The amiable Black Cat, portly and clumsy, affectionate and sociable, welcomed his new friends and made the round of laps.

At night Black Cat slept with us. Orange Cat prowled the docks.

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Skulking though the dark, he leapt from dock to deck and from one deck to the next. He peeked out of dark corners, played with coiled lines, then dashed away, suddenly disappearing under folded awnings or loose sail covers.

At daylight he jumped back on board, tired and scruffy, to wait expectantly at the feeding station shoulder to shoulder with his stay-at-home brother.

When Maruba was underway Orange Cat often charged impetuously from stern to bow, climbing furled sails, leaping back to the deck, continuing his headlong rush.

Orange Cat, Always First Ashore

The previous summer we had to rescue Black Cat. (“Cat Overboard,” September 10, 2017.) Now Orange Cat went overboard. The only surprise was that it hadn’t happened sooner.

Orange Cat had no one to blame but himself. He insisted on always being first to arrive. When we approached a dock he would leap ashore before our fenders touched and our lines were tied off.

Then one day he miscalculated.

We were at Bella Bella, an isolated community among the crowd of islands that flank the British Columbia coast all the way from Washington to Alaska. We had asked where we could fill Maruba’s water tanks. Someone had gestured toward a nearby island. “At the old cannery, just around the point, next to the new fishing resort.”

Idling passed the dilapidated cannery dock, I studied the approach. The float where fish boats previously tied up was gone. We would have to tie directly to the main pier. It stood atop heavily creosoted piles.

With the tide rising the pier was only a couple of feet higher than Maruba’s deck. 

In the resort on the hill the lunch crowd was gathering. Curious faces collected at the large windows of the restaurant as Maruba approached the dock, her big white fenders tied high and horizontal to meet the piles supporting the pier. Barbara stood ready with a dock line. 

The Captain Makes a Big Mistake, Almost

A few feet from the dock I realized the fenders were not going to protect the boat. The spacing between them and the piles was wrong. She would be smeared with creosote and might lose several feet of her safety rail.

I threw the wheel hard to port and goosed the throttle to tighten the turn away from the dock, looking over my shoulder to make sure we cleared.

There, on the dock, crouched Orange Cat. He had made his usual leap to get ashore first. Now Maruba was pulling away, leaving him behind.

His return leap was impressive. And almost successful. Running the full width of the dock to build up speed, he launched himself across the gap.

But the boat was moving away. His front claws ticked the gunwale and he disappeared into the water. Rising to the surface, he started swimming determinedly after Maruba.

“Orange Cat’s overboard,” I shouted. “Bring the net.” Maruba’s engine roared as I threw the transmission into reverse and opened the throttle.

“Give me the net. You take the wheel.”

Prop Chopped, or Pile Driven?

Then I hesitated, salmon net in hand. Maruba’s inflatable dinghy—12 feet long with a 25 horse-power outboard—hung from the stern on stainless steel davits. The davits, having been designed for a lighter load, bowed and strained whenever the big dinghy was lifted out of the water.

To reach down to the swimming Orange Cat, I would have to climb into the dinghy, adding my full weight to the davits.

A momentary image flashed through my mind. A picture of me, Orange Cat, and the dinghy—plus the broken davits flailing in a tangle of ropes and pulleys—all crashing into the water and getting sucked under the reversing boat and into the prop.

I climbed into the dinghy and reached down with the net.

Orange Cat was falling farther behind. Maruba, having reluctantly accelerated away from the dock, was now reluctant to slow down. She finally came to a full stop, then gradually started to reverse toward the swimming cat. I waited, ready with the net.

“Got him!

“Ahead full throttle!”

The boat, now approaching her best speed astern, was seconds from crashing into the dock. The dinghy, the captain, and the cat were scheduled to be driven into the pilings first, Maruba’s 36 tons of steel following close behind.

Barbara Saves us All

But Barbara had reacted quickly. She had stopped the boat in time. Now it was moving away from the dock.

“I wonder what those folks are thinking?” I said, looking up at the row of faces peering from the restaurant windows.

“Maybe they’re wondering what you caught with your net,” Barbara suggested.

Three years later, as the sun came up after an overnight passage off Costa Rica, I steered Maruba into Bahia Drake. Barbara had stood her usual midnight to 3:00 watch. I let her sleep, anchoring the boat by myself.

In the pilot house I bent to fill the cat dishes. Only Black Cat was waiting. 

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