The Great Escape on a very sad day

Somewhere between The Gulf of Toronto and Gulf of Patras, Greece---The emails from our Sibari Boat Row friends read something like: You guys are legend around here. Everyone is asking how you did it, getting through the channel. Even the (Raging) Czech had the nerve to stop by the boat to ask your route but I told him he should have asked you...

Yesterday started like a regular Sibari day. Up between 6-7am. Shirish anxious to go take depth readings of the channel. Coffee.

Shirish had gone to measure with Orion and I was making my way to the Marina Bathhouse down Boat Row. Passing Prosperity I said, “good morning” but heard “no” quietly from Jane. I stopped thinking I heard wrong and said “what’s up?”

Then I saw the way she was sitting, slumped over the boat and Neil, leaning in the old boat’s doorway, both hands bracing against the frame and not making eye contact. Something was wrong.

“Brian just died,” Jane said as she looked up at me with swollen eyes and tears rolling down her cheeks. “He was fitting all night, foaming from the mouth, fits all night.”
“We’ve been up all night,” Neil said from the door way and then I noticed the tears rolling down from under his small oval John Lennon-style sunglasses.

I dropped my things on the dock, jumped onto their boat and hugged Jane. I sat heavily on the side of their boat and in my astonishment tried to understand. Brian (the dog) had been running around the picnic table with the other dogs just last night. Everything was fine. Wait, the sandwich. What about the sandwich Spud had found and Brian took from him? No, it couldn’t be poison, let’s not go there we decide. Jane counters with saying the Vet will see him Monday to determine what happened. I volunteered to help them get the dog to the vet if we decide to rent a car the next day. I tell them the children will take this hard. Rigel is 10 and has not had a pet. He went from being so scared he quivered behind Shirish, to playing with the dogs, anxious to come back to Juno and tell us what Brain or Spud had just done.

I noticed Shirish in the dingy speeding to our boat so I headed that way to give him the news and let him handle telling his kids.

“That makes things complicated, he responded”
“Why?” I said as that was on odd response.
“Because we can leave if we do it now, the channel has evened out during the night, the workers are off, the weather is perfect. But we need to prep and go now,” he replied looking very concerned.

I assured him that we could not change the dog’s sudden death and that after waiting this long, we needed to do what was right for our safety and the journey ahead. Juno drew 5.5 feet-ish (distance to the keel/bottom of the boat) and the readings were giving us 6.5’ that morning.
So, we quickly started prepping. Orion wrote Jane and Neil a very sweet sympathy note, Rigel crawled back in his sleeping bag starring up at the ceiling of his bunk. Mag and Wendy came over to help with our plan: They would hold the bow as the stern swung out then throw us back our lines, and follow us with their dingy in case we ran into trouble. We said as much as we could to Jane and Neil regarding their dog. We all felt sad even though we were leaving.

And just like that, we were off. Through the locks and down the channel we motored. I climbed about 15 feet up the rat line, not afraid of heights I was shaking with nervous energy. The kids took the bow (front of boat) to watch and help with lines if we had a problem. Shirish was at the helm, shouting out the depth, slowly steering the boat and concentrating on the route he had gone over a million times in his head. The mapping had determined that we stay in the middle of the channel until we get close to the digging area. Then we ease to the Port (left) side and on to the yellow buoys, favoring the left one. Past that we would be home free and head to the Red and Green buoys.

No workers were there to prevent our departure but the edge of the channel was lined with many fishermen. At one point the boat was only 7-10 feet from them standing on the beach! Jaws dropped and we slipped by them. We “felt” the bottom twice but it was a gentle rub, not a bump. And then, after 7 months for the family and 5 weeks for me, we were free.

Yells went out from us spontaneously. Mag and Wendy floating behind us in their dingy were getting smaller in the distance and we exchanged big waves goodbye. The nice Italian on Boat Row had driven his car to the beach area to help if needed and I watched him wave and smile.

Then, ahead of us was the open Mediterranean Sea. Finally we thought, “Greece, here we come,” little did we know what we were in for, for the next 48 hours.