The next morning….

It was 5:30 a.m. The marina was quiet and peaceful and the sun was rising over a beautiful calm harbor. You could smell coffee brewing on the nearby boats. These wonderful mornings are what I loved about cruising to Canada. I peeked out the cockpit door window and saw Mom sitting in the cockpit of our boat waiting for the skipper in the boat side-tied to our boat to appear. She glared at his cockpit door until he finally came out stretched and yawned and looked directly at my mother, sitting there fuming. I think he was about to say “Good morning” when she lit into him. She told him how we never got a wink of sleep all night because of his damn motor roaring away with the exhaust pointed at our boat. At first he was speechless. Then he began to shake his gnarled old finger at Mom and roared so the whole marina could hear, “I am not a rich-bitch old lady like you in a luxurious yacht on vacation up here with nothing to do except fix her hair and go shopping. I am a hard working fisherman and I have to keep my fish cold so I can sell it. That is why I have to run my refrigerator unit and I’m sorry it ruined your whole vacation!” Mom was speechless. I’d never seen her at a loss for words. Of course, not many people had spoken to her in that tone of voice before either. The fisherman pulled his lines loose from our vessel and he was on his way out of the harbor before I could get the door open. I got out there just in time to see my mother shaking her fist at him and yelling, “I’m not rich, you smelly old man!”

Well she was right about that. She wasn’t rich. And I wished we had a boat like the one the fisherman described. Luxurious yachts didn’t quite fit our budget.