A Cunard Among Coasters
Ben McCanna
Captain Mike at the helm.
(page 1 of 2)
The Angelique is quietly bobbing in a dead calm off the northern tip of North Haven. The Lewis R. French drifts slowly to starboard; the Mary Day drifts to port.
The weather all around us is unsettled: to the west, scattered showers wash over the Camden Hills; to the north, anvil-shaped storm clouds rake eastward over the mainland. Here, in our tiny pocket of sky-blue stillness, we swelter under unfettered sun. The wood deck is so blisteringly hot I patter to a shady spot to cool the burning soles of my bare feet. Farther aft, on the quarterdeck, Captain Mike McHenry sits on the deck with his back propped against the steel bulwarks.
It’s a posture befitting this captain. After all, Mike McHenry is a laid-back guy. The term “laid back” is so often employed to describe Captain Mike, it threatens to become cliché. His crew uses the term, his passengers use it, and crews and captains from other windjammers use it, too. At this rate, the words “laid-back Mike McHenry” may someday become as intractably fused as “real-deal Evander Holyfield.”
| The Angelique | |
|---|---|
| Captain: | Mike McHenry |
| Built: | 1980 |
| Length: | 95’ |
| Capacity: | 29 passengers and 6 crew |
The Angelique at sail.
The Angelique is a ketch-rigged windjammer patterned after 19th-century English fishing vessels. www.sailangelique.com.
It’s easy to see why. Captain Mike carries himself with such ease, you get the impression he’s somehow known you for years: his silences are comfortable and his conversations begin in medias res. Captain Mike often wears a wry smile; a smile that suggests he’s seen a lot of humanity during his 21 years aboard the Angelique and he was pleased by most of it.
His crew is a good match. Dennis Gallant is filling in this week for Captain Mike’s vacationing mate, but Dennis had been doing the job fulltime for many seasons prior. Dennis returns to the mate position equipped with a deep bag of jokes and endless social energy—a splash of theatricality that might otherwise be absent amid the Angelique’s amicably low-key deck crew.
Chris Sherman, a bright and easygoing deckhand, recently graduated with a degree in American literature from the preppie epicenter of Williams College. If it’s true that wayward poets turn to winos and Jedis turn Sith, then the natural trajectory for a disillusioned preppie must be slackerdom. Chris Sherman’s transformation to the dark side is now complete, and it suits his smiling disposition well. I’d venture to say it’s admirable. Last spring, while many of his fellow classmates matriculated to Wall Street, Chris rebuked Izods and the rat race for Carhartts and the simple pleasures of messing about in boats. God bless him.
Shelly Colantonio dons foulies.
Posted on Friday, September 12, 2008 in Permalink
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