Living On The Hook by Noel Diotte.
Now Playing: Train Rides
Living On The Hook by Noel Diotte.
Monday, October 11, 2004. 5:30 am. Train Rides.

When I last wrote and prematurely submitted my email it was in the dark, on a train early on a Sunday morning. Here I am again using the boredom of a train ride to get some work done on a small wireless device, the Blackberry.

I didn't intend to create a cliff-hanger, making you wonder if my boat was still safely anchored in the cove where I left her to go into the city to work. I merely hit the wrong button and my work was sent.

I spent the night on the 15th floor of a corner suite of the Four Seasons Beverly Hills Hotel. A few times at night I would go out on the balcony and take in the view of Century City to the west and West Hollywood to the north. The balcony wrapped around two sides of the hotel. So, was able to feel what night breezes might be kicking up that give my vulnerable little boat some trouble in the night. I looked off far into the west Paradise Cove and sent good thoughts and a sort of prayer, if you can do that for a hunk of fiberglass. Even glass sail boats develop some sort of soul over time, I suppose.

The next day, after a few bus rides, I was on the 434 bus headed home along the Malibu coast. About a mile before the Paradise Cove Road bus stop there is a hill along Pacific Coast Highway that looks North over the water and most of Paradise Cove. I could see for a minute that there was indeed a speck in the water that looked like a sailboat. I could identify it as Shearwater for sure.

Getting off the bus, I walked down the road to the beach and headed straight for the beach. It was a sunny afternoon. The wind was blowing crossways across the shore and water. There, framed beween two small planted palms in the sand and above the two women in bikinis laying in the sand was Shearwater, hanging on the wind.
It was the perfect postcard Paradise.

I celebrated my relief with a tribute beer and some coconut shrimp. I changed into shorts and a T-shirt and hiked around the cliff to my dinghy, hoping it was still where I left it, hoping it hadn't been taken for a joy ride by some of the local kids.

Everything was fine when I rowed back out through the small surf as the sun was setting on the cliff. No other Coming Home after a day of work could be so sweet.
Noel Diotte
coverunner@tmo.blackberry.net
310 376-7057

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Sent wirelessly from the sailboat, "Shearwater" off the Southern California coast.