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“Aleta’s gone!”, Carol suddenly cried out.
“What do you mean, gone?”
“Look – at my Navionics – she’s dragged her anchor and – gone! Oh, my god!”
We’d gotten in the habit of turning the Navionics charting app on our phones once we’d anchored as a way of monitoring Aleta’s movement. It works pretty well. With Navionics you can track your progress while underway, or hopefully, lack of it once you’ve set the hook. But, as I’ve mentioned in the past, all electronic gizmos have their limitations, and indeed some may simply cause more stress, rather than less.
Take the humble cellphone. Back in the day, when they were becoming ubiquitous we’d give our partner a cellphone for Christmas and by New Year’s we were worried sick if they didn’t pick up immediately. Around the same time, car-based navigation systems used to lead us on merry chases as they ruefully misinterpreted whatever address you wanted for something, or somewhere, completely different. And what did we know? After all, the technology must be smarter than we are, right? Besides it was so cool! So liberating! And all so confusing.
Wrightsville Beach stretches for several white sandy miles along the Atlantic coast and is something of a surfer’s hangout. We’d just about reached the end of the beach at the point where it meets Masonboro Inlet when Carol pulled out her phone to check on Aleta to make sure she hadn’t slipped her mooring. In that instant the red Navionics arrowhead that we’d grown familiar with while underway was gone – simply gone – with nothing but a squiggly yellow line in her wake. Carol’s heart lept into her throat and adrenaline flooded her veins. Aleta was there only a minute ago! I turned around and made sure she hadn’t followed us up the beach like a lost puppy then reassured Carol it was almost certainly her phone that had moved and that Aleta was doubtlessly still at anchor. There’s a moment we all have to get through when adrenaline has clouded our thinking, that moment when you regain control of your faculties and your amygdala is beaten back into place by your ego. Carol’s eyes cleared and she started breathing again.
We left the beach and stopped into the SUNdays coffee and brewski emporium, mainly because it was open and had cool surfing videos. What more could anyone want on Boxing Day? We laughed about Aleta’s little excursion, and I even fancied I saw her peeping in through the second story window of the coffee shop now and again. Such is the power of anthropomorphizing. We laughed, but such is the power of suggestion that we still couldn’t wait to get back to the boat, just to make sure Aleta was still there…
