The Horse Shore
The boom whips above my head as I come about to take a port tack for the Horse Shore. Riding the outgoing tide, I pass the dilapidated oyster shanties on the beach that appear to be clinging to one another in desperation, along with the remnants of an old bottle dump, the many shards of colored glass shining like wet fish scales on the collapsing hillside. Rounding the bluish dune at the Point, I sail into the lee of a crescent cove, where a long-billed dowitcher scoots across the white sand before disappearing under a tangle of poverty grass. I put the bow into the wind and render the mainsheet, then tie off on a tilted piling capped in slippery strands of blue-green algae, what Gramp calls “Mermaids’ Hair.”
I feel guilty for not leaving him a note saying I was in port.
