Shitty First Drafts

Pineapples Bar and Grill, Green Turtle Cay

by Christine Kling

We left Fort Lauderdale on Friday one week ago and we had a plan, sort of like an outline. But just like writing a novel, our story veered a bit off course.

The Gulf Stream crossing was bouncy with no wind and left over chop from some gale far away from us. We rocked and rolled and it was pretty damn miserable, especially as Mike’s engine quit about 4 hours out and my son looked me straight in the eye and said, “You know, I’d be happy to just turn around and head back to Fort Lauderdale.”

That was the last thing I wanted to do. So Mike got his engine running again, and we pressed on. Some 20 some hours after leaving Fort Lauderdale, we anchored off Mangrove Cay and spent the night.

The next day the winds piped up to 15-20 knots right on the nose, and we tried motoring into that chop, but at times we were doing 1.5 – 3 knots and we kept revising our plan. We wouldn’t make it to Foxtown, so we headed for Great Sale Cay and because I began to fear running out of fuel, we fell off and began to sail.

I saw the look on my son’s face. He wasn’t sure we would ever get to civilization. It was about then that the autopilot failed.

We weren’t working as a team and I was yelling at him. I was using nautical language he had forgotten and we were both frustrated. I feared this trip was going to be a huge mistake.

The next morning we left Great Sale Cay at 4:30 a.m. to try to take advantage of the calmer night winds, and a couple of hours after sunrise, my engine sputtered and we had run out of fuel. I had miscalculated – I’d counted on being able to do my 5 knots per hour of fuel. We still had more than 30 miles to go straight upwind to reach Spanish Cay, and there was nothing we could do but sail up the relatively narrow channel between the smaller islands and Little Abaco. I radioed Rough Draft and told them to go on ahead, that we might not get in until after dark.

A funny thing happened on that trip, tacking into 20 knot winds with a double reefed main through white-cap strewn chop. Tim and I began to find a rhythm. I was on the helm, and Tim was the trimmer. Our tacks got better and we began to discuss strategy. In the end, we sailed the anchor down off Spanish Cay like a couple of pros.

The next day, after clearing in and taking on fuel, we motored out and within half an hour, the engine sputtered again. I had not reserved any diesel to change a filter, so I told my son we were back to tacking. This time he took the helm and by the end of the trip, when we sailed the anchor down off Green Turtle, he had become a helluva helmsman, and I had cranked winches all day.

I never would have guessed that our story would have taken this turn. But sometimes, the characters do take over and you just have to run (or beat) with it. Even when everything seems to be going wrong, just press on and be confident that you can work out the problems eventually.

Sometimes, we know things we don’t know we know. Yeah, I know that sounds crazy, but here’s the kicker to this story.

Conch Burger

Yesterday afternoon, my son saw an ad for a job he wanted. It was for a food blogger or critic. They wanted a writing sample. So today, he was sitting in the cockpit at his computer struggling to find the words to write about Pineapple’s Bar and Grill here in Green Turtle Cay. I’m a writing teacher and I told him what Ive often told my students. You need to just get something down. You can fix it later. In the words of a fabulous writer, Ann Lamott, you need to give yourself permission to write a shitty first draft. You can work out the problems later.

Just at sunset tonight, he showed me the finished piece and it was great, full of voice and sass and character. I edited and fixed a few things, but he had written a great 1200 word restaurant review. He had taken gorgeous photos of the food and the place and he sent off his resume, writing sample and photos. After dinner, to celebrate, he went ashore to Sundowners for a few drinks.

When he got back an hour or so ago, I was still sitting here trying to think of what to write in this blog. He said, “Mom, why don’t you write about me writing that piece today. I’ve always found writing to be painful, but your advice to allow myself to write a shitty first draft made a huge difference for me. Whether I get the job or not, I gave it my all and that feels good. It’s just like this trip that started out so awful, but we’re making the best of it. I completed the application for that job, and you trusted me to take off in the dinghy in the dark, and you fixed the engine today. Once I sort of realized that things were going to go wrong but we could deal with them, then things got much better.”