The Immortality of Youth By Noel Shumann
I
ts funny how your life can change in an hours’ time.
We had a home on the Gulf of Mexico and owned and raced Hobe Catamarans. When visiting, my kids loved to sail. Being of the age of 18-21 and of the knowledge of sailing a boat, I let them sail alone without out Old Dad supervising.
On this day, Mike and Noel Jr. had two friends and the four were going sailing. After I thought what was a successful check of life jackets and no alcoholic beverages, I sent them on their way and wished them well. Their one rule was to keep the boat in sight, so I did not worry. The boys agreed and off they went. An hour passed, and I thought I was keeping track as the boat had a bright yellow sail. I totally relaxed when the sail came into view about a half a mile from the beach. I was assuming they would be home soon but when they did not land at our place, I figured they headed for friends or pretty girls down the beach. About 20 minutes later, one of the sons of a friend of ours came running down exclaiming that our sailboat had landed by their beach house and there was no one on it. So much for not worrying! I ran up the beach to try and figure out what happened. Both the jib and the main sail were set as if it was under full sail, basically the boys must have been trying to get full speed out of the boat. I had binoculars and was quickly checking the horizon and could find no sign of the boys. I knew they had gone out of sight which probably meant they were at least three miles from shore. That is a long swim! My hope was that knowing the general direction they had been sailing in we could retrace their course. At this point, my worry meter was going through the roof. With the help of my young messenger, we quickly brought the boat about, and I was under the most important search sail of my life. After sailing about a mile out, we could not see anybody swimming in the water or any other boats. It took us about another 20 minutes of being under full sail to see my first possible “man overboard”. It was my son, Noel Jr., an FSU swimming team member and probably the strongest swimmer of them all. All the sudden he was waving his arms and pointing out further to sea. I yelled at him and he indicated the general direction as to where the other three were. He anxiously explained that one of them could not swim well. He said, “go find them and don’t worry about me. I will swim into shore”. The only reason I agreed is because a 16-foot catamaran could not really hold more than four people. I battened all the sails to generate as much speed as possible. In about 20 minutes of fast sailing, I found them! A Hobe is a fast boat; they used to advertise them as being fast enough to pull a water skier. To my relief, I found three scared boys treading water in the ocean. In hindsight, their running joke about JAWS was no longer funny! That was a happy three guys! My one big question was how the boat ended up on shore without them. Surely, they did not jump off the boat with the sails set! I noticed there was a lot of chatter when they got on the boat. They were breaking records in their word counts. I learned from raising the first six kids that when they had a close call, they talked a lot, usually avoiding the truth at hand! Nerves will do that to you! After we made it ashore, we struck the sails and I still did not have my answer. I once again asked how you ended up in the drink (the ocean) and have the boat sail on without you. Mike, my oldest, began to describe a “King of the Boat” story which became a contest of who was the strongest among the four boys. Most of the boys were football players and humility was not their strong suit. In their pursuit of royalty, they all four went into the water at the same time. They had the boat for a minute but then realized how fast it would sail and they could not keep up. When they all let go to talk for a second the boat just sailed off towards shore, another moment of brilliance. I just shook my head as I realized that if the boat had been turned 180 degrees it never would have made it home and perhaps ended up in Mexico. That could have been thousands of miles away! That was the first time they had even thought about that. I could see a shiver come to each of their bodies. To tell you the truth, I had a good shiver too. Don’t worry, Noel Jr. made it home long before us! To the one boy who could not swim well, you can’t come back until you take some swimming lessons!
Noel Shumann is a REALTOR, an author, a speaker and quite the entertainer. He is an excellent writer and the best part is, his stories are true. Noel and his wife Terry lived in Rabun but currently reside in the Atlanta area.
50 GML - February 2021
