Hello again. Dusk here.

You may remember me from my previous report on Barb and The Hub’s adventures in sailing, although I personally prefer to call them Barb and The Hub’s Continuing Attempts to Die in a Variety of Expensive and Unnecessarily Complicated Ways.

I’m checking in because apparently there have been questions.

• How is the sailing going?
• Is Barb getting any better at it?
• Has Dusk learned to enjoy being on the boat?

The answers are: Fine. No. And what the hell is wrong with you people?

Happy Birthday. Put On Your Lifejacket.

It was Barb’s birthday. Normal people celebrate birthdays with cake. Possibly champagne. Presents are good. A nice lunch is acceptable.

Barb went sailing.

Worse, I went sailing.

This involved me being unwillingly stuffed into my lifejacket, which is a humiliating red contraption apparently designed to make me look like a small furry tugboat. I was then hauled aboard and informed that I was going to have a lovely time.

This is a phrase humans use when they know perfectly well you are not going to have a lovely time.

The Hub, meanwhile, was delighted. The Hub loves sailing. Barb loves The Hub. I love Barb. This is how innocent dogs get dragged into things.

Apparently English Doesn’t Work On Boats

Barb is still total crap as a sailor. I don’t think she’d mind me telling you that, because she says it herself. Quite frequently. Usually while The Hub is explaining that she has just done something wrong.

Part of the problem is the language. Barb has spent her entire life under the impression that she speaks English. Then she gets onto a boat and discovers that sailors have stolen perfectly good English words and assigned completely different meanings to them.

• A sheet, for example, is not something you put on a bed.
• A head is not the thing attached to your neck.
• Port is not just something you drink.
• A painter does not paint anything.
• And flake has absolutely nothing to do with chocolate.
• Barb considers this unreasonable.

I agree. Dogs have words like walk, dinner, biscuit, squirrel, and NO! Every one of these has a perfectly clear meaning. Humans could learn from us.

The Situation Becomes Urgent

For several hours, things went surprisingly well. Nothing sank. Nobody fell overboard. Barb did not accidentally decapitate The Hub with the boom. I began to wonder if sailing might actually be survivable. Then I noticed a problem.

I needed a wee. Quite badly. There was not one single blade of grass on the entire boat.

I checked.

Several times.

Meanwhile, Barb was facing a similar difficulty because she had absolutely no intention of using the so-called “chemical” toilet. (The Hub insists on calling this toilet the head, presumably because sailing isn’t already confusing enough.)

Barb had inspected it earlier. She then described, in some detail, the exact sequence of events that would have to occur in the Underworld before she would voluntarily use it. Apparently these involved Satan ice-skating to work, several demons building snowmen, and Hell announcing its successful bid to host the Winter Olympics.

Several people back on shore had also helpfully suggested the traditional bucket-and-chuck-it method. Oddly enough, every person who suggested this was male. Barb says this is because they are suffering from testosterone poisoning. I don’t know what testosterone is, but judging by its symptoms it apparently causes humans to believe that exposing their bottoms to an entire Scottish harbour is a perfectly reasonable alternative to plumbing.

So there we were. Barb refusing to pee. Me unable to pee. The Hub, thanks to certain built-in anatomical advantages, completely unconcerned by the absence of proper facilities.

I began communicating the seriousness of the situation through increasingly pathetic moans and crossed paws. Eventually, even The Hub noticed. We turned for home.

And Then Everything Went Pear-Shaped

This is where the day became interesting. The plan sounded simple. The Hub would start the outboard motor. Barb would take the tiller and steer us towards our mooring. The Hub would stand at the front of the boat holding a long boat hook and somehow spear the mooring buoy line as we went past.

Yes. I worried too.

The Hub started the engine. Barb took the tiller. And immediately announced that the boat wouldn’t steer.

The Hub shouted something involving PORT!

Barb shouted back that THE BOAT WON’T STEER!

The Hub shouted STARBOARD!

Barb replied with several interesting expressions she later told me she hadn’t used since she was in labor.

Meanwhile, the boat continued majestically towards a group of moored boats. People began appearing on them. They were pointing. Some looked concerned. Some looked scared.

I didn’t blame them. If I’d been sitting peacefully on my boat and suddenly spotted Barb bearing down on me at the controls of another boat while screaming childbirth vocabulary, I’d have abandoned ship.

There May Be A Slight Problem With The Engine

Eventually The Hub conceded that perhaps Barb wasn’t the problem. Something was wrong with the motor. He started talking about cables. Then lines. Then connections. Then several other things I didn’t understand.

Neither did Barb.

Finally, The Hub came back and began fiddling with the engine. There was apparently a thingie sticking out of it which, if pulled in the correct direction, would make the boat go.

Excellent.

The Hub returned to the front of the boat with the hook. Barb was instructed to steer towards the mooring while pulling the engine thingie.

There was one tiny problem. Barb is short. Not short for a dog, obviously. She’s enormous compared with me. But for a human?Short. If Barb stood upright, she could see over the cabin and steer.If Barb leaned backwards far enough to pull the engine thingie, she could not see over the cabin.

“No problem,” The Hub assured her. “I’ll call out directions.”

Readers, there was a problem.

PORT! NO, THE OTHER PORT!

What followed was a complex maritime maneuver involving The Hub shouting directions from the bow while Barb alternated between pulling the engine thingie and attempting to see where we were going.

PORT!

Pull.

MORE PORT!

Pull.

NO! STARBOARD!

Pull.

OTHER WAY!

Barb contributed some further expressions from the Labor and Delivery Collection.

The air filled with words that would have caused people on nearby boats—and possibly in the next town—to slap their hands over the ears of impressionable young children. Except this is Scotland. They’ve heard worse. Often from the impressionable young children themselves.

Finally, The Hub agreed that perhaps the current system had certain flaws. They changed places. The Hub would operate the engine thingie. Barb would go forward and catch the mooring with the boat hook.

And that was when we saw it.

JELLZILLA

There are jellyfish.

And then there was Jellzilla.

Jellzilla was the largest jellyfish I have ever seen. Admittedly, my previous experience of jellyfish is limited, but I feel confident this one was excessive. It was approximately the size of a trash can. And that was just the main squishy bit. Underneath hung approximately seventeen billion long, trailing, death-dealing stingers. Possibly more.

Barb stared at Jellzilla. I stared at Jellzilla. Jellzilla, as far as I could tell, stared back.

Barb and I both understood one important fact. Jellzilla could probably kill us. Normally this would be enough reason to give it a great deal of personal space. But Jellzilla was now between us and the mooring. And the mooring was between us and the shore. And the shore contained both toilets and grass.

There are moments in life when courage comes from deep inside you. There are other moments when courage comes from having needed to pee for several hours.

Barb lifted the boat hook. She shoved it into the water. She pushed Jellzilla aside. And she snagged the mooring.

Reader, I have never been prouder of her.

Abandon Ship

We tied up in record time. Nobody admired the scenery. Nobody discussed the successful sail. Nobody opened a celebratory drink.

We got into the dinghy. The Hub started towards shore. I watched it getting closer. Closer.

Closer.

Still too far.

Closer—

I jumped. Straight over the side. I hit the water, swam the last bit, scrambled ashore, and headed for the first available patch of grass.

Barb was right behind me. For a woman of her age and height, she can move surprisingly fast when properly motivated. She passed me at a dead run and continued towards the clubhouse, where the flush toilets were waiting like the gates of Heaven.

As for Jellzilla?

We don’t know. Presumably it’s still out there. Waiting. Growing. Planning.

Personally, I don’t care. I have grass. Barb has indoor plumbing. The Hub still has his boat. And apparently we’re going sailing again.  I really should have read the small print before I agreed to be Barb’s dog.

—Dusk