SEA STORIES
Sailors have been telling stories ever since men have gone to sea. And men have always gone to sea
When I was a snot-nosed teenager fresh from bootcamp I would stagger across the messdeck rolling across the waves after the evening meal had been cleaned up, past the old salts holding court. These sometimes gray-haired but always fat-bellied men of the ocean were surrounded by an adoring audience of fresh cheeked sycophants listening with apt attention, open mouthed, hoping to absorb some of the saltiness of these rowdy balladeers by osmosis.
Their stories, what little I heard in my passing as I hoped to avoid being singled out for abuse and laughter at my greenness, were packed with outrageous yarns. Heroic struggles against the raging seas ... buxom wenches conquered overnight in obscure ports-of-call ... wardrooms full of command ineptitude ... and, always, the central figure of which was whatever fat-bellied bristly speaker held the floor. "What a load of bilge water!" I would think to myself lurching past, banging off the bulkheads, "What bunch of lies! What a string of fools listening to bigger fools."
I can't quite recall when, over my years at sea, that I became a gray-haired fat-bellied old salty fool holding court myself.
Apprentices aboard ships keep their own mouths shut, keep their head down and try to blend in without standing out. Any attempt to launch into a story of your own meagre sea time, or even the mere telling of how one rogue wave climbed over the gunwale that very morning at 0530 to soak you to your boondockers while scraping greasy dregs out of the breakfast pans over the side, was met with derisive hoots. "Boot! Shut the fuck up!" Your job was to know your place and do the grimiest, filthiest, most humilitating bidding imaginable. There were Men at work here. You, you pitiful seaworm, would never make it.
In this environment, riding surplus World War Two Navy ships handed down to the Coast Guard of the 1970s, learning my trade, I quickly realized what these blowhards were actually doing was passing down exactly the lore and lurid history I needed to absorb. They were holding court alright - they had paid full retail price for the yarn, real blood sweat and tears, and here they were giving it away to anyone who respected the telling - passing along free what you needed to become a real sailor.
Down in seaman's berthing in the worst riding damp dark bowel of the ship there lurked a crowded motley gang of thugs, hoodlams, petty thieves, riff-raff that would hurt you if you did not watch your step. The Wardroom absolutely and the Petty Officers pretty much never concerned themselves with what went on down in that hole. But if you held your tongue and did what you were told to do with at least adequate energy and a sense of humor, you might, in a few weeks or months at sea, notice that senior seaman who kept to himself mostly and nobody fucked with.
He was the Seaman the Boatswain would hollar for out on deck when things got sloppy. He was the Seaman that always got called to go out on the boats when the sun was splashing diamonds across the wavecrests while you stayed on deck in filthy dungarees scraping slimey seacritters off buoys with a long-handled trowel. He never had to scrub shitters on cleanups. If you did not become one of the gangsters took your time and did not assume too much, he might show you how to tie a monkey's fist on a ropeyarn Sunday down in the Bosun's Hole. If the Senior Seaman accepted your friendship you were golden.
Might have been my first ship, maybe my second, where I first heard the prototypical sailor's yarn. I have certainly heard it repeated at sea a hundred times since. Some old crusty fuck with gnarled knuckles wizened eyes lifer stripes and most definitely a short-timer would get a wistful far off look and declare to anyone within earshot, "When I retire, I swear I am gonna take an oar, hoist it aloft on me shoulder, and walk straight for the mountains. And the first lubber what asks me, 'Hey mate, what is that thing yer carryin'?' I swears I am going to plant that oar right in the ground and that is where I am goin' to make my stand." A full ten years after I ever did first hear that story spun I discovered while reading Homer from 850 B.C. that sailor's lament is a full 3,000 years old. And some old sailor told it to Homer.
There are certain conventions to be followed in telling a sea story well. Prodigeous amounts of alcohol work well in kicking one off. In a ship full of men far from home for months at a time the conquest of a fair maiden gets every sailor's attention every time. Academy Officers who know even less than the lowliest scullery maid issuing dumbass orders are always fair game, even far better if you have one on the X.O. (the Skipper is OFF-limits unless heroic) But without doubt the most common convention that draws the crew near and pulls their ear ...
"Now listen up. This one here is a No shitter ...."
