In 1982, I purchased the good boat, Tyche. I purchased her not knowing anything about sailing, but plenty about boating. I figured she had an engine and, if nothing else, I could putt putt about with that. Even so, I was determined to learn how to sail.
Tyche was my home. I lived aboard her for five years, most of that time at the Baltimore Yacht Basin, on the south arm of the Patapsco River right next to the Hanover Street Bridge in Baltimore, MD. The BYB was cheap as far as slip rental went and the marina had a large liveaboard population. Everybody pretty much watched out for everybody. It was a big family.
While at BYB, I had a little black cat, Salem. He weighed all of about 5 lbs, soaking wet, but he thought he was a lion on the plains of the Serengheti. He was a feisty little critter and a pretty good boat cat. He had a "cat door" on Tyche and he'd come & go as he pleased. At BYB, he'd go hunting rats with the feral cats under the Locke Insulator plant.
One summer night, my cousin Marty came over. She & I were sitting in the cockpit, drinking a couple of beers when she saw Salem and a large, orange tabby on the shoreline. The two cats had a rather large rat cornered and were slowly closing the distance between themselves and the rat. The rat had its back to the water and two cats were coming in to shorten that rat's life. Mary was watching the drama unfold on land. She was concerned that the rat would swim out to the boat and get aboard. I told her that there was little chance of that happening. Of course, as soon as I said that, the rat took to the water and swam past the stern of Tyche, which was 5 slips out from the shore. Oops! Marty left. I think that's the last time she was ever aboard.
Salem was my watch cat. One night, I was sound asleep on Tyche, when one of the drunken neighbors decided he could not live without me. When he came aboard, Salem launched himself out the cat door and attacked the trespassing neighbor. The ruckus woke me up and I joined in, chasing the man off Tyche with a broom in my nightie. What a sight that must have been. Funny thing is no one ever came aboard after that without knocking and checking to see where Salem was.
Salem was also a pretty good bilge pump failure alarm. The bilge pump on Tyche was notorious for not coming on when needed, especially at the most inopportune moment - when I was asleep. Many times I was very happy that I had the old, manual, hand pump that always worked.
Salem came home to the boat one night. He curled up on the aft port berth with me and snuggled up and went to sleep. At some point in time, he started mrowing. "Salem. Knock it off. Go to sleep." Nuh uh.... His mrowing became more insistent and louder. "Salem. Knock it off!" Nuh uh.... Frustrated at his repeatedly ignored attempts to awaken me from my slumbers, the damn cat finally bit me on the chin! That worked. As I swung my feet over the berth to go get that annoying cat which had the temerity to bite me, my feet landed in water, not on dry wood. Damned pump!
I turned on an overhead lamp and discovered about 6" of water atop the floorboards. Grabbing the manual pump handle, I started pumping out the bilges. Salem, in the mean time, sat on top of my counter, grooming. He'd saved my boat from sinking at the dock. He was s smart cat, he didn't want his home flooded.
I have a ton of Salem stories, but that's enough for now.
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