The Daniel Row Principle

My daughter has a report due for school in three days. Her assignment is to write a paper on a sea creature, something local to the Long Island Sound.

When I was a kid I used to snorkel in the creek at West Meadow beach in Setauket. About 10 feet down, at a turn in the creek, there is a field of orange sponges. There must have been 200 of them shattered over a quarter mile, some as big as a watermelon, some bigger. Since I am on a nautical kick I suggested that she write about sponges and promised her that I would take her snorkeling to take pictures and get a sample.

She was very excited and told her whole class that her daddy was going to take her diving. When I made this promise it was mid May, and I was hoping it would warm up. I was also hoping that the boat would be ready and we could sail into Setauket Harbor. Neither one of these things has happened. The boat is still in my driveway, pending a new bilge pump and a mooring permit, and the water temperature is 66 degrees.

I had planned to take her Friday night after work, but I got home too late. My carpool-mates, mostly Matt and Ed, were convinced that the water was too cold and that I would have a heart attack. Matt even went so far as to call his mom, a nurse, and inquire into my chances of survival. I explained that my daughter had a full wetsuit and that I had my own natural padding. I am a lot like a polar bear and I am generally not bothered by the cold. Ed - who is my boss, and a man of great compassion - started talking about filling my position. I told them that they were wimps and that I was now living by the Daniel Row principle. I was ready to face death. The more people who told me that it was certain doom, the more determined I was to do it.

My mom went to the hospital on Saturday. Nothing serious, but it blew my snorkeling plans out of the water. Instead I spend most of Saturday morning trying to make heads or tails of my bilge pump. It turns out that the pump is there, it is a Gibbs Hobson Mark V (Size 2) self-priming pump – I read this off the side – but it is not hooked up. To make matters worst it is not self-bailing, which means it has to be turned on an off. This is an old style pump and is meant for trailered boats. After spending three hours wedged into the sub-decking under the cockpit, tracing the bilge lines to the pump and the through hull, I decided to just get a new one. I am going to get a 1000-gallon per hour self-contained pump with a float. All I have to do it mount it and hook it to the battery. It will start and stop itself based on the water level.

I also made a discovery about the boat. The Maggie Mermaid used to be called the Dawn Joy. I found the name written on the inside of the compass housing, on the hood that protects it from rain, salt spray, et. Al.. It is incredibly bad luck to rename a boat. If you are going to rename it there is a whole ceremony you have to follow to ward off bad mojo.

The ritual involves champagne and magic spells, so it is not all bad. You start by removing all traces of the old name from the vessel and finish by appeasing the sea gods. In a way my pain in the ass pump is a blessing. If I hadn’t been crawling around the deck I would never have found the old name and god knows what sort of terrible wrath I would have faced. Click here to learn more about the ceremony – it is pretty cool.

On Sunday morning we had our open house. It was not good and I am pretty sure we will pull the house from the Market. Things have really cooled down in housing and I am a little bummed out. To make matters worse we have a Soccer game at noon that we lost. My daughter plays on the team and I am the coach. We were undefeated and the team we played was not that good. On a positive note, I am trying to teach the kids positions and defense and they are doing ok. It just didn’t come together. My daughter also sprained her ankle. I am chalking it up to angry sea gods. Out last game is next week, so I am hoping to appease Poseidon by then (

I finally got to the creek on Sunday afternoon – the last possible chance before I had to come in on Monday and face the scorn of my car pool. I hadn’t been to the creek, which is actually a tidal estuary, in years. It was not exactly how I remembered it. There used to be a bunch of cottages there, summer shacks right on the beach. We used to swim all day by the jetty, and then climb up on the roofs at night to drink, get stoned, and watch the sun go down. The rich people who live up on the bluffs had them torn down a couple of years ago, I guess it obstructed their view of Connecticut.

The creek was still the same though, along with a lighthouse and a nature center. The nature center is now named after an old teacher of mine, Dr. Erwin Ernst, who taught the summer marine biology class at Ward Melville HS. Dr. Ernst, or Ernie, died a few years ago, and I guess it was only natural to name the place he loved after him.

The creek flows past the little green building that serves as a classroom. There is a little beach there that the students use to catch specimens. The sponge bed runs right off the beach in about 10 feet of water.

My wife got our daughter suited up in her new wetsuit, hood, booties, mask, snorkel, and flippers. She also strapped on her underwater camera, specimen bag and safety line. Meanwhile I was wearing an old pair of green shorts, a long shelve insulated shirt, a tee shirt, a pair of fins, and my old mask and snorkel - left over from my brief flirtation with SCUBA. She looked like Jacque Cousteau, and I looked like a homeless guy with goggles.

I have to admit; when I first jumped into the water it hit me like a punch to the chest. It was shockingly cold, to the point that the air was forced out of me and I ended up swallowing a lot of water. After a few seconds of floundering below the surface I managed to right myself and kick back up to grab a breath. It took a couple of minutes, but eventually the cold became tolerable and I was able to get a good rhythm with my breathing. My daughter walked out about 20 feet and threw me the free end of her safety line. She was a little scared of the drop off; the water went from about 3 feet to 10 feet very quickly was having a hard time with her ankle. She is a good swimmer, but it hurt when she kicked her flipper.

I kicked over to help her and she promptly jumped on my back. I spent the rest of the afternoon ferrying her around the creek, diving with her on my back and stomach like a dolphin. I am a very strong swimmer and the fins make it easier, but I still felt a lot like Shamu pulling my trainer around the pool. All I needed was a flaming hoop and some fish to eat.

We dived for about 30 – 40 minutes and took a bunch of pictures and we got a nice sample for her report. She had a great time and the whole family had a nice time walking on the beach.

It was a very odd, but very nice weekend. A perfect example of the Daniel Row principle


Update: Matt’s old boat is no longer in the boat yard. It looks like Mr. Row made his sail to Buzzard’s Bay. We have been trying to reach him no his phone, but there is no answer…