Take your squirrel sailing

One fall a few years back, I remarked that I thought that we humans had had our day, and that the squirrels were going to be the next master race. That particular year, they were very aggressive. At one point they were climbing all over the screens at my favorite marina, knocking on doors, wanting to come in. Approached, instead of exhibiting proper squirrel behavior by running up a tree, they would stand their ground and growl. They seemed bigger and heavier than in previous years. Scary.

A friend of mine wanted to get in one more sail before the snow started to fall. He loaded his guests into his dinghy and motored out to his boat on a mooring. There was a squirrel running around on the decks. They got ready to sail, and right before casting off, chased the squirrel onto the mooring ball, figuring that it since it had to have swum out to the boat from the seawall; it could just as very well swim back.

They had an hour’s great sailing before that New England adage kicked in: if you don’t like the weather, wait a minute. If you do like the weather, don’t get used to it. The sun disappeared, the wind and waves kicked up, temps fell dramatically. The fun was over. My friend decided that instead of getting everyone wet in the lousy conditions in the dinghy, he’d take the big boat into the dock, drop everyone off except for one hardcore sailing friend, and then the two of them would return the boat to the mooring and come back ashore in the dingy. Sails furled, they were motoring up the channel past the shipyard when people started shouting at them. Given the wind and the noise of the motor, they really couldn’t hear what everyone was saying, but it sounded something like ‘squirrel’. And people were pointing at the front of the boat. Someone on board went forward and looked over the bow towards the water. Sure enough, there on the bobstay clung a squirrel, possibly the first in history to sail Narragansett Bay as a figure head. Apparently, when they thought that the squirrel was safely left behind on the mooring ball, he had other ideas and leapt for the boat, which immediately began to pitch in the swell. There was nothing more he could do but say his squirrel prayers and cling for dear life.

As the boat approached the dock and turned to come alongside, the squirrel saw blessed land, and leapt. He hit the dock running, only to be stopped by a group of people walking towards him down the dock. Panicked, he looked for shelter, finding it in the exhaust pipe of a powerboat docked stern to. After everyone else cleared ashore, my friend and his pal approached the powerboat’s owner, who happened to be aboard, and said, “Pardon us, but there’s a squirrel in your exhaust pipe.” The guy laughed, and said “good one.” They insisted. The guy said, “man, what have you two been smoking, and can I have some?” They said, “Humor us.” The guy shrugged, said “OK,” and started his engine. The squirrel shot out the exhaust as if fired from a cannon, landed in the water, and disappeared under the dock. My friend looked at his friend, and then at his boat tied only a few feet away. “RUN,” he shouted. Fearing angry squirrel revenge, they ran down the dock, quickly untied the boat, and shoved off, before the squirrel could get back on board and do them bodily harm.

Turned out that winter was record breaking for cold. We had more than six feet of snow over the course of the winter. Those squirrels knew it was coming, and yeah, that would have made me crankily aggressive too, demanding to come inside, seeking a better way to protect my nuts from being buried and frozen.