Josh Moore
My fascination with the sea began when I was a child. Growing up near Annapolis, Maryland meant I was surrounded by sailors and watermen. The sailors encouraged me to begin sailing and join the Navy. My Grandmother Moore lived in a small, white house beside the Magothy River. I often played in the dark water of the Magothy and searched for crabs on the barnacle-covered pilings of her neighbor’s pier. The Moore family’s impact on me gave me a passion for sailing.
My dad and three of his brothers loved to sail. Uncle Jack, the oldest of the siblings, was a seasoned sailor who loved the water; his leathery skin attested to the long sails he often took. During the Vietnam War, Uncle Bob experienced exciting adventures in the Navy. My dad and Uncle Kevin, only a few years apart in age, often went sailing together on the Magothy River and Chesapeake Bay. My dad and uncles told me many exciting stories about sailing that made me desire to become a sailor.
The most amazing story that my family ever told me captured my imagination as a boy and continues to fascinate me today. Twenty-five years ago, my dad, Uncle Bob, and Uncle Jack decided to go on a tremendous voyage. Along with their friend Cliff, a navigator in the United States Navy, they embarked on a fantastic expedition from California to Hawaii. The sailors acquired a twenty-nine foot sailboat and stocked it with supplies for their two-week passage across the Pacific Ocean. Due to complications, the intended two week trip actually took over three weeks. They sailed out of sunny San Diego harbor when my dad was only sixteen years old. The following is an excerpt from my dad’s memoirs about the final days of the voyage:
We were travelling ahead of a tropical depression and the swells were thirty foot and the wind was very strong. This also made navigation difficult again due to the cloud cover. Toward the end of the trip I remember getting very concerned because there was no way to confirm where we were and we did not have the food or supplies to reach Japan. When Jack began to show fatigue and was looking behind us for the Hawaiian Islands, I realized that we may be in trouble. The sailing was exciting now though. We were literally surfing up and down the swells.
The tale that my dad often told me about his voyage instilled in me a desire to experience similar adventures. I asked him to teach me to sail, so he began taking me on little sailing adventures near our house.
Our family took many sailing trips across the Magothy River. The Moore family owned a small catamaran sailboat. The catamaran had two long banana-shaped pontoons, connected by a canvas and a large mast in the middle of the vessel. I remember embarking on a short trip to Dutchship Island in the middle of the Magothy River. After we sailed the catamaran up onto a large sandbar, we explored the forest of the enchanting island and sprawled out on the beach. My brothers and I felt like we were in an adventure story of our own. Dad kept taking me on sailing trips and when I got older he began to teach me how to sail.
When I turned twelve years old, my dad taught me to sail our small two-man sailboat. We took this boat on a family vacation to a lake in Maryland, and I sailed the boat all over the lake with my dad. My aunt saw us sailing and asked me to take her on a ride across the lake. It scared me to think of sailing a boat without dad on board, but I agreed to go. Before my aunt got into the boat, my dad told me to take the boat across the lake on my own. I protested, “Dad, the water is too rough and I don’t want to sail by myself.” He told me, “It will be fine, just sail across and back, if you have any trouble I’ll come get you.” Before I could speak, he shoved the boat away from the pier and I was off. The extremely rough winds blew me across the lake at a frightening pace. When I attempted to turn the boat and return to shore, the wind blew so hard that it tangled the ropes in the rudder. I panicked because I was unable to steer the boat and was caught facing upwind. Finally, I managed to turn the boat toward shore, but the ropes remained tangled in the rudder. I reached the shore and refused to sail for the rest of the day.
Although I was traumatized by this experience, my desire to sail grew stronger because I began reading sailing adventure stories, and my heart longed to sail again. As I grew older, I came close to joining the Navy. My family supported midshipmen at the Naval Academy and they came over to our house on the weekends. These sailors instilled in me a desire to join the Navy and sail the oceans in the service of my country. My love for the sea almost led me to become a sailor, but the Lord directed me far from the sea to the cold, frozen land of Wisconsin. Although I go to school in Wisconsin, my deep love for the ocean makes me look forward to returning to my sailing life in Annapolis.
