owlrigh

"Inara" is what the new catamaran is going to be named. There are many bad boat names around, and Ben and I often groan at seeing yet another "Catscan" or "Upside Down" or "Catapult". The number of riffs on the word "cat" in catamaran naming is ludicrous; although admittedly the "Snowball IV" we saw once was a coy and rather splendid nod at the cat from The Simpsons. "Inara", our mutual choice, came from when we were sailing down the Queensland coast watching Firefly.

We've not mentioned this choice to many people, instead referring to the proto-catamaran as "the cat", as people tend to be funny about names. Mine's "Gecko" and the catamaran Ben owned when I met him was "La Luna", his previous being "Paloma" -- both Spanish names, oddly enough, and both chosen by the previous owners, as was mine. It's bad luck to change a boat name, or so goes the old salt saying.

Ben's not keen on telling people of the "Inara" choice, either, because then would come the "why that name?" question, and although a search on the web comes up with the answer that Inara was a Hittite goddess, daughter of the Storm God, the reality is the catamaran's to be named for a character we both liked on a science fiction show we both like, and no real other reason besides. That it's easy to say and to spell over the radio may have given the whole thing a nudge, mostly coincidental. It could have been "Mal" if short and easy were the only criteria.

"I don't think people would understand if we told them that we were naming the boat after a prostitute on a TV series," he said as I tried vainly to find more references to the Hittite Inara to fob people off if pressed as to the name's origin. But really, it is; Inara of the show is an elegant, beautiful, and melodious woman, all good things to name a curvy and speedy boat -- and a nerdy name to boot. All good things.

"I'm glad you made me watch tv series," Ben said to me recently after I returned from a jaunt to Brisbane city with seasons of Sarah Conner Chronicles, Life on Mars, The Dresden Files, and Battlestar Galactica. I lay my hands on Rome most recently, and he's been hooked in ... while I'm off at work, falling behind on the episode-watching.

It's most excellent; I said to him recently that I wouldn't have been able to stay with him if he wasn't the sort of chap who thought Firefly or Battlestar Galactica (or Heroes!) was good. I was working at night when Heroes was airing on free-to-air. Sometimes I'd have to work Wednesday night, so I got Ben's mum to tape it for me, so she got suckered into it well -- as did Ben, who I pumped for an episode synopsis as soon as I hopped in the car at midnight.

"It was ... good? Things ... happened?" would be what he would say, to my groaning dismay, and then excitedly pointed out the DVD set of each season as it appeared.

Most recently he exclaimed that the fan songvid danamaree gave me of Doctor Who (to the tune of "Handlebars") was great, and say that the show looked interesting. Of course I then went and ordered the latest four seasons over the internet. My boat's become a library of sfnal TV series, just about all of which Ben's seen before me and I'm slowly catching up on, much like Heroes all over again, only now I know I'll be able to see it, without finding out his mum garbled the taping again!

We're multimedia fans, well and truly, although Ben would not know the term if I put it to him ... nor would he want to go to a con, not after that bloody awful one he insisted upon going with me to in Brisbane a couple of years back. If that'd been the only con I'd ever been to I too would have been put off! Now, however, he understands my nerdiness and so does not quibble about my going to Swancon this year.

Yesterday found me zooming into the manager's office at lunchtime.

"Ken," I said, no preamble. "There's this science fiction convention in Perth," at which point he started laughing, "and it's over the Easter weekend. May I go?"

"Like Doctor Who and stuff?"

"Yeah, like that, and books, too. I need a week."

Getting annual leave over Easter or Christmas is rare as hen's teeth and I hoped I'd beaten everyone else to the game.

"Sure," he said, the best manager in the world, "just don't tell anyone else or they'll want time off too. Just because I said yes doesn't mean I like science," he said, but I bet he's a closet Doctor Who fan for sure.

My happy fannish life, where I've an excellent man who names a boat for a science fiction show and an excellent manager who gives me time off to go cavort on the other side of Australia in a happy fannish wallow. It's all good, all good.

Ben thought I was dead once, dead and left lying on the road after an accident, or perhaps attacked by some man and thrown onto the rock wall along the riverside. This was when I was working nights at Mackay, when I'd leave the store shortly after all the clubs had closed and drunken people roamed the streets at will.

I would usually finish between midnight and 2am, and took the dinghy ashore with me, leaving Ben stranded on the boat until I returned. This time we had a huge shipment arrive, and nobody else wanted to stay to finish it off except for me. I put off sending Ben a message saying I'd be late, as I didn't want to wake him up. The hours flew by, and the next thing I knew the day staff had begun arriving.

"Phone call for owlrigh, line one," came over the P.A. at around 7am, and when I took it, Ben's mum was on the line. She was visiting at the time, and she passed me onto Ben.

"Oh, you're alive," he said. "When are you coming home?" In the midst of my apology for not sending a message.

I answered, hung up, and thought no more of it. When I returned to work my manager told me off for not sending him a message to let him know I'd be late.

"At least it shows he really loves you," she said. "Make sure you send him a message next time. Use the phone here if you need to!"

When I got home a bit over an hour later, however, I found things had been going very different to I'd imagined.

Ben was silent, lying in bed and not responsive to any cuddle. His mother was shooting me meaningful looks, and as soon as he could get up and go to work, he went.

"He was frantic," she told me. "He thought you were dead and he couldn't get ashore! He was going to move the boat downstream so he could swim ashore and go looking for you. Luckily I thought to ring the supermarket when I did. He calmed down when he heard your voice."

I felt bad. So that was why he didn't talk to me when I got back, and only said, "send a message next time."

After that he insisted I always send him a message just as I was leaving work, so he'd know I was arriving fifteen minutes later. After a month or so of this I began to think it a bit excessive, that perhaps it was time he got over being worried I was going to cark it, and then berate myself as being callow and mean-hearted for thinking that.

A year later and a change of scene: Ballina, and Ben was busy building the shed every day, so that the catamaran could get started. He was onto the roof stage, up a rickety, unsafe and too-short ladder every day.

I was busy keeping myself occupied and looking for work during the day, returning to the boat for the evening, making food or just reading and waiting for Ben's call to pick him up. It got darker, and before I knew it night had arrived and he'd still not called. He'd always before arrived before dark, so I wondered what he was up to and rang.

No answer.

Perhaps he was in the shower.

I rang half an hour later. No answer.

Bah! Maybe he was still busy doing something. I rang again, a niggly worry beginning to creep up my spine, remembering the ladder. No answer.

I imagined the ladder finally folding in two, Ben crumpled at the bottom, neck twisted and eyes glazed, his phone ringing in his pocket, him dead.

I tried to put this out of my mind and I hopped in the dinghy and crossed the suddenly interminable river stretch, wondering whether to call the cops to come to the yard just in case. The yard would be locked, I thought, but I could climb the barbed-wire fence all the same. I didn't have anybody's number from anywhere in the area, and he was the only person in the yard all day long. He could have been there all day. No, I wouldn't think about that.

I pulled the dinghy up, impatient with the time it took to lock it up, and jumped on my bike for the 20-minute ride to get to him. I pulled out my phone and tried ringing as I rode, but there was still no answer. Shoving it into a pocket, I crouched over for more power and speed and headed off.

Rrrrrrrrrrrrring.

It was Ben.

"Sorry! The phone fell out of my pocket and I was talking to Damo," a chap from a nearby yard, "and didn't realise the time."

"I thought you were dead," I said starkly, and began to cry. "I was riding to come find you."

"Sorry sweetie! I'm coming home now! I'll meet you at the dinghy!"

He must have driven fast, because he was there shortly after me, screeching to a stop, jumping out of the car and running up to give me a hug.

"Sorry, darling!" he said over and over. Finally I stopped snivelling on his shoulder and just a wobbly lip remained. "Well, you know how I felt that time then."

I did, and I felt worse than ever about the time before. It took a week or so of images of him dead to go away, and I found myself teary-eyed for no apparent reason during that time -- and all over the possibility of him being dead, nowhere near an actuality! Poor Ben'd probably gone through the same thing back when at Mackay and I'd not been sympathetic!

Three days off, and what do you do with them? Return to the islands you make your living in, naturally. It's either that or end up in the bar every evening, drinking it up, and so when Ben mentioned he was going out for an overnighter in his catamaran, I chose to go with him.

Being out there on a different boat made all the difference. Places I normally shrug my shoulders for because of their familiarity became new again -- and sailing in a little catamaran, slipping across the waves, was a novelty.

Coral Trekker needs gale force winds to make her go; under a comfortable wind speed she'll do the fastness of a knot, maybe, and it would take you half the trip to get to the islands.

We often get the complaint we don't sail enough in her.

Off we went in La Luna. She's a delightful little cat; phenomenally fast and responsive. We sailed almost straight off the beach he had her in, and weaved in and around anchored yachts at will. And there I'd thought my yacht was responsive; she makes mine own feel like a lump of lead.

That she's low in the water and open made me want to swim more. I spent half the time swimming or snoozing in the reflected sun, where normally I eschew the water and sit in the shade.

Two days of that and my skin is ever more so tanned. The difference between regularly exposed parts of me and the unexposed is striking now.

( And ... another difference. )