Staring. The little girl, all of 11 years old, was absolutely staring at Pamela Wall. I wasn’t sure why until I followed her gaze.
It was the necklace.
Pam was wearing her necklace with all 10 Bayview Mackinac first place medals on it.
“Where did you get all of those?” the girl asked, sounding a little dubious.
I answered for Pam. “She WON all 10 of them!” I said. “She won 10 times! YOU could do that, too!”
The girl looked skeptical.
She glanced at me, then at Pam. “My mom has one that my DAD won!” she stated emphatically, then turned and walked away.
Oh honey. I hope you do not miss out on all of the fun.
My introduction to Mackinac sailboat racing was when I was married to my exhusband back in the late 1980s/early 1990s.
Every year he raced the Mack race, and every year I dutifully drove to Mackinac Island to meet him.
Back then, pre-internet, I sat on the beach at Mission Point with binoculars and a slew of other sailing wives, reading the sail numbers on the boats approaching the island, using a printed scratch sheet to figure out what classes were nearing the finish line.
After I got divorced in the mid 1990s, I thought I would never step foot on a sailboat again. That part of my life left with him.
Or so I thought.
One day, within a year of my divorce, while out for a bike ride, I stopped along the Edison Parkway in Port Huron and watched the sailboats coming in after a local race. “I’d kind of like to go sailing again someday,” I thought to myself wistfully.
The next morning, I called a neighbor who owned a boat. “Do you know anyone who might need crew?” I asked him, stepping waaaay out of my Patti comfort zone by asking for something I wanted.
This newly divorced Patti was also a new Patti and she was more adventurous.
The neighbor dropped off a schedule for his crew that afternoon and thus began my sailboat racing adventure.
Fast forward to the early 2000s when I did my first Mackinac race and arrived at the island by sailboat for the first time in a race.
“This is the way to arrive on the island!” I thought.
The thing is, I’ve relied on the “shore crews” of wives and spouses of sailors. They work hard. They cooked for us, they delivered our luggage to the island and took care of us. I’m forever grateful for all of them.
But I also hope that the little girl who stared at Pamela’s necklace realizes she, too, can one day either wear the first place medal from her husband, or she can earn 10 of her own, like Pamela, one of the winningest women sailors on the Great Lakes, did.
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