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Authors: Ann Vanderhoof
Tags: Fiction
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responsible for the weather.
“Get out of Bimini as soon as possible. Leave tonight.” These encouraging words are delivered shortly after the moray is evicted by the trap’s new owner, one very pleased Bahamian dockhand.
Leave tonight? When we’ve just arrived? When we’re exhausted and ready to open the champagne?
But the advice comes from Herb, and one doesn’t take what Herb says lightly. There’s this little matter of a gale approaching, he tells me, and we need to be tucked away somewhere protected—which is
not
Bimini—by Sunday afternoon.
Shit
.
Shit
.
SHIT
. But I just chirp, “Roger that,” as protocol demands. Because Herb Hilgenberg, the cruiser’s weather god, is telling me this via SSB—single sideband—radio. From the basement of his house in Burlington, a city on the Canadian shore of Lake Ontario, Herb transmits forecasts and advice to boats throughout the Atlantic and Caribbean, speaking with fifty to eighty individual boats seven days a week, while hundreds of others listen in and heed his advice. It is a herculean, almost unbelievable, volunteer job. Herb—everyone calls him by his first name only, even those who’ve never spoken with him, let alone met him—doesn’t take weekends off. He works holidays, even Christmas and New Year’s. Every day of the year, he spends hours compiling and interpreting weather data, works out the safest routes for his charges, and then is on the radio for three to four solid hours, without a break. He’s routed boats around storms and taken them through hurricanes. He’s saved lives. Herb’s advice is so highly regarded that he’s one of the few nonmilitary people with access to U.S. Navy weather data. Rumor has it he even tells the U.S. Navy how to interpret it.
Steve and I decided a couple of weeks ago that I would have the job on
Receta
of talking to Herb, because the word on the cruisers’ grapevine is that he’s a bit more tolerant, a tiny bit more patient, when the inexperienced voice at the other end of the microphone is female. And we need to cultivate every last bit of tolerance we can get. We are completely green at this—green at understanding offshore weather forecasts and green at using our new, bought-and-installed-in-Florida SSB radio. I know that in theory the single sideband will allow us to talk to people (including rescue services, if need be) far beyond the line-of-sight limits of our VHF radio, which is standard boat equipment. It will allow us to tune in news and weather services around the world, even receive weather fax charts by hooking our laptop to the radio. But in reality, there’s a steep learning curve associated with using the SSB, and we’re still at the very bottom.
Herb does not suffer fools gladly. In the three weeks we’ve been listening, I’ve already heard him deliver serious dressing-downs on air—for all the world to hear. Pity the boater who doesn’t comprehend or decides to question Herb’s forecast or recommendation.
When it comes my turn, I start the tape in my little recorder, so we can play back and transcribe Herb’s advice afterward. I can’t take notes, concentrate on using the new radio, and respond to Herb at the same time. I’m so nervous at first of the medium and the message that I’m positively doltish: One afternoon, I confuse the days of the week; the next day—horror of horrors—I forget to say thank you before signing off.
But crusty Herb also seems to have an uncanny ability to take the measure of the unknown person at the other end of the mike. As we waited and waited to leave Florida and each day he announced there was no weather window, it was as if he could sense my nervousness and my need to get the crossing over: “Relax, take advantage of the time,” he told me one afternoon. “Go shopping.” Herb clearly has my number.
Although they’re few, he has his detractors—nobody’s going to call the weather right 100 percent of the time—but we’ve had too many
“Get out of Bimini as soon as possible. Leave tonight.” These encouraging words are delivered shortly after the moray is evicted by the trap’s new owner, one very pleased Bahamian dockhand.
Leave tonight? When we’ve just arrived? When we’re exhausted and ready to open the champagne?
But the advice comes from Herb, and one doesn’t take what Herb says lightly. There’s this little matter of a gale approaching, he tells me, and we need to be tucked away somewhere protected—which is
not
Bimini—by Sunday afternoon.
Shit
.
Shit
.
SHIT
. But I just chirp, “Roger that,” as protocol demands. Because Herb Hilgenberg, the cruiser’s weather god, is telling me this via SSB—single sideband—radio. From the basement of his house in Burlington, a city on the Canadian shore of Lake Ontario, Herb transmits forecasts and advice to boats throughout the Atlantic and Caribbean, speaking with fifty to eighty individual boats seven days a week, while hundreds of others listen in and heed his advice. It is a herculean, almost unbelievable, volunteer job. Herb—everyone calls him by his first name only, even those who’ve never spoken with him, let alone met him—doesn’t take weekends off. He works holidays, even Christmas and New Year’s. Every day of the year, he spends hours compiling and interpreting weather data, works out the safest routes for his charges, and then is on the radio for three to four solid hours, without a break. He’s routed boats around storms and taken them through hurricanes. He’s saved lives. Herb’s advice is so highly regarded that he’s one of the few nonmilitary people with access to U.S. Navy weather data. Rumor has it he even tells the U.S. Navy how to interpret it.
Steve and I decided a couple of weeks ago that I would have the job on
Receta
of talking to Herb, because the word on the cruisers’ grapevine is that he’s a bit more tolerant, a tiny bit more patient, when the inexperienced voice at the other end of the microphone is female. And we need to cultivate every last bit of tolerance we can get. We are completely green at this—green at understanding offshore weather forecasts and green at using our new, bought-and-installed-in-Florida SSB radio. I know that in theory the single sideband will allow us to talk to people (including rescue services, if need be) far beyond the line-of-sight limits of our VHF radio, which is standard boat equipment. It will allow us to tune in news and weather services around the world, even receive weather fax charts by hooking our laptop to the radio. But in reality, there’s a steep learning curve associated with using the SSB, and we’re still at the very bottom.
Herb does not suffer fools gladly. In the three weeks we’ve been listening, I’ve already heard him deliver serious dressing-downs on air—for all the world to hear. Pity the boater who doesn’t comprehend or decides to question Herb’s forecast or recommendation.
When it comes my turn, I start the tape in my little recorder, so we can play back and transcribe Herb’s advice afterward. I can’t take notes, concentrate on using the new radio, and respond to Herb at the same time. I’m so nervous at first of the medium and the message that I’m positively doltish: One afternoon, I confuse the days of the week; the next day—horror of horrors—I forget to say thank you before signing off.
But crusty Herb also seems to have an uncanny ability to take the measure of the unknown person at the other end of the mike. As we waited and waited to leave Florida and each day he announced there was no weather window, it was as if he could sense my nervousness and my need to get the crossing over: “Relax, take advantage of the time,” he told me one afternoon. “Go shopping.” Herb clearly has my number.
Although they’re few, he has his detractors—nobody’s going to call the weather right 100 percent of the time—but we’ve had too many
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