The Trouble with Sailing With Tribbles
A Reflection
By Alex Morton

Back in the days when Spam was better known for clogging arteries than email boxes, my friend David Gerrold flew up from California with a couple of his buddies for a visit and some long-promised sailing. He's the award-winning science fiction author who wrote the best-known of the original Startrek shows, The Trouble With Tribbles, in which sweet little lovable critters, called tribbles, multiply faster than rabbits on Viagra and then proceed to eat every bit of grain onboard the Enterprise.

David had always been a great host. When I'd arrive on his doorstep with six hours free between business meetings, he'd chauffer me around Hollywood and environs in his classic convertible and buy us lunch at the latest trendy restaurant. Now, I was anxious to return the hospitality by giving David and his friends an afternoon of sailing in Howe Sound, and a lunch, aboard, they would never forget.

In preparation for David's visit, I scrubbed the Haiku, gave the hatches a coat of varnish, polished the pulpit and even hid all the clutter that always accumulates on the exposed shelves of my 27 foot Ericson. It isn't every day that a famous sci fi writer flies to Vancouver to sail with me.

For sea rations, I bought one of those bottles of wine they keep in the locked glass display at the local wine and beer store, a tiny jar of caviar that cost more than filling the gas tank of a .. well ... of a ... tank, some crackers that had just been jetted in from a very expensive country, and a pate guaranteed to raise cholesterol levels to frightening new heights. Then I spent an hour and a car payment at the local butcher, jogged over to the vegetable boutique to buy some organic, pale, white asparagus that apparently had been hand-carried from Belgium, and had a lengthy discussion with the proprietress of Le Picnic concerning the best pastry for a famous science fiction author.

My wife assured me that, although I'd just spent our entire month's food budget, we could survive four weeks just fine on salt beef and hardtack, as long as we remembered our ration of lime and tot of rum each evening to ward off the scurvy.

I stored the delicacies in the only place in the house safe from marauding teenagers, in the back of the refrigerator, behind the container that no one has been willing to look into or move for the past three months.

Two hours before David's flight was due to arrive, a business call pulled me out of the house for a quick meeting. I figured, I'd just go right to the airport afterwards, pick up David, and then motor straight on to Horseshoe Bay. Luckily, the meeting was with a high tech company, so the fact that I would be in sailing gear made me the most formally dressed attendee.

I cast off from the meeting right on schedule, met David and his two friends on time, and within an hour they were peering over my shoulder while I hunched over the Haiku's engine, checking the oil and water and gazing knowingly at certain mechanical devices that I may or may not have fully understood.

We backed out of the slip easily, and manoeuvred around a couple of stray logs that had found their way in amongst the fingers. Five minutes out of Horseshoe Bay, the main and working jib were up and my green crew was proudly manning the winches.

It was one of those afternoons when the light chop in the Queen Charlotte Channel becomes almost green in the sunlight. On a beam reach, we scooted out of Horseshoe Bay, heading toward Snug Cove, on Bowen Island. Halfway across, we swung up toward Gambier Island, and my new winch handlers managed to preserve their fingers and no one was hit with the boom.

We ran up the channel, didn't quite cut it right and wound up floundering around for a couple of minutes at the head of Bowen and then picked up the breeze coming down from Langdale on our port side and rode it straight into Gambier's Halkett Bay.

David's friends were having such a good time they were talking about buying boats themselves. When David took the helm while I dealt with the anchor, it was obvious he was having more fun than Captain Kirk on the bridge of the Enterprise. The afternoon was turning out to be the kind of success I'd hoped for, and it was now time for the piece de resistance; the food. THE FOOD!

Oh ##@%*! In my rush to fit a business meeting into my schedule, I'd organized myself right past the food. It was all sitting safely in my refrigerator at home, still tucked behind the container that will never be touched. Luckily nautical language includes the salty as well as the sweet. "XJ##@%****," I shouted.

"Aliens on the starboard bow, Spock?" Joked David Gerrold, in the voice of Captain Kirk.

That gave me an idea. "Do tribbles eat anything besides grain?", I asked, harkening back to that famous Startrek episode David had written long ago.

"I've never given it any thought," he answered.

"Well I think I've got the answer for you," I said, mock-seriously. "They've eaten all the food except the emergency stuff I've got in cans!"

David had never previously eaten Spam and canned corned beef for lunch, nor had his friends, but they barely complained and when they did it was only about the rapaciousness of tribbles.

I suspect that David is eating a whole lot better these days. His Hugo Award winning story, The Martian Child, is now in production as a film from New Line Cinema, starring John Cusak.

And the forgotten sea rations? By the time I got home that night, my own teenage tribbles had devoured all the food, and my wife had put a fair dent in the wine.