In which Lucy describes sailing with a very short-sighted skipper

I had noticed that there had been much squinting at the chart plotter, and now he tells me…

I sometimes wonder whether the blonde slim affair of the Skipper’s fifty-something dreams would be seen dead on his boat. Let alone hanging off the bow in thick fog as we navigate the Chenal du Four.
“What’s that?”
“Where?”
“Starboard Bow.”
“Can’t see.”
“Must be able to see.”
Out of the swirling drizzle, only half a boat length away loomed the massive St Paul.
“There are a couple of boats abeam of us.”
“Where … can’t see … What’s that? Is it a mast? No, Valbelle… that was close. What happened to Tendoc and Platresse?”
Obviously they were lost in the fog.
“What’s that sound?”
“What sound?”
“Whistling sound. … Yacht! Yacht! YACHT!”
…having popped out the top of the Chanel, thinking that no one in their right mind would be coming the opposite way, against this spring tide!
In the absence of a fog horn, the Frenchman was blowing on his lifejacket whistle and shouting “Derriere, derriere.” We had run upon a race, and almost ran down the first two boats.
T-bone avoided, just, we searched for the fog horn.
“Can’t you see anything?”
Apparently not, the cataracts, I discover, are seriously affecting his vision. I had noticed that there had been much squinting at the chart plotter and now he tells me, out there off La Four, that night and fog vision are non-existent. Fortunately La Four, on this rare occasion was not also offering the enjoyment of a 5-10m swell.
There was a certain sense of déjà vu and the situation was reminiscent of one, 27 years earlier.
We had only just met. I recall I spent our first date in the romantic setting of Hartlepool Docks, waist deep in freezing cold water holding the bow of a dinghy whilst he tinkered with his rigging. The second date, I sat on the shores of Loch Lomond (slightly more scenic than Hartlepool) for a very long afternoon watching a blot on the horizon. In those days, wind-surfing was the passion. Eventually he returned, looking wet, and somewhat agitated and a little different. He had lost his glasses.
Where were they?
At the bottom of Loch Lomond.
Did he have a spare pair?
No.
“Don’t you need your glasses for driving?”
“It will be fine, you just describe the road to me and tell me what’s coming.”
It is a long way from Loch Lomond to Durham, describing the road and what was coming. Glasgow rush hour was a bit of a challenge.
Finally, after dark, we reached Chester-Le-Street.
“DOG, DOG!” I screamed. To his credit, he braked in time and the dog survived.
When he eventually found his spare pair of glasses I was stupid enough to enquire just how much he could see without them.
“No further than the dashboard.”