Sophie, Dog Overboard : The Incredible True Adventures of the Castaway Dog (8 page)

Luke found this state of affairs sort of endearing, but also appalling.

“I still bitch about it,” admits Luke, for whom the scenario further reaffirms his little sister's golden-child status.

And after several weeks of this, it began to get hard for Jan to usher Sophie outside in the mornings when she was leaving for her latte on the way to work.

“Sophie, come on!” she'd call, standing in the doorway, keys in one hand, holding the screen door open with the other. Sophie would open her eyes and lift her head. You've got to be joking, said her eyes.
It
'
s hot out there
.

Jan would have to close the screen door, walk over to Sophie and tell her, “You are coming outside,” before nudging her with her foot, at which point Sophie would finally heave herself up. But Dave was enamored with his girl and not about to shoo her from this new comfort zone.

In actual fact, Jan and Dave never regretted letting Sophie into the house because she was just so well-behaved. As an inside dog, Sophie was a delight. When she needed to go out, she'd never scratch at the door, whimper or bark. Instead, she'd meander over and stand there patiently, looking out the door soberly, head slightly down as if stopped mid-motion. She'd wait for someone to work it out. If too much time passed, she'd turn her head around to see where everyone was. Jan
would often come out of the kitchen to find Sophie sitting there, a slightly mournful expression on her face, looking up at Jan. “She's thinking,
let me out, you idiot
,” Jan laughs. “
Let me out. I
'
m not going to spell it out.
”

When Jan and Dave were watching TV, Sophie would lie down in front of the television with her two paws crossed. She'd lay her head on one paw or look up and around, making sure everyone was still there, surveying the scene with genuine but by no means needy interest.

And so, as Sophie, going on two years old and vibrant as ever, moved from the top of the steps to the armchair, she was moving up the pecking order from family pet to fifth child, a child that needed little else but love and a few raw bones (and a Turkish rug). She also became an unofficial caretaker. The gorgeous Sophie Tucker played a central role in offsetting any fears Jan and Dave had about entering their golden years, and any guilt their children might have had about no longer living at home. The Griffith children gathered great comfort in knowing that Jan and Dave weren't home alone: they had their girl.

T
he initial decision to take Sophie on the boat, all of them admit, was Dave and Bridget's, and it was made one Saturday night while they were all aboard
Honey May
. Bridget, now in her second year at college, was home for the holidays and the three Griffiths decided to have an overnight stay on the boat, which was docked down at the Mackay Marina. The family sat around on
Honey May
's deck and several neighbors stopped by for a glass of beer or wine throughout the evening. The three Griffiths ate Thai takeout and decided that they were having so much fun and the weather was so beautiful, they'd extend this little boat adventure and take
Honey May
for a ride out of the harbor the next day.

At around ten, Jan went off to bed below deck. Meanwhile, Dave and Bridget moved into one of their infamous Dave-and-Bridget evenings, a tradition wherein Bridget returns home from university and Dave walks around with his head in his hands, groaning the next day. On this night in 2008, father and daughter sat drinking Coronas with lemon, reminiscing and exchanging jokes. It wasn't much before midnight, the music still blasting from the Sails Sports Bar up at the marina, when Bridget and Dave's conversation turned to Sophie, who at that time was just two years old.

“What are we going to do with that bloody blue thing?” Dave asked in his characteristic faux gruff tone. “She'll be sulking when we go home, and she won't like being left tomorrow, either.”

That afternoon, as the family had busied about the house, packing picnic and party gear into the Nissan, a dejected Sophie lay on the concrete floor in a corner near the laundry, her head slumped between her toes. She knew they were leaving her, she'd experienced this plenty of times before and she wasn't going to wag her tail about it. She pretended she wasn't interested in their doings but every so often, she squeezed her eyes open to sneak peeks at the family action.

“Why don't we just bring her with us?” Bridget exclaimed, clinking another two Coronas together as she pulled them from the fridge in the kitchen below deck. “Let's tell Mom we're going to bring her along.”

Bridget was so excited about the prospect she insisted
they wake Jan and tell her that very night. Jan was only half asleep, as the sounds of all the fun being had outside were carrying into the bedroom. She heard shuffling in the saloon and then Bridget whisper, “Mom?” She opened her eyes to find Dave and Bridget standing over her, cheeky expressions on both their faces.

“We're bringing Sophie with us tomorrow,” Bridget announced. Jan, eyebrows raised, looked at Dave, who looked back at his wife with resignation.
It was your daughter
'
s idea, I swear
, his expression indicated.

“She'll love it!” Bridget insisted. “Imagine how happy we'll make her.”

Jan shook her head with mock disapproval, looked at her husband and her youngest child matter-of-factly and said, “She's both of your responsibilities.” Jan was secretly thrilled, and they all knew it.

The next morning, Bridget left Jan and Dave on
Honey May
and drove back to the house to pick up an ecstatic Sophie, who was waiting on the driveway when she arrived and wagged her tail in triple time when she realized that Bridget had come home to pick her up.

“Come on, girl! We're going on the boat!” Bridget yelled, clapping her hands, excited as if it was she who was going out on the boat for the first time, not Sophie. She picked up Sophie's front paws and the two did a little dance, then they jogged down the driveway back to the car and Bridget drove back to the marina with Sophie in the front passenger seat, tongue out. Bridget walked an exuberant Sophie on her lead to the locked
marina gate. As Bridget swiped the entry card, Sophie could not be contained. She could see Jan on the deck of
Honey May
three rows down and she bolted, ripping her lead from Bridget's grip. She galloped down the ramp, ears back, lead flying out behind her. Jan looked up from where she was fussing about on deck to see Sophie with her tongue flapping out bounding towards her, and Bridget in shorts and sunglasses bouncing on her nose, running behind crying, “I can't hold her!”

Jan flung her arms out wide and yelled, “Sophie Tucker!”

As Sophie rounded the corner of the deck to
Honey May
, she skidded, her paws straightening out, readying for the jump into and beyond Jan's arms. “I was clapping and she was coming towards me excited as anything,” Jan gleefully remembers. “She was just so happy to be there. It was fantastic.”

As Dave steered the boat out of the harbor, leaving the coal ships of Mackay behind for the island-scattered blue ocean, Sophie stood by Jan and Bridget, tongue lolling, her whole rump wagging, looking around and back at them, as if to say,
look, there's the ocean!
After years of larking and splashing about in the shallows, now here she was, adventuring much farther than her beloved beach. Delighted to be with her family on a new adventure, she was hungrily lapping up the sensation of spray on her face, and fierce wind through her ears.

For the Griffiths, emerging from the headlands with
the wake of the boat spreading and boiling was always the first thrill on their boating trips. It was the moment when the industrial shoreline of Mackay gave way to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, which has been referred to as “the oceanic equivalent of the Amazon rainforest.” The neck of the Mackay Marina opens out to the wide ocean, which even on rough days is layered with glassy blues, and the most southern of the islands comes into view. People in Mackay try to knock off work at four in the afternoon so they can mess around on jet skis, kayaks and boats, in order to spend their weekends in the thick of the marine wilderness on their doorstep. It takes about an hour or so to boat to a smattering of primitive islands, including St. Bees and Keswick, which are part of the South Cumberland Islands, south of the Whitsundays. These islands are not littered with catered resorts, but instead are barely touched pockets of land with just a handful of dwellings, perhaps a picnic area, and thickets of tropical plant life to lie and snooze under.

“When you're out there, something happens that just makes you go, ‘wow,'” Jan says. Sophie seemed to appreciate it, too. As Dave pushed up
Honey May
's speed and the motor roared, Sophie started panting and raised her nose high into the air, seemingly thrilled to be included in the newest family adventure.

Honey May
was small for a motor cruiser and required her crew to be quite cautious while on board, especially when the boat was moving. Dave's rule was that
passengers decided where they wanted to be—at the front, the back or up on the flybridge with the driver—before they left the marina, so there was not too much moving back and forth while the boat was in motion. The sides of the boat were very narrow, and getting from the bow to the stern required a walking-sideways maneuver while holding tight onto the thin metal railing. The front of the boat was most comfortable and scenic. It got choppy the further out you went and the faster the boat was travelling, and while a better vantage point was to be had up on the flybridge, the wind was always wilder, so if the family decided to ride up there when the boat was in full throttle, it was all sightseeing and contemplation, not conversation. And wherever the passengers chose to travel, safety was everybody's top priority. “It's a boat,” Dave would say to Jan. “We cannot take any chances. We take everyone's life into our hands when we're on board.”

On this beautiful Sunday morning, the perfect setting for Sophie's maiden voyage, Bridget and Jan sat up at the front with their backs to the window, their legs stretched out and sunhats secured tightly to prevent them blowing off. Sophie sat between them, where they could hang on to her. Often, they'd wear waterproof jackets to avoid getting their clothes soaking wet from the waves, but on this occasion, everyone was enjoying the spray. Especially Sophie, who discovered that this fabulous adventure also allowed her another chance at her childhood game: catching water
in her jaws. She took a snap every now and again on that first trip, lifting her head and licking at the water spray as it splashed over them. For most of the time, Sophie sat calmly, the wind in her face and the sun on her blue and gray coat, her tongue hanging out in glee. She seemed to be soaking up this new experience, figuring out what it was all about.
So this was what her family got up to when they left her at home.

Bridget and Jan watched her in adoration. “What do you think, Sophie Tucker?” Jan, squinting, called out to her over the noise of the engine.

“How cool is this, Tuck?” Bridget joked, grabbing the pup around the shoulders in a gesture that combined affection and protection.

The family boated out to one of their favorite places on earth, Scawfell Island. Scawfell is the largest of the Cumberland Islands, just twenty-five nautical miles from their front door. The Griffiths were planning to moor in the island's only anchorage, Refuge Bay, a pristine inlet of mottled blue water that laps onto a ribbon of white sand.

Those in the know regard the island as a kind of sacred place. Scawfell consists, for the most part, of mountains thickly covered in green, edged around with red and gray granite boulders that turn a deep orange during winter sunsets. The boulders come in dramatic shapes, some propped on top of each other by just one edge, and seemingly about to topple. The Mackay-based rangers who travel over there for security and
maintenance dream about having time to traipse over these boulders and through the thick vegetation that clings to the mountains.

Not quite an hour and a half after they left the harbor, Dave finally slowed the boat down and Sophie began to trot on the spot as she watched Jan and Bridget edge about, helping Dave to anchor.

“Stay there, Tucker,” Dave called out to her as he pointed to Bridget to throw him a rope. “How are you, girl?” he said, turning back to Sophie, remembering even in his haste to make anchor that this was a momentous occasion in his Sophie's life. Sophie looked at him, all dog smiles. She sniffed around and watched their every step, waiting to be invited to move anywhere. She seemed to know that the rules on the boat were different from those back at home.

The Griffiths pulled out their deck chairs and prepared to spend a lazy afternoon on
Honey May
. Dave fidgeted with the engine in its hatch at the back of the main deck while Jan got the lunch together down in the tiny galley kitchen two short levels below deck. It was equipped with a mini fridge and a stove, just a few cramped steps from the shower and toilet.

Meanwhile, Bridget showed Sophie around. “Come on Soph!” she called, tempted to pick her up, but she knew that Dave would not approve. Sophie needed to get used to making her way around the rocking boat.

Bridget escorted the frisky pup along the side of the boat, talking her through it as she, herself, hung on to
the rail and watched Sophie trot obediently and gingerly behind her. Bridget took Sophie to the glass door that opened down to the saloon where she would sleep with Bridget later that night, once the faux-leather booth had been folded out into a guest bed. Three steps farther down below deck was the forward cabin—the closest thing
Honey May
got to a master bedroom. Jan and Dave slept there in the V-shaped berth, their legs hitting the walls and criss-crossing up against each other.