The lady and the sea

Lolita Harper

She was diminutive but adventuresome. Rugged but beautiful. And her

unbridled spirit captured his heart for life.

The unpolished canoe was the first in a series of many boats that

gained the affection of Harold Wheeler.

Growing up in Ontario, Canada, Wheeler said he and his brother would

steal wooden railroad tracks and build boats out of them.

“My brother was a feisty young kid,” he said.

A trait that rubbed off on the Costa Mesa resident. One day he

borrowed his brother’s handcrafted canoe and paddled down river to a

park. Wheeler didn’t realize how much time had passed until the sky began

to get dark. It would take him until midnight to paddle back up river, he

thought to himself.

He started gingerly up the river but stopped at an old junkyard for

some materials to modify his watercraft. He rigged up old sheets and

tattered table clothes into a makeshift sail, attached them to his little

boat and fortunately caught a good gust of wind.

“I took off and that was it -- I was hooked,” Wheeler said. “It was

the most marvelous feeling to go sailing. I was king of the river.”

About 80 years -- and numerous escapades later -- Wheeler still

relishes the sensation of gliding across the water, crisp ocean breezes

whipping through his unruly white hair.

The 89-year-old religiously carts handcrafted boats from his Costa

Mesa home to Newport Beach docks and rows alongside the yachts and

sailboats in the harbor.

The Great Depression brought him to Long Beach in 1929 and the ocean

brought Wheeler great happiness. In the years to come, it would be an

even trade -- life-changing events would move him closer to boating and

boating would move him closer to life-changing events.

It was just after the death of his first wife in 1970 when Wheeler’s

love for the ocean prompted him to launch a European nautical trip.

Experiencing the same grief for her late husband, Julie Ary was planning

an onshore tour of the same continent. Wheeler convinced her to join him

on his boat, “Serenity,” and after nine years on the sea, the two became

inseparable.

“Our families objected. They thought we should be home making money,”

Ary said.

The two traveled through continental waterways, up to Canada and

across the Atlantic. They globe trotted to France, Yugoslavia, Egypt and

Portugal -- to name a few.

Wheeler said he fell in love with Ary’s innocent fascination with

boating. She had never been out to sea.

“Julie made the trip for me. She was enthusiastic and had an almost

childlike wonder about everything,” Wheeler said.

While Ary was a nautical novice, she added a very important aspect

that was missing from Wheeler’s previous boating trips. She documented

their nine years at sea in detailed travel logs.

“Our maps and navigation charts give equal billing to fact and fancy;

real heroes; real events; imaginary ghosts and goblins; for it was here,

along the mighty Hudson, the early explorers and settlers fought decisive

battles for valuable goals, all the while spinning out legends and

insuring their duration by labeling landmarks with lasting titles to

commemorate the hero, ghost or event,” Ary, now 85, wrote in one of her

very first log entries.

Ary, too, fell victim to boating’s irresistible charm. She and Wheeler

now share a love for the ocean, a love for boats and a love for each

other.

Besides Wheeler’s routine rowing regimen -- which he usually does

alone -- the couple has not embarked on any nautical adventures lately.

Ary accepts that her husband has two loves -- her and boating. She and

Wheeler are lucky to have each other, Ary said.

“He’s found a woman that is content to let him do all the things he

wants to do,” she said.

The couple hopes to make another trip across the Atlantic in the near

future. Ary said they are devising a plan to ditch the mainland and live

on a boat.

“If that boat is on the water, we’ll live on it,” Ary said.

In the meantime, Wheeler perfects smaller, less-livable boats. His

most recent project is propped up in the backyard -- among the lemon

trees -- drying a fresh coat of light blue paint. From a layman’s view,

she looks like an unassuming wooden row boat -- reminiscent of the boats

of Wheeler’s youth.

She has no motor, or fancy decals, but is precision crafted to glide

across the water with the greatest of ease. Unlike the makeshift canoe

that first introduced Wheeler to the excitement of boating, she was

crafted from 80 years of boating expertise.

While vowing to stay young and active, Wheeler engineered the rowboat

to suit his aging physique. She weighs only 25 pounds.

“I’m not supposed to carry more than 20 pounds, but I fudge that a

bit,” Wheeler said. “This one I’ll be able to carry down to the water.”

It is the labor of a lifelong love.

-- Lolita Harper covers Costa Mesa. She may be reached at (949)

574-4275 or by e-mail at o7 lolita.harper@latimes.comf7 .