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May 25, 2005
Slingshots, Mistakes and the Seventh Inning Stretch
Zoom. I started out at 0630 in a little surf town in North Carolina, a little surf town called Surf City. I could hear the waves from my hotel room. I was just North of the state line. I needed to be in Florida, south Florida at the end of the day. 670 miles almost dead south. Ten-plus degrees of latitude. Five days of bluewater sailing. In my case it was a mere eleven hours in the car. Just over half of the tapes of the Godfather, unabridged, on 90 minute cassette tapes.
I went from an environment of mist and cool, almost cold nights to a tropical metropolis full of warm, almost hot air. I traded my fleece shirt and long pants for shorts and thin cotton shirts.
All of this is quite remarkable. The ability to move so far so fast. More remarkable is the ability of travel into the past. To correct mistakes, even when we did not know that we had made those mistakes. My destination in Florida, while seemingly boat centric turned out to be a plunge into my very, very, long ago past.
When I was a little boy, two years old, I was in the part-time care of Connie and Tim. Connie was a stay at home mom, who ran a day care. Tim, her husband was police officer. As I grew up over the next 7 years they would come to be my second set of parents. When I was 8 or 9 they moved to Florida. Over the next 4 years I spent a month every summer visiting them in Florida.
Throughout the course of my adolescence we slowly lost contact with one another. It would be many years between conversations. Only to be punctuated by the occasional Christmas card or missed phone call. We all but fell out of touch. Last year, when I almost purchased Toads About I searched them out on the internet – you really can get find anything with Google – I called them and told them we might see each other soon.
Well, Toads fell through and I bolted. In doing so, I perpetuated a mistake that had started so too long ago: Falling out of touch with people who I should have really stayed in touch with, people who are responsible for helping me to become the person that I am today.
So there I was, again, on my way to Florida. This time my destination was smack-dab in the heart of my boyhood summers in Florida. I called Connie and Tim again, and as if no more than a day had passed since we had last talked they welcomed me with open arms. They welcomed me into their home, fed me and given their well thought out ideas and opinions on this journey. I have quickly learned the importance of keeping these connections alive.
Their son, James, who was a small boy of 7 the last time I saw him has grown up. Yesterday we traveled out to the middle of the state, to Indiantown to look at a few boats. While we waded through the dregs of boats that where more junk than boat, I became more and more aware of the loss suffered by not staying in touch. Which is a really a lesson in the interconnectivity of all our lives.
So I have been granted a great gift. The gift to stop making that mistake…
Not bad for the seventh inning stretch. I have reached the farthest point from home I shall be. A few days ago I looked at the Wibo 945 in Ft. Lauderdale, sadly she lacked adequate headroom. Now I will start to look at boats on the backside of the loop. While I am at the middle of the distance to be traveled, I have many fewer boats to look at than I have seen. I try to keep my sprits up, I tell myself, I only need one boat. One boat to safely take us to places we can only image.
Posted by Michael at 1:05 AM | Comments (0)
May 21, 2005
Insomnia…again
I know, I know…sleep. Sleep so I can be rested and ready. Sleep so I can be an attentive driver. I can’t sleep. My mind is filled with the events of Friday. I left Annapolis mid morning in what can only be described as a monsoon. So wet was the weather that my speakers in the car acted quite peculiar for the first 100 miles of my drive.
South and still further east. This time I was headed to Deltaville, Virginia. What pretty country. Water, trees and yes more rain, though it took to misting lightly, rather than the deluge I had experienced further north.
I looked at two boats in Deltaville. The first one a Departure 35 designed by Charles Whitzholts, the same designer as Toads About. The second boat, a French build aluminum sloop that had already cruised waters as far south as Usuhaia, Argentina (~80 miles north of CAPE FUCKING HORN!!!). Thought the little aluminum boat lacks the headroom needed by 2 people who hover around 6 feet. That being said, it was sad to know that we wouldn’t fit in such a well founded vessel. Enough Said
Have you ever met some one who at first amazed you? Maybe she was slender with strong lines. Athletic and had already had experiences doing the things you love. Then you get to know her and she is even more amazing. Even more exciting. Maybe she is a little rough around the edges, she can tell and laugh an off color joke. Then you start to get to know her, and there is something starting to nag at you. You’re a liberal, she is a conservative. You like dogs, she likes cats. Not something that is a total turn off, but something that makes you have second thoughts. Ever have that experience?
I did today. The Departure 35 was in rough shape. I am talking green things growing outside, varnish peeling off all the bright work. A cockpit full of pine needle soup because the drains are jammed with who knows what. The rig, needs some tuning, needs some lube. A frozen winch and lots of moldy running rigging. Her interior, immaculate. Mahogany and Holly. Brass and the worlds ugliest cushions. But there is something about the deigns of Mr. Whitzholts that just grab hold of me. Maybe it is the attention given to the protection of the rudder or the minimizing of the number of seacocks. Perhaps it is the dry and safe feeling I get about the cockpit. Who knows.
The rig, what a rig, Cutter with roller furling headsail and club footed staysail all lines lead aft. Sails that look almost brand new. And a rig set for heavy off shore work, running mid-stays to keep the stick up during the big blows. All with a deck stepped mast to keep the holes in the cabin to a minimum.
She has everything a guy like me could want, SSB, auto pilot, propane stove, heater, lots of water, lots of storage. But she is lacking. She has a clever double berth that converts from the port settee, Pulls out all the way to compression post supporting the mast. The dimensions are 40inches wide buy 78 inches long. Plenty long, not plenty wide. Making it fundamentally flawed for my needs.
So I spent 90 minutes going over her, measuring this, gauging that. Wondering and scheming. Could I take the storage up front apart and build a v-berth? Not with out totally moving the head or interfering with the chain storage. Potential yes. Project HELL YES….
Worst part is that there is another one, who knows what shape or condition of gear, in Mobile, Alabama. It went under contract this past week. Timing is everything. So again I find myself awake at 3A.M. Though across the street from me is a Waffle House. Should be tasty by the time I get there.
Posted by Michael at 1:08 AM | Comments (1)
May 19, 2005
Leg work
Every endeavor takes leg work. Lots and lots of leg work. For my lawyer friends it means pouring over case law, writing briefs and getting little sleep. For the programmers it is looking at endless miles of code, looking for the missing or extra bit. Every task has leg work.
I am in the thick of it now. In the past 3 days I have looked at more than 14 boats. Boats I have wondered about from home. I feel a bit like Goldielocks. This boat is too small, this boat has a squishy deck, this boat is not finished enough, that boat doesn’t have enough sail area…that one the v-berth is to short.
So I leave the east coast sailing capital for destinations south. Virginia, the Carolinas and eventually Florida. Friday will be a good day to be on the road for a while. The weather men are calling for a rainy and stormy day and at some point I will see 2 boats. A Departure 35, designed by the same gent as Toads About and an aluminum boat with a Gibraltar hailing port..tres chic!
Yesterday was almost perfect, and I say almost because S was not here. After having a stroll in historic downtown Annapolis we (Priscilla, Bob and I) went for a lovely afternoon sail down the river where their Cal 25 is docked and out into the Chesapeake Bay. With a nice breeze and clear skies I was gently reminded by the experience why I am out here. Why I am being so picky. Why I am chasing a dream rather sitting at home thinking about it. It was so simple. The rhythm. The gentle pace. The sheer simplicity of it all. Traveling at such a pace with the motion of the water, the motion of the boat strips me of all pretense, strips me to my core, and at the center of me I find wonder. Total amazement with the world around me. Total amazement with the world within me. That is why I want to sail, that is why I want to travel. Because I want to know who I am. I want to know why I tick the way I do, I want to know who you are and why you tick the way you do.
The rain is starting to fall as I write this. The rain has found its own rhythm and pace. I will find mine.
Posted by Michael at 10:05 AM | Comments (0)
May 15, 2005
Insomnia
Eversince my expereicence with the espresso 4 days ago I have been unable to really sleep. I seem to catch a nap here and there. In general I seem to have little use for long periods of rest.
I arrived in the DC area the next day after a restless night in Terra Haute, Indiana. Laying in my hotel bed, gorked out on TV I realized that I should just get up and drive. When I looked out the window, the sky was bleeding water. Like a hose had been left on and in the morning someone would discover that the whole block was inadvertently flooded. I watched the rain spilling like buckets from the sky long enough to know that the storm had no intent of relenting. If the sky had not been more raindrop than air I would have packed my bag and set off Eastward for the coast. It seemed fool hardy to drive at 3 in the morning along a stretch of rural highway in the rain. So I closed my eyes again and tried to sleep once more.
So here I am again, late in the evening, or rather early in the morning, 0425 to be exact. Camped out on the floor of my good friends Jasun and Sara. We spent the day laying laminate floor in the master bedroom of their new house. Sara made a wonderful dinner and sereved a great bottle of Chilean wine, after dinner we sat around taking and watching movies. Midnight came and went and they went to bed, leaving Dakota (my “other dog”) and I to our own devices. ‘Kota is snoozing, though he keeps a watchful eye on me. I am sure he wonders what I am doing staying up so late so often. When he used to stay with me back in Colorado, we never stayed up this late.
There is only one other time that I can remember being so sleepless. A year after my mom died, I was a bit depressed. By July I felt as if the winter blues still had a deep grip on me, so tried anti-depressants. On of the side-effects was insomnia. For months I went with 2-4 hours of sleep a night. Though, I was not particularly useful, being in bluesville and all. Not to mention the other side-effects of the antidepressants. That was over eight years ago, so there is no telling why now I am sleepless.
Some would claim that I am sleepless as a result of my current situation. That looking for a boat to voyaging on is a stressful endeavor. I would disagree, further more I would add that I have not even started looking yet. Looking will start in the middle of next week. So there is really nothing to even be thinking about when it comes to considering what boat to buy—if any. So I sit here and wonder what the sunrise will look like. I hope it is pretty.
Posted by Michael at 4:15 AM | Comments (2)
May 11, 2005
On the Road…On the Hunt…
Columbia, Missouri. A nice college town. I have landed in the center of the university district, at what must be the half way point in my journey cross country. The time is passing quickly. Hard to believe that I will be in DC tomorrow. Just 2 days ago it was difficult to conceive of this trip, now it is difficult to conceive of not being on it.
Again I am on some course with my destiny. I can’t help but wonder if I will really find a boat this time. The odds, hell, who can calculate the odds. So many more options as far as number of boats, yet I am so much more picky.
Sitting here in this coffee shop, I ordered a double espresso and a piece of cake, the nice gal behind the counter made a mistake and gave me a single, then she realized she had only brewed up a single and said she would give me another shot, then she gave me a double. 1 + 2 = 3, but now I have to add the effect of Caffeine, which we all know to be cumulative and exponential at the same time. So the equation really looks like:
1yr + 2yr3 = 3yr4
Where y a single shot of espresso and r is the value effect of the caffeine. Hence the cumulative and exponential curve of the caffeine. The effect of which will be either devastating or exhilarating depending upon perspective.
There are a pair of seemingly nice gents talking digital camera gear here at the coffee bar. They are sitting next to me, listening to their conversation, I am acutely aware that they lack all the information on the subject. In fact it is very obvious to me that they have serious gaps in their knowledge. I am tempted to say something. But I know that my something will be more education than a constructive addition to a conversation I am not participating in. The real question is what to do in a case like this? Barring life and death situations, when does one interject into the conversations taking place around you?
The whole reason that I am here in this coffee shop is because I need to eat lunch and my wonderful router back in Colorado found a little café that is just a few doors down from here. Lunch was quite tasty, the carrot juice was especially yummy. When I was getting ready to head out, the sky looked ominous. Black with furry and I decided it would be much better to wait out the powerful storms that where sweeping across the city, following the very highways I would be taking further east.
Posted by Michael at 4:00 PM | Comments (0)