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Cruising Musing #9

She Said, He Said:
Same Questions, Different Answers

Diane Selkirk, a fellow writer and cruising friend, contacted us via e-mail with a set of questions about our relationship to cruising for a piece she is working on. Skip and I responded separately and without looking over each other's shoulder. Here are our answers, just the way we sent them to Diane. It's been interesting to compare and contrast our views.

What made you decide to go cruising?
Trish’s answer:
My first husband, Dan, who had grown up spending his summers on the Jersey Shore, introduced me to the idea. An adventurer, he and his first wife had already had a motorcycle adventure—a trek across the U.S. with a cycle and sidecar. Cruising was the next big adventure on his list, and he brought up the thought of living and traveling aboard a sailboat within the first year we were married.

I was brought up to follow the American Dream—get a good education, get a good job, get a husband, buy a house and lots of other stuff—but that skin didn’t fit me very well. I had started out on that track, but veered off it by my mid20’s, and was looking for other ways to live a satisfying life. And my American Dream upbringing did have a quirk to it: My father was a career officer in the U.S. Army, and my growing up years were spent moving around the country and the world. We moved to Iran in the early 1960s, when I was seven years old, which made a huge impression on me in terms of learning at a young age that there are other countries and cultures in the world. I also spent my last two years of high school in Italy—Tuscany, no less—which reinforced a wanderlust that has lasted all my life.

When Dan tested the idea of cruising on me, my gypsy tendencies were triggered. I read books and talked boats with him, and grew enamored of the idea of traveling the world in one’s own home. What a way to live!!! I will admit that the actual work of sailing and navigating didn’t enter my thoughts then; it was the traveling and getting to know different places up close that took up my imagination.

Even with the attraction I felt for what I perceived as the cruising life, I wavered for a while, ambivalent about the wisdom of making such a big change to the path we were on, and in my twenties rather than later in life. The final feather that tipped the scales was my father’s death at age 63. Though retired from the military, he had not stopped working, so all the big plans that he and my mother had made for their “golden years” came to nothing. The jolt of seeing their retirement dreams go down the tubes steeled me to take the step. And the rest, I suppose, is history!
(By the way, Dan now lives in New Hampshire, and not on a boat!)

Skip’s (much shorter!) answer:
A strong desire to do something extraordinary in my lifetime.  This desire, blended in with my love of the outdoors, the sea, and a yen for exploring new places led me to the boating/cruising life, first as a live-aboarder/weekend sailor with a "real job" on land, and then to my life as a cruising vagabond for the last 3 years.  I decided at about the mid-point in my life (at age 43 to be precise) to gather experiences rather than excess material possessions.  I've never regretted that decision.

What made you believe you could do it?
Trish’s answer:
Ignorance, for one thing. If I had really understood the complexity of cruising back then, I think I would have become too intimidated to try. I also exercised the same logic I had used in my teens when the idea of driving a car seemed impossible: I looked around at the other people who were doing it (and writing about it) and said, “Heck, if those people can do it, so can I!” The sailors and cruisers I met were just ordinary people, no more brave or smart than I was—and that encouraged me to give it a go.

Skip’s answer:
I've always felt that the toughest barriers to meeting a difficult challenge are mental, not physical.  If you dwell on the reasons not to do something, you probably won't succeed, or even take those first tentative steps.  I certainly had my fears, doubts, and concerns about cruising, but when I decided to do it, I had a compelling desire to try, to give it my best effort.  I think that the past challenges I'd faced in life, like collegiate sports, mountaineering, skiing, diving, cycling, etc. gave me the confidence that I had the mental and physical capabilities to be a competent mariner.

Did you/do you ever feel that “deep longing” or restlessness that makes you want to go again (stay out there)? Describe how this feels to you or what it is.
Trish’s answer:
When Dan and I split up, I moved to San Diego. There didn’t seem to be any possibility of my going cruising again, and it was a great loss. Whenever I was in the vicinity of masts, there went the lump in the throat and the tears in the eyes. I wanted to be out on the water again, but there didn’t seem to be any way to do it—especially since husband #2 (Jim) had told me early in our courtship that he was prone to seasickness. Miraculously, he got bit by the cruising bug himself, and I WAS able to get out on the water again!

There are many things that pull me toward cruising. I love living so close to nature; this is an existence where the phase of the moon has a direct bearing on life, and understanding natural systems is extremely important. I love the requirement of self-sufficiency that suffuses the life; we have to know about and do many things that most land dwellers haven’t even thought of. I love the feeling of accomplishment upon arrival at the destination we had been targeting—whether that was 25 miles down the line or thousands of miles across an ocean. And I love the camaraderie and “level playing field” of the cruising community: No one is better or worse than anyone else based on their material wealth or what they did before cruising. Rather, people are judged based on their behavior and actions in the present, and that’s a good thing!

I’m living a large part of my life ashore these days because of the fiscal demands that Skip and I are addressing. I must say that I do long to be out cruising from time to time—and if we had the money in the bank, I would be out on the water for at least half of every year. The gypsy forces are still working within me, and though I don’t feel the need to cross oceans anymore, there are still many many places in the western hemisphere that I would like to go to by boat. And after twenty years, I really do understand the life—including the actual sailing and navigation required to do the traveling—and I enjoy that easily as much as I enjoy seeing new places, living close to nature, and being part of the cruising village.

Skip’s answer:
You bet your bippy!  If anything it's stronger now than ever.  The best way to express it is that overworked saw, "it's in my blood."  That "deep longing" (I like that way of putting it) drives me to stay on the boat in the winter when the notion of a warm dry house with a crackling fireplace seems alluring (not quite enough, I guess).  I feel a strong connection to the water/ocean and the waterfront;  the smells, the closeness to birdlife and sea creatures, the camaraderie of other "boat people" and the visceral kinetic pleasure of the boat rocking with the wind.  It's a love affair and it is in my blood.

Did you have the same feelings before you cruised or was that initial feeling something different?
Trish’s answer:
I only suspected that the life would have the characteristics I described above.  My initial feelings were bound up in the excitement of an out-of-the-ordinariness of cruising as a way to live, and the anticipation of great adventure. Familiarity with cruising and all that it entails has blunted those particular sensations, though I still love the degree of uniqueness of the lifestyle, and get a kick out of non-cruisers’ fascination with the way Skip and I live.

Skip’s answer:
I think it was qualitatively different.  I guess at first it was a lark, a romantic and "cool" thing to do, and back then I was a weekend sailor and there really wasn't much real testing of the limits (that came later).  Looking back, I think I underestimated the pull it would eventually have on me (the "in my blood" factor) and how much it would change my life.  The attraction and commitment have deepened over the 14 years since I moved aboard my first boat.  At the risk of getting too sappy about the matter, I liken it to the emotions generated by a human-human love affair.  There are positives and drawbacks, joys and hassles, but in the final analysis it just works and feels right.  And like a human-human relationship, you expect that the loving and the commitment will grow through the years and endure.  The bugaboo, of course, is the ravages of aging and the physical limitations that go with it, and the fear that those factors will eventually drive you off the boat.  Even so, my goal now is to grow old on and possibly die on my boat (limitations be damned), hopefully after at least a decade more of cruising (I'm 57).

If you were to choose a common thread(s) between all your cruising friends that made it possible for them to fulfill this goal, what would it be?
Trish’s answer:
I think that the one thing that we all share—and we are quite a diverse bunch of people—is the fundamental belief that this is something that we must do in our lifetimes. No matter how long or how short a time people cruise, we all seem to share the idea that we would be missing something big and would regret it for the rest of our lives if we didn’t get ourselves out on the water.

Skip’s answer:
I'd say "gumption" -- the willingness to take risks and the strength of character to face scary situations and work them through.  Also the gumption to learn a whole lot of new skills that are required to maintain and cruise a boat.  And lastly the gumption to be a rebel of sorts, to do something that many folks think is "unreasonable," "unstable," "not fiscally viable," etc.

Are you the sort of person who always pursues dreams and makes them come true?
Trish’s answer:
I have to say yes, but with an explanation. I have always managed to get what I’ve dreamed of, but, in the process of getting it, things haven’t always looked like they would turn out. There has been a sort of Zen aspect (or whatever it’s called)—often, the more I consciously work to attain something the farther away I get from achievement. Most often, it’s only after I’ve let go of having to follow a particular path to attain a goal and stepped back from having so much emotional investment in an outcome that things have fallen into place. A good example is what I mentioned above: When Dan and I split up, I thought my cruising days were absolutely over, especially after hooking up with Jim, who initially indicated no interest whatsoever in cruising. But over a few years’ time, after hearing my stories and thinking about it on his own, he came around—VERY much to my surprise. I had let go of the idea of going back out, and wasn’t doing anything to push him that direction. This sort of theme has cropped up time and again in my life in terms of reaching my goals.

Skip’s answer:
I would certainly like to think so.  I must say that not all of my dreams have panned out, er...in a positive fashion.  But, it hasn't been due to lack of desire, effort or commitment on my part.  I give it my all, try to stay optimistic, and hope for the best.  If things don't work out in the final analysis, well, at least I can say I tried and gave it my best shot.  I'm a romantic, but also a realist; dreams don't always come true (dammit). 

If so, why do you think this is?
Trish’s answer:
I’ve come to believe strongly that clarity of purpose is the only way to have a chance of achieving what we want. I was initiated in things like creative visualization, affirmations, and journaling in the woo-woo 1970s, and though I don’t strictly adhere to any of those tactics, I do retain the belief that in order to get what I want, I need to be able to clearly articulate my goals, objectives, dreams, whatever you want to call them. So I do work on writing them down as clearly as possible from time to time. I think this exercise helps me perceive opportunities and ideas in life that will move me in the directions I want to go; without that clarity, I would very likely miss the signs in the environment.

Skip’s answer:
Early on in my life (late teens) I decided that when I was old and gray and in a rocking chair on some porch, looking back at my life, that if I had regrets, they would be regrets due to failures of action ("f**k ups"), not failures due to inaction ("gosh I wish I would have.....).  So, if I had dreamed of going cruising, but never attempted it, that would have been tragic; an opportunity to do something extraordinary but forever lost due to inaction.  And if I embarked on the venture and it came to disaster, say the boat on the rocks or sunk, at least I tried, at least I had the gumption to do it, to take the risk and go out there, and of that I could be proud.  So here I am, out here, doing it, and loving it. 

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