Here There Be Mermaids!

Our day started beautifully- at friends’ recommendation, we walked into town and found “The Common Good”, a breakfast outfit a short way from the dinghy landing that serves really good coffee, popovers and oatmeal, with homemade blueberry and strawberry jam, and maple walnut butter, cinnamon butter, and of course, regular butter. It is help-yourself, eat all you want, and pay by donation to a worthy cause, a local soup kitchen that feeds the disadvantaged. Oh, yeah, live music too.

It was awesome. After this phenomenal start to the day, my original thought for this post was to say, “I had a better day than YOU did!”

Here’s how the rest of the day went: Drove dinghy back to boat, hauled it onto the foredeck and strapped it down to make the trip to Bar Harbor. Filed an official Float Plan with our emergency contacts (our kids), in which the last line was, “Expect an uneventful trip”.

Al, an accomplished blue-water sailor we befriended back at the boatyard, told us what we should do- head offshore to catch the prevailing southwesterlies and make a beeline for our northernmost goal (Bar Harbor), then work our way back south. He was prepping for a voyage much farther north, to the Bras d’Ors Lakes, in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. We recently got a pic of him and his girlfriend Kealy, bundled up in wool sweaters, mittens, and foul weather gear. In August. That should put to rest any question about his judgment.

After our first few days of shakedown, we knew a 36-48 hr. offshore venture was NOT in our cards. It’s not a scary thing to do, eventually, but we’ll have to work our way up to it. So for now, what we’re doing is working our way up the coast of Maine* in short hops, and taking it easy between hops. We are learning a new lifestyle.

(*We learned that you don’t say “up the coast of Maine”, it is “Down East”- The coastline is mostly on an East-West axis, and the prevailing winds are from the SW, so you’re going Down-wind, headed East. Down East.)

It’s funny- as we were leaving Texas, I kinda fretted about leaving a life in which I could hop in the car and run up to the HEB any time for whatever I needed. That seems silly now (the fretting about it, not the doing of it- I’m sure I’d fall right back into the same pattern if I was back there).

We sail into a harbor. Drop the anchor. Haul our inflatable dinghy off the foredeck into the water, rig the outboard on it, and putt putt to the town landing. Then we hoof it to the grocery store, or whatever else errand is on our list (in Portland, a bigger city, we did resort to Lyft). It’s a way of life that is growing on me. And before somebody points out that we’re still commuting to get groceries or run errands, know that it is the difference between the immediacy of hopping into the car vs. hitching up the horses to the wagon for the run into town. Often, we just anchor and live aboard. In any case, it’s the switch to priorities that is different – relying on wind and walking (with occasional assist from internal combustion engines) is very satisfying.

For every thing a person gives up, they get something in return. I couldn’t be happier with our new way of living.

Except maybe sailing the coast of Maine in a T-shirt, a sweatshirt, and a windbreaker, and still shivering. In August. Some things just ain’t right.

They were finally in a comfortable place in their travels, but it hadn’t come easy. The learning curve was steep, and it had exacted a toll.

While they were both very happy to finally be done with construction and upgrades to Gabrielle, and to have left the boatyard, both of them were out of practice- in her case, she had done little or no coastal cruising of this sort, and in his case, it had been years since he had made a passage. Both were aware of their limitations and how much they had to learn now, and at times the tension between them was palpable.

He was being hyper-vigilant about the boat, the wind, the sails… all that sailing a boat entails. The feeling of a boat under sail he knew- but not on this boat. His senses were tuned to maximum sensitivity- watching, listening, feeling, working to familiarize himself with all this new information in the shortest time possible. It wore on him. He very quickly wanted nothing more than to be able to relax for a little bit, to not let every little noise or rattle make him startle, and to not feel the burden of responsibility.

Her needs were different. As familiar as she was with Gabrielle from seemingly endless months working on her, the actual sailing of her was a new experience. Before this adventure, she knew her way- she was in command of her day to day life, and enjoyed that feeling. This was something completely different.

Her reaction was to question everything, and she wanted answers immediately. Often (most of the time), her questions were about things that he was still trying to sort out. When this happened, he would pause to think about his answer. Not having a ready answer frustrated him, made him feel inadequate. Not getting an answer from him right away quickly ratcheted up her anxiety.

It was an unpleasant dynamic, and manifested itself as tension in her voice and body language, and grim silence in his. A few times, one or the other would release an outburst of frustration, and usually it would be immediately walked back. Sometimes it didn’t, and hurt silence fouled the atmosphere.

He knew this could not go on for long, or the cruise wouldn’t last for more than a few weeks. After one particularly tense day, after harsh words had been exchanged, he decided to try something- “Okay,” he said, faking cheeriness, “ Let’s do a debriefing- everything we did right, and everything we did wrong. And NO FAULTS, just facts!”

There seemed to be an immediate sense of relief, for both of them. As they discussed what had worked that day and what hadn’t, both began to let go of the idea that the other was at fault for his or her own discomfort, or that they were at odds with each other in their purpose. A turning point began, where they finally started to feel like partners again in this journey, that they had a common goal.

Not that there weren’t tense moments from then on- there were plenty. They were still learning a new boat, in unfamiliar waters, after years of inactivity. They made lots of mistakes- and learned from every one of them. But it did not take too much longer for them to begin to feel confident again, and look forward to the miles ahead.

First, I want to thank everyone who has asked me to continue writing this blog. Your appreciation means a lot to me, and now that we are done with the heavy lifting of boat prep and are actually ON THE WATER, SAILING, I will endeavor to entertain with occasional posts. Some will be straight reporting (“We did this today…”), and some will be more narrative in style- turning our real-life adventures into a story. I want to share as much of this as I can, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and it’s easier to tell some of the more difficult passages if it’s a story, “based on real-life”, rather than a memoir. You’ll see what I mean soon enough.

But “f’now” (*), we are happy and excited to have finally made the jump, from construction/prep, to being out here sailing the boat! It has been a long, hard haul, and not without costs- financial, emotional, and physical, and we’re glad to have put that phase behind us. We still have lots to do on the boat, but it’s smaller, fun projects, and really more just daily maintenance and continual upgrades for safety, convenience, and cosmetics. We are trickin’ this boat out, and I’m getting to put into place things I’ve dreamed of for years. Kate has been planning to do a video tour of Gabrielle, but we’ve got to clean her up from our passage yesterday- it got windy, we heeled over, and stuff that wasn’t stowed properly below got scattered all over the boat (learning curve!).

More to come soon.

(*) “F’now”- We got to be quite good friends with the guys in the boatyard in Salem, particularly with Tom P., a genuinely nice guy, always helpful and friendly. During our first year there, as we were sorting through all the stuff we were putting on the boat, he walked by and told Kate, “Oh, I see you are using the ‘Pilot Program’.” She asked what he meant, and he grinned, and said (in his thick New England accent), “You pile-it heah f’now, then pile-it theah f’now, then make anothah pile, f’now. ”

F’now, weah goin’ sailin’.

It was the end of the last month with an “R” in its name, and oyster season would soon be over.  On the bridge between the two bays, a truck was hauling a small oyster boat north. In the harbor, most of the other boats had already hung it up until next year- not enough legal sized oysters this late in the season to make it worthwhile in fuel and labor to try.  A few still ventured out with hopes of getting paid for undersized oysters without getting a visit from the game warden, but even that would be over in the next few days.  The night before in the waterfront restaurant, the Gypsy Couple talked about it being time to leave- the dozen-on-the-half-shell they ordered were so small they didn’t even come close to filling the plate.

They had already begun making preparations to leave.  She was in the process of saying goodbye to clients and wrapping up loose ends in her work.  It was stressful for her- she always became so close to the people she worked with that it was difficult to break off those connections.  His leaving came easier to him.  He’d had two major goals when he came back to Texas, and both were close to being accomplished.

“Will you need the truck tomorrow?” she asked. “I’ve got one last trip to Corpus to make, to finish up with my clients there.  If you need the truck, it’ll have to be early.”

“Nah,” he replied, “the only place I’ll need to go is up to the bait shop to make a phone call.  I’ll just ride the bike.”  The bait shop was less than a mile away, at the foot of the bridge- it was the nearest place they could get decent cell phone reception. This had been a blessing much of the time, but an inconvenience when trying to conduct business.  “I just need to make sure everything is set for Friday.”

*******************

Spring had fully arrived, and the bike ride to the bait shop the next day was gorgeous.  The wildflowers were different from the ones he’d grown up with, tiny and low to the ground, but their colors were intense and vibrant.  It was easy to feel hopeful when surrounded by all the new beginnings. 

They had been fortunate (again) in having someone offer them a place to live there.  Just five miles from their old home in the harbor (you could actually see the harbor across the bay from the bait shop, if the humidity wasn’t too high), but it was a completely different environment.  The peninsula at the north end of the bridge was untouched from the development on the other side- a dense thicket of live oaks and low ponds.  After sundown, the air was full of the swampy sounds of night birds, crickets, and the low thrum of bullfrogs.  Occasionally, a bull alligator would let loose a mating call, raising the hair on one’s neck. 

An offshoot of the main bay lay at the end of the road they lived on. The other side of that narrow bay was part of the wildlife sanctuary where nearly extinct Whooping Cranes come every year to spend the winter.  The cranes ignored the sanctuary’s boundaries, and during the daytime, they would fly across the water to invade people’s yards (to be fair, these people baited their yards with feeders, to attract the cranes, which attract bird-watchers from all over the world, who pay good money to get close view of the birds).  On one of their evening walks to the end of the road to pay a visit to the “Whoopers”, the Gypsy Couple visited with birders from Europe and England; on the walk home, she remarked as to “how wealthy we are that we can walk less than a mile to see what people have made a once-in-a-lifetime trip for. “  Indeed.

The Whoopers were gone now, having migrated back north six weeks earlier.  Now it was time for the Gypsy Couple to do the same, and in order to finish the things he had to do, he rode his bicycle up to the bait shop to get a cell signal.

There was nothing special about the bait shop.  A truck and trailer were always parked in front, but he had never seen anyone working there, nor any customers coming or going. A breakwater and small marina sat next to the bait shop- the marina had been decrepit and run down long before the hurricane came- other than some twisted metal roofing, it looked no different after the storm than it had before.  The wind blew straight across the bay into the breakwater, building waves along the way and making occasional plumes of baywater crash over the top.

The parking lot was so pot-holed that he got off and walked the bike through it, to the boat launch ramp next to the marina.  There was a State Historical Marker at the boat ramp, telling anyone who cared that this place had been built in the 1930’s by a man named Mills, and had been quite the hot-spot for fishermen and duck hunters.  A duck caught there had been included in “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not” because it had a fully mature oyster permanently attached to its foot.

He didn’t care much about any of that- he just liked this spot.  There was something about the desertedness  of the place that beckoned to him, and made him feel at home. It had its own way of marking time that did not sync with the rest of the world.  It was a good place to make a phone call to a man about selling some of your stuff to fund the next leg of an adventure.

To be continued…

 

So,  a quick review,  a checklist for departure:

• Electrical system completely re-worked,  with new battery banks, new circuit breaker panel, new voltage regulator, wiring, etc,  all to AYBC standards, and most of all, SAFE!
• New water tanks, pumps, accumulator tank, and hoses.  No more drinking bilge water for US!
• Electronics upgrades-  new VHF radio which provides GPS & AIS data to our computer chartplotter.
• Lots of other little goodies to make voyaging under sail easier and safer…

So we’re ready to cast off the lines and go now, right?

Welllll, not exactly.

Kate has already spilled the beans on FaceBook, so most of you probably already know this, but we’ve made a major decision in the last 24 hrs:  we are going to put Gabrielle to sleep for the winter here in Salem,  and come back next spring for our big launch.

There are several very good reasons for us to do this.  One, we have worked very hard over the last five months to get her ready, but at this point,  there is very little sailing season left here in New England.  The guys in the yard tell us September and early October are the best months  to sail up here,  but we have come to love this area,  and want more than that.  If we set out now,  we’d get a very short season (2-3 weeks!) before we had to turn south for the winter.  We want to come back and spend the entire spring and summer exploring the area.

Two, we need to plump up the kitty.  It was a big, unpleasant surprise how much more was needed to make Gabrielle seaworthy,  and it cost much more than we planned or expected.  We are tapped out,  and need to replenish the bank account.

Three,  I have been dealing with a nasty case of contact dermatitis almost since we got here in May.   I may have become sensitized to the fiberglass resin used in the construction of Tayanas-  who knows what they used in Taiwan 40 yrs ago,  but I have spent the last six years of my life in intimate contact with them,  grinding and sanding the ‘glass and paint off of them,  wallowing around in their engine compartments…   I fear that I may have crossed a threshold for exposure to this stuff, and it is causing my system to react in unpleasant ways.  It is like having poison ivy for that past 4 months,  and it’s not getting better-  in fact,  it continues to spread.  I am not sleeping well, it is painful,  and life is not much fun for me right now.  We need to check this out.

Four, I am exhausted,  and need a break.  Since we got here in May,  it has been a daily exercise in “What need to be done next,  and how to do it in the quickest, least expensive way?”  To head out to sea now would be more of the same,  on steroids, and I don’t have it in me at this point.  I need to spend some time NOT making decisions for awhile.

So today I made arrangements with the boatyard-  they will haul Gabrielle out and set her up for the winter,  and we’ll pack up the Suburban and head west.  Gonna visit friends and family for a while,  and then wash up on shore somewhere (most likely back in Rockport), where we can rest, recoup, and top off the bank account.

And then, next spring,  we have a boat that is chomping at the bit to get out there, ready and waiting for us to put her in the water and SAIL!

They sat on deck, drinks at hand, watching the moon rise over Salem Harbor.  The clouds made the light fitful, like watching a candle struggle against the wind.  Beneath the moonrise, airport traffic out of Logan was a constant counterpoint; jetliners taking off launched to the east, out over the ocean, and sailed away, while inbound traffic made big looping arcs around them before lining up for final approach.

“It just feels like we’ve lost sight of the original goal,” he said.  “It’s been more than three years since we actually cast off a mooring line and raised a sail.  I almost feel like I’ve forgotten how to do any of it.”

“I know.  It’s discouraging for sure,” she replied. She was uncoiling a hank of line, then recoiling it, over and over, something to keep her hands busy. “But you know that’s not real.  Once we’re back on the water, we’ll know exactly what to do, and how.  We haven’t lost any of that.” Then added, “And you know that.”

“Yeah, I guess so.  I’m just struggling with having all this repair work to get done before we splash the boat.  I told you what my cousin Lacy said didn’t I?”

“Maybe you did-  I don’t remember.”

“I told her how much I didn’t want to do this work, and she asked maybe it’s more ‘you want to NOT have to do it’?” he smiled ruefully.  “It’s a pretty subtle difference, but yeah, that’s more what it is.” After a short pause, “Mostly it’s just driving me crazy to be stuck here in the boatyard when our plan was to be heading for Maine by now.”

“Yup” was all she said.

They sat silent for a while, nursing their drinks and looking out over the water.  The harbor lights were flashing red and green on the channel, and several of the boats on their moorings were lit up, people staying aboard to enjoy the short sailing season.

She took another sip of wine, and then said, “You don’t still feel like we made a mistake getting this boat, do you?  I thought we had hashed that out…”

“Nah,” he replied, “I’m over that.  We made the decision based on the best information we had at the time.  Would you still want to be living in Rockport and fixing up all the damage on O Be Joyful?  I know I wouldn’t.  And, repairs aside, Gabrielle is still a really good boat, y’know.”

“Omigod yes!” she answered.  “I so much love the layout, and the storage.  She’s going to be great once we get her fixed up and in the water!  And the work you are doing now will make her so much safer and more seaworthy.  It’s all going to be fine.”

He finished his beer and stood up.  “Yeah, well, we’d best go to bed then.  I’ve got another thousand or so zip ties to cut tomorrow, and yank out another fifty pounds of abandoned, unlabeled wiring.  Have I ever told you how much it pisses me off to have to come in and clean up behind the idiot who did such a crappy job of wiring?”

“Uhm, yes dear. Many times.”

“Well, it’s true.”  He looked around on deck for a moment before he started down the companionway, and then muttered, “She really is a good boat…”

 

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I ‘novelized’ our thoughts and feelings over the last few weeks into the passage above-  it seemed like the best way to let y’all know where we’re at with this.

We’re good.  Lot’s of work yet to do, but then again, no time limit other than our own expectations.  The boatyard people are completely OK with us camping out here, and they are friendly and generous to a fault.  We couldn’t ask for a better situation to deal with our situation, if you know what I mean.

So this is just a quick update-  I’ll post some detail in the next day or so.  I’ve pulled most of the old wire, and now I’m on to RE-wiring old stuff.  Back to it!

…by Microsoft, no less!   I mentioned feeling homesick yesterday, and this was the latest screensaver that popped up on my laptop this morning-

For anyone who does not recognize it,  that’s the Pennybacker Bridge in Austin,  where Loop 360 crosses Lake Austin.

Sigh, I bet it’s warm there right now.  And breakfast tacos too!

Let me just add,  the weather here is PREPOSTEROUS!

It’s June,  and I had to sleep with extra blankets last night!  FORTY-SEVEN DEGREES in JUNE?!?!

I was listening to Austin’s “Sun Radio” on the internet,  and listening wistfully to weather reports of 90 ° F.

yeah,  I’m homesick.