One of the things I stumble over when sitting for a long time is forgetting just how special it is to live on the water like we do. When moving, my internal calendar logs days of resting at anchor after a day’s travel, watching the sun set over a new horizon. There are days of exploring new places and other days of visiting favorite places not seen for a while. We will have flown sails, gotten on and off of docks never seen, worked navigation details, fussed over the weather, and been enchanted by the antics of wildlife. All things that are special to this life.
It is different when sitting. The internal calendar logs days we ran out of water, that we needed to provision, that the Ding needed its bottom scrubbed, and that diver came to clean the bottom of Kintala. We do all these things while underway of course, but they pass mostly noticed, just part of the traveling. When sitting they become the major event of the day.
Days sitting also amplify the feeling being vulnerable. I doubt that we are any less vulnerable sitting secure on a mooring ball than when out wandering. When out wandering it feels like we are, at least, a moving target rather than sitting ducks. It is hard to cling to the illusion that one is the “Captain of one’s fate” when one’s boat is collecting barnacles on the bottom far faster than miles in the log.
It doesn’t help that the hurricane train in the Atlantic is starting to crank up. Nothing kicks up that vulnerable feeling like having an ocean full of storms. Hurricane Florence which, until this morning, was expected to struggle to just make hurricane status, is now a major hurricane. Even more fun? The National Hurricane Center has all but admitted they have no clue what this storm is going to do next. I extrapolated a course based on its actual (rather than forecast ) course from the last few days. Should it decide to just keep going the way it is going, which is supposedly highly unlikely, it will show up on our door step in about 10 days. There is at least one spaghetti track floating around that shows it doing exactly that. By the end of next week there looks to be a good chance there will be three named storms out there dancing around. The end of hurricane season suddenly seems like a long, long way off.
For all of that, come every evening after the sun goes down the cockpit calls. The air is warm bordering on comfortable, insect assaults are infrequent and easily ignored, dolphins often puff and snort, cavorting around the mooring field, and all is well in our watery world. That makes for a pretty good day to log on that internal calendar.
It is different when sitting. The internal calendar logs days we ran out of water, that we needed to provision, that the Ding needed its bottom scrubbed, and that diver came to clean the bottom of Kintala. We do all these things while underway of course, but they pass mostly noticed, just part of the traveling. When sitting they become the major event of the day.
Days sitting also amplify the feeling being vulnerable. I doubt that we are any less vulnerable sitting secure on a mooring ball than when out wandering. When out wandering it feels like we are, at least, a moving target rather than sitting ducks. It is hard to cling to the illusion that one is the “Captain of one’s fate” when one’s boat is collecting barnacles on the bottom far faster than miles in the log.
It doesn’t help that the hurricane train in the Atlantic is starting to crank up. Nothing kicks up that vulnerable feeling like having an ocean full of storms. Hurricane Florence which, until this morning, was expected to struggle to just make hurricane status, is now a major hurricane. Even more fun? The National Hurricane Center has all but admitted they have no clue what this storm is going to do next. I extrapolated a course based on its actual (rather than forecast ) course from the last few days. Should it decide to just keep going the way it is going, which is supposedly highly unlikely, it will show up on our door step in about 10 days. There is at least one spaghetti track floating around that shows it doing exactly that. By the end of next week there looks to be a good chance there will be three named storms out there dancing around. The end of hurricane season suddenly seems like a long, long way off.
For all of that, come every evening after the sun goes down the cockpit calls. The air is warm bordering on comfortable, insect assaults are infrequent and easily ignored, dolphins often puff and snort, cavorting around the mooring field, and all is well in our watery world. That makes for a pretty good day to log on that internal calendar.
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