Quiet Revolutionaries ...

Green Turtle Cay's St. Pat's day parade float.

Kintala is back in Nunjack after two days of dock dwelling, and one night on a mooring, in Green Turtle Cay. There we enjoyed an unexpected reunion with some old friends. We met and last saw Ken and Sara back in Oriental, during the WesterBeast fuel injection pump problem that halted our progress just weeks after leaving Oak Harbor. It turned out they were the MCs for the St. Pat's Parade in Green Turtle. In my whole life, before cruising, I had never been to a St. Pat's Parade. Now I've been in two; last year in Marsh Harbor and this year in Green Turtle. Both were a hoot. Ken and Sara summer in the Chesapeake, so we may well cross paths with them again.

We also found Friend John of Nomad on one of Donnie's Docks, tied to just a few feet from where Kintala rested to take on food and water. First and last met at Treasure Cay a year ago, back then John enlightened us as to the ins-and-outs of Power Cruising. This time around we got a tour of his DeFeever 48. It is a nice piece, particularly the walk-in engine room. The engine room of the DeFeever is part Sistine Chapel and part Disneyland; a veritable Menagerie of Mechanical Marvels. Clean, well lit, with head room and accessibility to all systems, and with a TOOL CHEST bolted to the deck! (How cool is that?) I know it is hard to explain to the Women who Love Us but, for men of a certain bent, there is no better living than doing so on one's favorite toy. John, an expert engineer with a serious bend toward physics and electronics, has set a quiet bar that speaks well for all who have come this way.

Those of us whose boat's main motivating power comes from big triangles of cloth, can cover miles without burning an ounce of dinosaur juice, silently slicing through the blue to put distance under the keel. It is one of the aspects of living on a sailboat that I enjoy the most. But power cruising isn't that much different from sailboat cruising. Both types of boats spend far more days sitting, enjoying life, than they do moving. My guess would be (supported by some napkin math) that a full-time power cruiser burns far less fuel than she / he / they did driving when they were dirt dwellers. And though, in the past, many of the power types relied on massive battery banks and generators to keep the lights on and the beer cold, more and more of them sport impressive solar arrays to handle the load when sitting. Without a big stick in the way, they have lots of acreage for mounting panels and wind generators. (Nomad is power independent on her solar panels already, but John is going to add wind capability. Not as much solar available up north; he also summers in the Chesapeake.)

It struck me that people like John, and all of us who have come this way, are hints to the world of what can be. Our homes are very close to the “green ideal” I read about. Small but comfortable, energy independent, and leaving a light mark on the world. Many of our homes also make their own fresh water and treat their own waste products. (Fresh water and waste disposal becoming serious problems in our over-crowded world.) Not only are our boats green and getting greener, they are the definition of being “decentralized”. Attached to no grids – power / communications / water / waste – they have the added benefit of being mobile. When the worst of global climate change looms, the prudent sailor is far, far away. Rising sea levels? A couple of more inches in the waters of the Caribbean will not hurt Kintala's keel any. And if some political type, somewhere, becomes completely unhinged? Move the neighborhood someplace else.

The Powers-that-be often take a dim look of our way of life. Understandable in a way, many of us did walk away from the society that the Powers have built to suit themselves. After all, we are not supposed to be enjoying life. We are supposed to be making a contribution to the Power's bottom line or political party.

Usually we don't make much of an issue of walking out on the Powers. But really, we are quiet revolutionaries looking for, finding, and offering a better way of living for most people in most places. The total Deb and I have in savings, added to that it took to buy, outfit, and head out on Kintala, is less than 0.5% of what the Chairman of Board made in a year – a part time position for him - at the last company where I worked. (My entire department had a yearly budget that was less than 25% of this one person's salary. We were sent packing to – and I am not kidding - to “cut expenses”. And yes, I am still angry about that.)

I hope the revolution catches on, that more and more people walk away and leave the Powers helpless. I would just as soon not all those people take to cruising. Small homes off the grid, but still on land, would suit most people better than this cruising life. Besides, there is only so much room in places like Nunjack. But if, before I die, some of the Powers-that-were end up pushing shopping carts down allies and sleeping under bridges, that would be okay with me. Something that could well happen if, in the next 50 years, the global goal becomes making every home, every apartment and high rise, energy independent and, as much as possible, self contained in water and waste management. The Powers would find their grip much diminished in such a world.

Not always the quiet revolutionary... in my view the The Powers really are pretty helpless, or maybe useless is a better description. Oh, they can go to meetings, move megabits around on spread sheets, and the political ones can talk endlessly. But for the most part they can't design, build, maintain, move, market, create art, teach, or even manage, a thing. They hire underlings, and pay them as little as possible, to do all the work. Like Kings of old, without servants and subjects the Powers are really kind of pitiable. But I still wouldn't mind seeing some of them sleeping under a bridge.

Nights, antics, and time ...

Kintala has had a couple of one-night-stands; one night in Allan's Pensacola, one night in Powell. Both places were too pretty to be treated that way and deserved more time. But the boat is nearly out of fresh water and Green Turtle is the next place for a fill-up. The third night we cozied up with the Crab Cay end of the Nunjack anchorage. Don't let the names fool you, sometimes the prettiest girl at the dance is called “George”. And while I am generally of the opinion that beauty is only skin deep, around here beauty goes all the way to the bottom. Every place seems like the water is crystal clear, then the next place it is clearer still. Its like saying this pole is vertical, and the next is more vertical. Can't be … but it is.

The anchorage at Allen's Pensacola

As might be expected with a one night stand, somewhere far into the evening there was a bunch of moaning going on. Last night's was the wind, picking up again to hover in the 20+ knot range to caress our rigging. It also set the boat to dancing and had her tugging hard against the anchor chain. (Okay – some one night stands are kinkier than others.) By all accounts we can expect the wind to keep us company until Sunday morning, with the little barbs on the GRIB files pointing directly up the short path to Green Turtle. Flags for 5 feet worth of waves accompany the barbs and while those are not “no-go” conditions, they don't make for a fun day either. Green Turtle is only 5 miles away. We still have some water. Not sure how much, (the gauge on the 79 gallon tank has become one of those “we should fix that” things that will probably bug us until it gets done) but even if we run dry there is enough beverage on board to see us through. Heated salt water will serve for washing both dishes and bodies for a day if necessary. All told there is no reason to push that hard, so we decided not to and will spend a little more quality time enjoying the caresses of Nunjack Cay.

A well-appointed cruising ketch we passed on the way to Nunjack

We are close enough to Marsh Harbor that several of the boats around us are charter Cats and Beneteaus. I have stated before that many of the best sailors I know are regular charter types, but we finally got to see some charter boat antics here in Nunjack. The first was as we set up to drop our sails off of a starboard tack on the way in . A charter Cat was closing in on our starboard side, under power even though she was on the perfect point of sail to let fly her jib and make the fast tracks that big Cats can make. The only person visible on board was standing half way forward on the starboard side hull, on the other side from us. There was no one at the helm. The boat was clearly being driven by the auto-helm while her captain (?) gazed at the anchored boats off his starboard side. We checked up since it was clear there would be no change of course on the part off the Cat.

Kintala would have been doubled T-boned about the time her main fell into the lazy jacks.

The guy did wave to as we passed his stern, though I am not sure exactly how he managed that. With one hand wrapped around the stay and the thumb of his other hand clearly wedged in his butt, waving was quite a trick. Then again, maybe it was his head wedged in his butt, in which case how could he see which way to wave? In any case, any of the charter sailors from home would have slapped this guy silly for his complete lack of water-going competence. Pam would likely have just tossed him overboard. (No harm to be done since it was an easy swim to shore. From there he could catch a ride back to the airport and go deep inland, back where he apparently belongs.)

A couple of hours later another charter Cat pulled several boat lengths off Kintala's port side, dropping her hook onto the clean sand bottom. She then backed down on the short rode with both of her engines running hard, promptly dragging said hook a couple of hundred feet along the bottom. (At least this guy was looking around and standing at the helm.) Some more chain was played out and the boat stood fast as her engines came up to power yet again. It must be some new anchoring technique they are teaching at charter captain school. Maybe the idea is to pile a big mound of sand in front of the anchor? Yeah, that must be it. Since they came to their final resting place well down-wind of us, it made no difference to my world.

An abandoned wreck off the Hog Cays. She was beautiful once.

That world is noticeably less tense than it was last year. These are familiar waters and the Abacos really are, as was once described to me by a long time visitor, a “Dude ranch for sailors”. Sure, accidents can happen anywhere. Any big body of water can play harder than humans and their boats can stand. And we are still learning. But this is not an accident prone kind of place. There are lots of spots - really pretty spots - to sit out a blow (hurricane season is months away yet). And we are comfortable making the boat go in an ever widening set of conditions. Year one of cruising was no walk in the park. Year two got off to a rough start. But things are coming together and we are having a lot of fun. Somewhere, someone should suggest that, anyone who is thinking of doing this, needs to give it at least a two year chance.

A one year stand is not enough time to learn one's way around.