Throwback Thursday - The "Why we do this" Series

If asked what the best thing about our nearly six years of cruising was, I would immediately respond, "The Cruising Community." I admit that when we dreamed of doing this, that would not have even hit my radar, but in these years of cruising we have met more life-long friends than we did in the 57 years before. This post captures the very best of it all. And here are photos of the ones who made it possible:

David and Nancy to the right - October 2013

Wayne and Sue on the right - Dec of 2015

The Talking Pumpkin

Posted by TJ

Wednesday October 21, 2015

Halloween was a big deal in the neighborhood; a suburban enclave where our "baby boom" generation was born and lived its early years. Hundreds of kids would go door to door in costume, collecting enough candy to keep a sugar buzz going clean through to the New Year. Houses were in costume as well, some modestly with just a pumpkin on the doorstep and maybe a sheet thrown over small shrub as a welcoming "ghost". Others were more elaborate; family members in full scary makeup and costume, garages and lower levels turned into haunted houses, off-key dirges playing in the background, and lighting to fit the intended theater.

Our house fell somewhere in the middle, but still managed to be the talk of the neighborhood. Each year we would find the biggest pumpkin we could, hollow it out, carve a scary face, and set it in the window by the door. Hidden inside the pumpkin was a dim light to set the scary face aglow, and a speaker. Hidden in the darkened room with microphone in hand was my Dad, the voice of the Talking Pumpkin.

It was a pretty innovative use of technology for the early 1960s, which turned into a kind of neighborhood staple. As the years went by people would drive in to introduce their kids to the Talking Pumpkin, little ones giggling but also looking around, not exactly sure what to make of the mysterious voice.  It was all good fun.

Pops at our eldest daughter's wedding in  2005

On Sunday, October 18^th, 2015, late in the afternoon, the Talking Pumpkin fell silent. The news came via the tiny speaker held in my hand, the voice of Brother Youngest telling me that our Father had passed away suddenly, fallen by a massive heart attack.

Kintala was anchored at the edge of the grid, waiting out some weather. It took more than an hour of broken communications and dropped calls to get the news to Daughters Three. The logistics of finding a safe place to dock the boat for several weeks, then finding our way to PA as quickly as possible, looked to be nightmarish.

But then...

Two years ago, on our first trip down the ICW, the Beast sprung a massive fuel leak forcing us to spend a month in Oriental, NC. We were there over Thanksgiving, our first away from family. Chris and Sherry were also away from family, working to get their own cruising plans together. We shared Thanksgiving dinner at a local eatery that caters to the cruising tribe, and they became some of the earliest of our cruising friends. As it turns out they bought a slip in Oriental but their boat is currently on the hard. Seeing us heading south they had gotten in touch with us once again, enticing us to stop in Oriental with the offer of a free slip and a chance to catch up.

Oriental was a day's sail away when we got the news, and they offered us the slip for as long as we needed. We arrived after a glorious day of sailing to be met by Friends Mizzy and Brian. After a couple of days of buddy boating they had beaten us to Oriental by a few hours and so were on hand to help ease Kintala safely onto the dock. Over dinner that night their gentle conversation and obvious care helped ease our hearts as well.

A week or so ago Friends Nancy and David cut their Seaward 32 loose from Oak Harbor and pointed the bow south, leaving their car behind as they normally do. A car free for us to use if they could work out a way to get it to us, or us to it. So they did. Currently in Hampton and having already made plans to rent a car for a day to do some chores, they left at O-So-Dark-Thirty the next morning and drove to Oriental. After a quick coffee with the Gang from Oak Harbor (Mizzy, Brian, Nancy, David, and us) they loaded us aboard the rental and headed north. At about that same time other members of the Gang from Oak Harbor, Wayne and Sue, themselves just two days away from dropping the lines and sailing off, got in their car and headed south.

The two vehicles met at a truck stop somewhere south of Richmond. Deb and I were handed off for the next leg of this Pony Express of Kindness. By late afternoon we were back at Oak Harbor loading up. Barely 36 hours after picking up Kintala's hook in the remote waters of the Pungo River and unsure of how we were going to get where we needed to be, we were pulling into the driveway of family with all transportation worries behind us.

There are no words big enough or deep enough to describe people who step up like that, utterly careless of their own plans and time; not expecting, indeed rejecting, any idea of getting something in return. They had friends in need and that was all that mattered.

If a person be very lucky in life they will accrue debts like these. Debts that can never be repaid.

Debts that can never be forgotten.

Pops and his brother Gene

We will be away from the boat for a few weeks. Kintala will sit quietly, as will this blog. Fathers die. Sons and Daughters lay them to rest, struggling with a world that is somehow, fundamentally different than it was. Then we look to our own sons and daughters.



And the journey goes on.

Pops and Tim and our eldest daughter at their 50th wedding anniversary in 2004

A Texas surprise

Another week of training but a different kind of training, this time in Dallas. For the first time in nearly 4 decades I got instruction on instructing. Though it started out with me thinking that this was going to be four days of my life I was never going to get back, it turned out to be time well spent. It wasn’t so much new info as it was formalizing things learned long ago and practiced for years. What was new was learning to be not just a fight instructor, but a representative for an international organization. Different rules apply when the student is also the customer and the customer is always right.

There were 8 in the class from 4 different Training centers. Five of the eight were straight up flight instructors, including one who teaches on one of the world’s most sophisticated helicopters. She had spent a good part of her career flying off oil platforms all over the world, did a stint with the Maryland State police, and is now joining FSI. She had some pretty good stories and was an absolute joy to work with. 

Another in the class teaches maintenance techs, one dispatchers, and the eighth ocean crossing procedures. On day one the class instructor had us count; there was roughly 235 years of flight experience in the room: airline, military, corporate, crop dusting, acrobatics, chopper, glider, up high, down low, going fast, going slow…everything but balloons and astronauts. I am still blown away by the depth of field employed by the company.  But it wasn’t all good.

Word has it ours was the third to the last group who will benefit from this class. The training we received is being replaced by something more cost effective but will certainly be of less quality. I say that for two reasons. The first is that our instructor was a uniquely qualified person with decades of experience instructing flight instructors. The second is that he is going to be replaced, to a large degree, by e-learning. For some reason the human family has decided that actually interacting with other human beings is of no intrinsic value. It is claimed that listening to a recording of a voice, or the disembodied voice of a person standing in a room hundreds of miles away, is nearly as good as being in a classroom. And, in today’s world, nearly as good is good enough, particularly if it allows those who already have a pocket full of coins to pocket a few more.

And yes, I realize that observation is being made by someone who prefers that interactions with his fellow human be taken in small doses. A classroom with 8 or 10 or a Sim / GFS with 2 is perfect, and likely one of the reasons I am enjoying this job as much as I am.

I was awarded another surprise on this visit, the making of a new friend. Mark is a hard core Texican, born and bred. He lives on 25 acres of hallowed Texas soil, owns enough weapons to arm his own little militia, and usually has more than one either on his body or within close reach. In fact I pretty sure there were at least 3 in the car with us, but he is so comfortable with the whole idea that he didn’t make an issue of, or boast about, his guns. Which made me somewhat comfortable with the whole idea as well. He listens to right-wing radio and loves him some Donald Trump and a pickup truck, though we did ride around in his Japanese 4 door. 

He sat next to me in class and, nearly instantly, we recognized a kindred spirit. We enjoyed two dinners together and spent most of the break time exchanging rogue smiles and skeptical glances over some of the things being said in the class. In spite of that connection I think, at first, he was also puzzled by and curious about someone who, though aware of what is going on in the world around, doesn’t really pay much attention. The fact that I can both; a) know something is vitally important but, b) dismiss it anyway because I know I can’t do anything about it, seemed kind of new to him. But I think he likes the idea. Anyway, I don’t make new friends that often, and have to admit to being a bit surprised that this trip to Texas offered me a chance to do just that. 

No controversy

John, Deb, Tj, Nancy, David circa October 2013

We had friends at Oak Harbor Marina. So we sailed 1000 miles north and spent the summer. When the summer ended we left Oak Harbor to visit a friend in Kent Narrows. We left Kent Narrows to visit friends in Annapolis. We met some new friends there as well. We sailed on to Severn River to meet some friends and, as it turned out, dodge a hurricane. At Hospital point we joined up with friends from the summer before and headed down the ICW. We stopped in Oriental and some friends caught up with us. They caught up with us again in Wrightsville Beach. We stopped in North Myrtle Beach to see friends. We had no friends in Buckstown, but they invited us in for Thanksgiving dinner anyway. And so we made some new friends. We were invited to Sisters Creek in Jacksonville to meet some friends. While pinned to the dock waiting for the wind to let up we made friends with others also stuck. Since then we have played hopscotch down the ICW with a couple of them. They passed us when we spent an extra day in Titusville to meet a new friend, have lunch, and show him the boat. We caught up with our Sisters Creek friends here in Vero Beech where we stopped to meet some old friends from the lake back in IL. When we leave here it will be on to Stewart to, you guessed it, catch up with some friends. When, eventually, we make it to far Southern FL there will be some old and very dear friends already there.

We have been “out here” for just over two years. Yet nearly everywhere we go there are people we know, and our itinerary is as determined by who is where as it is by the weather. Which is pretty amazing considering that the majority of our friends are gypsies constantly on the move. It is even more amazing when considering that many people, including my wife, don't consider me to be particularly “user friendly”. Oh, I am a comfortable public speaker and, given the right kind of get-together, will enjoy slinging stories with the best of them. But I am pretty much useless at parties, "mingling" being something at which I have neither skill nor interest. I am also not particularly fond of being in closed in places with masses of people. A small venue with some live music is about my limit.

And, in virtually all cases, I am pretty much expressly forbidden (for very good reasons, I might add) from jumping into discussions focused on politics, religion, sex, or money. (Actually, any talk of politics will include religion, sex, and money. Any talk of religion will include politics, sex, and money. And any talk of sex...well, you get the idea.) Deb categorizes most of my views on these kinds of issues as being simply “off the reservation.” There are no labels that fit, no political parties whose views I share, and apparently no gods who will tolerate me, or me them.

See what she means?

So, the fact that we have friends scattered all over this part of the Atlantic coast with several more in the Islands, says a lot about the cruising tribe. Some of them are even aware of my “off the reservation” status, but don't mind having me around anyway. Which is kind of understandable since, I suspect, a few of them are nearly as far off the currently acceptable ideological beaten paths as I am. Not that we talk about it, even then. Given a world as angry, self-righteous, and violent as the one we are currently sailing through, being a bit cautious about what one says to whom is a pretty good survival skill.

Instead we will talk about anchoring techniques, weather, routing, sail rig, and boat maintenance.

No controversy there.

It's the peeps

I've seen discussion on some of the Facebook cruising forums on what makes cruising special. On one occasion, two people got into a discussion where one said it was the people you meet that made it all worthwhile. The other disagreed hotly, saying it was the places they went, the beauty of nature, and the power of the sea.

While I do enjoy seeing new places and being humbled by Mother Nature and the sea, for me it's the "peeps" as my friend Sabrina says on her blog. We've met some pretty incredible ones, all of whom are noteworthy, but I wanted to tell you about one couple we recently met in particular.

Judy and David

Two years ago when we ended up stuck in Oriental for a month because the Westerbeast had blown the injector pump, we had the good fortune of meeting Ellen and Randy through the Inland Provision Company. Randy gave Tim another hand while he removed the pump, and Ellen graciously delivered the pump to the overhaul shop for us while she ran errands nearby, and loaned us her truck when it was time to pick it back up. When we were strolling down the street on this visit, Randy happened by, which led to some discussion about some friends of theirs that they were waiting for. Their friends, David and Judy, were arriving on an 80-year-old wooden fishing boat - a classic Eastern-rigged dragger. David is a fisherman by trade and fishes during the summer season in Cape Cod, but this year they decided to do some cruising on the Richard & Arnold during the off season. We happened to meet them during their stay in Oriental and had the opportunity to spend a good bit of time with them.

The Richard & Arnold

The first thing you notice when you meet David and Judy is their smiles. These are folks content with their lot in the world, and genuinely happy to meet you. They are settled inside, grounded, and exude a quiet confidence from every pore. Judy would disagree, I'm sure, since she is brand new to the cruising thing and a little unsure about the technicalities, but life as the wife of a New England fisherman has given her the strength and flexibility to go pretty much anywhere their travels take them. David has fished New England waters in the Richard & Arnold solo for so many years I don't think there is much that would phase him. His face is perpetually smiling, and there's a twinkle in his eye that suggests this friendship with the sea, while challenging at times, is a mystery he has untangled.

We spent an hour with them on their boat the other day, Tim with Dave in the pilot house engaging in a rowdy discussion from which copious amounts of laughter ensued, and Judy and I in the salon talking book writing. Judy has two published books, Nautical Twilight - the story of a Cape Cod fishing family (which I bought but have yet to read), and The Fisherman's Ball, her first novel. We exchanged stories of our respective publishing experiences, the advantages of self-publishing, of our upcoming projects, and of missing our grandchildren. We left with smiles on our faces, their contentment and sense of humor spilling over to envelop us, a common occurrence for anyone with the good fortune to meet these intriguing folks.

Of all of the many benefits this life has afforded, the richness that folks like David and Judy bring to our lives has been the greatest. It's cold and rainy outside, but my heart is warmed as images of the many people we've met come to mind. Each one has woven a new color thread into the tapestry that is our cruising experience, and for that we are extraordinarily grateful. On this rainy day I can think of nothing I wish for you all more than the blessing of good peeps like these in your lives.

Old and comfy

I've often ribbed Tim about the male propensity for very old, ratty undergarments. He says they're not old and ratty,they're soft, comfortable, and they fit just right. I actually don't know any female who hasn't registered her objection to this habit. But maybe, just maybe, I'm admitting I understand the principle, if not the execution.

One of the things we like about cruising is that we get to meet so many new people. Each anchorage, mooring or dock brings the potential for new relationships and some of these have developed into lifelong friendships. But there are some times when nothing will suffice but a good, old, comfy friend. Friday morning saw the arrival of just such a one to the marina where we're staying, our good friend Kacey.

The thing about old, comfy friends is that, no matter how much time has elapsed since the last visit, you fall right into the comfy part: laughing, telling stories, shared food which you already know you both like. It's easy. It's right.

Chatting with Kacey while watching the big ships roll by.

Don't want to break down on the way to town...

We didn't do much over the weekend, just hanging out on the boat with one foray into the historical downtown area of Charleston on a walking tour in lieu of an expensive ferry tour to the fort on the opposite shore. We ambled along old residential streets reading signs about each of the residences. We had lunch in a restaurant converted from a historical warehouse. We strolled through a few cemeteries reading the oldest stones that could still be deciphered. The oldest date of death we found was 1760 something (the last number was chipped off), although there were many more that had faded beyond reading. There were countless stones from men who served in the revolutionary war and the civil war. One family had a small fenced-in area with the stone for each of the parents and one large stone engraved with the dates of their five children, all of whom had preceded them. The youngest died at 5 days and the oldest lived to be 17. It was humbling. We take so much of our lives in this free country for granted and complain about way too much.

The high winds and rainy weather kept us pinned to the dock for the rest of Kacey's visit, so sailing with us will have to wait for another time in the fall. Even so, it was hard to say goodbye and send him on his way back to the workaday world. Tomorrow we pick up the trek northward, and in spite of the fact that it will involve some time on the ICW and a hard push of days, there will be more old, comfy friends at the other end to look forward to.

Old churches and their cemeteries abound in historical Charleston

The office and dock of the pilot boats for the harbor

You can spend a whole day just looking at the entry ways

Believe it or not, this is a garage door.

My granddaughters would want this one.

The friends you haven't met yet

I've been holding this post in my mind for a week. Last week a truck pulled up next to our boat and within a few minutes Tim was calling me out of the galley to come see something. Lo and behold, there stood Bill from Veranda, instantly recognizable from the few pics on his site. He was working in the area and thought he'd come see how the Retirement Project was going. I've emailed Bill on multiple occasions to ask Stupid Newbie Questions, and his patience and good nature were commendable. We have followed their blog almost since the beginning, and they have followed ours, encouraging us with their comments and Bill's hillariously dry sense of humor. I've been holding this post because I wanted to wait until we met Christy, Bill's significant other, so I could post one of those "Hey we finally met these friends of ours" pictures set in the salon over the fine dinner we most certainly owe them, but then the famous Sinking Incident happened and got in the way of our weekend dinner plans. The arrival yesterday of John on Ellida got me to thinking once again about what I feel is one of the most remarkable things about cruising - the friends you haven't met yet - and it was time for this post.

Certainly there is no time in previous history where we have had the capacity to interact with one another in the way that we can on the internet today. Some would say the internet is a detrimental influence on the establishment of relationships because you hide behind the anonimity of the computer screen and can pretend to be anyone you want, leaving the authenticity of those relationships suspect at best. These criticisms don't seem to apply in the cruising community, though, because I have found that the folks we meet cruising are of a singularly high caliber of person. Honesty, integrity, caring, hope, encouragement, inquisitiveness all seem to abound in the cruising community, both online and off; not the sort of character qualities that lend themselves to the shallow meet-your-next-friend forum on the internet. We have been fortunate to meet so many good folks through our blog to this point. Bill and Christy from Veranda, Paul and Deb from Lattitude 43, Tom and Sabrina from Honeyrider, David and Nancy from Via Bella, the Zach Aboard family, Mike and Rebecca on Zero to Cruising, Bob on Eolian, Mike at This Rat Sailed, Mike on Siochana, Bill K., Capt. Mike on Zoe, David on S/V Pelagia, and countless others who have offered their support to us through comments, not to mention the countless friends that saw us through the last 6 years on our home lake Carlyle in Illinois, and sent us off with gifts and best wishes.

While cruising is certainly about the wanderlust, the desire to be "off the grid", the expression of exasperation with our current form of government, the desire to learn about other cultures and many other reasons, for me it is mostly about the people. These people have enriched my life already beyond measure and we're not even off the dock yet. Yesterday John was thanking us for something we had helped him with, and I told him that so many people have already helped us and that it was our way of paying it forward (a term I really hate by the way but I haven't found any better). I was thinking specifically about Bill and Christy at that moment, and how Bill had said they were happy to help, in some small way repaying all those that had gotten them started in the beginning. It's a wonderful cycle that I'm incredibly blessed to be a part of.

Thanks Bill.

Friends

As Tim mentioned in a previous post, I lost a very good 4-legged friend in recent days. Reminiscing about the unconditional friendship that dog gave me for many years led to general thoughts on the subject, and the fact that so much of what appeals about cruising to sailors is the development of friendships. I've been thinking a lot about the issue since then. Sailing has opened up the door to more friendships for us than any other activity we've been involved with and I've been turning that thought over in my mind trying to decide exactly why that is. In the aviation world there's a huge amount of arrogance, some justified I suppose by the amount of work required to attain the various certifications and hours of experience, and in the motorcycling world an enormous amount of testosterone, neither of which are conducive to the kind of quick, easy friendships that last a long time. Enter sailing, and within 4 months we have a long roster of friends that would spend the day helping us fix our engine in 100 degree heat, just for the asking and a few bottles of the brew of choice. There's no ridicule because your skills aren't as good as the tenants in the next slip, in fact, only an excessive amount of encouragement and acknowledgment that "we've all been there before" Laughter is in abundance, and solid advice flows as freely as the rum and coke. People look out for each other and each other's boats, and when they ask how you've been they genuinely want to know. Going to the marina always means a good dose of "Cheers". So why is this? At first I thought it was because sailing can be a humbling experience...you know the idea of not being able to properly control a machine going a whopping 4 knots. But aviation can also be humbling, and I've been humbled more times than I care to think about on the various bikes I've owned over the years. I suppose it may have something to do with the fact that both aviation and motorcycling tend to draw the severest of the Type-A personalities, but I threw that idea out fairly quickly because so many sailors are also pilots and motorcyclists. After a lot of mulling over this for a week I felt like I was still where I began. Well...not quite, maybe, because I did manage to come to the conclusion that some things are just better not explained. Friendship in any walk of life is a mystery, and the gift of it, (and the giver), is something not to be taken for granted. It involves trust and caring and empathy and giving and it's most brutal enemy is neglect. The passing of my good buddy Itchy Dog has left a lot of people who loved him hurting, but it has done one good thing. It's made me thankful for each of you I call friend. Good hunting Itchy...