Mar 01 2007
Appreciating It for What It Is
So… we’re buying this boat. Yes, still buying. The paperwork’s a nightmare, and I’ll whine about it more when it’s over. But for now, it’s all about the logistics. You must have the right insurance. You must have a place to put her, on both ends of the trip. You must have this, you must have that… the amount of things you must have, must have considered, and must be willing to face, is absolutely staggering.
Then there are the travel logistics. The five of us are heading to Puerto Rico to spend a week or two on the boat, getting her cleaned up and happy, and just having fun sailing her down there. This involves flights, animal care back home, vacation time at work, arranging the rigger’s time, the Captain’s time, the Boatyard’s time.
Jason, thank goodness, is handling most of this. He’s the one currently engaged in finding a delivery captain, to get our boat home. The trip is divided into three pieces; the Caribbean leg, from PR to the Panama Canal. Then there’s the Canal itself, which is apparently its very own epic nightmare. Finally, there’s the humongous and difficult but not terribly complex beating to windward the whole way up the Pacific coast from the Canal to the Bay.
Maybe I’m just cynical from too many years served Before the Mouse… but reading the descriptions some of these guys use for this trip just makes me want to laugh. Ohhhh, it’ll be so hard, ooooooh, it’ll be so uncomfortable, oh oh oh… It’s like one big sea story. Guys… sure it’s rough, but you’re professional sailors, yeah? This is what you want to do for a living, right? Sailing is cooler than, oh I dunno, laying pipeline in Alaska, or mining for diamonds in Africa, working on the same old assembly line in Detroit for 30 years…or any number of more onerous professions.
But the more I read, the more I see a sort of defensiveness in their words, and I realized with a shock yesterday that I am seeing living history in action. This kind of Tall Tale Telling is how they’re protecting a way of life that is misunderstood, ignored, and undervalued by a world that’s moving away from a standard of adventure. And with that in mind… I can see the dragons at the borders of their maps more clearly, and despite my cynical purchaser-of-services status, I am being drawn in to the romance and the mystery of what they’re doing. Despite myself, I am entranced.