Every now and then someone will ask us
what we have found. They are keying off of "Cerca Trova” as in
he-who-seeks-will-find. And at the moment we are wrapping up
another cruising season, a strange and rewarding and difficult one.
We have had the most wonderful times and the worst times of our
cruising experiences, all without wandering further than the north
coast of Cuba. So, as we sit in Green Turtle Cay waiting out a week
of really nasty weather, I am turning reflective ..
There is no time like the present.
I think this is the number one
understanding that cruising has driven home. We sold the house, left
jobs and friends, threw ourselves off the edge of our known universe,
realizing that if we didn't go now we might never. But more than
in just the major moves like that, this life principle extends to every decision
we make now. If we can get it done now, we do. If we can speed up
the boat safely, we do. If we can go explore, we do. If there is a
need to get home, we go. Time is not your friend and is utterly
irreplaceable.
The sea isn't “angry”, it's utterly
indifferent.
There are so many romantic stories
about the angry sea, the peaceful sea, the welcoming sea, etc etc
etc. Not really. The sea just is. It is entirely up to you do deal
or not, to enjoy or not. There is no point in worrying, the sea is
not scheming nor prescient. But it is extremely powerful, difficult
to predict, and occasionally dangerous. And the gear to deal with it
is equally powerful and dangerous. So this way of life requires a
24/7 presence of mind that is unmatched in nearly any other
lifestyle. Which is much of the attraction, and the source of much
stress.
Plans must be allowed to be just plans.
Things change out here in milliseconds,
or in hours. What you were expecting is not what you find. You make bad decisions and have to recover. It is
said that the most dangerous piece of equipment on a boat is the
calendar. But even without putting dates to goals, simply setting
goals that you are unwilling to change can cause real problems and
certainly will cause lots of stress. This season we have tried to go
with the flow a lot more. We did achieve some things we had always
wanted to (protracted stay waay down south in the Jumentos, get
ourselves to Cuba, learn to effectively spearfish, anchor where-ever
not just at known anchorages, …) but we didn't force it and are
winding up the season feeling a lot more accomplished than worn out.
People are way more important then
anything else
It was the Cuban people we enjoyed. It
is our family we miss so much. It is our fellow cruisers who makes
ports the most memorable. It is the good-byes that are the hardest. When we reach out for help, we have never been disappointed and sometimes overwhelmed. it's the individuals we will remember long after the sunsets have faded; the chatty Cuban taxi driver who was a Russian-trained aerospace engineer, the matriarch of Duncan Town, the odd and kind guy running the simple docks where we are tied up now through the thunderstorms, the people from literally miles around who responded to our call for help when our mainsail headcar was breaking down and we were days of travel from any civilization.
We can do a lot more than we think we
can.
I have annoyed our kids for years with
often hitting them with the Henry Ford quote “think you can or
think you can't, either way you are probably right”. And so you
might think that I 'get it'. I still don't really trust my ability
to get us out of trouble. We sweat a lot about staying out of
trouble and thereby make our stress and limit our own adventures. We fixed that failing headcar by building our own "car loader" based on an idea from two neighbor boats and multiple hours with me hanging in the bosons chair while Jennifer handed me itty-bitty ball bearings to force back into the car races. I can fix nearly anything now for which I have good documentation
and the right parts. And some skills I just will never develop –
we had our refrigeration system repaired while on the hard at Fort
Lauderdale Marin Center last month and the guy who did the work was
an absolute magician who used very limited instrumentation and lots
of experience to get our itty-bitty system (by his standards) running
better than it ever has, and I don't really know how he did it.
When it's time to stop we will know, and we will stop
We went into this knowing it wasn't
going to be for the rest of our lives. This year has been slow
enough that there has been lots of time to feel time passing in
between the mechanical failures and personal-bests. Our family is
moving on and we aren't there as they do so. I am close to being
ready to stop. It has been really painful at times this year and had me at the point of looking for jobs and rental houses, and so have to come to grips with that future when we will indeed stop. But not quite yet...
