READY TO BE SOMEWHERE ELSE

It’s that simple. And, of course, a tad complicated. LET’S GO YACHTING.

Janice Anne Wheeler Nov 8

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I peered out my east-facing, round, bronze port, anticipating, even this time of year in the Northern Hemisphere, to see indications of dawn. Nothing. Waning moonlight shone. I tossed, adjusted, stayed awake, gave in, looked at the clock. 1:14. Seriously? Couldn’t be. Was. My frustrated toss awoke the Sailor, who shared my surprised disappointment that it wasn’t yet morning.

One final commitment keeps us dock-bound when we want, need really, to be sailing south. It is what it is. The days are passing slowly, for now. The good news is that it’s been gorgeous here, sunny, calm, warm, days and temperate nights. The bad news is this was probably our best weather window for weeks, slowly closing. It will be shut before our departure. We both know this, but haven’t said it out loud.

“We’re ready to be somewhere else,” I said to the darkness, unnecessarily. “Yep.”

I have a friend, close to heart, and she used to pack her bags long, long before departure for any given trip or adventure. Weeks, months even! I laughed at her while admiring the depth of enthusiasm and expectation she had for any upcoming get-a-way. Two decades later she is a true wanderer of the planet, hiking the Camino de Santiago this fall and last winter, sharing my never-to-be-forgotten escape to the Galápagos Islands as she toured South America. She also owns a Motorhome, which has been compared to my liveaboard cruising lifestyle, but is markedly different.

STEADFAST and crew can’t simply pull over and rest when we’d like a break, can’t provision and refuel in every little town we see on the chart, and we can’t depart on any set date in any sort of weather. Putting a vehicle in park and hitting the ‘auto-level’ is far simpler than our substantial anchoring routine (and even more so, the up-anchor routine), but I think the wanderlust is inherent in that lifestyle choice as it is in this one (as long as you don’t just go park somewhere each season, pull out the poo chute and stay).

My home is the ultimate self-contained wandering machine, really, but it’s a sailboat, and the limitations are, well, substantial. At 58ft/18m STEADFAST is relatively big, as recreational cruising boats go, with a seven-foot full keel draft (depth in the water).

Now that we have made her more self-sufficient than ever, she can travel on any sea deeper than three meters (adding in a little safety margin), which describes the vast majority of the planet. On most of those surfaces, it’s not so much what you see as what you don’t see, and I think nearly everyone’s imagination runs a little wild after too many shark movies and legends of the deep. “An ocean is a desert with its life underground….” my brain often sings that phrase from the 1971 classic “A Horse With No Name” by still-touring(!) band America; founded 55 years ago. For the sake of interest, you want to run into the islands and the continents, if you know what I mean, the rest of it can get a little boring, or, worse, the waves can get remarkably large.

STEADFAST has a few more restrictions for an assortment of reasons; turning radius, swing room, height. Ah, the height! She’s reportedly 64.5ft /19.7m (the US bridge standard height is 65ft). HOWEVER we do not take the chance that those six inches or so are accurately measured by the bridge folks, or by the previous owner (no offense Dmitri) or by anyone. We just don’t do it. The impressive concrete spans over the Intracoastal Waterway (see below) wouldn’t be the only thing ever to sink into southern mud! Unless the bridge height is 75+ or it opens, we choose another route, which for this upcoming passage takes us out into blue water, the mighty Western North Atlantic 110NM south of our current harbor, then around Cape Hatteras, North Carolina and through the Graveyard of the Atlantic. In all honesty, we’re happier ‘on the outside’ but it comes with hundreds of miles of far more contentious, challenging weather, water and waves. At an average of 6.5 knots or 7 miles an hour…there’s a whole lot of forecasting involved. The aforementioned passage is around 50 hours.

I recently received a message from the leader of my Grand Canyon raft trip in 2018, who I remember to be a free-wheeling character. “Wife and I just contracted to buy a sailboat, here in Maryland. Figure we can’t learn to sail without a sailboat,” he wrote to me excitedly, unexpectedly. “We hope to be down south by the first of the year.” We talked about surveys (the nautical term for a pre-purchase inspection, which my Sailor does under his company ANNAPOLIS MARINE SURVEYS, and also about taking sailing lessons, which my friend was just embarking on. Most folks take sailing lessons, in one form or another, long prior to contracting on a 240,000$ 50-footer.

Go big, I thought as I replied, inquiring about particulars. The back of my mind was nibbling on the reality that sailing is a tremendous learning curve, circular, or wavy, or a figure-eight, even, when you cross a path you thought you had already tread and someone changed the direction of the wind, the waves, the tide, the current and then you need to shift your understanding, tack, as it were, to open your mind to the multitude of possibilities that could happen next while looking at the compass and the 360-degree horizon line and the chart and the depth and where you put your feet and the top of the sails to ensure there is no luff, no inefficiency, and still take time to photograph the sunrise (which can draw a frown from the more practical member of the crew).

And then you wonder, as you leave the coastline behind. You feel remarkably smaller than you ever imagined you could feel on a substantial, forty-two ton vessel, you wonder what’s next.

STEADFAST is roomy and soulful with abundant character; we’ve added many of the live-on-land amenities to which we are fortunate enough to be accustomed. I’m not afraid to admit that it’s an important part of my experience out here, life well lived and for the most part, comfortable. I’ve worked hard to be where I am, and I’m not out to prove anything, I don’t covet hardship. Sometimes everyone gets it anyway, regardless of where we dwell.

Even with all the modern conveniences, Mother Nature could sink us with hardly a trace. In minutes. The chances of that are pretty miniscule. You are far more likely to get into a car accident this year (.27%) than sink in a boat (.000048%). To be clear, those are sinking boat owners, the balance, the vast majority, are land-only, possessing a 0% chance.*

Because shipwrecks are rare, they are also newsworthy, and frightening, to us most of all, be assured, and to those that love us. We study what went wrong, what can be learned. A whale strike, most recently, in the Southwest Pacific hit the headlines. In that case, no one is at fault. Those happen. And they change lives. Half a million dollars worth of someone’s life, and more importantly, perhaps, their dream. Someone’s dream now lies quietly thousands of feet beneath the surface of the ocean. All were rescued, an important happy ending; not always the case.

On blue water, STEADFAST is but a speck compared to the planet; quarter-mile-long freighters can (and have) crushed boats such as her with the chance crossing of two rhumb lines.** It has always been remarkable to me, and I have no explanation for it, that when we do encounter another vessel, it is remarkably often on a collision course. Perhaps just to keep us on our toes.

I zoomed in on Sea Stories with Duncan Hood recently (highly recommend the show); his guest’s vessel sank, he drifted across the majority of the Atlantic, east to west, on a 2M inflatable raft and crossed paths with no one. Seventy-six days (WOW), just salt water and sky and the creatures beneath him. Rather than never wanting to be wet again, he stayed on the water, went on to do risky things on small boats with few just the absolute basics.

Those small craft adventurers, so popular right now, are honestly the opposite of what I want to experience. For a passage that is safe, warm, dry and well-provisioned? I’m ready. Let’s go YACHTING.

I’m hoping that winter holds off just a little longer. Until next week! ~J

I rambled on a little this week…too much time on my hands still…this is one of my last sunrises from the dock. Stunner. I am resuming what I called THE SUNRISE PROJECT in 2024. Each morning, wherever I am, I’ll post the actual time and location of each sunrise when STEADFAST is underway.

In case you dream (as I did) about the unique Galápagos (& welcome aboard to all you new Subscribers!). This piece is a fan favorite.

TRAFFIC IN THE GALÁPAGOS, I Janice Anne Wheeler   ·   Mar 8 Read full story

REFERENCES

*statistics provided by Chat GPT

** In navigation, a rhumb line (also rhumb (/rʌm/) or loxodrome) is an arc crossing all meridians of longitude at the same angle. It is a path of constant azimuth relative to true north, which can be steered by maintaining a course of fixed bearing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhumb_line

https://fox8.com/news/whale-sinks-yacht-in-south-pacific-causing-military-rescue-mission/

Yay!! You made it all the way to the VERY end. Now, THAT is a compliment. See you next time. Fair winds, my friends. Truly. ~J