The waves of Christmas

Forgive me blogger for I have sinned. It’s been 52 days since my last post.

I’ve been caught up. We’ve been relaunched – set free from the confines of a dusty boatyard and allowed to sail along a waterway that offers up town and city, each becoming warmer as we head further and further south. 

Our amazing friends in St Augustine have set us free, cut the cord. The farewells were part of our nomadic reality.

We’ve been hugging a coastline and clinging to it’s landlubber luxuries. Getting caught up in it’s busy motorway reality…

Seasons have changed. Holidays have come and gone. To some, it’s now winter.

B

Enjoying the lights and sand Christmas tree in West Palm Beach

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Accosted by perfume wielding retail warriors, shoving by glossy displays of patent leather footwear, obese flesh in motorized lazy chairs, shrill echoes of the kids swooshing by below the adult faces, sneezes, sniffles, we wind our way through the mayhem of pre Christmas in a shopping mall.

Dry air and jolly carols pumped through the vents above, tinsel, trees, BOGO signs, we are drawn along with the crowds in a cinnamon scented coma.

On days like these I remember 20 years ago where this was the norm. When I headed into that, armed with gift lists. When my family lived close by. When I was part of it all. Days of stocking stuffers, huge turkey in the oven all day, a fresh new Christmas outfit for when the relatives arrived.

Nowadays, after 17 years worlds away in Ghana, I find myself nearly 4 years living on a boat. A boat that takes me to remote islands, that has taken me to the feet of the Statue of Liberty. A boat that now sits anchored outside a touristy little enclave south of Miami called Coconut Grove.

Here, the people go to malls with gift lists. They buy turkeys, they drag 8 foot tall Christmas trees home and decorate them.

It’s easy to forget that we are here in the mall to check the weather online. That the impending cold front is due to bring in high winds and choppy seas. That we may have to re-anchor the boat or at least let out more chain so we don’t drag into a pole and have a hole in the hull for Christmas.

It’s easy to forget, when in the mall, that for us there is no pine tree or even a turkey. That my galley oven can barely fit a small chicken. That there is no family close by and that the Christmas outfit will be flip flops and shorts. Maybe I’ll wear my new novelty light up Christmas earrings to the cruiser’s potluck on the 25^th.

For now we head out of the mall as darkness closes in. We need to take two buses to get back to the dinghies and get across to the boats before it’s too late. Others in the mall are thinking of supper, of the weekend ahead. Of all the plans for Christmas. Me, I’m thinking this: We don’t have regulation navigation lights on the dinghy, just a flashlight and the Florida boat patrol police do not approve. We’ve heard they pull  little dinghies over and they hand out harsh fines. We need to get back before it’s too dark.

My new pants are tacky with dried salt water from the ride into shore earlier. My waterproof backpack is sealed up and ready. We arrive back at the dock and climb like awkward spiders across the dinghies in the watery parking lot. Flashlight on, and we’re off.

 

And since then two days have passed. Days where my view of shore bounces by 4 feet every two seconds. I hold on to everything I can as I bump my bruised hips along from one side of the boat to the other. The wind is blowing 25 knots and gusting to 32 knots. Shore life is a far off concept. Our dinghy bounces and flails wildly at the back of Shiloh, drenched with salt water, thrown by waves and tugged back violently by it’s ‘leash’. Heading toward land would mean a full salt water shower. Probably closer to a bath.

Days like this I can barely remember what it was like to live in a house where weather is something separated from your life. Where the winds don’t play a role in your plans for the day. Where the floor of your house isn’t moving 4 feet up and down and the view out your window is stationary.

Mantras about travel and expanding horizons run through my head over and over. They try hard to drown out any naysayers up there in my mind who may wonder what the hell I’m doing out here a mile from shore being thrown around for days at a time. 

But there is one little voice that remains strong and steady. It is strongest at Christmas. It’s the voice that makes me wish the world was small. Where I could see the faces of my niece and nephew on Christmas morning, begging to open their stockings, excited that Santa ate his cookies and drank his milk, tearing open presents, while the adults sit blurry eyed clinging to coffee cups, looking for strength to face this hectic day.

It’s those moments that travel can never replace. For us, home is where the anchor drops and that is a glorious indescribable freedom. But for a big part of my heart, it comes in waves of emotion: home is where that family is on Christmas morning by the tree.

Lightning and Blunder - a hobbling adventure

Rain pours in sheets around, over, into us. A badly designed rain cover that we’ve dragged out in desperation crinkles and stretches over the winches. Rain clots and streaks and zig zags across my line of vision. Visibility is impossible. We are hobbling along against a raging current on one engine; the other overheated, steaming and pouting in it’s room.

Shiloh plodding along under stormy skies today

It's yet another stormy day and we are headed up the ICW, motoring in slow circles, waiting for a Bascule bridge to open. I have no chart plotter for navigation, I have no idea of the wind speed or exactly what direction it’s hitting us from.

Since Shiloh’s lightning strike days ago, we have been crippled. And now we are blind. The latest – engine fail – just adds insult to injury and will require JW to descend into the muddy soup of ICW water to investigate later…

Despite our predicament, I ponder what I can make for supper. Except earlier I’ve discovered all the condiments left in the dormant fridge have been invaded and are slowly disappearing under a fuzzy green colony of mold. The freezer is warm and gives off a slight gym sock, haunted attic scent.

Our choices are cans of fish or meat, some soft bruised tomatoes, a few iffy eggs. Not gourmet then. And no ice cubes for the whisky. Big sigh.

We’ve had better days onboard.

A week ago, watching our last Bahamian sunset fall gracefully into the sea, I knew we’d miss the bliss. The turquoise, the sand, the bizarre little towns. The simplicity.

We crossed a smooth, indigo ribbon of sea for 28 hours and arrived in the land of bureaucracy, choice and bling. Excess. Oh, and as a minor trivia fact - the lightning capital of the world.

After our initial customs and immigration hassles we anchored in Cocoa and headed to the shopping mall – of course! Faced with a head splitting, apparently life altering array of voice and data packages, we somehow came away with a fancy Internet wifi hotspot device and a working phone. And then the lights in the mall flickered. And the thunder permeated the building.

‘The boats!’

‘We better get back!’

But mother nature was fierce and the buses were delayed, hovering somewhere else or caught in the traffic. And we watched from the frosty halls of the mall as the skies threw down. High voltage strikes amidst the torrential rains.

Shiloh was alone. And under a violent grey sky, wind whipping, earth shuddering claps of thunder, she was struck. And 1 billion volts of electricity hit the top of her mast, flinging or disintegrating the VHF antenna before heading down through her hulls, and frying the electronics, batteries, lights, fans, fridge and freezer before exiting into the water.

The telltale smell greeted us – an acrid smoky evil. All the electronic displays were dead. An ugly quiet settled over the boat as we discovered each item and system that no longer worked.

Then came the calls and mails to the insurance company and the days of waiting for the surveyor, while the reality and severity of our injuries sank in. For me the missing stereo and TV are major. I like a soundtrack to my life. The starter battery charger is probably more important for JW. And the Raymarine and autopilot…

Luckily we were approved for moving on to St Augustine where Shiloh will be hauled out and a full survey completed. Hulls, rigging, sails, each failed system. 

But then the ordering of replacements will begin. I see weeks if not months of this ahead.

And the impaired sailing, along with camp life aboard are not ideal. A f*cking hassle in fact.

But it’s an adventure. We’ve got some great friends in St Augustine and I’m sure we’ll find fun. We’ll bring fun! We can’t control the things that happen to us, but we can control the way we deal with them. We write our life story based on our attitude.

I’m writing an adventure and this is another chapter.  A wet, thunderous and exciting chapter.