When sailing is like being born

Sun is pouring through the windows, enticing my eyes with glitter and gleam. That turquoise reflecting upwards, smiling at the sun above. See it! Breathe it, feel it. The palms are the greenest of green, the epitome of nature’s bounty, breeze blowing the tops, heavy with coconuts below, shining, glowing. We’re in the Bahamas. 

It’s not important that we’re anchored near the construction zone of Resort World, tractors, cranes and mountains of man made dunes all around. The point is that the sun is shining, I am not cold, I may even be a tad warm! We’re expecting a huge cold front with it’s signature downpours and high winds tomorrow. But for now, for this moment I am basking in the sunshine promises of the Bahamas that have brought us back for yet another season. Exhale…

But some passages are difficult. Take birth for example. Many would argue that the end result is worth the drama, pain, anguish. But halfway through, both mother and baby are convinced that they’ve never experienced anything worse. That no human should have to endure the sheer hell that is this hours long journey.

Yesterday we were that baby in the birth canal. A 12 hour long voyage where nature not only refused to cooperate, but fought us the whole way. We arrived near screaming, feeling like we’d been hung upside down by our feet and slapped on the ass. And that first night in our new world was not easy. We were shoved and rolled by the swell of the ocean, the raw lack of protection out here, far from the safe womb of Miami’s inshore waters.

Maybe we should have read the signs. 

When we tried to lift anchor and found ourselves utterly stuck, the symbolism knocked me over. And while our windlass groaned and the chain squealed like a pig with it’s leg in a snare, I actually smirked. Some force, perhaps our own complacency had become an active antagonist – we weren’t ready to go. Half an hour later, after much strain on the boat and captain, we pulled up an abandoned anchor and chain. It was someone else’s perilous sea story, but for us it was only the first sign of many. We dropped it with a watery thud and headed out the channel; America spat us unceremoniously out.

Out into the growing waves and building winds. Directly against us. And within an hour the gulf stream was shoving us with the power only mother nature has, north, sideways, and way, way off course. To compensate, we were forced to head further south, into the oncoming everything, and while glasses toppled in the cupboards and cherished family photos fell flat on their faces inside, we came to a near halt, now making headway at under 2 knots. Smash, crash. Groan, slam. The sounds of the day’s toll on Shiloh accosted us. While on the VHF radio, the captains consoled and coerced each other.

“This is insane!”

“Yeah but it’s getting a bit better… maybe”

There were a few times we seriously considered giving up and heading back to the relative calm and safety of the states, but as we all know, once a labour begins, there really is no turning back. We were on this one way trip and at the other side was the other world we needed to reach.

So we held on, salt spray everywhere, waves splashing and slamming the boat, the front windows crying, the crew near crying. We exclaimed with incredulity from time to time how many miles we’d come and yet how many we still had to go. The 40 mile expectation became a 60 mile journey, leaving us no chance to get in the tricky dog-leg river entrance of Bimini during daylight, and realizing that we’d have to anchor offshore for the night, whenever it was we arrived.

When land was in sight, with it’s promise of a calming of both the wild waves and the wind, we were happy. As much as someone in extreme pain can be happy that it might soon end. But it was premature. Our labour was stalled. And so, hours after the darkness had enveloped the ocean and it’s foolish adventurers, we edged forward toward the land and prepared to drop the anchor. But no matter how close we got to land – we could even see the lights of a few cars – the huge swell didn’t dissipate. We were stuck side on to the swell, facing the wind. The result – every few seconds the boat would lunge sideways, and shudder. One hull up then down, and then the other. Over and over. Dishes still slid and slipped, the crew tossed from side to side, to our peril, should we attempt to stand and move without holding on firmly to something…

So we were stuck in the birth canal, thrown around for the night, waiting sleepless for the break of dawn to make our final entrance into this world.

Only, as dawn arrived, it brought with it a monster. A wall of black cloud, billowing forward, approaching like an army of sky ninjas, arm in arm, approaching swiftly from behind us. We took one look, threw t-shirts over sleepless unkempt hair and crusty eyes and started the engines. With wild eyes we pushed Shiloh, so rudely awoken, as fast as she could go, and we rounded the corner, amongst the breaking waves, into the tight channel just as the wind whipped up and the stinging rain hit. 

We made it up the 3 mile channel under the full force of the storm. I could barely see and held my jacket hood against the side of my face, a barricade to the pelting rain and wind.

But we did arrive, into the small anchorage, a dredged out square at the edge of the new resort, protected on three sides by the construction materials, a barge and some new unused chalets. And though the wind still blew, we sat inside and sighed.

It was our birth story. A bit anti-climactic, but ours all the same.

The sun was yet to come. After some homemade soup, some restorative sleep and the chance to awake truly to this new world. The Bahamas! We’ve arrived.

Worlds away: from Starbucks to sandbars

The place is abuzz with sipping, slurping, green straws, computer keypads, tall chai caramel latte decaf macchiato flat white black Americano….

It’s our last day in America.

It only seems appropriate to spend an inappropriate amount of it in a Starbucks.

Tomorrow we set sail for Bimini, sailor’s gateway to the Bahamas. Only 45 miles into a different world completely.

We change worlds from time to time. The day or two before that magic sail between worlds is strange. I see things in a yellowish hue. Reality vibrates and bends.

I can’t help but look around me at the people, living their lives, driving along, calling their friends, sipping their coffees. They become part of a static thing. They are America. They will be left here, carrying on with all this when we are gone. When for us there are no more traffic lights and Best Buys and Walmarts and Starbucks. When for us there are only desolate beaches and understocked shacks/stores and shallow waters and showers off the back step. When the sky and the sea take up our days with their omnipotence, back here they will be the backdrop to civilization. They will remain outside the honking cars, the bright lights of the shops and the clanking glasses on the restaurant patios.

I stand in the line and try to memorize my order – must remember the words – not small, tall. Not medium, Grande! Meanwhile there’s a double blended skinny caramel Frappucino up. Names are written on cups, green aprons flitter about behind the counter. I feel inadequate. A novice, an outsider. How do they keep this stuff in their heads? There are no skinny whip cream vanilla bean crèmes in the other world. You’re lucky if you find coffee. At all.

But you will find yourself. More raw, less busy, more mindful. No yoga classes, just your feet on grainy sand, plodding along, feeling the pull in your thighs of the muscles as you sink ever so slightly with each step. You will sink down, sweating under the sun drenched sky. You will sit for long periods at the edge of the water, feeling it’s undulating warm surface with the palms of your hand. It’s magical in the way that no shopping mall can recreate. It’s all in slow motion in that other world. 

The thing is that the worlds remain, whether we come back again or not. Next year I may find myself on the reverse journey. Arriving into this world, anticipating the availability of everything with giddy anxiety in the core of my being.

Or we might sail on to a different world again entirely. New immigration offices, new smells, new walks, new adventures.

It’s a life of uncertainty. I’ve learned something curious about that. Life changing. Straightforward in it’s simplicity. You can only open yourself to new worlds when you expand your tolerance for the uncertainty of everything. What will the sail across be like? Will we have good weather? Will we meet storms? Will we find a place to anchor? Will they be friendly at the Immigration office?

A day or two after arrival in a new world, there are more uncertainties. Where will we sail next? What will that island be like? Will we find a protected anchorage? Will there be storms? Will the boat drag toward the rocks at 2am in a massive wind? Where will we do our laundry? Will our boat freezer die, leaving us with rotten, smelling sopping food and no chance to replace it all?

But none of these unknowns can put us off the adventure quest. 

It’s the life of the maritime squatter. And it’s time to move on.

As the air-conditioning and ice coffee shooters closes behind me with the door, and we head out into the warmth of a Miami afternoon, I’ve moved on to the journey. Legally and mentally we’ve left this world and there are only a few things left to do. Fill the diesel and water tanks and anchor way out, on the edge of America, ready for tomorrow morning’s nautical flight to new lands.

Blue Ranger blues - Happy Birthday to an angel

Darth Vader stands tall on a random corner of Duval Street, strumming his banjo with the confidence you’d expect of an inter-galactic villain. A few blocks away, Spiderman sits cross-legged on the filthy sidewalk, a classic yoga pose, with his sitar on display.

Of course. The universe is at peace. This is Key West. Stray chickens dodge traffic. Hung over stag party gangs troll the streets like zombies. It’s a random Saturday in January.

But for me there is nothing random about it. In fact, for me, it’s a day like no other. 17 years ago - I can barely believe that number as my fingers stub the keys – that many years ago on January 9^th I gave birth to my baby boy Shiloh.

After a planned Caesarean, I awoke in a sick ward in a government hospital in Accra, Ghana, West Africa. Beside me, a man groaned as his elevated swollen foot oozed. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to drive away the confusion, the terror. Why wasn’t I surrounded by other happy new mothers? Where were the cries of newborns?! Where was my baby boy?!!! The possibility washed over me, a cold sweat of terror. I was alone and my baby was not with me. Could he have… not…made..it?

An hour later, with the help of a pushy Canadian friend who’d rescued him from the incompetent nurses, I had my gorgeous boy against my breast, his heart beating with mine. His tiny body rising and falling gently with each of my calmed breaths. Apparently there were no beds left in the maternity ward. Sigh. What a scare!

Fast forward 17 years. I wake knowing my universe is not at peace. I wake with a deep dull pain. It washes over me. As I rub my eyes and look up at the white ceiling, there it is. No baby boy. No big boy either to call or visit. My worst fear has long ago come true.

I could be in Key West or St Lucia, Toronto or Trinidad. This birthday is full of terror. And resignation that an open wound will remain. It does not scab over. So I must protect it. Protect the pain as I would protect my boy. If only I could.

As the years go by, it gets deeper. Nestled in somewhere behind my heart. Somewhere that allows the sunshine still to enter. That lets me smile and know joy.

And there are memories. Memories that stay in another place. They rest like warm blankets all about my soul. If I’m chilly I only need to walk through them and wrap one around me. Bliss for a broken mama. 

But today on the 17^th anniversary of Shiloh’s birth, I choose to celebrate. A life force like that must not be mourned. A boy with the energy of the sun, the smile of a cherub and charm unmatched, THAT boy should be remembered and not swept away in sorrowful grief.

If Shiloh were here today is a game I like to play. It makes me smile. I know that my Blue Ranger is sky diving in heaven. My naughty little boy now an angel, the brightest star above us.

Shiloh would love Key West. All the action, the people, the madness, the life pulsing through this place. The messy along with the beautiful, the rough with the smooth.  He would stop me as we walked along, and stand by Spiderman on the dirty sidewalk with unabashed curiousity and wonder. He would stop and rub the back of a homeless person. 

I carry him in my heart all day today, like I do every day. I let him see it all through my eyes and in turn I see it all through his. Innocent but an old soul. Wise, wide eyed, Shiloh’s spirit soars. He guides me in his awesome way.

He has shaped who I am today, and through all the sadness I would rather to have known and loved him, than to have never held him or known him in all his glory.

Happy birthday my little boy, my omnipotent angel. May the universe hold you when you are sad and help you along your other-worldly path. And know that if I could just hold you again, for one brief moment, I would give anything and everything.

Your ever grateful mama.

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.

A tale of cranes, cronies and pink bunnies

I’m elbow deep in a muddle of cables, wedged sideways, half under our saloon table, obeying the gruff instructions barked from outside at the base of the mast.

“Pull red!” “Now blue” “Pull the thin grey one. Not THAT thin grey one!” etc. It’s re-wiring 101 onboard today.

The men in hard hats and the massive crane came bright and early this morning and our mast has just been re-erected. Shiloh is almost a sailboat again!

A few weeks ago the reverse procedure happened. 

 

It’s late October and we’re still awaiting the delayed delivery of an inverter from Europe – of course we couldn’t source one here – that would be too easy! It’s late October – just letting that sink in, just a week over two months since Shiloh was hauled out for lightning repairs.

“We’ll only be here a few days” we told the yard manager, infinitely naïve and hopeful.

“Just put us near the lift. No need to take Shiloh to a back corner as we’ll be here such a short time.”

And so they did. We’ve had a front row vantage point watching all the other boats wheeled by and launched, day in, day out.

Until the morning came, about a week ago, when the familiar noise of the lift came a bit too close and our hazy morning minds perked up immediately. I jumped out of bed only to find the lift coming directly for us!

“It’s too soon! What are they doing?!” Convinced they’d lost the plot and come for the wrong boat. Before I knew it, our trusty mast that lay beside us was gone. Whisked away by three men with a wheelie contraption. The slings of the huge travel-lift looming ever nearer. 

Turns out the boat behind us needed moving and we were in the way. Our ‘short term stay’ had run out, and without warning the yard master decided it was time to send us for detention, to a dank corner, far far from electricity, water supply, washrooms, showers, relative civilization. And that is where we will stay until our inverter arrives, all the re-wiring is complete, and testing of batteries and new equipment is completed. Only then will we be allowed back into the water where we belong. This might be in a few days. It might be in a few weeks. JW told me to pick out a Christmas tree here…

But there is another side to all this trauma and chaos. The side where I lean on my Walmart cart and barrel forward, dodging Walmartians who scowl. I, on the other hand am almost giddy. Halloween is coming up and I’ve been focusing all efforts on getting JW to agree, and then put the components together for his debut as a pink bunny. I’ve been riding the free Cruiser Shuttle to Walmart every week for weeks and I spotted the full length adult front zip one-zies ages ago. Apart from the usual super heros, there were Minions and Cookie Monsters, but none compared to the pink bunny. It called out to me and I knew it had to be. Today I bought it while JW managed the mast back in the yard. I also bought a pink fluffy shower sponge – perfect tail. And little ribbons to tie to his flip flops. I can hardly wait. Once I stop laughing I know I’m gonna love him in this costume. I got a $10 space girl costume and a pink gun, so I am going to town as a ‘bunny-chasing-galactic-space-goddess’. That works right?

We’ve had our share of fun. No, really. We made it a Greek Fest, an underwhelming Oktoberfest, movies, yacht clubs, cruiser events, rooftop concerts at a winery and a free distillery tour - to name a few. And the circle of cronies in our quest to make the best of our time here grows wider each week. We’ve made new land lubber and cruising friends, met up with cruiser friends we knew years ago in Grenada and Trinidad, and friends of friends of friends who all know how to party. We know the deal of the day in this town – pick a day – I’ll tell you where the happy hour is the best.

At the awesome Corazon Theater - drinks and a movie!

At Ann O'Malleys

Never grow up - it's a trap!

The rugby armada

Old friends from Sea Schell - saw them last in Grenada 2013!

The GANG at White Lion

One day soon that lift is gonna come back for us. It’s gonna take us right over to the launch and Shiloh’s bottom is gonna be wet. We will be excited and nervous and thankful on that day.

But in the meantime we are going to walk the half mile to the dirty boatyard toilets with smiles or at least without too much grumbling. We’ve learned as we so often do, it’s the people you surround yourself with, and the perspective you have that make a can change the experiences you have.

The difference between adventure and ordeal is attitude. And a pink bunny suit doesn’t hurt.

Life on the hard - boatyard blues

I share my evening showers with a huge gangly cellar spider (commonly known as the daddy-long-legs), and an adorable frog, smaller than my fingernail. I’ve only seen them face to face once, and the frog bolted. 

Mother nature is interesting and complicated. So is a boatyard shower stall where germs are multiplying in the sweaty humidity and heaving toward you from every direction. You tip-toe within the 2x2ft stall in flip flops and try in vain to touch nothing, while finding a place to set down your bag, towel, soap, dirty clothes, new clothes. And you hope to come out of there cleaner.

Amidst this awkward ballet, I mustn’t step on the frog who hops around with a dilemma of his own, trying desperately to escape drowning in shampoo suds. The spider in her nest just waits. Patiently. Each night she is there in the same place on the wall in her complex webbing. I hope she’s been eating the mosquitos, who could use a culling!

This is my life. I’ve forgotten what it is to be out on the water, let alone sailing. A boat yard will suck that vibrancy, that zest for freedom right out of you. Temporarily that is.

We move between ‘the room’ as we affectionately call the captain’s lounge, and up the rickety ladder to the boat, and to the public toilets, and on special days, we walk into town.

The weeks are bleeding into one another in a gravel paved existence as we wait in the syrupy slow world of insurance claim procedures and contractors delays. We. Are. Still. Here.

This is ‘post-lightning strike drama (PLSD)’ and we are suffering through it.

But there is another side of life here. The chicken wing and cocktail specials, free distillery tours, live bands EVERYWHERE, quaint neighborhoods with haunted houses to walk through and devise creepy back stories and scenarios, parties at local land lubber friends’ houses, meet ups with cruiser friends staying in nearby towns, even the free cruiser shuttle to Walmart and other choice destinations!

We make the best of this place. You have to. This is home for now. It’s another wild adventure, just a bit different from swimming with stingrays and watching for squalls out on anchor.

Now we dodge raccoons in the boatyard garbage bins by night and watch TV for hurricane updates. We couch surf with the investment sharks on Shark Tank. It’s how we get through the days of frustrating e-mails with insurance brokers who misunderstand on purpose, and contractors who raise our hopes and then disappear for weeks.

Tomorrow we’ll be off to the local yacht club for their Friday night soiree and Saturday we’ll be watching the World Cup rugby on the TV here, courtesy of JW’s streaming genius. It’s not that bad being on land.

It's just a punch we're rolling with, spiders, frogs and all.