A cold and empty nest

We finally did it. We broke down and bought a portable gas (propane) heater. And it helps. Sort of. It’s better than leaving all three gas burners blasting away on the stove. It’s so less ghetto anyway. Now it’s more like camping in Alaska in the winter with a heater in the tent.

It turns out Lagoon catamarans that were built for chartering in the Caribbean have about as much insulation against the cold as a nylon tent.

And let’s face it, despite being born in one of the coldest inhabitable countries in the world, I am NOT made for winter. I left the icy shores of Canada 20 years ago and since then I’ve never spent more than a 14 day period at a time in wintery climes, and that has always been with central heating. So this, being north of 38 degrees near the end of October, is not for me. Nor Shiloh. We need to move south.

But we’ve rounded a new corner, we’re starting fresh in a way, we’ve got an empty nest once again. Junior captain, aka Devon has been with us onboard since May 2013 and since then he has gradually become an integral part of our sailing team. In fact, if I’m not kidding myself, he has become the hardest working member. He has actually been our captain. He is the one who has sat on watch for endless hours up the ICW and the Chesapeake, plotting our course, adjusting sails, running the boat from place to place. We’ve become lazy and somewhat dependent. Shame on us. The boy needs to break free and start a life of his own. Time for us to cut the apron strings, or jib lines in this case, and let life happen for him. *Sniff*

So….. It’s time for me to resume a more helpful role around here. No more lazing on the couch as the boys check the oil and water levels. No more sitting up front in the dinghy like a passenger, being driven to shore, doing the ‘Queen Wave’. Nope, this girl’s gotta start cranking the dinghy motor and running the generator onboard. Pulling in the jib, lifting the dinghy on it’s davits at night. Time to step up!

The boat show is over. We oogled and criticized, we pointed and pretended. We drank and laughed and bought some toys. New house batteries and folding props to be exact. Not the kind of toys that usually excite me. But it means we’ve ticked that boat show box. We’ve been there! It was great. Like an outdoor mall and open house free-for-all – geared entirely toward boaters like us!!! We’re usually out casts, fringe visitors to the towns we’re in. But Annapolis with it’s free public dinghy docks at the end of each street and free hot, decadent showers for yachties – well now, this is our kind of town. Plus, it’s got the annual boat show! 

But it’s got winter. And it’s coming fast. And our portable heater can only do so much. So we’ve gotta get this boat ‘on the road’ and join the American and Canadian snowbirds on the journey in only one direction: south!

A pic of Spa Creek where we are today, ICED OVER! No thanks...

900 days of sailing

Today marks exactly 2.5 years or 30 months that we’ve lived aboard Shiloh. That we’ve been cruising. That we’ve been sailors.

I can’t quite believe it to be honest. I still feel like a newbie, an observer, a wannabe. But at the same time, I can’t imagine living on land.

We ticked a bucket list item last month – sailing up to the statue of liberty. It was amazing, tingles all over. 6 months before that it seemed a distant dream. That was back when I imagined that once we’d sailed all the way up to New York city, I’d finally be a ‘real sailor’!

Recently though I’ve realised something profound. (For me at least!) I’d been silently assessing, researching and compiling data from all the sailing folk we’ve met. Trying to ascertain how we fit in to the cruising life. What kind of sailors we are. Which box we should slot ourselves into. And that was exactly the wrong perspective to have. 

Like anywhere, you invent your own life. Your own style of doing things. Carve out your own comfort zones, and then as far as sailing goes, pushing that envelope all the time.

Every time we find ourselves in a big storm with zero visibility, whipping winds, huge waves tossing us around, lightning snapping the water surface all around us, my boundaries are pushed a bit further.

Then there are the days where your boat is anchored directly across from the Manhattan skyline and you find yourself clad in your flip flops and ‘cruiser’ backpack, navigating the eclectic neighborhoods of NYC on foot. You gotta pinch yourself on those days.

Somewhere in my distant tactical memory are the days I pinched myself in the crystal blue turquoise waters of the Exumas in the Bahamas. It was like a different world. Yet what connects the two worlds is us, and our experience of both, and all the amazing worlds in between.

For the first 2 years I imagined that being a cruiser was living on your boat in tropical heat, with no a/c, swimming daily, listening to the ‘cruiser net’ on the VHF radio and enveloping yourself or at least observing the politics of the cruiser community in the islands. It was all about rum punches with frequent squalls, anchoring in clear sandy bottom places, spotting sting rays and turtles, enduring rough seas from island to island.

This year I’ve learned so much more. Cruising is what you make it, where you make it.

I haven’t swam in months, haven’t seen the bottom where we drop the anchor in about as long (there is a correspondence there!), and our VHF radio is constantly buzzing with local fishing boat traffic. I’m wearing faux fur-lined tights and fuzzy slippers and I can’t remember when I last broke a sweat. Cheap golden rum has been replaced with red wine and tots of whisky to warm the chilled soul.

Downtown Boston

Maine

Provincetown, Cape Cod

Provincetown dock

Gotta love Provincetown

Guest House Provincetown

But still, we are the observers. Taking our home with us, from bay to bay, city to village, climate to climate.

I’ve learned there is no such thing as a perfect sailor, we are learning more but we still make mistakes. But even my sailing heros make mistakes from time to time. We’re finding the intracoastal sailing quite easy, but we did buy a membership to TowBoatUS, so our confidence extends only that far! (They are on call to tow out boats that frequently find themselves ‘aground in the shoaling mud’).

We’ll be leaving this autumn wonderland soon, heading back to more southern climes, but the world lies ahead, undiscovered, beckoning a couple people who live on a boat, who crave the adventure and the thrill of the unknown. I’ve peeled back the box I started building for Shiloh, choosing instead the fluid, non defined beauty that is this experience. Like the ocean herself, we are moving.

#low carbin' in the USA

Being on a diet that is highly restrictive, full of fat and pseudo-Paleolithic is just soooo North American. ‘It’s a lifestyle’ we’re told. The fact that it’s nearly impossible to follow in an age where even cows are fed corn and everything is loaded with high fructose corn syrup just makes it more fun/challenging. But in response, the ‘healthy types’ have created a demand for grossly over-priced supposedly organic supermarkets that are popping up everywhere… so it’s a good thing we’re here in America when we decided to join that gang.

As humans we tend to categorize sections of our lives. For us there was the Caribbean phase, then the heaven that was The Bahamas and then there was the US East coast phase. Then it all hit us like a ton of bricks or a ton of weight. On the hips. And the tummies. All this carb rich food and rum squall partying had finally caught up with us.

Enter the post-indulgence phase.

We’re back from a lot of land-lubber life, car rental, road trips, restaurants. Restaurants. And sorry USA, but the inland waterways are NOT tempting as far as swimming goes. The boat is floating in a swamp brown stew, staining our hulls like a 30 year smoker’s teeth. Swimming? No thanks. Not to mention the reports in the news of dangerous bacteria lurking in the Chesapeake.

So, there goes our main form of exercise. We do walk, but hey, not enough. My jeans can confirm.

Now we are moving on the water again – New York City here we come!

But now it’s different. There is no bread. No pasta dinners onboard. No fast food burgers and fries. And the limitless cokes… ha! Not even packaged food of any kind. We’re eating meat and veggies and nuts and a few fruits. We may or may not be allowed dairy, but we’re eating cheese anyway, I mean come on. Who can live without cheese?

We’ve taken to reading every label, so our trips to the supermarket have become day long events. We stop in adorable little towns and have to walk quickly by the local creamery, and if we do stop in a pub to hear the live band, we drink a lot of water and sip one glass of red wine while drooling at the cool refreshing pints of our neighboring tables. And think to ourselves smugly of course: ‘if only they knew!’.

Its’ been at least 10 days. I don’t think we’ve lost any weight. When does that start then? But we’ve convinced ourselves we’re feeling healthier and thinking clearer. I’ve forgotten what a sandwich or a handful of potato chips tastes like.

Instead I’m living on the excitement of our imminent arrival in New York City, sailing right up under the Statue of Liberty. We may also take a road trip up to Maine to eat some lobster (that’s allowed), and tick that off the bucket list.

We’ve got some ocean sailing to do over the next few days, and I’m looking forward to that wide open feeling, sails up, deep breaths. That’s what it’s all about.

Maybe there will be a Trader Joe’s where we can buy some almond butter and organic avocado oil? Ooooh! Maybe they’ll have Stevia sweetened sodas in the fridge. It’ll be a $200 tiny brown paper (highly recyclable) bag of groceries, but we’ll be happy that we have the choice to eat healthy. Cuz this is America – land of the free, home of the #glutenfree, #lowcarb, #eggless, #dairyfree, #sugarfree, #soyfree, #grainfree, #vegan, #sodiumfree pancake mix.

Crystal Clear - the cycles of poverty and ignorance

I used to think that the situations on the Jerry Springer show were staged. But that was before we visited Daytona Beach.

I used to believe that the sheer ignorance and depravity of the people on that show were faked for some sick pleasure of the audience.

But that was before we visited a local laundromat in Elizabeth City. Where we met 'Crystal'.

One thing I love about cruising is meeting people from all walks of life. In every type of place imaginable.

And then there are the ‘Crystal’ days. When I marvel at this world and all it’s made up of. America, fabled land of freedom and opportunity. Where Crystal is a 25 year old blond, blue eyed, toothless, clinically obese girl, sipping on a McDonalds Big Gulp trying to get her laundry done ‘cuz she works 7 days a week at Hardee’s’ fast food up the road. 

Why does she work so much? Cuz she “loves money, sho’ nuff!”

Like us, Crystal is complaining about the laundromat. For me, it’s the thick layers of grime on the walls, floors, and pretty much every machine. I’m worried the clothes will leave this place dirtier than when I brought them in. Crystal says the dryers don’t work and it’s a rip off and the place should be ripped down. I agree.

But we are drawn together in this place, out of necessity.

For Crystal, it’s because her landlord refuses to fix a leak at her apartment and she is refusing to pay her water bill. So presumably the water’s been cut off. She assures us that she ‘ain’t payin’ the rent neither’, so presumably she’ll be on the streets again soon.

This won’t be the first time. She points a stubby finger through the grimy window across the street. “I was staying in the shelter beside the Taco Bell” for a while when I had my kids.

Crystal has two children. Their names are tattooed boldly on each arm. The girl is Nevaeh (heaven spelled backwards) and the boy, Isaiah. She explains that they have been taken away by Child Services and have been adopted by some ‘army family’ who live across the country. They have been gone two years. But she is sure that she’ll get them back one day.

“It’s my family’s fault. They’re racist bastards. They hate black people and my kids are mixed race. They called Child Services on me and had my kids taken away lotsa times. Charged me with neglect. But they never helped me with ‘em. The last time they went to the day care and stole ‘em. Haven’t seen ‘em since.”

Crystal pulls out her fancy Samsung phone and finds some photos to show us. Staring back at me on the smudged screen is a frail 3 year old in a torn pink t-shirt, a huge smile. It breaks my heart.

Crystal tells us that the adoptive family has changed her kids names – both first and last names. At 4 and 6 years old. This sounds absurd to us, along with the fact that she pays child support monthly or it’s garnished from her wages.

She lives with her Haitian boyfriend who she repeatedly calls ‘crazy’. They have his 7 year old boy with them. What about the father of her own kids? “No where to be found. He don’t care, don’t look after them, never did”.

She hasn’t seen her own family in over a year, though they all live in this town. All 14 siblings. According to her, they’re all racist. Except her brother. But he’s been on the run for 9 years.

What for? “He done did some things he shouldn’ta done. Robbed some warehouses…”

Crystal smiles as she remembers, “he robbed Honey Bun warehouse one time, showed up at my sister’s house with a whole heap of donuts. Snacks. Like a whole truck full! We said ‘where you get all them donuts from?! And he’s like don’t y’all worry, just give ‘em to all the kids. Next thing you know the cops show up and tell us we gotta give back all them snacks!”

Crystal also tells us about her other 2 kids, and when JW almost falls off his chair, she explained that they were dead. She casually describes being beaten at 5 months pregnant, at a house party, with her daughter standing by.

It was two women and a man and they kicked her repeatedly in the stomach. As we gasp, she laughs. I guess it’s been a crazy life! But anyway, my daughter was cryin’ after me, and later I jus’ started bleedin’”.  She lost the twins within a few days. Later she was ridden with infection and had to have a full hysterectomy. Maybe that was a good thing. Is there anything good in this story?

She showed us her scar ridden, gelatinous belly. That was the icing on this dismal cake. The life of the uneducated, repeating the mistakes and patterns of their parents before them…

She was taken away from her mother when she was a kid as well. She has never been happy, never felt loved. I saw her in her daughter’s eyes.

And then she was gone. And our laundry was done and we moved on. Untied from this city dock, and headed out. 

Shiloh, tied up on the city dock in Elizabeth City - even had our own gate!

Junior Captain at the helm, up the 'ditch'

Tying up in a lock

What lies ahead and to either side of us?

As we snake our way up the ditch, trees lining our path, I wonder what human stories are lurking, the pain and heartaches, the innocence of the children. The sordid details that are making their way to the next Jerry Springer line up.

What?! This blog’s not gonna write itself? Musings on diners and the ditch

When you travel up the US coast on the ICW, you can stop in places like St Augustine and visit Tammy’s Comfort Food diner where the sign that greets you on entering the small greasy ‘prison brick’ swamp green walled diner, says “I’m running out of reasons not to stab you.” 

The emaciated adolescent waitress actually has a great sense of humour and apparently 2 young boys at home. She claims she’s known around town for filling her pick up truck with trash. At Tammy’s you can get deep fried pork chops and battered and fried okra with fried hash browns and … well there is a theme there. 

Friendly and one of a kind, it’s on the main highway along with Walmart Supercenter and the Piggly Wiggly. You could also walk the quaint historic downtown with it’s cobblestone streets and ghost tour operators beckoning. You can also make yourself literally sick with free samples from the rivaling fudge and praline shops… not that I know by experience!

Main tourist street St Augustine - the guy on the right never moved. For days.

You might stumble upon the 4^th of July celebrations and be treated to the best fireworks on the planet and share the experience with thousands of patriotic Americans. In fact, you may be caught up in the spirit of it all, and a 2 day stop might become a week!

And then, to make up time, you might decide to head out to sea through one of the inlets where rip currents well, rip. Where the seas could go from a couple feet to 10 feet in minutes and the wind could pick up to 25 knots directly against you. The sky could be building a plethora of monstrous storm clouds to usher you along, with the constant threat of lightning strikes and torrential downpours to compliment the wind and the big seas…

You could be out there on an overnight sail – because up the ICW you just can’t drive in the dark and you have so many hundreds of miles to cover – and of course only as darkness descends, the storms become a mass over you on your radar and in reality, and the crew will huddle inside as the rain beats and whips your boat as it surfs high, then plunges into the caverns between the waves. If you look out your windows – which Shiloh has many of – you will see only grey, sea foam and buckets of rain making it all a ‘perfect storm’ blur….

And this could be your reality for the whole night. Hours of rain and waves and no sleep to be had. You will realise you haven’t eaten the whole day and that it’s not only due to your queasy stomachs, but also the fact that you could barely pour water to drink, let alone grab food from the fridge or spread anything on bread. Cooking?! Hah!

But when you arrive in the next port, 130 miles further north, drop your anchor right in the channel at 6am and pass out ‘til noon, you wake revitalized and convincing yourself that was the much smarter thing to do. By that evening you could be walking around a neighborhood amusement park with rickety rides and an outdoor bingo hall and you could be enjoying it all as much as the locals.

Oh yeah! Outdoor Bingo!

You might forget for an hour or two that you still have the dream of sailing into New York, waving at the Statue of Liberty from your humble boat below… and that it’s more than 500 miles further north.

You have, after all, covered 4 states in the last few weeks, and have started counting when you’ve washed your hair by the state…

You may decide to ‘do a couple days up the ditch’ as the ICW is affectionately known locally, marveling at the endlessly long jetties that reach out from the swampy shores toward you, the millions of homes that line the banks, shacks to mansions and of course the trailer parks, and the smiling waving people in speed boats and jet skis that whiz past. There are the friendly, clean and helpful marinas that fill your always hungry diesel engines (since you can’t actually sail), and the endless supply of free water – gone are the days of .90 cents a gallon like Bequia and the Bahamas. Here, there is everything in abundance.

Historic houses

Local houses

Lovely marina for a fuel stop - Fernandina Florida

There are the rare but lovely uninhabited islands like Cumberland where wild horses roam the expansive beaches, and the trails are beautiful and so well maintained… Then there are the huge factories pumping out smoke and stench and are less than picturesque…

Walking over to the beach - Cumberland Island

You might be tempted to snicker as the boat in front of you hits the shoaling ground just off the marked path, only to hit it like a ton of bricks yourself the next day, all 15 tonns of your boat meeting thick, black, immovable sludge, and though you manage to back up ‘real fast’ to free yourself, you’ll feel much better about that investment you made in ‘TowBoat US’ you made when you first arrived…

But however you slice up your journey, it will NOT be boring.

You might find yourself in Swansboro at Yana’s Ye Old Drugstore diner, plastered as it is with 70’s wood paneling, dusty Elvis and Marilyn paraphernalia, and hungry local fishermen and their families on a Saturday morning, earnestly gulping down hot grits…

There will be many more towns and taverns and some sailing out there as well. Each night you will be in awe as the sky dazzles red orange and fuschia as the sun sets over the anchorages and towns. And as it all chocks up to an experience, you will never for a moment wish you were anywhere else.

The Rat, the Thief and the Police

There was no way of knowing when I woke yesterday morning, sitting in the cockpit with coffee in hand, that somewhere around midnight I’d be in the front seat of a police cruiser, filling out a victim’s report.

No way of guessing at all that while we strolled the sunny, family-clad beaches of Daytona in the afternoon, stopping for frosty draft beers, that somewhere near our anchorage roamed an unstable, criminal, high on drugs, whose life would soon clash with ours.

While we watched from below as ‘junior captain’ and ‘Al of Alley Cat’ were projected into the air on a massive human sling shot, screaming as they were flung above buildings and back down again in stomach churning seconds, the meth addict, beads of sweat on his clammy brow, was desperately climbing along the docks from boat to boat, back at the Halifax Harbor Marina in search of something to help him secure his next hit. 

Suspecting nothing, we sat in Hog Heaven as darkness fell across Daytona, licking gooey barbecue sauce fingers after gobbling up the most melt-in-your-mouth, fall-off-the-bone baby back ribs. Meanwhile a criminal had been reported, identified and chased from the marina to the next lot where he had stolen the wallet of a hobie cat sailor. Two police cars sped through the city streets, lights flashing, sirens blaring.

Across the city, we strolled again, the curio shops enticing us with brightly dressed mannequins all red, white and blue for the upcoming July 4^th, their lights and cool air calling us in as we digested our delicious supper and headed toward the parking lot. My phone lay dormant in my bag, numerous unread messages on my facebook account from an officer of the Daytona Police Force, telling a tale we wouldn’t have believed had we read it…  

But we didn’t, as it were, and as we arrived back to Shiloh in the dark I was distracted by a four legged critter, a rodent actually, specifically a RAT - that had swum from shore and managed to pull himself up onto our sugar scoop (back step). No way of knowing he was not the first intruder of the night. He scurried back and forth, shocked by my high pitched scream and desperate to escape. Eventually he made the huge jumps up the steps and disappeared somewhere on board.

We all clambered aboard, a dinghy oar in hand, ready to whack-a-rat but immediately it became apparent something else was not right. Our key was missing from it’s hiding place. The engine kill switches were pulled out and the ignition keys which we never remove were hanging down. Then we started to notice other things, like the steering wheel which was set at 90 degrees – when we always leave it centered. And then there were the numerous muddy footprints around the cockpit.

The rat became the least of our worries as we then knew someone had been on board and had tampered with the engines. And since we hadn’t dragged, we knew it was not a helpful Samaritan… ‘Junior captain’ volunteered to climb inside through his cabin hatch (since we had no keys for the front door), and check if the intruder was still onboard. He swept the place and declared that we were alone.

Once inside we noticed the most mysterious thing of all. Our nav table, laden with ipads and computers, had been cleaned off and all the gadgets set aside – not stolen! Someone had rummaged through our papers and had left a few on top. But nothing was missing.

Scratching our heads we figured we should call someone and report this, since our keys were gone and the intruder would know where to come back! We called the coast guard who called the police.

An hour later it was well past midnight and we were on shore, surrounded by police cars and a jovial group of officers who began to explain what had happened in our absence.

The ‘suspect’ had apparently been cornered after stealing someone’s wallet and he had jumped into the mud brown waters, heading straight toward Shiloh.

Once aboard he seemed to find our keys pretty quickly – time to change that hiding place! He had started the engines and tried to take off with the boat. Only in his drugged out state and most likely exhaustion from the long swim, he failed to realise he would need to get the anchor up. But the windlass trip was off and the anchor was buried in thick black mud…

Meanwhile the shore police had called the boat police and soon Shiloh was hosting a bunch of guys with guns in uniform along with a violent criminal. Fun times! And we missed it all.

The police had tried to find some way of contacting us and had gone through the documents hoping to find a phone number. Instead they found our boat cards with my blog url and they’d gone to my facebook page. So by the time we met, they knew all about our journey and how unimpressed we’d been with Titusville and Cocoa!!

They asked us to press charges and explained that the suspect was a repeat offender who would be charged with the attempted theft of our vessel. I’m suspecting this will be a serious charge.

They assured us we didn’t have to ‘stick around’ to testify or anything in person but that we would be contacted by the district attorney. We filled out the victim’s statement report and were given a case number.

And then we chatted about the nice towns further north where one of the officers was about to take his annual holiday. We got his business card and said we hoped to meet him up there on the water somewhere. We pet his German trained dog and headed back, exhausted and a bit in shock, to Shiloh.

Out of all this, what we are left with is a sincere appreciation and respect for the intelligence and initiative of the law enforcement. From our arrival in the US where customs and immigration officials came down to a fuel dock to meet us and check us in, to the level of professionalism of the officers last night, I have to say we are pleasantly surprised and grateful.

It’s not every police force that would have tried finding us through facebook or a blog! Not many officers who would have returned to the scene on the hour until they found us arriving back – eager to hand us back our keys and assure us that though something awful had happened, they had it under control.

______

And somewhere this morning in a dim cell sits a suspect. Salt caked clothes and perhaps a few bruises from his last attempt to resist arrest, coming down hard from his last high for a while. He’s got a lot to think about. He’s being charged with trying to steal our boat. Our lives crossed paths in such a violent and tragic way and yet we will never know him or his story. An American story.

Meanwhile we can only hope the rat fell overboard. We head onward, winding our way up the narrow channel that is the ICW, flanked on both sides with homes and boats, trailer parks and stretches of marsh and bush. 

We look forward to more American stories, hopefully positive ones, and despite their efficiency, less dealings with the authorities.