We went sailing with our good friend, Dick,
Though his boat isn’t nimble or quick,
She is classy as heck,
Lovely lines, great big deck,
And a schooner! (Yep, more than one stick.)
What a perfect day! A shame we forgot the camera, though.
The story behind this limerick is explained in the essay, “Schooner or Later.”
Here’s a fun series of questions:
As I write this, I am on a boat, one that is firmly aground, with 7 sturdy jackstands beneath it and an 8-foot wooden ladder between me and the rest of the world. I go to sleep at night in the v-berth, my face just a few feet beneath the forward hatch. Before I close my eyes, I look up and see the stars and moon.
But I miss the motion of a boat. I miss the sound of water against the hull. I’ve gotten used to being on a boat-with-no-motion, but there’s definitely something wrong with it.
In the past year, we’ve visited friends whose boats are in the water, to remember the feeling. Stepping aboard Ocean Gypsy, I love the way the side deck gently dips to accept my weight. When we rode out to Honey Moon in the dinghy in January, I just wanted to throw my head back and holler “Yee haw!” as we zipped across the anchorage. A moving boat is a wonderful thing.
It’s moving. But it’s still not sailing.
In January, we took a day to help our friend Dick motor up to New Bern in his steel schooner, Ula G. It was fun to get out on the water, but Dick picked one of the coldest days of the year. We joked about the cold as we huddled on deck, wearing every scrap of clothing we owned. In our foulies and hoods and gloves and PFDs, Dick could hardly tell us apart, although Barry does have a lower voice and I giggle more. At the time, I thought about how nice it would be when the weather warmed up and we could actually sail.
Yesterday was the day I’d been hoping for. We had originally planned to drive up to New Bern and help Dick take his parents out sailing. That plan fell through when they left a day early, but we decided to go up anyway.
With the help of Dick’s friendly neighbors to cast off the lines (the freeboard on this boat resembles that of a container ship), we headed out the Neuse River.
Back when I learned to sail on a simple catboat with one sail, I had jib-phobia. I was intimidated by the thought of a boat with more than one sail. I was also petrified at the thought of operating a boat bigger than 20 feet.
Now, here I was, aboard a real schooner, almost fifty feet long, with five tanbark (Dick calls them orange) sails to choose from (we used three), and all the attendant lines and strings to play with. I no longer have jib-phobia, having sailed on sloops and ketches and yawls and junk rigs. I’m not afraid of really big boats, either. Seems like all our friends have ‘em.
I laid on the bow with my head hanging over the bulwark, mesmerized by the bow wave as the hull sliced through the sparkling blue water. The sound of the water was like celestial music.
Back at the wheel, I sat astride the helmsman’s seat, and I did throw back my head and let out a hearty “Yee haw!” Dick laughed and teased me about my “shit-eating grin.”
For Dick, it was a whole different experience from taking his 79-year-old parents out the previous day.
“Was this the first time they’d seen your boat?” I asked.
“It was their first time on a sailboat,” he admitted.
That made me pause. The first time they went sailing? Friday. The last time they went sailing? Friday. Their first time on a schooner? Friday.
The funny thing is, only one of my answers is substantially different.
The first time I went sailing? 1982. The last time I went sailing? Saturday. The first time on a traditional schooner? Saturday.
There’s one more question to ask, and I suspect that here, our answers will diverge greatly. How often would you like to go sailing?
I suspect that Dick’s parents are content with the amount of sailing they’ve done in their lives: Once.
But I want to go sailing again. I want to hear water against the hull, want to sit at the wheel and go “Yee haw!” I want to hang my head over the side and watch the water flowing past for hours — every day.
(There’s a related limerick: “News of the Neuse.”)
I made a comment to Kenny last week about our struggles to paint between spells of wind and rain. “Better hurry,” he said, “pollen’s coming.”
We didn’t finish in time. Amazing amounts of pollen drifted over everything, tinting boats and vehicles and ground yellow. When it rained, there were strange pollen patterns on our hatches, and yellow rings on the ground when the puddles evaporated. We put our painting aside.
The pollen is just another sign of North Carolina spring, along with a tiny white flower blooming under our boat. At night, we hear the sound of peeping frogs, and the birdsong at dusk is like an orchestra. There have even been a few early mosquitoes, no-see-ums, and dolphins.
There’s another sign of spring, up on the high bridge that soars over the boatyard. We are so used to the sound of bridge traffic, we hardly notice cars and trucks as they pass by. But a motorcycle makes a different sound — and when I heard several of them crossing the bridge, I looked up. They just kept coming, and I counted 26 in all, out to enjoy the beautiful weather.
Last week, we had our first northbound cruising boat, Lady Simcoe. Gordon and Susan had been out cruising the Bahamas for the winter, and now it was time to lay the boat up and go back to work in Canada. They invited us aboard, and we sat in their cockpit, drinking Fire in de Hole Erotic Rum and hearing their stories. Barry hadn’t seen the label, and he asked me, “Don’t you mean exotic?” But there is nothing exotic about rum in the Bahamas — and the dancing lady on the label is definitely erotic.
Gordon and Susan told us one disquieting thing about cruising in the Bahamas. In order to get crucial weather information, all the cruisers listen to a daily radio “net.” The net’s at the ungodly hour of 6:30 am, which keeps the cruisers on an early-morning schedule. “Parties would break up at 8 o’clock, and we’d all be in bed by 9.” They laughed, but it doesn’t sound like much fun to this pair of night-owls.
Soon, we’ll be seeing more tanned northbound cruisers like them on the waterway. Which ones will stop for a haulout? We can only wait and see, and look forward to meeting them.
There is one thing I’m not looking forward to. A couple of our cruising friends left their vehicles here while they are in the Caribbean. Any day now, they’ll be back, and I’m a little embarrassed that we’re not gone yet. “What? Are you still here?” Then they’ll tell us about their cruising adventures, and we’ll tell them about epoxy-squirting disasters and paint jobs with stigmata and tiny white flowers growing under our boat.
And then we’ll all laugh and go out to dinner. I’m looking forward to that.
He could navigate, stand watch, and steer,
And he learned to drink warm rum and beer,
He’s a proper sea cat,
Never seasick! But that
Wasn’t true on the highways, I hear.
Ernie the Cat returned to the boatyard yesterday, after a 2-month cruise to Florida. He did great on the boat, but not so well in the car.
It’s a tiny town, you can hang around with me
It’s a tiny town, and ev’rybody knows what you been doin’
(with apologies to David Byrne)
We’d put away the tools, cleaned the sanding dust, and moved a few things to storage to make the boat presentable. Dinner was cooking, and we had the makings for sangria. But as I looked around the boat, I worried about the next few days.
Would Dad be comfortable here with us? He has more room in his walk-in closet than we have in our combined living room, kitchen, dining room, and office. Would he like Beaufort? It’s a tiny little town, and we don’t know anybody here.
A friendly honk interrupted my survey, and I scampered down the ladder for a hug. Dad had driven from Florida to Myrtle Beach for a conference and get-together with journalist friends. A few more hours of driving brought him to Beaufort, where he planned to spend five days with us.
First, though, he had to master the ladder. Although Flutterby‘s centerboard makes her much lower than most of the sailboats in the yard, it’s still a daunting 8 feet to the cockpit. Then about 4 feet down the companionway to the interior.
Barry and I do it dozens of times a day, in the daylight and in the dark, with arms full of tools and groceries and boat parts. We’ve had occasional slips — at least three bruising incidents on the companionway. I also took some priceless video of Barry going down the big ladder facing forward. About halfway down, he lost his footing and slid plink-plink-plink down the rungs, making a sound like a xylophone and landing in a heap at the bottom. Only his dignity was hurt, which is why he grabbed the camera and deleted the video.
Anyway, Dad made it up fine with us hovering anxiously, and was soon ensconced in our salon. Over the course of the week, we spent lots of time there, talking, listening to music, and spreading out newspapers, books, laptops, notecards, food, and beverages. My fears were groundless — the only spatial challenge was vertical. At 6’2″, Dad’s head brushes the ceiling, and going into the head is like climbing into a hobbit-hole.
I had planned short daily expeditions to see local sights, like the Maritime Museum and Fort Macon, and I’d checked with our boatyard expert, Larry, for restaurant recommendations.
By Tuesday, the rain had cleared, and we were at the Backstreet pub, listening to a lively Irish band and eating corned beef and cabbage. We were having a blast when along came our neighbor, John. Then we struck up a lively conversation with a couple from the University of Tennessee, and the two professors found lots to talk about. John left, and along came our Burning Man friend, Jeff. All this, in a town where we don’t know anybody.
On Wednesday, I suggested we check out the live music advertised at the Sandbar. So we parked at Town Creek marina, and I noticed our friend Ted sitting in the cockpit of Ocean Gypsy with a friend.
I called down from the parking lot. “Hi! We thought we’d come over and check out the Sandbar this evening.”
Ted told us, “You’d better come have a drink with us instead.”
Ted and his neighbor, Ron, said the Sandbar was a great little bar and restaurant. But the couple who ran the place weren’t getting along, and the woman left. She took the liquor license with her! This resulted in the police coming out on Saturday and shutting the bar down.
As a result, we sat in Ted’s spacious cockpit and swapped stories about book-publishing and sailing and life until it was almost dark. Dad got to see what a properly-outfitted Freedom 33 looks like, and we got to know Ron, who’s recently published a book, Sailing With Carol. All this, in a town where we don’t know anybody.
On Thursday, we took a ferry ride to Oriental, which considers itself the “sailboat capitol of the world.” We stopped at a waterfront park on the way and ran into a couple who’d been on the ferry with us. Dad ended up in conversation with the husband, and Barry and I started chatting with the wife…were we standing there in the sunshine talking for 30 minutes, or 45?
On Friday, we went into Beaufort and strolled Front Street, stopping into a few shops. We were browsing in Rocking Chair Books when Ted came in to see the owner, Kelli. After he introduced us, we were chatting with Kelli, and in walked our neighbor, Oscar. All this, in a town where we don’t know anybody.
The funny thing is, Dad has an even older friend here in the area, but he told me they’d been out of touch for a while. When he looked up his friend in the phone book and called him, I could tell something was amiss.
Dad had asked for Woody Price. Unfortunately, Woody had died eight years before, and his 94-year-old widow never, ever called her husband “Woody” — only “Woodrow.” Once they straightened that out, they had a nice chat.
When Dad finally got off the phone, I asked him how long he’d been out of touch with the Price’s. “I got Christmas cards from them for years, with a painting of their little saltbox house,” he reminisced. Then he told me he’d last run into Woody by chance during a trip to the Outer Banks. His wife hadn’t been with him on that trip, though.
Later, I checked the family photos on my computer. Dad’s last trip to the Outer Banks had been in 1971. He hadn’t seen Woody for 38 years, and hadn’t seen Mary for over 40. With his incredible memory for details, he made it sound like it was yesterday.
So many friends, new and old, in a tiny town where we don’t know anybody.
I’m complaining: “This weather is dumb!
“It is March, and now springtime should come!”
When a knock and a shout,
Makes me stick my head out,
“Well, hooray! Here comes Dick! Where’s the rum?”
After a teaser week of spring, we are now freezing! Outdoor temperatures were in the 20’s (Fahrenheit) when Dick arrived today, giving us a welcome respite from work. We enjoyed a warm and toasty gab-fest with tea and bakery-fresh bread, followed by pizza and rum.
I had a chilling phone conversation with my friend, John, last week. He’s been following my adventures in the boatyard, and he was puzzled by something. He phrased his question using an example he knows a lot about: Rally racing.
According to John, in the world of rallies, there are people who drive race cars (in his case, navigate), and there are people who work on race cars.
So he wants to know, am I just someone who works on boats, instead of sailing on them? Because in the years he’s known me, all I seem to do is work on boats.
I was flabbergasted. You know that story about the emperor with no clothes? That’s how I felt. “No, no,” I protested, “I’m not one of those people, like Oscar, who just work on boats forever.”
Oscar is the fellow here in the boatyard who has been working on his boat for 14 years with no sign of progress.
Still, I started to wonder, how does my working-on-boats time compare to my sailing-on-boats time?
Since I met John in 2002, I have worked on boats for 44 weeks and sailed on them for 25 weeks. Barry’s numbers are even worse — he’s worked for 48 weeks and only sailed for 23 weeks.
This brings to mind another phone conversation, this time with Lee. I was talking about my steep learning curve in fiberglass layups, portlight replacement, hatch installation, painting with 2-part paints, and all the other things I’m trying to learn this week. He pointed out that there’s conventional wisdom saying that a person needs to do something for 10,000 hours before they master it.
If I’m working toward 10,000 hours of boat repairs, I’ve got a long way to go.
Meanwhile, Lee points out that I already have my 10,000 hours in things like writing and graphic design. I would add marketing, editing, web design, content management, business analysis, cooking…
Which explains why it’s so much easier to sit down and write this than it is to fit a new hatch.
I also already have my 10,000 hours in one other area: Sailing. To answer John’s question, I’ll get back to that one of these days — after I learn how to fix boats.
There once was a fellow named Ted,
Who had lost all the boats in his shed,
With the Sharpies all gone,
It was time to move on,
Now he’s living in Freedom, instead.
A little context for this one is in order. We were working away on deck last week when I noticed a couple wandering around the boatyard. Then I realized they weren’t ambling aimlessly, they were heading right for us.
That’s how we met Ted and Malla. After a fire destroyed his boat shed in Vermont, Ted bought a Freedom 33 and named her Ocean Gypsy (after one of my favorite songs by Renaissance). He’s been moored in Beaufort for the winter. When he came down the ICW, he noticed us on shore and made a mental note to check out our boat.
We hit it off with these great folks, and a few days later, they invited us aboard Ocean Gypsy for an evening of pizza and stories. I feel better about my boat project now. I don’t just have a boat in the middle of a refit. I have a ticket to the fun, freedom-loving crowd.
We’ve been taking advantage of the beautiful, warm spring weather to get lots done. Combined with some graphic design and writing projects I’ve taken on, that means not a lot of time to write for the blog.
But I need to answer a recurring complaint that we haven’t posted any photos of the boat or the boatyard lately. I just got this picture from Nancy Bock, who’s compiling material for the website we’re doing. It was taken by her son, Alex, from the top of the Highway 101 bridge.
The photo shows less than half of Bock Marine. But as you can see, there are plenty of interesting people around Flutterby, and we have the best location in the yard — right on the water.
My broken toe limerick got some funny responses. One friend, who will remain nameless, said he once dropped his underwear, tried to kick them to the laundry hamper, hit the wall, and broke a toe. He had a hard time explaining why he was wearing steel-toed boots to his office job.
Here’s another funny response, in verse, from Elinor Narcross:
I was going to lunch
And was driving a bunch.
My foot went kerplunk
Caught myself on the trunk.
Got a break in my foot
Requiring a boot.
In the arm, bicep tear
All in all, worse for wear.
In November it occurred
Pre-holidays; my word!
Healing has taken place
And snow has covered space.
Been inside looking out
Sunshine now makes me shout.
If Spring does really arrive,
I’ll want to drive and drive and drive.
(given the line about the trunk, maybe she should switch to a hatchback?)
