I have been surfing the internet looking for ideas and suggestions on how to best tell them and have not [...]]]> Sabrina writes

We will be headed to my parent’s home next week. While we are there we will be telling them as well as my brother’s family that we are sailing away in 2013 (finally – yay!). I have been surfing the internet looking for ideas and suggestions on how to best tell them and have not been able to locate much. I didn’t see anything specifically on the Women & Cruising. Perhaps I missed it. Jessie’s book “The Cruising Woman’s Advisor” has some good info and so does Liza Copeland in “Cruising for Cowards” but I am looking for more input as I develop our discussion points and strategies for this discussion. Any advice, suggestions, hints or resources you have on this topic for me would be greatly appreciated. Fair Winds ~~_/)~~_/)~~_/)~~ Sabrina

Gwen Hamlin answers.

In truth, these days, it should be much less stressful than it used to be for families to watch you go because there are so many ways for you keep in communication to reassure them.

No longer is it the letter sent to a GPO address in some remote destination in hopes it will arrive before you pass through!

First: We had a slightly similar situation in that Don’s older, historically unadventurous parents , were very anxious about our going.

We did not task load them. We told them we were going for a cruise “down island” in the Caribbean. We added distance bit by bit, until his mother finally demanded when we were going to sail around the world like the couple in an article she’d read in the paper! We told her we didn’t really have any plans to sail around the word. That we wanted to go for the South Pacific.

I sometimes think that it is the enormity of a plan (in time or distance) that daunts onlookers. (Also by never claiming to be doing a circumnavigation, there was no sense of “failure” about NOT doing a circumnavigation. (We stopped in Australia after ten years.))

Then we made every effort we could to keep in touch. We added SSB/ham email on board so we could drop them a note every day if we wanted to, even in the midst of a long ocean passage. Back then it was a big deal to get his parents and daughter started on computers themselves, (not likely to be such a huge leap these days.)

Then we gave them planning scale charts, first of the Caribbean and Central America, later of the Pacific, and then set them up to receive our Winlink position reports so that his Dad could plot our progress across the big expanse of blue. Later we gave his daughter and nieces and nephews inflated globes so they could talk about where we were.

We sent post cards to all the family kids with appropriate pictures and pretty stamps as another strategy to fire their interest and keep them remembering who we were!

I started a website that was initially conceived for the family (and for former charter guests in the event we wanted to drum up charters in some foreign islands). I composed regular updates, which I posted on the website and later via a blog, but honestly, the persons who most appreciated that effort were never actually the family, but other cruisers! But in the end I’m glad I did it, but I’m glad I did it for me! It’s a fabulously detailed document of memories.

It is ironic, but it is a fact of life, as many cruisers will attest, folks back home often could care less about the details of your journey.

SPOT personal satellite tracker Photo: www.findmespot.com

These days it is so much easier. In addition to on board email, you can have a satellite phone, which eases their peace of mind about your ability to call out should you need help.

SPOT, the satellite tracker has a neat new model that in addition to posting position reports, interfaces with your SmartPhone to send out text messages over the satellite network. The nice thing about SPOT is you can carry it ashore on remote hikes as well.

Facebook actually is a real natural with cruisers. You can just say “All is well we have arrived” or you can add a link to a blog for those who want more info. I haven’t directly asked, but I see no reason why you couldn’t use SPOT to post to Facebook. A side benefit is you can friend all these cruisers you meet and part from, and keep a finger on the pulse of where they are and what they are doing.

Many destinations now have cellular networks (third world areas are often more advanced by having leapt over the whole wired network stage). In Fiji and Australia and in Indonesia this past year we were able to email and even Skype via cellular.

Plus, we made regular trips back to the States and made a circuit of our families. They see you are alive and thriving…plus you get to fill your suitcases with boat parts.

The long and short of it is, that if you wish to expend the effort you can stay as connected as you need to.

Understand, there are some cruisers who choose to just blow off those family connections and to live in the now of their experience. There is something to envy in that, but it would not have worked for us. For us the effort was worth the effort.

And here is the irony. We are currently back in the US, in Florida, and we regularly realize we have let days and days go by without a call or an email to his folks, which would never have happen when we were aboard. Even when they are here, just a few miles away wintering in their RV, our land lives can get so busy that a week can go by without touching base.

The truth is they heard from us much more regularly when we were cruising, and in the end there is no magic in geographical closeness. Just think how often people can be in the same town and not be in touch.

Cruising, on the other hand, can give you enough time to make the effort and something interesting to talk about! Plus, you are living a flexible enough lifestyle that if there is a calamity at home, you can jump on a plane and fly back. Try doing that with a full time career.

One last thing.

Safety precautions: Emergency MOB (Man Over Board) alert wristband

If you can explain to your family all the preparations you have made, the courses and certifications you have taken, the safety precautions you have installed, the equipment you have aboard to make passages safely, then you will help them have confidence in your ability to do what you are setting out to do.

Introduce them to this website (Women and Cruising Website) and have them read the Twelve Sailing Families collection. It will fire them all up to see that all those families had resistance from their families too but they can’t help but see in the end what a wonderful experience they all had. There’s also a little “If they can do it with kids, well then you should be alright” factor!

It won’t of course, completely stop them missing you, stop them worrying about you. But if you do what you can, they do adjust. And then there’s the fact that after 20+ years sailing, I feel much safer out there than driving down a highway back here. Bad things can happen anywhere, and are far more likely in our back yards than out there!

This is not my most organized response, but I wanted to dash out some moral support as promptly as I could. Good luck, and keep in touch with us. You might want to write a little post for the Women and Cruising website on how you end up addressing this and how it went.

Sincerely,

Gwen Hamlin
Admirals Angle

Read also on this website

• Communications Resources
• Staying in Touch  (Admiral’s Angle column #14)
  Out of sight of land no longer means out of touch: the ways and means cruisers stay in touch with each other and back home.
• Home for the Holidays (Admiral’s Angle column #16)
  Planning, compromises and new traditions keep holiday spirit alive.
• Logs and Blogs (Admiral’s Angle column #37)
  The tradition of recording voyage experiences doesn’t just preserve memories but encourages others to follow.
• Guests Aboard (Admiral’s Angle column #40)
  Some counsel about managing visits and visitors to enhance their experience and maintain crew sanity.

More information (external links)

• SPOT Personal Tracker
  Keep family updated with your location! SPOT notifies friends, family or an international rescue coordination center with your GPS location and status based on situation and need – all with the push of a button.

If you have a question about going cruising that you want answered,

- email it to: kathy@forcruisers.com,

- or join the next Women and Cruising seminar!

Men become swarthy, they get to grow beards and have an excuse to be unwashed and scruffy.

Unfortunately, what can be dashing for [...]]]> Ann, on HanaCrew, made a sad observation as we sat on deck in the marina in La Cruz: “Cruising seems to make men more manly, while women,” she noted, “watch their femininity disappear.”

Men become swarthy, they get to grow beards and have an excuse to be unwashed and scruffy.

Unfortunately, what can be dashing for men is not nearly so attractive in women!

The transition from landlubber looks to cruising couture happens quite rapidly.

For ease and convenience (and the preservation of bilge pumps) women often cut their hair shorter; Though in my case it was the result of having my daughter cut my hair while we were on a heel!

Contemporary waitress with funky tan lines

Their nails end up shorter, whether they plan it or not. For ease of movement they wear shorts or cut-off pants and they watch all their clothes develop rust stains, bleach scars and general rumpled inelegance.

The choice of shoes is confined to “Crocs” or water trekking sandals, both of which have probably made their appearance near the top of a yahoo list for ugliest footwear, and which tan the feet in untidy geometrics.

Women have neither time nor space for cosmetic regimens, and shaving in such a way as to avoid clogging drains is awkward and time consuming.

Jewelry needs to be stowed away, both for safety around moving machines and because it can present a robbery risk (sad personal experience).

Yet despite all these obstacles, women do hold onto their femininity and I asked a number of fellow cruisers what they do to maintain it.

Cruising is certainly not the domain of the diva. One woman I met was used to a maid, and while we would all agree that having one would present the ultimate solution to a host of challenges, we would also conclude that neither she nor her maid are ever likely to leave the dock.

I have made a point of asking friends without maids what life-line connects them to their feminine side and they always seem to have one.

Interestingly, one seems to be all they do need.

• One cruiser insists on blow drying her hair once a week.
• Another has chosen Friday as her makeup day (though, mascara running in humid heat put her off even that small indulgence).
• One even made a New Year’s resolution that she was going to try in general to dress more like a flower.
• Another credits a daily nap with maintaining her looks, and no doubt, sanity.
• Other friends paint just their toe nails or make themselves inexpensive jewelry.  Many are the marinas with a busy group of women sharing beads, materials and artistic talent.

No matter how you try to pare down your wardrobe before cruising you will still find yourself wearing only a small portion of it.

With nothing more than a change of “Crocs” and a color co-ordinated cover-up, you can take your bland boat wear to luncheon, window shopping or a dinner out.

The trouble is you still need to have clothes for the extremes of heat and cold just in case. I need to keep revisiting my clothes, packed tightly in geological layers, in order to reacquaint myself with what I have.

I found I actually have some pretty clothes somewhere round the cretaceous period, but the occasions to wear them are so few and far between. And then there’s the risk that the white skirt you do put on will find the one splash of oil that made its way from the oil change in the engine room to the rim of the navigation station (though for that disaster I found that the product “Goop”, by Critzas Industries, was miraculous).

White is, in general, a good color to have a lot of because of its bleachability, and nothing screams “I’m clean and fresh and my life is in order” so well as a white shirt after the first shower on hitting land. Wrinkle proof clothes or ones that are supposed to look wrinkled are good to find.

Remember what’s in your wardrobe when you wander through the craft markets and you end up with outfit-creating accessories

Having one wardrobe item that can dress up your standard live-aboard livery is economical of both space and cost for those times when more glamour is required. A shawl is probably the easiest such item to store, and a stunning variety can be found on all your travels.

Having two pieces or accessories of your outfit match in color is also amazingly powerful at glamorizing and pulling together a look from cheap and cheerful. Keep this in mind when hesitating over dazzling choices in the markets and decision making becomes easier.

While we are on the subject of maintaining looks we cannot overlook the importance of protecting our skin.

Me in a protective hat!

Our clothes might be irredeemably blotchy and wrinkled but our skin should not be. Wind and sun both burn so you need balaclavas and sun hats as well as sunscreen, moisturizer and lip protection.

Prevention and early detection are vital. Skin cancer is no respecter of age, as my 12 year old daughter found out when I insisted that a dermatologist remove a mole that had changed. The doctor suggested we watch it over time but my insistence proved providential when the lab results came back positive and an even wider margin of healthy tissue removal was prescribed.

None of us need to sun bathe in order to get a color, or indeed, to manufacture the vitamin D that we are now told we are short of. We already spend so much of our days outside, and most of us have managed our movements to ensure almost constant summer.

What can I not do without?

During my childhood in Australia there was a television advertisement for “Mum” brand deodorant that consisted of a scantily clad woman coyly enumerating all the things she could do without. These included her bra and her boyfriend, but she insisted she could not do without her “Mum”.

So what, you ask, can I not do without?

Personally I have developed a wardrobe that could be classified as contemporary waitress, which makes mixing and matching decisions obsolete.

I won’t go anywhere without a chapstick. My make-up bag consists of a moisturizer and a lip stick. A good set of cuticle scissors, tweezers a pumice stone and a razor constitute my personal care arsenal. I would also agree emphatically with the advertisement model on the importance of an antiperspirant deodorant. At the end of the ad, however, she confides that she can’t actually do without her boyfriend.

And in the end, for all the cruising women I meet, after all my random sampling and personal experience, what can they not do without? What is the essential solution to the challenge of staying pink in a blue world?

Connections to other women.

Cruising women in Ensenada have been meeting for four years every Friday morning to paint and craft.

However closely bound they are as a cruising team with their husbands, women need the company of other women, even more than they need a maid (OK I might be going out on a limb with that one).

Hands of friendship transferring skills in a jewelry workshop

Women are extraordinarily rapid at forming deep supportive friendships and it is these bonds, formed in the challenging, changing situations that cruising women find themselves, that I believe are more crucial than any beauty regimen.

The value of those beading groups is not so much in the baubles created but in the bonds cemented. Clearly it is important to maintain at least one link to the pink pursuits of a former existence, but more than anything, just being able to spend time with women in non boating chores is what helps the most.

About Clare Collins

Clare and her family have made their home on one of the BT Challenge race boats.  They are currently stationary as they work to revive the kitty before continuing home to Australia.

Clare has a passion for textiles and seeks out embroidered or appliqué work and fabric dolls made by the indigenous people of the places she visits.

Her family’s adventures are documented at www.ironbarque.net. The account of her family’s quest to fulfill their dream of sailing can be found on this website: “Taking the Plunge”.

Read also on this website

• Beauty and Da Boat (Gwen Hamlin’s Admiral’s Angle column #20):
  Keeping ourselves looking good is not so hard, but it’s different!
• What we wear (Admiral’s Angle column #10):
  Most cruisers pack way too many clothes and the wrong kind.  Forethought will help space and laundry issues.
• Shampoo and soap for bathing in salt water? by Women & Cruising
• Fighting Fears: Taking the Plunge by Clare Collins

Question?

How do you maintain your femininity aboard?

Email kathy@forcruisers.com or leave a comment below.

There is lots of good company here, [...]]]> We are still year round boaters and consider from time to time when we might head off again for a year or more of sailing. Currently work beckons and so we enjoy Witchcraft, sailing when we can in the Thousand Islands Region. It sure could be worse.

There is lots of good company here, many interesting boats and a boat builder specializing in Fire and Rescue Boats, some of which many of you may have seen in action.

“What would we do differently when we strike off again” is a question — or perhaps a series of questions.

Did we enjoy our travels? Was it worth it? Would we do it again? Are there things we would do differently? The answer to all of those questions is ABSOLUTELY.

Next time we will leave earlier.

Erie Canal, September 24

We left Kingston Ontario on September 15. Next time we will leave earlier.

There are a couple of reasons for this. It would be a warmer transit of the northern part of the journey south. Since we felt chased by the cold there were places we only waved at on the way past.

Honestly, one cannot fully explore every spot on a single trip, but there is something to be said for a more leisurely transit.

We would replace our aging engine with something more powerful, and presumably quieter.

Changing oil

We had no idea how many hours the old beast had on her, and she always went, never missing a beat. However, we were concerned about it all the time. That was a rather large elephant in the saloon that we would not want to travel with again.

Will the expense of a new engine delay our departure? Most likely it will, as they are a dollar-sucking piece of kit.

Since one is under motor so much, first in the canals, and then in the ICW it seems a prudent and sensible thing to do before another longish journey.

There are a few things we would stock up on.

We did not feel the need to stuff every available spot in the boat with food from home before we left. People eat everywhere so food can be obtained, if one is not overly attached to what you eat at home. We still feel that way, there are however a few things we would stock up on. They seem like odd things: large tins or bottles of sesame oil, large containers or many small ones of the curry paste we use so much of, and basmati rice.

More seals for the raw water pump

Other non-food items include more seals for the raw water pump. Although we carried extra, we needed more, which we were able to obtain via the help of a family member at home. So now we know: more of those than we thought were necessary should come along with us.

Truthfully (and luckily) most of the extra engine parts we packed, are still awaiting use. That was a pleasant thing to have happen. The same was true of the head and galley pump repair kits.

We would take all of those items again, since they could and likely would be difficult to replace.

We would try to have some sort of full enclosure for our cockpit.

Our boat essentially has an open cockpit. Weather cloths and the awnings we made before we left were helpful for rain and shade. They are in fact an essential minimum. We would try to have some sort of full enclosure, or as close to full as we could achieve. This would have made a huge difference in our comfort during those cold nights offshore from New York City.

A different main anchor

At anchor at Whale Cay in the Berrie Islands

I would consider a different anchor as a main anchor, but my partner would be reluctant to change. We dragged once and it was our fault, not a failing of the anchor. Still I fancy one of those Manson or Rocna styles. Not an essential change, merely a nice one…

There are likely a few other things, and perhaps they could be added at another time.

Most importantly we had a terrific time and look forward to the next trip aboard Witchcraft.

She was safe and comfortable for our travels and that, after all, is the prime consideration.

Fair Winds,

Ruth

SV Witchcraft

About Ruth Allen

I have been living aboard Witchcraft, my Tom Colvin designed ketch for the last six years. As soon as my four children were launched my husband (Mark) and I emptied the house, and left the land behind.

We are not full time cruisers since we are not retired. I work at West Marine Canada which gives me the opportunity to combine work and pleasure.

I live in Canada and sail every chance I get. I came to sailing later in life and found a new passion.

Visit Ruth’s blog: www.mytb.org/svwitchcraft

Related articles on Women and Cruising

More articles from Ruth Allen

• Ruth Allen’s secret weapon against fear: the theme song from Gilligan’s Island
• Ruth says: To learn about a place, volunteer!

More Info

• Ruth’s blog: www.mytb.org/svwitchcraft

What would YOU do differently next time?

Leave a comment below or email us: kathy@forcruisers.com

The following excerpts are [...]]]> In their new book Cruising conversations with a daring duo! Corinne and Chuck Kanter delve through their 30+ years of sailing experience, especially their 15 years as full-time liveaboards. In this memoir, they share their learning experiences, the wonderful people they met, and the joys of the lifestyle outside the proverbial box.

The following excerpts are from the chapter “Woman to Woman”.

My life style

Cruising was a new way of life for us and our family. It bore little relationship to anything we ever did before and totally shook up our three children. Sure, we had plenty of family sailing, racing, fishing and other outdoor activity, experience, but living aboard and cruising? Decisions, decisions, some of the considerations we had were, think about selling the house or renting the house, unloading stuff to kids or relatives or storing goods.

Beginnings

We began as weekend sailors with our three small children and a trailerable sailboat. That boat, a Venture 24 swing keel, didn’t have all the shore side comforts and was simplicity on board but we were self sufficient and willing to depend mostly on wind and sail power. However it was a dramatic improvement over our eighteen-foot cathedral hull Sport Craft power boat in which, a year earlier, the five of us, to stave off perceived hypothermia, had slept in the same sleeping bag while anchored in Rockport, Massachusetts harbor. (In August!)

“If you haven’t got it, it can’t break!” became our watch word.

In 1969 we trailered our 24ft. Venture, swing keel sailboat to Miami Beach and launched it at Haulover Park to begin a three-week cruise. The children were then seven, eight and nine year’s old. On board there were a hand bearing compass, parallel rules and TEXACO marine maps; there was no VHF.

We sailed from Miami Beach to Key West and half way back to Key Vaca, Marathon. Chuck then got on a Greyhound bus back to Miami to get our station wagon with attached boat trailer to come back to get the boat and family. We then headed home to Annapolis, MD and used the boat on the trailer as an RV on the way up north, but that’s another story.

When we decided to go cruising full time, our first cruise lasted six months. I left my travel agent job, untied the dock lines with the words from my boss, “your job won’t be available when you get back” ringing in my ears. Well, came spring, I returned along with the migratory birds, tied up to the dock, and within hours, I was welcomed to my old job. Wow, I thought when you are good at your profession, there’s always a job.

More than anything I learned quite a bit about myself on that sixth month cruise. When autumn rolled around I didn’t hesitate one bit and left for 15 years without any regrets. I learned that consideration, thoughtfulness on what I gave up or exchange was with compromise. At the time I did not realize what sailing would bring, of the new adventures would lead up to. I know now it has given me a lifestyle of adventure along with wonderful memories.

What is the cruising way of life?

The cruising way of life to me is a delicate balance of communication and respect for each other. There will be times when someone must obey an order. It’s nothing personal, just another compromise. Each one of us has disagreed at times and will disagree again. The most important thing for you to do is talk, plan, discuss, even compromise with your partner, you will become a new lifestyle together, if you disagree entirely, you may wind up sailing alone.

Some folks are unable to adjust to reality when it does not match up to their expectations. For example, I remember when we arrived in Georgetown, Bahamas, seeing signs, “Boat for sale.” One of the partners on board was pushing too hard. My advice on that is to listen, respect the other’s position without shouting. Make a list of basic questions and thoughts that come into your mind. Talk it out with your mate. Your new lifestyle is just around the corner. Believe me. It’s really a new beginning for all. I always feel if one has a goal and you reach it, there’s another goal. On the other hand, it has often been said that it is the journey rather than the destination that is important.

Perhaps you’re asking yourself, will your new lifestyle be today here, tomorrow there, or will you have a set plan to be in certain areas during certain times of the year, perhaps circumnavigation, voyaging long overnighters or you can choose to do it gradually along the coastline, anchoring or going into a marina, or once you get to one’s destination you may want to settle in for a while. You may have to fill the kitty along the way, you’ve got talent and there are lots of jobs available even part-time, for any hardworking, honest, reliable person.

Marathon, in the Florida Keys is our home port, and we see many boats anchored in Boot Key Harbor, some of those folks who work onshore are filling their cruising kitty before jumping off to their next destination. Some folks will leave the so-called security of a house, apartment or condo, with no more grass to mow, no more taking care of an automobile, leaving a regular 9-5 job, with ease others can’t.

Research, do some soul searching before you make the final decision for full time cruising, if there is any hesitation on your part, try it for six months, but try it. Then if the lifestyle fits you’ll have had that time to consider how to handle it full time. Ask yourself, will we be on a strict budget, or a high budget so we can eat out when we want, have folks onboard for dinner, take in the side trips on land in the new places, travel by local bus, bikes, etc. This will become a new beginning to your lives by doing it on the water. You may want to do it in the boat you already have. Others may want to trade it in for a larger boat. I bet you’ll have no regrets about casting off the land lines.

Setting virtually unattainable goals and then attaching them to unrealistic expectations is one of the initial mistakes common to some aspiring cruisers. Of the fellow dreamers-turned-doers we have met, many like us set their sights on long-term circumnavigation but downplay it from a goal to a dream thus not setting themselves up for possible failure.

Chuck and I do take time to stop and smell the roses. We had stepped out of a world controlled by daily planners, traffic lights, elevators and phones into a world where there is often no awareness of the date, time, or season. Sometimes it is confusing to us and if it wasn’t for the need of some of that information for navigation, we really would lose all track of time.

Cruising Conversations, with a daring duo! can be purchased from sailcopress.com or amazon.com.

Charles and Corinne kanter will be speaking at

• St. Petersburg Sail and Power Show: December 1-4, 2011
• St. Petersburg Forida, MARINAS INTERNATIONAL: January 19-22, 2012
• Strictly Sail Chicago Boat Show: January 26-29, 2012
• Miami International Boatshow: February 16-20, 2012
• Oakland Pacific International Boatshow:  April 12-15, 2012

About Corinne Kanter

Corinne C. Kanter, affectionately known as the “Waterway Hostess with the Mostess” for her years of entertaining fellow cruisers aboard her catamaran, La Forza.

She is the author of two cookbooks, first, the Galley K.I.S.S. Cookbook and her latest book, The Cruising K.I.S.S. Cookbook, which is a monumental five books in one. It is in its sixth printing and far and away the most popular cruising cookbook ever published. Corinne is well known for the  decades of her bi-monthly cooking column, Corinne’s Culinary Corner in MULTIHULLS Magazine. Her theme is: Delicious, Nutritious and Economical.

She publishes articles in many of the popular sailing magazines and often is a panelist with various sailing organizations including SSCA (Seven Seas Cruising Association), where she is a Rear Commodore.

Read also on this website

• Corinne Kanter: Galley advice from a catamaran cruiser

More information (external links)

• Visit the Kanters’ website
• Buy Cruising Conversations, with a daring duo! from sailcopress.com or amazon.com

What are your favorite cruising memories?

Email kathy@forcruisers.com or leave a comment below.

To an artist, the sea is a moody canvas of light, texture, color and motion to capture, but to a sailor, it’s more than that. The surface of the sea is [...]]]> There’s no two ways about it: being out at sea changes me.

It’s hard to write about this without streaking off on a tangent of froth.

To an artist, the sea is a moody canvas of light, texture, color and motion to capture, but to a sailor, it’s more than that. The surface of the sea is a living membrane between two worlds.

Both have oxygen and carbon, light and darkness, calm and tempest. Both worlds move fluidly, even if the creatures that move within them at times seem clumsy.

Offshore, the boundary between sea and sky is delineated by density, gravity, a 360-degree horizon, and by the form that water takes—mostly vapor in one, mostly liquid in the other.

But there’s also a boundary of the imagination.

The air is light, heavenly, knowable; the sea, innately un-knowable, thick and dark, a place of slimy predators, witless prey, and terrors of the deep.

It symbolizes the fear of unknown deeps within ourselves.

Architeuthis, the ship-killing mythical Kraken, is actually a giant squid not known to grasp ships and pull them under, but we still harbor its menace beneath the conscious surface of our imaginations.

Its existence is sometimes hinted at by upwelling and unnamed extremes of emotion, whose release we fearfully block lest they pull us under.

When we say someone is “all at sea,” it means they are feeling lost and confused.

When a sailor goes to sea, she in fact confronts 3 worlds: Besides sky and water, there is also an ocean inside us.

Before Jim and I left Port Townsend aboard our Pacific Seacraft Dana 24, Sockdolager, we asked a few friends for advice.

Much of it was useful, some was funny, but the most profound suggestion came from Lin Pardey:

Once you head out to sea, turn off all shoreside communications and feel the delight of truly being at sea, letting the sounds, smells and vistas take over your whole mind.

I had no idea how right she was.

I found that letting the sea take over opened an elegiac doorway into an unexplored chamber of the mind.

It’s as if my amygdala, the brain’s center of primitive emotion, became mesmerized and could no longer repress thought snippets, memories, and occasionally, endless annoying song fragments.

There was a tidal freeflow in and out, an ebb and flood between the conscious and unconscious, until things I hadn’t remembered in years spilled out on night watches as I braced tiredly against ceaseless rolling.

Oh look, what’s that thought flopping down there? Talk about unguarded moments. The sea bent me to its will through heave and toss, pitch and yaw, a form of sensory overload combined with the empty-horizon sameness that can induce sensory deprivation. I felt a nameless gate opening.

We’re from the Pacific Northwest. There the sea is cold and mysterious.

At night off-watch, I lay in my warm, dry bunk, left ear six inches from the Pacific gurgling at the hull, 100 miles off the Oregon coast. I imagined the billions of unseen shelled, feathered, finned, and toothed lives, of which we know next to nothing. Some crawl in freezing darkness 12,000 feet down; others are near the surface. Some are large, intelligent; others are invisible, microscopic, but no less alive. Some lives span whole oceans as they migrate with the seasons; other lives are confined to a drop of water.

On watch I emptied my mind while barely hanging onto my stomach, and watched the birds fly.

Look at how that delicate petrel reverses direction, doing cartwheels! Even over the nausea I wondered, how is it not broken by the wind?

The albatross barely moves its long wings on wavetop swoops, and stares with soulful dark eyes. And the shearwaters, so curious at this green contraption with its tanbark sails and foaming wake. What are they wondering as they fly, land, stare and repeat the sequence?

One could also argue for the presence of another boundary between worlds…

… the one that existed between my mind and body, now a disagreeably nauseated blob of protoplasm which still required the same basic maintenance I would normally give it on land: eat and sleep, pee and poop.

In this watery, out-of-sync world, I tried to “manage” the body by drinking less (so I didn’t have to go below as often to ride the wild toilet) and by restricting what I ate (less bilious product at risk if I’m seasick) but this invariably fails. Somehow, by the time my body feels ready for an IV infusion, it becomes used to the motion, and I resume drinking lots of water. And the other seagoing bugaboo—constipation—is narrowly avoided, too. The meaning of a whoop when someone emerges from the head is instantly clear to everyone aboard a sailboat. Little things mean a lot at sea. Becoming closer to one’s own bodily rhythms is not a bad thing.

By the fourth day out, the sea has turned me into a creature of the moment, which is exactly what one must be in order to survive (and thrive) so far from land. How strange for modern humans to do this! To go from our preoccupied selves with frenetic lives punctuated by 8 hours of sleep to this mariner’s world, where the past dims, the future is far away, and all you have is the voyage.

I can’t enjoy the distraction of reading a book yet, because although I’m not queasy now, reading might trigger it in these big seas.

At first the huge aloneness with myself feels a bit empty and slow.

I notice a disappointing twinge of boredom, and wonder: Why? It’s just me now, am I bored with that? Maybe it’s a truth about our lives: without the past and the future to buffer us, the pure present can feel uncomfortable, so we seek distraction, even escape. But there’s no escape; at sea, the present tense is everywhere.

This flatness of mind is not welcome at first; I was hoping for something more… poetic.

But one needs this flatness out here to be able to recognize changes: a tiny dot on the radio’s AIS screen means a ship is within range, and suddenly I become all alert and sensory, searching the foggy horizon where the bearing says it is, listening for the sound of its engines (sometimes audible through the hull first); perhaps even sniffing for its exhaust, if the ship is upwind. This is not a game, and sailors know it.

Going to sea on a small sailboat is about letting go.

It’s a dropping of allegiance to certain ways of thinking.

Like the idea that you need a lot of space to live in, and a lot of possessions with which to fill that space. Or maybe the idea that adventures are for other people, who fail to heed the conventional wisdom: none of us will ever have enough, so we can never stop working to get enough, because none of us know how much is enough.

Voyaging requires work: planning, preparation, and a high degree of organization, but voyaging makes me feel so alive. Everyone I know who’s done it lately says why didn’t I start sooner? What’s so frightening about feeling more alive? It’s admittedly a lot easier to turn on the TV, pop a can of Bud, and fart into the couch. Or go shopping. But none of that would make me feel alive.

There’s also a notion that life off the grid is slightly shabby, second-rate, a glorified form of camping out, which implies a degree of sustained discomfort or doing without. You do give up a lot when you move aboard a small boat and then sail the boat around on the world’s oceans. We’re doing without schedules dictated by others, nightly apocalyptic news broadcasts, utility bills, commutes, car payments, and too little exercise. We traded that for self-reliance, including sometimes being pushed past what we thought were limits. It isn’t convenient or easy compared to land, but it’s simpler. And in a time when nothing seems simple, that’s a lot.

So I finish my watch and lay down in my bunk, more grateful for being horizontal than I ever thought possible. It won’t be enough, but it’ll get me through the next watch.

To the sea’s chuckling sounds I drift away, between two worlds, but beginning to feel at home now, equally, in both. The sheer richness of life is making itself known; a richness that, from back in my other, land-based life, I know is under terrible threat. Out here I see its exuberance, and begin to feel something resembling love, for its sheer crazy variety and the joy of being alive and in a still-vibrant world.

About Karen Sullivan

Karen Sullivan has been sailing since the mid-1970s, in New England, the Caribbean & Gulf of Mexico, Alaska, and the Pacific Northwest.  She studied oceanography in school, held a 100 ton license for 20 years, from 1980-2000, and ran some big boats, but is back to her small-boat roots on a Pacific Seacraft Dana 24.

She and her partner Jim left Port Townsend in July and are enroute to Mexico and beyond, in the fulfillment of a lifelong dream.  Their blog, Karen and Jim’s Excellent Adventure, is at:  karenandjimsexcellentadventure.blogspot.com/

Read also on this website

• Lessons from an offshore voyage: How one woman’s life was changed by the sea, by Heather Mann

More information (external links)

• Karen Sullivan’s blog
• Published articles from Karen Sullivan

How does being at sea change you?

Let us know.

Email kathy@forcruisers.com or leave a comment below.

I feel silly about it because twenty years ago I was adventurous and really liked heights and was into rock climbing! But over the past few years I have become fearful of heights and no matter how much [...]]]> Sherri’s question

One of the things I want to ask other women about is going up the mast. I feel silly about it because twenty years ago I was adventurous and really liked heights and was into rock climbing! But over the past few years I have become fearful of heights and no matter how much I tell myself that I am being ridiculous and that it’s totally safe and that I normally love this stuff, my body freaks out. I shake and lose control and get dizzy and disorientated. I feel like an idiot! I am an artist and I have nearly fallen off of ladders working on murals. It’s getting quite annoying and I don’t know why my body reacts this way when my mind it telling me it’s all fine… Of course I am concerned I will have to go up the mast at some point -I tried once and froze and it was humiliating. Right now our boat is on land and it scares me to go up the ladder and I practically crawl to the cockpit to stay away from the edge! It’s absurd but my body is simply not responding to my mind! How do people deal with this? How about when the boat is underway? Should I talk to a psychologist about this? I am reluctant to even call it a “fear of heights” because I can get on the roof of my house to sweep the chimney without a problem. I have been wondering about this and how other women deal with it… Thank you for listening! Sherri

Gwen Hamlin answers.

Interestingly, nobody has brought this up before. However, I can empathize.

I was never afraid of heights as a young person, but after a height related injury (too long a story!), my brain reprogrammed itself. Interesting how the mind/body does that.

The issue first revealed itself when hiking with my sister and her kids. First a rock made me anxious. Then, of all things, a fire tower. My knees went weak every time one of the kids stepped near the rail. This has carried on through the years. I can be in a high apartment  tower, but I’m not happy on their terrace. I can hike, until things get too narrow. I get anxious about my balance in almost any precarious situation.

But oddly enough, going up the mast hasn’t bothered me. I thought for sure it would. And we have a tall mast! For the early years, I always took someone else up on Whisper (my boat), and on Tackless II I took Don up.  I’m not quite sure when or why we changed!  For sure, though, don’t task load yourself.  Start slowly, perhaps just as far as the spreaders, and be sure you are doing so at the dock and in settled conditions.  Once your brain accepts that you are secure up there, I believe your nerves will settle.

We have the stout kind of bosun’s chair, with a rigid insert for a seat, and fabric that wraps around three sides with a stout webbing buckle snapping me in. I always insist on running the halyard end through the two rings and tying a bowline and then closing the shackle around the line to boot. Quite simply, I can’t fall out.  Once the mind believes that, things get easier. Then we used the rope gipsy of our horizontal windlass to take us up. Up was always easy, with three wraps on the drum. Down was trickier, taking one turn off so the line would slide without wrapping.

Go up slowly. When Don took me up with the windlass, the hard part was dodging my way around the standing backstays and upper intermediates. But for some reason, secure in that bosun chair, I never felt precarious…and I would go to the tip top or swing out to work on the spreaders.

Sometimes the halyard didn’t seem to slide smoothly when I took Don up…or more to the point, when I tried to bring him down. That caused me some anxiety for him.  When I worried about it, I would send up a backup halyard controlled from the mainsail winch. This made the whole deal a bit complicated, I admit.

Neither of us has gone up at sea. Because we didn’t want ever to have to do that, we rigged the boat with two forward halyards and two aft — the genoa halyard and spinnaker halyard going forward and the main and topping lift going back. Our theory was they could be interchanged in a tight spot. We were always particularly careful not to let loose of the halyards!

As for dealing with climbing ladders and being on the boat on the hard, I too found it discomfitting.  Not just is there the height above the hard, hard ground, but there is the unsettling fact that the boat isn’t moving the way your brain expects it to!  People (guys!) who have no issues with height often just prop a ladder anywhere and are good to go.

For me, I insisted on the ladder being placed 1) as near as possible to a regular gate, and or 2) within hand’s reach of the shroud or backstay.  In other words, on the hard is no place to give up the maxim, “one hand for you and one for the boat!”  I had no problem stepping around the gate onto the cap rail (ours was a flat wood cap rail, not a perforated one) as long as I was able to have a firm hold of something with my hands.

Then make sure the ladder is tied in place.  Not only does this make sure there is no flipping backwards…but it ensures a yard neighbor doesn’t help himself to your ladder!  Don and I got stuck aboard one night when a security guard, not knowing anyone was aboard, lowered the ladder to deter thievery.

Some other tips:  Wear shoes up and down the ladder for a better foothold; take shoes off at the top and leave them on a mat.  Try to avoid climbing with gear in your hands;  use a hoist line and a bucket or basket to get stuff up.  At night, use a bucket as a temporary bathroom whenever possible to avoid climbing down a ladders in the dark. (We sat ours right in one of our heads so that was easier psychologically.)

Finally, if you remain seriously uncomfortable on deck on the hard, for God’s sake, don’t walk around the deck with anything but the regular lifelines in place.  It is actually probably better to have no lifelines at all than to string a line and think it will serve as a substitute.  I found that lurching onto a line that doesn’t respond as I expect it to a very unnerving and dangerous sensation.

Hope this is helpful. We are each individual!

Gwen

If you have a question about going cruising that you want answered,

- email it to: kathy@forcruisers.com,

- or join the next Women and Cruising webinar!

Back after a year’s cruise, her log book entries vividly bring back the reality of cruising.  Part 1 of this 2-part post was published on Oct [...]]]> Elli wrote us to say thanks for all the support and inspiration she has received from Women and Cruising, and from our 12 Sailing Families.

Back after a year’s cruise, her log book entries vividly bring back the reality of cruising.  Part 1 of this 2-part post was published on Oct 14.

6. “Orlando Bloom Sand!”, aka Sandy Cay – Exumas ‘We have something special planned for the girls today… Just 15 miles from Georgetown rests a tiny island called Sandy Cay (also White Cay in some charts). Most of the island is underwater at high tide. At low tide however, the water recedes to reveal a stunning expanse of pristine white sand beach. It is here that Gore Verbinsky, the director of the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy shot a favorite scene from the trilogy’s second movie. Movie’s soundtrack in the CD player, we turn on the engine and glide out of Elizabeth harbour…’

7. Sandy Cay – Exumas ‘I walk on deck, mug of steaming coffee in hand, a little before 6:30am.  Off our bow, a sweeping expanse of white sand beach… Silhouetted against the blue sky ready to erupt with the day’s first light, scatterings of palm and indigenous casuarina trees, so perfectly placed they appear painted on the landscape. I gingerly place bare feet on starboard deck moist with morning dew, and grab the lifelines with one hand, mug of coffee still in the other.  Something in the clear turquoise water catches my eye but it quickly swims away before I can identify it. I sit on deck, close my eyes, and listen. It doesn’t happen often on a trip like this, so when it does it’s nothing short of a symphony of music to the ears.  What sounds like hundreds, perhaps thousands of birds are heralding the beginning of another glorious day in the Bahamian out islands.  Eyes still closed, I move with the boat’s gentle swaying, now also aware of the waves gently lapping at the white sand just a few feet off our bow. I am all at once acutely aware of how much I will miss mornings like these once back on land and am saddened by the thought that we are already heading home. I open my eyes as the sun’s first rays peek through the casuarinas and warm my face. Below deck, David and the girls are still asleep and part of me wants to rouse them, to share this moment with them, to show them what they’re missing.  I don’t.  I close my eyes again, letting the sun’s rays wash over me and privately, peacefully, selfishly, savor the moment.’

8. Warderick Wells Mooring Field – Exuma Cays Land & Sea Park Headquarters ‘We radio the park office, receive our mooring assignment, and proceed into the stunning mooring field, carefully following the band of darker blue water arching into the protected crystalline lagoon. The site is stunning the second time around. Today there is not a breath of wind in the protected mooring field and we can easily distinguish sea grasses, small coral heads, bigger fish and positively enormous rays casually swimming in the pristine waters surrounding our boat. I am momentarily distracted by the indescribable beauty that surrounds us but my eyes are still trained on mooring ball number 7, boat hook at the ready, as David glides Wind of Peace closer and closer…’

Read also on this website

• Part 1 of this post: Elli shares her thanks and logbook from her family’s year of cruising (Part 1)
• 12 Questions to 12 Sailing Families

Want to help other families get out cruising ?

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with Women and Cruising readers!

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I’m a sucker for a well-told tale, and Swept: Love With a Chance of Drowning by Torre DeRoche is just that.  Decades ago, sailing sagas were told by weathered men sailing solo on distant seas; today they are told by the women convinced to go along.

Not unlike Janna Cawrse Esarey’s Motion of the Ocean, Swept [...]]]>

I’m a sucker for a well-told tale, and Swept: Love With a Chance of Drowning by Torre DeRoche is just that.  Decades ago, sailing sagas were told by weathered men sailing solo on distant seas; today they are told by the women convinced to go along.

Not unlike Janna Cawrse Esarey’s Motion of the Ocean, Swept is the true story of a young woman who falls for a guy who has a dream of sailing the world.  She doesn’t know he has the dream when she falls for him, and, when he falls for her, he doesn’t believe her when she confesses she is deathly afraid of the ocean.

Somehow love counterbalances terror just enough to get her aboard for passage to the South Pacific

Torre’s fears are realistic, and her experiences — good and bad — are as well.  This makes Swept a particularly timely recommendation for WomenandCruising.com readers as her experiences and insights partner perfectly our current feature collection addressing Fear.  She evokes vividly and accurately the worries of brand new sailors.

What is also realistic — and unfortunate — is the strategy the man in her life, Ivan, uses to persuade her aboard.  It’s the “I will do everything,” “nothing will happen, so “don’t worry about it” three-prong approach.  Torre is smart enough and has the right instincts not to buy into all that, but she has the bad luck not to find good mentors until she is well into her voyage.  Her trials and tribulations make for great drama, of course, but I found myself thinking over and over, “What a shame she didn’t find Women and Cruising to turn to!” and so smooth out a whole lot of the bumps!

On the other hand, her portrait of Ivan is even-handed and insightful into all the complexities that make Ivan the man he is.  He isn’t just a guy who read Moitessier’s sailing sagas and wanted that for himself; his motivations are more complex.  He’s no villain.  He just wants something so badly he sometimes overlooks practicalities and realities and jumps over important items on the To Do List in his eagerness to get going which results in some unnecessary crises.

Like all cruising sailors, Torre discovers the great magic of the lifestyle: that the wonderful times wipe away the memories of the tougher moments.  And, what is fun for newbies and old hands alike is Torre’s well-evoked sense of the Coconut Milk Run, the places, the characters, the cravings and the rewards, and, yes, the misadventures as well as the adventures.  An artist, Torre’s word pictures bring alive on the page scenes so many of us have experienced.

Swept: Love With a Chance of Drowning can be purchased in regular book or Kindle e-book format from Amazon.com through www.WomenandCruising.com. Remember, every item you purchase through our Amazon.com links benefits this website ….which gives newbies like Torre better resources for a smoother experience!

Read also on this website

• Relationships & Roles Aboard: 6 Mistakes men make in sharing their sailing passion (Lessons I learned the hard way), by Nick O’Kelly
• Women & Cruising’s feature articles on Fear
• Cruising Women’s Bookstore: Books that cruising women write about cruising.

More information (external links)

• Visit the ‘Swept’ website
• Visit Torre DeRoche’s blog: The Fearful Adventurer: Exploring the world one terrified step at a time 
• Buy Swept: Love With a Chance of Drowning in regular book or Kindle e-book format from Amazon.com

If you have a book that
like us you would like to review,
let us know!

Email kathy@forcruisers.com or leave a comment below.