FLIRTING WITH LAND

Vashon Island, Washington

For almost four years now, I have lived completely afloat. Water has been my medium, my muse, my only constant. But taking a break from the water for a few months, I find that in those previous 50 years and 3 months before moving onto a boat, I took a few things for granted.

Like earth. I walk out the door and step onto solid ground. No dinghy ride, no precarious hop across a chasm. Just a step, so simple. It's always there, the earth, faithful, calm and reassuring, with its musty smells and nourishing palette of green and brown. I run my hand along a tree trunk, rough and solid, a pad of moss, soft and velvety.

And stillness. No matter how calm the water, a boat is in constant motion. Inside, everything moves too, my couch, my bed, my bathroom, my kitchen. On dry land, I walk on floors that are utterly still, and I thank them. I recklessly set a glass on the countertop without concern that it might go unexpectedly flying, shattering. I lie on a bed so still, it sucks me into unconsciousness like anesthesia, and I rest.

Living aboard is like parenting: you're always on watch. A part of my brain was always devoted to safety, planning, watching, worrying. On land, my brain rambles around with newfound freedom and ease. My nerves have lost their edge. Have I?

Water against fiberglass, wind in rigging, rain on the coach roof. Lines in cleats, chain against anchor. Once, I even heard a grouper make his guttural sounds just beneath my bed. Life onboard is one of constant sounds. But in our remote cabin, silence is like a blanket. It embraces me like memory foam, pressing down errant thoughts and soothing tight muscles.

Water I am not finished with you yet, but today, I'm indulging a little land crush.

ON THE ROAD: ALBUQUERQUE FAMILY

Albuquerque
35.164º N | 106.53º W

Portrait of Ben, taken by Zek.

Love and fun in Northern New Mexico with my nephew and his family.

Me and Ben making cookies.

Yoga for everyone!

My snuggle bunnies. <3 td="">

Beautiful Sal and Eliana.

Eliana!

Zek and Buncle Chip (short for Bald Uncle).

Somebody LOVES her daddy.

NAUTICAL TORTURE: DAY FIVE

St. Augustine

DAY ONE | DAY TWO | DAY THREE | DAY FOUR

Well, if yesterday dawned all grim, today dawned hopeful with potential for catastrophic failure at every turn. On Day Five of this two-day project, what we had, was not a windlass, but a bin of parts and a gaping hole in the bowsprit.

Team Windlass, Chip and our friend John visiting from D.C., had already worked pseudo miracles getting the thing apart (with an assist from a gear puller, our dockmaster and a machinist). Now their plan was to clean all the parts, get a new screw to replace the one we stripped, and, gasp, reassemble the whole thing. Oh, and hope it works.

There were two potential Looming Catastrophes:

1. Could they, by hand, replace the shaft that required 6,000 pounds of pressure to remove?
2. Would the burr on the shaft, prevent the clutch from going back on?
3. Would we be stuck in St. Augustine forever?

Work to be done!

Okay, I know, that's three.

So, we huddled up first thing, got our assignments and went to work. Mine was the easiest. I had to clean the anchor locker around the gaping hole, clean the contacts and terminals and grease them.

With that accomplished, I spent the rest of the day zooming around with final provisioning runs. Then, filled with hope, I started stowing like mad, turning the boat into a working vessel again.

John started cleaning the windlass parts with diesel fuel. Chip took off to find the screw. It was metric. They didn't have it. He had to get a makeshift version, a bolt, actually. Would it work? We didn't know.

With all the parts clean, they started reassembly. As I occasionally passed them in the cockpit, they were most often in grim discussions, looking hopeless and defeated. Sometimes, the sense of foreboding was punctuated by shouts of joy and high fives.

The shaft went back in by hand after a good amount of consternation, because it wouldn't drop down into the worm gear. It was bumping against the oil seal on the bottom of the unit requiring a surgical, tweezer maneuver to get it to seat properly.

Looming Catastrophe #1 averted.

The makeshift bolt had to be rigged.

It worked!

Then they had to fill the oil. Doesn't that sound easy? The directions don't say how much to put in. You have to turn it horizontal to fill it and then vertical to check it. Much trouble, filling, overfilling, draining, etc.

Once that assembly and the #*&$#ing filling was finished, it had to be attached to the motor and the whole thing installed and then wired in that dastardly anchor locker. Chip pulled the shaft from above deck, John held it in place from below, Chip put in the bolts, John did the wiring, and the installation was done.

Now our first major moment of truth: We turned it on. It worked. Shouts of joy.

Then the above deck assembly began and Looming Catastrophe #2 approached. The clutch did, in fact, stick on the burr. If they couldn't get it in place, the entire Day Four torture would have to be repeated. They would have to uninstall it, disassemble it and take it to a machinist.

They put a PVC pipe over the shaft and tried tapping the clutch down, trying and trying to get it to drop, feeling more and more fatalistic about the clutch and our future in St. Augustine. If it would just drop into place, there were only three pieces remaining to be installed to complete the job.

"Just wail on it," Chip told John.

He did. It dropped. Shouts of joy. Looming Catastrophe #2 averted.

They threw the drum on, the clutch nut and had only to put in the last screw into the shaft to be done. Yes!

The screw would only go half a turn. Apparently the gear puller damaged the threads. AAAAAHHHHH!!! 

Chip came below and grimly got out his tapping set, bought years ago and never used. He measured the bolt. It was metric, but, miraculously, the set had the appropriate tap.

Major gloom hung over Cara Mia. If this didn't work, the entire Day Four torture would have to be repeated, yes, taking the shaft to a machinist to bore a new hole and tap it.

Chip inserted the tap, held his breath and turned a quarter turn. Removed the tap and tried the screw. Nope.

He reinserted the tap, held his breath and turned a half turn. He could tell it was cutting the threads, potentially destroying them. He removed the tap and tried the screw. Nope.

He reinserted the tap the third time, held his breath, cringed and turned a half turn.

"Just one more turn," John said, knowing this was the end. It would either work, or we had to start over.

Chip turned it. The tap grabbed and moved smoothly. He removed the tap and tried the screw.

It went something like this:

(In this reenactment, I am played by Sophia Loren.)

FACES OF NEW YORK

New York

Chip observing the WTC in progress from Jersey City.

Slow travel. It's what we love. And in New York, it doesn't get any slower. We walk everywhere, drinking in the colors and textures of the city, and sometimes the freezing cold.

I love New York, but that's not why I tagged along on Chip's work trip. A lot of old friends -- and some new little ones live here. So, while I've been busy getting some writing done, I've been enjoying a series of reunions.

My high school classmate Beverly and I hadn't seen each other since the '70s. Gasp.
And, of course, I'd never met her daughter Emily from Nepal. Thanks, Facebook!

Good times with my old washingtonpost.com pal, Jim Brady.
But where are Joan and the beagles?!?!

More Post reunion with Corones, Peyton and Jeffrey
-- and my first time to meet Miles.

Can you stand it? The Post just keeps giving back.
Libby, Danylo and little Olive.

Chip with his first girlfriend Linda ....

... who married Chip's awesome cousin Carl.

I do love New York.

A squall over the city.

Cars drawing crop circles in the snow under my window.

HAPPY DAY!

Marathon, FL 24º42.366N | 81º5.669W

photo by Chip

We woke this morning, planning to run a few errands and then drop in on the Marathon Seafood Festival. Ho hum.

Then the phone beeped with a new text message.

WHAT?!?!?!? Karen and Dale can't text us from Cuba.

Jessie Marie was anchoring about 100 yards west of us in Boot Key Harbor, fresh in from Cuba. Really? No, really????

The best surprise ever.

Sorry this is blurry. I think the camera was crying...

A DAY IN THE LIFE

Coconut Grove, Miami, FL 25º43.533N | 80º84.321W

Laundry or groceries? Likely some of each.

Laundry and grocery shopping are two time-consuming chores when you live afloat. We can't just jump in the car and run to the store. Neither can we throw a load of laundry in while cooking dinner.

However, we can make the most of our outings. Today's diversion, spotted by Chip, was a Cuban food truck, right on our route to the laundromat.

For only 5 bucks, we savored Cuban beans and rice with a fried egg on top and a side of plaintains.

Then off to sip Cuban coffee at our favorite laundromat while the washing machine did its work.

Now, why were we planning to leave Coconut Grove?

A NEW DITTY BAG

Coconut Grove, Miami, FL 25º43.533N | 80º84.321W

A year is more than 365 days of aging. It is a big, waterproof ditty bag we're allowed to fill up with whatever we're brave enough to dream -- and just when it's about to overflow, can this be true? We get a brand new one, wide open.

My 2011 bag bulges with our first Gulf Stream crossing, our first time to pass below the Tropic of Cancer, a waterspout, a hailstorm, an earthquake and a hurricane. Travel by boat, by car, by plane, train and bus, and hitchhiking 20 miles down a Bahamian island. Our days were filled with friends, hard lessons, lobster, chores, conch and red starfish as big as a plate. It was a year where I learned more than since I was perhaps 2.

And now maybe you wonder what someone who leads this awesome life on a sailboat dreams of? The list is long. When I look back into my 2012 bag, I hope to find my first book, a long and beautiful sail to somewhere I've never been before, a trip to Paris to visit our daughter, a 6-week pilgrimage down the El Camino and somewhere, somehow a way to give back to this world that has given me so much.

Hold on. I better go get started!

Bonnie and Chip and Cara Mia.

Chasing Cuba-bound Jessie Marie out of Coconut Grove.

Off to greet 2012 and my 52nd year at our favorite French restaurant.

ROAD TRIP!

Mobjack Bay Marina, Mathews, VA 37º25.586N | 76º24.072W

Our dock cart waiting for a ride to Enterprise.

ITINERARY:
Mathews, VA --> Gloucester, VA --> Norfolk, VA --> Bridgeville, DE

Getting off the boat for our first of many road trips this summer is starting already to prove challenging. Our country doesn't smile upon those living car-free.

First, our cities, but for the major metropolitan centers, are bereft of public transportation.

Second, we have proven time and again that if you hitchhike in our country, we will shoot you.

Third, if you don't own a car and thus have no car insurance, it is prohibitively expensive to rent a car.

The third point we learned on arriving at Enterprise to pick up our car. Until today, we were under the false impression that if we paid for a rental car with a credit card, we were covered by insurance with the credit card. WRONG. After several phone conversations with Discover, it turns out that credit cards only provide secondary insurance to your primary insurance on the car you own, if you owned one. AND, that only kicks in if you've refused all insurance coverage from the rental agency. In other words, we had been renting cars with neither primary NOR secondary insurance.

But even at $50 a day for the car, this trip was well worth the expense. We picked up our kids in Norfolk and spent a week with Chip's parents, Ted and Nancy, before we head south, Dylan goes back to school in Raleigh, and Casey goes to Paris to start her master's in French.

It's been so long since we went on a good ol' road trip with the kids. We talked and laughed and enjoyed every mile, knowing we were about to go our separate ways on the planet, not knowing when we'd triangulate together once again.

Sweet times.

HAPPY TIMES

Manteo, NC 35º54.636N | 75º40.145W

The happiest of reunions with Wendy and Lily.

No matter how hard we tried, it was impossible to see everyone we love in the Outer Banks. After the first few days, we adopted a new policy of seeing only those we ran into naturally, a plan that slowed the pace and somehow made the reunions even richer.

The joyful reunions started with our kids, who are in the Outer Banks for the summer. We had last seen Dylan in Miami in January, Casey in the Exumas in February. Soon it will be harder to get us all in the same locale. We, of course, are constantly on the move. Dylan will go back to Raleigh and North Carolina State. Casey (we hope) will be going to Paris to start her master's degree in French.

Our circle complete: now our son Dylan drives us around.

Our home waters were graced with a visit from two of our cruising friends. Dale and Karen on Jessie Marie, and Christie and Matt on Kaleo followed us to Manteo where we became tour guides, doing the tourist things we would have never done otherwise -- and enjoying them.

Pre-theater cocktails with Dale and Karen, Matt and Christie.

One of those tourist attractions is the outdoor drama, The Lost Colony, about the first English settlement in North America in the late 1500s. As you might garner from the title, it does not have a happy ending. The English ships bringing supplies to the colonists were waylaid by the Anglo-Spanish War, and when they turned up three years later, the colonists were gone. Not dead, just gone. Missing -- a mystery still.

Cruisers found at the Lost Colony.

Baseball!

It is with much sadness and total exhaustion that we leave Manteo tomorrow, but we have an appointment with The Ship's Tailor in Deltaville, Virginia, to replace Cara Mia's canvas, the beginning of giving back to this boat that has given us so much in the last year.

Duane and June, blog readers and soon-to-be cruisers,
accosted us on the docks -- and bought us lunch!