friends

Countdown to cruising: 4 days to go

A few months ago I came across the blog of another family of four getting ready to go cruising. Like us, they have two daughters less than three years apart in age. Like us, they are planning on cruising their sailboat in Mexico this winter. Not only that, the parents also cruised as a couple in Mexico before their kids were born as we did. Always excited to keep tabs on other soon-to-be-cruising families I bookmarked their blog to keep up on their pre-departure activities. We soon had “met” online and were looking forward to possibly meeting up in Mexico this winter.

However, this family is getting their boat to Mexico a little differently than we are: it’s already there. A really good idea, I’m thinking at this point in time. Not only that, they had lived in Washington D.C. for the past 10 years or so. In order to get to their boat, they sold just about everything they owned, including their house, packed everything up in a small trailer pulled by their Ford Escort wagon and have been traveling for the past month cross country, visiting friends and family on their way westward, and then southward, as they get closer to their new floating home.

When I read that they would be passing through Washington, I got in touch and told them we’d love to have them stop by if it was in the cards. Indeed it was; yesterday they emailed that they would be passing through Olympia today and so we made plans to have them visit us onboard Wondertime.

This is what we love about cruising folks: just minutes after we’d invited this delightful family aboard we were all, adults and kids alike, talking like old friends. Leah gave their girls a tour of our boat as they were a little mystified by what life afloat is like. I think they like it because all four girls were busy playing right away with squeals of joy floating up from below.

After only two hours or so of getting to know each other, Leah and Frances especially (both 5-and-a-HALF) were fast friends. When it was time for the Del Viento crew to hit the road again, they reluctantly hugged each other good-bye.

“See you in Mexico!” the girls called out to each other as our new friends drove away.

Countdown to cruising: 7 days to go

Jun 22nd, 2011

by Sara.

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Yesterday, Leah began cutting strips of paper (orange, “because the Mexican flag has orange in it”). She asked for a hole punch and some ribbon to string them on. I asked her what she was making and she told me:

“Departure flags. No, wait: friendship flags.”

I’ve asked her how she feels about leaving Olympia next week. Is she excited? A little sad? Leah just shrugs. She is unable to put into words how she feels about what is ahead, and what we are leaving behind. So she creates.

I know how she feels. I am excited. And a little sad too. Along with all the busyness of getting ready, it’s an incredibly emotional time. For our children, this is the biggest change they’ve had to face so far. For Michael and I, well, it’s certainly up there with our biggest too. We are all feeling the enormity of it in our own ways. Tension runs high between all of us. The sibling bickering has reached epic levels. Then five minutes later laughing fits erupt. Then someone falls down and the crying starts. And on and on.

After Leah strung up her bright orange friendship flags, we hung them across the cabin. She ended up with so many that they have barely an inch between them. A fitting reminder of how many good friends both in Olympia and all over the Northwest we have made here over the years, not to mention so many treasured family members. We’ve been so excited about our upcoming trip that it hasn’t fully hit until now what we are going to have to give up to make the journey. It’s a lot, really.

A light, a friendship, and a job done

May 2nd, 2011

by Sara.

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Eric and Angela, s/v Rouser (Tenacatita)

When we were getting ready to set off cruising in 2002, we received an innocent email from a couple also gearing up to head south that year. The crew of s/v Rouser, Eric and Angela, lived south of us in Olympia (we were still in Seattle at the time), had just found our blog, and were excited to find another couple getting ready to set sail that was also well south of retirement age (27). Since we had never sailed to the south Puget Sound before, we took a week in late July that year to meander down that way and get a personal tour of the town of Olympia from our new friends. We hit it off right from the start and made plans to meet up again in San Francisco in a few weeks. Which we did: right after Michael and I passed under the Golden Gate, Eric and Angela zoomed out in their dinghy off Sausalito to greet us, having arrived the week before.

We sailed together for the most part of the next six months, exploring southern California and the Channel Islands, sailing across the US/Mexican border together, Baja California, crossing over to mainland Mexico to Puerto Vallarta, then down to our most southern anchorage of Tenacatita, where we stayed for a month in January-February 2003. I remember countless evenings spent with what soon felt like old friends: laughter and food and drinks, hikes, exploring small dusty Mexican towns, our New Years road trip inland to Guanajuato, bonfires and music on the beach, sailing side by side to a new destination.

And then, as it always does with while cruising, it came time to say farewell. Rouser was preparing to puddle jump to the Marquesas that spring and had decided to sail farther south to Zihuatanejo to depart from. We were heading north to spend spring in the Sea of Cortez. The day had come when we had to part ways.

It was a teary afternoon; we said our goodbyes quickly. We said we would keep in touch via email (which we did) and visit together in the future (which we have). Angela is from Minnesota so we gave them a copy of Lake Wobegon Days to read on their way across the much bigger lake. They gifted us with a nice tri-color/anchor light that they had as a spare, inscribed. I think Michael had always lamented that Pelican did not have a tri-color at the top of her mast, which would be much more visible at night than our deck-level navigation lights when sailing. We were touched that our friends wanted us to be visible too.

Eric and Angela made it all the way to New Zealand, and we made it all the way back to Seattle. Our gift never made it to the top of Pelican’s mast for reasons I can’t recall now. But we’ve toted that bubble-wrapped light around with us for eight years, through another boat and two houses. Now on Wondertime we were hardly surprised to find out that she didn’t feature a nice tri-color light, but a burned-out rusty single anchor light at the top of her mast.

Now she does. Our beloved gifted tri-color light is sporting new high-efficiency LED bulbs up at the top of Wondertime’s mast. We now shine brightly in the night sky. Friendship made visible.

Plans that last until morning

Jan 31st, 2011

by Sara.

3 comments

It’s happened before.

Late night stars, a handful of sailing friends, a few glasses of wine/margaritas/tequila shots/beers (although not all of these at once, of course). We talk and laugh and reminisce about past cruising memories. And then: plans are made.

One night way back in Mexico, late night plans developed in this way. During an evening of jovial fun, our fellow South Pacific-bound friends were trying their hardest to convince us to follow along in our Alberg 35, Pelican. We fought back with many excuses: we had only several months’ worth of funds left in our cruising kitty, our 30-year-old sails were on their last legs thanks to the Mexican sun, we didn’t have a liferaft. But then, as the night wore on, they began to win us over. Weakened with lukewarm but powerful margaritas made with Jumex and Jose Cuervo Especial we began to think that it might be a good idea. That we could indeed survive six months of crystal blue waters, white sand and palm trees. By the time we’d piled our drink glasses in the sink and got into our dinghy to putt back to Pelican for the night, we were headed for the South Pacific with the rest of the fleet.

And then we woke up the next morning. Bleary-eyed, with a pounding headache, we tried to remember what we’d promised the night before. We drank our tea in the morning sun looking out over the calm waters of Tenacatita Bay and knew that it just wasn’t going to happen. Someday. But not that year, despite how sure we were the night before of our upcoming South Pacific adventure. Some plans made in the night just do not last through to the next morning.

This past weekend, it happened again. Late night, a few beers, good friends. We were talking about our Northwest cruising plans for this summer. We had said that we really wanted to visit Princess Louisa again, if nothing else.

“Princess Louisa. Hmmm….” Our friend Karisa said. “But have you guys been to Blackfish Sound up north? That just blows Princess Louisa away. It’s beautiful and there’s hardly anyone there even mid-summer.” Yes, yes, that is true we agreed. We had been through there a handful of times, usually just quickly passing through. Nearby Kwatsi Bay had been one of our favorite anchorages ever. “And have you been on the West Coast of Vanvouver Island? It is just spectacular.” No, we had not. We’d explored the Northwest coast all the way up to Juneau, Alaska and back but not the West Coast of Vancouver Island.

“We’d like to do that, but we just aren’t sure we have enough time.” There we go making excuses again, to not complete one of our long-held cruising dreams.

“How much time do you have?” Karisa asks.

“About six weeks we figure.”

“Plenty of time,” she declares.

The conversation continues on into the night. We admit that we really don’t feel right leaving the Northwest without having circumnavigated Vancouver Island. The West coast of the island is desolate and achingly beautiful and rugged. And we do have plenty of time. And it would be a perfect shakedown cruise for Wondertime and her crew. It doesn’t take long before the decision is made: we’re going to go around Vancouver Island this summer.

The next morning we wake up (no headache this time, we’re not as young as we used to be and no tequila was consumed). Almost right away we talk again about our plans. Excited. We’re going around the island.

Because the plans that last until morning are the ones that are real. The ones that happen.

16 Bells

Dec 3rd, 2010

by Sara.

2 comments

We said goodbye to one of our beloved crew members last week, our most senior ship’s cat, Precious. She lived a long, loving life of 16 years and 3 months. A beautiful black cat with striking white markings, she would often cause passersby to stop to pet and admire her beautiful soft long fur. Most of all, Precious was a dear friend to us and was most content to just sit cozy in a lap or snuggled under the covers in bed and purr endlessly.

I brought her home to my college apartment when I was a 19-year old kid. She was a tiny 6-week old ball of soft black fur and so precious, I knew that was her name. We moved around a lot together as college kids do and after Michael and I had met and moved onto our first boat with her and our other new kitten Xena, she still took it all in stride. Precious took to the sea life right away, loving all the fresh air, sleeping in the sunshine and bird-watching. She didn’t mind sailing at all, just snuggled herself in our bed and slept contentedly until it was over. She sailed with us up to Alaska, then back to Seattle, then down to Mexico including the long car trip back up to Seattle.

She welcomed, with a little trepidation, the two little girls who came into our lives later and would purr when they’d gently scratch her between the ears. She was also happy back on the sea on her final home on Wondertime, sleeping the day away on our cozy double bunk and sitting on my lap in the evenings, purring purring.

We all miss Precious, but are thankful for the many adventures and tender moments our loving friend has shared with us.

(Hover over thumbnails to view photo description, click to view full size.)