She’s Back on the Boat
It’s been almost 2 years ago that Ray and I set out on our sailing adventure. Polaris has been hanging out in the Chesapeake all this time with periodic visits from Ray for pampering and sailboat spa treatments. I on the other hand have been kept away from her like the insane wife in Jane Eyre, locked in one home or the other hearing tales of varnishing, mast raising, bottom scraping, wire running and finally sea readying. Ray left February 15 to get the boat ready for its trip to Florida, after she had endured a long, cold and hard winter in in VA in the water. She was pretty rough. One season only is all it takes to peel her paint and varnish, pock up her stainless winches and trimming, tarnish her brass, deposit rust in all her joints, and leave a film of crud, goo and barnacles clinging to her pretty white sides and dark blue underbelly.
It took him until March 17 to get her ready for the trip. Still cold as hell with rain and rough seas, Ray sailed by himself, (not easy on a 37 foot sailboat) down to St. Augustine to meet me and he has the assorted aches and pains, bumps and bruises to show for it. While the invitation was extended to join him on the 1st leg, I decide to pass. My experience has been that the first few weeks are filled with many broken things, something I have come to understand on boats. They come with a covenant that states if things don’t break at least once a week and you personally don’t fix them, you must forfeit the boat. Broken things also come with a code of behavior “bad behavior with much cussing is acceptable and even required and any less knowledgeable passenger on board is expected to endure gruff orders, looking for unheard of tools in small dark places to be delivered in a manner of seconds to the fixer while maintaining a certain level of discomfort until said broken part if fixed.” This must be endured because the things that break are always things like toilets, motors, fuel lines or instrument panels….most necessary on boat trips and also provides appropriate trials for of all would-be sailors to test if their hearts are true. I know Ray has the heart of a sailor. I on the other hand have the heart of merely a passenger.
I rented a car and drove up to St. Augustine, a warmer and prettier port and met Ray in the downtown marina. So good to see him all tan,all smiles and lots of hair after being apart for months. I was all new too with my apricot hair (see previous blog) and my airbrushed tan, another experience I should share. Pandyman got his first visit on the boat and has learned the ropes pretty quickly. Yes Polaris is not her gleaming self but she looked pretty good to me. I knew how hard Ray worked to get it comfortable and clean for me. There were even fresh flowers aboard. In fact Ray always has had little vases of fresh fleurs in the boat even if it is just him – a sweet and romantic gesture I fine most endearing.
After my late start and rather stressful drive to St. Augustine in crummy traffic with Pandy whining a good deal of the journey – he thought we were going to stop at the dog park any minute since there was so much stop and go, and then hitting SA with absolutely no parking available in the entire town, I was ready for cocktails. One martini was nice, 2 better and 3 made the journey back to the boat with all my gear worth an episode of Survivor. The boat was anchored out and so we had to make the trip via dinghy – the embark and disembark in my Grey Goosed state – not graceful – and at low tide making the distance between the deck and the dinghy enormous, my climbing aboard was fairly comical it not miraculous. Thank God Ray is a big strong guy with much patience. The next day I paid the price for my indulgences but hell we were celebrating being on the boat, the adventure home, Pandy’s maiden voyage, seeing each other, warm weather, finding a parking space in St. Augustine on Friday night and that I didn’t end up in the drink or throw up on the boat.
It’s been a week as I write this and I look it. While I showed up with a new haircut, tan, manicured and pedicured, shaved legs, smooth skin, a little makeup, and relatively mar free – in one week I have changed dramatically. My “tan” has gone splotchy with those odd orange deposits fake tans leave around ankles and toes – looking much like I marched through a puddle of iodine, any essence of non apricot toner has disappeared from my hair providing me with a new hue of strawberry gold (sounds better than it looks), fingernails are grubby and already chipped and feet and toes are stained black from my shoes getting wet and I’ve already acquired “boat toes” – chipped polish, heels callused and toes pudgy and swollen from hopping around maneuvering lines, sails and alike. I have just counted 17 bruises including one on the back of my head I think occurred on “martini night” and there is not a part on my body not sporting an ever itching welt of a mosquito bite.
The mosquito bites were trophies both Ray and I were both awarded the first night we showered on the boat. It had rained hard and was both chilly and windy but it had been a couple of days and we both craved a shower. The boat is set up with 2 hot water showers – one in the head and one off the back of the boat. The one in the bathroom seems like the one to use but it is not a separate shower so when used, the entire bathroom and its contents are hosed down, it also steams up the cabin and so we use the one in the back. Of course there is no privacy, it is simply a shower head attached to the very back of the boat for use when one comes in from swimming off crystalline waters (??). We wait until dark, strip down, sit on the back bench, hose off, soap up, rinse off and are done. Not ideal for the modest. On the night in question, it was cold and windy so showering was chilling, but we had no idea that the rain had brought in squadrons of dive bombing mosquitoes looking for tender pink flesh. We were literally covered in bites from vampires attacking us in between suds and rinses. After very fast cleaning and much screaming we had Benadryl tablets all around including the dog, and a coating of Benadryl serum from stem to stern. We went to bed clean but itchy and bumpy. Morning rituals now include the ceremonial application of Benadryl to each other’s bites in those places we can’t reach on our own.
Despite the start out setbacks, I have been getting back my sea legs and relearning the ropes (lines on a boat and sheets if the lines are attached to a sail), I am getting back onto the rhythm and enjoying it all. Beautiful sunsets and chilly rainstorms. Weather for the most part is good and seas calm. Not much wind, so no sailing. Motor sailing on some days. That’s when we put up the sails and run the motor hoping to get to 5 knots or so. That’s still pretty slow. Ray has installed a HVAC system so we were able the ditch the window air conditioner in the cabin entry. Much better. We have to be hooked up to electricity at a dock or run the portable generator onboard to keep it on but it does take out the dampness in the boat and makes it more comfortable. Since docking is charged by the foot and fuel is very costly at marina’s, along with everything else, we usually anchor out and run into shore with the dink. I actually like it better –private and no noisy neighbors.
We’ve been making about 50-60 miles/day on the Intra-coastal Waterway, if we get an early start which is good. It is mostly like driving across country – lots of water, occasional boats and so-so scenery. Something I like is that boaters always wave to each other. Nice – reminiscent of an earlier time. We’ve tried to get “out” which means we go out into the ocean, but weather has thwarted our attempts. Once you go out you can’t just get back in easily and if weather comes up you’re stuck. And of course if the wind is going any way but at your back, you’re still just motoring just in bigger water. Our thought is to hurry through most of Florida and spend more time exploring the Keys and/or Sanibel. It’s nice being back away from the world. Somehow even with my iPhone and its access to news, the space on the water between the boat and the land seems miles and miles away.Our day is filled with immediate basic concerns – food, safety, keeping things tidy and in their place, our route, and the weather, getting provisions and getting along. Oh and getting the puppy ashore for “puppy outs”. While I wouldn’t want to live on a sailboat forever, it is good periodically. It cleans the fluff and superficiality out of our veins and helps us to remember how pretentious we tend to be with our concerns for comfort, stuff and appearances much of the time. I also like just being in OUR world. Ray and I fell in love on this boat and being on it again – just us and puppy, is perfectly wonderful. We are good, we three. Maybe he’ll let me rename it The Love Boat….bet not.
Explore posts in the same categories: UncategorizedTags: boat, boat shower, cruising, dinghy, dink, dog sailing, Florida, living on a sailboat, martini, sailboat, sailing, sailing with a dog, Saint Augustine, sea legs, St. Augustine, woman sailing
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