Going Cruising – How we became the people we use to hate

Why is it so difficult to go cruising?  Now – we are not talking about the "foot on the water – foot on the shore" type of cruising some folks do.  We are not talking about sailing away for a week, month, or semester, only to come back to your nice, big house and cherished possessions.  We are talking about the full blown commitment – the sell everything, get a boat and get the hell out of Dodge type of commitment – this is hard to do – lots of folks attempt it, but few seem to accomplish it.

I read an article last year where Jimmy Cornell estimated that there were only 5,000 boats actually cruising – in the entire world!  These are people on an open ended voyage, actually journeying across oceans and to distant lands.  Here in Puget Sound – there are more than 5,000 sailboats – most of them have not been further than 500 miles from home.

There are so many ways to crash and burn when attempting this.  You can run out of money, health, or energy.  Your spouse may quit on you, or your might quit on yourself.  When reading, studying, and following people’s adventures who are cruising, it may seem like everybody is doing it.  For many of these pundit’s – its their business.  Don’t kid yourself.  There is an entire industry in America to sell you this dream, and you can spend a fortune following it.

Among our little Malo group – there are two sets of owner who have given up the chase and have their boats for sail.  One spent years preparing his boat, tens of thousand of dollars on equipment, and managed to cruise Alaska and sail to the Marquesas, then ship the boat home by container ship.  The boat is now for sale.  The other folks had their boat commissioned in Sweden, spent one summer cruising the most expensive spots possible in the Med, then sailed the boat to the Caribbean and put it up for sale.  These folks are quite well off – they maintained their land homes, and these are very expensive yachts.  You have to ask though – was this their cruising dream – and did it go wrong?

Our great sailing mentor – Brian – who actually saved my sailing career – (this is a long story, but on our first boat I was driving my poor suffering wife insane – Brain intervened to help us learn to sail – I owe him a lot) Brian bought the wrong boat, in the wrong place, and took on board the wrong crew.  We thought Brian knew everything.  The crew lasted six months, the cruise about the same, and Brian is now living aboard in a slip he bought in the inner harbor of Baltimore after motoring up the ICW.  Yes – this is a nice and cool place – but was this Brian’s cruising dream?

Our friends M and B went cruising with Brian (they were the wrong crew) and found they had to jump ship or kill the skipper – they now live in a trailer on B’s family’s property – yes – they are still going to build a plywood junk rig to cruise around the world – the one they have been talking about to us for seven years – but they moved into a trailer on daddy’s land to do this – is this their cruising dream?

And look at us – yes we have sold everything.  Getting rid of all of your material possession is a great relief – how did we collect all of that stuff?  We are living on the boat, which we own free and clear – and have a plan for sailing away in one year.  But – can we make that one year?  (When we had a Hunter 34 we were not vested in the cruising dream – now we pursue it every day.  We have a rich persons boat full of high end stuff – we really have become the snooty people on fancy boats we use to laugh at when sailing our cheap and wonderful Hunter – we are the people we use to hate.)

Work is endless – we ride the "loser cruiser" (bus) downtown every day to meaningless (but very high paying) jobs – is this the career I began 21 years ago?  We have health issues, and are getting old – time is short – there is not enough of it to keep screwing around in Seattle.  Will we make it to our cruise?

Ahh, but we are going cruising!  We have goals and plans, not like those other people who also thought they were going cruising – or will we find that the reality did not match the dream….

This is Squeak.  MS trained this seagull to take bread out of her hand.  Squeak greets MS when she comes home each day, and waits for her sitting on the radar tower of a derelict boat moored next to us.  Squeak especially likes soft bread.