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On Being a Short-Timer

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We are starting to think of ourselves as ‘short timers’ ; people who have very little time left until they leave for the next assignment, or retire, or something like that. Ever since we made the decision to leave a year early, we have been living life in a strange combination of ‘fast forward’ and ‘pause’. It is really mind twisting, gut wrenching, just a little off-putting, and in a word: stressful. Oh, and here’s another word: emotional. Stress and emotion. Yes.  A year sounds like a long time until you begin ticking off all the things that need accomplishing during that amount of time.

Spring Frittilaria in the garden. Only one more year to take garden photos. So be prepared.

I know lots of our readers have “been there, done that” and I wish, every single day, that we could just take that experience out of their brains and insert it into ours so that we would not have to go through this part of the transition. That would certainly make things a lot easier, but we all have to experience our own suffering on this earth.

“No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must           walk the path.” Gautama Buddha, Sayings Of Buddha

Apparently there are no short cuts, so have patience while we suffer out loud on our blog. And also while we share the moments that are less about suffering and more about excitement, or at least peace and contentment.

Pulsatilla in the rock garden.

It’s true what the Buddhists say: all suffering is about attachment and about NOT living in the ‘now’.  So very, very true. I am trying to stay mindful of my own process of attachment and letting go and let me tell you: it is exhausting. On the one hand, I am holding an attitude of gratitude every day that I have had the opportunity to own this beautiful home, to sit in comfort in any room I choose, to have a garden that is lovely to behold and a joy to all who experience it.

On the other hand each time I fill my heart with that gratitude, thoughts come in about how difficult it is to keep this home clean, that I am tired of noticing what work needs to be done, that the garden is really too big for me to easily maintain anymore, that our children will never want to own this home for themselves. And mostly that my husband has to work full time in order for us to afford to live here. And that leads me to the ‘knowing’ that we will have to let it go somehow.

A giant cement leaf. I made it years ago.

So I wander room to room asking myself the one simple question of each item: does this bring me joy to own? And as time goes by, there are fewer and fewer objects that really do bring me joy to own. And I guess that’s a good thing. Maybe by the time we are ready to move out, it will be easy.

It’s interesting, this setting of a date of June 2016. It is a little like getting a death sentence. Not that anyone is going to actually die here, but in that suddenly I began to feel the reality of this decision in a way that makes me want to hurry up and do the things I’ve always wanted to do in my land life, as though I will never have another one. Completely irrational, but there it is. So I began taking voice lessons, which I have been loving. I started playing my piano again, which I am loving. And I started doing art again. Also loving. Don’t ask me what I’m going to do with all these huge canvasses when we move aboard. I have no idea. But I was feeling like I was living life ‘on hold’, waiting until that day we untie the dock lines.

And that’s just stupid and it made the suffering/attachment part of this whole transition much worse. All work and no fun. Bad idea.  Life is for now. I’ll figure out what to do with the canvases later. So I began saying ‘yes’ in my heart to all the things I had been saying ‘no’ to because we would someday in the future be leaving. Our future is not guaranteed. I do not want to die having not sung my song, or painted my painting. To me, that is just as important as doing our trip. And if because of some horrible twist of fate our trip didn’t happen, I would still have my art and my music.

It’s possible my Virgin will be in storage. I’m not yet ready to let this go.

And what is Mike doing while I am meandering through my own mind gearing up for the day we dig ourselves out of this place, sorting things out, doing big yard projects, painting and singing? He is working like a dervish on Galapagos, getting her ready for the trip this summer, which, by the way, cannot come soon enough for us. Last time you heard from Mike, he had his head down in the refrigeration space. That little project is stalled temporarily because the holding plate was just a fraction of an inch too large to fit in the space provided. So he had to send that back and the Cool Blue people are making one specifically for our space. Their customer service so far has been so good it has given us hope for the human race.

While he was working on that, he assigned me the sanding and painting of the top of the hard dodger, which I completed. Thank God he feels free to assign me tasks, a new and useful concept in our marriage. Otherwise I would stand helplessly just trying not to get in his way. Once the paint was dry enough, he installed our new solar panels from Renogy. They are lovely to behold but now the handholds for the dodger top will need repositioning. I’m sure he will get a post in about all of that in his spare time.

Mount Rainier, in pink.

In yet another money-spree we’ve measured for a stack pack, which we are ordering from Jamie Gifford of Sailing with Totem fame. Jamie is a sail maker and he helps support his family of 5 aboard their boat S/V Totem by selling sails and sail covers. We are glad to throw business his way and hope he can help us out with other things in the future. We will both be thrilled to have a stack pack sail cover for our huge mainsail. While Galapagos has a full set of canvas, it’s a PITA to take the cover off and put it back on. We will be much more likely to use that mainsail on short excursions if we don’t have to wrestle that sail cover to the ground first. Plus, no storing it below. YAY!

Measuring for the stack pack.

So we are both busy with life. Every day I do my best to remain grateful for both the home we have and for the boat we have and the trip that is in our future. Every day I am amazed at Mike’s focus and how he works all day, then comes home and does other things. He will sleep for a month when this is over.

I do wish I could fast-forward to the place where we have adjusted to life aboard, don’t really miss our house, have said all the goodbyes that will break our hearts for awhile, and are excited about the adventure we are on. But since that is not possible, I just put one foot in front of the other, believing with all my heart that someday I will arrive at that destination.

On a February day.

On a February day.

S/V Elsa, 1974 Ingrid 38

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Let’s all get real clear about one thing: It is Mike who is building the refrigerator system on Galapagos.  In his post on Reefer Madness Mike consistently used the prounoun ‘we’ to refer to all the work being done on our boat. In Mike’s case, he doesn’t generally refer to himself in the plural form as though he were royalty. Mike is not known to say things like ‘Take us to the royal bed as we are tired.’, or ‘We disagree with the lowering of taxes on the masses as we love our money.’.  No, he may speak the ‘Queen’s English’ as a rule, but he doesn’t generally speak as though he WERE the Queen.  Or King. Or whatever.

Mike aboard S/V Elsa took this shot of us as we passed each other out on the bay.

Mike aboard S/V Elsa took this shot of us as we passed each other out on the bay.

So I can only assume that his use of the collective term is meant to somehow imbue me with a sense of having participated more than I actually have. Or perhaps he is using the term the same way people do when the woman has given birth. You know, as in ‘WE had a baby’. Well, NO, ‘WE’ did not. The woman had the baby and you, pathetic man, stood by and watched with helpless awe and wonder. You got to be there for the fun part before, and the fun part after, but the actual growing and birthing of the child? Not so much. And don’t you forget it!

So let’s get real clear about the fact that it is Mike’s job to build this baby. My job is to stand by and watch with pathetic awe and wonder, my jaw usually on the floor. My how our roles have reversed in the last 30 years.

I got this photo of S/V Elsa on a beautiful winter sailing day in February. Could there BE a more perfect name for this boat?

Mike is burning the candle at both ends lately and I am waiting for the crash and burn. He hasn’t set a pace for himself like this since 1992 when we tore the roof off our second house to add another floor on the same day I went into labor with Andrew. If it were not for me, he would be working himself into a lather, and not the good kind. When he started becoming sleepless due to constant perseverating over the fridge project,  I knew I had to intervene and I would need some new blood in order to get his attention. I decided ‘we’ would take a break and have dinner with some new friends of ours and then go and view their beautiful boat, an Ingrid 38 named Elsa. There is nothing like new friends and their boat to get a guy’s attention, especially when the two guys have so much in common, not the least of which is their mutual first name. (Hint: MacGyver.)

If blogs are good for anything it is meeting other like-minded people. We have met a number of great folks through our blog, most of whom live nowhere near us. S/V Elsa’s people, Michael and Kristin, live in Kirkland and keep their boat in Tacoma at Hylebos Marina, where we used to haul out Moonrise, our old Cal 34. Kristin contacted us through our blog late last year and we arranged dinner together. It was great to see them again this year, hear about their new precious grand baby, and finally swap boat viewings.

Bronze samson posts. 100% saucy.

Elsa is a 1974 Ingrid 38 and Michael and Kristin are the third owners. They bought her from someone who had loved her well, started a lot of projects, then had to sell before seeing them completed. Fortunately for them, he left the boat full of brand new parts and pieces of beautiful wood to finish the old girl.  Michael and Kristin, like all old-boat owners who love their vessels, have found a project to fill their hearts and their days as they finish what the previous owner started. Michael’s goal with Elsa is to have a vessel with simple systems that sails beautifully, staying as true to the classic ways of this lovely boat as possible. Apparently owning a boat like Elsa has been a lifelong dream of Michael’s. He’s living the dream!

The previous owner made this block himself. He left a box of them on the boat.

Stepping aboard Elsa you can feel her solid structure under your feet. She rides in the slip gracefully, no jerky movements to put you off balance and plenty of room to move around. In fact, the Ingrid 38 is designed to be sea-kindly and to sail well in rough seas. Originally designed to be a wooden boat, she has the salty look of a much older sailing vessel.  It’s really so lovely to just be able to ‘step’ aboard a boat rather than climb aboard as you have to do with Galapagos. Different boats, different compromises. At 38 feet, Elsa is just right for a couple who wants to do coastal cruising in this area and she is built for off-shore sailing in mind so they have the perfect ‘go anywhere’ boat for two.

All new opening ports, added by the previous owner. Wow!

Like all ‘new’ boat owners, Michael and Kristin have a number of little projects and plans for their girl, but they are also dedicated to sailing her as much as possible. Between sailings there are plans to paint the deck a different color of tan, change the boot stripe color to a pale grey, and they receive their mainsail with new strong track attached this week. We are envious of that little addition to their sailing system and will be keeping a gimlet eye or two on how that performs for them. I get the impression that it is sailing first, boat work second.

MacGyver at his best.

In the photo above, note how Michael solved the problem of adding winches to his mast without drilling extra holes in the hollow wooden spar. Since the spar is painted, he cannot tell for sure what’s underneath the paint except to know that it is a hollow wooden box, many feet tall. He wanted winches, but not holes. So he had these steel brackets fabricated and mounted the winches onto wood boards. These can be easily removed to make sure moisture is not causing trouble underneath the wood. He also had that bar for the staysail fabricated to allow it to move freely as needed. Sweet.

Elsa’s heart.

Elsa’s Volvo engine is accessed through this hobbit door behind the entry steps. For a 38 foot boat, the engine space is generous and I enjoyed Michael’s description of how he would lay down a tarp and ‘swan dive’ into this space, being careful of the crunchy bits against soft flesh. I believe he may have shed a tear or two when beholding Mike’s engine room aboard Galapagos, but hey, you buy a 47 foot boat and you, too, can have an engine room. We all have our trade offs.

Here’s what made me shed a tear or two myself:

Two guesses what this is.

You’ll never guess what Elsa has on board due to the previous owner’s creatively devious mind. This, my boaty friends, is what amounts to a Japanese sitting tub. Yes, that is not me making this up just to make Mike feel guilty. This is an actual fact. Aboard this Ingrid 38 there is a sitting tub in the head. It’s also a great storage space for life jackets but the point is that if they WANTed to sit in a tub of warm water after a rough sail, they could. And I am dead jealous of that. My tub will be sorely missed when we move aboard Galapagos. I see those little tubs in boats like Spencers and Maple Leafs and it makes me swoon just a little. As I fall to the ground on my knees with desire, I have visions of how I could get me one of those aboard Galapagos. I see this one is built in place rather than fabricated and then installed. Hmmmm. The little grey cells begin computing…

V berth on the Ingrid 38.

While Mike and Michael compared notes on things like electrical systems and such, Kristin and I viewed the V berth with a critical eye. Kristin and I share in common a love of a good comfortable sleeping space on a boat. By ‘comfortable’ I mean one that has headroom, light, and that doesn’t require a herculean effort crawling over a sleeping spouse in the middle of the night when nature calls, as it so inevitably does. (And with more frequency, I might add, as one gets closer to that certain age, whatever that is.)

Kristin and Michael are planning to remodel this area. We will be watching closely. Photo credit to their blog.

So she is looking at a remodel of the salon to make cuddling up easier, and create a space for them to sleep more comfortably. I understand her pain. It seems we both have a certain type of space in mind, and while we agree that we understand sailing and safety systems come first, our desires will not be thwarted forever. Stay tuned for updates to all of that on our mutual blogs.

New sinks, countertops, and faucet.

Their galley is adorable and functional. The previous owner put in a new sink and faucet, lined the icebox with nice formica, and resurfaced the countertops. These are all projects that will be happening aboard our boat, too, so I was extra curious about this area. It’s really a lovely space. He maintained the feel of the interior and kept the surfaces easy to clean. Notice the sink is not yet plumbed, but all the stuff is there waiting to be put in place. Here are a couple more shots.

Really nicely done ice box.

Love that easy-clean area on the bulkhead behind the stove.

Notice in the photo above you can see that the previous owner added insulation to the boat, at least above the waterline. Ok, I am dead jealous of that.

For extra coziness on those wet winter days.

Kristin and Michael have a blog you can follow to watch Elsa’s progress as they complete the myriad projects they have in the works. She is already a beautiful vessel and has obviously been well-loved. By the time they are ‘finished’ (HA HA HA) with her, she will be the Queen of Commencement Bay. ‘We’ will be pleased for them.

 

Dreamtime Gifts

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During these dark. wintry days, owning a boat feels like an exercise in wildly misplaced optimism. It is really hard to get any kind of boat project started.  I visit the boat often but usually I just want to find a warm place for a nap. I’ll putter in the shop, check the bilges and ports, making a general inspection in the unceasing war against moisture in all its nefarious forms and then check out the aft cabin berth for a little snooze.

Winter napping territory

Winter napping territory

But today we received a gift that lifted our wintry spirits and move us that much closer to making the dream real.  Some former slip mates of ours contacted us and asked if we would be interested in some cruising guides for the Baja. We had only met Tim and Sharon once or twice when we first brought Galapagos up from Astoria.  Currently they cruise locally on an Ocean Alexander. But for years they sailed a Tayana 37 up and down the west coast, from Alaska to Central America.

Baja Bound

Baja Bound

Now that they are cruising locally Tim and Sharon are paring down their library. Tim recalled our cunning plans and contacted us through the marina office.  Since we had only been slip mates for a few weeks, I was touched that he had recalled our plan and taken the effort to find us.  In short order I was down at his boat, the recipient of several cruising guides for the Baja and even further south.  As important, Tim and Sharon shared stories and advice about their time in Mexico. We talked about equipment, anchoring strategies and the vagaries of living in a foreign country.

While I remain touched by Tim and Sharon’s generosity, it isn’t too surprising. Cruisers seem to have an innate desire to share their resources and expertise. It is an extension of the implicit obligation that all mariners will render aid to those in need.  While we usually think of this obligation in terms of saving a ship or rescuing a sailor gone overboard, the impulse to support one another is manifested in less dramatic ways. Melissa and I take that obligation seriously and consider our ability to help others one of the great pleasures of sailing.

So, thank you Tim and Sharon. Your gifts will go a long way towards keeping our dreams alive during these wintry months and beyond until we pass them on to another sailor in need.