Blue View – Sheltering in Place... Once Again
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Sheltering in place is not unlike being on a long ocean passage
Now that most of us are sheltering in place, it’s hard not to think of all the things we can no longer do… dining out in a restaurant, getting together with friends, going to a movie, theater or sporting event – as we all well now know.
It’s not unlike a long passage at sea. When we were sailing, we made many passages that took weeks or even months to complete… and there are many similarities between a passage at sea and the new social distancing rules:
Provisioning for a long passage looks much like a few shopping carts we’ve seen recently
Provisioning. Before we set out on a passage, we did, of course, have to provision Nine of Cups with enough food and the other necessities (like toilet paper) to see us through. We’d figure on the worst case scenario, timewise, for getting to our next provisioning opportunity, calculate our needs for everything from toothpaste to tomatoes, and spend a day or three getting everything. Marcie had developed a spreadsheet that would calculate how much of everything we’d need, based on the number of days we’d be at sea, and use this as our shopping list. Now, we try to provision for a week at a time, to reduce the number of times we have to go out. It’s not quite the same, because if we run out of something essential, like peanut butter or wine, we can, if necessary, make another run (we are really trying hard to avoid this, BTW), whereas on the boat, we’d have to do without until the next port.
Confined to a small space. We made several short passages with friends and family, but only one long trip with anyone aboard other than Marcie and myself. We couldn’t have asked for a better crewmate. John was a friend, a good sailor and had an easygoing, pleasant personality, but being in such close proximity for several weeks was still trying for all of us. There are now four adults sharing our household, and while it can be a challenge, I think we’ll make it through. We think back to the days when we had 3-4 teenagers living under our roof and wonder how we’d manage that if everyone was required to shelter in place. I was quite pleasantly surprised to hear the local news report that domestic violence calls were actually down since we began the new rules.
Staying home. Making a passage at sea on a sailboat doesn’t have many options for leaving home… you generally want to stay aboard. There were maybe three or four times that we were becalmed and went for a dip – after dropping the sails and tethering ourselves to Cups. The closest parallel I can think of now is if we were self-quarantined after being exposed to the virus or testing positive, in which case I’d want to stay totally confined in my part of the house to avoid passing the virus to others.
Limited activities. Making a long passage on a sailboat can be boring. You stand your watch, then you sleep, with an occasional meal tossed in. After a few days, you settle into a routine… I take a stroll around the deck at 8AM each day to toss overboard all the flying fish that landed on deck during the night and inspect the boat, especially the rigging for any impending problems; we spend a few hours on our off watches each day reading and composing emails; we do a few boat chores or make any necessary repairs; we read; we write; we chat; maybe chat with a passing ship via radio; figure out the best time of day for HF radio propagation, then send and receive our daily emails and weather reports; and adjust the sails. Sometimes something exciting happens like one of us spots a pod of whales (good) or sees a squall heading our way (not so good). If the weather report indicates a storm heading our way, we may change our course to try and avoid the worst of it and prepare for it… we even had a storm prep checklist. Now, while our activity list is limited, we still have more options than on a boat. We have fast internet 24 hours a day, we can still go walking, as long as we (and the people we encounter) observe the social distancing rules, and we can occasionally drive to the grocery or Lowes.
Marcie often said that our passages were, to her, the necessary dues to be paid to get to our next exotic destination. On the other hand, I usually enjoyed our passages as they were a welcome break from most boat chores and they gave me time to reflect on life and the opportunity to make plans. We both relished the beauty and serenity that came with being close to nature and at sea… the unbelievable moon rises, the dolphins dancing in our bow wake, the grace of an albatross gliding effortlessly inches above the waves, a gazillion stars so close you’d swear you could reach out and touch them, and hundreds of glorious sunsets.
It’s also true, though, that some of our passages, those during which we encountered storms, experienced persistently bad weather, and/or had lots of things break, were, if not life threatening, at the least quite unpleasant. As unpleasant as they were, however, we did manage to survive them, and even the worst of our passages had some pleasant memories. Plus, they gave us confidence in ourselves and each other – knowing that we could weather the bad stuff as well as the good.
A cyclone is on the way
Passaging the current pandemic, is, I fear, going to be a stormy one for many of us – a passage that will have to be endured rather than enjoyed. I have no doubt we will make it through this, and eventually, things will return to normal – even if it’s not the ‘normal’ we knew two months ago. Meanwhile, there is no dearth of suggestions being offered on the internet on how to keep your spirits up and get through it, and we even have a few ideas of own. Stay tuned for our blogs next week when we talk about how we’re creating our own ‘sheltering in place normal’, and don’t miss Marcie’s Wednesday blog on the days and ways to celebrate.