The 90-day rule...part 2

We've been invited to innumerable people's homes for dinner. Absolute strangers have loaned us their cars. People have taken us under their wings, given us fruit and veggies from their gardens, gone the extra mile and made us part of their families during our stay. In Arica, Chile, a Coast Guard petty officer let us tie up our dinghy to his launch to keep it safe. He also watched our boat while we went on an overnight inland tour. On his day off, he showed us around the city, took us to the market, carted us up to the museum and observatory at the top of El Morro headland for the most outstanding views of the port below and then brought us home for dinner. He gave David a Chilean Coast Guard cap as a memento of our meeting and friendship. All because he just wanted to get to know some Americans. We've stayed in touch.

While hauled out in Uruguay, a couple wandered through the boatyard admiring boats. They spoke only Spanish, but we communicated just fine. They were both retired physicians and now owned and managed a vineyard. Would we like to visit their vineyard? They picked us up and drove us the three hours there and back. We had a private tour of their vineyard and then a gourmet luncheon served at their bodega, sampling their fine wines. We later visited with them at their apartment in Montevideo and in Punta del Este. When we left, Martha made a special trip to the marina to bring us a case of their reserve wine. How can you repay such generosity?

Perhaps we draw more attention when we travel to places that others seldom visit. When we were leaving Uruguay for South Africa with hopes of stopping at Tristan da Cunha, a tiny, isolated South Atlantic island, we sent an email in advance asking if we could possibly bring anything that they needed. There is no airport and their only conveyance and source of supplies is by infrequent ship. We received no less than five e-mails in the next day or two. The school, the hospital, the doctor, the administrator and the communications officer all responded that nothing was needed, but we were very welcome to Tristan. If the weather allowed, we planned to stop there.

One fellow, Andy, who is still the island's communication officer, kept track of us for the entire trip with daily emails and/or radio chats. The weather cooperated and we managed to get ashore each of two days. Andy was waiting for us on the dock when we arrived. He drove us on all seven miles of paved road on the island to the Patches (local potato growing area), opened the little museum for us, took us home for lunch each day. When we left, he filled our freezer with Tristan lobsters and Tristan lamb. Our larder was full of Tristan spuds. We stay in touch to this day and would love the opportunity to return for a longer stay. Andy, by the way, knew the communications officer at St. Helena so when we stopped at this lovely island on our way back across the Atlantic, Gilbert was there to meet and greet us. Again, unbounded hospitality was shown to us. We visited parts of the island with a native Saint and saw things that off-islanders seldom see.

Our trip from South Africa to Charleston, SC was 73 days. Though we stopped at St. Helena and Ascension Islands, it was still a long, long trip to Charleston on the diagonal across the Atlantic. To put it into perspective, we left Cape Town in February and arrived in Charleston around Mother's Day. We were tired as we tied up at the Charleston Maritime Center right in the heart of downtown Charleston. We'd spent quite a bit of time here in past years and the same crew was on hand to welcome our return. We noted the marina had many empty berths and it wasn't until a few days later that we learned the Tall Ships were heading into Charleston and the marina needed to be vacated to accommodate their arrival. The entire marina...except us! An extra berth opened up and since we'd traveled for so far and so long, they made it available to us. In the midst of all of these majestic tallships, Nine of Cups, a definite “short ship” sat comfortably in her berth. We even had a staged pirate boarding of Cups to the delight of the crowd and us.

What an experience!

To be continued...

The 90-day rule

Call it destiny, kismet, karma or good juju. Maybe it's just being in the right place at the right time. We call it the 90-day rule for lack of something better. It's not really a rule, it's an....occurrence, I guess you'd call it … a chance event....always fortuitous. Early on, we didn't recognize it as anything more than being lucky. After 13 years, we think it's definitely a serendipitous pattern that's repeated itself so regularly over the years, we now call it a rule and we expect it to happen. We patiently wait for it and we're never disappointed. Here's a sampling. We were anchored off St. Kitts in the Caribbean taking an island tour with a local guide. We stopped at a little restaurant at Fort St. George for a beer and a snack. A Swiss couple was also there. We started chatting. They were there only because they had to take their dog to the vet and were killing time while the dog was being tended to. We spent well over an hour with them, our guide becoming somewhat irritated at our reluctance to move on. They invited us to their plantation home on the nearby island of Nevis. We accepted and stayed with them for three outstanding days...perfect strangers, now good friends.

While sailing up the Rio Tuira, Panama's longest river, we were anchored off the tiny town of LaPuntita when a Canadian fellow kayaked by to chat. We expressed interest in heading into the Darien Jungle interior and he told us that a young indigenous Wounaan-Emberra couple with whom he was living, was heading to a remote village and we could probably ride with them. Sure enough, for the price of a tank of gasoline and a fresh fish to share for lunch, we accompanied Amelio and Diana in their motorized dugout canoe to the remote village of Mogue. Diana was pregnant and traditionally, the maternal grandmother delivers her daughter's baby. We were here to collect grandma. We shared lunch in a thatch hut on stilts, watched Diana's uncle finish carving a dugout canoe and took a tour into the deep jungle to view a harpy eagle nest. How lucky can you possibly get?

While in La Libertad, Ecuador just before heading to the Galapagos Islands, we decided, along with our crew mate, John, to enjoy a special pre-departure dinner in nearby Ballenita at the Farallon Dillon restaurant. People came and went, but we started chatting with a pleasant woman who turned out to be the owner of the restaurant. When she invited us upstairs to her sitting room for the best view of the sunset, we were thrilled. We'd seen some pretty outstanding sunsets, but this sunset was beyond outstanding. It was later on that evening while discussing our good luck with John, that we realized that this was not a singular occurrence, it happened fairly regularly. We coined it “the 90-day rule” and it has continued to astonish us.

At Easter Island, we were anchored off the main port of Hanga Roa. The Port Captain's office hailed one day, asking for our bearing and range from his office in preparation for the arrival of a navy vessel. We complied, of course, but were rather surprised when not too much later, a Chilean naval submarine anchored next to us. So close, in fact, they could read the labels in my underwear that were hanging on the lifelines to dry. We had to raise anchor and move. Subsequently, we were invited aboard the sub for a tour, got to view Cups through their periscope, were given bottles of fine Chilean cabernet sauvignon and were treated royally for the remainder of our stay at Easter Island. Just for being in the right place at the right time.

We met a good Peruano friend, Gonzalo, because he read a small blurb about us in Cruising World and sent us an email. We were in Ecuador at the time and when we decided to backpack through Peru, we gave him a call when we arrived in Lima. We met and we clicked. He took us home to dinner. We ate at fantastic restaurants with him and his wife, Magdala, including Club Nacional, a gathering place for Lima's elite; so exclusive in fact, the Cups crew really had no business being there. We went on tours with Gonzalo's family. We picnicked, visited national parks, attended birthday parties and even had dinner at his Mom's on Sunday. We quickly became part of his family. Gonzalo was a life saver when it came time for dealing with Peruvian Customs and Immigration on our departure.

How do you account for the fact that he happened to read that tiny little blurb in an American sailing magazine and sent us an email? Serendipity? The 90-day rule!

To be continued...

Challenge versus sacrifice

Sometimes I must get carried away when I'm telling my boat stories. I mean I try to be accurate, but like Mark Twain, “I never let the truth get in the way of a good story” and for heaven's sake, let's never forget the fact that I'm a sailor. Sometimes life is tough aboard and sometimes we spin yarns. Fish are always bigger in our minds than on the hook. Storms are always worse than the weather bureau would have you believe. And for sure, boat work is always more difficult, takes longer and is more costly than you could possibly imagine. Actually, that last part is definitely true. The reason I bring this up is that I get lots of comments from folks who feel sorry for me … for us. “Oh, poor Marcie”, they say. “You have such a tough life. Oh, what sacrifices you make.” Let's not get carried away. We live on a pretty nice sailboat and we're sailing around the world...and have been for the last 13 years. We retired at age 50 and though we tend to work hard on the boat, we don't “work” in the traditional sense of the word. When we work, it's on our own timetable. There are ample cuppa breaks. We take lots of time for play as well. Yes, the boat is a tremendous amount of effort and upkeep, but then so is a house, a car, a yard, a garage, a patio, a summer camp or cabin. Think of the boat as a combination of all of those things wrapped up into one big package floating on the water.

As for sacrifice, I prefer to call it compromise or challenge. In order to have one thing, I give up another. No big closets full of clothes; no expensive cars. But then, we don't need them, do we? Sometimes the compromises are big ones. At the moment, we live on a boat in Australia and our family is in the US. It's expensive to fly there frequently, so we limit our trips home. We miss family events and dramas that perhaps we should be involved in. But this is our lifestyle choice and we can't be everywhere at once. We try to make the most of our time when we are together with family and then keep in close communication when we're not.

We're pretty frugal in order to extend our time traveling on the boat. We don't eat out a lot although I don't really see that as a compromise. We eat better for less on the boat and I really don't mind cooking and cleaning up. We'd rather spend our money traveling in the country we're visiting when we have the opportunity. We remember trips to museums and wildlife sanctuaries far more than we remember a lunch or dinner out somewhere. Sometimes we can't get what we want at the very moment we want it. Instant gratification on a boat is not common. There are no 24x7 convenience stores at sea. When the weather's bad and we're miserable, we can't just call a cab in the middle of the ocean and leave it all behind us.

We are not forced to live this life. For sure, it's definitely not for everyone. We choose not only to live on the boat, but we decide where we'll sail which means if we choose “off the beaten path” destinations, we have to be willing to handle “off the beaten path” problems on our own when they occur. We also get to choose what neighborhood we live in. Unlike land dwellers, we can change our neighborhood on a whim if we don't like the neighbors or the surroundings or maybe just because we're bored.

Are there times when I hate that we don't have heat aboard when we're away from a marina? For sure, when I'm freezing my butt off! Do I mind heating water in a tea kettle instead of having instant hot water from the tap all the time? Not really. We have no electric can opener, nor mixer nor a blender nor food processor. I do have an 8-year old microwave oven, but I can only use it when we're in a marina and have shore power. I usually forget it's there.

Is having no ice cubes a big sacrifice? Not in my book. In fact, I don't even think about it any more. Not having a freezer is a pain sometimes, especially when it comes to provisioning for long passages, but that's why I spend time in port canning (jarring) meat in advance of a big trip. It's part of what we need to do to accommodate what we want to do. Sometimes we choose to live without something or go slower in order to save power or fuel or cash outlay.

When we first moved aboard Cups, there was a lifting, exhilarating feeling of freedom...real freedom. The boat was paid for, we had no debt and no land anchors. Nothing in storage sheds (although my sister's cellar has quite a few bins stacked up), no furniture, no cars. No “stuff” other than what we have aboard with us which seems to be all we really need. Indeed, we're so space-conscious and constrained that many times something has to be taken off the boat in order for something new to move aboard. We make purchases with this in mind.

I mean really! Do I sound like the kind of girl who's been brow-beaten into this by her husband? Absolutely not! Does David appear to be a mamby-pamby kind of guy that does what he's told by an overbearing wife? Ask him … then duck. We've seen and done things that few people in the world will ever see and we feel absolutely blessed for the opportunities and experiences. Innumerable, astounding sunrises and sunsets. The moai of Easter Island from an anchorage at Anakena beach. A snowball fight on deck in Tierra del Fuego. Standing on the rim of an active volcano in Vanuatu. Sitting on a rock in Antarctica surrounded by Gentoo penguins. Swinging in a hammock in a thatch hut on stilts while having lunch with the Wounaan people in the Darien Jungle. Fishing for piranha in the Amazon River. Staring down at Cups anchored in Bounty Bay from atop a high cliff on Pitcairn Island. No, this isn't sacrifice. No need to feel sorry for us. This is what we live for.