Cruising Fashion - It Ain't Pretty

I happened to come upon a blog the other day which discussed fashion for cruising women. It was a serious discourse on what fabrics didn't wrinkle and how to keep whites really white and what clothing was most versatile for sundowners and dinners ashore and what shoes to wear and how to accessorize. She encouraged people to share their fashion tips with others. Oh, my … was I ever left out. Fashion tips from the Nine of Cups' crew? Perish the thought.

Twenty years ago, I thrived on fine worsted wool suits, silk blouses and scarves, fine accessories and high heels in every color of the rainbow. That was then, this is now. I've been shopping in thrift stores and opp shops since I've returned to the States, trying to upgrade my dwindling wardrobe. If you've only paid $1 for a shirt, it's okay if diesel gets splattered on it or you rub against a rust stain. My sister gave me her last year's exercise shoes which have become my walking shoes. Sometimes I splurge on a pair of earrings ... if they're on sale. Underwear, whenever I buy it, is always new. There are limits to my frugality.

I'm always impressed by women who step off their yachts well-coiffed, with starched blouses and freshly ironed slacks with creases (no rust stains noticeable) and head for the local malls to replenish their wardrobes. Most of the full-time live-aboard cruising women I know, however, are pretty much like me, I think. We have limited clothes aboard … mostly because after all those spare boat parts and extra provisions, there's no room to store lots of clothes. What clothes we do have are practical and versatile … shorts, t-shirts, a couple of sundresses maybe, a bathing suit or two, a pair of jeans, sweatpants, sweatshirts, foul weather gear. I do have one old navy blue blazer aboard (from 1999) which I wear with a reasonably good pair of slacks (also from 1999), so I look somewhat presentable whenever I head back to the States. The neat, pressed look is always a challenge. We have no iron aboard.

High heels? NOT! Deck shoes, a pair or two of flip-flops, reef shoes, a good pair of walking shoes (usually with the soles re-glued in place), maybe a pair of Crocs (usually wannabe Crocs). While on passage, we rarely wear shoes at all.

While on passage, fashion never comes to mind. Truth be told, we don't change clothes very often on a passage. It's the same old t-shirt and shorts or sweatpants. They're not color-coordinated because who can tell with all the stains and wrinkles? We wear the same clothes over and over again, day after day, until they either get too crusty to wear or they get doused by a wave and are soaked. Sometimes we don't wear clothes at all actually … depending how hot or cool it is. Less laundry that way, no tan lines (as if?) and definitely no worry about fashion. Come to think about it, sailing naked at our age is an advantage … it keeps the pirates (as well as everyone else) away!

Searching for a Land Anchor

Land anchors … those things that keep you tied to the land when you're at sea. David didn't include them in his anchor book, but they're very real. When we decided to sell up and sail off back in 2000, we sold our home, furniture, cars … all those material things that kept us tied to land. We wanted no mortgages, no property taxes, no cars, no storage pods with furniture… and we were quite successful. Our family has been wonderful for nearly two decades, offering bed, board and storage whenever we show up … for a week or a month or sometimes longer. Now, we're thinking we'd like a place of our own to nest once in awhile. Yup, we're looking to buy a land anchor. After 16 years afloat, we need a place to store our souvenirs.

We've been out of the market for a long time and things have changed. Duh! For instance, getting pre-qualified and/or pre-approved for a mortgage loan ...you can do it on-line. In fact, they almost insist you do. You just spill your guts, including all your financial intestines, to a loan specialist via “chat”, whom you've never met and could never hope to meet. Before you know it, you're pre-qualified. We felt uncomfortable with that process and asked for a face-to-face sit-down with a loan officer at a bank we've dealt with for a couple decades. The bank, too, preferred an on-line or telephone interview, but we insisted and they acquiesced. We're definitely old-fashioned that way, I guess. It was a waste of time. We were on time and he was late and unprepared. No problems getting the approval, but we knew more than the “loan specialist” did … plus he forgot we were the customers. Grrr!

Searching for a place to live? Easy enough … whether we're interested in a house, condo, mobile home or desert property, we can shop on-line for that, too. That process, though exhausting, we've kind of liked. We don't have to deal with aggressive realtors too early in the game. We've decided that Las Vegas would be a good place to have a condo. David's mum and sisters live here. There's no state income tax. It's easy and relatively inexpensive to travel here. And, at the moment, property values are reasonable and mortgage rates are low. We figure it's better to invest in real estate than let our savings stagnate in a next-to-no-interest bank account or lose its value in the volatile market.

It turned out that once we found a place we wanted to look at, however, we couldn't get a realtor to call us back. Must be too many realty sales in Nevada to bother with us. Mary finally contacted a fellow she knew and, by default, he became our agent. The place we liked was not available, but he had more to show us. We provided our general criteria: location somewhere near Mary, bargain price, lots of square footage, no yard to maintain, but a private patio for a grill, beautiful grounds and views, facing east (morning sun, you know), several self-cleaning bathrooms, all top-of-the-line appliances included, low taxes and low or no HOA fees. We didn't think we were asking for much. He wasn't able to find one to show us until we compromised on our criteria a bit.

We've seen a couple of properties now, but we think this will be a slow process which is okay because we're used to traveling on a sailboat. Of course, once we buy a place, we'll want to buy a car and furniture and “stuff”. It's almost depressing! And if we don't find a place we like, what then? Well, life will go on and we'll look again another time or another place, maybe. The big question you ask … do we intend to swallow the sea anchor once we acquire a land anchor? NO! We figure we've still got quite a few good sailing years left in us and there's still lots to see out there. Stay tuned and we'll all see how it all turns out.

Catching Up on Politics

Being away from the US for such long periods of time, we're always out of touch with politics and what's happening on the political front. Usually, that's not a problem, but here we are in a presidential election year and we need to learn a bit about the prospective candidates. We don't consider this blog an appropriate place for discussing politics (or religion for that matter...much too controversial for us laid-back sailors). But the process of catching up is an interesting exercise. We took a look at who was running first … Democrats and Republicans et al. There were a few familiar names … Clinton … Trump ... and some we didn't recognize at all. There's a pretty full roster of Presidential hopefuls out there. We're used to hearing about American politics through the eyes of people in the countries we visit. Amazing how much other countries know about American politics and how little we know about theirs (or ours). Can you name the Prime Minister/Premiere/President/Head of State of Great Britain? France? Germany? Australia? I'll wager most Americans cannot, yet most of the citizens of those countries know Barack Obama's name.

So, we searched on-line to find the major issues of contention and where individual candidates stood on each. Immigration, gun control, ISIS/terrorism, the federal deficit, health care, environmental issues … seemed to top the list. The issues are complicated. It's hard to figure out, sometimes, exactly what the candidates are advocating. They tend to spout about what's wrong and how they disagree with the other candidates … but they have a hard time defining exactly what would be right. Understandable … there are no easy answers, and to quote the 15th century monk and poet, John Lydgate, “you can't please all the people, all the time.”

We found several quizzes on line that matched up our political views with candidates. Sometimes I couldn't figure out the question; sometimes the questions were phrased in such a way, I couldn't answer. Then there were those questions, I'm sorry to admit, where I was totally ignorant of the topic, e.g. Do you advocate American exceptionalism? (Yikes, what the heck's that ... I had to look it up). Depending on the quiz you chose and the wording of the questions, it was possible to match up with a different candidate each time, even though my views hadn't changed. Just google “presidential candidate quiz” and see the results.

So, between now and November 8th, we'll stay tuned to the American political scene and try to figure out who best represents our own ideologies. We'll make a sincere effort to learn more about the issues and the candidates and vote accordingly. David and I certainly do not always agree on each issue. We do agree however, that it would be nice if the Democrats and Republicans could, perhaps work together for the good of the country versus their own political agenda. Enough said … let's move on to something even more controversial. Sail or motor? Stick or stinkpot?