Weather Helmed

“What if I told you, Karen , that you couldn’t have anymore of anything… No more friends, no more money, no more anything, until you first got happy with what you have? Actually Karen , I’d never tell you that, because frankly, it’s not always true. But, if you’re not happy with what you’ve got, it’s hard to imagine that you’re really thinking favorably on those things. And the thoughts that you are thinking, perhaps unfavorable, limited, and afraid, are the ones that will receive priority in the manifestation of tomorrow.”

~from The Universe

As a quick side note, how appropriate is it that I got that this morning, seeing as how I wrote the below last night…

It’s 3:21 A.M. and I am laying in the cockpit.  I’ve been up here for at least half an hour. I can’t sleep.  I woke up due to a nightmare (something ending with guns and me trying to gouge someone’s eyeballs out with my fingers), and then stayed awake worrying that our anchor was going to drag.  I came up here so my restlessness wouldn’t wake Matt.

Now, I’m out here, with the refrigeration compressor whining continually in the cabin below my head (because our fridge is leaking and so the compressor is running more often than it should) and the dinghy making slurping noises behind the boat, all which would make it difficult to sleep, even if I could.

My mind begins to wander and settles, inevitably, on this new life we’re living.  We motored out of Emeryville on February 10 and pulled into La Cruz March 14.  Today is March 24, so we’ve been “cruising” now for a little over a month.  And, truth be told, it hasn’t all been kittens and roses and rainbows.  Meaning, sometimes it really really really really sucks.

These past few days, and many more before this, Matt and I have been in especially foul moods.  A strange reality has begun to set in that life has not magically gotten better since we left.  We both had high hopes and expectations that we would be more relaxed, happy, motivated, lighthearted, carefree, etc. etc. once we left our jobs, left the marina, and freed ourselves from most of our landlubber obligations and responsibilities.  What we did not expect was that we might be absolutely miserable and it wouldn’t have anything to do with the weather or the condition of the boat.

I won’t speak for Matt here, although I know he’s struggling with similar thoughts, and I’m currently still trying to sort through my own emotions about this trip.  There have been days where I’ve wondered if this isn’t all a huge mistake.  If we foolishly entered into this trip without any real understanding of what the cruising life would demand from us.  Because, so far, it’s been a lot of WORK and not a lot of FUN; a lot of THIS SUCKS and not a lot of WOW THIS IS AWESOME.  There have been moments, of course, where it’s been kind of nice to not have to sit behind a desk, or think about commuting, and we’ve relished having our time be our own, and we realize that our experience is pretty spectacular.  But those moments have been few and far between and are quickly and easily overridden by moments of pure frustration and fatigue and worry and fear and annoyance and anger.

We had half-joked about this trip being our honeymoon, but, um, isn’t a honeymoon supposed to be where someone else fixes things (including breakfast), someone else cleans up after you, someone else worries about the details, and you and your honey just sit around feeding each other strawberries and jumping off waterfalls into peaceful lagoons and taking silly pictures of each other posing next to ridiculous statues or in front of the absurdly-named restaurant you just discovered?  This trip, so far, is certainly NOT honeymoon material, let me tell ya.

I know we’re only one month in and I know that we made it down to Mexico faster and with fewer stops than most sane people do, and I know that I’ll probably get two dozen comments telling me it will get better and to give ourselves a break, etc., but the reality is that, right now and for the last couple of days, I’m not happy and I’m not necessarily enjoying myself and I can’t say that this is really where I want to be or what I want to be doing with my life.

Being on the boat is not relaxing.  There is always something to worry about.  Yesterday, another cruiser whose opinion and knowledge we both respect, warned us about dragging our anchor even though we feel it’s pretty well set.  Apparently, in rolly anchorages like this one, when your boat is turning 360 degrees multiple times a day, it’s easy for your anchor rode (the chain) to become wrapped around the anchor and dislodge it from it’s nicely settled position.  This cruiser called up two other boats earlier this week to tell them they were dragging.  One of the boats had a 100-lb anchor!  So, even though we might have two anchor alarms set, it’s difficult to sleep at night, wondering if you’ll be awakened either by your boat banging against someone else’s or by a beeping alarm indicating that it’s imminent.  And, of course, there’s the rolling.  The constant rolling which just takes a toll on your body and your sanity.  And even little things are more challenging than you’d like them to be – like going to the grocery store or mailing a package or doing your laundry.  If I sound like a disgruntled, spoiled American whining about how it sucks to be subject to conditions that second and third world countries deal with everyday and that tons of Americans experience as well, so be it.   Right now, I am a disgruntled spoiled American who is feeling like maybe it wasn’t the best idea to give up the nice cozy, non-rocking apartment, with a glorious vertical fridge and a bathtub and easy-access laundry and carpet.

I feel bad saying these things because I know it makes Matt feel guilty.  After all, this whole sailing gig was his idea.  BUT  – after I realized the trip might *actually* happen, I got excited, too, and thought it would be an amazing experience.  Pristine, white sandy beaches and gently swaying palm trees are, after all, what dreams are made of, right?!?!

I just wasn’t prepared for life on the boat to be so HARD.  It’s not hard in the normal sense of the word, I guess, but it gets really old attempting something, just about anything, and have it be ten times more complicated, time-consuming, frustrating, painful, and difficult than you ever imagined it could be.  The mantra on Syzygy for the last six months has been “Nothing is ever easy” and there is currently no sign and very little hope that anything ever will be.

For those in the know, “cruising” has been said to be the euphanism for “doing boat work in exotic locations.”  We should have paid more attention to that phrase because so far it’s proven true.  Everyone we’ve met here has something they have to fix.  One family’s mast cracked, another had sails tear, one family has to have their dagger board repaired.  Others are fixing self-steering gear or searching for engine parts, we now have to re-charge the refrigeration system and fix our windvane.  The issue is not that all boats have problems, it’s that all boats ALWAYS have problems.  Poor Matt hasn’t really got a moment’s relaxation because his list of things to do on the boat continues to grow each day.  We talked about it a few days ago and the only solution I can come up with is that at some point, you just have to stop caring.  You have to stop caring about that new noise you hear, that new crack you see, that new leak that appears down below.  You just have to look at the boat and say F* It!  and go back to reading your book or snorkeling or whatever.  Because maybe, just maybe, that two weeks of total relaxation you get will outweigh the two months of non-stop boat work to fix all those problems and just discover new ones.  Sometimes, ignorance really is, for a few minutes at least, total bliss.

On this blog, I have tried to maintain, for the most part, an optimistic perspective I think.  There are some things in which, once a certain time and emotional distance is achieved, I can see the humor and craziness…  like the cereal incident.  But, that I can eventually see the ridiculousness of it doesn’t change the fact that I lost a year or two of life to stress and anger and frustration when it occurred.  I think that this, too, is another way having a boat is like having a child.  When the kid is three or seven or fifteen or twenty, you can laugh and joke about how s/he screamed like a banshee for the first three months after s/he was born.  But, from what I’ve heard, when you’re a new parent and your baby has been crying non-stop for the last 72 hours, you don’t think it’s cute or fun – you want to rip your hair out, bang your head against the wall and maybe hand your baby over to the lowest bidder.  Even though you know that it won’t be like this forever, it feels like there’s no end in sight.

That’s kind of how I feel right now.

I’m keeping my fingers and toes crossed that the next few weeks will be better, that the Pacific crossing will be awesome and will be just the sort of true, complete break from the “real world” that we need to fully enter into relaxed, carefree cruiser mode…  That the days will come soon when the baby wakes up all smiles and giggles, gurgling and cooing happily…

until it starts teething.

*sigh*

ok, ok, I promise it’s back to sunshine and puppies tomorrow when I’ll have another post ready, and get this – there will be PICTURES.