I don’t actually know anything about fixing boats. 
I keep thinking about my future boat and picture this harrowing scenario: it doesn’t have an anchor (bow?) roller or anywhere to store the anchor for easy access while underway and the only thing actually attaching the hook to my boat while anchored are a few wraps on a measly cleat. That can’t be! It’s blowin’ a gale! I can’t get the anchor up! 
And what about installing a stronger holding mechanism (which probably has a proper name that I don’t know), because I don’t know the first or last thing about attaching a piece of hardware sturdily to the deck.
The world is full of boats
I get a call from John, the shipyard guy. I left a note on his black station wagon asking him which boats were for sale in the yard. He said none, but there’s a few that have been left “in really bad shape.”
He’s not sure if they have sails, or a title. And I think I know which one’s he’s talking about. This stout little full keeler that I’ve been admiring, 70’s era, she doesn’t have a mast, at least not one up while she sits in the yard. She’s the one I wanted to know about. Maybe I can get her for pennies, maybe all she needs is some spit shining, sails, new thru-hulls, an interior revamp. Who knows! It could be worth it and doable if he’ll let me work in the yard, and my uncle can give me a hand. As long as her hull and deck are in tact…
But the price of cushions alone is enough to steer a broke sailor away. “Sometimes free boats wind up costing more,” I remember being told.
Baptism of fire
Everyone’s first time is different. Some are with a small, short dinghy. Others with a long, strong yacht. But me? My first time sailing was a 1200 nautical mile journey from Vavau’a, Tonga to Opua, New Zealand, out of sight from land for 10 sanguine days, on a posh 43 foot catamaran. No one told me not to put toilet paper in the head so how was I supposed to know (having never stepped foot on a sail boat before), that within hours of casting off from our mooring ball I’d be covering the toilet with saran wrap, hoping the excrements would stay put for the next 1200 miles? (Secret: we’d been at port living aboard on anchor for a little over two weeks waiting for a weather window to make our crossing. I’d been putting toilet paper in the head all along, so, knowing what I know now about marine toilets, I’m surprised it didn’t clog sooner).
It was a matter of being in the right place at the right time. Who I knew, not what I knew. The boys delivered the yachts to and fro twice each year and had room for me. So I paid my way from NZ to the islands and lived like a sailor for close to a month. I didn’t know cruising existed, and it wasn’t for many years later that I knew I could live on a boat, hell even own a boat of my own. Blissfully ignorant I had no idea the implications of sailing this somewhat treacherous area of the Tasman Sea at this time of year. I listened to but never felt concerned about the reports that came through the coconut telegraph on the VHF each morning. I trusted our captain, and we were at port a good while waiting for a clear window in between cyclones.
While in Tonga I walked a pig on a leash, rode in the back of a hay truck to a strange lagoon where the beach dropped suddenly off into the deep ocean, slept in a traditional Tongan hut with the branches of palm trees for bedding (when I told my Tongan friend I was freaked out by all the spiders in there he snapped his fingers and two little Tongan boys went and shook out all the leaves), ate a piglet roasted on a spit and root vegetables cooked in banana leaves, got the shits from drinking too much coconut water, got the shits from drinking too much kava, got the shits from eating too much papaya, got constipated from taking too much imodium.
While at sea…time blurred, or stopped all together. I felt truly free and alive for the first time. I cooked and made sure we didn’t run into any shipping containers. I kneaded and baked bread. I wrote sea shanty’s. I never got seasick. I picked up pumas from the water that had come from an underwater volcano eruption–it had tiny crabs living on it and I thought to myself, this baptism of fire is how it all began…
Dinghy Dreams
The inception of this mad idea began over a year ago and only now am I truly beginning to thwart off the self-induced skepticism that this dream might actually become a reality in the near future. I hate to say the things I’m going to do, preferring to report once I’ve done them, but I’m choosing to share these humble beginnings with you, small audience.
Perusing a bookstore in the University District of Seattle one week ago I drifted toward the sailing section. Don Casey’s book of Fiberglass Hull & Deck repair caught my eye, and I bought it. Cap’n Fatty Goodlander says to have a memento to remind yourself of your intent…
I’m 26 years old and I’ve just returned to my hometown by the sea to live with my parents so I can save a modest amount of money, with the intention to acquire a modest amount of sailboat. What will happen in between I’m not sure. If you can handle my modest amount of melodrama then join me as I chase my dinghy dream.
“Don’t look back, because someone might be chasing you.” -Tom Waits
What’s the point?
We sat outside my Turkish friend’s Napa Valley apartment smoking cigarettes and pondering where our lives would take us next. The rows of vines had turned yellow, Halloween had come and gone. The last fruit had been picked and it was time to move on. She held a degree in food science and had a good job back in Turkey doing quality control for some major food corporations. But when she found wine everything changed.
The economy in Europe made it hard for her to find full time work in wine production. She had traveled from harvest to harvest, continent to continent, and spoke four languages fluently. She would do anything, go anywhere, just to have those fickle fermentations at her finger tips.
She was worried about the crisis in Europe and I asked her if she couldn’t find a wine job, would she be willing to do something else. I’ll never forget her answer that night we sat huddled together under a blanket on the concrete patio with the stars bright in the black sky.
“Yeah, I could do something else,” she said. “But if it’s not wine, what’s the point?”
That’s when I knew my passion for winemaking was waning, or maybe never really there at all. I wondered if I’d ever find my true calling.
In the past week I’ve been pulled in so many different directions. Everyone seems to know exactly what I need. “Just find your own group of friends, those people you would die for.” “Find a job you love, one that allows you to travel.” “Go to the ashram in Seattle and do a work exchange for my guru.”
My own mind has been a carrousel of future possibilities. Backpack through Hawaii? Go on a bike tour? Every time I think about a land based adventure I feel guilty. Like i’m betraying the ocean. Like the sea is my master, and the land my mistress. Ever since my first sailing experience, crossing the Tasman sea three years ago on a yacht delivery, just looking out at the water does not suffice. Since I’ve left Sookie, I can’t even look any more. It hurts too much to sit on the beach staring at the great blue liquid and not be cradled by her gentle yet unruly spirit.
I saw a bicycle for sale on the side of the road and when I called the lady about it she lowered the price $100 and this morning the bike, a Panasonic Villager III, became mine. I withdrew the $150 from my account and was shocked at the remaining balance in my account. Seven dollars. For some reason, though, I’m not scared.
I went down to the marina and spent some time aboard my friend’s Flicka in the afternoon. I told her about all the different possibilities for adventures that had been dancing around in my brain.
“Yeah, I could do anything,” I said after we’d discussed each option ad nauseam. ” But if it’s not boats, what’s the point?”
Saying goodbye to the wine industry
The romantic notion of living in a tent on the vineyard while working as a cellar hand during this year’s wine harvest was exactly that, a romantic notion. 
I’m holding on to boat life with slippery fingers. Not quite willing to take that job that requires the car. Not quite willing to leave these islands for the mainland. Not quite willing to trade the smell of brine for the smell of fermented wine. 
The wine harvest has been my means of travel for many years. It’s brought me to new places, afforded me bits of extra cash, and suddenly ended as quickly as it began. It’s been a lesson in impermanence. A lesson in saying goodbye. Being a traveling cellar hand has always felt like being part of this secret club. A club of cellar rats doing a job that anyone could learn if only they knew it existed. Making wine breaks my back, stains my hands and fills my heart each year. But in the end it leaves me homeless in a strange place where I must then move on to more work or more travel. 
I am part of a different club now, however. Even though that seasonal job with the French winemaker a state away sounded fun, it wasn’t going to get me any closer to my boat. It was going to take me further away. During our phone conversation he said in a thick accent. “This too is my dream, to have a boat and sail away. But you must first buy your freedom.” People tell me to apply myself. To get a “real” job. To “do what I love”. To not “work for money.” All seem to contradict themselves. I can’t do what I love without money and a real job would afford me no time to do what I love.
Make Sure it’s Yours
Pretending to live aboard is a lot like playing house. You cook and clean up in the tiny galley, you pee in the bucket at night and walk the dog in the morning. Despite the blackberries in full force where you poop the dog, the way the dock feels at different times of the day on your bare feet, and the way the marina bathroom always seems to feel so clean and inviting, it is not your boat, your dog, your slip or your life.
You will not know what to do if the boat catches on fire from leaving the old batteries plugged in or from cooking on the butane camp stove. You will not feel the pangs when someone ashes their cigarette accidentally in the cockpit. Your face will not drop when someone brushes against your fresh coat of varnish. You will never be responsible for something that isn’t yours.
Spending so much time on someone else’s boat means that everyone you meet will assume it is yours. People will start seeing you day after day and think you live there, permanently. After a certain amount of time you might just stop correcting them. You might start using terms like, “us, we, ours.” But it will never be yours.
I’ve always said it’s dangerous to be in love with the idea of someone. There’s nothing wrong with being in love with a lifestyle, but make sure it’s your lifestyle. Make sure it’s your hard work that got you on that boat. Whether it’s the prettiest boat in the harbor or the biggest hunk of shit, make sure it’s yours. Make sure it’s your story you’re telling.