Can’t smell the Rose? Have you ever asked yourself “What the heck am I doing this for?”? Perhaps you found yourself on a 3 day cruise or 3 weeks, months, years, whatever and realized you were miserable. Maybe everything seemed to be going wrong starting with the weather, and followed by multiple equipment failures. The final blow could be a good case of seasickness. Sometimes we wait all winter long anticipating the most wonderful vacation and when we finally get there, we find the discomforts of living on a small boat sneak up and make us miserable. Sometimes the stress of trying to maintain a packed schedule or trying to cover too much ground (water) in a given period of time can turn a dream vacation into a living nightmare. There is so much to love about sailing and owning a sailboat and so much potential for wonderful rich times on the water and yet many of us “miss the boat”, again and again. We read about the Pardeys or the Mummahs, who live “the dream” on a shoe string budget (at least in the Pardys case) and say to our selves “if they can do it on a shoe string, we should be able to do something similar… at least for a vacation…. right?” For many of us, this elusive “utopia” taunts us year after year. Some give up and buy a Winnebago, while some of the more stubborn types, keep at it. Perhaps this is where the “wenching, and groging” came in. 
Some folks wonder if it is actually possible to get it right before they’re too old to sail? I've confessed to my wife that I have a love, hate, relationship with our boat. Cheryl and I are into our 6th year of sailing and only on some occasions, have we truly enjoyed ourselves. The memory of these those special times is what keeps me keeping on. We have tasted victory, when nature paints a picture that words can’t describe…(and for some reason my 35 millimeter camera can’t seem to capture). When we have felt our souls rejoice at the wonder of creation and the romance that can pervade the sailing experience. The exhilaration we experienced as our beloved "Ursula" plowed through seven-foot rollers in the Atlantic will be remembered fondly. Many of the unplanned lazy weekends on the boat turned out to be wonderful. Even crummy weather has not been able to ruin some of these special times. This past July 4th was just such a weekend. Cloudy skies that threatened to storm followed us up the river. We picked a spot in a quiet cove where we thought we could view some fireworks. As the afternoon passed, more and more boats came and anchored in the now, not so quiet cove (I always enjoy watching other folks anchor, don’t you?). Around 4 o’clock it started to rain. For some reason this didn’t bother us much, as we already figured the day was a waste. I deployed the cockpit tent, grabbed a good book and a cup of “Joe” and settled into the cockpit to relax. Some pleasant folks dingyed by and offered to take a picture of our boat, to which we gratefully accepted. I started to notice all kinds of wonderful smells coming from many of the anchored boats. This made me aware of the one tactical error on our part…we should have brought the grill. Instead we ate munchies and cold sandwiches. I told Cheryl I felt like I was in the parking lot of Giant stadium before a game and this was one big “tailgate party”. A little later, a live band cranked up at one of the coastal homes. The fireworks finally came and I started to realize, this is what it’s all about. We had a magical evening that I will try to repeat. The problem is we can’t seem to make this magic happen? No matter how much we prepare and plan, for some reason we seldom come back from a "planned" cruise saying “Wasn’t that great!” So I’ve asked myself “Do you want to quit?” On a bad day my answer has been “maybe”, and on a good day my answer is “never”. In response to my stated dilemma, Roger Mummah, author of “Cruising Endless Summer –Exumas” has suggested “Cruise training”?? I would like to hear what you think? Don Bodemann
Some folks wonder if it is actually possible to get it right before they’re too old to sail? I've confessed to my wife that I have a love, hate, relationship with our boat. Cheryl and I are into our 6th year of sailing and only on some occasions, have we truly enjoyed ourselves. The memory of these those special times is what keeps me keeping on. We have tasted victory, when nature paints a picture that words can’t describe…(and for some reason my 35 millimeter camera can’t seem to capture). When we have felt our souls rejoice at the wonder of creation and the romance that can pervade the sailing experience. The exhilaration we experienced as our beloved "Ursula" plowed through seven-foot rollers in the Atlantic will be remembered fondly. Many of the unplanned lazy weekends on the boat turned out to be wonderful. Even crummy weather has not been able to ruin some of these special times. This past July 4th was just such a weekend. Cloudy skies that threatened to storm followed us up the river. We picked a spot in a quiet cove where we thought we could view some fireworks. As the afternoon passed, more and more boats came and anchored in the now, not so quiet cove (I always enjoy watching other folks anchor, don’t you?). Around 4 o’clock it started to rain. For some reason this didn’t bother us much, as we already figured the day was a waste. I deployed the cockpit tent, grabbed a good book and a cup of “Joe” and settled into the cockpit to relax. Some pleasant folks dingyed by and offered to take a picture of our boat, to which we gratefully accepted. I started to notice all kinds of wonderful smells coming from many of the anchored boats. This made me aware of the one tactical error on our part…we should have brought the grill. Instead we ate munchies and cold sandwiches. I told Cheryl I felt like I was in the parking lot of Giant stadium before a game and this was one big “tailgate party”. A little later, a live band cranked up at one of the coastal homes. The fireworks finally came and I started to realize, this is what it’s all about. We had a magical evening that I will try to repeat. The problem is we can’t seem to make this magic happen? No matter how much we prepare and plan, for some reason we seldom come back from a "planned" cruise saying “Wasn’t that great!” So I’ve asked myself “Do you want to quit?” On a bad day my answer has been “maybe”, and on a good day my answer is “never”. In response to my stated dilemma, Roger Mummah, author of “Cruising Endless Summer –Exumas” has suggested “Cruise training”?? I would like to hear what you think? Don Bodemann