The First Leg

[Roger Long]

Life is cruising and cruising is just life. The lessons come when you least expect them. I haven’t been posting because I haven’t been going anywhere but, waking here at anchor in the waters I know best, I realize that I’ve learned as much in the last couple of weeks as in many miles of the ICW.

I’ve been holding simplistic Been there, done that, got the tee shirt. thoughts about the southern odyssey for the past weeks. It’s a long, long way to anywhere and not having it be new and an exploration has been making me wonder if I want to do it again.

The realization that has been working its way to the surface over the past few days is how much I am enjoying life on the boat here in the most familiar place of all. If life on these waters which I have covered so thoroughly in hundreds of daysails and the beginning and ends of cruises can be as pleasant, all the lands to the north and south still have promise. I’ve just skimmed Chesapeake Bay and the ICW. Whether I would enjoy the trip again has little to do with whether it is new and everything to do with my state of mind.

Much of my enjoyment of Portland has to do with the familiarity. I know where to anchor without searching, where to dock, where I can park my car, where the stores are. I know a lot of those same things about the trip south now and it will be a very different trip without so many Will there be a place to anchor when I get there? kind of questions constantly in the back of my mind. I look forward to the prospect of feeling at home on the whole East Coast.

There are still some things in play which may make spending next winter ashore more attractive but I’m back in that cruising mind set of freedom and choices. As for the economics, I can afford to go another year. See my original post for my thoughts on that setting out:

http://forums.sbo.sailboatowners.com/showthread.php?t=128171

Life is uncertain. I was listened to an NPR interview the other day with survivors of the Colorado wildfires. They have to continue paying mortgages and utilities on houses that don’t exist anymore in order to preserve the credit that they will need to rebuild. A few platelets could clump together and I could be dead before I post this. My life on Strider is no less secure than life ashore and it certainly suits me better.

I’ll be hauling in about a week and taking advantage of cheaper on the hard storage rates to visit my family and then doing the bottom paint and topsides. I’m planning some Maine cruises in August with my sons and friends. If the shore projects I’ve proposed don’t materialize, I’ll just start heading south again . I’m starting to look forward to it and posting here about what it’s like the second time around.


Home is the first leg of any cruise.

 

[rtshinn]

As always very interesting and introspective reading. You are living the 'examined life', Roger, and it appears to be worth living.

Now that you are more familiar with the ICW you can consider it home, and Melville's comment that 'Sailors are the stay at home types' starts to make sense.

Robert

 

[LuzSD]

Excellent writing all around

As always very interesting and introspective reading. You are living the 'examined life', Roger, and it appears to be worth living.

Now that you are more familiar with the ICW you can consider it home, and Melville's comment that 'Sailors are the stay at home types' starts to make sense.

Robert

Roger and Robert, what a wonderful gift with words and thoughts you both have. love the Melville quote Robert, it feels strangely accurate. Very enjoyable reads.

 

[CalebD]

Home is whatever place you long to be.
May your list of home waters continue to expand while your waist line does not.
Enjoy summer Roger.

 

[Shoaldrafter]

Cruising the east coast

Roger,

I only joined your venture on your way north.

And I have not had time to search your trip down.

So, on the way down did you cruise Barnegat Bay? Stop at Ports on Long Island such as Greenport, home to the Hooligan Navy. You have studied the Hooligan Navy? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puQfSfuewE4

Go thru the Dismal Canal? Stop at the only visitors center that serves both a highway into North Carolina and Canal traffic?

Visit Edenton, North Carolina? http://preview.tinyurl.com/7zm8qgw

Visit Cape Hatteras? Visit Cape Lookout? North Carolina maritime museum in Beaufort?

Did you stop at New Bern and visit http://www.yelp.com/biz/captain-rattys-seafood-restaurant-new-bern

Did you stop at Bald Head Island?

Did you visit Cape Romain, Capers Island , Bull Island in South Carolina?

Did you know that the Cooper River in Charleston goes north to Lakes Santee-Cooper and you have to lock up?

How far up the Savannah did you go?

My only comments is that the trip should not be done single handed. You need to find a

 

[TomY]

And I also followed a friends blog over the winter. I really enjoy these vicarious cruises over the Maine winter. I especially enjoy your thoughts having done what you wanted to do. There's no set model to follow, not really any tee shirt at the end, everybody seems to cut a new wake.

It's also interesting to me that having spent a winter long ago on a 28'er with my wife exploring the Bahamas and all the points between, how much you bring back that I've forgotten. And then how much is new that I never saw. We liked it enough to do it one more time but combined a friend to take the boat down for us, we brought it back.

But for now, I feel like my home on Penobscot Bay is a cruising ground that's as beautiful as anywhere I've seen(there's a lot out there on our coast alone, as you well know).

My wife says she would go again(down the east coast) in a heart beat. Who knows, maybe we will? However yours and my friends account brought back the memories of the trip that were not my favorite. The miles made under power, day after day.

That's a lot of fun for sure, especially the first time, but I find now I'm happiest sailing to as many destinations as I can in our season here in Maine.

I've kept the boat in many locations both short and long term on the east coast, I've never found one like this where a beam reach to thousands of miles of convoluted coastline is often available just off my mooring.

Sometimes I think my contentment is the result of taking a couple of trips down the east coast, and I'm the happier sailor for it.

 

[Roger Long]

But for now, I feel like my home on Penobscot Bay is a cruising ground that's as beautiful as anywhere I've seen(there's a lot out there on our coast alone, as you well know).

Circumnavigator Humphrey Barton said that exact thing to me when I visited he and his wife aboard Rose Rambler about 1970.

I find now I'm happiest sailing to as many destinations as I can in our season here in Maine.

Having seen it all now, I totally agree. In a perfect world, Maine wouldn't have winter. It's not a question of Maine vs the south for me but of winter in Maine with the boat shrink wrapped vs the south.

Nova Scotia is similar enough to Maine that the newness and lack of lobster pots make it my current favorite cruising ground. If you are only going to spend 2 - 3 months day sailing cruising, a home base in Penobscot Bay is as good as it gets in the U.S. Puget Sound is equally beautiful but you can go days without seeing any wind.

 

[rtshinn]

Roger and Robert, what a wonderful gift with words and though you both have. love the Melville quote Robert, it feels strangely accurate. Very enjoyable reads.

Thanks. I tried looking up that Melville quote though, but can't find it! I swore I read it in Moby Dick. :Liar:

 

[Jimm]

... Home is the first leg of any cruise.

And, however trite, each morning we wake up offers a promise of a new adventure whereever we happen to be.

We'd be glad to see you on the Chesapeake again!