Why sail?

Sailing is camping without the dirt.  That is one of the reasons why I like it so much (besides that fact it is something short people can do).  Sweating is the hot afternoon sun while docking or anchoring, hosing down or polishing a boat is fine with me.  What is not fine is the dust and dirt that mingles with sweat when you take to the roads and camp. Both can have beautiful vistas at the end of the day, but only sailing leaves me clean.  No stains on my clothes. No dirt buried in under my nails or in the crevices of my body. 

Ah, you might say – why sweat when you can have a recreational vehicle that moves smoothly and directly over the roads while cooling you in air conditioning to protect you from the elements thus limiting your camp set-up to hooking into the electrical outlet.  My answer is simple – sailing demands that I travel in the weather, with the weather and that I live in the weather.  It is takes skills and knowledge to know the weather and its powers.  The elements are the experience that has me learning something every time I go out.  But, it is also a dirtless experience. My boat does have air conditioning; but only at dockside when it can’t head up into the evening breeze at anchor.  Dockside is the garage of the boat world.

But, you might say, “Why depend on the vicissitudes of the weather, when you can have a power boat to take you directly and quickly to where you want to go.”  Again my answer is simple – sailing makes me slow down; I don’t have total control.  I can make plans, but they can change as the wind and weather changes.  I sometimes have to wait.  I must indulge in “getting there”, not just “being there”.  Sailing challenges my ability to adjust to my environment.  I do not battle the elements as racers do, squeezing every drop of leverage against the wind to be faster and better than the next guy. I take the time to live with them rather than fight it. I explore and I cruise.

However, you might say, “Wait, you have a diesel engine on that sailboat of yours.  You cheat the wind any time you want. That sailboat is just a camper without tires.”  True, my “iron jenny” can transform sailing into a direct trajectory.  It is my safety net; however, even when I use it, there is no mud to infiltrate my body and my belongings.

My anchorage is always well away from street lamps. There is much space to separate me from other boaters.  I rest, eat and watch the water.  After the sun sets and the air slows to a gentle breeze, the sky darkens and stars appear. If I wait a bit, that sky bursts, filling the inky blackness with the billions of galaxies of the Milky Way.  Only on the water do I feel that vastness of what I will never know.  And, there is no dirt between my toes.

Tomorrow morning we head home after a week with Forte Vento.  Two damage issues still plague us --weak batteries (easy to replace) and the very much more serious stress cracks around the cockpit arch and port shroud that will require  a redo of the gel coat and realignment of the arch).  BUT we are sailing once again.