Reentry after cruising has its ups and downs
Issue 115: July/Aug 2017
Not too long ago, we returned from our longest sailing adventure to date, almost a year of cruising from Tennessee to the Bahamas aboard Lucidity, our 38-foot sailboat. A year with more pura vida packed into it than several years of “normal” life that preceded it. We met more people, had more adventures, and learned more in that year than in the previous decade. We lived the dream, we made the leap, we took the plunge. It was awesome.
We have so many memories.
I miss the sailing. I miss standing watch on a beautiful day as the boat creams along on an infinite sea under an infinite sky. I miss the complete and total awareness of the world that I experience only while immersed in a natural setting.
I miss the color. Sailing in the Bahamas on a sunny day is to experience a vibrancy of color as if under the influence of psychotropic mushrooms. The blues are laser-like, the whites are born of supernovas, and every sunrise turns the ocean into molten gold. Below the water, crystalline shafts of sunlight paint the reefs with neon and turn snorkeling into a psychedelic experience.
I miss the people. One of our major pleasures when cruising is the tendency to encounter eccentric people who live vivid lives and who spin endlessly colorful stories. Listening to their tales of high adventure has ruined me forever for regular conversation. How can I now pretend to be interested in someone’s thoughts about a TV show or opinions about a sporting event? I had little patience for that sort of thing before we left; now those exchanges immediately send me off daydreaming.
I miss my connection with the natural rhythms of nature. To live in the city is to subjugate myself to the clock. While cruising, I was open to the wheel in the sky. Ancient cycles moved within me like the ocean’s currents: slow, immutable, satisfying.
Sailing is, in many ways, like farming — my first occupation. I spent all of each day supporting the infrastructure of that lifestyle, moving within its gentle but inviolate limits. Just as when cruising, time is different on a farm; farmers move to the seasons, not to hours on a clock.
I miss the time with my family. For almost a year, we lived and worked as a team; every decision was communal and every experience shared. My wife and I spent all day with our little boy, and we found the magic in our relationship that allowed us to live together on a 38-foot boat, all day, every day. It wasn’t always easy, but it was all rewarding. Now back in “reality,” we pass by each other on the way to work and school. We spend less time together than we spend with our co-workers.
Several aspects of reentry were unexpected. Of those, some were positive, some negative. When I walked into our garage for the first time, I was surprised to see that it alone has more living space than the boat. That first night back home in bed, I delighted in falling asleep free of worrying that the house might drag anchor.
We were aboard long enough to (mostly) forget what land life is like. I’d forgotten the awful grayness of the city and the impossible moral choices it forces upon its inhabitants. The press of humanity in a large city — with all the noise, commotion, and meaningless fury — boils constantly like an overlooked kettle. So much energy dissipating with so little effect.
Watching the “all terror, all the time” news programming, I remember why I didn’t watch it before. Just about every channel seems to be devoid of informational content. I am quite sure the television sucks intelligence out of me as I watch. Even the entertainment value is diminished by show after show in which human beings are made to suffer in one creative way after another. The contrast between an evening in front of the TV and an evening at anchor in the Bahamas is, to paraphrase Mark Twain, “the difference between the lightning and the lightning bug.”
Reentry into the real world was more of an adjustment than I anticipated. The harried activity leading up to our departure was bookended upon our return by the thud of “normal” life asserting itself.
Civilization. Who needs it?
Apparently, I do.
Walking through the doors of our public library, I was greeted by the wonderful aroma of towering stacks of old books. I felt the power of all those stories and all that knowledge emanating like warm sunlight. I’m a two- to three-book-a-week person and, in my view, libraries are humanity’s single most outstanding accomplishment, and perhaps the only worthwhile way the government spends our tax money. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed them.
Reentry has given me the opportunity to pursue interests other than sailing, and to enjoy perks such as bike paths, unlimited hot water, friends, and extended family. These rewards have helped balance the difficulty of transition. Like in all of life, the yin and the yang.
Modern society clings to me like spider webs during a morning walk in the woods, and the more I pull the more it stretches to retain its hold. But I remain a sailor, and the immutable pull of the sea moves within me like the tides.
I’ll be back.
Butch Evans was raised in Kansas, fell in love with the sea the first time he saw it, and promptly spent all his time and energy working to get out of sight of land. Sailing an Island Packet 38 for almost 10 years (including from Knoxville, Tennessee, to the Bahamas) satisfied much, but not all, of that desire. Currently landlocked while enjoying living near the Smoky Mountains, Butch is hard at work scheming ways to get back out there.
Thank you to Sailrite Enterprises, Inc., for providing free access to back issues of Good Old Boat through intellectual property rights. Sailrite.com
