O The Creatures You Will Meet!

Flying Squid
I found this gem of an article in the paper today. Whereas I am still a little uncertain as to its provenance and whether or not it is a practical joke, it made me wax nostalgic for the skippy fish that used to shatter the surface of Gulf waters. Startled by what must have seemed from underwater a leviathan silently cutting through the waves, they would rise in fleets and clatter away from our gliding hull. Most mornings underway we would find a few stiffening corpora, winged fins outstretched on the deck. Despite our best efforts, our aging Siamese cat would have nothing to do with them, and they were summarily buried at sea. Though I have no intention of going as far afield as the Sea of Japan, my imagination is captured by an image of ranks of lavender squidlets, propelled like squirt toys on a jet of water, speeding across calm seas on gelatinous wings. Remembering the hard crack that the bony flying fish made as they smacked the hull, I easily conjure the wet slap that would result from such a collision with a flying squid. My mental menagerie is expanded, and I add the flying squid to the ranks of creatures that, while I may never see them in person, endlessly inhabit the warm waters of my dreams.

Revelation!

It only took five solid days of rain. Okay, so being stuck in a strange house with two odd dogs and the world's fattest cat on a mountainside about 25 miles from my own home helped some. But you become impatient. "Revelation?" you say, with eyebrow lifted and that little bit of a smile that you get when you are humoring me. Yes. Revelation. Obviously, if you have stumbled upon (or been invited to) this blog, you know of my affection (affliction?) for sailboats. Especially during cold, wet, brown, snow-less North Carolina winters. (Your toe is tapping. Where was I going with this?) Yes. Revelation. One word.
Catamaran.
Oooo. I just got chills. Yes, catamaran! In my few years as an actual sailor, I confess that I rather looked down on them. They were so... light. We lived on our beautiful Shannon 50, dark, mysterious, serious cruising vessel that she was. Smallish ports designed to keep out the seas (good luck with that), lovely oak and teak paneling designed to make you feel like you were at home on the Pinta, and just enough room in the berth to make you feel very tall. She was lovely. But catamarans! They were broad! Bright! And good Lord, they had a real bed in them. Several, as a matter of fact. What Puritanical urge made me look down on them, I have no idea. Probably the same one that made my buy my tiny little house on the mud slope because it had nice stained glass windows. But I digress.
Cruising catamarans seem to be a relatively new breed. Most of the ones I have perused today have been built since the mid '80s, and I confess, rather look it. Spacey is the first word that comes to mind. They look more than a little like a bright white fiberglass Geordi la Forge or a nautical version of the Guggenheim. But my innately classical sense of style (no snorting, you) is overwhelmed by the second word that comes to mind. Spacious. And the third. Bright. Sunlight everywhere! O, dear me! One can see OUTSIDE from INSIDE. And really, isn't that a good half of what cruising is about? Hanging on the hook in a new harbor, puttering about making supper, humming a Jimmy Buffett tune, and LOOKING OUT at where it is your dream has carried you? (Okay, except that bit about the Jimmy Buffett tune.) Every one that I looked at today (like this one) whispered, "Buy me. I'll take you back to the Dry Tortugas and beyond."

Now all I need to figure out is how to sail one.

Fall, and back to Sailboat Dreams

I woke to frost this morning. The whole yard was rimed with sparkling silver, and the aloe plants that I left on the porch were stiff and waiting to turn to sludge with the arc of the sun onto the porch. As happens every Autumn after the leaves have turned and fallen, the lives of my near and dears fray at the seams. Cold seems to gnaw at long term relationships and eat the polish right off of new ones. The extra expense of heating a home causes budgetary panic, and the thought of being snowed in makes some friends downright paranoid at the sight of every cloud. Me? I'm fine. New roof on the house, new kittens to keep me laughing, fresh cord of wood for the stove, life is good. But I can't help but dream of warmer climes and of homes that move and of radios that provide unreliable communication with the outside world. Am I talking about running away? Who me? Yes. I can be honest. Nobody reads this. My idea of heaven at the moment is climbing aboard a little single-hander and sailing down to Key West with the kitties. I long to stroll alone through the Hemingway house and to the Chicken Store and have a coffee and Nutella beignet at that little French cafe and then be rocked into sweaty sleep on the hook in Key West Bight. No hurrying from the house to the car or the woodpile or anywhere else to escape stinging nose and ears and frosty eyeballs. No dreading the ringing phone or the stomp of livid daughter or the shriek of housebound hound dog. No feeling guilty because I am not "producing." No feeling like a weenie because I love this place in spring and summer and dread the coming of fall. Am I fine? No, I guess not. If, as advertised, we get plenty of good snow this winter (and the cell service becomes incredibly spotty and said teen gets snowed in at her boyfriend's), I will probably stay amused enough to make it through. If not, there may be tooth-marks at the corners of coming pages. This morning, though, I am feeding the dream with this:
http://www.yachtworld.com/core/listing/photoGallery.jsp?slim=quick&currency=USD&units=Feet&seo=0&checked_boats=2474674&boat_id=2474674&back=/core/boats/1988/Island-Packet-31-2474674/Oriental/NC/United-States&boat_id=2474674
The Island Packet 31, what a cutie! I could just drive over to Oriental right now and take her home. Except that home is Asheville. And that 50ish grand is more than I have at my fingertips at the moment. But... that is what dreams are for. Dream on.

Beneteau, boxy but good?

I will be the first to admit it. I am spoiled. Lucky, and spoiled. I was lucky in that the first family sized boat we owned didn't sink, didn't turn turtle, and was enough fun that when we realized it was a floating condo unsafe at any speed (except tied to a dock), we still wanted and could afford another one. Or at least, he still wanted another one. I wasn't really dragged kicking and screaming into the experiment, but I wasn't as passionate about it as was my (now former) husband. The Erwin 54 (floating condo) did a lot to dampen my enthusiasm. Gold plated LED lighting system, Laura Ashley upholstery, and a really nice sound system didn't even begin to make up for the leaky bilge, leaky hatches, flimsy-feeling rigging, "flexible" hull, and a stove that took over an hour to boil a pot of water. Not to mention the"arch." I felt like the girlfriend of one of those guys who puts a great big spoiler on the back of his Nissan. It was embarrassing. (So was the gold-plated lighting and frou-frou upholstery, for that matter.)
Spoiled came in with the second boat. Good Omens was (as New Orleans was once described) like a beautiful woman with a dirty face. She had beautiful lines, dreamy handling, sketchy paint and a distinct tang of mildew. She was a Shannon 50 ketch, a queen among cruisers. Cleaned up and refitted, she made a beautiful home. (Once we figured out why she kept dumping all of her oil and why the bilge was filling to the brim every time we heeled over, that is.) Point is, she was a classic. Full to the gills with oak and teak, she was beamy, solid, graceful, safe as a cradle.  We could have crossed oceans in Good Omens. Alas, that was not to be. It was not her fault. I hope that she is crossing oceans now with her new owners.
And I am still lucky and spoiled. I live in the mountains, garden, hike, bike, write, make art. I go home to visit my family in Florida as often as I can, and I still dream of moving back onto a boat. And I still believe that I can. Realistically, however, I will not own another Shannon 50. Among other things, I don't have the skill to singlehand her, or the wherewithal to buy and refit one. So I am forced to consider the merits of "lesser" craft. O, none of them need to feel bad. I have set Good Omens so high in my memory that any craft short of the QE2 would fall short of her. And so I haunt sailing websites, gleaning the wisdom of salty old bloggers who would like nothing more than to sell me on their particular craft. (Some of them would love to sell me their specific craft, as well!) Upon their advice, I have been examining (from afar, we don't have many cruising yachts in Asheville) the Beneteau 34. This is a craft from which I have always instinctively shied away. She has lines like a tub. Her bow cuts straight down to the water, something I find highly unattractive. She has a sugar scoop transom, which I always understood to be a liability in following seas. I am assured, however that she sails like a dream and handles beautifully in intercoastal waters, both of which suit me fine. Her accommodations are spare, but not Spartan. Gone is the solid oak and teak of my former home, replaced with paneling and fiberglass. It is sort of like a brand new double wide, but smaller, and without the velvet paintings of  Jesus and Elvis. And so, the Beneteau 34 goes on my list of boats to investigate when I am next by the sea. Have a look, and tell me what you think.
(No worries, Mom. Hunters are still RIGHT OUT.)
http://www.yachtworld.com/core/listing/photoGallery.jsp?ro=1&slim=quicknull&r=2468078&checked_boats=2468078&rs=yachtworld.com&boat_id=2468078&back=/core/boats/2010/Beneteau-34-2468078/Marina-Del-Rey/CA/United-States&boat_id=2468078

My new hero

I am currently reading Mom's copy of Gipsy Moth Circles the World, and am amazed at what poor Sir Francis had to endure before even leaving port! A badly designed boat with almost none of his specs (far larger and leakier than he wanted), 50% over budget even before launch, a bum leg, and his beloved wife laid out by a curtain rod! I think I would have crumbled. This is perhaps why my dream is not so much to circumnavigate the globe as to make it as far as Maine some day. Or Key West. Whatever. I am easy to please.
This is the Gipsy Moth IV, possibly the world's luckiest boat, coming in to Devon. (Lucky in that he didn't dynamite her in the Solent.)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/devon/content/image_galleries/gipsy_moth_returns_gallery.shtml

but this one has my heart.

sweet little shannon ketch

trade ya!

I wonder if any of these people would like to live in a tiny, funky cottage in North Carolina... it's freshly painted inside! 

http://www.sailboatlistings.com/view/27306