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

Distractions

I will admit; Springtime in the Appalachians is a tremendous distraction. As is kissing boys. But neither are enough to quell the desire to sail over the horizon on a vessel of my own.
Here is a sweet little single-hander by a company I never took seriously. Sheer, uninformed snobbery on my part apparently. Or I was misinformed.
http://www.yachtworld.com/core/listing/boatMergedDetails.jsp?boat_id=2409548&ybw=&units=Feet&currency=USD&access=Public&listing_id=64991&url=

or here, for that matter.

i will not sail here. (no worries.)

http://www.wimp.com/angryseas/

in my next lifetime

Maybe I'll get to live on this one. Wow. http://www.yachtworld.com/core/listing/photoGallery.jsp?ro=1&slim=quicknull&r=2260498&checked_boats=2260498&rs=yachtworld.com&boat_id=2260498&back=/core/boats/1998/Bristol-GAFF-RIGGED-KETCH-2260498/Prickly-Bay/Grenada&boat_id=2260498

dreaming

I dreamed about a boat last night. She was a little ketch named Larky, and we (the boat and I) were anchored out at Key West Bight. There was cold beer involved. I woke up because?

a Downeast 38 Ketch in Slidell, LA...

sea heather

a few years and counting...

It will be a few years until I can step back on board with an eye to staying a while. At the moment, I still live in the mountains of North Carolina, in a small house with a piano in the parlor and a teenager in the good bedroom. But it is time to start dreaming. The nest is preparing to empty, and when it does, I should be ready to fly. Or float.
I lived aboard years ago, with two children, a cat, and a now ex-husband who shall remain nameless. We moved ashore and sold the boat at the beginning of the long, grueling process that eared he who shall remain nameless his prefix. I started a career in ceramics, the kids went to "normal" schools, and life started over again. But the dreams never stopped. Dreams of endless horizons, the gentle clank of rigging, night-sailing, pilot dolphins, and the gentle rocking of the tides to lull me to sleep.
This blog is about those dreams. In it, I will make notes on boats that I stalk online, see on the Interstate Highway (really!), and visit in person when I make it closer than 700 miles from the natal shores. If you are reading it, I probably invited you personally, and you may or may not be my mother. (You will probably not be a Snort.) Feel free to treat it as a conversation.