The next step

Avalon and I have sailed. We have gone out into the Gulf, fought tides in the narrows, found and for the most part avoided sand bars and shoals, learned a little about how to combine power and sail to best effect, and I have learned Avalon's seemingly forgiving ways. The single greatest lesson learned is the inescapable fact that I have more to learn than I can even begin imagine at the moment.

It all came to a collision of goals, vectoring in from all sides like sharks, homing on the money that had suddenly appeared, sparking a feeding frenzy. It took every bit of self control I had to keep from blowing it on stuff (stuff I had been dreaming about for a year!) and keeping to dealing with the short term targets. The long distance stuff can wait a little while longer.

The money came from three years of concerted effort to get the VA to pay attention and understand that I do have an issue or two that deal directly with my experience in Vietnam. Six months of working with a hunter/killer team, wolves with rotors, taking the fight to Charlie, that can leave an impression on a young mind. Add to that the dioxin exposure (sometimes sticky with it from the rotor wash on freshly sprayed jungle) and there is a case that I did not create all the problems I've gathered up while making my way to this place. I could go on into a rather rambling and paranoid rant about our trusted and beloved government but I think I'll save that one for another time and place.

I got my disability from the VA. Three years of fighting and a little role playing and here I am, pulling down just enough that I can now say “I don't have to take that gig”. Of course, that comes with a caveat. If I want to maintain my independence and have enough money to outfit Avalon, I have to spend the next year living on the “hook”. That's kind of like camping in a small RV in a place that has no shade, moves all the time and has no hook ups. It's a place where the heat and humidity is a sentient thing, the wind (or the lack of it) can be a pleasant friend or implacable foe and a storm can be more than just an adventure. It's like living on a desert island; what you have is what you brought with you. Saving up to half my income per month by not paying rent on a cheap apartment or slip is worth it.

By living on the hook I will be teaching myself the basic skills I will need to do the kind of sailing I want to do. I want to sail the world. That's difficult to do from a condo. Another part of what I'm doing is tied in with the Boca Ciega Yacht Club. I've applied and by all indicators I have been accepted as a member there. If so, then my life on the hook will be more instructive and comfortable. They have a nice club house with a kitchen, showers, ice machine and Internet.

The club is also exclusively sail. If you don't sail or at least love sail, you ain't a gittin' past the gate. There are sailors from hobby to Magellan. All levels of experience are there with a depth of knowledge that I hope to participate in. In my application I mentioned that I do handyman stuff and don't mind working around the yard cutting grass and trimming vegetation. It'll be good exercise. I also hope to participate in what social events are there as well, such as racing, one day to three month cruises, sailing seminars, club gatherings for social meals and parties. Complete immersion into a culture; the only way to learn the language.

Exercise is a major concern for me. I've seen several live aboard boaters with bad backs. I rarely see them leave their boats. Usually they're locked away in the main cabin soaking up A/C. I've noticed that I tend to sit still for long periods as well and never really get a chance to stretch out. Then my back starts to hurt and it hurts to walk so I walk less and ride the bicycle more or drive the Jeep or just sit some more and my back gets weaker....... Wrong! I'm not going there!

Living on the hook in the club mooring area I will be rowing to and from shore daily and sometimes more often. Even if I get a small outboard for the dinghy I'll be doing some walking. I have a PO box in Gulfport which is just about a mile from the club. That's a nice morning or evening walk. Every Tuesday there is also a farmer's market in Gulfport. A new grocery store has opened about a mile North of the club and there is a coin op laundry across the street from the grocery as well as a hardware store that has gotten to know me after about five years. I plan on doing a lot of walking. Did I mention that I'm now considered one of the locals in Gulfport? Been here too long.

What I find most amazing is that I am a boat owner and a member of a yacht club, two things that were farthest from my mind when I first came to Florida. So much of life happens by accident. All my life I've watched my father play at his yacht club in Indianapolis, a club that he helped build into one of the most wanted boating tickets in the Indianapolis area. It was always a mystery to me why he did it, but I did enjoy the boating and skiing and hanging out on the river. The politics of being a club officer and the sudden unexpected boating expense was always something I would rather be without.

All the money and time, sweat and tears, laughter and good times with friends, all of it taught me that I didn't want all that much to be a boat owner, but I always did enjoy my time on the water. I wanted the forest and prairie, mountains and coast lines. I wanted to be Lewis and Clark, Boone and Crockett. Land lubber to the bone. I had my dreams when I was young, building model sail boats and imagining a life on the high seas. Ah, to be Nelson, Magellan, Vespucci and Columbus.  I forgot all about them once I found cars and girls, and the sea was so far away from Indy. Then suddenly one day I'm in Florida and I'm a boat owner. A sailboat owner.

I turn the boat into my home, remember the dreams, find the irony of earlier attitudes turned 'round and then start to dream again as I build the biggest boat model I have ever built. If I don't get this one just right, or maybe just right enough, I could wind up stranded in a place that I really don't want to be stranded at. Then again; this boat could, like the course of my life so far, prepare me and take me to the place I need to be for my next big lesson. I've made enough plans in my life to now have the ability to recognize certain gods by their individual laughs. Sometimes you're the audience, sometimes you're the show. It's called participation.

The first sail was an emotional experience for me. For a year I had been living aboard and dreaming of sailing Avalon while knowing that there was so much to do, quite a bit of which I would not be aware of until I sailed her. It was quite a feeling to have the motor running (finally), pushing the boat along quietly at about four knots (I'm guessing here). There's twenty feet of boat in front of me, eight feet behind me, six feet below me and almost fourty feet above me, all of it coming in at three and a half tons. That's a lot of boat. I was getting facial muscle cramps from all the teeth gritting and smiling. Had I been sitting during the first moments of moving the boat I most likely would have pinched a hole in the seat cushion.

Getting out of the marina was an education all on it's own. Avalon is eight and a half feet wide. The channel is at best fifteen feet with narrower portions. One side is mangroves and live oak trees. Some of the live oaks reach well into the channel, waiting like Charley Brown's kite eating tree for a meal of mast and rigging, antennas and lights. The other is made up of several million dollars worth of sailboats. I wound up with live oak leaves and a small branch or two on my deck. I'll be glad to be out of this tight little space. I can get in and out without hurting myself or anyone else, but Avalon still winds up with garnish. That's not good for the rigging and it's hard on seat cushions.

I have to tighten up and un-slob. Major lesson. I'm messy. Clutter does not bother me all that much. It's out where I can find it. Even under the piles. That doesn't work on a small boat that happens to be under sail. Loose things grow wings. The really messy stuff happens when there is a floating condo or two under power passing close abeam in a narrow channel. Wakes and sea walls, sound waves and echoes. The resonances can get interesting. Sacrifices were made. One has to wonder if sometimes the wakes of these boats is intentional, just to watch the pretty sailboat bob and roll. Bastards.

Most of my sailing is going to have to be in the “pond” for a while longer or for short forays out onto the Gulf on calm days. I've found that the shroud lines are loose or at least out of tune. That's just something else that I have to learn how to do. With the experience that the BCYC represents in the area, I don't imagine I'll have much trouble getting the info and tools I'll need. I suspect that she'll need new lines as the turnbuckles that make the adjustments have very little thread left to tighten. The aft stay turnbuckles are down to the last thread. If there is any forward rake on the mast it could play hell with her handling. More money! Boats. Break Out Another Thousand Sucker.

I found this out while close hauled and close to hull speed in a two foot sea. The lee side shrouds were flapping and bouncing while steering got iffy. I gotta fix that. There were groaning and popping sounds coming from the mast foot where it meets the keel. My guess is that the mast was trying to pull out of the boat. That would not be a good thing. I think I'll see if I can renew my Tow Boat US membership.

Another thing I learned was that my compass was not only unlit, but uncalibrated. Oops! I had laid out a nice little course that would take me nearly 12 hours to do. It took all of those twelve hours to do what I wanted to do, but it didn't happen in any way that I had planned. The compass is now adjusted, the lights are working and ready for the next mishap. A working speedometer would be good. I don't want to have to depend on GPS to tell me my speed, direction and location. High tech is fragile and vulnerable to many things that compass, mechanical clock and sextant aren't. Dead batteries, solar flares, software viruses and malware; the more complex the system, the greater the chance of chaos.

I will not do that kind of trip again without another pair of hands to take the tiller so I can at least read the chart. Having the ability to let go of the boat and use both hands to do something would be a really nice thing to have. I'll be looking around for autopilots. They come in at around six hundred bucks these days, new. It would be nice to be able to have someone or something else hold course while I grab a beer, pee, cook, eat, scratch, nap, sight see, take pictures, take a d....well, you get the idea.

I also need to get the steaming light repaired. When the motor is running there is supposed to be a bright light halfway up the mast to warn others that a sailboat is coming or to kind of light the way. The draw bridge operator told me he couldn't see me about Midnight a few days ago. A head light would be a good thing to help me keep track of the the channel markers. Channel markers are a good thing as are happy draw bridge operators. So many things to do.

The motor runs well and quiet without the two stroke stink. It's a Honda seven and a half horsepower four stroke. One gallon of fuel at one third throttle brings me about two hours of running. That's a good thing to know. I also need to install a larger anti cavitation plate or a different prop. At half power the prop starts sucking air with the motor well into the water. At the moment one third power and a clean hull gives me four knots. I can get five if I really push it but I can tell the wake is more air than water. Greater prop efficiency will give me longer powered cruising time per gallon. The less gas I have to keep aboard the happier I'll be. Small controlled fire, good. Big uncontrolled fire, bad. The dream is to go all electric but I rather doubt the money will ever be there for that to happen. Ya gotta be rich to be green.

Something I need to deal with long before I get an autopilot is a solar panel large enough to take care of my daily needs. Running a radio, a fan, a couple of lights and maybe a small inverter to run my laptop; all that can be kept up with by a single panel that can produce at least ten amps of flow. Ten amps charges my batteries back to full in about three hours. Three days of being very frugal with power and then she has to charge back up again. The club has a T dock with power. Looks like I'll be using that dock every other day for a few weeks to recharge. Gonna have to make some kind of deal to avoid abuse and hard feelings.

Another thing I must do is put out a mooring block and tackle. This is so I don't have to use my onboard anchor and line. That will make coming in and going out so much easier as I don't have an anchor winch. Seventy feet of half inch line, thirty feet of 5/16 chain and twenty pounds of plow anchor is a lot to deal with on a daily basis. It would be nice to just reach out with a boat hook, snag the buoy, hook or unhook the line head and then drift into position. This will also save my anchor line from becoming encrusted with various ecological niches. It's great full body work out, hoisting anchor. The real fun begins with a two foot sea and fifteen knot winds in the rain.

I also wonder if I have the right anchor chain and anchor. So many other boats my size have one quarter inch chain and sixteen pounds of anchor. That would be a lot easier to lift out of the water while I crouch on a bouncing pulpit hauling up yard after yard of line and chain. Just getting to the prow can sometimes be an exercise in fear management. Safety lines and harness, on the list!

She does not ride easy at anchor. She saws at the line, cutting back and forth, sailing up the anchor line, losing headway and falling back to do it again in the other direction. For now I'm going put to out 10 to 1 on rode instead of 7 to 1 until I solve this one. It may be something simple as a Bimini or tri sail. Or it may require an extra weight sent down the line to lower Avalon's apparent center of mass. Or a combination of things.

It's good to have a toy again.

What motivated me to just do it, to just fire up the motor and get out more than anything was hearing Captain Hal, one of the local charter owners, telling me never to be afraid to slip line and go. Anticipation is a wonderful thing but it can also work against you, painting dark futures and keeping you from the joys of just doing it. Fire up the motor, let go the mooring and spring lines, take your time and leave the marina. Follow the channel markers out. Pick a place to go and go there. Or just simply go. Find the moment and be with it.

Let the wind and waves tell you which direction to head, fill the sails and trim her to a good cut. Feel the movement of the deck and rudder and adjust to it, learning the sights and sounds that make up the language of sail, hull, wind and wave. Pay attention, act like a partner rather than master and she'll tell you what she wants in return for what you're asking of her. I think I like this sailing thing.

So, now the time when the rubber meets the road begins. This is where life and fantasy combine to inform my future. Do I just sail away? Do I stick around and work within the community I find myself in? Can I do both? Is there more or something I'm missing or overlooking? Am I making it too complicated? All these questions and no immediate answers. That's tough to deal with as I tend toward instant gratification tactics. Waiting is sometimes hard.

So far it all seems to be going my way so I guess I'll just ride with it and see what happens. Sometimes dreams do come true.

 


No one gets out of here alive, so live it like ya mean it.