Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: boat, catamaran, damage, problems, Russian, sail, sailing, translate
Hell no!
Boris is usually the go-to guy for tasks such as these so he was pretty relieved when Avi volunteered for the job. They set about dressing him in floatation devices (like anything would help if he somehow came out of his harness and took a plunge…not that I expressed this thought out loud) and strapping him into his safety seat, which consists of thin plastic straps that your entire body weight rests on as you’re hoisted into the air that has been known to limit ones ability to have children. Avi was up about 50 feet when something we all should have expected went unexpectedly wrong. His life vest spontaneously inflated and began to suffocate him. When faced with what to do when he suddenly found himself being strangled by an unseen attacker while dangling precariously and at a great height Avi decided to take his screw driver and start stabbin’. We hurriedly got him back on deck. He was a little shaken, but the clear victor in the Avi vs. Life vest match, having inflicted no less then 15 puncture wounds. He’d also managed to secure the new halyard.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: language barrier, Russian, sex trade, sexist, translate
I set out a few months ago to explore the four corners of the Earth, (the four corners in this case being Europe, the South Pacific, the slightly-less-south Pacific and Iceland) leaving in the historically noble pursuit of discovery; seeking adventure and searching, in the tradition of many travelers, to learn something about myself. I have spent most of the time since then looking for the laundry room. This may be disappointing to some, but I happen to know that this is just where the Universe wanted me; for it is at that exact location that my seemingly stalled journey found it‘s footing again.
Dimitri and I weren’t stranded exactly. Many boats were leaving and if we wished to trudge back across the hard-won Atlantic after our quick sojourn on land we had several options. Or, if we decided to head on to Lisbon it was just a quick, 400 Euro, flight away. Instead we decided to make the best of it and take advantage of the islands staggering free WiFi coverage while waiting for our pants, now free of the ever encroaching black mold that had been causing me increasing distress, to dry. So, that’s where we were when three individuals bearing the unmistakable signs and smells of a recently completed trans-Atlantic crossing entered the laundry speaking Russian. This peaked Dimitris interest as he also speaks Russian (although, he does so with the accent of a California surfer, which is especially odd since he’s from Connecticut, or, as the majority of younger residents refer to it, New York City) so, seeing an opportunity to work on his pronunciation, he went over to talk to them.
As it turns out two of the sailors were departing (for reasons that would be explained to us later) and the boat they were leaving was in need of crew. We took advantage of this information immediately and were soon on our way to be interviewed by the 
Captain, Boris…or, rather, for Dimitri to be interviewed while I sat nearby nodding. For some reason I was ill at ease. Even though they were conversing in Russian and I wasn’t really able to participate, I found it troubling that Boris never attempted to address me or even appear to notice I was there. I began to suspect that he might be one of those sailors from The Old Country who had certain ideas about what women should and shouldn’t be doing, but before you start gathering the pitch forks and lighting torches with your burning bras on my behalf it turned out, quite simply, that he doesn’t speak English, I don’t speak Russian and it didn’t occur to Dimitri to translate. I had jumped to an unreasonable conclusion.
I sort of zoned out mid-way through the rest of the proceedings so I was pretty surprised when I found myself locked in a fervent embrace that immediately convinced me I’d just become the newest addition in some sort of sex slave industry. What the hell?!
Owner
I decided to take a moment to examine my sudden paranoia before it reached foil hat status and was able to deduce that Dimitri had, in fact, just sold me into the sex slave industry. Hahaha. No. It was just Boris’s way of welcoming me to the boat. I was making baseless assumptions. I didn’t have a bad feeling about these people. Quite the opposite , so why was I behaving so uncharacteristically? The answer came to me when I was introduced to the final crew member Hana. She speaks Russian and Hebrew, but very little English. Avi, the owner, speaks Hebrew, a little Russian and some English. Hell, the combination of spoken and comprehended languages on this boat is so complicated that a Venn diagram can’t handle it, but out of the five of us I’m the only one who can’t communicate in anything other than my native tongue.
As my dear friends in the Master’s Psych program at UT would say, I was acting out because my own hidden insecurity was being exposed. Basically, I have a hard time retaining foreign words. I’ve been trying to learn Spanish for a while (since high school if you really need to know…jerk) and I find it extremely frustrating that nothing sticks. It’s also a little embarrassing.
Cook
I fear being perceive as a tourist who expects everyone to be “speakin’ American“. Once I identified the feelings behind my odd reactions they went away and I was able to see my new shipmates for who they truly are; a bunch of friendly, energetic people who are in no way affiliated with the sex trade. I’m looking forward to joining them, continuing my journey and attempting to learn a new language or two…or, at the very least, some new curse words. Now that I realize how deeply this barrier effects me my resolve to overcome it is stronger then ever. Free WiFi is like the siren’s song, but we’re ready to tear ourselves away. There’s so much out there still to encounter. Who knows what the next laundry room will bring!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Acores, atlantic, Azores, Faial, ferry, guide, Horta, island, Islands, mountain, ocean, Pico, rent, sail, sailing, scooter, volcano
Although Faial is not a large island the towns are spread out so if you wish to explore other areas it’s best to rent a scooter or motorcycle. There are several car rental places but screw that! Besides charging a lot more, many of the roads don’t seem to be built to accommodate any cars let alone one driven by you. Dimitri and I rented a scooter the day after we were told there was a volcano on the other side of the island…really, I have no idea if that’s what we were being told but we gathered this information from the happily screaming Portuguese café owner somehow; perhaps osmosis. We spent quite a bit of time researching maps to make sure we found the right road, the most scenic, the easiest to navigate and so on, so naturally when we finally left we were prepared to get lost immediately, which we promptly did.
Scooter of destiny
This was fortunate since it spared us hours of wasted attempts at control over our scooter adventure. The road we originally thought would lead us around the west coast of the island ended up taking us up a steep incline to the top of a small mountain and we discovered, not only the best view of Horta, but my new favorite religion.
As I’ve stated before, I’m not out to find God or gods or anything even vaguely resembling religion, but I can definitely get behind this particular one. We didn’t attend a service. Nor did we speak to anyone who had attended a service. Hell, we didn’t even go in, but we did see the symbol on the front of the building and it was immediately clear what it meant. At first glance it appeared to be a heart with a knife through it, but after a short discussion about the neighboring islands of St. Jorge’s famous cheese industry we quickly discerned what it actually depicted. It was obviously a strawberry on a serving toothpick. This was the igreja do fondue or fondue church. That our scooter had taken us here was no surprise. We are both strong devotees of cheese.
Once we realized that the scooter had our best interests in mind we felt completely at ease to continue exploring without a map and spent some time driving on roads thickly bordered by hydrangeas before eventually reaching the volcano we had originally set out for.
volcanic tidal pools
It was a giant, steaming crater with tidal pools separated by volcanic rock at its’ base and it made us both want to climb a giant, steaming crater of a volcano. Unfortunately, they don’t let you do that in Horta, but we’d heard that the volcano on Pico could be climbed if a guide was employed to take you up so we agreed to check it out the following day and headed back to town with a quick stop at a lovely, little restaurant by the sea where we ate plenty of local cheese.
The next morning we woke up ridiculously early. We’d been told the round trip hike on the mountain takes around 7 hours not including stops so you have to arrive with the first ferry or they won’t take you up. We hadn’t been able to find any information regarding the guides but there were several little huts set up immediately upon stepping off the pier in Pico so we didn’t have any trouble finding them. Unfortunately, our excitement over quickly locating these huts slowly dissipated as we went from hut to hut comparing prices and began to realize that these guys were all Insufferable…not only that but they were price-gougers.
Pico as seen from Horta
Apparently, after an earthquake unsettled the ground enough to greatly reduce the amount of amateur hikers returning from their trips, the local government decided no one could head up without an experienced guide. This seems to mean that they can charge you whatever they want while acting as if you should be grateful they are willing to lend you thier astounding expertise at all. Well, this might be a mountain but it’s not freakin’ Everest. After deciding it wasn’t worth the money (or being stuck with one of these guys and the minimum of two other tourists for 7 hours) I did the next best thing to climbing a volcano and went to sleep on a bench.
We took the ferry back to Horta later that afternoon without having achieved anything for the day. I could almost feel Dimitri vibrating with pent-up energy in the seat next to me. He didn’t say it but I knew…we’d been here too long. Because of the extent of the damage done to the boat during the storm Peter had decided to leave the boat on the island and fly back to France. He said we could stay onboard as long as we wished, but left us to our own devises finding our way. There are ferries and planes that leave fairly regularly but neither one of us wanted to spend the money so we began looking for a boat in need of crew. It seemed as if we might be in Horta for a while and the wanderlust was starting to kick in again. I noticed my hand was trembling slightly as well. It is fortunate then, that we found what we were searching for only a few hours later.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Acores, atlanitic, Azores, Islands, linkedin, marina, ocean, Peter's, Portugal, unibrow, volcano
The people of the Azores are not an attractive bunch, but they make up for it by being extremely friendly. A trick many of us learned during our own physically awkward periods and which they employ here liberally, most likely as an acknowledgment to the local unibrow phenomenon. The natives tend to equate comprehension with volume so if you don’t speak Portuguese prepare to be yelled at with alarming enthusiasm. Most of the inhabitants are able to communicate in English to some degree but that doesn’t stop any of them from elaborating in their native language and employing intricate hand gestures to make their point. Most of this aggressive gesticulation is dedicated to directing interested parties to the best restaurants and scenic locations. Information that is greatly appreciated since most of the regular cafes food is very similar to what can be found at an American bowling alley if cows went extinct.
That being said this series of volcanic islands facilitates a smooth transition into foreign lands.
Horta on Faial in the Azores
The town of Horta on the island of Faial is either the first or the last land boats making the trans-Atlantic crossing will see, despite the location of the small island of Flores, due to its’ large marina. This insures a constant stream of new faces to the town and if you sit in one place for any period of time you will hear at least one language you can’t identify among the many, more common foreign ones. Peter’s is a bar that caters specifically to the seafaring crowd and is incredibly popular for those looking to sing sea shanties, drunkenly hit on hot German girls and generally revel in being a sailor. Many people leave mementos of their passing vessels on the establishments walls but any boat that is staying in the area for more than just a quick stop will take it’s time to leave a more permanent mark.
I wuz here
The walls and even the ground of the pier are covered in hundreds of hand painted, well-executed versions of “I wuz here” with the name of the boat and crew as well as the year they landed. This gives the whole marina a very pleasing patchwork quilt quality and it’s easy to spend part of an afternoon trying not to run into the tourists who are looking at them instead of where they are going.
Getting away from town and the three c’s I discovered will have to wait until I’ve extracted myself from the laundry room. I’m speaking of course, of cheese, church and the much venerated church of cheese. Needless to say, I’m having a wonderful time.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Acores, atlantic ocean, Azores, catameran, crossing, death, experience, gale, linkedin, near, out to sea, sail boat, storm, strong, trans-atlantic, wet
The definition of a strong gale is high waves that’s spray reduces visibility with winds from 41 to 47 knots. The definition of a storm is similar, but boasts waves up to 30 feet high and winds between 48 and 55 knots. We were somewhere in the middle but if I had to define exactly what kind of weather we were having I would say it was light to medium freaking-the-fuck-out with heavy holy-shit-holy-shit-holy-shit. When the weather finally cleared we had lost a number of things including one of our solar panels, a wind generator, the use of our starboard engine and the auto-pilot. We had, however, acquired a pod of dolphins.
We’ve seen a few different kinds of marine life since we set out including some baby sharks, a sea turtle or two and more Portuguese man of war then I would have hoped but, after a large group of dolphins passed us that first day, we had not seen any more. Now I, for one, like dolphins. I know this is strange since I’m a girl and all, but it’s true and I would have felt much less anxious at the prospect of being torn by the raging winds from the capsizing Why Not J and tossed rag-doll style into the vast, pitiless ocean if I had known they were around. As we all know, they would have immediately come to my aid and I could have just ridden them like water skis the rest of the way to the Azores. That is, if I’d had the presence of mind to grab some line to use as a sort of harness which, under the circumstances, was unlikely.
I feel much the same way about death that most people feel about credit card debt. That is to say, I’m vaguely aware I’ll have to pay up eventually, but it’s so far in the future that for now I’m just going to enjoy myself and not think about it. However, when I was strapped in to the helm attempting to hand steer the boat through aggressive, battering waves that had me perpetually airborne while the wind proceeded to rip the blades from the wind generator, causing it to emit a sound much like that of a Vietnam era chopper thrashing through the rain, it can get you thinking about drowning or say, decapitation via eco-friendly projectile.
We made it out unscathed…a little beat up, completely soaked and with muscles so tightly clenched that my shoulders and earlobes are now touching, but otherwise fine and I realized two things. 1. The difference between fun and not fun is the actual threat of danger. I say this only because that would have made an AWESOME amusement park ride had I not been worried we were really going to die. And 2. You can’t bribe Neptune.
Offerings to Neptune
When we first departed Dimitri had thrown our combined offering of coins into the ocean. He benefitted from this act immediately, where as I had yet to see any wind at all. It took me a while to realize that Neptune may be the King of the sea, but that didn’t make him an accountant. You’d think he’d have one or two considering all that sunken treasure down there, but perhaps he likes to keep it ‘lost’ for tax reasons. Anyway, I corrected my mistake right away and may have overcompensated a bit. I don’t know if Neptune was pissed because I was late or because the cash airplane I sent gliding into the water was insulting somehow, but the next day my watches started to have a sort of ‘oh, you want some wind do you?’ quality and then the gale broke out so…
Needless to say I have learned to take these donations much more seriously and anyone traveling thru fountain-heavy cities or well laden country sides with me is likely to have to put up with the constant sound of exact change jingling, but believe me…it’s worth it.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: atlantic ocean, catameran, crossing, dark, emo, home, homesick, lemon frosting, low, night, out to sea, parents, phone, sail boat, satelitte, sugar high, trans-atlantic, wet
On July 10th after 11 days and 940 nautical miles we passed the half way point to the Azores. To celebrate I made a cake from a boxed mix I found behind a can of crevettes (I don’t know and the picture doesn’t offer any clues…I hope) and a tub of something I assume is Turkish. I refer to this section of the pantry as the it’s-this-or-cannibalism reserve and usually take special measures to avoid it, but I happened to remember glimpsing the cake mix box as I was piling edible things on top of the various mystery cans and this was a special occasion so I risked Peter seeing something he’d forgotten about and proclaiming he could make an ‘excellent salad’ (I don’t know where he got the idea to call these…creations salads, but I can think of some other words that would fit better) in order to retrieve it.
Afterwards, I called my parents on the satellite phone. I was really excited to tell them how far we’d made it and I thought they’d be delighted to hear from me so I was a little surprised when my Mom immediately hung up on me. She answered after a few rings and responded to my shouts of Mom! by saying I had the wrong number and ending the call. She would later claim it sounded like someone named Patty was trying to sell her something but I don’t buy it…I then called my Dad’s cell phone hoping he would recognize his own daughters voice but got his voicemail. It took a couple more attempts at various numbers (including my Mom’s cell phone, which she didn’t pick up…coincidence?!) before I finally got through on the house phone again. I guess my Mom figured she couldn’t get away with the ‘Patty’ ruse twice so we got to talk just long enough for me to tell them about Alan and give them the coordinates to the boats location before the signal faded.
The almighty sat phone
That night I was welcomed on watch by an opaque sky. I turned on some music to keep me company and searched the clouds for any breaks in the coverage that might yield a glimpse of a star. When I determined there was nothing to see I turned my attention to the navigational instruments and let my mind wander. I started thinking about the phone call. We’d barely had enough time to yell I love you’s at each other before the connection died. I didn’t get to hear any news from home. No stories of new crazy cat misadventures or if (If, hahahaha!) what crazy things Grandma had said or even just how their days were going and suddenly I was very homesick. I wanted to be watching a weeks’ worth of Tivo’d shows and making incredulous comments about it all with Dad while Mom made dinner and joined in from the kitchen. Even beyond that I wanted to be in my own home curled up on the couch with the worlds softest cat settling in to my lap or on my back porch, watching the deer while bullshitting with friends and I thought What the hell am I doing here?!
Then someone said ‘You’re a fucking idiot’ really loudly. It was me. I went on to point out that I had consumed more sugar in the last two hours then I had in the last two months (I confirmed this by looking down at my hands, which were still sticky from my recent cake binge) and that I was sitting alone in the dark listening to Emo music. Huh. All that yearning going on in the background had barely registered, but now everything was starting to make sense. I was an idiot! Even the most novice drug users know not to mix certain ones. I was doubting my choice to leave home simply because I didn’t think before I combined lemon frosting with Death Cab for Cutie in the middle of the night. I’d have to be dead inside not to get all sappy under those influences. I changed the music and glanced up at the sky. I was missing home still, but the clouds had parted, the stars were out and I was half way to the Azores.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: at sea, atlantic ocean, catameran, coast guard, crossing, donation, eveil, hoark, home, human sacrific, linkedin, Nantucket, Neptune, offering, out to sea, rescue, sail boat, scientists, seasickness, teenager, trans-atlantic, vacation, vomit, wet
The last land we passed on our way out to sea was Nantucket. The island seemed to possess some sort of magnetic field that was effectively changing the auto-pilots course and drawing the boat closer, all the while shrouded in a dense fog, which gave Dimitri and me the distinct impression that that was where all the well-to-do evil villains lived…or at least, vacationed. We’d been having poor winds and the going had been extremely slow so Peter threw some money in the water as an offer to Neptune in exchange for fair winds and following seas. Finding it fortuitous to cover all our bases Dimitri and I pooled our change and he threw it in just in case there were any bored mad scientists attempting to escape quality family time by creating a fish army to take over Neptune’s realm. By the second day we were clear of land all together and relieved to have passed by the various upscale lairs and fortresses without notice.
Things seemed to be starting off in a relatively calm manner until, on the third day, Alan finally realized he was going to be stuck with an old fogey, and two nerds for the better part of his summer vacation and had, what we in the nautical world refer to as, a ‘hissy fit’. 
To be fair he was sea sick, but it’s hard to be empathetic to a kid whose melodramatic declarations that ‘he is not physically or emotionally ready for this’ will ensure that you get no more than four hours of sleep at a time for the next three weeks. We ended up having to call the Coast Guard to ‘pick him up’ because Alan ‘could not go on’. We spent the time waiting for their arrival answering Alan’s questions about his coming departure. This turned out to be more enjoyable than Dimitri or I could have anticipated. When he asked if he could bring his stuff (referring to a duffel bag that I, all of my possessions and possibly some small farm animals could fit into) we responded that ‘This wasn’t some sort of taxi service, Son!’ and explained in great detail that this was a tactical rescue operation utilizing highly trained personnel that would cost the tax payers thousands! That this newly discovered information was true was reinforced when an actual airplane started circling us solely to mark our location for the yet-to-come rescue team.
Rescued
By the time the helicopter finally arrived and the magnitude of events that had to transpire in order to facilitate his departure became clear, not just by our words but by a frog man in a bright red wet suit jumping 30 feet into the water below, we felt Alan really did look sick enough to go home.
Bye Alan!
Shortly after Alan was safely on his way home the wind picked up and we gained speed…at least, on Dimitri and Peter’s watches. Because there are now only three of us we stand a 3 hour watch every 6 hours and literally within minutes of my taking over the helm everything goes quiet. The wind dies away to nothing. We pretty much stop moving except that you can’t really stop moving in water. The current starts to move the boat around and the sails start to flap and everybody runs up to the cockpit to see what’s wrong and I have to turn the engine on before we start drifting back the way we came and fall inside Nantucket’s mysterious orbit again. It becomes a sort of running joke and I try to laugh about it but it’s hard not to take it personally somehow. Like walking into a room where everyone is chattering loudly and having them all go silent when they see you. They all know something you don’t and it ain’t good. I’m determined to figure out what that is and fix it.
Me and Neptune; we’re gonna be like this (me making an awkward attempt to intertwine the fingers of one hand together involving way more contortion then can possibly be necessary to complete the task) by the time I’m done here. It’s too bad Alan’s gone. I think Neptune would have liked a nice ol’ fashioned human sacrifice, but not to worry. I’m sure there are other ways to get back in with the boss.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: atlantic, crossing, groceries, ocean, provisioning, sailboat, trans-atlantic
On Tuesday morning I’ll be leaving the sailing safety net that is the East coast and heading across the Atlantic to the Azores islands and ultimately Lisbon, Portugal with a whacky mismatched cast of characters or motley crew if you will (hahahahaha…bite me. I thought it was funny). Besides Dimitri, Peter and I there is Allen, who is a 16 year old whose father is a friend of Peters son’s and very obviously wishes to live vicariously through his own, and a 65 year old someone or other. I think the guys wife is a relative of Peter’s but I’m not certain.
The trip takes somewhere between 18 and 22 days so planning is critical and food provisioning is especially essential. Since I am oddly anal about organizing and list-making (minimal observation of my hygiene habits makes this personal trait seem surprising!) a lot of the meal planning has been left to me. I carefully and methodically figured out exactly what we needed for four people and how much, which made the surprise addition of a fifth crew member only slightly less daunting then watching Peter (a perfectly dignified 75 year old man) turn into a crazed toddler at the grocery store. The man gets very excited about ‘fresh veg’ and canned fish. He grabbed things at an incredible speed and tossed them into the cart against protests of ‘I don’t think we’re going to eat 3 bushels of parsley…’ and ‘my list shows we already have 15 cans of pickled herring’. Eventually I realized he was in a powerful food acquisition trance brought on the by being in an American market after years of eating too much English food (technically known as mayo overdose) and settled for putting things back on the shelf when he wasn’t looking. I’m sure the stores employees loved me.
Anyway, I got all the food provisions packed away and we started the process of getting the boat ready for sea. Mostly, it involves putting the booze away (there’s no drinking underway…ugh. Although I seemed to be the only one concerned that it’s all getting stowed under the 16 year old crew members bunk. Peter explained that ‘he’s a good kid’. Yeah. He’s 16. There’s no such thing. I think what he really meant was ‘we won’t tell him.’) and filling auxiliary fuel bottles. The boat gets stripped down of all the non-essentials like fenders (the things that keep the boat from rubbing up against the dock when we moor.) and cushions and full bottles get lashed in their place. We hope to be sailing most of the way, but it’s important to have a backup plan in case the wind fails us.
We have a few more little things to take care of, but over all we’re ready to go. Dimitri’s Mom did all our laundry when we stopped at his parents’ house (that’s right Prerna! I have a full closet of angel kisses and unicorn orgasms!) including some things that didn’t need washing like Dimitri’s water proof rain gear. Meeting his family was intense…no, let me be more specific. Meeting his family was funny and sweet. Meeting Dimitri’s Mom was intense. I’m pretty sure I agreed to protect Dimitri with my life by jumping in front of flying sharks and wrestling any aggressive squid to the ocean floor for him and I have no idea how she did it.
I’m not nervous about the trip across. I’ve been out to sea before and it’s part of the reason I wanted to do this. Being out in the open ocean can be boring or tedious at times but mostly, I find it…nessacery. Some people meditate or go to spas to clear their minds. I need the water and the more of it the better. If anything I’m uncertain about what will happen on the other side. I plan to find work crewing boats, but beyond that I have no set plans. I’m not scared. It’s what I’ve been working towards this whole time. Not knowing means endless possibilities.
So, to all my lovely friends…I miss you guys. I won’t have access to the internet until I’m on the other side, but I’d certainly love some e-mails when I get there. If you happen to be traveling let me know. Who knows where we’ll see each other next! I hope you’re having your own adventures and don’t forget to eat your vegetables. You’re growing bodies need the vitamins! See you soon.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: atlantic, intracoastal, linkedin, manhattam, ocean, sailboat, sleep, statan island ferry, statue of liberty
Heading to New York City we left the relatively calm waters of the Intracoastal and headed out into the ocean for a trial run at standing watch 24 hours a day and cooking in underway conditions. The water in the Atlantic is a very green sort of blue. As a whole, it looks like a very deep gray blue but up close its’ green. I know this because it’s been trying to ram itself through a leak in the escape hatch o-ring in the side wall of by berthing. I managed not to catch myself on fire making dinner but it may only be due to the fact that everything I own is covered in a protective layer of damp boat scum. There will be 2 more people joining us when we make the voyage across to Portugal on Tuesday but there was only the 3 of us on this leg so the watch schedule had a very quick turnaround of 3 hours on and 6 off, which means you’re never completely awake or asleep and crackers seem like a reasonable dinner. 
Pulling in to New York harbor was like sniffing one of those things they’re always using to revive people in old movies after they’ve passed out from the shock of something. ‘Come on ol’ boy. You’re gonna be a fatha’!’ What’s that called? Smelly salts…cocaine? Well, whatever it was it worked almost as well as being nearly run down in the East river by the Satan Island ferry while avoiding running aground at the Statue of Liberty as tug boat captains flick you off. Also, we were pretty excited to be there. We’ve spent the last couple of months in towns ranging from small to ‘what town?’ to good-luck-walking-to-town and to see a place that is at once very familiar and completely unknown as well as totally accessible like NY was oddly rejuvenating. Also, we both have a lot of friends and family here…and washing machines. Little thrills of joy went through our bodies when we discussed the laundry we’d do! Friends are great and all, but the idea of clean clothing. I…I can’t even explain it; it’s that good. No seriously. I left a pair of pants that I’d been wearing for about a week and a half in the sun until they were COMPLETELY dry and that was like putting on pants made of angel kisses so you can imagine what something involving detergent might be like. As soon as we got close to the marina Dimitri and I started running around, jamming our sodden clothing haphazardly into bags and generally trying to clean ourselves up. Dimitri was apparently so confused by the non-odor not wafting from me that he thought I was wearing perfume when, in fact, I had just put some deodorant on.
I made the mistake of letting Peter book the marina so we got a lovely tour of Riker’s Island and the LaGuardia Airport before finally reaching our destination next to the new Shea Stadium a good 45 minute train ride from Manhattan, but we couldn’t have cared less. We were off the boat and on our way to concur the night and beat up the town. I hurriedly called friends I hadn’t seen in far too long to make arrangements to meet in exciting places and do extravagant things and then proceeded to fall asleep on my friend Jays pillow-top mattress for approximately the duration of our stay in the city.
No joke. Jay and I were in U.S. Navy boot camp together. I’ve stayed with him in at least 3 countries now and never had this problem before, but I’ve been sleeping on boat beds for a few months. The one time I stayed overnight at a friend’s he also lived on a damn boat so basically as soon as I laid down on a real mattress my body was so relieved it shut off all other functions. I awoke a few minutes before I had to catch the train back to the Why Not J having missed a dozen phone calls and not understanding what happened to Sunday.
We’re in Montauk right now and I’m waiting for the train to take us back into the city. The station is empty except for the extremely authoritative disembodied voice of Alec Baldwin telling me to ‘mind the gap’ and it’s sort of a long trip, but I’d really like to catch up with some of those friends before we jump across the pond. I am staying at Jay’s again though so the trip my not work out as planned…at the very least It’ll be worth it for the good nights’ sleep!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: jammed, little creek, mainsail, norfolk, splinters, virginia, work
Today we put together the mainsail that is going to replace the boats existing one. It’s not exactly a racing sail, but it’s supposed to help us go about a knot faster and was reportedly very expensive. After lugging its bulky weight up to the parking lot in the blazing sun, we unfurled the massive thing and spread it out flat. Then we inserted carbon fiber rods using our fleshy palms to force the pointed objects the length of the sail in order to measure where we would need to cut them down to before removing them again and hacking away on a table that seems to be used primarily for fish decapitation all the while accumulating thousands of tiny, invisible splinters. After a few hours of scrapping blunt metal against the stiff carbon (apparently a close relative of chalk boards) we were all set to yank, pull, and contort the huge sail into the tiny awkwardly angled opening on the mast using just the tippy-tops of our fingers while the wind whipped the portion of sail that had not been inserted yet majestically about our heads and throats. It ended up taking us about 6 hours so we were all very excited and expectant as Peter unfurled it from the mast for the first time.
F#@$$!!!
It made it about half way out before getting jammed. We decided to wait until the next morning to put the old sail back in and I was sent to make cocktails with a sense of urgency to the task that I have never felt before.
The whole experience was terrible and almost a relief. Having a shitty day puts things back in perspective. I’ve always been amazed by life, the universe and everything (thank you Douglass Adams) but the events of my life have been going a bit too well recently. Not even rain is a problem anymore. I wear my sea foam green and blue rain coat when the storms blow up, seemingly out of nowhere and always when we’ve just put the cushions out. I have to tight roll my black water-wiking pants to fit them into my polka-dot galoshes, which causes them to billow out at the top and give me the general appearance of the Candy Land Gestapo, but no matter how wet or chilly I get I know that when it stops, the boat will be cleaner, the sky will be clearer and there might be a rainbow. 
When something like that is almost guaranteed it’s hard to keep seeing it for the unique thing that it is. ‘All right already Nature…I get it. Way to create a perfect representation of the visible light spectrum using a prism you crafted out of thin air…AGAIN. ‘
When everything is special nothing seems special anymore. The epic failure to get the new mainsail up was frustrating (we agreed upon this description after a few hours of deep breathing and rum consumption) but the day ended in laughter and was pleasant in its own way. It’s good to be occasionally reminded that having an amazing day is not a given, but that you can find small happiness’ here and there. That way when something truly astounding comes along I’ll be able to recognize it among all the other good things and know to appreciate it for what it really means. I’m speaking, of course, about meeting my sister.
Her name is Shannon and she’s the daughter from my biological father’s previous marriage. I talked to her once on the phone about a week before I left for this trip and I wanted to meet her in person very badly, but I was also weirdly hesitant. I’ve been trying to give my feelings a name but I haven’t been successful. Mostly, I think I just really, really wanted her to like me! I mean, everybody wants people to like them but this was somehow different. It actually mattered to me. I think a good deal of the reason I’ve been so happy since embarking on this journey is because I feel like I’ve found how I fit into the world. I think there may be individuals who have always known where they fit, but mostly people just think they know because it’s familiar. Personally, I’ve always known in the back of my mind that I didn’t fit, but it wasn’t until the trip to Spain with my Mom that it finally became clear and I was able to pursue the right path for myself.
The thing about family…the thing about a Sister is that it’s a whole different level of place in the world. One I never thought I’d know and I found myself wanting it very badly and that scared me. It still scares me. I’m writing this on the train and people are looking at me because I’m crying and I don’t know why I’m crying except that it may have something to do with all the extra oxygen that has suddenly filled my immediate area. It’s not a reaction I have to just thinking all that often anymore. The thing is she’s great. When I talked to her the first time I knew it with in the first minute. I called her again when we got to Colonial Beach in hopes of arranging a good time to meet when we got closer to D.C. and within the first sentence she was telling me how to break into the beach house they have there, so I have a feeling she likes the idea of me too. I guess I was worried she wouldn’t like me in practice though. I have to get past that. It’s not often you get to meet a person who helps define and refine the way you fit into the world and I can see clearly how monumentally wonderful that is.
Me attacking Shannon
I have a big sister. She is a person I want to know better and I can see how lucky I am to get that chance even when surrounded by all the double rainbows nature can throw at me, all the stars the universe has to offer and without the aid of a single perspective filled day.
