Why did you run away to sea?

[jdavid17]

While I enjoy the company of others, I relish time spent with just one or two close friends, or even alone while on the water. The time not spent in PC dialog is spent in flights of imagination that dwarf even the best Hollywood movie. And the ability to cruise toward a clear horizon, even a bumpy one, is a draw that, for me, is to esoteric to explain.

[michaelratinter]

Originally Posted by reed1v

Mike, before sailing to Hawaii try to arrange a slip at the Ala Wai small boat harbor in WackyKey. Your first port probably will be Hilo, and they normally have lots of spaces for visitors. Not so for Oahu. So plan ahead. If you can, join a yacht club so you can use one of the three clubs on Oahu(Waikiki, Hawaii, and Kaneohe YC). They usually have visitor spaces available and have food, showers, and so forth available.

reed1v, thank you! I have family on Maui so I will spend time there mostly.

[reed1v]

Originally Posted by michaelratinter

reed1v, thank you! I have family on Maui so I will spend time there mostly.

Maui Zowie. Wonderful place, especially upcountry Kula.

[michaelratinter]

Originally Posted by reed1v

Maui Zowie. Wonderful place, especially upcountry Kula.

That's where they live. The only drawback to Kula is you can't go home after SCUBA.

[reed1v]

Originally Posted by michaelratinter

That's where they live. The only drawback to Kula is you can't go home after SCUBA.

Your family is wise. Join the Lahaina Yacht Club so you will have a place to shower, drink and eat after scuba. That will readjust your blood nitrogen levels.

[tinkrman69]

Originally Posted by Eben

Apparently everybody who goes to sea "runs away to sea" at least that's what a wise sage once told me.

I'm not looking for elegant well written and thought out poems or books. I'm looking for real people and real experiences. I bet almost everybody has got a story to tell, but they might not think it's worthy of a book...

Hi Eden. it sounds like your lookin' for book material. someone else' story is worthy of an article tho. Go sailing and see for yourself, why people "go" to sea. Do a history on great authors and you'll see that their stories came from their own lifestyles or at least the inspiration for them.

For me, on the sea is the only place I belong, I don't seem to fit on the hill.

[bobnlesley]

"...if you are actually running away from something, that something is yourself and yourself goes wherever you go , so quit yer foolishness..."

Very true Zeehag

Our story is that having travelled around half of the world on a motorcycle, sleeping in a small tent, we fancied having low fuel costs, no shipping costs and a comfortable bed every night, for the other half; how naïve were we?

[GafferMate]

I loved reading books about faraway places when I was young, was eager to 'get away' from the myriad of confines I felt. Traveling through Europe with my first husband satisfied some needs but not all so left him there, returned 'home', divorced, but felt even more trapped so me and my dog hitch-hiked down to Mexico, to an art school. The art helped until the money ran out and had to return to the California. Broke, a friend offer a leaky old boat for me to live on. The first morning I woke up, I knew I'd finally 'come home'. I was 25.

Down the dock, my future husband was visiting his best friend. He had been a Marine in the Pacific during WWII and dreamed of building an Atkin's Ingrid, sailing back to the Solomon Islands. We did that. It was wonderful building our boat together, the two of us working toward our dream of a simpler life than the Bay Area--the United States in general--provided, although the length of time it took was often frustrating for me, to have to live on land again.

Since 1984, living our (and now just my) life aboard PILAR, has continued to be deeply rewarding, wherever she has dropped anchor, picked up a mooring or berthed in a marina. Sailing to the places we'd each longed to visit were incredibly satisfying, although in spite of appreciating the soul-stirring experiences of them, long passages proved difficult. In part, that was due to age differences. Being younger, I was more inclined to want more sail up, whereas my poor husband (22 years older and the one to do most of the sail changing) was more conservative. He was fit, insisted on being the one to do most of the sail changes, so it wasn't until recently, when I am now the age he was when we were cruising, that I fully appreciate the added dimension aging adds to one's perspectives. Now, at 67, I continue to wake each morning aboard feeling joy to be afloat, tucked inside my beautiful home in an amazing place that I see fresh, every day. I have a house that I rent, as a necessary work shop for the major refit of PILAR, also as a studio for personal and community projects (and a delightful garden) but it is NOT where I live or feel alive in. It is not my home, where I feel at peace, and so I struggle with the thought of eventually, most likely, having to accept the Changes that are not Choices that come with greater age. I have seen friends who lived and died on their boats, and hope I can do that, too, but there is the need to think about how to have some say, if it doesn't work out that way...

There have been a number of sailor friends--true sailors who are offended seeing a good boat tied for years to a mooring--who have given me a hard time about continually being involved with projects other than cruising. Perhaps it is just rationalization on my part, but it seems wonderful to me WHATEVER way people engage with their boats, as long as the pleasure, the involvement and commitment, is there. Simply being on the water is enough for me. As long as I can feel the water underneath me, moving ever-so slightly, and breathe the fresh air, watch the shimmering night stars above and below, I am fulfilled. It is only land, the static sense of permanence that I feel the need to 'escape' from.

[Freemind]

The usual reasons I suppose. I didn't get along with parents and the recruiter lied to me. (Chuckle)

[Canibul]

Originally Posted by michaelratinter

LOL! More like, some people are unhappy and keep moving thinking a new place will make them happy while, all the time, the source of their unhappiness is within. That is "running away" as opposed to running to experience, advebture, etc.

Sounds like AA's "geographic cure" concept.

[The Magi]

There are as many reasons to choose the way of the sailor as there are sailors, but there are many common characteristics in all seafaring folk;
1. They trust their own judgement and are little invested in the judgements of others.
2. They believe in competence and are unafraid to test their own.
3. They belong first to themselves, next to those they love, then to elements and a community of self selected volunteers and finally to a country.
4. They like their own company, take little from the environment and ask even less from society at large.
5. They help when it is desperately needed. They understand karma deals unflinching justice and humanity is not defined by borders, boundaries or language.
The Magi

[lancelot9898]

I grew up in landlocked Ohio and remember buying a surplus inflatable boat from an Army Navy store to explore rivers and creeks around southwest Ohio. In college some friends and I built a plywood camper to put on my pickup to go on a camping expedition to Canada. Hudson Bay or Bust is what we painted on the side of the camper, but we ended up not getting to that bay, but made it to the most northern part of Quebec that the roads would take us. Later on after starting a family and working, I bought my first real boat and explored a large lake in southern VA. It was a large row boat with a 25 hp outboard which served the purpose of exploring and even could pull my daughters on a ski board. When moving to the DC area to take a government job, I discovered the Chesapeake and a power boat would not be suitable for exploration, so I bought my first sailboat having never been on a sailboat in my entire life. Taught myself and a couple years later bought a brand new sailboat which I lived on full time for about 2 decades and explored most of the Bay and sailed as far south as Lake Worth and as far north as Block Island. Never did cross the pond, but no regrets. I continue to explore and while no longer living aboard, I enjoy hiking and biking the mountains of North Carolina and I still get to sail on the Chesapeake several times a year. To me life is about learning and exploring and we all have different methods of doing so. Just follow your heart.

[redhead]

I grew up in upstate NY - never saw the ocean until I was 12. My most powerful memory of that day was the smell. We were waiting to board the Bluenose Ferry from Bar Harbor to Halifax. I have been more surely a "sea junkie" since that day than ever there was any drug addict.

The oddest thing is that when I was 7 years old I apparently told my family that I was going to die from drowning. I said it calmly and without fanfare. That story has crossed my mind more than once the last few years. Weird

[s/v Beth]

Originally Posted by redhead

The oddest thing is that when I was 7 years old I apparently told my family that I was going to die from drowning. I said it calmly and without fanfare. That story has crossed my mind more than once the last few years. Weird

Don't go swimming up here carrot top, or that saying may come back to haunt ya. Wave at me next time we pass on the Georgian Strait.

[TheThunderbird]

[QUOTE=GafferMate;1975788]I loved reading books about faraway places when I was young, was eager to 'get away' from the myriad of confines I felt. Traveling through Europe with my first husband satisfied some needs but not all so left him there, returned 'home', divorced, but felt even more trapped so me and my dog hitch-hiked down to Mexico, to an art school. The art helped until the money ran out and had to return to the California. Broke, a friend offer a leaky old boat for me to live on. The first morning I woke up, I knew I'd finally 'come home'. I was 25.

Down the dock, my future husband was visiting his best friend. He had been a Marine in the Pacific during WWII and dreamed of building an Atkin's Ingrid, sailing back to the Solomon Islands. We did that. It was wonderful building our boat together, the two of us working toward our dream of a simpler life than the Bay Area--the United States in general--provided, although the length of time it took was often frustrating for me, to have to live on land again.

Since 1984, living our (and now just my) life aboard PILAR, has continued to be deeply rewarding, wherever she has dropped anchor, picked up a mooring or berthed in a marina. Sailing to the places we'd each longed to visit were incredibly satisfying, although in spite of appreciating the soul-stirring experiences of them, long passages proved difficult. In part, that was due to age differences. Being younger, I was more inclined to want more sail up, whereas my poor husband (22 years older and the one to do most of the sail changing) was more conservative. He was fit, insisted on being the one to do most of the sail changes, so it wasn't until recently, when I am now the age he was when we were cruising, that I fully appreciate the added dimension aging adds to one's perspectives. Now, at 67, I continue to wake each morning aboard feeling joy to be afloat, tucked inside my beautiful home in an amazing place that I see fresh, every day. I have a house that I rent, as a necessary work shop for the major refit of PILAR, also as a studio for personal and community projects (and a delightful garden) but it is NOT where I live or feel alive in. It is not my home, where I feel at peace, and so I struggle with the thought of eventually, most likely, having to accept the Changes that are not Choices that come with greater age. I have seen friends who lived and died on their boats, and hope I can do that, too, but there is the need to think about how to have some say, if it doesn't work out that way...

There have been a number of sailor friends--true sailors who are offended seeing a good boat tied for years to a mooring--who have given me a hard time about continually being involved with projects other than cruising. Perhaps it is just rationalization on my part, but it seems wonderful to me WHATEVER way people engage with their boats, as long as the pleasure, the involvement and commitment, is there. Simply being on the water is enough for me. As long as I can feel the water underneath me, moving ever-so slightly, and breathe the fresh air, watch the shimmering night stars above and below, I am fulfilled. It is only land, the static sense of permanence that I feel the need to 'escape' from.[/QUOTE

You are such a lovely person!.. i love you, and hope to meet a girl like you.

And your husband, how magnificent a man you had for yourself!