Being near water makes you happier

[barnakiel]

Near. But then again how near?


One of the things that make me miserable is when the sea drives the moisture at night and my clothing is already less than fresh like a week into the passage.


Or I am half asleep in the cockpit keeping watch when a wave invades by warm dry kingdom.



The sea then seems so damn near to me. Too near.


The sea is over romanticized. Unfortunately we need it to sail on, chasing our illusions ...



b.

[LittleWing77]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

I'm so glad to hear this from another sailor LW. I've spent most of my sailing days on the Great Lakes -- mostly on Lake Superior. The Big Lake can look and feel like the ocean, but now that I'm an Atlantic sailor, I know there is something missing.

The oceans feel alive in a way the Lakes never can. It's the smells, the look, the life, the feel ... the oceans are alive unto themselves. It really does get under your skin.

It's so weird, isn't it?

I feel like an ungrateful wretch - or a lunatic. WHY can't I be contented with beautiful Lake Ontario at my doorstep? With sailing every weekend, almost by falling out of my back door?

But the honest is, I'm not. Every time I get back to the ocean, some deep part of me relaxes. I'm home.

What do you think is at the root of it... a clandestine connection with Neptune? Not quite as cavorting as Dionysus, but he does get up to some mischief...

LittleWing77

[chris mac]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

I'm so glad to hear this from another sailor LW. I've spent most of my sailing days on the Great Lakes -- mostly on Lake Superior. The Big Lake can look and feel like the ocean, but now that I'm an Atlantic sailor, I know there is something missing.

The oceans feel alive in a way the Lakes never can. It's the smells, the look, the life, the feel ... the oceans are alive unto themselves. It really does get under your skin.

Try growing up in Alberta feeling like that! Our biggest local body of water isn't even a lake, just a largish slough.
There is something about the smell and taste of the air that only being by the ocean can bring. Even now, being back on the boat within spitting distance of the chesepeake isn't enough! Launch this week some time and can bring the feel of the water back too!

[barnakiel]

It is interesting what Mike says about Great Lakes and the ocean.


I grew up on the coast of the Baltic sea. I cannot recall now if it is much smaller than the lakes but I think it may be.


First time in the ocean, I never noticed any difference except maybe for two things:


- waves are much bigger in the ocean,
- deep blue is present in the ocean, but not in our inland sea.


I would actually prefer the ocean to be like a big lake - our boat is very small and big ocean swell makes me very miserable. I bet it is much nicer to sail it on a big mono or on a cat then.


But for a small boat, the ocean is just 'too big'.



b.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

It is interesting what Mike says about Great Lakes and the ocean.

I grew up on the coast of the Baltic sea. I cannot recall now if it is much smaller than the lakes but I think it may be.

Oh, I think the Baltic is larger. If you lump all the Great Lakes together they come close, but the Baltic is larger.

I'm not sure if it is bluer. Here's a typical pic from Lake Superior. But waves can certainly get bigger on the ocean. They tend to be larger, but more spread out, making them easier to manage. Smaller bodies of water produce steeper, shorter-wavelength waves. I'd much rather deal with big ocean waves than short-stacked Great Lakes seas.

But the real difference (to me) is not the physical characteristics of the water. It is the sense of life that oceans have. And it's not even that they harbour a lot of life -- they do, but that's not it.

It's that the oceans themselves are alive. You can feel it with every inhale (flood) and exhale (ebb). It just feels different.

[LittleWing77]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

It's that the oceans themselves are alive. You can feel it with every flood and ebb.

It just feels different.

You totally get it Michael O'Reilly!

Maybe it's 'cause we're both Irish....?
LittleWing77

[barnakiel]

THX Mike! Extra image. You get some super sunny days there, eh?



No, Baltic is not a blue sea, it is I think rather green most of the time. It is fact not a nice sea to look at when it is angry. And when it is calm, it will reflect the sky a bit and turn sort of bluish, but not the ocean grade of blue. Once you have known an ocean, you will never mistake the two.



Too bad I do not have any image on my drive but back then the images were printed and ours stayed behind in the old country. I did not sail the Baltic very much either, I am mostly an Atlantic beast, with single episodes in the Pacific and Indian.



What you say about the ocean as a living thing I have not felt this yet. My impression of the ocean is one of vastness, specially when becalmed. We got becalmed a lot in the Pacific and also half a dozen times mid-Atlantic on our way to the Azores.


This vastness of the Pacific on a calm day was a creepy feeling too - as if nothing really existed - no land ever. I think it was more to do with our levels of tiredness than with anything sensory. I think other sailors, in other boats, may feel elation, joy or just feel the heart of the calm, at one with the calm nature. But it was not our case, we were probably too tired for happiness.


+Best hug,
barnakiel

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by LittleWing77

I live one block from Lake Ontario in the Beaches part of Toronto; it's absolutely lovely and I'm tremendously lucky. In season, I sail every weekend out of a little Club that's a 20-minute bike ride from my place.

We live in S Etobicoke ("Beaches West" ) about a half block from the lake, and a 10 min walk to the boat (...so there!!!). We took a leap of faith over 30 years ago on a piece-of-sh!t run-down bungalow (even before we were married) because of that proximity. Other than getting married, it's the best decision we've ever made.

We've done a Caribbean charter now, as well as several tropical beach vacations, most with daysailing, and I get that the ocean is something special. If we're lucky we'll get to experience more... but if not, the lakes of Ontario are pretty sweet too.


But yeah - living near water makes us happier.

[MicHughV]

being near " water" needs to be quantified...there is bath water, river water, puddle water, brackish water, fresh water, salt water, lake water, bay water, ocean water, green water, brown water, cobalt blue water, etc, etc...they are not all the same...not even by a long shot...

[PirateFoxy]

I grew up in Pittsburgh, PA so with a river or stream or creek pretty much everywhere you turn. We spent a lot of time in the summers either at Lake Erie or at my grandmother’s lake house in Minnesota. If I’m somewhere without any decent sized body of water for too long, I just get twitchy, it doesn’t feel right.

(I do prefer larger than rivers, but at least a good sized river is something, you know?)

I don’t like beaches, though. I’d rather be on the water or overlooking the water, sand is not my idea of fun.

If you go back far enough I joke that my ancestry is basically all Viking, so maybe it’s genetic?

[LakeSuperior]

Having a six pack of Coors Light at hand is being near water!

[MicHughV]

there is off course a difference between just " looking at water" and " being on the water"..two could not be more different from each other...

[Mike OReilly]

Hey, don't get me wrong. I love Lake Superior. There is a wonder and majesty to this inland sea that I've rarely experienced elsewhere. I lived for 10 years right on the shores of this Big Lake. It is a truly wondrous piece of the universe.

All that said, it doesn't feel alive in the same way the ocean does. It doesn't have that sense of life, the smells are cleaner, the air is lighter. And it doesn't breathe the way the ocean does.

I would happily return to Lake Superior, but there's something deeper ... more primal about the oceans. It tugs at my spirit, or perhaps my genes, in ways that fresh water lakes never can.

[MicHughV]

I went fishing with my brother-in-law on Lake Michigan....being an old salt I wasn't expecting too much lively action...but lo and behold.... we pulled up some stellar salmon...never expected to see salmon in Lake Michigan....but we pulled up several salmon of pretty good size..I was very impressed with the days outing...and dinner was yummy that evening...made me look at the Great Lakes in a different light.

[AKA-None]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

Near. But then again how near?


One of the things that make me miserable is when the sea drives the moisture at night and my clothing is already less than fresh like a week into the passage.


Or I am half asleep in the cockpit keeping watch when a wave invades by warm dry kingdom.



The sea then seems so damn near to me. Too near.


The sea is over romanticized. Unfortunately we need it to sail on, chasing our illusions ...



b.

Ok, channeling Earnest are we ?