What Is The Pinnacle of your WOW Life-Style Onboard !?

[TheThunderbird]

To many, by the diverse cultures, climate, age, means..., life-style can be represented by different attitudes, objects, habits....when onboard

What hits you foremost, either as a practice, or a dream?

Tonite, as jumping onboard in a happy mood, I mulled around it.

Some may feel happy in putting on a captain hat, or in using their crystal tumbler, or sporting the largest flag in the harbour (as far as it touches the waters, it is large enough.).

Others focus on the boat itself (a wooden jewel, the last sleeky fad.., varnished mahogany....) but l am more interested in the personal attitudes and landmarks..

what makes you feel high, when onboard?

A blue flannel coat with golden buttons? Old leather boots? The whole series of naval flags?
The tools setting? Sporting around with the crew in its pristine livery? (Ouch, so snobbish...). Playing guitar or a keyboard?


I know, i mix pastimes, possessions, habits, attitudes... but that's it, manifold and complicate... WHAT DOES GIVE YOU PRIDE, UMPF, AND A WOW-FEELING, in seafaring ?

Me?
My collection of Japanese cook knives
The memory of the beautiful women on deck (they get away like waves..)
The freedom of getting dressed in any eclectic and unpredictable way it may occur

[dwedeking2]

The ability to just pick up and go. One thing I remember even at a young age (6 or 7) was wondering what was around the next curve, what's in the next valley.

2nd - the diversity in skill set required to run a vessel on your own. From diesel mechanic, painter, woodworker, weatherman, oceanographer, personnel manager, cook, and physicist(knowing how sales work) compared to the common workers specialist skills in today's world. My "need money cause I live on a boat" day job is computer related. I feel good when people at work find out the wide range of skills I have not related to computers that I've developed from owning a boat.

3rd - ability/lack of fear to learn. I run into people that stop at "I don't know". When something goes wrong on a vessel the only solution may be you. So if I don't know something (how to change brakes on a car) I'll youtube it. Now I know the system vs paying some company 3x to do the work. This is comparing landlubbers to sailors.

[Hudson Force]

For me it's the awareness of living on the "thin slice".





Did you ever find one of those desiccated lizards caught between the window and the screen? That's where we are ,- living on the edge or the "thin slice".

For me, this is the pinnacle!

[salticrak]

For me,it's something I can't explain,but Odin seems pleased.

[brianlara 3]

For me it's the beautiful steel grey blazer I had made in New Delhi in 2007. It has stunning silver buttons with an inlay of black & white enamel which depict an old Russian Brig.
The surrounding script, in Cyrillic, identify the "Russian Federation of Professional Merchant Mariners".
I found the buttons in a second hand button shop in Delhi which had bought them from the ship breakers at Alang in Rajasthan which is a world famous site. Typically, ships masters would leave behind items which could be replaced. My buttons were found on a russian Masters coat. I had the "worlds best tailor" in Delhi put them onto the blazer he created.
Warren Buffett doesn't have enough money to buy my blazer. Not for sale.
My Seinfeld series cd's are pretty good too.

[Pelagic]

For me, it is the amalgamation of Freedom and Responsibility.

The WoW is best personified around 2am when I quietly do my nightly anchor check on deck and from a safe and practiced perch....write my name in the Phosphorescence, when relieving myself.

It has an ethereal beauty to only me.

[cgrabens]

The sunsets, the stars, a secret cove you can dive in uninhibited. Good music, good (free) wifi, good food. And simplicity.

[Tetepare]

The perfect day. Surviving the "imperfect" day LOL. Crystal clear waters. Feeling cold during hot weather warnings ashore. The stars. The perfect meal on Kayangel when I ate till blurry. The daily storm clouds building between the mountains on Rendova. Coconut crabs. The gratitude of those I just saved. The green flash.

[savoir]

Completing a summer without an equipment failure.

It hasn't happened yet.

[seaman-lew]

I spent a summer cruising on my old boat the best summer so far I hope for the same on my new boat

[captmikem]

Standing on the foredeck going fast at night.

Countless times taking a turn around the deck, I used to stand on the foredeck in the middle of my night watch, the chute or boomed out headsail pulling hard over my head, spray flying up on either side of me, the boat just charging through the night. My wife asleep below, just me and the boat charging through the night. Standing there watching and feeling the power of the wind being transformed in to taking me where I wanted to go, hearing the roar and hiss of the bow wave. Such a beautiful feeling. I never tired of it.

You don’t see or feel or hear this the power back in the cockpit, but standing there in the middle of it, you become part of it.

Also, the serenity that comes after a few days out on a crossing. Days at sea become..just..the best days there are.

Michael

[akprb]

Two things, the first is a single "touch" to her hull when I arrive after a "break". The beginning moment of a new adventure, always photographed these days.

The second, not onboard but related, walking down a new dock at night headed to the showers with trusty old monogrammed shaving kit in hand after a good passage.

Something about it.

An evening cigar ain't too bad either ;-)

[Cheechako]

Maybe when a route and plan come together just as planned. You arrive at the right time, the path you chose thru obstructions was great, the anchorage is as nice as you hoped.

[zeehag]

pinnacle will not be known until after death, as i am living, not for others but for me.
each and all passages are new and different and each one better than last--so how can one judge the peak if that has yet to be achieved... ha haha

[Stu Jackson]

September 10, 2016

I spent a lot of the afternoon checking and rechecking and double and triple checking the harbor guides text, photographs and charts, and entering the very few Lapush buoys as waypoints on our GPS. It was imperative to get the details firm in my mind for piloting through the small bay and the narrow bar entrance.

Doug & Renee Douglass’ “Exploring the Pacific Coast” says Lapush: “…in the authors’ judgment, has the most dramatic and scenic entrance along the entire coast of the U.S.” Charlie Woods’ guide includes: “A sector light marks the channel, which is supposed to be about 60 feet wide but seems narrower.” George Benson called Noyo River back in California like entering a “hole in the wall” because of the relatively narrow entrance under the highway bridge. There is no highway bridge here. This entrance, however, revealed a completely new definition of narrow after all the bar crossings we’ve experienced.

San Francisco and Newport have their bridges. Winchester Bay had its scenery, our first taste of Oregon’s real greenery. Brookings was narrow but we had clear weather. Tillamook had its bar current timing challenges and Ilwaco had the Columbia River bar.

This entrance brought a new meaning to “narrow.” Our experiences racing in San Francisco taught us the advantages of knowing what “close” means, with buoy roundings and competitors being very near. Morgan had driven for the past hour or two from Destruction Island, and I took over as we passed “Q”.

The approach starts with making the offshore buoy “Q” about a mile southwest of R”2” which is a ½ mile due south of the actual entrance in the north end of the small bay. The sun came out just as we made the turn at “Q”, giving us stunning views of the high coast and the Quillayute Needles to starboard with James Island to port. Both my camera and Morgan’s phone chose that moment to run out of battery power!!! Morgan grabbed my phone and started shooting photos and videos.

Charlie’s Charts was extremely helpful with a note on that red R”2” buoy: “Use as range.” Looking aft at R”2” and north to the unlit-in-daytime sector light G”3” inside the bar was extremely critical and very helpful, and found nowhere else in all my readings. The large northwest swell was now just a tad aft of our beam, making for a really rockin’ and rollin’ ride, goosing us up to over 7 knots as we surfed down the quartering waves. The mast was rotating through 35 degrees in each direction. Our experience in stowing our gear meant everything down below stayed put. The movement was like our night at Cape Lookout, but much easier to deal with while underway, not anchored.

The rocks and huge James Island to port was a boat length away. The jetty, with its submerged end, was less than the same distance to starboard. In the pulse pounding moment as we got really close to James Island its lee stopped the swell immediately and the water flattened out completely. We shot through the tiny opening on the flooding current and turned hard to starboard leaving the few green buoys to port and hugged the jetty to our right. There were tons of gigantic tree trunks distributed along the entire length of the twelve hundred foot long jetty from storms over the years. There were no crab traps or fishing nets in the entrance.

The adrenaline rush stayed with us as we motored into the marina. There were plenty of empty slips and we scouted around to find one that would put our bow into the wind so the dodger would keep us comfortable in the cockpit. We tied portside to in a double wide slip that had a small motor boat to starboard with oodles of room.

There are three other sailboats here, one on the commercial dock side tied to the end tie, one across the fairway from us close to the land, and another to our port. The one side tied appears to have crew, the other two appear unmanned.

Morgan said, “You let me steer all the long boring parts and you got to do the fun one.” “Hey, you got the Columbia River bar, there was NO WAY I would miss doing this once-in-a-lifetime one.”

It was the highlight of my entire sailing life. Threading a needle – this needle – was the most fun packed five minutes of a rush of pure concentration I have ever had sailing. The lighting was stunning, the helming was critically challenging, the roaring sound of the swells and breakers was a fitting coda, and the calm once inside was gratifying. Morgan did the lines and by the time I had shut the engine down he was back on the boat with a well deserved beer in hand for us both. I sat in the cockpit and kept saying “Wow!” And here I thought the Columbia River bar was cool!

The backlighting as the sun set beyond the rocks outside the harbor seawall to our west and James Island just to their south was gorgeous. Morgan took a shower and we wandered into town and found the restaurant. Our different guides had disagreed about its very existence. It was a nice place, we had window seats on the great view, and the food was good. Tia, our waitress, got us a box to store the backup autopilot, because on the way up I got an email from Dan in Durango who said he had received and had already fixed our ST3000! For $75 plus shipping. A lot less expensive than a new $1,700 CPT! While we won’t get it back for the last laps of this trip, he’ll mail it to us.