purchase (still not confirmed, but quite possible). I remember reading this letter below in Latitude 38 sailing mag a while ago, where the writer of the letter waxes somewhat poetic about the "opportunities to go walkabout" being "woefully few" these days, b/c of social norms, conventional material measure of success, etc. Sure, it's all well and good to go walkabout, to step outside the box, (and quite a valuable life experience, I think, whether on a boat or going to study yoga in an ashram in India, or whatever it is that is your passion) but I'm trying to figure out, for myself anyway, how reasonable it is to go walkabout, to free your mind from all those kinds of typically shoreside conventional wisdom/expectations, etc., while maintaining a potentially stressful --but also quite possibly financial nest-egg-creating!-- tie to land via property ownership and renting...
Anyone got any recommendations on good sewage Y-valves instead... ;-) ;-) (just kidding...too easy of a question)
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THE SEA AND THE SKY DICTATE THE RULES Like Latitude, I found Bill Hinkle's letter in the May issue - in which he stated that living the cruising life when he was young was "senseless" - to be interesting. Rather forthrightly, he gives voice to the often unspoken fears and trepidations that entrap people and keep them from taking the calculated risks that give life perspective. It wasn't so very long ago that the only sensible thing for a person to do was to periodically leave the comfortable confines of habitual living to taste the world raw. The Aboriginal peoples call it 'walkabout'. It's not just a rite of passage reserved for the young, it's a 'stepping out of the box' that one needs to do repeatedly throughout one's life.
In our modern everyday existence, the opportunities to go walkabout are woefully few, and I think that we are poorer as individuals and as a society because of this. We become enslaved by conventional wisdom that defines accomplishment as going to school, getting jobs, and earning and spending money willy-nilly. We try to fool ourselves into believing that we've gone walkabout when we take a two-week vacation to Europe or a prepackaged eco-tour - but cavorting from hotel to hotel with a cell phone stuck to our ear is hardly leaving the box. If you take a moment to think about it, cruising under sail is one of the few remaining opportunities we moderns can seize to really break away. I suppose it could be called going 'sail-about'.
When you sail away you become sovereign. You journey beyond the bounds set by traffic laws, employment policies, entreaties to consume, creditor demands, and predigested media-think. The sea and sky dictate the rules and the world unfolds before you, raw and sensible. Cruising presents you with challenges and surprises that feed your soul and make you whole.
I say listen to your nomadic genes, and when they tell you that it's time to break away - do it! It's not necessary to go far or long. When you are ready to step out-of-bounds, a good boat, big or small, and a stretch of open water are enough.
My most recent sail-about was with my wife and son. It lasted almost six years, from '98 to '04, and included crossing three oceans. It was the sensible thing to do.
When not teaching sailing at Pacific Yachting on Monterey Bay, my wife and I offer cruising classes from Ventura to the Channel Islands designed to help people determine if cruising under sail is a viable way for them to break away. We can be found at www.sailthechannel.com.
Marc Hersch Songline, J/42 Santa Cruz / Ventura