Essays

THE THIRD YEAR

By John Guy

Adapting to full-time cruising takes three years. The process is profound, challenging, unforgiving. It is exciting, stimulating, satisfying. It is gratifying to the successful; frustrating and destructive to the unsuccessful, to those who drop out before acclimatizing and comprehending.

“Three” is the important number in my hypothesis about human adaptability. For example, I argue, “A vacation does not commence until the third day.”

A vacation is a retreat from the intensity of routine life, a time to wind down, to think and to reflect. During a satisfying holiday, an individual abandons and escapes the daily pressures that promote stress and limit creativity. Financier and diplomat Bernard Baruch stated that his best ideas occurred at his vacation home, not at his office. Writers, composers and artists seek bucolic environments where they can think and produce away from the hustle bustle that tightens the human spring and holds it tight for weeks at a time. However, the human body and spirit cannot unwind overnight. It cannot adjust instantaneously. In the days before a vacation, as body and spirit deal with both the needs of everyday life and the planning, packing, closing, locking and traveling that naturally precede a vacation, the spring winds even tighter, perhaps more tightly than at any other time of year. The mental hard disk deals with a host of “what ifs,” such as “what if someone needs me while I am gone, will John cut the lawn, will Sally collect our mail, does Mom need our help,” and dozens of other doubts and concerns. Combining the routine daily duties with the effort to leave and the anxieties about absence produces an intense state of mind that cannot immediately change mode. Rest, relaxation and inspiration do not commence until the baggage is gone. It takes three days to lay off the baggage.

In addition to the spirit, the body needs to adjust. For most domestic vacations, three days will do the job. The body will accept new conditions in about three days, such as the change from a clean air conditioned home to the dirt and grime of a back packing trail, or from the temperatures of winter in Indiana to the heat of Florida or Arizona. More time is required if the magnitude of change is great, such as traveling from Indianapolis at 400 feet to Steamboat Springs at over 9,000 feet, or from the stable and protected platform of land to the rolling, salty, windy, confining platform of a cruising vessel.

The change from work to play, or from one type of work to another, takes time. Persons who take three-day weekends get no rest at all, because they are not ready to rest until the fourth day. Curiously, they are ready to rest on the day that they return to work. On the first day back, they are tired and lethargic, because they need time to rewind the spring. When asked, “how was your vacation,” the answer often is “too short,” because, in fact, it was too short. It did not qualify as a vacation because the body and spirit never adapted, never relaxed. Only after the fourth day does a person forget the stress of home and work and proceed to a state of personal freedom from cares. Persons taking off one week get four days of vacation, of true relaxation and refreshment. Afterwards, the four days seem too short. For me, the only memorable and meaningful vacations lasted three weeks, especially when I was traveling out of the country, with jet lag on each end, and adjustments to new water, language, culture, shifted business days, and packing/unpacking/packing.

The adjustment to live-aboard cruising was the most challenging of my life. I had predicted three weeks to acceptance, three months to competence, and a year to full acclimation. It was not to be. Although we had chartered every year for ten years, even though we had read every book and pamphlet, talked with dozens of cruisers, and watched videotapes and TV shows, we were not prepared. Even though Chichi and I made a commitment to go for at least one year, on the mistaken view that one year would be enough; we still almost hung up the halyard on three different occasions during the first year. On each of these occasions, we saved ourselves only because one of us remained rational. When I was ready to say, “let's go home,” Chichi was willing to say, “we promised ourselves one year.” When she was ready to abandon ship, I was OK, calm, rational, or something. If we both had reached maximum frustration at the same time, I would not be writing today. Adapting takes more than a year. It takes more than two years. It takes time, good will, and commitment.

Mother Nature places many obstacles to the cruising live aboard experience. At times, it seems that She does not want us there. Otherwise, why do we have barnacles and rust, sunburn and motion sickness, UV rays and sheets that destroy varnish, sails that tear and bolts that break under strain? After three years, we know the reason. Nature wants to allow us the satisfaction of having achieved despite her efforts. She wants us to feel good because we have worked hard for a valuable experience. The opportunity is available to everyone, but only the proud and the few, persons who are committed for at least three years, survive the test and enjoy the reward.

Nature put up many personal obstacles to Chichi and me. The first is mechanical. Neither Chichi nor I had meaningful experiences with machines and tools. We both arrived at three score years having done no more than painting a house or two, mounting pictures on walls, and connecting electrical lines according to instruction manuals. If it needed to be fixed, we called for repairs. Plumbers love us. On a boat, of course, we not only need mechanical skills. We need the attitude that anything can be fixed. We did not have this attitude. We did not have the confidence, and what little confidence we had was eroded by facts of life, by challenges Mother Nature presents to the “mature.” For example, in many circumstances, I cannot see the slot of a screw. Though I have the best progressive lenses known to mankind, at almost any manageable distance, the slot is out of focus. If I get really close, while taking off my glasses for close viewing, my right arm becomes unmanageable, or I cannot hold the screw with my left while turning it with the right. The helplessness, the anxiety, contributed to my periodic desire to quit all together. It took me at least a year and a half to accept this disability and to finally feel OK asking for help. Meanwhile, my body does not like to work, literally, especially in small spaces. It does not want to twist and turn. It is so inflexible that I cannot touch my right shoulder with my right hand, or my left with the left hand. I cannot signal a football referee's time out. Physical trainers do not believe this until they see it. I can get this body into an engine compartment, or partially into a lazaret, but once in, I cannot turn painlessly. At those times that I am able to turn appropriately, I cannot see the slot. Frustration on trying turned me into a screaming idiot, the sound alone making my wife want to quit. It took me more than a year and a half to find the solution, to feel good about the solution. I kept resisting knowledge that I have a spouse both able and willing. With six inches less altitude than I, and 15 inches less diameter, she can do it. This all seems silly, but raw truth is that it took me a long time to accept the reality that I needed her help, and that she was anxious to do it. Adapting takes time.

To work as a team takes time and practice. We needed five or ten experiences to efficiently-and calmly-lift the tender from the foredeck, over the lifelines, and into the water. Sometimes early on we were so intimidated by the process, especially in winds over 5 knots, that we said “Oh heck (or something similar). Let's go some other time.” After lowering the tender, we had to lower the outboard motor, but the crane halyard was too short, the purchase insufficient. I was not diplomatic. I was not even nice. Shouting at a spouse is no way to win the game. Her resentment and my guilt were not positive motivations. We suffered until the problems were fixed. Today, after almost three years, these tasks are routine. We barely think about them. “Let's go,” we say. And we do it.

At times, our vessel, Pachamama, decided to scare us. She consciously attacked our nerve endings, once by causing the isolator to smoke, or by waddling out an alternator mount. Another time she decided to tell us that our batten caps were incorrectly installed. A disappearing, flying batten, in the middle of the night, in 35 knots, makes neophytes a bit apprehensive. The neophytes wonder whether sailing is worth the anguish. Anxiety is high. On the other hand, how can one adapt to an uncertain future if the present is uneventful? Nature was not against us. Instead, she was teaching. She was demonstrating that the random maladies of machines and rigging are normal, manageable. Mother Nature was giving us most valuable tools: personal flexibility, perspective, and a positive attitude.

Mother Nature worked closely with her friends Neptune and Zeus to make clear who is in charge. During our thirteenth month (no kidding), we traveled from Newport to Bermuda to St. Marten. During the first leg, 60-knot winds and 60-foot seas established that we are not in charge. During the second leg, The Friends promised easterly winds south of 25 north. They lied. On arrival in Bermuda, we spent more than $3,000 to repair weather-related problems. “That is a lot more than most car repairs,” we said, and at the marina I went straight to a broker and put Pachamama up for sale. Fortunately, the Greek God of good sense quietly took charge by preventing anyone from making a bid. We sailed on.

All sailors know these challenges. During the months between St. Marten and Trinidad, we dragged the tender upside down, crossed anchors with boats in Grenada, fell and suffered a concussion in the cockpit, suffered shock from plant-induced eye pain in Los Testigos, sat weeks in Trinidad trying to figure out an electrical and starter motor problem, fought greater than expected winds in The Mona, and passed countless days in Bahamian anchorages waiting for something less than 25 knots. At first, we suffered, or so we thought, without fully appreciating the subtle change in our bodies and spirits. Our first problems, such as the smoking isolator, were horrendous. Later problems were terrible. Sixty-foot waves were awful. The southeast wind was difficult. The flipped tender was, well, almost funny. Subsequent challenges were. . .. What were they? Were they manageable? Maybe. Yes, they were manageable. We handled them. We were patient. We understood. We adapted. The magnitude of each problem was similar, but we were different. In some subtle manner, we were arriving at an accommodation with the normal events of sailing. Our new life started, not after the third day, but well into the third year.
We think that we have adapted. We know that we now enjoy ourselves. We are profoundly grateful that we stuck it out.

John and Chichi Guy have sailed their 45-foot Cabo Rico since September 2001. Her christening had been scheduled for September 11 of that year.