A blast from the past

While kicking my heels here in FL on vacation, what boat should happen along but my own former beloved Cal 36 Clarity, the boat I rebuilt from near derelict into a fine cruising yacht. Not only did I get to see her still in great nick, but I got to go on a three hour cruise, taking my dog for her first ever boat ride. The trip was nothing like the cruise of the Minnow, though. The boat moved flawlessly and fast, pushed with a brand new 40 hp yanmar engine. It was a bit mind blowing being aboard again, although after two years, I felt mostly disconnected. I did have a flash of waiting out that sweltering hurricane season in Fort Myers beach, grateful that a big windy never arrived. Then I remembered all that bashing to windward down the east coast, and squalls from every direction in the Bahamas. Ah, the good old days of cruising. Not that Clarity is cursed or anything, but the new owner has had nothing but wind on the nose since he set out. It’s not the boat, it’s sailing the east coast, I swear. Although it was great to see Clarity again, I had no burning desire to jump on board and beat my way to windward in search of the green flash. Guess I really am a gosh darned land lubber now.

Famous

Last winter I lived on a boat docked in a working boatyard where commercial fishing boats were built. I have a talent not many women can, or would ever want to, lay claim to. I can pee over the rail of any boat alive, whether it’s parked at a dock or bounding about in an active seaway. This particular boat that I stayed on had, like so many boats possess, a leaky, stinky toilet. Rather than deal with the spray of icky toilet water on my leg when I flushed, after dark and after the boatyard had shut down for the night, I would simply pee over the rail.

One night when I came back to the yard, the boat’s owner asked me if I had seen anything unusual that morning as I left for work, anyone in the boatyard, or any unfamiliar cars. Well, it was 6 a.m., still dark, and my eyes weren’t even open yet. It’s a miracle I could find my own car, let alone notice anything else around me. Turns out some stuff had gone missing. “That’s okay,” he said. “They’ll just review the camera tapes to see what happened.”

Huh? What camera tapes? “Oh, this whole place is under video surveillance, including the docks and boats.” Wondering vocally why this was the first I was hearing of this, he said, “oh, I thought you knew that. Besides, they never look at the tapes unless something happens.”

Well, stuff happens. If you ever see a youtube video of a girl peeing over the rail of a docked boat, that’s probably me. My moment of fame.

I was in prison

They call it a gated community, but I fail to see much difference.

The very first time I ever visited Florida, I was an escapee from the north, having just single handed the six day offshore passage from frigid NC. Anchoring in the warm, clear water, I was looking forward to my first shore trip. I expected everyone to be happy, relaxed, smiling, and friendly, basking in the balmy air. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Heading to the supermarket in search of fresh food, as I crossed the parking lot, I almost got run down numerous times by mean looking people in new German cars. Inside the market, everyone was cranky, pushy, frowning, and generally impolite. I should have known as I rowed ashore past the piles of condos. I guess it’s a sad thing, when you work your entire life, looking forward to retirement, the holy grail of American life. And what do you get? You get to sit there in a box, surrounded by other boxes all the same, staring at a box. Yeah, that would make me pretty cranky too. That was my initial thought, and while that was partially correct, there was more to it, as I later discovered when I got a job washing boats in a private marina in a gated community.

I biked every day, and every day, I had to stop, sign in, and get a pass before I was allowed to enter. And at the end of each day, I had to stop and turn in my permission slip. This meant sitting on my bike in a long line of cars, both in and out, while foot traffic could simply pass by. This in itself was a silly thing, because there were times I would get a lift and get dropped off at the gate, where I could simply walk in lugging a back pack full of explosives, no questions asked. But the warden at the gate was insistent that if it had wheels, it had to be properly signed in, no matter how many exhaust fumes I had to suck up. I tried walking in pushing the bike, but that wasn’t allowed either. Not long after that, I found a way around the useless entry procedure. I simply waded through the one foot deep moat, carrying my bike across and up through a gap in the bushes, and then peddled on down to the marina. This not only saved me half a mile of travel time, but speeded my entry by not having to wait to sign in. Before discovering the shortcut, I had often recognized residents walking the sidewalk outside the prison. If I said hello, they would recoil in disgust. And yet, if I ran into the same folks inside, they would be smiling, relaxed, and friendly. Aha, I see. They truly believe that they are safe in this protected world in here, and outside their gates it is a dangerous war zone, where their odds of being killed are extremely high. Now I get it. The prison walls, which I so easily breached, gave them a false sense of security. And anyone inside must be okay, because they passed the inspection at the gate. Outside, well, you just never know. I felt pity for these people who lived such fear-ridden lives. And I’m sure they felt the same for me, living so unprotected in the big bad world outside.

I was reminded of this when I went to visit a friend who lives in one of these places. Normally the guards are friendly, but on this day, the woman was cranky bordering on rude. At first I thought she was hard of hearing, as I had to repeat my answers to all the questions she asked. Then I realized that the TV inside the turret was blaring. Finally, after she grudgingly handed me a pass as though she was doing me a favor by letting me enter the promised land of double wide mobile homes, she motioned me to drive on in. As I did so, she yelled at me to stop and made a big deal of having to look past my bike mounted over the license plate, which required her to tilt her head a bit to the left to see the last two numbers. Then she had the nerve to approach my window to start a lecture on how I should not have a bike over my plate. I stopped her by saying very sweetly, “Gee, I’m so sorry you had to leave your TV for that,” and then shot off into the nirvana beyond the gate.

I’m glad I came to FL, even if it is about the same icy temp as at home right now, because it has reinforced my notion that I’m on the right track about deciding to settle in the frigid north. It may be miserable in winter, but there are no gated communities where I live. In fact, we only have a vague idea of how to work a lock. One of the best practical jokes to play on a friend is to go lock up their house while they’re not in it, because when they come home, they can’t get in. Keys? Door locks? Huh?

Don’t fence me in just yet.

A Different Kind of Pole Dance

Super Bowl Sunday.

I spent it stripping.

I drove a little over ten hours from Baltimore, to a campground just north of Charleston, SC
Once I reached the Virginia border, I unlaced my skates.
In Richmond, I reduced my footwear by one pair of socks.
Crossing into North Carolina, I joyfully peeled off my long underwear for the first time in ages. Yes, that is yuck.
In the middle of NC, I stripped the liner out of my winter coat.
Entering South Carolina, the water on my knee finally melted. At the next stop, the wool sweater joined the growing heap of laundry in the back of the car. I was now practically naked, wearing nothing but one pair of socks, one pair of shoes, one pair of pants, one turtleneck. Yahoo!

Once settled in the campground, I put it all back on. Not only that, having become the pansy landlubber that I am, I paid $5 extra for electricity. I had packed my tiny little space heater and an extension cord just in case the frigid air got stuck on the back bumper of my car and was dragged along on this trip. It did. But despite the cold, a long hike with the dog revealed not a speck of ice to be found. I stopped, knelt down, and fondled the earth. Beautiful dirt. Ice free. Life can’t get better than that, can it?

The next morning, after a quick hike in the nippy damp gray air, it was back on the road again.
Approaching the Florida border, heaps of rain began to fall out of the sky. Not only were the wipers going full bore, but so was the heater. It rained all day. The only plus side was getting the salt flushed off my car. So here I am, in sunny Florida, wearing my wool sweater, socks, my boots, both layers of winter coat, AND I thought about digging out the gloves I buried in the car. I’m so glad I drove all this way to thaw out.

For all of you who are enjoying early spring in New England, you’re welcome. But don't get used to it. I’ll be back in about two weeks, so keep your winter gear ready, and lube up those snow shovels.

My idea of paradise is a tropcial island, studded with palm trees and encircled by wide, white, sandy beaches. Actually, it’s more than an idea. I have visited many such places by boat, and know for a fact that the tropics get me all hot and bothered. I dream of these islands when I sleep at night.

So why is it that I keep ending up back here in this frigid winter wonderland? By the end of January, I’m depressed and hibernating, realizing that if I drink every time it snows, I’ll need rehab before spring. What in the heck am I doing in this frozen wasteland, when I could have been sailing among warm sunny islands this winter?

Florida is not a tropical island; in fact, it’s not much of anything. The Spaniards probably laughed all the way to the bank when they sold us that swampland. Stupid gringos. We made a bad thing worse by filling it with condos, chain stores, and very elderly people in big dangerous cars. The only thing Florida has going for it is that it isn’t freezing(usually) in the winter, and there are palm trees. I have a place to stay, and can drive there with my canvas business loaded into the car, having already lined up enough work to pay for gas. Also, I can take the dog, although I do still believe that FL needs to put up signs at the border that say “Welcome to Florida; no dogs allowed.”

So back I go to my fake tropical paradise, trying to chase the mid winter blues out of my system. Once I return north, the days will be longer, the temps shouldn’t be quite as cold, and soon I’ll have pollen season to look forward to. There’s something in New England’s spring that aggravates my sinuses almost beyond tolerable, whereas I have never, ever been allergic to a tropical island. And yet, I keep coming back here, and staying happily for long periods of time. For some reason, my heart is here, which I guess makes it home.

Nearly a dozen of us, including myself, are part of a close knit group of folks who have all sailed in by boat from somewhere else, and decided to stay. And while we continue to dream of winter escapes, with some of us actually making the break, we admit that there’s something here, something that satisfies our sailor spirits, something that we love and don’t want to leave. It may not be tropical, but it is our paradise. Snow covered and all.