Dan and Jaye's cruising blog: Kumatage (reflections on the water)

It's All About The People You Meet Along The Way Posted: April 19, 11:59 am | (permalink) | (0 comments)  [photo: This gateway just says "Deep South" to me .] Charleston is a fun city to visit; we’ve never missed a chance to stop here. I think of it as the real, classic “Deep South” – gracious architecture, gracious hospitality, tradition, and, oh yeah, the FOOD. We arrived in late evening racing just ahead of some severe thunderstorms that heralded a cold front. The next day, therefore, was cold and blustery and we were tired, so we hung out at the marina and did “ship’s work;” refueling, taking down and stowing the jacklines and other equipment we needed in preparation for the offshore trip from St Augustine, updating the log, and giving the boat and ourselves a good wash. Next two days were the Easter weekend, sunny and bright and just perfect for our plans of being outdoors and doing all our favorite Charleston things, walking downtown, people-watching ...

Posted: April 11, 12:50 pm | (permalink) | (0 comments)  [ photo: Low Country Sunrise, near Beaufort, SC ] When we’re sailing, it’s impossible for me NOT to “live in the moment” – but perhaps my version of doing so is not quite like the popular sense of living in the moment. When we’re sailing, if the weather is good and the day is beautiful, then in my mind, all sailing days are wonderful, they all always were wonderful, and they all always will be wonderful in the future. And if the weather stinks? Sailing always did stink, and always will stink. (Okay, in my mind I’m using a different s-word than “stink.” But this is a nice newspaper, ya know?) Anyway … that’s what the trip from St Augustine to Charleston was like. We left through the Bridge of Lions (“bye-bye, lion statues, luvya guys, see you next time”) and started out the inlet. We’d ride the Gulf Stream overnight about 20 miles off the coast, bypassing Georgia and coming into Beaufort, SC the next afternoo...

Posted: April 2, 10:22 pm | (permalink) | (1 comments)  [ photo: looking out toward the misty ocean ] And just that suddenly, the winds which had been blowing strong and dry from the north, shifted. Now they became softer, moister, gentler, and most importantly, from the south. Winds bringing springtime. Winds we could travel on, these winds from the south. Winds we could ride homeward back to Annapolis. First, we had to prepare the boat, switch from small-floating-dockside-condo mode to vessel-under-way mode. We’ve gotten used to setting things down on flat surfaces, surfaces that are no longer flat when we’re underway; things that could easily get tossed off needed to be stowed, and everything decluttered. There were a zillion projects to do. We made lists, and a list of all the lists, and spread out the chores over days so we wouldn’t be too overwhelmed. We topped up fuel tanks and scrubbed the growth from the hull – amazing how much accumulated in the 4-1/2...

Posted: March 30, 11:04 am | (permalink) | (1 comments) [ photo: St Brendan's Isle mail-forwarding service owner Doug Moody and employee Anna Eden with one day's incoming mail ] I love it when people who are thinking about living aboard and traveling ask me about how we get the mail. It means they’ve gone from the fantasies of crystal water and pristine beaches, to the practical realities of “how could we make this life work?” Think of every form you’ve ever filled out. What goes in the little boxes right after your name? Ninety-nine times out of 100, it’s your address. So automatic, you don’t even need to think about it. But what if you don’t have an address? What if you’re truly wandering? “John and Jane Jones, sailing vessel FreeBird, somewhere in the Atlantic …” probably just wouldn’t cut it. So, how do we deal with the mail? The first thing we did was decrease the amount of mail we get. When you think about it, you realize that most of the time you do not ...

Posted: March 26, 5:23 pm | (permalink) | (0 comments) Here’s a popular concept -- balance -- that seems logical on the surface, desperately needed, yet I’m just not sold on it. Balance? Balance implies some good, some bad, some black, some white, and lots of shades of gray. Finding compromise between competing goals of how you spend your time, accepting some of what you don’t want. My image is a seesaw, “work” on one side and “life” on the other. Trade-offs and a zero-sum game. When one goes up, the other must go down. That’s not what I want in my life. Why do I want some bad, some gray? I want no bad, no gray. I want passion, exuberance, saturated bright colors. Instead of a “balanced life” I want what my former colleague Imogene Bynum called a “congruent life” – one where work life and home life point in the same direction, toward parallel goals. Doesn’t mean bad stuff won’t happen, and it doesn’t mean I won’t sometimes have to do work I don’t like. But I don’t wan...

Posted: March 19, 8:05 pm | (permalink) | (0 comments) [ photo: lacking a car when we travel by boat, we opted for a more playful form of transportation! ] One of the biggest adjustments we had to make when we started cruising was giving up our cars. Hard to imagine life in suburbia without a car, but it wouldn't exactly fit on the boat. It’s sometimes been a hassle, but there has been an unexpected financial benefit. I’ve read that the average cost of owning and driving a car in the US, including purchase, registration fees, insurance, fuel, and maintenance, is about $700 per month. Each month. Each car. Wow. $700 a month can buy a fair number of taxi rides. We’ve learned to take the bus, and have gotten some insight into the life of people who can't afford that $700 per month and must rely on public transportation. It can be inconvenient, not getting exactly where you want, when you want. At the same time, we have met some interesting characters on the bus, that ...

Posted: March 10, 10:26 am | (permalink) | (0 comments) I love the conversations we get into when we tell people we live on a boat, year round, without a house or lots of “stuff.” Some people are amazed, some are clearly baffled, some ask practical questions, some shyly share their own dreams of freedom from the rat race. But some skeptically give us some version of “must be nice,” implying that only someone with lots of money would be able to buy a boat big enough to live on, much less travel in. There’s a cynical joke among boaters, when asked how much it costs, to say, “as much as you have.” How much does a car cost? If you’re thinking, “new Mercedes from the dealership;” and I’m thinking, “used Chevy from Craigslist;” we aren’t going to be able to have a very productive conversation about the cost of cars. And it’s the same with living on a boat, just as it’s the same with the cost of the boat itself. How big? How new? What kind of amenities? How well do you know yourse...

Posted: February 29, 3:34 pm | (permalink) | (0 comments) [photo: barge and backhoe; the view from the cockpit down the (very looong) slip we're in ] The tidal range here in St Augustine is 4 – 5 feet, and well, all that water has to go some where when it ebbs. Where it goes, is out the inlet, and because the inlet is small, the water goes very very fast. The current can be intense, 4 knots at maximum ebb. (For comparison, the tidal range in Annapolis is only a gentle 1 foot, and currents are only rarely even as much as 1 knot.) We can only motor at 6 knots with the engine, which means that when the current here in St Augustine is at its strongest, we can’t move against it, we just have to wait it out. When boats come into the marina unawares and try to dock without accounting for the current, it can get … interesting. The current can push the boat off course, making it difficult to get into or out of the slip or stay centered in the fairway. You can get a lot of insight...