Life on the Hard

Seeing another vessel should be a cause for happiness and celebration

 What is it about sailing off to somewhere were not in waters known or unknown that holds us in such a grip? As I look out my window now a light snow falls and I can only imagine what my familiar waters look like right now. Well the posts by MT Icebuds tell me plenty. I'd need a catboat on skies in order to go sailing. Something to consider I guess. But here we are nine days in to 2023 and I'm already gearing up for the next season. Not only for the work and sailing I'm going to do in my own boat but the sailing I have planned on other boats in far away places. I've dug the boat plans out and stare at them mentally running through the work I have to do this spring. I read Sail Magazine and browse the lovely emails that Small Craft Advisor thoughtfully places in my inbox. I have sailing on the brain and while it's lovely I would dearly love to know why.

 I've heard it said that humans are bred to face adversity. That we're never fully happy unless our hair is on fire and live and limb are really on the line. That's its the genetic trait that has kept us ahead of all the other animals or some other such exceptionalism drivel. While I suppose that explains wanting to chase a hard westerly or sail around the world single handed it doesn't explain why I just want a calm day sail more then just about anything right now. I can see and feel it. That wonderful lake breeze we get in Dayton just a shade under concerning. It's steady and predictable and you have all day to enjoy it. The tiller is alive in your hands and the main soars above you and you haven't a care in the world save for what's in front of you right there and then. That's the opposite of adversity I think.

Play some Jimmy Buffet already!

 Anyone will tell you I'm a planer by nature. Trying to put in order the future so I know what's coming up. I often say having something to look forward too is one of the driving forces in my life. And that is the version of me that is normally here. But that other version, you see him in the picture up there, that's who I want to be more often. He's on a timeline but right now in the moment the only thing he's worried about are the fickle late season winds and how it's going to alter his course right now. He's looking at the sail, the partner is enjoying herself in her cabin and if he can stretch this moment out a bit he do everything to do so. He doesn't need the horizon, just enough wind to allow him to direct his own course on this familiar patch of water for what may well be the last time the season (It wasn't). I want to be him on this beautiful but still winter evening. 

 The cynical part of me things how I'm going to be frantic and frustrated once I get into the work I need to do this spring. How I'm going to invent a timeline and try to keep to it even thought it really doesn't exist. I'll fret over this and that, drag my friends into pointless arguments and annoy those I live alongside with dire warnings of what I have to do and what will happen if I don't at a time of my choosing. The other side of me me knows it'll all come together and I'll have a good summer of it no matter what. I say it to my customers constantly "Sure beats a day at the office, right?" But the boat list is long and weights heavily in my pocket and on my mind. It just needs to warm up.

 It's tough being an inland sailor. And one in a region where we don't really get to take care of the impulses and desires as we ought. The things outside our control conspire against us in a never ending cycle and it's annoying. But deep down in corners of my soul I don't talk about much I wouldn't have it any other way. This break is what I need. Because once it does warm up that lance drops and those boat project windmills become dragons once again. And woe to the boat project that keeps me off the water. It'll just be a few months.