The process of moving aboard is exciting, and hard.

Following the lead of Adam Baker of Man vs. Debt, we’re selling our stuff and doing what we love. Our job is tougher in many ways than young Adam’s. We’ve been in this house for twenty years, amassing furniture, building materials, tools, art, toys, books (OMG, the books) and memories.

The physical part is one kind of hard – all these boxes to navigate around, all the furniture to lift and carry out to people’s trucks. Soon we’ll be sleeping on the floor again like we did when we moved into our first apartment.

Then there are all the phone calls and appointments to schedule. We’ve lost track of who got here first on a couple of items, which caused some heartburn.

Then there’s the step-by-step process of listing things on Etsy, Ebay and our Drewslist linked Moving Aboard Sale site.

Then there’s the act of letting go.

It’s just stuff – except for the emotional entanglement

This morning I was creating a couple more listings for special things on my Etsy vintage store, As She Goes and ran into difficulties in the shape of a pig.

The experts say writing the description as a story helps things sell, so here’s my description of a small wooden animal:

This charming porker began life as a carving lesson. My husband, Tom, sat with the kids each night after work teaching them the whole process.

First they learned how to choose a good block of wood. Then they voted on what the subject would be. (I think they might have been reading Charlotte’s Web at the time.) Next they studied pig anatomy and sketched pigs in a variety of poses.

After they came up with the perfect design, he showed them how to lay out the shape on the block of wood. Then the carving began, night by night, the form of Wilbur took shape.

When the pig was finished, complete with curly tail – he, and it is a he – became a favorite plaything.

When the kids were grown, he took his folk-art place on the living room window sill and waited for the grandkids to arrive. Now they love him too. Over the years he’s lost most of his tail. An ear came off in one piggy frolic and had to be glued back on. Still, everyone, kids and adults alike, picks him up. His strong back has developed quite a patina.

Never mind, I don’t want to sell this.

The pig that bore fruit

All the kids grew up to be artists. Mari is a photographer and painter, Emily crafts handmade books and Jeremy carves. Sticks he turned into various implements littered our house. Here’s one of his carvings from a few years after the pig lesson that shows the trend toward the water.

The following is a guest post. The author is my past self.

In many ways this essay was the first Tidal Life post, though years passed between writing it and beginning to publish this blog. I share it now because in it I wrote about my hope for the future – and the future has arrived.

It’s eight o’clock on an August morning. I’m lying on the secluded deck of my waterfront home; skin exposed to the sun’s rays. The calm harbor below undulates as if breathing. Soon the north wind will come, as it does every summer day, but for now I sweat. For a few moments this feels like vacation.

A couple of kids row by in a yellow, rubber raft. At first I assume they’re off the Hunter 45 that’s been here all weekend. But no, the Hunter is gone, pulled up anchor and slipped away while I was watching the water. That means the breeze has come up and will soon reach me. Sure enough, a breath touches a spot on the glassy surface of the water, momentarily fracturing the sun’s reflection, then lifts a strand of hair and tickles my shoulder.

Idly, I wonder where the kids in the raft came from. Are they landlubbers from one of the houses down the beach taking a first look at the world from a small craft? Or are they marooned sailors like me?

I began bobbing around Seattle’s Green Lake in battered rental rowboats before I could toddle. Engulfed in a puffy, orange lifejacket I clutched a cork handled fishing pole while Grandpa strung bright yellow pearls on my hook. Every snapshot in which my very young self appears also features a small, shiny fish. Trout was my first solid food.

When I got my legs under me, I stood in Dad’s speedboat as it flew across Puget Sound. Hair whipping, eyes scrunched and watering, I loved being on the water but hated the way that boat pounded over the chop. I was convinced the hull would smash apart with each impact. The varnished mahogany combing probably still carries the imprint of my tiny fingernails.

By the time I was eight, we were taking summer vacations aboard Tempest, a 26 foot Thunderbird. I loved every minute of those trips, the sedate and the exciting. Simultaneously thrilled and anxious, I held my breath when she heeled far enough to wash the cabin ports. Later, a long string of ski boats and their ropes stitched the summers of my adolescence together.

When we married, Tom and I planned from the start to get a sailboat of our own. For a while we went to every boat show, scoured the want ads and visited people who were building boats. Our favorite hangout was a small, downscale brokerage on Seattle’s Lake Union. We read books about living aboard, books about every landfall in the world. We know, in theory, all about celestial navigation, provisioning and splicing. But aside from a rubber raft, no boat has yet tacked into our lives. Eventually, we chose instead to spend our time and funds building this house, where I lay in the sun and watch the harbor.

Now and then one of us will look out at the year-round craft moored in front of our house, some of which never move from their buoys, and say, “He doesn’t deserve her, never sails. Let’s see if he’ll sell.” Each time we end up admitting that we couldn’t take the time to sail her either, so we continue to rely on the kindness of friends who invite us aboard for an afternoon cruise or a weekend of water skiing.

After porthole shopping for years, living on the waterfront is like having a nautical fashion show at our door. A yacht sails in, turns like a runway model, displays her sails, her bow, her sheer, her stern and then drops anchor. We grab the binoculars and try to figure out the length, designer and builder of each. By looking at the way she’s equipped, we guess at where she’s been or where she’s going.

My boating is now vicarious and voyeuristic. I feel a bit guilty when I watch what goes on aboard visiting boats. There’s a barrier between residents and boaters in an anchorage. Boaters gaze up at the houses, imagining the idyllic life of those who can live permanently at the water’s edge, while we on the shore watch them pass and yearn to get away.

Occasionally we make the attempt to meet our visitors. One summer my neighbor, a chef at a local restaurant, toyed with the idea of going from boat to boat delivering pastries and coffee on Sundays, sort of a non-continental breakfast service. It was a romantic notion for a sunny, summer morning. I don’t know for sure what stopped her from giving it a try but I can think of several daunting points, the most immediate being the amount of rowing required. Sailors in an anchorage don’t always raft up conveniently and the use of an outboard early in the morning would have doused enthusiasm for her offerings.

The other subtle knot in the sheet of her ambition was the fact that such a business would have required actual contact between sailors and locals, contact that the barrier discourages. The two groups have vastly different visions of what this place they’re in is all about. Privacy issues nag at both. Residents think, “they came here to get away from it all, don’t bother them,” while most, not all, boaters are wary of property rights. Carried along under these concerns of the modern era is a cargo of history lessons we share featuring stories of sailing ships and natives at odds in paradise. Will the locals paddle out with leis and coconuts, or war clubs and flaming arrows? Will the ship bring wealth or pestilence?

There was one sailing couple we never actually met, but felt like we knew. Careful seamen, they moored their heavy-duty cruiser off our beach for a number of months, anchoring her bow and stern. Echipee never moved in even the roughest weather. She sat there as if built on a concrete foundation. Once she was secure, her owners proceeded to spend the summer shuttling busily between shore and boat, their tiny dinghy nearly swamping under loads of lumber, and once, a table saw. What they built turned out to be a serviceable looking shelter for the helmsman. We surmised that they were headed north, seriously north.

Summer weekdays when the builders weren’t hard at work, we swam out to Echipee and hung from her anchor chain. There’s a special appeal to swimming with boats. Swimming not to scuba dive or to chase after the water ski your joker friend heaved a hundred feet away, but just going for a swim when they happen to be floating in your pool. Boats feel alive. You can pat their glossy bellies. I like to dive down the anchor chain, check out the shape of the keel, swim right under, port to starboard, playing marine biologist, with this beast the subject of my study. Treading water at the surface, I listen to the slap of the waves against the hull and feel those same waves slapping me. I don’t think I could live without the sound of waves on hulls. I would wake at night wondering, what is that silence?

One chilly evening I looked up from some bookwork just in time to see a catamaran slide past. I’d never seen a cat underway before. The thing seemed to skate across the surface as if on ice. All told, from the time I noticed her passing our windows, to the time she pivoted in her own shadow, dropped anchor and gulped the crew down her companionway, less than ten minutes passed. It was not a ten minutes filled with activity either. Though a storm threatened, the skipper and mate didn’t appear frantic. They were excellent sailors.

I stood in the doorway early the next day gazing out at the cat, thinking back to how it feels to stand on a sailboat’s deck first thing in the morning and comparing the memory to how it felt here on shore. I tried to imagine that the air here, right on the edge of the water felt the same. But it simply didn’t, because it was not accompanied by the tiny shudder that each wave’s slap against the hull sends through me, a bone deep message. In a similar attempt to evoke the spirit of life aboard, Tom sometimes jumps up and makes another cup of coffee because he’s thinking about morning on a sailboat and knows it will feel more real with a mug to hold near his chest.

The breeze has intensified, but shifted direction, so that I’m sheltered from it and getting hot again. That microscopic film of sweat has broken out on my skin. Here, on my deck, concealed from all but the occasional yacht that moors directly in front of the house, I stand and let the breeze dry my moist skin then slip into my clothes to begin my day.

I’ve wondered idly, while aboard a boat, what the people in the houses thought of our antics on deck. A boat is a private world or a time warp; you forget to care who’s watching. There’s a sort of ‘what you can’t see isn’t really there’ feeling. But here on my land bound deck I don’t really care what the sailors think. If they don’t like my behavior they can weigh anchor and sail on. They are the lucky ones.

I’ll sail on one day too. But for now I’m here, a citizen of this paradise.

As I mentioned at the start, the future has arrived. We’ve finally got our boat. We’re moving aboard and easing toward the cruising life. That means there’s a shift coming for Tidal Life. Much more movement, adventure and travel. Along with more about sailboats. Thanks for reading all these years and I hope you’ll join me for the coming journey.

PS – Check out The Great Moving Aboard Sale. Your source for all the stuff that won’t fit in a sailboat. 

Spring is just around the corner, with sailing season right behind. Are you ready?

You say you don’t have a boat to sail this spring? Well I can fix that. I’ve got three and and can only keep one. So two of the Tidal Life sailboats are for sale – Nameless and Eternal Project.

Nameless, our Santana 22 – that’s her above – has starred in several posts here over the last few years. In these pages she’s sailed Holmes Harbor, had her bottom cleaned, highlighted the brilliant orange of noctiluca and posed with stunning sunrises.

About the Santana 22

The Santana 22 was designed by Gary Mull, one of America’s legendary yacht designers. Among the many successful vessels he designed is the 12-meter USA. (As it happens, he also designed our new boat, more about that later.)

Created to race on San Francisco Bay, the Santana has become a West Coast fixture and is still being built. It’s also one of the most seaworthy small boats ever, rating 182 on the Small Boat Seaworthiness test from Small Craft Advisor.

Being a racer, Nameless is spartan. She’s a fine little daysailer, but can also sleep four good friends for the occasional campout, puts up with beginner sailors and thrives under our regimen of benign neglect.

Condition

I won’t sugar coat it – Nameless is a little rough around the edges. Built in 1968 and well used over the years, she’s not the boat for those who want a posh and polished yacht on which to lounge and drink martinis.

We faired the hull, repaired some damage to the transom and removed old paint from the cockpit combing. Her sails both need some repair, but have worked fine for us. The little outboard isn’t pretty, but always starts right up. None of her idiosyncracies are major, they’ll give someone who likes to tinker on boats plenty to do in the off season.

She comes with a protected mooring in Holmes Harbor, but if you want her someplace else we’ll enjoy the adventure of sailing her to you – within reason.

It’s hard to let Nameless go, she’s been a wonderful, salty companion, but three boats are just more than we need. I hope I can keep up on her future exploits here at Tidal Life, and will be especially happy to share whatever name her new owner comes up with with my readers.

Eternal Project is a 12 foot, fiberglass Catspaw sailing dinghy hull. The Catspaw is an enlarged version of the Columbia dinghy originally designed by another legendary naval architect, Nat Herreshoff, as a tender for another America’s Cup contender. Here’s what a finished Catspaw looks like. This hull was laid by a boatbuilding class at Gompers Boat Building School, (now part of the Wood Construction Center at Seattle Central Community College).

She comes with a hand shaped mast, a set of instructions and that’s about it. She needs seats, caprail, a mast step and some hardware. Once someone with some gumption finishes her she’ll be a beautiful little ship.

For complete information on either of these charming little yachts email me at tidallife at whidbey dot com.

I’m always careful not to waste food.

(Insert joke about sale of Brooklyn Bridge or waterfront lots in Arizona here.) So after cutting the rind off a pork roast, I popped the scraps into a pot of water and boiled it to make stock.

The result – gelatinous glop. Julia Child probably could have turned it into a succulent aspic or something, but I never learned to like aspic, so I left the pot in the refrigerator to be dealt with later.

Tom found the mess and took it to the beach to feed to the ever-ravenous seagulls. Which is how we get rid of bread crusts, etc.

That old phrase – Eagle Eyed – that’s true.

The gulls lost out. No sooner had Tom had dumped the boiled rinds out on the sand than a couple of eagles landed and took possession. Luckily he had the camera, and also luckily, is better than I am at quickly snapping pictures of birds in motion, so he got the whole recycling drama on camera.

Whether they got any food value out of those hunks of skin that I’d boiled to death is debatable, but apparently eagles like pork.

If you can’t get ahold of a friend today don’t worry, they’ve probably left the cell phone on the kitchen counter and headed outside to count birds.

The Great Backyard Bird Count

Today is the first day of the annual Backyard Bird Count, and bird aficionados all over North America are out with binocs and notepads, tallying their avian visitors. Candace, one of my bird loving friends, reports identifying 13 species this morning without stepping out her door.

You can help with this effort to create a real-time snapshot of where the birds are across North America. All it takes is 15 minutes a day.  For full information on how to count and report your findings head over to Great Backyard Bird Count headquarters.

Bird counting bonus

When you focus on nothing but birds for a few minutes you’re sure to see some funny bird behavior  - like those upended swans I saw at Kensington Gardens.

Boat Shows are Nothing New, but This Year it was an Education

We’ve been to more boat shows than I can count. Our first child was born the morning after we attended an in the water boat show on Lake Union. She received a marine influenced name.

This year’s show though, was the very first time we went with anything other than window shopping in mind. This year we’re repairing and outfitting, so we compiled a long list of:

Objectives For the Boat Show

• price tenders
• drool over bigger, better stoves
• look at feathering props
• choose replacement ports
• learn how to get good wireless access
• check out the latest in eco-friendly bottom paint
• get updated on navigation systems

We need a new forward hatch, so critiqued several, looking up through raindrops at the familiar gray sky.

We inspected dodgers and biminis and considered simple rain covers made from tarps and PVC pipe.

I was blown away by the new open transoms. It’s been a few years since I looked at new boats. Is it just me, or does this (admittedly accessible) style preclude taking small children and yappy dogs along on cruises?

Personally, I gained a new respect for teak decking with raised rubber caulking. This was the first time I’ve trodden really wet decks in street shoes, and though water puddles between the rows in a way I find slightly troubling, the tremendous non-skid properties saved my @$$ several times.

The nautically colored pennants were snapping in a good stiff wind, but the sailors were all at the show.

Indoors, at Century Link Field, the star attraction was this mini submersible speedboat styled and painted to suggest an Orca. My first reaction upon seeing it was dismay. Not only did it strike me as pricey (and possibly sacrilegious in the Puget Sound area) kitsch, it also reminded me of my least favorite Christopher Moore book, Fluke.

DISCLAIMER: I really like Christopher Moore’s books. Lamb is divine. I even liked most of Fluke. The ending just got too … stretchy for me.

A video loop showed action sequences of the mechanical Orca diving and even doing a passable breach. I had to wait until the show was closing down to get a clear shot of this beast.

Outcomes From the 2012 Boat Show

• Feathering props are really slick
• I want to try Sea Hawk Smart Solution paint (it has no copper in it!)
• Our stove will do for quite some time
• We’re saving for a Hypalon RIB
• We’ve got lots more research to do on the wireless and nav solutions
• We now own a doorstop-size catalog of ports, fittings and hatches

The biggest lesson I learned from taking the boat show seriously was that I have a lot more questions about boats and sailing than I ever imagined.

]]> http://www.tidallife.com/scenes-from-the-seattle-boat-show/feed/ 0 http://www.tidallife.com/water-photo-of-last-week-whidbey-island-ice-storm/ http://www.tidallife.com/water-photo-of-last-week-whidbey-island-ice-storm/#comments Wed, 25 Jan 2012 04:59:38 +0000 nancy http://www.tidallife.com/?p=2425 Tidal Life

Neither snow nor rain will stay forester Elliott Menashe from heading out into the woods. Maybe gloom of night will keep him inside, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Elliott snapped this picture of some pretty impressive icicles hanging above a creek on South Whidbey Island during last week’s ice storm.

How many Northwesterners would like to be doing this right now? Raise your mittens!

Photo of boys playing in Maui surf by Mari Hotchkiss.

Regarding Launch Dates

One of the categories for the new improved Tidal Life will be Tidal Life Afloat, lots more stuff about boats, boating, sails, sailing and getting places via the water. Above is a shot of where I’ll be writing from … though I hope she’ll be in the water at some point.

Which launch will come first? I’ve set the launch date for the new version of Tidal Life for March 13. I’m relatively sure that launch will beat the boat’s launch.

Regarding Boat Names

She needs a new name. She’s got a bad one.

What is it with boat names? Some are really gag worthy, and I’m not just talking about all the Judi – Lee’s and Cindy – Jo’s. Take a walk in your local marina some time, you’ll see what I mean. Throw those folks a Thesaurus.

Admittedly, this has not been my strong suit either. Poor Nameless continues unnamed to this day.

Perhaps I should hold a name that boat contest for both of them. I’ll consider that.

In the meantime, wallowing in blog design and content development as I am, writing and blogging puns come too easily to mind.

If I had to pick a name right this minute this boat would be christened one of these:

• Chapter Two
• Prologue
• Pitch
• Heading
• Tag Cloud
• The Loop
• Theme
• Manifesto
• Akismet

Christen me giddy.

In need of a refresher on pruning technique, I stopped in at my second home, the Freeland Library.

No sooner had I cast my eyes toward the garden section than a title jumped out at me: How to Cheat at Gardening and Yard Work. As I’d rather be a Cheater than a Dummy or an Idiot any day, I grabbed that book.

While How To Cheat is about tips and shortcuts — cheats — for making garden work easier and gardens lower maintenance, the author opens with a short manifesto about the cheating way of thinking. These 10 points are guiding principles to prepare the mind for a new way of looking at the topic of garden tasks.

I immediately saw the possibilities for adapting these concise points to my search for the environmentally sound coastal life. So here’s my

Cheater’s Manifesto for Living on the Coast

1. Care of the land and water has no end point.

The natural world is always going to be there and will always support us. Far better if we also support it. We’re part of a vast system that can’t be eternally bent to our way without breaking down. Look for ways to work with nature rather than trying to remove it from the equation.

2. It all starts with the elements.

Whether you’re gardening, building or fishing, the air, the soil and the water were there first, and must be thought about first.

3. Nature is more powerful and knows better than you.

When deciding how to form your coastal life, remember that nature calls the shots. Ignoring natural forces will cost far more in the end. Understanding, embracing and working with nature will pay dividends you can’t even imagine now.

4. We all make mistakes.

With all the variables at play in the coastal environment, nothing we do here is black and white. Scientists do the best they can to find out what’s what and share that information with us. In dealing with our impacts on the land and water, we need to use the information provided to us as best we can. Just like we do when choosing our food or raising our children. When you learn you’ve been making a mistake, admit it and take another tack.

5. Take risks and escape the tyranny of “the way we’ve always done it.”

From goat milk shampoo to riding a bike to work, new ideas come along every day. Give some that seem outlandish an honest try. As Helen Keller said, “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”

6. Helping to heal the world will heal you.

Chemicals make our bodies sick. They’re no better for our land and water. Exercising outdoors is good for us. It’s also good for the earth, because we care for what we inhabit on a daily basis. Taking part in a beach cleanup or stream restoration benefits our hearts and minds while benefitting the land and sea.

7. Decide what you’re here for.

Why did you come to the coast? Because it’s beautiful? For fresh air? To play on the beach? To raise a healthy family? Why are you here now? Are you here to watch life happen to other people on television? Or are you here to live your own great life? Keep answering this question. Keep acting on the answer.

8. Work hard to make taking care of nature easy.

Get rid of habits, products and processes that don’t benefit nature or anyone. We do a lot of things without thinking. Do the hard work of choosing between what you really want in your life, what’s worth spending time, energy and money on versus what’s simply been sold to you.

9. Know your limits.

Some jobs need more than trial and error, or come with confusing instructions. Some technical problems are beyond our knowledge. Those times call for expert help. Get that help early. There’s a great network of scientists and professionals surrounding coastal issues. They really appreciate being called in before a situation turns into an emergency.

10. Learn to value a different set of rewards.

Instant gratification is nice, but it’s difficult to come by when working with nature. In this realm, you have to take the long view. When you’re seeking control, letting things be, letting the pieces fall where they may, can be the ultimate torture. If your biggest thrill is planting your petunias precisely 10 inches apart, on center, you’re in for some changes. But the rewards for learning to SAIL (Stand Aside, Interfere Little) will be great.

How to Cheat at Gardening and Yard Work, by Jeff Bredenberg, is available at most libraries and of course, on Amazon.com.

A version of this post was previously published in The South Whidbey Record September 9, 2010