has Jack Aubrey say in one of his many wonderful books on turn of the century sailing. Oh god I want to escape from this life of toil and broken dreams and take my chances on the ocean blue! A little bit about myself. It is the end of April 2010 and I am 49 years old and will be 50 in June. I am currently sitting staring out a window into the courtyard of a hotel outside Baltimore while my wife works at her super secret day job. I have been unemployed since September 2009 and am now despairing of ever finding another job. I have read a number of sailing books, Two Years Before the Mast
by Dana, the entire Aubrey Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian may he rest in peace. Most recently I found a great book that really stoked the fire in my belly Deep Water Cruising
by Gordon and Nina Stuermer. More about that later.
I can not say that it has been my life long dream to own a sailboat and sail the world ocean, that is my wife Betty's fault.
We used to live in Colorado then moved from Denver to Austin, TX to follow my job, then on to Hatboro, PA to follow HER job. While she was in Hatboro we had an opportunity to go to the Baltimore area for an extended period due to her work in mid 2009. As you may be aware Annapolis is in that area and totally by chance one evening we ended up in downtown Annapolis to have dinner and ended the evening walking the pier area. If you have ever been there you know that they dock some nice large boats right in the middle of downtown. She totally fell head over heels in love with the idea of deep ocean sailing as a way of life. The most amusing thing about this is that she gets motion sick in an elevator. Okay that is a bit of an exaggeration but you get the idea. I kind of poo poo'ed the idea as we were supposed to be motorcycle people and the elderly Gold Wing I own is enough of a hole to be tossing money into. But after a few books and some conversations and another visit to Annapolis in 2010 the bug had bit me and I think I am pretty much totally lost.
It isn't like I have never been overseas before. I already have one full circumnavigation under my belt and enough sea miles to have done it at least one more time, probably twice, from my ten years in the US Navy. I was in service from 1985 to 1995 and was stationed on the USS Kitty Hawk and USS Nimitz first as part of VAW-112, an E2-C Squadron out of NAS Miramar in San Diego CA, then as part of the AIMD Group out of the same Air Station. NAS Miramar has since fallen to that reorg axe and is now a Marine base. Whatever, it was a long time ago and I have grown up a little since then. I have tried to never be that guy that served for a few years then talks about it for the rest of his life because he never did anything else that was worth a tinkers damn. I have been to sea in big boats, aircraft carriers actually, and have seen a number of interesting places and done some interesting things. But you know I have never broke out a chart and selected a port of call and weighed anchor, raised sail and went there! And now Betty has infected me with this wander lust again. I have always had fiddle feet, but had pretty much been able to batten it down and stop it from infecting my life. I had settled down got married, joined the Navy, had kids, got out of the Navy, got divorced, got married again, moved a bunch and had figured, well that my time in the Navy was the adventure of my life. I do hope I am wrong.
I am not sure how much I will post to this blog, and will try not to let it become my political ravings page, but I do want to post frequently. My hero of blogging is Jeff Atwood with his Coding Horror blog which actually has enough readers to support him and his family. I doubt that will happen here, in fact if anyone ever reads it I will be amazed.
I will leave you with the latest sailboat that I have been admiring. This is the S/V JOSS and I would love to own her.
by Dana, the entire Aubrey Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian may he rest in peace. Most recently I found a great book that really stoked the fire in my belly Deep Water Cruising by Gordon and Nina Stuermer. More about that later. I can not say that it has been my life long dream to own a sailboat and sail the world ocean, that is my wife Betty's fault.
We used to live in Colorado then moved from Denver to Austin, TX to follow my job, then on to Hatboro, PA to follow HER job. While she was in Hatboro we had an opportunity to go to the Baltimore area for an extended period due to her work in mid 2009. As you may be aware Annapolis is in that area and totally by chance one evening we ended up in downtown Annapolis to have dinner and ended the evening walking the pier area. If you have ever been there you know that they dock some nice large boats right in the middle of downtown. She totally fell head over heels in love with the idea of deep ocean sailing as a way of life. The most amusing thing about this is that she gets motion sick in an elevator. Okay that is a bit of an exaggeration but you get the idea. I kind of poo poo'ed the idea as we were supposed to be motorcycle people and the elderly Gold Wing I own is enough of a hole to be tossing money into. But after a few books and some conversations and another visit to Annapolis in 2010 the bug had bit me and I think I am pretty much totally lost.
It isn't like I have never been overseas before. I already have one full circumnavigation under my belt and enough sea miles to have done it at least one more time, probably twice, from my ten years in the US Navy. I was in service from 1985 to 1995 and was stationed on the USS Kitty Hawk and USS Nimitz first as part of VAW-112, an E2-C Squadron out of NAS Miramar in San Diego CA, then as part of the AIMD Group out of the same Air Station. NAS Miramar has since fallen to that reorg axe and is now a Marine base. Whatever, it was a long time ago and I have grown up a little since then. I have tried to never be that guy that served for a few years then talks about it for the rest of his life because he never did anything else that was worth a tinkers damn. I have been to sea in big boats, aircraft carriers actually, and have seen a number of interesting places and done some interesting things. But you know I have never broke out a chart and selected a port of call and weighed anchor, raised sail and went there! And now Betty has infected me with this wander lust again. I have always had fiddle feet, but had pretty much been able to batten it down and stop it from infecting my life. I had settled down got married, joined the Navy, had kids, got out of the Navy, got divorced, got married again, moved a bunch and had figured, well that my time in the Navy was the adventure of my life. I do hope I am wrong.
I am not sure how much I will post to this blog, and will try not to let it become my political ravings page, but I do want to post frequently. My hero of blogging is Jeff Atwood with his Coding Horror blog which actually has enough readers to support him and his family. I doubt that will happen here, in fact if anyone ever reads it I will be amazed.
I will leave you with the latest sailboat that I have been admiring. This is the S/V JOSS and I would love to own her.
Posts
Be amazed...........I read it and will follow it. And when you get your sailing ship in the water, we will expect a ride. We'll bring the champagne. ~ Barb & Ed
ReplyDeleteHm going to be difficult to navigate to Las Vegas, but you are more than welcome!
ReplyDeleteHey there fiddle foot! Nice blog...I will follow as well. I still think we should write a book.
ReplyDeleteFollow up post - Looking back on the past is such a useful function of a blog. Seeing as I have about zero memory it's fun to see where I've been. It's like meeting a different person. Anyway the page for the s/v Joss has disappeared. Google around a bit, I'm sure you can find it. o_O
ReplyDelete