Fair Winds and Following Seas, Sailor

Jill, in green, and the crew of Pure Puur in Bermuda in May 2013.

Jill and I were the graveyard watch the first night out of St. Maarten bound for Bermuda in 2013. We were crewing for my two Dutch friends, Boogie and Marlies, aboard the 70-something-foot luxury yacht the two pro sailors were running for a couple of rich Euros. I had first crewed for Boogie and Marlies in May 2010, also leaving from St. Maarten, that time bound for Newport, Rhode Island. And I crewed for them all summer long in 2011 as we three ran charter trips in the far northern Atlantic: northern England, the Shetlands, northern Norway, Iceland, Greenland.

So to say I’d had some experience with how Boogie and Marlies liked their trips run would be an understatement. And I had connected Jill, whom I’d met on a crewing website, with Boogie and Marlies when they were looking for crew for this trip to Bermuda.

True to my form, I puked up dinner the first evening out of St. Maarten. Whenever I haven’t been to sea in a long time, the first evening’s dinner pretty much always comes up. By the time my next watch rolls around I’m back to full pique and good to go for the duration. But maybe that colored some of Jill’s opinion of Luke the sailor during that late-night stretch. After all, she was a big-time racer, having been flown all over the continent aboard a private jet as part of the crew for some big-shot boat owner from Chicago. Key West, San Diego, Annapolis, Newport…Jill had raced in all the big-time regattas and here she was stuck with some so-called sailor who couldn’t keep his dinner down?!

Maybe that’s why Jill looked at me with such disdain when I told her NOT to mess with the sail trim on that late-night watch. I knew from experience that making such a racket might gain us another half-knot or so, but it was definitely going to wake up the skipper. And he had just gone to sleep and did NOT want to be jolted from his slumber. He’d put me and Jill on this first graveyard watch precisely because he knew that I knew how he wanted things to go while he slept.

But Jill’s racer mentality was new to cruising, to delivering a yacht, and she couldn’t help but tinker. Thing is: on a 70-plus-foot luxury yacht, the winches are electric. And electric winches make noise. A lot of noise. A lot of low-pitch, rumbling noise that makes even a 70-plus-foot yacht shudder.

She’d only rumbled through a couple of turns on the winch before Boogie’s head was poking out of the companionway wanting to know what was wrong. Nothing was wrong, Jill told him, just trimming the sails to try to get a bit more speed. He looked at me — after all, I’m the one who’d arranged for her to be on this trip — and all I could do was smile and shrug. It’s a long way to Bermuda, Boogie told us. Let me sleep for a few hours, please. You can trim the sails during the daylight hours.

Boogie went back to sleep and I couldn’t help telling Jill that I’d told her so. I did so with a laugh. And she took it with a laugh. And we had a great trip to Bermuda.

And that was how I connected with Jill. It was the beginning of a mutual ball-busting friendship that was filled with a lot of laughs and a lot of exasperated sighs whenever I’d chastise her about tweaking the sails for another half-knot.

When we got to Bermuda, Jill and Marlies went out and did girlie things. Shoe-shopping, I think. And together the entire crew enjoyed some of the sights of the island. As the other crew members filtered back to their homes in the real world, Jill and I took time to explore the nooks and crannies of Hamilton, Bermuda, and also several of the world-famous beaches on the island. She indulged my marathon walk to the Mid-Ocean Club, a golf course that had been the namesake of a prep-school friend who’d grown up on Bermuda’s Strat-O-Matic Baseball team back in the early 1980s (my team, the Honolulu Tubes, won the inaugural season). We must have taken half a dozen different buses and walked a good 10 or 12 miles in the course of our wanderings, but we saw corners of Bermuda that probably not a lot of tourists see. And we had a blast.

Jill came to visit me in San Diego in 2014, after I had reentered the work force and moved back to Southern California. We had a nice weekend and the next time I saw her was in July 2015 when I was in Chicago for the Grateful Dead’s final three shows at Soldier Field. Jill bicycled to the downtown area to say hi to my friends and I, and then she was off to play tennis, a passion of hers.

That was when I first saw that she was fighting the cancer. Before it had just been an abstract concept she’d explained to me in emails and on Facebook. But there in Chicago, as she wheeled up on her bicycle, she had an American flag dewrag on her head and looked thin, gaunt. Like someone dealing with chemo. But she also looked fierce, like someone you did NOT want to mess with. This chick was tough. It was clear cancer didn’t know what it was getting into when it decided to pick on Jill.

As part of her battle, Jill went to Boston on a regular basis as part of a medical trial at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. She was also part of a trial at, I believe, Northwestern in Chicago. She was NOT going gently into that good night, and the next time I saw her, in Newburyport where she came up with her boyfriend from Salem to have lunch, she seemed as fit as a fiddle. That must have been in 2016 or 2017. And in 2018, after I’d bought a sailboat of my own in Annapolis, Maryland, I asked Jill if she wanted to help me take the boat back to New England. She said she definitely wanted to go, we just had to coordinate the trip with her schedule in the trials.

The crew of Further after arriving in Newburyport, Mass., from Annapolis, Md. (from right): Jill, Captain Ed and yours truly.

Which we did, and Jill, along with another friend, Captain Ed, helped me bring Further back to Massachusetts in July 2018. It was a fun trip, filled with a bit too much motoring, a bunch of really fun sailing, some scary weather off the coast of New Jersey, and good times in Block Island and Newburyport. While chugging along offshore she explained the various trials, which in the way she described them just seemed to me like her new normal and something she’d deal with for a long time to come. She was also vociferous in her disdain for the hypocrites at organizations like Susan G. Komen who were more interested in fundraisers than in actually curing cancer.

After the three of us got to Plum Island, we took Further out for a daysail off Plum Island and gave her a proper sail, complete with hoisting the asymmetrical spinnaker and ripping along at a great clip. Jill was in her happy place trimming the chute, constantly making micro-adjustments to keep the sail in proper trim and Further rockin’ along at full speed. We had a blast and it ended up being one of the best sails of the season.

By all accounts, Jill was winning her fight. She looked fit and healthy, and we had a lot of laughs both at sea and at the house on Plum Island. Then she went back to Chicago and in the fall I returned to Annapolis with only Captain Ed’s help. And Jill and I went back to staying in touch via electronic means again.

It was in a text message in late winter this year that she said she’d entered hospice care. I didn’t know much but I knew that wasn’t good. Jill didn’t elaborate and we didn’t really talk very often after that. I sent her a happy birthday text in early June and got a reply that said only, “thanks.”

And then today I learned that she passed away on June 30. Marlies sent a text message to which I could only reply, “Oh shit.” I went to Jill’s Facebook page and there it was: a string of birthday wishes in early June and then nothing until a post a couple of weeks ago by a friend saying she’d passed a couple of weeks before that. And with that, another funk settled over my world.

I realize I’m like the old man raging at the clouds when I say that I am getting SO fucking tired of having friends die. So be it: fuck you, clouds. And fuck you, death. Jill was a good one, with a great soul and kind heart and a captivating sense of fun and humor. She was also tough and strong. She fought bravely but apparently it wasn’t enough. Does anyone have enough? If Jill didn’t, I kinda doubt it.

Fair winds and following seas, sailor.

Navel Gazing, Ocean Fun, Personal

Time Travel, High Fidelity and Casablanca

I went time traveling last week, back through the years where I encountered a younger Luke just on the cusp of becoming an honest-to-goodness adult and was able to see some of who he’d become in the intervening time.

It all started when I was in Florida in April. There to play in USA Hockey’s over-50 national tournament, I was in a condo watching TV alongside a dozen or so other puck-brained dirtballs when I checked my phone for email. What I saw stopped me cold.

It was an email from a woman I’d been involved with more than two decades earlier, one whose departure out of my life became one of the most prominent events in my life. It still stung. She was known to a mutual friend as She-Whose-Name-Shall-Not-Be-Uttered. Seriously. It hurt me that bad. Hell, I even had a playlist of songs I’d been compiling over the years comprised of “why not me?” types of tunes. Good songs, sure, but it also pretty pathetic. And, as evidenced by the film “High Fidelity,” all too common.

She dumped me on the day after Christmas 1996 and we hadn’t had any real contact in more than 21 years. None. Zero. Zilch. Oh, I’d noticed two separate comments on posts on this blog in recent years that could only have come from her, but rather than lash out in response I bit my tongue.

And yet here she was. I was dumbfounded and stewed over how to react. I chose to wait until the next day to reply, and opted for respectful and courteous: everything was cool; there was nothing to forgive; she’d made her choice way back when and gone on to have a life and a family; I’d gone on to create my own life, too.

But again: here she was. Our correspondence continued through the spring and ultimately grew to include text messages and phone calls. And then the prospect of a face-to-face meeting arose. And that occurred last week.

To be honest, I didn’t know what to expect from any of it: the correspondence, the get-together. It had been a long time and we’d both changed. Yeah, I was hurt in 1996 and yeah, I let it color my future relationships. But that was on me, which I think I knew all along but never wanted to admit. I think I relished embracing the victim mentality. And now I was an older, wiser and, I hoped, kinder man, right? So why not stay in touch and even meet? It’s not like rekindling anything was really an option, right? You can’t resurrect something that’s been dead for 21 years.

Or can you? I didn’t know and neither did she. So we agreed to meet. And given how things had gone way back when, it was she who traveled, flying east to Boston where we spent a couple of days at my home on Plum Island. I had rented a car and driven up from Annapolis, to which we returned for another couple of days before she flew home to Utah.

How did it go? It went fine. We had both changed in obvious and not-so-obvious ways: physically, emotionally, psychologically. And we both had — and have — our lives to live. But it was good to reconnect; at least it was for me. It was good to carve out and discard that anger that I’d carried for two decades.

From my perspective, it seemed as though we lived our own version of the film “Casablanca” and, like Rick and Ilsa, had gotten Park City, our version of Paris, back. It was a comparison She-Who-Had-Returned hated (mostly because she felt Ilsa was a weak woman who would following either Rick or Laszlo like a puppy), but I still believe it’s apt. Like Rick, I’d kept things bottled up inside ever since that fateful day in the past. But now, with the opening and cleansing of that old wound, I could finally get on with a life that hopefully included an open and loving heart.

We spent a few days starting to get to know each other again and it’s possible we might find ourselves in sync again, but that’s a long ways off. Life, in the form of distance and different paths, might preclude further exploration of that possibility. And it’s very possible that we’ve just become too different over the years. I know I’m WAY different from how I was in 1995 and 1996. But a cloud has been lifted from my heart and for that I’m grateful. I’ve even deleted that sad-sack playlist.

Navel Gazing, Personal

I Bit. Now It’s Time to Chew

Here we are, a third of the way through the month of June, and I’m still in Annapolis. Not that that’s a bad thing — Annapolis is a great town and I enjoy being here. But the plan has always been to take Further and head back home to Plum Island for the summer, and to sail on the Atlantic as opposed to the Chesapeake. So why am I still here?

Well, a couple of reasons. And in the spirit of open honesty, I’m here to admit that those reasons are procrastination and fear.

I’m still checking off items on Further’s to-do list, and a lot of those things I really should have — and certainly could have — taken care of over the winter. But some of that procrastination was based on misguided faith in the boat and systems that I purchased.

For instance: I was under the impression that the dinghy that came with Further was in decent shape and just needed a few patches. But I couldn’t make those fixes during the cold weather of the winter so I waited until spring, at which point I realized I was not having success fixing the dinghy. I took it to the folks at Annapolis Inflatables who let me know that no, the dinghy was in sad shape. So finding a decent used dinghy took a while (and thanks to Jesse at Fawcett Marine who hooked me up with an Apex inflatable in great shape).

Similar situations arose with many other to-do items, and compounding my procrastination was the island-time mentality in the sailing community here in Naptown. Seriously, if you want to get that “mañana” or “soon come, mon” vibe without going to the tropics, just come to Annapolis and get involved with the boating industry. “I’ll be able to look at it this week” means they’ll get to it in two-plus weeks. And even the seemingly honest accounts — “We won’t get to it for three weeks” — means you have to chase them down after three-plus weeks so they’ll look at it. A lot of this is due to the fact that the marine-related companies around here are swamped with work, but some of it is definitely due to a laid-back attitude that surprised even laid-back me.

The other factor delaying my trip north is the challenge in finding experienced crew able to make the journey. And that has actually raised some very ominous specters for my longer-term dreams.

I have every belief that I could take Further north by myself, but for a first journey offshore in several years (for both boat and me), going solo is not especially smart. Simply keeping watch for the entirety of the trip — much of which is spent crossing the shipping lanes going into and out of New York City — would be an exercise in ultramarathon endurance. And it would be a hell of a lot smarter and safer to have others aboard to help with sail trim, steering, navigating, anchoring/mooring and so forth.

I’ve sent out a couple of group emails to friends who are experienced sailors but no one’s schedule permits them to make the run. And I have some fear — or rather, a nervousness — about making the journey home on my own. I’m nervous about the seasickness I always feel on my first evening at sea after a long time ashore. I’m nervous about crossing all those shipping lanes. I’m nervous about dealing with the tidal currents in the Delaware Bay and the Cape Cod Canal. I’m nervous about dealing with the mouth of the Merrimack River and the currents upstream in Newburyport where Further’s summer mooring awaits. I’m nervous about dealing with all of the systems on board Further when (not if) issues arise. And I’m especially nervous about dealing with all of them alone. Sure, plenty of people sail around the world solo in all sorts of contraptions. Sure, I know what I’m doing and Further is strong, solid boat that can cross oceans without batting an eye. But I’m still nervous. I’d like to have some help along the way.

There. I said it: I’m scared/nervous/fearful.

And going forward from a few-day trip back to Massachusetts, I’m nervous that I’m SO close to my dream but won’t be able to realize it because I can’t (or don’t want to) do all of this on my own. I’m wondering now if maybe I’ve bitten off more than I can chew with regard to the whole cruising dream. Is Further too much boat? Can I really go and chase those adventures I’ve dreamed about since I was a teenager? I always figured I might have to go solo for stretches, but I was optimistic friends would want to join up for some of the fun parts; indeed, that’s one of the reasons I wanted a boat with two separate cabins. I also figured I’d meet similarly minded people along the way (and I may yet) but now I’m not so sure. And I’m now grappling with the fact that as much as this has been my dream, and as much as I’ve wanted to do this — even solo — for so long, now I’m thinking that maybe doing it solo isn’t really what I want. That maybe even this curmudgeonly old loner might prefer a little more people time than he likes to admit.

I’m confident that I just need this one trip under my belt and everything will fall into place: my sea legs will come back, I’ll rediscover that joy I feel when I’m offshore, my adventure-lust will come back full force and my deal-with-it attitude will enable me to address anything that might arise on board in the future.

It turns out the procrastination was the easy part; that just meant a delay. No big deal. But the fear, well, that’s created a big obstacle to a short trip and a lifelong journey. I’m dealing with that every single day right now. Stay tuned.

(Note: This post also appears over at my site dedicated to Further and my adventures in boat ownership.)

Navel Gazing, Ocean Fun, Personal, , ,