Jobs on a Boat

“To function at sea, every boat needs a captain, cook, engineer, electrician, navigator, sailmaker, meteorologist, ship's surgeon, and watch captains. In port, you'll need all of these at different times as well as a cruise director, cultural ambassador, naturalist, and interpreter.” --Beth Leonard, The Voyager's Handbook

Beth Leonard's catalogue of crew "jobs" made Sue reflect on how Curtis's and her varied backgrounds might contribute to a successful cruising partnership. Of course, Cilantro hasn't even left the boatyard yet, so who knows how the responsibilities will truly shake out? It could be interesting to look back on this post after we've cruised for a while.

1. Captain: Cap'n Curtis. Cap'n Sue. The captain is in charge, and not just of the helm, or steering wheel. The captain also shoulders responsibility for safety of the crew and boat. She or he may seek suggestions and advice from others but is the ultimate decider when it comes to choosing what a course or course of action to take, whether to motor or sail in particular conditions, what sails to have up, how to trim the sails, when everyone should don PFDs (personal flotation devices, aka life jackets), whether a line of clouds spells danger or just rain, when and where to set the anchor, etc. Each member of a two-person crew has to be willing to relinquish control at times to the other person. Mutual trust and respect are essential. So is acceptance of mistakes (including one's own). We're not perfect, but we should do pretty well.

2. Cook: Sue likes to cook and is intrigued by the challenge of stocking the galley and preparing meals on board. Curtis is a fantastic grill-person but does not prefer planning whole meals. This will be a shared hat on grill nights.

Cilantro's galley: 3-burner propane stove + oven,
double sink, refrigerator (not shown)

3. Engineer: Curtis has a good mechanical background from having built houses, trained as a private pilot, and worked on his own cars. Sue has a little of this background, too, having owned and worked in an auto repair shop (with her first husband), but she prefers a back-up role in engineering.

4. Electrician: Curtis. Sue can rewire a plug and wrap electrical tape around anything, but her head goes fuzzy trying to comprehend circuits.

5. Navigator: Sue learned paper navigating pretty well and is game to learn GPS. Curtis is a former pilot and current technology nerd. He will be glued to the chartplotter and radar screens as well as the iNavX app on the iPad. We're both trained in coastal navigation, so we hope we can get ourselves out of a jam, or avoid one in the first place. We also believe in having many sources of information, including (at a minimum) printed charts, a cruising guide, and chartplotter with maps and GPS. Maybe we'll get a fish finder too!

6. Sailmaker: Sue admits to sewing as a teenager. Of course, that mostly meant shirts and skirts, but maybe some of the general know-how fossilized into her gray matter. Curtis, would you like buttons or a zipper on this sail...? Slash pockets? A shirred hem?

Name those cloud types!

7. Meteorologist: Curtis, a certified weather geek, is always talking about frontal passages and the like. Sue likes to take pictures of cool cloud formations. Curtis wins.

8. Ship's surgeon: We might be in trouble on this one. We should probably put Curtis's sister Loren (a nurse practitioner and wound care specialist) on satellite phone speed dial. Curtis thinks a first aid course is in our future.

9. Watch captain: This is the job of staying alert at the helm on a long passage, day or night, while the other person sleeps. But Sue isn't signing on for long passages yet, so this hat stays in the hatbox for now.

10. Cruise director: Curtis plays this role on most of our travels, although he definitely accommodates requests from Sue. 

Green heron

11. Cultural ambassador: Both of us could do this, but Sue is probably more sensitive to the "cultural" aspect. Curtis, however, is fabulous at meeting people anywhere under any circumstances. 

12. Naturalist: Both, enthusiastically. We met each other on an Audubon trip to Texas in 1995. We are birders, Sue is now a botany nut, Curtis has a degree in biogeography, and we are excited to learn about whales, dolphins, and other sea creatures -- including lobsters in Maine this summer. Nature tends to impress us more than the human race does.

13. Interpreter: Sue habla español (y sigue aprendiendo). Sue parle français (un petit peu). Curtis can download an app for this.

Optimist, Pessimist

Sue likes this quote:

"Evans likes to say that successful crews consist of an optimist and a pessimist: without the optimist, the crew would never leave the dock; without the pessimist, they would lose the boat." --Beth Leonard, The Voyager's Handbook

Sue's Evolution from “I don't think so” to “When do we leave?”

When Sue first suggested to Curtis that he needed a diversion to take his mind off work, she was thinking he might choose something independent and local, such as hiking, photography, volunteering, or a home improvement project. When Curtis set his sights on bluewater cruising instead, Sue's first thought was, “Maybe this is just a phase.” But the books, magazines, and websites kept accumulating. Curtis quietly put the ones he particularly liked on Sue's bedside table, and she read them too, which is how her thinking started to evolve. She began to ask herself, “What exactly is this cruising thing? Do you have to do it 100 percent, or can it be part-time? Does he need me to go along?” Stage 3: “I'm not signing up for crossing oceans, dodging pirates, and rebuilding the head while underway in a gale.” Stage 4: “I might like coastal cruising and gunkholing.” Stage 5: “The Sea of Cortez is only six hours away, and we already know it's great for sea kayaking. Plus I could work on my Spanish.” Stage 6: “We need a boat.”

Sue with Mike Norton on Pandora, an Ingrid 38

Sometime between Sue's 4^th and 5^th stages, we started our preparations and education in earnest – just in case Sue came around to the cruising idea. Being by-the-book types, we signed up for a series of ASA (American Sailing Association) classes to get certified in Basic Keelboat (101), Basic Coastal Cruising (103), Bareboat Chartering (104), Coastal Navigation (105), and Advanced Coastal Cruising (106). We took the first three classes through Blue Water Sailing School in Fort Lauderdale, FL, and the last two through Seaforth Boat Rental in San Diego. We also sailed with friends on their Ingrid 38 ketch in San Diego Bay. Curtis began “shopping,” intensely studying different boat manufacturers and models. And we continued to read books, articles, blogs on everything from the science of anti-fouling bottom paint to methods of storing carrots and cabbage onboard.

Curtis on a sunrise paddle near Gonzaga Bay, Baja Norte

I should add that we're not exactly new to sailing and boating. Sue grew up sailing a Sunfish on both salt and fresh water. Her dad raced them on summer weekends in Connecticut, and her mom taught her to tack, jibe (the first jibe ended in capsize, so she also learned to right the boat), and come into a dock under sail. She also canoed, ran small powerboats, and was invited onto a cousin's Laser (before she knew the term “rail meat”). Curtis sailed in Sea Scouts as a teenager, ran powerboats, and crewed on friends' Hobie Cats and other sailboats. When he met Sue, he introduced her to sea kayaking, which has taken us many times to the fabulous Sea of Cortez. 

How Did We Get Here

Deciding to leave our jobs (temporarily, at least) and go sailing might sound like a radical step, especially after living for the past 12 years on a ranch in the Sonoran desert. But as we looked back, the impetus for this change was surprisingly easy to track. There were really three intertwined threads – one was the desire to shake up the routine and reduce work stress. The second thread is what led us to sailing rather than, say, trekking or RVing or skydiving. The third thread was a growing sense of urgency about making this big shift in our lives before we got too old to do it.

First, making the break: Back in 2008, in spite of the terrible economy, we were making ends meet. Sue was working as a speech-language pathologist in a local school district and, other than the occasional workplace gripes, she derived a lot of pleasure from her 40-some-odd students. Curtis was fully immersed in his real estate business and continued to make a few sales. Admittedly, however, his stress level was high: the phone didn't ring much, the potential buyers he did find were skittish, and the course of each sale was highly unpredictable. The result was that Curtis was preoccupied with work 24/7, didn't take enough time to exercise and have fun, and was in danger of burning out. Meanwhile, Sue had gotten hooked on botany and was busy hiking, photographing, and obsessing over wildflowers and field guides during her non-working hours. We talked many times about the value of non-work activities to bring balance to your life and relieve stress. Curtis acknowledged he needed a way to get out of his “work mind,” and he promised to look around for something else to do. A few months went by, with real estate continuing to stagnate. One day, Sue noticed a curious theme running through the pile accumulating on Curtis's bedside table: The Cruising Life (Jim Trefethen), How to Sail around the World (Hal Roth), Sail magazine, Cruising World. And others. “What's up?” Sue asked herself. “What's up?” she asked Curtis. “Uh, wanna sail around the world?” he proposed. “Hmm,” said Sue. (More, later, on Sue's evolution from non-cruiser to “How soon can we leave?”)

Curtis on M/V Catalyst

Second, why cruising*? Curtis says the idea of living aboard began for him on a trip we took to Alaska in 2007. Sue's parents wanted to see the wilds and waters of Alaska, including bears, orcas, seabirds, and glaciers, and they wanted us to go with them. We all nixed the idea of a big cruise ship (too removed from nature, too much emphasis on dining and pre-arranged activities). We also agreed that we didn't want to have to pack up and change rooms all the time, so taking public ferries from island to island was out. After much searching, we hit upon a trip through Alaska's Inside Passage offered by Cloud Ridge Naturalists (led by the wonderful and quirky Audrey Benedict). We spent seven days aboard the M/V Catalyst, a classic 75-foot boat built in 1932 as a research vessel for the University of Washington. Anchoring out each night, never pulling into harbors (never even seeing another boat!), taking short trips in the Zodiac or kayaks, sketching and photographing orcas and icebergs and each other, and adjusting our daily schedules to the rhythm of the boat and its crew – Curtis and Sue both agreed this was one of the best travel experiences we'd ever had. But it was more than just “travel”; being on the Catalyst felt like a different way to live.

M/V Catalyst

Finally, why now? When you are young, most of the people you know well are alive and reasonably healthy. But as you move along through the years, “stuff” happens – friends and family members get sick or hurt in accidents, or die, and there seems to be a randomness about it all. You are like a drop of water running along the back of someone's hand: you might go left or right, or stay straight, or pool in a tiny indent. You might be thrown suddenly off course by a wrinkle, a hair, or a scar. You might travel the length of a finger or you might just zip over the edge and hang or drop from the palm. So, what is to be done about all this unpredictability? Since you can't control what ultimately happens to you, it seems important to do the things you want to do before age or events prevent you. It's the “carpe diem” thing! Mark Twain is seriously over-quoted on the sailing blogs we follow, but he's just too great to ignore:

“It is the epitome of life. The first half of life consists of the capacity to enjoy without the chance; the last half consists of the chance without the capacity.” – Mark Twain, letter to Edward Dimmit, 19 July 1901

Let's just say that we're trying to have the chance to enjoy while our capacities are still intact. 

*For the purposes of this blog, I would define sailing as leaving on a sailboat and coming back the same day. I would define cruising as leaving on a sailboat and maybe not coming back for a few days or years; i.e., living aboard for periods of time.