Neither up nor down
Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Sun 1 Nov 2009 09:27
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Living aboard is of course very different to living
ashore and we have to adapt to many new things. Yesterday I talked about living
in close quarters 24/7 with other people. Now, I know that 67 foot may not be
considered as close quarters to many people who are living aboard and they would
love the extra space but everything is relative and we are fortunate to enjoy
living in a large house ashore and having our own space and all doing different
jobs through the working day giving us space from each other and from other
people and if nothing else seeing a range of different people throughout 24
hours. So for those of you in smaller boats the issue for us is still the same
and everything is relative: for example two hairs on your head is not enough -
but two hairs in your soup is too much!
Speaking of live aboards and blue water
cruisers we have never got a very good impression of them when we have
met them in various anchorages around the world. For the last seven years or so
we have been "bareboat" chartering yachts and have been pretty adventurous with
our sailing while chartering covering many thousands of miles in many countries
and experiencing heavy weather long passages and remote and isolated locations.
However any time we came into a bay and there was a boat already there as often
as not up they come on to the bow holding the forestay glowering at us the whole
time lest we contaminate their "god given" space. If that failed to deter
us they would then slump disgruntled into the cockpit and ignore us completely
for the whole time we were at anchor. I believe this is some form of
inverse snobbery as we were always in what was obviously a charter yacht. It was
sometimes hilarious and you could bait them by coming quite close and seemingly
considering anchoring within a few hunder yards to guage the reaction - we
have had at least on a couple of occassions people work themselves into a
frenzy at the shrouds waving us away - you could get close enough to read
their contempt of charterers in their eyes - pathetic really. Then you have the
other mob who are doing what we are doing - sailing round the world over a few
years. They would comment that our two years was never enough to circumnavigate,
"you cannot circumnavigate with a boat unless you have had it for at least two
years", "you need a good size boat to do this in - at least 40 -45 feet"
they would smugly say. "What size of boat will you be going round in?"
" 67ft" we'd say "Oh too big - too much to handle for a small crew"
nobody could do what they were doing it would seem. Beaten into submission in
some bar or restaurant ashore by our answers and our determination and
resilience not to waver from our plan they would turn away and ignore us for the
rest of the night miffed by a nagging doubt that maybe there are some other
people out there who can do it their own way. Hilarious all in all, and we hope
we will only ever give others we meet along the way welcome encouragement and
with good grace and Hebridean hospitality invite those aboard that we can,
and share some of our good fortune with them and at least hear their
story.
We cannot deny that we are fortunate to have a very
luxurious and beautiful boat in which to circumnavigate and to be honest
sometimes we cant believe our good fortune. However this is not the kind of good
fortune that comes from an inheritance, a huge bonus decided on by the board -
that should have gone to shareholders, a lottery win nor by any malpractice or
crime. As I say - there is nothing to feel guilty about I didn't steal any of
it. However I may have stolen, ot rather borrowed, time from family
and friends over the years to be able to work hard and grow and develop my
business and we will be trying to pay some of that back over the next
couple of years.
So when meeting other circumnavigators who are
enduring very basic conditions aboard we can see that we will have no credibilty
with them either because what we are doing in this is not sufficiently at
one with nature or physically challenging enough what shall I say? I will
tell them to get a bloody job. Then when they have worked as hard and taken as
many risks as I have for the last 25 to 30 years they can decide whether
they want to circumnavigate in comfort or in basic conditions - I will respect
their choice either way, but please dont take away from what we are doing - we
have put in our time before casting of and I am sure we will meet many many
challenges while under way.
Living aboard and sailing round the world as I have
said will have many challenges but some things are just like ashore and seem to
never change. While showering under way at sea we have sea fastenings for the
shower doors which effectively make the whole of the heads (toilet) a wet area
by holding the shower door in open positions. So knowing what a big issue it is
ashore and in careful consideration of the woman sharing my cabin I worked out
it was the best thing to do to lift the toilet seat up (god forbid!) so that
when it inevitably got drenched with the shower the water would run off it
and it would not only be clean but dry lest a female bottom should lower it self
to use it. Oh no! "Stewart!" did you leave the toilet seat up? Yes
but ... Could you leave it down please (after putting it up to use it - not said
but emphatically implied). So life aboard has many differences from life ashore
but some things stay the same - some days you have your ups and some days you
have your downs - this is definitely
a DOWN!
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