Cruising Couples

Cruising Couples come in all shapes and sizes.  The ones we’ve met so far come from all around the US, Canada, and Europe.    At least one of them has been around boats and water for a good portion of his or her life.  Mostly, we’ve met other retirees who spend a portion of each year on their boats.  But we’ve seen and read about young couples who have sold possessions, given up jobs, saved their pennies and taken off to see the world from their boats.  They’ll either figure out a way to make a new living (mostly by writing articles for sailing magazines read by the landlubbers) or they’ll spend their cruising kitties down, then go back to work for a year or so to rebuild the kitty.  I once met a couple from Oklahoma City during my sabbatical.  Steve was a retired teacher at a community college.  Kate was a retired nurse whose skills were quite transportable.  They lived on their boat year round.  Each fall, they’d head out on “Sanjih” to places like the Yucatan Peninsula where I met them, and each summer, they’d sail north to the middle Atlantic cities (Baltimore, Annapolis, Washington, etc.) where Kate would take on a short-term nursing position while Steve kept up the boat and did the daily chores.

In most cases, one member of the couple has the stronger passion for this adventuring.  And in most of the couples we’ve met, it has been the male who presses into this idea.  We have met a few couples where it is the female who took the lead in trying a longer term liveaboard life.  And if we understand the stories we’ve heard correctly, the cruising doesn’t last unless both partners find value in living on a boat together. 

Such a life is filled with inconveniences.  You often use several modes of travel (dinghy, taxi, bus, occasionally rental car) to attend to chores that others do by walking from one room to another in their homes (think laundry) or by driving to a shop or grocery store.   Such a life is much more edgy about the weather.  A wind of twenty miles an hour is barely noticed by those who live indoors.  And it certainly won’t bounce your house around.  But a twenty knot wind on the water in a anchorage can be cause for a sleepless night.  Is the anchor set correctly?  Did I remember to turn on the anchor light at the top of the mast?  Did the late arriving boat set its anchor well enough in the dark to withstand the wind?  Are the boat’s movements and sounds normal, in response to the wind and the waves (not necessarily coming from the same direction by the way), or has something rogue-ish just taken place?  Life on the water has its inconveniences.

But, there is this great opportunity that comes as well.  For retirees who often have lived disparate lives where each had a work place, or one worked outside and one worked inside the home, there is the opportunity to discover the rhythms of living together again, and in a rather crowded setting.  It’s not unlike young married couples discovering how they will first engage the chores of daily living right after the honeymoon. 

In part, it’s the re-discovery of who will do what with the daily chores.  And in part, it’s the learning how a couple will share the great task of safely sailing a boat and then bringing it to rest again.

So, here’s what I’d say about Marney’s and my experiences these past four months:

Yes, I’m the one who advanced the idea of this adventure.  That has been true all of our married life.  I’m the one who gets restless and imagines something new and different.  And I am the one who has been unable to let the sailing be a thing of the past.  I keep returning to it when I’m ashore and I’m am so grateful for this moment to see so much water right out my back door.

Yes, we have had our share of inconveniences.  But none have been so difficult that we haven’t found a way to overcome them. 

Yes, we have divided the daily and cleaning chores.  Marney makes the tea each morning.  I make the cocktails most evenings.  Marney cooks the meals on the stove.  I cook the meals on the grill, and sometimes the entire meal is cooked on the grill, which keeps the galley cooler.  I’m the one who kneels down and rinses the dishes in the salt water each evening.  Marney tends to be the one who finishes the dishes with soap and sink.  Marney makes the bed every day (which requires her crawling up on the mattress and stretching the bottom sheet tightly and refolding the blanket).  I lift up the floor boards and check the six bilge compartments and the two engines each morning.  And the list goes on:  Marney tracks the money and expenses.  I purchase the liquor (J).

However, the best experience of our cruising as a couple has come as we’ve learned to sail the boat together.  This boat could be handled by one person, but that would be someone who has much more experience and dexterity than either of us have or will develop.  Age is a part of this.  We have discovered how to make the rhythms work for us.  We now count on Marney checking the interior before we sail to make sure everything is put away so there are no falling objects or funny noises, and to close all the hatches and portholes.  She does it automatically and we both count on her doing so.  I climb the deck and roof of the cabin to unzip the sail bag and get the lines ready, lay out the “Old Milwaukee” (which I’ll explain momentarily), and make sure the instruments are turned on (the depth meter, autopilot, etc.).   We both count on my doing so.  And we won’t start the engines until we both say we’re good to go.  Again, chores divided the way that work for us.

But this gets even better as we sail the boat.  Two illustrations make the point.

Raising the mainsail takes a gentle touch at the wheel and a precise teamwork.  Usually I go forward to the mast and Marney stays at the helm.  She releases the main sheet which allows the boom to sway just a bit.  (Explanation:  the mainsail is kept in a bag which is attached to the boom.  The bag has several small lines down each side which are tied to the mast.  They hold the bag up and the sides apart so the sail can be raised, but they also can cause a good bit of frustration if, as you raise it, a sail batten gets caught in one of the bag lines.)   As we turn into the wind, my job is to raise the mainsail, first by pulling the main halyard and then by using the Old Milwaukee power drill to do the heavy lifting at the finish.  Marney slows the engines so she can hold us steady into the wind and keep the sail centered between the bag lines.  And we both watch the sail going up and adjusting when I haul or when she turns the wheel a bit.  And we do this with the engine noises all around us.  There is a good sense of accomplishment and smiles all around when we raise the main without it getting caught in those bag lines.

Dropping the anchor is another moment we’re learning to do well together.  The anchor locker is in front of the mast.  Usually, I stay at the helm and Marney manages the anchor (it’s on a motorized windlass).  I’m watching the depth meter and looking for a location in general.  Marney is looking over the bow for the signs of sand or sand patches in the middle of grass and rocks.  We watch each other and look for the OK sign.  That’s when I yell a number over the noise of the engine.  That number is the depth of the water plus another amount I estimate depending on the wind strength.  In 40 feet, I often yell “one hundred”.  And Marney then counts with her fingers held high as the ten foot markings on the chain go by.  When we reach the one hundred foot mark, we stop our activity and drift.  We’re watching to see if the anchor has grabbed the bottom.  I look for the boat to turn into the wind and Marney feels the anchor chain.  It feels really good when we grab the first time.  We let out more chain in 20 foot intervals until we reach 140 feet.  Then I put the engines in reverse and pull on the chain to straighten it out while Marney watches for the chain to rise a bit out of the water.  Finally, we add the bridle, a device that attaches the anchor to the two bows on our catamaran.  With that in place, we reverse hard on the anchor, working our way up to 1800 rpms in increments.  I manage the engines and Marney is feeling for vibrations or jerks in the bridles.  With a hundred feet of chain on the bottom and no movement from the reversing actions, we are very comfortable with our work and each other.

Now I know that couples don’t have to sail to discover their synchronicity in a life together.  And each cruising couple has its own particular rhythms developed from their partner’s particular experiences.  Being comfortable in those rhythms brings great joy, lots of smiles and a sense of teamwork that is rare in my experience.  That’s one of the best parts of this year for me.  We may not be newlyweds, but we are experiencing a new depth in our partnership.

I don’t know how long we will sustain this particular adventure, but I thank God for this special gift we’re enjoying.

Dave