My life is all about water.
I grew up on the Great Lakes. Summer nights, my mother could drag me out of the water – sunburnt and pruned – only by letting me sleep in the ski boat hoisted up on the lift. Anything to be in or on that fresh turquoise water. Then a decade on the banks of the Hudson River in the city, three years cruising the Caribbean, and now a circumnavigation almost complete.
I am a Waterlogged Wanderlust.
I travel the world in a sailboat. On land leave, I stay within a stone’s throw of Glen Lake or the Hudson River. If it’s landlocked, I’m not going. If the water’s not swimmable, I won’t stay for long.
Because Life is Water.
It’s ever changing; each moment matters; each wave is a chance for change; each current brings a complete overhaul of what is, what can be. Becalmed seas, confused sea state, breaking waves, counter current, the river’s flow – water reflects our lives, shapes us.
Only living in water is living life fully.
That’s what this whole cruising life comes down to for me: being on, in and under the water.
Sailing friends think it’s about the sailing. Work friends think it’s about ditching the Blackberry and the twenty-hour workdays. Family thinks it’s about the travel, the adventure. I think it’s about water. It’s about living surrounded by water. Blue to starboard, blue to port, blue off the bow, and off the stern. Blue up the mast and blue under the keel. Bullet point number one on my list of priorities when I left my career and my city behind was water: to live on water I can swim in every day.
What other than water can keep me alive?
brita@lifeiswater.com
Sea Fever
BY JOHN MASEFIELD
I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking,
I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.
I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.
I like Bobbie’s quote, but it hasn’t got quite the same feel as this legendary beginning:
“Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.
“There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs—commerce surrounds it with her surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward. Its extreme downtown is the battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves, and cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of sight of land. Look at the crowds of water-gazers there.”
Okay, sure, it’s a bit less recognizable without the first sentence: “Call me Ishmael.”
Yes, yes, I know, I should read it. But I’ve been so disappointed by the books I’ve read recently that are over my 400-page page limit. :(
“To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise, you are doomed to a routine traverse, the kind known to yachtsmen who play with their boats at sea… “cruising” it is called. Voyaging belongs to seamen, and to the wanderers of the world who cannot, or will not, fit in. If you are contemplating a voyage and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about.
“I’ve always wanted to sail to the south seas, but I can’t afford it.” What these men can’t afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of “security.” And in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine – and before we know it our lives are gone.
What does a man need – really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in – and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That’s all – in the material sense, and we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention for the sheer idiocy of the charade.
The years thunder by, The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed.
Where, then, lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life? ”
― Sterling Hayden, Wanderer