Lessons from the Egret — Against the Current

We’ve been back on the boat about two weeks now, and thankfully, things are much better than before. Throughout the entire trip from Hawai’i to Key West, I was manifesting the hell out of everything being ok. Arthur, on the other hand, was going over everything that could have gone wrong while we were gone for 3 weeks…We only planned to be gone for about 10 days but decided to extend, which meant we should have done a few extra things to the boat prior to leaving, to ensure her safety. At the end of our 18 hour trip back to Key West I had envisioned everything working out perfectly so many times, I had almost convinced myself that it had already happened. “It will not be raining when we get into Key West, everything will go smoothly, the dinghy will crank after sitting for 3 weeks, everything is going to work in our favor, we will have no problem getting gas for the dinghy, when we get to the Egret it will still be floating, no one will have broken in and the mooring lines will still be in good shape, everything will be OK, WE WILL BE OK!” I kept telling Arthur to stop spewing his negative energy in my direction, that I was having to manifest extra hard to make up for it. He’s always been a skeptic about manifesting and positive energy. He is of the opinion that whatever is going to happen will happen, and we don’t have much control either way. It’s one of the only things we disagree about.

WELL, we land in Key West and it’s not raining. We hop in a cab and get dropped off at the dinghy dock, and the motor cranks up right away. We have just enough fuel in the tank to get to the closest fuel dock. They’re open and we fuel up. We embark on our 15 minute ride to the Egret on smooth seas, and when we get there she is exactly how we left her. We turn the electricity back on and hook the propane back up and everything comes back to life as if we had never left. Arthur couldn’t believe it. HA! THE POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING MY FRIEND!

The next day we successfully made a hefty grocery store run (these are little victories when you live on a boat and don’t have a car). We even managed to buy our second folding bicycle! Arthur found one before we left for Hawaii, but one bike and two people isn’t a whole lot of fun. Now with two bikes, we spent our last day and a half cycling around Key West, gathering supplies for the trip north and saying goodbye to this most adorable little party town.

We officially set sail on Friday, May 3rd, with Beaufort, South Carolina as our final destination.

It took us four days to get back to the Miami area from Key West, and I have to say, those four days have been our favorite yet. We sailed mile after nautical mile through crystal clear water, skirted with mangrove forests in every direction, great weather, beautiful anchorages, and we even shut the motor off at one point and just sailed, at 4.5 knots nonetheless! We’ve had visits from dolphins and sea turtles, night swims with bioluminescent plankton, cotton candy colored sunsets, and lots of peace & quiet. The only sounds at night came from water gently slapping the side of the boat, and the light breeze against the rigging. If you think about how quiet it is too hard, it’s a little spooky. But, if you embrace it, it’s liberating. No one else in the world is close enough to make a sound you can hear.

It wasn’t until Arthur and I started cruising by ourselves that we were able to figure out our routine. We knew this year would be tons of fun, but we also knew it would bring great challenges. No routine for 4 months straight was making me crazy! I’ve always thought of myself as a ‘go with the flow’ kind of girl, but I’m starting to realize that may not be the case anymore. I need my morning coffee in silence, reflecting on the day before and setting my intentions for the day ahead. I need time to myself, which is something I didn’t realize I NEEDED until I finally got it back a couple of weeks ago.

Arthur and I also need time to ourselves. Although we think we have this relationship thing down, the truth is it takes work (kind of like this old boat). But in all honesty, we have a great relationship. On land, we are very good at reading one another, and hardly ever argue. If we do, it’s about something stupid, like how to properly fold the tin foil around asparagus for the grill. Dumb. But on the water, he is a master at sending mixed messages, probably because he isn’t 100% sure what to do half the time. He also likes to remind me to stay on course when he can’t even see the GPS…Hey dude, I’m following the course YOU SET. If you want me to head toward those flats, I’m happy to ground the boat to make a point. Just kidding, I would never actually do that, but I will make a pretty convincing threat.

I’m not perfect by any means. I love to hand the wheel over to Arthur when things start to get scary even though he may have just driven for 4 hours straight. I know that I’ll only learn to captain through difficult situations by actually doing it, but at this point I’m just not confident enough in my knowledge and skills.

We aren’t always playing the same game and that’s new for us. When I’m heading straight for a bridge, with the current behind me, in a narrow channel and theres a damn pedestrian holding the bridge up from opening and I ask if I should turn around and make a loop before this sport fisher washes us with his wake and possibly pushing us closer to the bridge, I need an answer immediately. Arthur is thinking through every possible solution and I’m just looking at the bridge getting closer and CLOSER. There’s lots of “Arthur, what do I do? ARTHUR, what do I do? ARTHUR, WHAT DO I DO?!?!” Before he tells me what to do, at what feels like the last second. Arthur is by far the more experienced boater and a careful one at that, which I appreciate, but I sometimes forget this in stressful situations. Don’t you worry though, once we’re in the clear we laugh it off and go into this ridiculous game of who is more sorry for being the sassiest. Yes, believe it or not, Arthur can be sassy :)

ANYWAY, what I’m getting at, is that we needed these stressful moments together. With other people on the boat, we let them weigh in on calling the shots (which we needed at the time and thoroughly appreciate), and we definitely kept our opinions about each other to ourselves. But honestly, as long as we can laugh about it and apologize when necessary, we need these sassy and uncomfortable moments. Because with each one we’re getting better at making decisions on the fly, we’re getting better at timing the bridges just right, reading the weather and tides, understanding exactly what the other means when they’re yelling “FALL OFF” after raising the sails. We’re getting better at being a team on this boat.