I saw this bit of philosophy on a wall in Cocoa Village and it struck a nerve. We love being
on the water in the middle of nature and so much enjoy watching the wild things around us live their lives. Wittingly or probably not, they allow us to travel through their part of the world, observe them and somehow feel one with them. And I also remember a conversation many years ago with my friend, John Bernotavich, not long before he died (way too young). He told me the closer he got to death the more he realized we were all one. Sharing this blog hopefully provides you a window into how we're living this part of our lives and your comments and "likes" add meaning ane oneness to it for us. I'm quite convinced that, in fact, we are all one. For another look on that, read Dan Brown's Secret of Secrets. His take on non-local conciousness aligns with this perspective.
I'm not sure what the segway is but I got thinking about how I came to be a boater. I've lived a charmed life and managed to become proficient at quite a number of outdoor sports. But skiing and boating are my two, absolute passions.
My first memory of boating comes from a small, 1920's, stand-alone, single-car garage which for a time housed a wooden rowboat that my dad planned to refurbish but never got around to. As a five year old in 1955, I sat in that rowboat day in and day out rowing across imaginary lakes and down make-believe streams. Like Ratty in Wind in the Willows, I adored that boat.
At seven or eight, I graduated to rowing on water when my grandmother bought a 12 foot Meyer's aluminum rowboat for her camp. With the patience of Job, my dad taught me to row and would not allow me to take the boat out by myself until I could row in a straight line and dock smoothly even in a breeze. Coming to the dock, shipping the dockside oar, grabbing a cleat and securing the lines with proper cleat hitches were all mandatory skills and took not a small amount of practice. I loved every minute
Eventually, I graduated to a tired, 5 horsepower Johnson that had no neutral and had to be spun around 180 degrees to go in "reverse". Again, my dad required me to master all of the requisite skills before I could go out alone. I'm not sure why, I may have just worn the 5 hp Johnson out, but eventually we acquired a 7.5 hp used Evinrude with neutral, forward and reverse. My sister and I spent hours and hours exploring Little Sebago Lake in that boat. It provided freedom, adventure, and fun. We'd smell like two cycle exhaust for days after we'd go home and that smell still gets my juices flowing..
Just before my sophomore year in high school, we moved to Winthrop, a town centered amomg a half dozen lakes or more. My Dad bought a used wooden Penn Yan with a
28 hp Johnson. We kept it on a trailer and before long, he was lending me the car, boat and trailer to spend evenings and weekend days with my high school pals--male and female. Boy, those were the days.
Rest assured that I am not going to tell you about every boat I ever had but I will share a few more stories. When I graduated from high school in 1968, I moved immediately to my summer job as Activities Director, Swim Instructor, Lifeguard, and Dishwasher at the Androscoggin Yacht Club. Not long after I moved in, a man I didn't know launched a 16 foot lapstrake Town Class sailboat, put it on a mooring, and disappeared for a week. The boat's seams had separated from a long dry winter and it promptly began to sink. For a number of days, I bailed it morning and night because I loved boats and didn't want to see her go down. Someone told the owner, Louis Fournier, that I had done that and he sought me out. Did I sail? No. Would I like to? Absolutely. Let's go. Louis was a great teacher and very confident. In a short while, he had me rigging and sailing the boat by myself while he calmly sat and watched. Soon, one afternoon he said that he was going to leave the sails at the Yacht Club and I should use the boat anytime I wanted. I told him I couldn't do that because I might be out sailing when he came to use the boat. He said if that happened, the joy would be his for knowing that the boat was being used and enjoyed. I took him at his word and sailed that boat most evenings--sometimes flying along barely staying upright and sometimes just ghosting back on the slightest breath of air.
Ted Mehlin taught me both meteorology and navigation at Williams College. He made it fun and real and provided a strong foundation for my nautical life. My first wife's father, Dick "Skipper" Marshall also mentored me and I enjoyed racing with him in a C-Lark on Lake Washington and on his Triton on Puget Sound and the Straits of Juan de Fuca.
My first boat as an adult was a 24' Hinterholler Shark. A small cruising sailboat by any measure, we sailed the Maine Coast and occasionally New Brunswick with a compass, a watch, paper charts, and a lead line. At nine months, daughter, Elizabeth crawled onto that boat in Falmouth, Maine, and walked off three weeks later after a round trip to Grand Manan. We had a lot of fun and didn't even know we were brave.
There's been a long progression of boats since then and many adventures. We feel so fortunate in our seventies to have had the first Katahdin, a Back Cove 41, and to now have the second, a Sabre 45. Who can know as a five year old rowing for all your worth in a high and dry rowboat in a falling down garage the opportunities and adventures that life will bring?
