Latitudes & Attitudes #32 Fall 2020

By Bob Bitchin

One of the biggest questions facing any would-be cruiser is when to cast off. I usually start most of my seminars and lectures with a request: I ask to see the hands of people in the audience who plan on going cruising someday. Usually, about 80-90% of the people’s hands shoot into the air. After all, they are there because they want to learn more about the cruising lifestyle. Then I ask to see the hands of those who have set a date. This weeds out the vast majority, and usually I will get two or three people who have committed to a date. These are the people who are really planning on going cruising. That’s because “someday” never comes. It’s a dream.

Many people have it. They see themselves sitting on the aft deck of their boat, anchored in Tahiti or Tortola or in hundreds of other exotic locations, and they dream. It probably helps them sleep at night. But the reality of sailing also creeps into their dreams, so they hesitate to set a date. Some people actually want to wait until the boat is completely finished, all the electronics updated, the supplies on-board, and the spares tucked away. That, my friends, is a dream. And dreams very seldom come true. If you are going to wait until the perfect departure, chances are you will be one of the 95% of boats that sit in a marina day after day, week after week, and year after year, awaiting the time when everything is perfect! It ain’t gonna happen! If there are any words in the English dictionary that are true oxymorons, it’s these three words— words you will NEVER hear in a marina or while cruising around the world: “The boat’s finished!”. Ya see, boats are never “finished.” There is always a little something else you’d like to do or change. It’s just the way it is. If you wait until everything is perfect, you will have a very long wait. First, there’s the boat itself. But then there are hundreds of other things that have to be planned. Financial considerations, children and/or parents, provisioning, insurance. Do you have the latest thingamabob that is coming out to make your cruise easier? There is no end to it. But there is a solution to all this. It’s called “set the date.”

Once you set the date to depart, everything starts to come 14 Latitudes & Attitudes

together, because there are ways to figure everything out. But you have to set a schedule FIRST! It doesn’t have to be in a month, a week, or even a year— but it does need to be set. Once the date is set, then you can start scheduling everything. But there is one thing that you have to know: When the date and time that you planned to take off comes, TAKE OFF! No, the boat won’t be done. They never are. No, everything you wanted to have on board for provisioning may not be on board. You will always forget something you need. And the rule for spares is simple. If you have a spare it, won’t break—and if it breaks, you won’t have a spare. That’s just the way it is. But casting off doesn’t mean you are going to be gone or disconnected for years. It just means you are no longer tied to the dock. You are cruising! Need something? Pull into the next harbor. Forget something? You can get it there. Something breaks while you are cruising? That’s where the adventure begins. Fix it! You’d be surprised at how much fulfillment you get by Micky Mousing something to get you back into a port! And storms? Bad weather? Each time you encounter it you learn something. The boat can take it. You can take it! Once you know that, that little lump that used to form in your gut when you thought about what could happen “if” goes away. Every day you are out there, you learn that cruising is not years at sea, it’s a series of daysails. I remember one trip, I had planned to go from the West Coast to Hawaii. We’d set the date, had a couple fly in from the Midwest to join us, and had a crew member move on board a day or two early to help ready the boat. The night before we were to depart a storm came in. We had our going-away party in a rain-soaked boat. Still, with small-craft warnings flying, we left at 5am, the time and day I set months earlier. For the first three days we bucked heavy headwinds and seas and got pretty beat up. The folks from the Midwest questioned my sanity, openly. They kept asking why we didn’t wait for better weather to leave. My answer was really pretty simple. At that point, I had already sailed across the Pacific five or six times, and I had never had a perfect crossing. I always encountered bad weather, for at least a day or two. I told ‘em, if we leave in bad weather it can only get better! If you leave in good weather it can only get worse! Of course they thought I was nuts for the first three days. But then, just as the storm was subsiding, we spotted Guadalupe Island about 150 miles off the coast and pulled in. Soon the sun was shining, and they realized they knew what the boat could take and what they could take. They felt secure about the two weeks ahead of us, crossing to the islands. As Boris Pasternak once said, “Man is born to live, not to prepare for life.” As in no other pastime in life, that is true about cruising. Once you cast off the dock lines, you are cruising. Once you know what you and your boat are capable of, it all becomes your way of life. And like ol’ Frank Roosevelt said, “You have nothing to fear except fear itself.” You fear the unknown. But once it is known, the fear goes away—and, with any luck, is replaced by joy. A joy that is shared by cruisers all over this big blue ball we call Earth!