The Cruising Chromosome
Published: Wednesday, September 26, 2018
We’ve all heard about the X chromosome and the Y chromosome. These little invisible thingies that were launched in our collective DNA at birth make some of us want to shop and make others like football. There’s nothing one can do about these pre-selected idiosyncrasies, so you might as well just enjoy wearing pink or wearing blue.
What’s this got to do with cruising? Well, here’s the deal. I think that there is also a C chromosome. “C” for Cruising. Not only do I believe it, but I think I can prove it. So, kick back for a second and follow along as I try to explain my delusion.
Fact 1: There are some folks, who we will call “Control Group C” that love to go out to sea in small, plastic bathtub-looking thingies, tie a bed-sheet to a stick, and go back and forth or in large circles. They call this “sailing,” and they do this on purpose, for fun.
Fact 2: The vast majority of people on this earth, we shall designate these folks as “Control Group NC,” go their whole lives without ever setting foot on one of these “sail-boats.”
Fact 3: When there is interaction between Group C and Group NC, there is much consternation in both groups as one tries to explain to the other just how insane they really are.
Fact 4: At the end of such a discussion, each group walks away shaking their collective heads saying, “They just don’t get it.”
This, my friends, is what is known as a paradox. Paradox is heretowith explained as: par•a•dox (n) = A statement of proposition, or situation that seems to be absurd or contradictory, but in fact, is or may be true.
It is known there is a group of people out there with an exceptionally large amount of the C chromosome who actually go to sleep at night picturing themselves being out at sea on a boat as the sun is setting, thousands of miles from land. They have a smile on their face, and they sleep like babies with this picture deeply imprinted on their alleged minds.
At the same time, as near as the person sleeping next to them, is someone who was unfortunate enough not to get much of this C chromosome. With exactly the same picture imprinted on their mind, they are having a nightmare.
Same scene, but one lives to make it come true, and another would rather live in Death Valley than experience such a thing.
And therein, my friend, lies the salvaging of our dream.
Imagine, if you will, the utter turmoil and disruption of our lives if everybody out there felt as we did. Let’s say that a new super drug is invented that makes one live to 133 years of age, but the side effect is they get a double dose of C.
At first, it would be bliss! All of a sudden, those rules restricting liveaboards would be dropped, as there wouldn’t be all those people against our lifestyle. The boat brokers would all be happy, their offices would be palaces, and the highest paid profession on earth would be yacht broker. General Electric and Boeing would be rebuilding their production lines, and cruising yachts would drop in price as the production became more automated. Those who build the boats would have phenomenal business growth, and the shipwright would be as envied a position as the dot.commers were a couple years back. As more people got into the industry, there would be great strides in off-the-grid power supplies. Solar and wind generators would have whole scientific communities working on how to make them more efficient.
But, there’d be a downside. Yacht club memberships would start to cost more than golf club memberships. Marinas would be filled to overflowing, and the waters would be over-crowded with new boats.
In a matter of a year or two, the quiet backwaters of Suvorov Island and the Great Barrier Reef would be featuring Dock-o-miniums! The new world power would be the country of Kiribati! Bora Bora would be the new financial center of the world.
So, perhaps we should secretly say thanks to the God of creation who saw fit to only infuse the very brightest of individuals with sufficient C chromosomes to know just how precious a sunset on the equator really is. Perhaps aquaphobia is not such a bad thing for “the other guy” to have.
Some people just get it!
This article first appeared in the Fall Issue (Sept/Oct) 2018 of Great Lakes Scuttlebutt magazine.
