Time Is The Difference
Published: Monday, December 30, 2019
By: Bob Bitchin
As any sailor knows, some of the best times we have are when we gather with other cruisers and it's time to, as they say in Hawaii, "talk story."
It usually starts very innocently, with a, "Ya know, I was off the coast of Malibu when..." and the first story rolls out. Most sailors will listen attentively, but in their mind they are thinking back to something similar that may have happened to them. As soon as there's a break in the story, they will pipe up with, "Yeah, I know what you mean. I was sailing off..." and the next story rolls out.
The longer you are out there, the more stories that stack up in your repertoire. Those of us who have been sailing for many years, well, we usually end up sitting there well into the wee hours of the morning. Each new story reminds us of another, and they go on through the night.
It was on such a night that I made one of my most profound discoveries. After listening to story after story, I began to realize that each story was about a particularly harrowing experience. There were no stories about how smooth a passage was, or how easy the seas. No, no! Never. The stories were always about either near-disaster or disaster itself. Occasionally you'd get a story that was about a headwind that someone had encountered for a week or so, or spectacularly large seas, but on the whole, they would be about near-disaster.
The best thing about these stories is the learning experience we go through while listening to such a harrowing tale. I don't think there is a sailor alive who doesn't say to himself – hopefully under his breath if he wants to avoid fisticuffs – that this could never happen to ME! I know better! I'm smarter than that! However, trading these stories over the years has shown me that there really is very little difference between those who are just starting out, and those who have hundreds of thousands of miles at the wheel.
I have been very lucky to hear amazing stories during my sailing life! I sat in Reno one night, after a seminar I gave with Lin and Larry Pardey, and exchanged stories with the same people that had helped shape my cruising dreams. Ten years ago, I sat at the Hawaii Yacht Club with Earl Hinz every morning, talking story about cruising. He was one of the strongest influences on me, making me want to get out there in the first place. After my Advanced Cruising Seminar one weekend, I remember sitting on the dock at an impromptu dock party that Latitudes & Attitudes’ Editor Sue (and husband Mike) hosted, talking story with Tania Aebi and John Kretchsmer. Even though we are all good friends, when talking about sailing, I just sit back and listen to the pearls of wisdom that fall from their lips.
But it's not just folks who have been lucky enough to reach some sort of notoriety in the sailing world. Sitting around the Harbor Reef Bar on any sunny weekend over in Two Harbors, the same thing happens. One story comes out, and is followed by ten more. The longer it goes on, the more people that pull up a chair to listen in, and the more people listening in, the more tales that come forth. It doesn't matter if it's coming from a novice on his first sail to the island or a world cruiser; there is a common bond between them that says, "Hey, I did the same stupid thing!"
Another thing I noticed about these gabfests is they are all about adventures. No matter how trying the ordeal, it becomes a sea-adventure. A lost mast, a broken rudder in a storm - these are all true ordeals when they happen, and there aren't many sailors who would disagree with that. But, in the telling, somehow they turn into an adventure. Just think – how many adventures are there out there for us to live?
Sitting and partaking in one of these gabfests will help get a person through more than you might believe. Having sat and listened to a story about a man who had lost his rudder in a gale later made it easier for me to get through the same kind of thing when I broke my rudder off Palmyra Island. I suddenly got a picture in my feeble head – a picture of me telling this story, the one happening at the moment, to other cruisers someday while sitting at a bar in Rangoon or Bora Bora or... who knows? Maybe while on my home dock in King Harbor. Point being, this actually helped me see what some might consider “a disaster” in a new light.
And, who knows? Someone sitting there listening might just have the same thing happen 20 years from now, perhaps even after I am with Davey Jones, and it will enter his or her mind that this tale had been told before, and it will help that person get through it.
I still believe that a good attitude can be the difference between an ordeal and an adventure, but I have found that there is another way to turn an ordeal into a true life adventure, and that is time. Time can be the difference between an ordeal and an adventure!
This article first appeared in the Year End Issue (Nov/Dec) 2019 of Great Lakes Scuttlebutt magazine.
