I live in a nice home, weather-proof and warm with a well-stocked refrigerator and a wife who loves to cook as much as I like to eat her cooking. Our bed has a heated mattress pad and a down comforter. And yet I persist in wanting to go out on the water in a cramped boat, eating instant oatmeal and canned soup and drinking instant coffee, getting wet and cold, and tossing and turn at night in a berth that cramps my legs. At some point the wind will probably fail or turn foul or blow hard. Rock and reef and current will make life difficult and stressful. I will come home with hands raw from hauling on wet lines. Even so, I go. This is a never-ending source of wonder for my wife, Beatrice.
Why do I do it? I know from experience that I will be glad for a hot shower and a good night's sleep when I get home, but no sooner home and done writing up the trip than I'm planning the next trip.
I can't say I'm sure myself.
I look for clues in the kinds of trips I plan.
Many, especially early on, are firsts: first time overnight, first time sailing the whole length of Narragansett Bay, first time in open water sailing to Block Island. More recently most trips take me back to places I remember fondly, or places I want to explore more fully. To most of these trips there is either something of novelty, or some kind of challenge testing the capability of skipper and boat. Taking Surprise into Buzzard's Bay in a bit of wind and sea was such a challenge, as was overnighting in her last December.
An occasional trip is the exception that proves the rule: one weekend I stopped at a little deli on my way to the ramp and bought nice food and desserts, then had a leisurely sail to a quiet cove nearby and a long time to eat nice food and watch the sun set. These trips are usually solo!
I look for clues in the parts of the trip I enjoy most.
The planning will often consume days and weeks of those quiet moments when my time is my own. Charts will be pored over, lists drawn up, tide and current tables consulted, problems chewed over.
For a trip of any duration, I will take my time collecting and stowing gear and thinking through menus. My wife wonders at all this time I need, not grasping that I find this planning and preparing very satisfying. I am solving problems I know how to solve, which is much more fun (and easier) than trying to figure out how to get one son's grades up, or deal with the administration at another son's school.
The trip itself of course has its own satisfactions. The trip is reality, life made simple, almost elemental. It calls out skills most don't have. Negotiate the hurricane barrier against the wind while dodging fishing boats. Beat out of the river while watching the shoals. Make Woods Hole before the current reverses. Find a good sheltered anchorage with good shore access. Exercising skills of seamanship is also very satisfying, and makes good fodder for some "modest" bragging among acquaintances. And even if I never mention a trip, I'm still taken with a sense of wonder at lying at anchor in a distant place, reached with my own skill and effort.
The clean-up after the trip is, admittedly, the part I'm least fond of. I realize this on my rare day-sails, when I can take the trailer off the car, back it into the garage, and be done. But the clean-up is followed by time at the computer writing the story of the trip. At one time I wanted to write for a living. I know now that my writing is not up to this, but I still enjoy putting my thoughts down the best way I know how.
Finally comes the remembering. I love reliving past trips. Many's the time when Stephen, my youngest, will come to me with, "Dad, remember the time we...?" When I first began to sail again, I thought I could live forever on the memories of our first few adventures. Many more adventures later, I'm afraid I've gotten a little piggish. But even so, remembering these trips gets me enormous "bang for my buck." As does the planning. In fact, a three-day trip could easily bring a month of pleasure.
I guess that's why I adventure.
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