Caught your prurient eye, did I?
Well simmer down. Today I write about the realm of bareboat
chartering. Contrary to what the name might imply, it simply means chartering a
sailboat without a captain. It has nothing to do with boating au natural. To the uninitiated, I suppose chartering a captained sailboat
and letting someone else run the show might be interesting. I would counter,
however, that paying for a captain takes all the fun out of it. After all, what
could be more exciting than taking
temporary possession of someone else’s quarter million dollar piece of
machinery, and, never having operated it a day in your life, sailing it out into the middle of the ocean and hoping
that you will figure out how the thing works before you kill yourselves?
We have been on many boats and gone to many a strange territory,
and so far have emerged unscathed, other than becoming addicted to the game
itself. Each boat has its cool features and its peccadillos. There is no such
thing as the perfect boat. We have figured out what makes for a
successful bareboat cruise, and we shop our boats carefully, but there is
always that shaking -off- the- rust period, and a healthy dose of
McGivering—having to jury rig when things don’t go as planned. My Joe can look at
something mechanical and pretty much figure out why it is not doing what it is
supposed to do. You cannot sail if you do not have a Joe on board.
Today we motored out
of our home port marina on the southeast of Tortola, pointed into
the wind and tried to raise the mainsail. That was after trying to figure out the
multiple erroneously marked lines (“sheets”, we sailors call ‘em).
We isolated
the main sheet and pulled and tugged. Nothing happened.
We didn’t panic.... Been there, seen that problem. We knew something was hanging up the mainsail, and after
a few minutes saw that the sail battens were getting stuck on a spar high on the mast. Joe
whipped and lassooed (“hee haw!!) the line until it snapped free. Then we could
move on to our favorite moment...when you know the wind is in the sails and you
can shut down that damn motor and the only sound is the whoosh of wind and wave.
The boat soars and you are free and the world around you is beautiful and the sun is warm and the ocean is blue and grand and some new, undiscovered adventure lies ahead. And that, my friend, is why we bareboat.
Oh, and for the record , there is in fact occasional nudity.
Julianne
November 25, 2016
