Cruisers

Being a cruiser is like belonging to a tribe, but there are many sub-tribes. My least favourite sub-tribe is the “CV cruisers”. People who in mid-career take off with a boat for a year or so, get as far as they can and then head back to home waters to resume their old lives. Many in this group bring with them the deadline orientation of their working lives and simply seem to race from one place to another. Their objective is to complete an “adventurous episode” to add to their CV – their focus more on the next thing than the now. My favourite sub-tribe might be called the “so what?” brigade. People who when faced with all or any of the following objections from well meaning friends and family say “so what? – I don’t see why that should stop us going cruising”:

• You haven’t got any money.
• You can’t sail.
• You’ve got a secure job.
• She’s half your age.
• You’ve only got one leg.

Allied to this tribe are what might be called the pure eccentrics – like David and Eli. When I stuck my head out of the companionway on the morning of 1st November it was grey and stormy. Waves were crashing onto the harbour walls and the wind was blowing a fine salt spray over the whole marina. Suddenly a couple of marina staff with crackling portable VHF radios stationed themselves at the berth next to ours awaiting the arrival of a boat. The entrance to the port here is very shallow and in strong winds there are dangerous breaking waves across it. “What kind of nutter is trying to come in here today?” I thought to myself. A few minutes later a small and venerable catamaran motored its way up to the berth, with a wild-eyed middle-aged bloke at the wheel, his long strands of greasy hair being whipped around in the wind. At the bow was a woman in her mid-thirties with long blond streaked hair, dressed more for an afternoon’s shopping at Camden Lock than for sailing. As they began tidying up their lines I called across and asked “would you like a cup of tea?” “No thanks, after coming through that entrance I think a large Scotch would be more in order”, he replied, disappearing below.

A few days after their arrival David and Eli rigged up a large striped tent over their after deck and announced an impromptu fancy-dress party to celebrate. Sue and I dressed as pirates, unable to find a parrot Sue put a carrot on her shoulder instead. David was dressed in a leather jerkin, I’m not sure what he was meant to be, Harold Steptoe, possibly. And Eli dressed in a tight orange corset with black laces and a flowing skirt looked like Moll Flanders. Their boat, Kilovar II, is a floating junk shop of 1960s memorabilia. On one of the cabin walls is a picture of a Turkish gunboat. It’s a little known fact that every year the Turks organise an East Med yacht rally which visits Syria, the Lebanon, Israel and Egypt, escorted by a gunboat and blithely ignoring the restrictions on sailing direct between some of these countries. A couple of years back David and Eli joined the rally and decided to get married, having a Christian ceremony on a Muslim gunboat in an Israeli harbour.

I could probably write a book about the many other interesting characters around the port, but I will confine myself to one other couple, who I admire more than most – Jude and Peter. They are Americans in their mid-fifties I would guess and they live on a small nine-metre boat called “Flight”, which they bought new about thirty years ago. Jude is a teacher and artist and Peter has been many things, including a professional swimmer, teacher, artist, photographer and insurance salesman. Jude has recently been made a Professor and usually teaches for about half the year in a college in New England. The rest of their time they spend sailing “Flight” around the Eastern seaboard of the United States and Canada, the Caribbean and the Med. On New Years Day Jude rigged up an exhibition of her recent watercolours in the room the marina lets us use and it was a great fun to wander around looking at many places that were familiar to us from our Summer cruise whilst nursing a thumping hangover. I wrote a short story based on one of her pictures, which Peter recorded to play back to Jude’s students. Jude and Sue have conducted a two woman campaign to try to rid the marina of the sexism that exists among so many of our fellow cruisers. I guess what I admire about them is that they appear to be spending their lives being themselves and trying to live by their own standards and values rather than by those imposed by others. I think this is what David and Eli do too, but perhaps less self-consciously.