Aboard No Boundaries
July 11, 2009
Larry and I consider that in cruising the oceans of the world, we are following in the path of the people who made America strong and great. Even though I am going to talk about non-sailing topics for a bit, please stick with me. It all ties together eventually.
When I was growing up, I loved reading stories and seeing movies about pioneer families. Those people were amazing. The people who settled the American west valued independence to such a degree that they would undoubtedly scorn the entire contemporary population, with the possible exception of the citizens engaged in extreme sports.
The stories of the pioneers recounted how they planned and worked to get ready for the journey west. They relied on wise and experienced guides, people who had made the trek before, but each family, each wagon, was responsible for itself. The guide did not bring food and supplies to give to families that failed to plan well. The people who made the journey ran into all kinds of problems along the way, and sometimes people died. Many who started the journey did not arrive at the destination.
Those who completed the journey found themselves in what most of us would call desolation. Imagine standing in the middle of prairie grass up to your chest as you watch the rest of the wagon train move on while you look around to find the way to the land you have chosen to homestead. Imagine that you try to build a house and it falls down or burns up. Imagine that you chop off your thumb while splitting wood for the kitchen range. Imagine that you have no kitchen range, because it was one of the too heavy items you left behind before crossing the Great Desert. These were the people who turned wornout clothing into quilts to keep themselves warm in winter. Wives pulled plows so the crops could be planted. When anyone was sick or injured or if the house burned down or if the mule died, there was no place to go where everything would be fixed. The people who tamed the American west knew that they had to be almost completely self-sufficient. Neighbors helped neighbors, but none of them could work magic.
The rhetoric of those days was focused on “opportunity.” Just as the American colonies had called out to people oppressed by their government, the American west called out to people oppressed by economic and personal circumstances. They all believed that if they just had opportunity they could do anything. And they did. The colonists stood up against oppressive government and created a nation. The pioneers stood up against everything the nature and circumstance could throw against them, and doubled the size of the nation. They all believed in “opportunity” and the much-maligned Horatio Alger stories were all about people who seized opportunity, not grants. America came into being and grew great and strong on the backs of people who seized opportunity and turned it into accomplishment. America is not the land of the handout; it is the land of opportunity.
As cruising sailors, we feel that we, too, are seizing opportunity. Like the pioneers, we must prepare for our ventures out to sea, and once we get there, we are pretty much on our own. The US Coast Guard might be able to rescue us if we were completely unable to help ourselves, but when we are forty miles from the nearest land, we need to be ready and willing to do what we must in every situation. In fact, we pride ourselves on doing everything we can do for ourselves before looking for assistance from anyone.
This is why, when our engine failed seven miles from shore, we did not call the Coast Guard or the tow boat for help. We have heard some amazing calls on the radio. One man called the Coast Guard when he ran out of fuel twelve miles from shore. Another in a 14-foot runabout ran aground. When the Coast Guard asked if he had tried tilting the engine and pushing off the shoal, he replied, “Just a minute. I’ll see if that works.” One called because his anchor rode was fouled in some rocks. Probably the most amazing was the one in which we heard the Coast Guard say, “Let me be sure I understand. You are in severe distress and you are tied to the dock?” to which the caller replied, “Affirmative.”
I don’t want to scorn anyone who asks for help, but it seems to me that people are much too quick to do that. When our engine failed, Larry immediately began to work on it in an attempt to fix it himself. He suspected a cause for the problem, tried the solution for that cause, but the engine still would not start. Then he found the owner manual and started working through the diagnostics. He worked on that engine for seven hours before declaring it beyond his knowledge.
As you might imagine, the ocean did not stand still while we figured things out. Winds, waves and currents continued doing what they always do. As I sat in the cockpit watching to be sure we didn’t run into anything or get in the path of any commercial traffic, I realized that a current was taking us easterly. The current wanted us in Europe, or maybe Africa. Seven hours of drifting would have made the problem worse. We put up the sails and I tacked up and down, parallel to the coast of New Jersey. I chose that plan, because a) it prevented us from being any farther from help if Larry were not able to fix the engine, and b) it kept us in the right spot to restart our journey if he were able to fix it.
When you recognize that our boat has sails, you might ask, why not just continue the trip under sail? The answer is that the same reasons that led us to turn on the engine in the first place would apply to continuing the trip without an engine. There certainly are sailors who do not have engines, and they would no doubt hoot at us. We, however, prefer the maneuverability we gain with an engine. We always use it going in and out of harbors, and we want that power for various situations where sails alone might not give us the control we want. We already knew that traveling under sail at that time would greatly lengthen both the track and the time of our trip. We wanted the flexibility of the engine in our set of options. We knew that if we made the trip successfully without the engine, we would still be faced with the necessity of getting it fixed at the other end. We chose to go into a holding pattern that made it easier for us either to go back for repairs or forward on our trip depending on the outcome of Larry’s work. We did not choose to call the Coast Guard for advice or assistance.
The engine stopped at 7:30PM on Saturday evening. Larry worked on the engine for seven hours. I cruised back and forth in our holding pattern. At 2:30AM we had a conference. Larry had concluded that he could not fix the engine, so we needed to decide what else to do. We wanted to take care of ourselves to the greatest degree possible. What could we do to reduce the amount of help we would need from others?
Our decision was to continue in a holding pattern until dawn and then make our way back to Cape May where we would call for a tow. (I should say here that we purchase and maintain insurance to cover this possibility. The Coast Guard is not maintained for the purpose of solving people’s mechanical problems.) Larry took a nap for 2 hours, while I continued sailing. Then I took a nap, and he took the helm. By the time I went down for my nap, dawn was breaking, and when I woke up we were only a couple of miles from Cape May. Through all this time, the winds were so light and variable that it was difficult to make any progress sailing and very difficult to hold any particular course, yet we managed to get ourselves very close to the help we needed by using our skills to apply the options available to us.
About 8:30 Sunday morning, we were at the entrance to the Cape May Canal, a spot lovingly referred to by locals as “the rockpile.” We called the tow boat, and they arrived in about 20 minutes. Later, however, when Larry and the tow boat captain were discussing the charges, the captain complained that we didn’t call him sooner. He would have made more money on our account if we had called him when we were still seven miles out! We thought we were being wise and responsible to do everything we could for ourselves, and he thought we could have been a little more dependent so he could make more money!
This is a long narrative, but my point is that it would have been easy for us simply to call for a tow when the engine failed. We could have thrown up our hands in despair. We could have cried because things were not working out. We could have had a story like the long parade of whining and crying at the Democrat convention during the summer of 2008. As I watched that debacle, I wondered what happened to all the Americans who have said over the years, “Give me opportunity and freedom, and I will do something great.” There was no pride in our country and no self-confidence. The entire show was designed to make every participant and every watcher feel hopeless and defeated without federal help.
When Larry and I faced our problem, we did not want federal help. We did not feel hopeless or despondent. We felt sure that God had given us wit and wisdom to work with. Every person from time to time needs the help of other people. We have needed help. We certainly needed help getting through the canal and into the marina at the end of our sailing option. My point is that we did everything we could do for ourselves, and most of the people I know personally would always do that. The people I know don’t go around whining and crying because the government has not put food on their table or paid all their medical bills. My friends and acquaintances mostly look for the opportunity to accomplish things, not for a handout to use up and then collect again.
As cruisers, we pretty much need to be willing to be self-sufficient. Forty miles or more from the nearest land, we need to be willing and able to do everything possible for ourselves. We started by selecting a boat designed for that environment, and we continued by growing in skill and by keeping a positive attitude about our ability to do what it takes. Life in general is very different if approached that way than if it is approached as an unconquerable challenge that cannot even be survived without government assistance. I wish that when we get economic statistics from the government, we would get the statistics on the positive side. 5% unemployment is 95% employment. I wish that when we hear that 40 million people do not have health insurance, the same report would point out that of those 40 million, many choose to pay cash for their care because that is their preference; they would rather bet on their health than on their illness. Our nation’s population is around 350 million now, and I would like to hear things such as 349 million people do not have cancer, or 345 million do not have diabetes. I am really tired of being depressed and oppressed over some tiny fraction of the population that has one problem or another. To hear the daily rhetoric of illness, injury, foreclosure, and so forth is enough to make all the rest of us, the vast majority of the population, throw up our hands in despair. That is how the government gets us to agree to submit to onerous levels of taxation. This is not the American way.
It isn’t the Christian way, either. God did not create the world in such a way that the distribution of economic wealth is equal. For one thing, God does not put the store in gold or silver that human beings attach to it. For another, however, God himself gives us gifts that can create our wealth, not the gift of wealth itself. He teaches us to accept a personal obligation to help the poor, the hungry, the sick, and even prisoners. He does not teach us to put our money in the hands of politicians to perform our charity for us. God knows that politicians show much more charity to themselves than they ever show to the poor and hungry.
When the American colonies declared their independence from England, they stated their belief that God had given every person the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They rightly and wisely observed that there was no right or guarantee to wealth or the equal distribution of money and property, there was no right or guarantee to medical care or to jobs or houses or any other of the many elements of life. Still, when you think about it, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is the gift of opportunity that each individual can turn into accomplishment. The cruising life is a great metaphor for that same truth. We set sail as a way of life, because we are free to do so after pursuing this happiness with the commitment to do the work and pay the cost of it ourselves. It can be the same for everyone who has the vision to dream and the will to work for the goal.
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