Nobody tells you how hard it is.
Getting the boat and outfitting is easy. After leaving comes the hard part. Complaining about life when you live on land is normal. Complaining as a cruiser is just not done. We are out there living the dream, complaining would be heresy. How about the wind, the rocking, the engine noise, the heat, the sweating, the bruises, the broken nails, bee stings, mosquito bites and noseeum welts, having things break in the middle of night, fixing things right away and in tiny spaces and sometimes not being able to, the lack of water, of real showers, of fridge space, of space in general and of privacy.
How does one keep one’s cool, when you are thrown around for the 50th time that day? You can’t eat because the motion might make you sick, but you can’t prepare food anyhow because of the motion.
Most days we absolutely love it, and then there are the other days, when it is all too much and we desperately need respite. We need time out, which you don’t get on a boat. It’s all on us. We have to function all the time, when on watch or not and on a minutes’ notice.
It is like with everything, I guess, a matter of attitude. If you embrace the cruising life, you get to travel and be out at sea. All the hardship is put towards the goal of travel and living at sea. It seems there is no glory without hardship, the same goes for cruising. Or at least for us. Maybe some cruisers are more relaxed, better prepared, less sea sick or even enjoy the hardship. We are only 8 weeks into this very new life and are still adjusting to it, learning about the boat and ourselves and being true sailors. Sailors were said to have the foulest mouths and to swear a lot. In that respect we are true sailors already!
The glorious days make it all worth it and make you forget the shitty ones. Yesterday we weathered an Elefantes storm in Báhia de Los Ángeles. For 16 hours, we were hunkered down in the boat, while it was storming outside a steady stream of gusts of 25-45 knots every three to five minutes. The winds came from the desert shores and were blowing hot, dry air as if from a huge blow dryer. Eyes, lungs and skin were sucked dry. The boat was heeling and stemming it’s hull against each blow. It was miserable. The kind of miserable, which makes me wonder if I can do this or better pack it in. The storm stopped with the rising sun. Watching the sky turning all colors of yellow, orange to blue, seemed like a reward and calmed my nerves instantly. We went ashore, met several other cruisers we chatted with about the storm ‘That was bad! And a long one.’, the sailing, the cruising, had lovely breakfast and dinner there overlocking the expansive beach and bay with the Imagine anchored a little ways out.
All was good again and all was forgotten. We had gained another notch of experience, more endurance, more confidence in our capacity and in the anchor and in the boat. As they say ‘It’ll blow over’, and blow over it did. With time and many more of these kinds of experiences, we hope to eventually develop the stoic nature of true sailors.