A Sailor Looks at Crossing the Bar (Part One)

When I was starting out in public accounting, nearly thirty years ago, I got the chance to work for a new partner who had just joined our firm. His name was Joe Sambataro, an Italian-American from New Jersey, full of blunt honesty and character, and we hit it off right away. He became an important mentor and eventually recruited me to join a small staffing firm in Tacoma as a financial analyst when he joined as CFO. He would later retire, then come back as CEO. Joe is now the Chairman of the Board of this multi-billion publicly traded staffing firm.

Back when I first began working for Joe, he shared three wishes for me: Marriage, Mortgage, and a Boat. In that order. He figured that an employee with a spouse and a mortgage would stick around longer than a single guy with no ties to anything. The boat, he said, was just for fun. Joe liked boating and especially fishing off a boat.

I took Joe’s advice and in short order got married to my beautiful wife Lisa, and signed a mortgage on our Vashon Island home. I soon began looking for a sailboat.

In 1999 we bought our first boat, Wildfire. She was an Ericson 35 racing sloop that I dreamed of sailing around the world, but she was too much boat for a beginner. We had some crazy adventures, and learned a lot, but we soon downsized to an 18′ gaff-rigged Marshall catboat that was much more manageable by a novice sailor, then traded up for a larger 23′ model.

After a few more years as our family and boating skills grew, we traded up for a 32′ Catalina sloop, a cruising sailboat we named Parlez that we took on month-long trips up to the San Juans and Gulf Islands. We made a lot of memories as a family aboard that boat: crab feasts in the cockpit, game nights around the saloon table, hard-driving sails in pounding waves and rain, and windless days where we barely ghosted along, the boat mirrored perfectly in the calm water all around, the sails gently flapping.

After six or seven years of actively sailing and cruising aboard Parlez, I began to think of myself as a real sailor.

As the kids reached their teens, the appeal of long summer trips in the islands lost some appeal; they preferred instead to stay closer to home, their friends and a high-speed internet connection. I found myself spending more time maintaining the boat than sailing, and decided it was time to sell her.

That period of boatlessness lasted about two months. I bought a beautiful 33′ daysailor called Red Head that was perfect for summer daysails around Vashon, either alone or with a crowd in her glorious 16′ cockpit.

I’ve never felt more alive than at the helm of Red Head sailing into a fresh breeze, tiller in hand, feet braced against the opposite side of the cockpit as the boat heeled in gusts, the water racing by, the mast and rig groaning in protest, a grin on my face as I took in the shape of the sails, the wind anxious to fling my upturned cap into the sea; and something else too: a healthy sense of fear as I pushed myself and the boat maybe a little too far, Adrenalin surging as I caromed through the bay, tack to tack. At those moments I became part of the boat, one hand connected to the tiller and rudder, as if by electric current, my free hand ready to trim the main or the jib, a living thing cavorting through the water, exuberant.

These moments of sailing bliss mostly outweighed the drudgery that goes along with a sailing vessel. The long periods of motoring when the wind has died or is blowing from an inconvenient direction, the cramped quarters below decks, and the exposure to the wind and elements in an open cockpit on a long voyage at just a bit faster than a brisk walking speed.

Over the past couple of years, substantial doubt has plagued me about my future as a sailor. Beautiful sunny days would present themselves only to conclude there was too much wind, or not enough wind, or my back was acting up and I didn’t feel up to the exertion of hoisting or trimming sails. Or worse, I would wish for calm days without so much wind to bother with, enjoying the sense of tranquility of Quartermaster Harbor on a still afternoon. These are not the thoughts of a real sailor.

My desire for adventure afloat hasn’t waned. As we approach that empty nest waypoint in our lives, I dream of voyages up the inside passage to Alaska, a vast section of earth mostly uninhabited and pristine. Or braving open ocean to explore the Pacific coast of Mexico to escape the rains and darkness that pervades the Northwest in winter. I’d relearn my Spanish from high school, and attempt to slow the following seas of time slipping by.

Even before we began a family, Lisa and I dreamed of such voyages. Sometimes the destinations were landlocked – a ranch in Montana or a flat in Madrid – but they always involved a departure from ordinary life, selling up, traveling light, vagabond shoes. Of course, a sailboat would be a logical choice for such an adventure, needing only the power of the wind to push us along, free and easy.

About four months ago on a beautiful February day, Lisa and I were out for a walk along one of Vashon’s country roads. We passed a section of road with a terrific view of Puget Sound, the water blue and ruffled with an afternoon wind on our first perfect day of the year.

“Why don’t you go for a sail this afternoon?” She asked. “There’s wind and the time on the water would do you good.”

It hadn’t even dawned on me that I might sail, and as I considered the water and wind waves, I shook my head. “No, I’m not really up for it today.”

And as I said these words, I realized with certainty that I was no longer a sailor. And for Lisa too, it seemed. We were both ready to put that chapter of our life astern, though neither of us were prepared to move off the water to become normal land people. As we continued our walk, the seeds of a new boating life began to germinate.

“What exactly is a trawler?” She asked.

To be continued…