Nearly thirty-seven years aboard. And now it’s time to move ashore.
Photo Credit : Lorraine Seatle
I have moved ashore after nearly thirty-seven years of living aboard my little yacht, Ambia (7.5 meters). I have “swallowed the hook”, as they say. I’m hard aground.
When my sailing buddy Dan, of Igon, who is now wandering other parts of the planet, heard the news, he wondered if I was going to turn my place ashore into some version of Ambia. Now there’s a thought. One is reluctant to let go of a home that has served well in many ways. She is where I lived. She was my refuge. She was wind-powered travel. She was freedom. She was fun.
My new home, my vessel ashore, is an upstairs apartment a couple hundred meters inland – near a dinghy dock. My view of the bay is obscured by mango trees and coconut palms, but I can hear waves washing ashore beyond.
The grounds around me have many fruit bearing trees and rows of planters, from which I am invited to help myself.
My new home is a big place. My little yacht would fit on the breezy veranda, which I refer to as the flying bridge. The weathered-in space behind the flying bridge contains many times the living space I had aboard my little yacht, more than a large yacht – comparable to a small ship. Her lines, however, are more like a barge than a ship – flat bottom, straight sides and square corners… and she has a cathedral ceiling.
Her motion is strange. She doesn’t move at all. No rock and roll and she doesn’t lie to the wind. Her heading is fixed at 030 degrees true. Thus, here in tradewind latitudes, we are nearly always on the starboard tack, generally between a beam reach and a close reach, hard on the wind when it has a northerly component. The tradewind is from the east, whence also comes sunrise. So I’ve rigged a dinghy sail on a bamboo spar at the starboard end of the flying bridge as shade against morning Sun and to moderate the tradewind. Once Sun is above the yardarm, if the breeze isn’t too strong, I take a deep reef in the sail to open up some.
As it happens, my ship ashore already has some nautical touches built into her. The late Dominique Weber, who built it, was the proprietor of the Sea Rose, a floating metal shop alongside which yachts and local vessels could raft for metal work. Plus, Dominique lived most of his life aboard. He and Genevieve created their marvelous place ashore in later life (see my story, “Dominique and Genevieve”, in August Compass).
Right off, you get the flavor of a ship. The ladder up to what I call the quarterdeck, the only way aboard, is two feet wide, set at a sixty degree angle, and has good handrails on both sides. The roof over the flying bridge is stepped on recycled sections of broken masts, one of which even has a winch with handle for lifting heavy loads aboard. The hardwood shutters, which open half of the wall between the flying bridge and the interior, are raised with block and tackle. The deck light is clearly recycled from a ship and there are several lamps within that are cleverly crafted from bits of yacht hardware. Metal was Dominique’s creative medium.
The interior, however, is notably lacking in seaworthiness. There are vast spaces with no handholds and none of the counters, shelves or tables have fiddles. And, unlike a berth aboard where one can wedge into a deep corner, the bed is a platform right out in the middle of the room that you could roll right off of. Were the house to take a heavy roll, it would be chaos. (And there is, after all, the active underwater volcano, Kick ’em Jenny, not far to the south of us. And St. Vincent’s recently erupted La Soufriere is at twice the distance to the north. Without volcanoes these islands wouldn’t be here.)
I instinctively set down things that might topple or roll athwartships – so far, it doesn’t seem to matter
I am adding some touches of my own, of course. In addition to the sail that shades the morning side of the bridge, I have rigged a loose-footed lateen dinghy sail on a bamboo yard to port, to shade the bridge against afternoon Sun. That sail gets set around noon and I strike it after Sun sinks below the hill to the west, well before Sun sets into the sea – I don’t get green flashes anymore. Tradeoffs.
The small-scale chart on which I track tropical weather crossing the North Atlantic, my globe of planet Earth, has a miniature block and tackle system to hang it at various heights according to whim. And I use small stuff (cordage of 6mm and less) all over the place. Solar charged LED lamps provide almost all of my night lighting, subdued light that lets me see into the night and doesn’t make me feel as if I am on stage.
I have brought some of my live-aboard behavior ashore as well. In the center of the flying bridge I have clustered a chair and a table with things I habitually had around me in Ambia’s cockpit, which served as her living room. The rest of the flying bridge, unless I have company aboard, is vacant. When it got wet and blustery aboard Ambia, everything in the cockpit went below. Aboard my ship ashore, I drag it around to the other side of the wall, from the cockpit into an area I call the pilothouse.
I remain frugal with fresh water, even though the house has ample catchment and more than six thousand gallons of tankage – compared to Ambia’s forty gallons.
The medley of nature ashore is different from that afloat, an alternate ambiance, no lapping waves or fish in the water and a much different set of birds.
My new vessel is up among the treetops. Off our bow, below deck level, sloping outward and downward, is the roof over the veranda of the house we sit atop. It separates us from a mature mango tree bordered by a tall bush of white flowers, backed by the first of the palms. It forms a corridor through which fifty or a hundred birds, perhaps a dozen species, fly daily, along with countless butterflies. Occasionally there is an iguana on the roof. There are two small birds, a couple, that have built a nest inside, up in the peak of the cathedral ceiling. They are quick and quiet and their nest is out of sight. The outer walls of this house leave a three-inch gap beneath the ceiling, allowing the breeze and the birds to pass at will. I only see them if I happen to look up during the second they take to flit through. We have a night visitor that scurries out when I get up to pee, who samples bananas, bread or potatoes if I leave them out. There are few mosquitoes, presumably due to being up in the breeze. There are no ants but too many flies.
It is somewhat more noisy than I had hoped for.
Someone opined that sailors who finally move ashore generally die within a year. A couple of years ago, I began learning to let go of what I can no longer have. Sailing Ambia was always a good workout, but my last two immigration departures had been grueling. However, I still got my exercise while living aboard in the bay by paddling in against the wind from way out where I anchored. (See “A Paddle Ashore”, December 2020 Compass, free online). Ambia is now moored close to the dinghy dock, so paddling out to check on her and an occasional dinghy sail in the bay don’t cut it.
So I climb off my ship and walk (almost) daily. There are three ways to depart: up a steep hill behind us to the main road or along a long stretch of beach (each, in my condition, a fair workout) or by dinghy from the nearby dock.
Many who swallow the hook go “home” for the end game. For me, that would be Colorado, much more expensive and subject to serious winters. In what they call “temperate latitudes”, one needs a house that is insulated and can be sealed and heated.
Here, one needs only shelter from the Sun, rain and excess wind. My ship ashore is only half a house, its exterior shell. Not only do the exterior walls stop short of the roof, the bedroom walls are only high enough for visual privacy, open above. The encompassing walls are planks screwed to hardwood 2×4 studs and diagonal bracing on wide spans. On first glace, it would horrify a carpenter used to building with softwood studs on sixteen-inch centers and roofs that must withstand heavy snow loads. One side of the planks is the exterior, their other side, the interior. There is no inner wall with which to sandwich insulation, the dark brown framing is visible over the beige painted planking – quite attractive.
If, however, one opts for air conditioning here, the house does need to be sealed and insulated. When you leave your cooled interior, the warm tropics will feel hot.
(By the way, GrenLec, which generates with diesel, recently, unexpectedly and dramatically increased its rates. If this makes people cut back on usage, I’m for it – global warming, you know. But I don’t think that’s why they did it.)
While my subdued solar lighting decreases GrenLec usage, I do have a refrigerator, which I never had aboard – with a freezer! The fridge is set to its lowest setting, which is still colder than I like. Cold food isn’t as tasty as when raised to room temperature or cooked. And my new home also has a four burner stove (Ambia’s was one burner) – with an oven! (Modern dirt dwellers, even modern yachties, take such amenities for granted!)
While I might have managed another year or more aboard, I had already been contemplating a move ashore. Climbing aboard after swim call and paddling ashore against a strong wind were becoming difficult. The place I found is better than I had hoped for, so when it became available, it was time. Onward.
That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like to be fifty again, sailing my lively little Ambia around the Bahamas or Grenadines. For me, those days are now past. But Ambia still has years left in her if she finds a hard-core single-hander that wants to live the life that I did. She’s the smallest and slowest yacht in the bay and admittedly a bit rough. But she’s still strong and nimble and is ready to go.
Caribbean Compass, March 2022.
© 2022
One Response
Hi Hutch
I spent many happy evenings and nights there whilst commissioning/ decommissioning Mary Murray. ( sometimes escaping back to the balcony in the afternoon but never having the luxury of a morning idle ).
So pleased you’ve found a solid anchorage – say hi to Genevy and hope to catch up soon. Cheers Mark