A Salty Slice of Humble Pie

Three months in Europe looking for a boat to cross the Atlantic

Last year, I shared an essay about a month-long cruise down the Pacific Coast, entitled “Sailing Lesson”. Emboldened by my first cruise after a thirty eight year hiatus, I went to Europe last October to visit family and started looking for sailboats to cross the Atlantic. Within a couple days of being in France, I found a crew position on a brand new yacht being delivered from La Rochelle to the British Virgin Islands. I showed up in La Rochelle near the scheduled departure date, rented an Airbnb and went about to discover the lovely medieval port. When I touched base with the captain, I was told the departure date had been moved back. I waited three weeks in La Rochelle, ate a lot of pastries and drank way too much coffee.

Before I left for Europe, I had a tooth removed as I was experiencing much weakness and joint aches from an infection. During my stay in France, I continued experiencing tiredness and debilitating ankle pain. I took massive amount of vitamin C to ease the inflammation but the discomfort and lack of energy persisted. I continued sampling all my favorite French pastries to help me cope with the ongoing push back of the boat delivery date.

I walked and took buses and read and waited, until I lost patience and decided to head over to the Canary Islands, off the Coast of Africa, to seek another boat. I posted on numerous Facebook sailing groups, as well as on crew finder subscription sites, trying to find a boat to cross over to the Caribbean.

Anticipating being gone for six months, I packed enough clothes to sail both tropical and cold climates, including insulated offshore sailing gear, inflatable floating harness with a man-over-board electronic GPS beacon and snorkeling gear. I also carried a hefty number of books, camera gear, work clothes, hiking shoes, deck shoes, sandals and city shoes. During some of my train rides in France, I had to switch stations and jump into subways. Schlepping my heavy bags and sleeping on cold tiles at the airport during a layover wrecked my back.

Once in Las Palmas, in the Canary Islands, I quickly discovered that dozens of young people, boat hitchhikers they call themselves, were also trying to find a boat to cross the Atlantic. I made attractive flyers to post around the marina but never got a call. I did, however, get a video interview with a Dutch boat coming from Gibraltar and heading to Aruba, near Venezuela, looking for a third crew. After meeting the crew when the boat arrived, and observing too much smoking and drinking to my taste, I turned down the offer.

During my two months in Europe, I had this obsession about crossing the Atlantic. I thought it would be a piece of cake to find a boat, but it turned out to be a salty slice of humble pie!

Everyday at the marina, I mingled with the 20 year-olds, often acting as a cheerleader, as many of them had been waiting much longer than me and were experiencing low moments. I did as well. Patience I learned, but also started to question my whole approach to boating. Everyday, I had to accept that this was what the journey was yielding; a face-to-face with aging, loneliness, apprehension, fear and moments of depression.

After three weeks in Las Palmas, I ran out of patience and finally decided to come back to Santa Fe, to regain my health, as well as to reassess my strategy. Eating out and moving from Airbnb to Airbnb had taken its toll on me and my wallet.

I yielded to the fact that crossing the Atlantic wasn’t in the cards for me this time. I grew tired of trying so hard. There must be another way.

I am glad I went to visit my brothers, and my father at his nursing home. We had a fallout and I hadn’t seen him, or spoken to him, in 7 years. Even though I have no idea if he recognized me since he’d lost his speech and was unable to express himself, but pushing his wheelchair around the park, combing his hair and kissing his cheeks before he left this world felt good.

The slice of humble pie was substantial. It’s never been easy for me to accept that things don’t always turn out the way I expected. Even though I have a lot of life experience (including at sea with six years of commercial fishing) and broad skills, finding an interesting boat to crew on was deeply challenging. It’s quite humbling to look for a crew position. It must be like looking for a job, something I’ve rarely had to do.

That slice of humble pie has made me a bit softer and less arrogant.

I came home to find a truck that wouldn’t start. After checking every logical sources for the problem, I still couldn’t figure it out. What if that happened while on a boat? Having to raise the anchor, or drifting towards reefs?

On my posts, I advertised myself as being mechanically savvy and I got stomped by a non-starting truck!

I felt small and vulnerable.

Life on a boat can be risky.

Eating too many pastries is also risky!

After spending a couple months in Santa Fe, I flew to Panama in February to work on the electric propulsion conversion of a large catamaran. I spent several weeks with a young captain and a fun crew, doing some great work and learning a lot, then got hired to crew on a boat sailing from Costa Rica to the French Riviera. After working my buns off prepping the boat in a fancy marina for ten days, with a hired captain that sat around, drank coke and beer, and smoked cigarettes while playing a video game on his iPad all day long, I told the owner I wasn’t going to crew on his boat. Fortunately, I got paid and my flights from and back to Panama were covered. I immediately found another position on a boat crossing the Pacific to Tahiti, all expenses paid, including a return ticket to the US, with a lovely couple, both professional captains, and their two young kids. I spent six amazing weeks on that boat, visiting the Galapagos, then the Marquesas Islands, before being offered another position on a large catamaran heading to Australia.

I am posting this before making land fall in Fakarava, one of the Tuamotu Archipelago atolls.

There’s another story about my recent sailing experience brewing on my docket. It should be posted very shortly.

Stay tuned!