Life outside: Sailboat

 Again, ignorance is bliss.

Living a rather sheltered life prior to entering the monastery.

Living enclosed for over eleven years at the monastery,

The world had gone by me, I knew little about the real world at large.

I remember remarking how bright the stars are at night.

Evelyn, a friend of the monastery, hid a smile and told me that was not a star.

It was a satellite. She proceeded to explain what a satellite is.

It went right over my head, I thought she made it all up.

Hence I was able to move with the flow which was not easy with a man like George.

No sooner were we back from Malaysia than we headed out to our new boat.

It was so hard.

I did not have time to settle back into my new life here.

And I was whisked off to Vancouver, British Columbia.

Then to Bellingham, Washington State where we took possession of the boat.

The other point about ignorance being bliss was concerning George.

It did not occur to me at the time that he actually knew very little about sailboats and sailing.

That would have been very unsettling.

He had a couple of trial runs off the coast of Florida.

Everything else he learned from books.

Fortunately for me, when we sailed from Bellingham to the San Francisco area, he hired a couple who knew what they were doing.

Jim and Ruth were wonderful seasoned sailors.

We did encounter a hard storm on that trip.

I huddled at the back bunk, waiting for it to subside.

The following morning, we woke up to a calm sea with the sun shining.

That did feel so unreal.

As also when the boat was in the middle of the ocean.

It was as though we were moving in a big bubble of water, going nowhere.

I was to learn when there is no horizon to gauge the distance.

That is how it appears to be.

I learned something else on that trip which is that I am not a sailor.

While I did not get seasick traveling in waters on the putt putting boat,

Or going from one town to another in a cargo ship.

I do get seasick in a sailboat.

It is miserable experiencing seasickness.

Because the only cure was to get back on land.

Hence it was heaven when we pulled into Crescent city and went to a restaurant.

“Here, take my keys and go get some supplies,” the waitress told us, throwing us her car keys.

I could not believe anyone would do something of that nature.

The two men went off to get more supplies while Ruth and I stayed to have our dinners.

Our final destination was at Emeryville where we stayed a couple of years.

Then it was to San Diego where we finally had the boat trucked to Texas.