Driving Webb Chiles

There was a joke making the rounds in the Brezhnev era in the Soviet Union that came to mind Monday morning as I went out with author and circumnavigator Webb Chiles. The connection to a common-or-garden daysail may seem tenuous at best but it was a feeling I had all morning as I went on a modest boat ride with a man revered by sailors the world over for his fearlessness and ability to manage peril on the ocean. 

It seems President Leonid Brezhnev had a penchant for Western cars and he apparently imported many to his dacha (vacation home) outside Moscow where he would test them out. On this particular day he decided he wanted to take the wheel and he told his chauffeur to sink into the luxurious seat in the darkness of the rear of the limousine he had chosen to drive.  The gate guard saluted as rigidly as ever as the supreme leader of the Soviet Union rolled by.

"I just saluted the man who really rules the country" the guard told his colleague in high excitement. "Who is he, then?" his colleague asked. "I have no idea," the first guard replied. "But Brezhnev is his chauffeur."  

Somewhat to my surprise Webb agreed to go for a daysail with me, which is odd as a casual sail for Webb might involve a couple of weeks and a thousand miles, which seemed unlikely for us as we only had a morning at our disposal. What a morning it was! Sunny and warm with a light breeze and glittering waters outside the marina on Skull Creek. "I'll be the passenger," I told Webb because even though I enjoy sailing to undertake a task sitting next to a sailing legend might, I figured, break my last nerve. 

My friend Wayne sent me a message after seeing a photo of me out sailing: Judging by your man-out-of-captivity facial expression on Webb’s boat I’d guess maybe it was among your best birthdays?  

"Take the helm" Webb said in a tone that brooked no discussion.  I plunked my tightly sphincter bottom down where his rear had sat for thousands of miles between here and here by way of Darwin, Australia, and tried to concentrate on sailing. To make matters worse the creek is narrow and winding and the wind was at just the right angle to require the ultralight Moore 24 to tack and tack again. Sailors call it short  tacking as you buzz madly from one side of the channel to the other, trying to make each tack count while not running into shallow water and mud at the end of each leg.

"Watch the depth sounder and if it goes under twenty feet call out," was the first instruction. I felt a light trembling through the tiller as I sat next to my very agile 79 year old line handler and kept glancing at the depth sounder and trying to keep the sails full and drawing. "Point higher," he said and obediently I drove the boat closer the wind, closer at an impossible angle and of course the racer turned long distance  thoroughbred of a boat responded just fine. One had to assume Webb knows what he's talking about when he gives direction (!) and the ride became a wonderful series of swoops, occasionally heeled hard and sometimes riding flat and fast. It was tremendous fun.

As the depth sounder hit 19.9 we'd get ready to turn and I'd push the tiller away and lumber after it in the unfamiliar space. Webb leaped from side to side like a teenager hauling in the jib sheet and watching the situation develop as we sailed back and forth up the creek toward the sound. I have no photos of this section of the sail as it was a bit busy for poor old me, the least legendary helmsman in the history of Moore 24s, a boat which was built in Santa Cruz where I lived as a new immigrant. Also the town where I once delivered a pizza to George Olson, known as the "father" of ultra light sailboat design. I was young and paid for my VW van by working for  Pizza My Heart doing deliveries to the great and good around town which included famous names and hungry bored whores. That was a job with a few stories I should get around to one day. Anyway the former pizza delivery youth was now helming the world renowned sailor up the creek...and feeling nervous.

Lots of boats passed us, all under power many creaming bow waves and leaving largish wakes behind them. I kept my eye on little strings of wool attached to the foresail such that we were in the groove when the string flowed back horizontally showing clean passage of air over the sailcloth. That and watching the depth sounder kept me busy enough not to keep harking on who it was who was sitting next to me. A friend, yes, but in his element, and what an element it is. I was not wanting to let him down.

As the other boats passed us, sailboats using engines not sails, I had to wonder who among them was wondering who that famous sailor must be? They couldn't quite place him but he must at the peak of his sailing powers obviously, because no lesser a figure than Webb Chiles was his obedient crew!

On the way back from the sound Webb relieved me at the helm and replaced me with an electronic device that steers without human intervention, following the trend of grocery stores given to automating checkout cashiers thus eliminating the human touch. In this case he gave the human touch a chance to sit back and enjoy the surroundings which was considerate. He also deployed the electric motor that powered him in and out of harbors around the world. This is the newer Torqeedo, made in Germany, that replaced the original model he started with half way round. Nevertheless I looked at the modest little motor and figured it had been further on the water than I had and it still pushed us at walking speed. Webb sails, he doesn't motor boat.

Three hours after we started we were back and I allowed my crew to do the dreary work of disassembly and tidying up for me. Especially as he has done it a few thousand times and I had no clue where or how things went. The orange ring floating around the post is an innovation from New Zealand that allows you to tie the boat off  to a point that rises and drops with the tide. A very clever thought.

Many years ago I lived on a tubby little 20 foot sailboat  that I could stand up in and offered a surprising degree of comfort and sailing ability. I bought the Flicka for ease of sailing, as I wanted a boat easier to handle in Santa Cruz than the 30 foot Catalina I started out with. I showed the boat to my new wife in Ft Myers whence I had sailed and she took one look and said: cute but no. We lived on a spacious 34 foot catamaran with all amenities as a result. Webb's boat is so spartan inside I would balk at living aboard but he loves the life and the intimacy with the environment and the speed and ease with which the Moore 24 sails. I got a small taste of that and was astonished by her ability to point and to move at the merest suggestion of wind. It was a great sail and a superb birthday present. That and the autographed book which will be very helpful when things go wrong. Whatever van problems present themselves they will be as nothing compared to some of the issues he has dealt with and written about.

Webb lives in sight of the marina and he was quick to point out the short black mast as belonging to Gannet, the original after which we named our van Gannet 2. Webb was very complimentary about my sailing which was a bit of a surprise as I hadn't done any in years and I did get a bit of a twinge of nostalgia as we tacked up the channel in flat water and crisp sunshine. You may actually be a sailor he said, giving me a steely look. In my head I agreed I might be underneath the veneer of a van lifer!

Ah well, it will take a while for the warm glow to fade but we had traveling to do and Webb had people to meet. You don't circumnavigate six times and write a fair few books -LINK -without having to do interviews. One reviewer said if you aren't too fond of the sea read Webb Chiles and he will change your mind. He does have a rather seductive way of describing life at sea but I am van committed as I have a wife and dog to live with and no desire to start again.

What these two pictures show is Gannet 2 ( the 21 foot Promaster, not the 24 foot Moore- now you know) parked at a Walmart for the first time. The store on Hilton Head is surrounded by a pine forest and we found it to be the perfect place for tuna fish sandwiches and a full strength energy drink for the drive ahead. We had no intention of sleeping there which was lucky, because it was clearly sign posted: 

And the next picture doesn't look much different except it's three hours away, not counting freeway accidents which had us diverted all over the countryside for some more pleasant driving, in a national forest near Greenville, South Carolina. Fully pre-paid and reserved for us.

I found the place on the iOverlander app and followed up by getting the recreation.gov app (I am very Modern) and reserving a spot for a couple of nights. I wanted to expand our experience and learn by doing, how to handle all this up to date way of stopping and camping and it worked quite easily. Next time I will know we have the National Parks pass which entitled us to half price fees, from $5 a night to $2:50...and next time I won't cock up my times so we will only pay the $8 administrative fee once and not twice...Even at $26 for two nights it's not bad, even though it should have cost us half that! Layne was very forgiving. I promised, after the flogging stopped, I'd do better next time.

It is an organized campground but there are no hookups, just a few spaces occupied by empty trailers and tents, slightly weird and possibly reserved by hunters as this is the season, and a couple of pit toilets, the cleanest I've ever seen, and some trash cans. There is some traffic noise in the distance but if you saw me sitting here at the picnic table typing in the gentle autumn sun you wouldn't think this road trip to anywhere was a bad idea. Last night it went down to 45 degrees but our well insulated van was quite comfortable even when Rusty abandoned us and went to his own bed on the floor. By day it's 60 degrees and with no wind its warm enough for shirts only. I can do this non tropical stuff.

Rusty will need more time to adapt to a new world. He got nervous on the trails I tried to walk and pulled me back to the security of the van. We have a thirty foot tether for use in campgrounds and after a leashed walking circuit to inspect our immediate surroundings he sits in the sun on his tether  watching everything and not seeming to mind being tied up at all. It's as though being on a leash or tether gives him the secure feeling he needs. I expect by the time we get to Alaska he'll have morphed into a Jack London character and run like Buck.

Two nights here, a week with my sister-in-law in the North Carolina mountains and then we drive north for Illinois. Then back south, then at last we go west and take the Promaster where our camper van has never been before. I wonder if we'll sit in the desert and reminisce fondly about the forests of the southeast back when Rusty was a nervous van lifer?

57 Degrees Of Bliss

It might be reasonable enough to suppose that a life spent sailing and writing, and living by writing, is a life that merits no reward, the life itself being the payback for stepping outside the norm. You could also argue that Webb Chiles is a lucky man, and leave it at that. In driving to Hilton Head I was reminded of a quotation from the lips of Joseph Campbell, a philosopher Layne and I quoted endlessly to each other when we started out making ridiculous journeys together.

I am not given to religiosity or spirituality and I say that at the outset to dispel any quirky ideas about me in a world much too much given to  seeking cause and effect where there is none, and imposing comforting dogma in the face of uncomfortable empiricism. If you do travel a bit you won't find yourself saying everything happens for a reason in the face of worldwide misery and poverty and abject starvation. Human greed and fear are the reason for most of what happens in the world and the rest is happenstance, I believe. Thank heavens indeed for small pockets of kindness and generosity and thoughtfulness. Here is the story of one such, wisdom offered to to one much less wise.

In the face of all that, Joseph Campbell got on television in an era before reality TV was commonplace and he told PBS viewers to "follow your bliss." A dangerous admonition indeed, in a world devoted to the idea of freedom constrained by the demands of conformity. Campbell said it out loud, adding that if you follow your bliss doors will open where there were no doors before. Layne and I repeated that mantra to each other with increasing nervousness as we periodically threw off the shackles of conformity and prepared to do some other stupid thing.

Had we not sailed to Key West giving up a highly satisfactory life in California we'd never have found all the doors opening to us in our new lives. But open they did, and our life afloat had equipped us to take  advantage of the opportunities we preferred. And had the life in Key West not worked out I'd like to think we would have been flexible enough to find some other bliss to follow, some other path to pursue.

This piece of learned wisdom came back as a powerful reminder as we drove away from St Petersburg where Dale offered us a place to return to when we are done. If we want it a life awaits back in Florida tailored to us. Layne was enthused, not by the desire too settle down before we'd started, but by the proof that doors do open. It was a strange and surreal moment, the lessons learned in the past had reappeared and thus affirmed the correctness of our course. That Dale is an excellent companion and entertaining eccentric and a wildly successful businessman is all the more intriguing.

Do not be fooled into thinking that any of us were ready to settle down, and I'm not sure even Rusty would have voted to stop the journey, but the idea that the connection is forged was actually very much affirming our intentions to move. I should note that I discussed with Dale the possibility that in the event Layne and I die on the road he would fly wherever and rescue Rusty and deliver him back to Florida for a secure retirement with friends we trust to look after him. I know a lot of people would be happy to look after him but only Dale would enjoy a sudden flight to some improbable place to find a dog, pay a reward and get the mutt home. I drive much more relaxed knowing Rusty's future is sure.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that because of Webb I and therefore Layne (and Rusty) are here. From being in a state so broken I couldn't sit up, to being able to walk and keep up with the Junior Furry Explorer, I was acutely aware that life was now a second chance  for me and I had to do something with it. The thing I am best at is wandering which is no great skill in a world dominated by people being busy doing and building and shifting tons of money all over the place. It was Webb who suggested an alternative path.

Go to the edge of human experience he said and send back reports. Nowadays he likes to say beyond the edge, but the edge seems enough to start with. He has done this all his life, and he did it the old fashioned way, thinking and plotting first, then preparing then carrying out the plan and then sitting down and publishing the book that would pay for the next one. As plans go there was no retirement because as he himself puts it he felt it unlikely he might grow that old. And how do you retire from being yourself?

And yet through all the disasters and struggles he came through to a quiet anchorage properly married with a real address and nearby a dock with his boat and a climate suitable and an ocean nearby. Not bad for a man who followed a very personal bliss and set up no retirement plan of any kind. 

Sitting in the van with my fingers falling off from the cold, my nose frost bitten in a way I cannot remember from my life before Key West, I wonder wherein lies the bliss. My sisters sent me birthday wishes, a reminder we are all of us a year older and they are as settled as they have been all their lives, entirely content on their farms in their villages grumbling about their governments and their taxes and the weather and all the rest of it. Me? I'm sitting in a tin box voluntarily freezing to harden myself up pondering the fortunes of life 3,000 miles away. This is my retirement plan! 

We went out to dinner Saturday night to eat an Italian meal on a patio outdoors, properly dressed for the cold and under a heater. Webb entertained us with sailing stories which makes it sound as frivolous as a gameshow but the stories were real and recorded in books, and each of them steps along the way to a peaceful settled old age. 

He told of his time in a Saudi Arabian jail accused to plotting a terrorist landing by the simple act of mistakenly sailing onto a beach. He spoke of spending time with other prisoners and of time alone of interrogations and and uncertainty and despair. And out of it grows the certainty in my mind of the correctness of flowing your bliss.  

My wife and I hate the cold so he told of sailing round Cape Horn bailing his leaking boat, unable to plot his position owing to cloud cover and while wet and struggling he was living through a summer sail at temperatures hovering around freezing. He completed the journey and became the first American to sail alone around Cape Horn. Was it worth it? It was to him.

Imagine capsizing your boat in the South Pacific and being forced to drift downwind in your dinghy tied off to your half drowned mother ship. Had he missed the next island he would have had to drift 1400 miles to Australia taking six sips of water a day and hoping for the best. Does that sound blissful? I'm not cut of that cloth and as I sit in the van at my desk and look around at a comfortable bed with a dog sleeping stretched out on it, a fully equipped kitchen, my own fridge and all the accessories of a suburban home I know I'm not in the same league. But bliss is where you seek it. Webb sought his from a young age with a verve not many of us possess and yet he landed on his feet with time and a place to sit and think and share his world with a woman he loves. Pretty damn amazing frankly.

One can never tell what the result of choices will be, obviously, but the idea of feeling stuck has never appealed to me so even before I heard Campbell's quotation I followed my instincts in the face of much criticism and went where I was minded to... So far so good, but if Webb's example is  a template then I would dare to suggest that thinking too far into the future may not be my best bet. I'm guessing our bliss will get us where we need to go and I trust I shall be thanking the man who set me on this course as much then as I am now.

Link to Webb's site.

Link to National Sailing Hall of Fame.

(using my picture I'm pleased to say, taken in Marathon).

Dry Boating

Hilton Head, South Carolina

We had time in hand before I had to pull in at Webb's mansion snuggled under the live oaks of typical South Carolina plantation life, so I thought as I usually do on these occasions to walk my dog.  

The great inconvenience of travel at 60 miles per hour in a ten thousand pound van is that when a roadside possibility flashes by it takes a while for the brain to process, the mind to decide and the other traffic to get out of the ay as a sudden change of course becomes imperative. Eventually I slid into the left lane, made an uneventful U-turn and reversed course.

After another unmemorable and therefore successful u-turn I found the intriguing turn off and too to the dirt. Its not Rusty's first visit among out of state pine forests, when he was younger and more entrepreneurial he happily explored the banks of the St Lawrence River in Québec. No stranger to Canada I wondered why he was so leery of exploring these cool sunless woods with me.

My wife slept badly last night for some reason not disclosed so she took her taco blanket and made like her buddy Al Pastor and took a nap in the 72 degree van (outside temperature was a brisk 59).

I strolled with my camera not able to find much of interest...

...listeneing to the sounds of passing traffic, an endless flow...

...as I waited for Rusty to find his nerve and come running.

I expect that given time he will tear himself away from the security of his home on wheels but for now he likes to stick close to his familiar space. 

I have to confess much of this stop was to have been a chance to stretch my legs but I didn't get far!

I had noticed on the drive up the always busy interstate that there was a vast number of recreational vehicles of every RV type flowing south. We appeared to be bucking the trend and pretty soon I pointed out to Layne that it was remotely possible we might be doing something wrong. "Never," she replied with confidence so we kept heading north on I-95 and I pretended to ignore the southern flow of gaudy camping machinery of every sort. I think also the population of kayaks in the Sunshine State may be tripling next month judging by their rooftop popularity. Maybe you get a free kayak with every vaccination?

Eventually I took off by myself and around the first corner I found a wayward boat. Odd this I thought to myself eyeing its obviously dilapidated condition. I am on my way to visit one of the most famous sailors of the age and here is a stink pot high and dry and ignored for a very long time. As a road block, its apparent function I suppose it is effective strapped off to a tree, but I could have pulled it aside easily with the van's front winch...as a boat it appears past it's useful life. It was backed up by a no trespassing sign so I turned around, caught up to my distant dog and walked back to the mother ship.

The gloom of the gray day added to the atmosphere so we piled back aboard to the accompaniment of Layne's log sawing competition. She never knew what excitement she missed.

Adventure narrowly averted we fired up the V6 beast and aimed for an arrival dead on the proposed two o'clock hour. Definitely vans do better than boats on dry land though whether that can be claimed as an advantage depends on who's watching.

I shan't mention my theory to Webb a devoted adventure avoider and user of boats not on dry land but in water where they belong.

Imagining Mountains

St Augustine, I-95 Rest Area.

"Does it feel to you like this road is going uphill?" I asked my wife as we ploughed up Highway 318 somewhere between Ocala and Palatka. "I feel like we're driving up a mountain" she said sounding puzzled herself. Florida was playing tricks on us again. We keep thinking we know the state but somehow there are strange bits that look like many other places we might have been. The Highway was smooth and winding, and on the edges of the beams of light we could see nothing but trees. There was hardly any other traffic at eleven o'clock at night. Rusty was in his bed in the back, another long day under his belt. All was well but the road still felt weird. We drove on in silence. 

"This reminds me of the Upper Peninsula," Layne said. That was reassuring as it was reminding me of the time we got lost in Bosnia and kept meeting less and less reputable people along the road until our paranoia was wound up to screaming pitch. The Upper Peninsula of Michigan for the first time at night with nowhere apparent to stop (we were newbies back then) was also not a comforting place to be. To feel like that even momentarily in Florida was absurd. Night terrors are primeval even in a recreational vehicle. The road kept unspooling while I followed the blue line at a sedate fifty miles an hour. Drive as fast as you can stop is a good rule but even that attitude let me down recently in spectacular fashion. 

This is our route today, in daylight, easy enough and there be no dragons:

Eventually we drove into a lovely little town smothered by the night and empty except for a few speeding cars. Friday nights are quite sedate in  Palatka in October along the St John's River.  Based on a quick pass through once... It was midnight when we found our spot in a crowded rest area off the freeway which we joined near St Augustine. A quick walk for Rusty who was anxious to go to bed and we passed out. In the morning it was eight o'clock before Rusty started yawning and asking to take a look at the world outside.

Lots of dogs pass through rest areas so every dog has to take a slow pensive walk to check it out. I think I am more patient than most and let Rusty do his slow walking taking his time but I couldn't help but notice the cool fresh air. We needed no air conditioning at all last night. That's a first since I can't remember when. Lovely. 

I am looking forward to a couple of days with Webb, more friends after that scattered between Chicago and Pensacola, and then we head west into, if not new country at least they are places not seen in 40 years, places we each want to revisit. Its a slow start to a new life, passing familiar spots, seeing familiar faces, and its a good way to cast off. 

Me shivering and not minding. Florida filled with mountains. Rusty enjoying the van. Layne plotting recipes in her roomy kitchen. I heard from former colleagues at work and it was lovely. So much new in so much familiar. Lunch with Webb. Exciting.