Sailing Versus Vanning

I have seen the wistful look in the eyes of overlanders staring out to sea from a sandy campsite. It’s hopeless but I try to dissuade them from the idea that sailing might be a better lifestyle. Sailing has all the romance of piracy; vanning is just commuting extended.

My wife got on board with my idea to sail to Key West, seen here near the entrance to the Panama Canal a few weeks  before  the  end  of  the  US administration. 
Van Life twenty years ago was not what it is today with  modern technology offering, for good or ill, connectivity and many of the comforts of home. You can now cram a home into a van and still live a suburban life on the road. Twenty years ago a boat offered the independence travelers ashore only dreamed of enjoying. We took full advantage on a 34 foot catamaran which gave us and our two dogs four times the living space of our 2020 Promaster van. The Internet was found in cafes and we sent emails occasionally. GPS navigated uncertainly on expensive charts downloaded to a laptop with all the inaccuracies of two hundred years of  sun sight navigation to back up their pinpoint accuracy…We had a solar panel and a desalinator onboard and we watched where we went. 

Faced with a retirement plan we naturally thought of a boat first. But we rapidly realized Rusty hates the water and the thought of dealing with taking him ashore twice a day held very little appeal. Beyond those family considerations a boat would have offered us limited destinations which sounds like a paradox when water covers the vast majority of the Earth’s surface. You get to sail the edges of land if exploration is your choice and anything beyond Central America or the Caribbean Basin requires some serious pelagic sailing. I don’t see Rusty becoming an oceanic dog. 

I am not much given to over estimating my abilities and I knew that taking my wife and dog by boat on offbeat routes would increase my stress levels proportionately reducing my enjoyment. I am not Webb Chiles and lack his ability to face a watery grave with equanimity. Worse, I lack the desire to drown Layne by over estimating my desire to explore by water. On land I am ready to push my family to the limit. I myself am perhaps a paradox. Many people think driving Mexico is foolhardy and perilous. Perhaps sailing an ocean where people don’t reside would be safer. 

I fully accept that driving a van requires less skill and is obviously less romantic than being a 21st century  sailor on the high seas. However I love driving and at the rather ripe old age of 64 I have come to accept that I am more explorer and less sailor. I enjoy the ability to drive into a town, an archeological site, a park, a forest or a sandy beach and there park my home. My van takes me to the very doorstep of civilizations new to me. 

As a tool for exploration a boat is magnificent in the right hands (not mine) but for me leaving the boat on the coast to rent a car for an inland drive was always a source of expense and trepidation. I hated leaving my boat unattended. We did it several times with no harm but it was just one more concern for a worry wart like me. And I loved the driving! I remember the drives with fondness. I should pay attention to my feelings. 

There is the matter of being at sea. I never felt at one with the business of sailing. Webb loves the isolation and the freedom of sailing an ocean.  I don’t. I discovered, and it was a good thing to discover, that I liked arriving. I enjoyed the process of discovery, going ashore and finding my way in a new town behind the harbor. I liked arriving and finding a superb anchorage which is no way to sail. 

When I was a youngster I lived in the Santa Cruz harbor and it was my world. I had friends and a hobby, and vacations involved nothing more than untying my little boat and taking off to explore the California coast. California is easy as winds and wind direction are predictable and the chance of running aground is nil on such a deep sharply defined coast. I got cold in the summer fog and I struggled to pilot the dark coastline as I poked here and there looking for a breakwater. It was fun but it wasn’t traveling. 

In the Caribbean and the US east coast I had to study weather patterns and look for windows and when we put to sea I lived with a knot inside that only slowly unraveled as the weather held and we completed our passage. The times I got it wrong we got beaten up and I never got used to the sensation of total loss of control in howling winds and huge seas. I don’t have those worries in my van.

I’d rather be in here wishing I were out there, than out there wishing I were in here is a sailor’s ditty I used to think of every time I planned a departure from a safe harbor. I enjoy sailing and I think I am reasonably proficient at it. I had the nerve to sail with Webb once and he pronounced me fit for purpose which was quite the ego boost. But living the nomad life in a van suits me best and I’m not bad at parallel parking either. 

I think sometimes I disappoint people when I say quite firmly I prefer the 21 foot van to the 34 foot catamaran but it’s the truth. I am already looking forward to driving the coast to Seattle even as I enjoy hanging out in Santa Cruz. The passage I am finding is the thing in my GANNET2. The harbors in my van life are secondary and that must mean I am doing something right, for me at least. 

Vive La Difference as Webb the sailor emphasizes.  So I am a van lifer first and a hobby sailor second. I hope that doesn’t disappoint.  

Santa Cruz

I have a habit of over thinking, and never more so than when I am in Santa Cruz, California. 

The beauty is undeniable, a town where the hills roll down to a spectacularly indented, foamy coastline. There is a university and with that there is a community of astonishingly diverse cultural influences. The farmers’ market yesterday offered us Ethiopian, Uzbek, South African, Mexican,Vegan and Jewish cuisines,

And fresh fruits grown locally,

And the usual musical accompaniment: 

All of which is normal summer activity across North America. People are doing this everywhere. 

Santa Cruz prides itself on not being normal, it is one of those stars in the constellation of “keeping things weird” which includes Portland, Austin, Boulder and Taos among many other western cities. It’s a city of contrasts and contradictions that was that way in 1982 when I came as a foreign student and it still is today. Perhaps more so. 

Layne settled here after graduating the University of California, Santa Cruz campus as so many students have done.        She was a lawyer defending homeless protestors and murderers and came to realize she wanted another trade. Teaching adults in Key West suited her much better. Plus she got a pension. 

I grew up here if you count being a 24 year old neophyte at life as being a human that needed to grow up. I learned to eat ethnic food here, I watched movies on the big screen, I learned the drug culture was not for me and I fell in love repeatedly with numerous unsuitable women. They were I am sure worthy but they were not right for me. It was a long and painful lesson. I walked the streets with much silly youthful despair. Night and my Minolta camera with black and white film were my consolation. 

I lived in a boat and rode a bicycle. Dogs aren’t allowed to live in the harbor to this day so my camera was my companion. I sailed my boat,

I drove my Volkswagen bus to the mountains or Mexico for vacation. My wheel has come full circle. 

Santa Cruz is a town that has stayed the same and has transformed radically depending on how you view it. I have done the same.

Once upon a time I read the news on KUSP a community radio staffed by eccentrics and geniuses and then I took up a better job in Key West telling the cops where to go on the radio, a sensible job that paid well and liberated me into dignified retirement. A job I held with skills painfully learned in my California apprenticeship. 

Santa Cruz lives it’s own struggle between common sense fighting geriatric idealism, multi million dollar homes versus filthy homeless encampments and the tedium of lost dreams and hopeless romanticism. 

And some of us, the smart ones, drift through enjoying the beauty and ignoring the chaos. But I’m not as smart as my dog. 

The Most Expensive Hamburger Ever

The shtick is that the place is isolated, as though the high cost is caused by the ground  meat being trekked in by yaks, it isn’t as I saw the banal refrigerated truck idling as it unloaded. The view they say is superb and they aren’t wrong:

But $23 for this sandwich…(the fries are $8 extra and the soda $5.50):

I have no idea if it’s worth it but I’d return for another bite at Nepenthe in Big Sur. Our expensive lunch was throughly enjoyable. And by the way the most expensive burger I’ve heard of is a foie gras burger offered in a faddish Las Vegas eatery at $5000. Thats not for me. 

Whatever you think of the place and the ideals of the founders, it is hugely successful at sucking tourists like us to lunch. As for the isolation  it’s just an hour south of Monterey, on a winding coast road boasting lovely spectacular views.   

Nepenthe was the goal when we left San Simeon bound for Santa Cruz half a day north. Layne had it all worked out for us to arrive at opening time, 11:30am. Washburn Campground did the job we needed  by giving us a place to sleep close to the start of the epic drive and by 7:30 Rusty was walked so we decided to go drink coffee at the water’s edge with a better view than this:

The first decent pull out we saw was just south of San Simeon and the entrance to Hearst Castle. Layne said we had to leave by 9:45 to make lunch before lines got too long at Nepenthe. We exercised, drank coffee and walked Rusty who has decided he likes California and it’s cool fresh air. 

Then we drove up the coast to see how Big Sur has changed since last we were there. Not much it turned out. 

If ever you decide to drive Big Sur you are looking at a mere 100 miles of California State Highway One and at no point are you going to be lost in a wilderness. There are villages, grocery stores and gas stations along the way. It’s not just the hamburgers that are overpriced so  if you decide to buy gas on this coast you will deserve all the pain they mete out to you. Go prepared. 

Go prepared to see gorgeous scenery  in a place where government has prevented development and unspoiled mountains actually do plunge into the sea. There are some ranches and a few private homes in addition to campgrounds and hotels but most of the time the land appears undisturbed. 

This is probably as good a place as any to drive a convertible. The Pacific Ocean brings ice cold water down from the Arctic and as the land heats up the cool ocean air is sucked up the hillsides so the moisture helps redwoods survive this arid location and gives humans a form of outdoor air conditioning. It looks like a hundred degrees but it was barely over 60 on this pleasant July Monday morning. 

Choosing not to drive the weekend was a critical decision too, thus  avoiding heavy traffic and massive crowds. As it was I pulled over every now and again for the inevitable faster vehicles but there are lots of turn outs and vista points to make that easy. Mostly we drove on our own. It was serene and pleasant. 

Cyclists ride Big Sur but few trucks tear up the road surface so the highway is quite smooth for cars and a few motorcycles patient enough to follow slower vehicles. 

It’s always a good idea to check  for road closures as slides are commonplace. Winter storms dislodge the mountainsides and the highway can be closed for months at a time. 

Currently one of the connecting roads to the interior, a lovely collection of curves and scenic views called Nacimento-Fergusson is closed for an indeterminate time. Summer fires burn plants that help hold the dirt in place then winter rains wash the whole mess downhill. 

But through all this you get to drive and see some spectacular views. And yes gasoline is costly but the trick is to separate the return on investment from the cost. If you only know the cost of things but not their value you will deny yourself these and similar pleasures. 

Of course there were already people in line when we arrived at Nepenthe but we waited only ten minutes for our outside seating. 

Restaurant time for us equaled van time for Rusty and he was glad to get out and sit for a while after we got back. There was a Volkswagen couple picnicking next to us which struck me as odd. There are much more scenic spots to enjoy than a restaurant parking lot. Good enough for Rusty…good enough for them. 

The rest of the drive was more of the same, arguably more spectacular but it’s not an argument I’m willing to make. The whole drive is lovely, far more enjoyable than my photos can express. I’d like to spend a day by myself stopping anywhere I felt like with my camera to enjoy the views properly. 

You could do the drive in three hours and settle down for lunch at Cannery Row in Monterey or you could take two days by stopping in the middle with a reservation prepared well in advance and stay at a romantic inn or an eye poppingly  expensive private campground. You can put as much or as little as you want into experiencing Big Sur. 

You can’t sleep overnight in the turn outs. They let you use them all day long but overnight is not on. Who checks and when I know not but the fine is said to be $250. We could have turned around in Carmel and driven back to Washburn Campground for a full day of driving followed by a night of cheap sleeping but we had a moochdock to get to in Santa Cruz.   

The village of Big Sur itself is a little inland, a river with some campgrounds, both state and privately operated, and a few inns restaurants and stores including a gas station. But this point along the road is to me the least interesting: it looks just like any mountain village in inland California. The spectacular ocean is out of sight and mind hereabouts. 

To me the restless ocean is the draw. We got there on a day with no wind and the mighty ocean was flat and smooth. The water heaved on the rocks and spewed white foam indiscriminately against the shore. It’s always glorious to watch from a comfortable distance! 

I’ve sailed Big Sur a few times, sailing south pushed by the near constant northwest winds while motoring north hoping for flat days like this. It’s a long haul at walking pace and it takes all night to get past the empty forbidding coastline. The experience of boating here I think enhances the landlubberly experience of  driving the coast road. I’m glad I’ve done it, and without adventures or mishaps. But it is cold and damp at night on the water in the sea fog all by yourself in the pitch black…better by van! 

Big Sur - the big empty area of the south as it was known to residents of the Spanish capital of Monterey in the 17th century- lives by its reputation as a bohemian hideaway , a chic artistic locale full of history and art and historic artists who chose to live here. Nowadays of course it’s a chic destination for people with money and means. There are a few homes for sale but construction is practically outlawed. So naturally it’s not affordable for ordinary people. 

However Big Sur was discovered in the early years of internal combustion and the isolation of the time made living here not only affordable but private. Writers and painters and photographers all played their part in making Big Sur famous. There’s still the Henry Miller Library open to the public. Ansel Adams and poet Robinson Jeffers lived in Carmel and Jack Kerouac visited friends in Big Sur and wrote of driving there in his book titled Big Sur. His drive was rather more hallucinatory than our staid journey as you might expect. 

There are art galleries and artists in residence and all the paraphernalia of patronage but Big Sur is a tourist destination with the authorities estimating six million visitors a year with 1500 people living there year round. It’s great drive. 

I’ve added a few pictures from our time last winter driving Highway 200 on the Michoacán coast. Just like Big Sur, we cried out nostalgically. Somewhat similar perhaps: 

Funnily enough having driven the real thing I do see similarities but beyond that superficial physical similarity I see a connection to Big Sur’s past, in the sense that the Michoacán coast hasn’t yet been properly discovered. It’s much wilder and emptier. 

It suffers from a terrible reputation for violence owing to past drug dealer turf wars. Nowadays the reputation remains but on the ground the country is at peace. We stopped for lunch here at a cost of maybe $14 for mediocre fish and glorious views. All to ourselves! 

I am tempted to wonder which artists will set up shop here isolated and inward looking producing great art that will draw the faithful. It’s an interesting idea to me: perhaps I have visited the Big Sur of this new century! 

Yeah. I know. We’d rather pay seventy bucks for familiar surroundings and I’d happily do that again. But I am sorry I missed out on the intriguing past of early exploration and settlement of this rugged and no longer isolated California coast.