Feb 15

Feb 15 Journal: Nautical Notes, Part I

I’m not what you’d call a big boater, but heaven help me... I married one. While he enjoys to tinker by day on any kind of boat — figuring out the fiddly bits, talking to five or six people about said fiddly bits, finding the closest chandlery to buy new and extravagantly priced fiddly bits — I prefer a more passive role. Aboard ship our roles are as defined as a conventional 1950s marriage. The Venn diagram of our shared responsibilities as slender as the Turkish moon that hangs over the bay. And so aboard ship he putters endlessly and gives me free license to just... be.

Which includes my favorite, favorite thing. For me, the very best part of living on a boat is waking up early and having it all to yourself as world wakes up and night lifts. The water is glasslike and all is still and all is quiet, until the birds sing their very first songs of the day, and the fish begin to jump. No matter how warm it will be at noon, now the air is chilled, but the coffee is hot and delicious (it is a well known and extensively documented fact that everything tastes better on a boat). Eventually you realize you are not the only one awake in the marina as a fishing boat glides silently out of the bay, for no matter where you are, there are people who dearly love to fish. For all the myriad of complexities of boating, there is also something so beautifully elemental. There is your vessel and there is water. There is sand and there is surf. And there is night and there is day, and for a few quiet moments what lies between...