Into the Wild

From Cape Sable, we made our way to the Little Shark River.  Okay, the name wasn't getting any points from me.  We would enter the river and then make a turn into a smaller canal to take us to the Shark River.

We found a good spot with protection from the newer upcoming winds (25+ knots) and set two anchors, both leading from the bow, but one forward and one aft.  This is called a Bahamian anchor and helps stabilize us when the current flow changes, as it does quickly and strongly in this river.

We settled in and sat topsides to watch wildlife.  We all want to see an alligator, but we may have to go into the mangrove cuts to do that.  What we did see were huge turtles, the kind of which I'd never seen before and can't even identify, because their heads would come up at a 45-degree angle while they got air and sometimes you'd see the shell, but never clearly enough to say for sure what kind of turtle you were seeing.

The guys had more luck with it than me, but I did see a few.  After the bugs settled in, more mosquitoes than noseeums, but pains nonetheless, we had to settle belowdecks.  As the sun set, flocks and flocks of different seabirds came in from the shore, most likely to settle at a lake about two miles further inland from us.  What a sight that would be in the evenings!

Today, as I write this, we have moderate winds and rain.  Still, Gary wants to take the dinghy out later on to check out the mangrove areas for that elusive alligator sighting. 

I've been close enough to them before when he and I were last here in the Everglades; we had rigged a sail into our new hard dinghy and were moving slowly through the mangroves.  After being eaten alive by the noseeums, we could hear the slow gutteral burps of the alligators on land.  They only came off land after we passed by, swimming back and forth across the canal behind us.  That was a good enough sighting for me and could last for the rest of my life.

But I saw Gary's face as we turned into these rivers and how excited he was to be getting away from people and back to nature.  We passed two sailboats on the way in, one tucked just inside the Little Shark and then further up, the Captain of another boat asked if we would be getting better holding further up.  We told him this was our first time here, but that we hoped to get a good spot.  When we woke this morning from little sleep because our anchor kept slipping (So, no, other Captain dude, the holding is not much better up here!), another sailboat had anchored quite a ways down this river from us.  Occasionally, a power boat goes by, one of those little open things where the guys are standing up holding onto the hand rails of the hard canopy top, going fast enough to kick up the waves.  Yesterday, we saw a couple in a powerboat wearing goggles just to drive.

The problem with coming back to nature is that you have to give up some control.  Weather is fickle and you have to bend to its will.  We have no technology out here; as we crossed over into no-cellular-zone, I got a call from my dad's house.   Answering, I got nothing.  I figured the phone was out, so I texted to let them know we'd not have the phone, hoping that we could still text.  But apparently, that text may have never gone through and so I worry.  We'll be three days without signal--I kept checking my phone at intervals during a 24-hour period thinking that maybe that "No Service" would change to three bars--no such luck.  

My dad and stepmother are both living with cancer and I worry there may be a problem.  Possibly a hospitalization, possibly worse.

Or maybe they were just wondering how we were doing; we don't talk on the phone a a lot, but I've got plans to see them when I go back home for a while next week.  I'm fearing the worst, but trying to keep the bad thoughts out of my head.  Trying to control my uncontrollable brain.  Trying to control the health of my family from so many miles away.  Trying to control this trip so that none of the passages are too risky.   In essence, living in the way humans have been for thousands and thousands of years; tightening the reigns as we go. 

This trip is a highly emotional one for me, doing something out of my comfortable bounds.  I have had high-anxiety days, which I have shared, and I'm always feeling a bit on edge, but that's who I am.  I hope I've conveyed that this trip has been life changing and that I've learned so much about what I can do with or without, like certain foods or daily showers or solid ground under my feet.

Glorious moments are too many and I sometimes dwell on the scary, bad times, but know that I've gained much more than I've lost here.  I'm excited to see how this will transfer to my life on shore again; what effects will be felt inside and outside. 

What Else Can Go Wrong? Well, Let's Just Say "SH*T Happens"!

A while back, I mentioned that we'd had some interesting plumbing issues.  When we first got the boat, we noticed an odor that got stronger when we used the head and so we've been working on finding the problem ever since.  According to my Women Who Sail FB site, this is not an unusual problem.

In our modern homes, we can choose to have toilets that are clean and convenient; you don't even have to know what the movement is like if you don't want to.  You just don't look and you flush it away, to be taken care of by someone else.

Well, on our boat, going to the head is an in-your-face experience, and for some, like our fearless Captain, that is the description of a literal explosion for him.

Docked in Stuart, we were expecting a good friend to visit in about an hour.  We had attempted a pumpout as we came in and it failed miserably as it seemed we had a clog in the outtake hose. 

The way a head works, or at least the way ours works, is that you do your business, then pump IN water from the outside to make the contents flushable, then you flip a switch, and pump the bowl dry.  From there, the contents end up in a holding tank, which for those of you with septic, is similar, but much, much smaller, and located right beneath our feet, rather than under a lot of dirt and fine-smelling green grass.  I would prefer the grass.

There is also an vent on the outside of the boat that allows airflow in and out of the tank.  You don't want to be downwind when that is in operation.

So, here we are, waiting for our friend, and Gary gets to the problem hose, which means opening up most of the galley sole and pulling things out and having the offending hose standing straight up in the air.  He'd biked to a local hardware store to get a plumbing "snake" to dig through the clog (most likely there since before we took ownership--so this wasn't even familiar poo he was dealing with). 

We'd put baking soda and vinegar down the outside hose to help break it up, but had not had much success.  But it seems that a lot of pressure had built up behind the clog, because when he finally broke through, the unfamiliar feces exploded all over the cabin and the Captain.  Needless to say, an epithet familiar with the toilet exploded from the Captain's mouth at the same time.

Great.  The clog was gone, but now we were expecting a visitor in minutes with unmentionable byproducts stinking up the boat.  The Captain worked quickly, though, and was able to, somehow without retching, clean up and put all the hoses back together in good time.

He changed clothes and went to the Marina office to check in; we'd been anchored out and on a mooring ball before coming into the docks, so we had to recheck in.

As he walked through the door, there was our friend asking for directions to our boat; it was perfect timing and she was able to enjoy a nice visit without a clue to what had just happened.

P.S. For your own good, I did not get pictures of this epic event.

Out of Left Field, I Know

From the time people started gathering in communities, control was a big part of the game.  Controlling tribes, controlling hunts, controlling harvests, controlling each other. 

The game is the same today; as soon as we are born, we are controlling.  Of course, as newborns, we have to be if we want to survive.  With our cute little crinkled faces crying for milk, we get the mama to move fast to satisfy our hunger. 

As we grow, we learn to control our parents even more, sometimes to a negative, but they are also controlling us.  They control our environments, our food intake, our clothing, our cleanliness, and our schooling. 

It's no wonder when we grow up and out of the house that we want to lose control for a while, but it is also no wonder that we tend to gravitate back towards that "control" for comfort and sustenance.

Sameness is safety.  It is also bland and flavorless, like food marketed to a population for convenience that bears no resemblance at all to a real food.  So, in essence, the control of our lives goes far beyond our insular family units.  We are bombarded each day by media and advertising and news whose sole aim is to control our way of thinking.  And I believe, because we've been stripped of power in the kitchen to the workplace or to the community or even our own free time, we are less for it and are not living to our potential and are a depressed society.

Variety is the spice of life, as the old saying goes, but how little variety do we really have in our lives?  Many days are spent identical to the one before that and the one before that.

Change is hard to accept and our bodies and minds sometimes fight very hard to keep it at bay.  We want comfort and stability and sameness; we don't want surprises and events that make us feel uncomfortable.

All that, which is based on my observations and humble opinion, bring us to our latest stop in our journey around the southern tip up the western side of Florida. 

We anchored just off shore of Cape Sable to stay in the shelter of land for the waves that would be more buffeting due to higher winds building during the day.  A part of the Everglades, the only activity allowed was primitive camping and day visits.  We spent a lovely time on the beach collecting shells, standing on the edge of the wild, and enjoying dolphins, pelicans, herons, and terns.  We also found burnt out campfires just over the dune and a beautiful mosaic spiral of shells done by some artful spirits.

A Flockly Gathering

The beautiful mosaic spiral made of shells

We found quite a few of these "party hat" shells

Standing on the Edge of Where the
Wild Things Are!

"What is that?"

Arty Shot of Nalani at Anchor at Cape Sable