Arrivals and Departures

Marathon, Florida
No LL

Today a weather window opened up and a lot of cruisers departed Marathon. I think that's always exciting. While we've been here we have observed arrivials and departures from/to: Bahamas, Florida East Coast, Florida West Coast, Texas, Mexico, Guatamala, Belize, Honduras, Panama and Beyond, Virgin Islands, Trinidad, ABC Islands, US East Coast, Canada, Denmark, Luxembourg, Belgium, Germany, France, Cape Verde Islands, England, Australia, New Zealand, Cape Horn, Alaska, and Bermuda.

The exciting part is that every one of those boats is setting out for an adventure at sea. It is the journey, not the destination that excites sailors. We wave goodbye to those departing, but then we often get to follow their progress via SSB radio or by blogs. In that way we all share a little bit in everyone's adventure.

There is a definite hierarchy of pecking order among sailors. Lowest are live-aboards who never go anywhere, then day sailors, then long-distance cruisers, then live-aboard long-distance cruisers (like us), then ocean-crossers, then circumnavigators. At the very top of the pyramid, in my humble opinion, are Larry and Lin Pardey. They are the authors of numerous books. The Self Sufficient Sailor is the Pardey book I read immediately before deciding to live my life as a cruiser. If we count deceased sailors, then of course Joshua Slocum is the grandaddy of us all.

People with racing interests may put the Americas Cup sailors at the top of the pyramid.

Anyhow, one of the reasons why we like places like Marathon and Vero Beach is that we get to rub shoulders with other cruisers. Many are like us, on the same rung of the status ladder, but others are above us and below us. We take great pleasure in offering help and advice to those on lower rungs and accepting help and advice from those higher.

Speaking of circumnavigators, I recently heard the best execuse ever for sailing around the world. One of the locals here sailed around the world three times. Someone asked him, "I understand once. I can understand twice. But what motivated you to sail around the third time?" He laconicly answered, "I was in Aruba and I wanted to go to Trinidad. The wind was blowing the wrong way."