Kandahar, AFG
The title of this post could just as
appropriately have been “The First Story Behind All These Stories”. How did someone who grew up in Hixson, TN,
and lived their entire life in landlocked locations (Chattanooga, TN; Atlanta,
GA; Ft. Rucker, AL; Knoxville, TN) come to the point of buying a sailboat and
cruising the Caribbean and beyond?
Let’s go back 18 or 19 years…..in the
spring of 1995 I was selected, i.e., “forced”
to go to the AH-1 Cobra Qualification, Instructor Pilot, and Instructor Pilot
NVG (Night Vision Goggle) Instructor Pilot courses. Back to back to back. Now, don’t get me wrong, I loved getting the
chance to go to the WATTS in Marana, AZ (Tucson) for about 2 months in the
springtime. Spring is the most beautiful
time in the desert; but, for several reasons, I just didn’t want to go. It really didn’t matter, I went anyway. I was my job.
J
In Army aviation, most of the time a
“schoolhouse” (Ft. Rucker; Ft.
Indiantown Gap, PA; WAATS at Marana, AZ)
Instructor Pilot was teaching/flying students, he was assigned two of
them. They were “stick buddies” (they took turns at the “stick” or controls opposite
the IP). One would fly for a period (an
hour or two) then the other guy would fly the next period. As it turns out, my stick buddy, from the
Pennsylvania Army National Guard, was named Jerry Lee. A great guy.
Couldn’t ask for a better stick buddy.
He was a little older than I was, lived in Western Pennsylvania, and
LOVED sailing. He lived near Pittsburg
so I don’t think he sailed a lot, but he had learned as a kid and loved
it. He and his family had taken a couple
sailing vacations in the Caribbean and he said his whole family enjoyed it more
than any other vacations they had taken.
All he talked about was sailing…all he read about was sailing….more
specifically, about cruising. His retirement goal was to circumnavigate the
globe on a catamaran. He had 15 or 20
Cruising World Magazines with him and he was constantly reading about other
people cruising the Caribbean and the Pacific on their live-aboard sailboats.
He was SO fascinated with his dream in life
that it was somewhat contagious. It was
only after a couple of weeks that I found myself curious about this “lifestyle”
of sailboat cruising. I started browsing
through the magazines to satisfy my curiosity and to cure my boredom (you get
sick of studying emergency procedures, aircraft limitations, visual illusions,
monocular cues, aerodynamics, aeromedical, etc., etc., after a while).
It didn’t take long for me to become intrigued
by the logs and stories of those cruisers in Cruising World Magazine. It was a fascinating lifestyle to someone who
had always loved the sun and warm weather, and always enjoyed the vacations to
Panama City Beach as a kid. Sailing was
a means to an end. Travel, tropical
weather, beaches, snorkeling, fishing, etc., these were the things I could
relate to, and had already enjoyed to some extent.
The more I read, the more interested I became
in Jerry’s goal. We talked a lot about
it; it was so real to him he could taste it.
It was still 15 to 20 years away, but it had him hooked. Hooked bad.
But, this was good for me. It
gave me a chance to pick his brain, learn a little about the dynamics of sailing,
and he gave me a few pieces of valuable advice.
He told me to research and learn as much as I could about sailing on the
internet; read all the cruising logs and articles about cruising that I could,
and to take a vacation to the BVI (British Virgin Islands) chartering a
bareboat sailboat. Bareboat, for my
non-nautical friends, means without a crew or skipper. They rent you the boat for a week or so, and
you are the skipper and those with you are the crew.
So, that’s what I ultimately did. After a year of internet research, learning
everything I could about sailing, we chartered a catamaran and had the time of
our lives. LOVED IT. HOOKED FOR LIFE. After that, we went almost every year……. for
10 days, 2 weeks, 3 weeks, and then, the last year we chartered, we went for a
whole month.
Being a pilot helped tremendously in
understanding the fundamentals of sailing; being familiar with a compass,
time-distance-headings, dead reckoning, aerodynamics (a sail is an airfoil) ,
operating navigation equipment, etc., gave me a head start. But, any reasonably intelligent person with a
real desire, even without pilot experience,
can learn…..if they really want to.
There are lots of stories of people with no sailing experience, becoming
interested, learning to sail (or teaching themselves), and buying a boat with
the ultimate goal of cruising.
Jerry Lee was the spark that started the
cruising fire within me. We lost touch
years ago…..the last time I tried to contact him was 7 years or so ago, and he
was deployed to Kosovo. I need to try to
find him and talk…..who knows, maybe he is on that catamaran circumnavigating
as I write this. I hope so. He deserves it.
