Back Onboard: Acclimating, Adjusting and Practicing
Dear Honorary Loopers,
As promised, this Loop Letter describes our transition back to life onboard Affection and the start of this year’s section of the Loop. But first, some context: what exactly is it we’re doing, back on Affection?
Last year, we cruised north from Florida up the East Coast and the Hudson River, then through the Champlain Canal to the St. Lawrence River, the Ottawa River and the Rideau Canal. We visited Montreal, Quebec City, Ottawa and Kingston, exploring the eastern end of Lake Ontario and the Thousand Islands.
This year we envisioned exploring all five Great Lakes, but that’s too ambitious, especially in the short boating season remaining. So we’ve scaled back to just two: Lake Ontario and Lake Erie.
Here’s our best guess at an itinerary:
- July 16-August 8: Thousand Islands, then follow the north shore of Lake Ontario around to the west to Toronto, Ontario (we just completed this part).
- August 8-19: Florida, for the MusicFor Americas Summer Strings festival throughout South Florida.
- August 19-September 3: Back to Canada, from Toronto southwest to the Welland Canal and through the Canal into Lake Erie.
- September 4-8: New York, for our friend Randy’s son’s wedding.
- September 8-October ??: back to Lake Erie’s southern shore, until we run out of good weather and have to put the boat into winter storage again.
This itinerary is aspirational, as we are very familiar with everything that can go wrong with plans. The less we plan (a boat in this marina is named “Listless” – a worthy goal!), the more open we can be to the serendipitous joys found along the way. These joys, spontaneous and surprising, are a reliable antidote to the pain, sadness and stress that is too much with us too much of the time.
Back to our reunion with Affection… During the first few days back onboard, I realized several things:
I needed to acclimate
During our ski trips this winter, I observed how my body responded to the high altitude (compared with coastal Florida), needing more naps and feeling dehydrated and a little headachy. When I got back onboard Affection, I noticed similar changes in my body after almost ten months of landlife. I was getting more tired after a day’s climbing up and down the boat stairs, and needed more naps. I also noticed less secure balance; I needed to pay more attention to walking on narrow finger piers.
My mind took longer to adjust than my body did
Flying somewhere brings us there incredibly fast (regardless of delays and cancellations), but only my body really arrives when the plane lands. My mind takes days longer to settle into being in the new location.
During the flight up to Syracuse I entered a state of suspended mental animation: I paused all thought about the upcoming reality, and just vacated mentally.
That meant the two-hour car trip from Syracuse to Alexandria Bay was crucially important. That’s when I actually started to travel to the boat mentally, in a gradually unfolding process.
First, I noticed things around the car, like the strangely orange sun and the “Poor Air Quality: Limit Outside Activities” sign by the highway, caused by the Canadian wildfires.
Then, as the farms and forests unfurled along the road, my mind detached from what I saw and I started to think about what was coming next.
I imagined the boat – would it still be on land when we arrived, or would it be in the water? Would there still be mechanics climbing on and off as we started unpacking our bags and boxes?
And finally, as we got closer to Alexandria Bay, I began to anticipate the pleasure of being reunited with the “friendlies” onboard, the various souvenirs that have woven their way into daily life onboard, the nautical clothing that sat in the hanging lockers and drawers while we lived on shore.
I needed practice in just about everything
I used to play the piano. Now I stumble through once-familiar patterns, having lost my muscle-memory. Similarly, since July 16, almost daily I was surprised by realizations: “I used to know how to drive a boat/lasso cleats on a dock/empty the heads/prepare the cabin for rough water.” Luckily, the thought progression continues: “I used to know what to do… didn’t I write it down? Surely I did, so it must be in a file somewhere… Where would that file be?” Then comes a flash of self-congratulatory brilliance: “Oh, wait, I remember – I created a binder of checklists and SOP’s, and I know just where it is!” Saved!
Of course, the SOP’s only take me so far – I still need to practice the skills. These first few weeks have been our shake-down cruise, when every day brings another “first.” Both Jeff and I have forgotten things, made mistakes, and been saved by coincidence, timing and grace. Happily, the boat is still afloat and we’re both still in one piece. Jeff’s shoulder is, to all intents and purposes, completely healed. So the shake-down cruise has been a success.
It must be admitted that not everything was perfect when we got to the boat, and for the first week, the mechanics continued to come to the boat every day to finish, redo, and even (finally) start some of the many tasks on Jeff’s list from last October.
Just like in construction projects, there was a punch list, some small (and some rather large) things left undone. On the first day’s cruise from A-Bay to Clayton, NY, further upstream on the St Lawrence, some new things went wrong, providing more opportunities for full employment for the mechanics. Even after we bade them a final farewell, new opportunities for fixing things have arisen – it’s still a boat, after all. But nothing has been life-threatening, and so far everything’s been fixable (and got fixed) – an excellent beginning.
After two weeks of acclimating to life onboard our beloved floating home, now I can start to focus more on the delightful details of this voyage. Stay tuned!
Love Judy