Back in Trinidad

Kalunamoo is almost ready to splash in Trinidad for another season. We came back on board in mid-September shortly after our Mississippi River cruise. The weather was turning cooler in New York, but the hot and humid tropical weather in Trinidad lived up to its reputation. We have started our acclimation to the climate here (with the help of onboard a/c!), and so it feels like the start of another summer again.

Interior varnishing, a new anchor chain, new hatch gaskets, new on-deck cushions, and other minor items will be completed before we splash and spend two weeks “vacationing” at Crews Inn. By early November we should be heading north to Antigua. That is where we will fly back to New York for about 2 weeks for Christmas. But that is a ways off, so for now we will be back to our liveaboard cruising lifestyle.

The boat yards here are very busy this year, especially after Hurricane Beryl chased many boats down to Trinidad to escape the storm. That was a good choice as Beryl caused major damage in Carriacou and the Grenadines. The other thing we noticed is that each year the cruising community looks a little different. After eleven years, many cruisers we met earlier have either sailed away, lost their boat, sold their boat, gave up sailing or died. Of course, they have been replaced with many new cruisers but many with a different vibe than those they replaced.

This brought back memories of my days in Maritime College in the late 1960’s. This SUNY college trained future Merchant Marine Officers of which I was one. In my first year (as a mug) there was an old Norwegian sailor, I’m sure he had his masters license, as one of our nautical instructors. Capt’n Olson was his name, but everyone knew him as “Petey”. He was short and stout, but not to be tangled with. From what I understood he received his training on sailing ships.

He taught us the fine art of seamanship, starting with the salty language that should not be used in mixed company to the fine art of chipping paint on a steel hull. We climbed the metal masts of our training ship (an old WWII troop transport) slopping on white zinc coatings, red lead paint and washing our hands in diesel oil. Hanging over the sides in bosuns chairs or stages, splicing thick hawsers and wire rope, sewing canvas and bolt ropes, making baggywrinkle… all the things a future Merchant Marine Officer will never do. It was an arcane experience more to instill tradition and saltiness than anything else. But it had its affect. In four years, we would be on the bridge directing much older and perhaps more experienced crew members in the routines and maintenance of large ocean-going cargo ships. It was needed for the salty gravitas that the ocean demands.

The Don Streets, the Pardey’s and other cruisers from past generations demonstrated the way to experience recreational cruising in the same way as Petey did for cargo ships. But times move on, while technology lays its heavy hand on everyone. Bradley Cooper sang “maybe it’s time to let the old ways die”. In other words, the vibe of the old sailing salts have faded into the foiling aerodynamics of air-conditioned multihulls linked permanently to the AI of the future. If Jimmy Buffet was 200 years too late to be a pirate, maybe I was born too early for the modern species of cruisers.

And that explains why we chose a William Garden designed cruising boat. The 1970’s were the heyday of those “leaky teaky” full keel, heavy, bowsprited Formosa’s, Vagabonds, CT’s that evoke a bygone era (or was it error?). I fell in love with them when I was working for a steamship line that carried them from Taiwan and unloaded them in Hoboken NJ. Maybe it was before that. Remember the old TV show, “Adventures in Paradise”? That starred (for me), a John Alden designed schooner in the South Pacific. The boat was, an 82’ wooden boat but was one of five that the film company used, including a 102’ steel hulled “Tiki III” for filming. No matter. Who wouldn’t want to live on a boat like that? At the time, most of my friends.

In any case, years later Kalunamoo, that William Garden design ketch, became our home. It is as outdated as baggywrinkle and red lead paint. Fatty Goodlander once described these type of boats as being intentionally made as heavy as a steam roller and that they sailed almost as well. I’m insulted! I know we sail faster than a steam roller, but sometimes I wonder about those sea turtles gaining on us.

But the point, of all this, is the vibe of the cruisers, we have been meeting lately. Each year they seem younger, more energetic, (just wait till you get old!) and have watercraft that sort of looks like a boat. Many are actually still “working”. Having direct internet access anywhere, including in the middle of the ocean, “work from home” becomes a very broad description of what they are doing. Mostly, however, their future plans don’t include maintaining this lifestyle for more than a few years, or until they can sell their craft at cost. Yes, the vibe is different, can’t say for better or worse. I hope these cruisers, many off to round the world voyages, have the gravitas demanded by the ocean. That is one thing that does not change. I wish them safe voyages.

As my old instructor Petey would say, “Those &#!#*! swabs couldn’t &#!#*!% tie their &#!#*!% boots right even if &#!#*!%  &#!#*!% himself came down from &#!#*!% heaven to &#!#*!%  help them. Well, who really knows? Maybe the Ocean.