So I’ve been missing sailing in between being busy and not having the weather for it, and with Christmas now intruding on our time (yes, yes, I’m a veritable Scrooge, I know) I didn’t figure we’d be getting in any sea time for a couple of months. But it turns out that the Christmas travel season may well prove to be a good stand-in for a good, brisk winter sail.
Our destination this year was Phoenix, where the family had agreed during balmier days earlier in the year to gather at my sister’s place to celebrate the holidays. It seemed like a good idea at the time; after a few months of drizzly, miserable Pacific Northwest fall and winter, the perpetual sunshine of central Arizona seemed a soothing balm, even if palm trees aren’t exactly a substitute for a nice, plump Douglas Fir in the living room. It turns out, however, that Phoenix is gripped in a wet, frigid winter of its own, and the lows here have been lower than those in Seattle, even though Seattle itself is unseasonably cold. It turns out the combination of cold and the deprivations of holiday travel are a lot like off-season sailing.
It started with the flight down. The unpredictability of arrival times is a staple of the sailing life, dependent as we are on wind and tide. Airplanes generally do better, but this time out, we found ourselves spending an extra hour in the air, courtesy of a nasty thunderstorm parked over Sky Harbor just around the time we were supposed to be landing. Even better, we spent the time orbiting the periphery of the storm, with lightning flashing out the windows, rain spattering the windows, and Mandy slowly turning green beside me as the plane bounced around in the unsettled air. I started getting flashbacks… it was just like crossing the Strait of Juan de Fuca!
She managed to keep her lunch down, but the misery was eerily similar to certain sailing experiences we have had. Maybe the whole sailing experience need not actually involve sailing! This was an exciting thought, though I admit I had difficulty concentrating while trying to pry her fingernails out of my arm after touchdown. After all, the better parts of sailing are frequently when the actual sailing bit is finished. Basking about the anchorage in the sunshine, drinking wine at sunset in the cockpit… or even just drifting once the wind dies in the vast, scenic spaces. These are usually the foundations of our fondest memories, and the idea that one might build upon them without the actual strain and penury of boat ownership was a novel concept to contemplate.
The possibilities were further impressed upon me when I went to shave the first morning after our arrival. As is often the case aboard, where shaving is a less-than-frequent occurrence, it developed that I had forgotten to pack any shaving cream. And so, just as if I were aboard Insegrevious, I was forced to improvise a lather out of what soap happened to be available. In this particular case, it was my grandmother’s “Berry Breeze” hand soap, which filled the role admirably, although I smelled faintly of strawberries for the rest of the day.
Navigation, too, has been a replicable challenge. Though the signage is somewhat better, the vast, open desert proves as constant as the waves on the ocean, undulating slopes of cactus receding into the distance in every direction, with no particular clues as to which way is north. And if you do figure out what direction you need to head in order to reach your destination, you are thwarted instantly by the oppressive Phoenix traffic, just as the Sunday exodus of cruise liners and cargo ships parading up Puget Sound can force one into undesirable tacks for extended periods.
Have I found the perfect replacement for cold, expensive, off-season sailing? Well, probably not. For one thing, the sun came out today and it almost hit sixty degrees. That’s just too warm… I nearly broke a sweat. For another, it’s not nearly expensive enough. Airline tickets just can’t compete with shredded sails and shorted-out marine electronics. Still, it may be something I have to experiment with for a few years to rule out entirely. You can’t just form a solid opinion in one trip. Maybe Arizona in the winter isn’t a bad replacement for Puget Sound cruising!