I am an old man, and I have known many troubles, but most of them never happened - Mark Twain.
I had thought (because I hadn’t really thought about it properly) that deciding to go off on an adventure would mark the end of my worries. I pictured GB-SUE flying a beautiful spinnaker she doesn't possess, slicing through the ridges and furrows of foam-topped waves whilst I, reclining against the aft rail and steering with my foot, lay bathed in honeyed sunlight fixed with the joyous sensation of time spent well.
Instead my worries are like serried ranks of Space Invaders descending towards me. As I neutralise each one, another comes from behind to take its place. Liquidate that one in turn and a whole new line appears - this time moving a little faster, and making it harder to draw a bead.
Money is an obvious one to start with. Not simply, ‘Do I have a sufficient supply?’, but also, ‘Can I pay my tax bill?’ and, ‘Can I pay the one after that?’
I also spend time considering, ‘What (or who) should I take with us if we have to abandon ship 200 miles offshore?’ and, ‘Can we tow the life-raft with the dinghy?’ And also, what is the Spanish for – ‘Exhaust Elbow’ or the French for - ‘Listen Jean-Paul, if you had any idea what I have had to put up with over the last 24 hours you wouldn’t be bloody telling me I can’t park here.’?
I worry that we haven’t planned enough and then I worry that we’ve planned too much. I try to picture what it will be like when we’re out there, and then I worry that I have no idea what it will be like when we’re out there.
I worry that I will forget how to calculate tidal rise (or fall) – that we will sail onto a rock, or a sandbank, or into the path of the Emma Mærsk. I worry that the sails won’t go up, or come down, or that the halyard will part, requiring Spaniel to make an ascent of the mast in a heavy swell. I worry that the winch will jam whilst she is up there – leaving her suspended 40ft in the air like a human pendulum, and leaving me with little option but to drink medicinal beers and recline contemplating the situation with my eyes closed in an effort to think up a solution...
Spaniel doesn’t have these worries. She has little patience with my troubles and tells me that by constantly going around in circles over the same concerns I take much of the enjoyment out of the small amount of planning we are doing.
I worry that I am diminishing her enjoyment of the small amount of planning we are doing.
So far none of my worries have materialised. I had assumed that by undertaking extensive research on every aspect of what I thought we might plan to do I would release myself from worrying about it. The opposite is true. I realise now I need to do less research, not more. It’s a control issue. I am trying to have control over something that by definition is uncontrolled. It is futile and self-defeating and tiring to try – like attempting to reason with an infant or an environmentalist.
Mentally letting go of something that preoccupies is very tricky. The moment I realise I have forgotten about it the brittle scaffold of nonchalant unconcern collapses in a heap and I am back where I was, fretting about my inability to stop worrying about it. Sometimes I wonder how many levels of nested recursion I can reach. What if I worry about my inability to stop worrying about my inability to stop worrying about worrying? Is there a theoretical limit to this type of mental knot-tying? I wonder whether to put the question to Spaniel – and congratulate myself on how wise I have become when I decide against it.
Letting go...
I realise that there are parallels between my reluctance to let go and the letting go we commit to when we embark upon adventures like this. Spanner is happy to cast off her bow lines and blow with the wind wherever it will take her (as long as it’s in the general direction of Ramsgate). I feel we should have a detailed passage plan that covers each potential eventuality. I am fearful of what I don’t know. S. is different – she is interested to see what lies beyond the limits of each blue horizon. Her freedom to embrace experience is exciting to me – being so different to my own natural state.
I start from a position of liberation and move towards entrapment. For me the ultimate liberty occurs when an idea is first proposed. This trip came about as we were travelling home from Epidavros, on a coach. As we motored through the Greek countryside and across the Corinth Canal, returning to our other life seemed such a pointless waste of time. Swept free of banal existence on an intoxicating wave of optimism we wondered why it was we weren’t already living on our boat and waking each morning to strong sunlight and a breeze over salt water. We scratched a few numbers on a scrap of paper, looked out the windows at a distant set of sails on the Saronic Gulf and founded our plan.
I am an old man, and I have known many troubles, but when did I get so old? I used to be impetuous, but now I think I welcome delayed gratification. I tell myself that looking forward to something gives more depth and colour to the entire experience. What it actually does – for me at least, is grant opportunity for concerns and anxieties to leak out and stain the grand design. I can see that now, and my aim is to subvert that process. Each time an objection rears from the path I’m just going to turn aside and find a different course.
The way to find freedom is not to go looking for it – it’s just to go...
As soon as I get Spaniel down from the top of that mast - we are gone.
