Boat shows are a sailor’s candy store. Chrome gadgets sparkle. Boats loom large. Wise seminar speakers beckon. You can’t help but dream about a future on the water, whether an afternoon escape to an island or a long blue water voyage. I imagine most people must have some equivalent – the thrill of walking into a bookstore, an REI, a college campus, a kitchen store, or a travel agent. Just name your passion! You drool over the sweet smell of possibility.
I’ve wandered the Seattle Boat Show before, perusing accessories whose purpose I didn’t understand, buying one or two books to feed my imagination, attending seminars that might be interesting. Sometimes feeling like an impostor because I was a neophyte surrounded by too much technology and expertise, but always feeling the desire to set sail.
This year felt different. Better. We went down to Seattle with a purpose – and armed with a credit card and a strict budget. We had a lot of shopping to do and specific knowledge to gain. We manipulated, learned how to work, and bought the Hydrovane that will be our self-steering and emergency rudder. I got to see and move the new anchor windlass we will install soon. We visited at least ten booths looking for an affordable watermaker (which we found!). We packed our cart with charts and cruising guides of the coastlines we will sail. We bought only what we needed, and we kept our spending to the budget we had planned – but it was still difficult watching each of those BOAT Bucks fly away (BOAT = Bring Out Another Thousand). But these are all pieces of safety equipment.; they will contribute to keeping us safe and alive. And that is worth is the expenditure.
We had skills to gain, too. I learned tips on how to cruise without refrigeration, even in hot Mexican waters. I took copious notes at a seminar with writers and editors on how to write and publish your travels, finding inspiration in their advice and guidance. Tom and I listened to Nancy Erley tell the story of her Red Sea passage on one of her circumnavigations, plus countless other stories from her trips, and felt our excitement rise as we chatted about our plans with acquaintances who have done this before us. We found inspiration in the company of friends and strangers passionate and curious about the same things we are and encouragement oozing out of every booth and PowerPoint.
This inspiration was a needed lift. Though our departure date is set, our daily lives haven’t changed much yet. We are both working a lot, getting home too late, getting the kids to bed too late, barely (or not) managing to keep the house out of disaster mode. And we all got sick again this weekend, for the umpteenth time this winter. In the midst of all of this, the visit to our candy store was essential. To remember our love of being on the water. To focus on the future for a few hours. And, above all, to revisit – on a dark and rainy midwinter day – that sweet smell of excitement and possibility.