Transitions

Position: 44°3’31.4″N, 121°18’43.1″W

In films, a good transition heralds a change without confusing the audience or disrupting the narrative. Sometimes that’s a simple cut from one speaker to another. Sometimes it is a slow cross-dissolve, where one scene fades in and another fades out, marking the passage of time. 2024 has been a year of transitions for the crew of Aleta, here are a few (edited) highlights:

Scene 1:

INT. HOUSE NEW MEXICO – DAY: Bodhi, the enlightened one, came home with us and avoided summary execution at the hands of the Humane Society. Carol’s dad, Bob, called him bright eyes, and Bodhi kept a watchful eye on him. With love and attention and lots of long walks, Bodhi’s anxiety abated. He now lives with Carol’s childhood friend Ginger and her family. He keeps a watchful eye on five-month-old Lalah and does his best to keep his nutty friend Zuko calm.

Scene 2:

EXT. MARINA SWEDEN – DAY: In May, we left Albuquerque for Sweden with the goal of getting Aleta underway. That didn’t happen. When her mast was re-stepped a shroud (part of the rigging) broke. That wasn’t good. Carol and Ginger (who had come to sail) immediately left for Norway. I stayed with Aleta to sort things out. It seems that after seven years and 18,000 nautical miles, we had bumped into a functional limitation. Losing one shroud doesn’t mean the entire rig was bad, but our sailing goals are more ambitious than most and we really value a mast that stays upright. With that, we had her entire rig replaced. The timing of which neatly coincided with Emma and Jarno’s second wedding in Chamonix. A month-long road trip around northern Europe ensued.

Scene 3:

INT. HOUSE NEW MEXICO – EVENING: Almost as soon as we returned our rental car to Sweden, we boarded an airplane back to Albuquerque. Bob had fallen and taken a turn for the worse. Despite Delta’s best efforts to stop us, we arrived just in time to say farewell to Bob as he passed peacefully into the next world. Two weeks later, after returning to Sweden, we learned that my uncle Hugh had also quietly slipped away.

Scene 4:

EXT. MARINA GERMANY– EVENING: In Hugh’s honour we aimed to do as much sailing as we could before our EU visas expired and we had to be someplace else. With Aleta’s shiny new rig, we pointed south towards the Bay of Biscay, retracing our steps northwards.

As I think we’ve made clear over the years, our sailing plans are mutable and depend wholly on Aleta’s good graces. Halfway through the Kiel Canal her engine failed, and we made a new friend. Roland rescued us and we spent the next two weeks trying to track down a mechanic and spare engine parts. We found the parts, but not the mechanic. Our visas were about to run out.

Scene 5:

INT. AIRPORT ISTANBUL– NIGHT: Roland said he’d happily keep an eye on Aleta for the winter. I signed a contract with the marina while Carol counted out the days before our scheduled return to Albuquerque. The next thing we knew we were on an 18-hour Turkish Airlines flight bound for Cape Town, with a stopover in Istanbul. South Africa was other worldly in the ways that only jet travel allows. You leave one culture and plop down in another. It is up to you to get oriented. Sailing is the slow road to life. Sailing is about the journey. Jets are only about getting there. Air travel is too damned uncomfortable for anything transcendent.

Scene 7:

EXT. HOUSE NEW MEXICO: With Bob’s passing we had to clear our things out of his house. Before that we drove across the country and back for Hugh’s memorial on Cape Cod. Back in New Mexico, after 10 months of land-based living we had acquired enough stuff to fill a U-Haul trailer. Such is the problem of shore-based life. Commandeering Bob’s Nissan Murano, we fitted a tow hitch and drove 1,500 miles to the Pacific Northwest.

Outro

MONTAGE: Having reached an age of full maturity, our path ahead is still not entirely clear. We are committed to getting Aleta underway and pointed south in anticipation of re-crossing the Atlantic at the end of next year. That’s about all the resolution the crystal ball is offering at the moment. Stay tuned.

ROLL CREDITS: We are forever grateful for the support, friendship, commitment and generosity of all of our friends and family. Thank you, each and every one! For this year we would like to give a special shout out to: Lauren, Wade, Ginger, Keith, Sujan, Steve, Judy, Robin, Bruce, Anna, Cyndy, Keith, Geoff, Chris, Bill, Roland, Bob, Caroline, Vicki, Emma, Jarno, Bodhi and Zuko.

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