Off Season

Those with daily jobs have to go to work everyday. Weekends will give them a bit of a rest, as they gear back up for Monday! 

When these people take an extended break, they want to do it at the "best time." Collectively, everyone wants to do it at a similar time frame and this creates the "tourist season" in destination towns. People don't want to visit a place if the conditions are not optimal, so no one goes when it is not perfect. 

As a result, the stores and restaurants will hire more staff during the "season" and slow down or close entirely during the "off-season" since there isn't really a market to stay open for. When you arrive somewhere by boat, you might get there during the "season" and be surrounded by tons of other tourists who have descended on this area in a swarm. You will get to experience the pre-planned and orchestrated spectacle that the town has put on for its guests. 

Unlike all these other guests that need to return to work after a fun-packed vacation, you get to stay, as you are on your boat and in no hurry to be anywhere. Life is an adventure and you are going to cruise through it at a very relaxed pace. 

When the "season" comes to a close and the "off-season" begins, these towns will roll up their sidewalks and shut down.  Maddie and I find that this is actually the best time to visit a place, as you will get to know the locals and experience what life there is really like.

We arrived in Hatteras, NC just as the season was coming to an end. It was fun going to different restaurants and walking around the town looking at the items the shops had on display. A few days later, all the stores started to shut down because the "season" was over. Restaurants would open on their last day in a blaze of glory! All items on the menu were 50% off, as they wanted to clear out their freezer before closing for the "off-season."  Luckily, each of our favorite restaurants was closing on a different day, so we had the opportunity to attend the closing of each of them!

Once the party was over, the town was much quieter and only a few places stayed open. At the moment, there is a place that is open for lunch, another place open for dinner, a coffee shop, and a general market (which stocks fresh vegetables and other foods). You will soon come to know the locals, as everyone is going to be in one of these places and you can really get a feel for the true town. 

The facade has come down, the makeup has been washed away, and you can see what the town is really like. Hatteras is a town of fisherman who are all welcoming and friendly! While here, we have watched and learned how to clean a fish like a machine (6 quick cuts to extract a fillet) and felt welcomed by the locals.  

We are the only sailboat that has come here in a long time, so everyone knows about it. When we are talking with them and tell them that we are cruisers and we were sailing by, they will interject "Oh, you guys are the sailboat." Then they will usually offer us a ride to a neighboring town if we need supplies or parts. They have all been very helpful, but thankfully we haven't needed to go anywhere as our parts arrived by mail shortly after we got here. 

I don't mean that they have offered to drive us, I mean they have offered us the keys to their car! This is someone who met us 5 minutes ago. The people in this town, truly are kind and generous people who all look out for each other and everyone in their town. 

When planning your cruise, don't discount a destination because you would arrive there after the "season" has ended, or because you will arrive near the "end of the season". Value these opportunities to see and experience these places the way the locals do. You will get to see a side of these destinations that few ever even dream of! 

Sandpipers

Sandpipers are small birds that feast on creatures that lie just below the sand in the wet/dry portion of a beach. These little birds will run up and down the beach like children who are afraid of incoming waves yet want to be at the waters edge. 

As the waves pull back, they make their way down the beach and onto the wet sand. When the wave comes back in, they all scamper up the beach to the dry part. As they run back and forth, they will stick their slender beaks into the sand in search of prey, quietly eating each morsel with each wave. 

It really makes you sit back and think when you see such a sight. You may have sailed many a mile to reach this beach, braving storms and being becalmed, but these little birds have been here the whole time, feasting on the bounty of this beach. 

It may seem like a small thing to focus on, but this large world of ours is full! Every place you go, you will encounter something or someone who has been there as long as they have lived, and will remain there long after you have moved on. It's like if the whole world is a net, and everyone is a fish. They are snared and stuck in that specific place, always been there and always will be there. Cruisers are those who have managed to escape, and swim through the holes to travel to new parts of the net. We have slipped through the cracks and managed to free ourselves as we move about unnoticed. We are here today, but who knows where we will be tomorrow?

Sunsets

While sunsets over the water are gorgeous, there is something special about seeing a new sunset on a distant shore, far from your home. 

You get off your boat and walk around the new landscape all day, lost in your mind as you aimlessly wander about, taking in the scenery as it unfolds before you. 

Then the sun gets low on the horizon and the sky turns into a blaze of fire, and the wet sand on the beach matches it in shimmer and beauty! You quickly get out your camera to snap a few pictures as the moment displays its beauty before you and you think to yourself "I'm here!" 

Sailing will take you far and away, and each day, you will watch the sun set as you relax in the cockpit as you await your next landfall. Sunsets over water are gorgeous, as the sea and sky begin to glow the same color and the horizon transforms into a singular radiance of beauty; but a sunset over a new land brings new meaning to the entire voyage. 

Standing on a beach as you watch the shadows stretch out on the sand lets you know that you made it here and all those days at sea were worth it! 

Marina Bathrooms

While cruising, you will find yourself in a marina from time to time. It might be for a few moments while you fill up on fuel or water, or you might be there for a few days while you carry out repairs. Some marinas even grant you their facilities when you pay a small fee for the use of their dinghy dock.  

However it may come about, you will at some point in your cruising life, find yourself in a marina bathroom. Honestly, this is what really makes or breaks it for us when we decide how we like a marina. The piers and the piling just pale in comparison to the bathroom.  

Think about it, no matter how fancy or terrible the pier is, you won't spend much time on it as you are only there to walk between your boat and shore. All the structure needs to do is hold your boat and get you to shore. We have been in places where cleats are abundant and the finger piers are long and wide, we have also been in places where the finger pier was a tiny twig that stuck out from the sea wall. No matter how fancy or diminutive the finger pier was, we still tied up and we still got to shore. 

Compared to a pier, the marina bathroom is a place that you will be for a bit of time. Either using the shore toilet, or getting a shower, you will be in this place for some time and the conditions of it will create a lasting impression of the entire marina. 

Some marinas have bathrooms that will rival 5-Star hotels! They will have air conditioning and heating, exhaust fans to pull out the steam from the shower, and large private shower stalls. My favorite is when they have plenty of hooks to hang your dirty clothes as well as your clean clothes you will put on after you get out of the shower. They will also have benches where you can place your soaps and other items while you take a shower. Last, but not least, they will have clean and spacious shower stalls that supply you with a steady flow of hot water to rejuvenate the crusty cruiser. 

On the other hand, you will find some marina bathrooms that are more inline with a truck stop restroom. Everything is dirty, and the paint is peeling off the wall, and in the corner there is a shower stall with a curtain. These facilities will make you think twice about showering on shore, as the cramped accommodations of the head may seem more pleasing. 

As a cruiser, you won't shower everyday for a few reasons:  

1. It uses a lot of water. 

2. You aren't around other people. 

3. There is no stress, so you won't stress sweat (which is the smelly kind of sweat). 

When you find yourself in a fancy marina with a wonderful bathroom, you might feel like spoiling yourself and showering everyday as a way to treat yourself. This is a wonderful way to relax and take advantage of the amenities you are paying for. Then when you find yourself in a less fancy marina, you will resort back to the old ways of showering every few days (or weeks) and showering in your own head to avoid going onto the shore head as much as possible. 

Sadly, price for the slip does not always correlate with the bathroom arrangements. We have been in marinas that charge over $2 per foot and had acceptable bathrooms, and then we have been in marinas that charge $1 per foot and had the nicest bathrooms we had ever seen. 

For the sake of extremes, one marina we stayed at charged $0.28 per foot, and its bathroom was acceptable. The ceiling light did not function so you had to bring your own lantern with you, and the shower drain was a bit slow, so if your shower was too long, you would be standing in a pool of water by the end; but this bathroom was similar to any bathroom you would find in a house. Nothing fancy, and nothing nasty; just average.

We are currently tied up at a marina that charges $1.50 per foot, and their bathroom is honestly the worst one we have ever encountered. I only use it for the toilet, while Maddie was brave enough to shower there. She did that once and regretted it, and won't do it again.  

Passing the Time

When people think about sailing, they probably picture someone hauling lines and getting sprayed by waves. This does happen, but not if you can have any say about when you go sailing. Cruising is about picking your weather window, and if you choose to stay in port during a storm and sail in the calm that follows, your ocean passage could look more like this: 

We usually play card games in the cockpit if the apparent wind isn't too strong (we don't want the cards to blow away). If the winds are a bit stronger, we simply go below and play in the salon on the table. Ocean sailing is very relaxing. There is no one around and nothing to bump into. This lets you relax and sit back while the boat steers itself. All you need to do is periodically take a watch and make sure the coast is clear for another period of time.