By Pamela Bitterman
For sailors, embarking upon an ocean
crossing represents a literal cutting loose.
Severing lines and ties to the mainland,
families, and careers is like cutting a
symbolic umbilical cord. Whereas coastal
navigation even for an extended period of
time allows a sailor the security of knowing
that they can make landfall with relative
ease and jump a bus or plane for home.
Even the ever-popular cruising grounds off
Mexico and in the Caribbean can afford a
wary passage-making seafarer this
commuter quality. This may be one reason
why the overcrowded harbors tracing the
North American coastline like hopeful bric-a-
brac are overflowing with now stationary
boats once readied for distant shores. In
every sense of the word, making a crossing
is making a commitment to go far away for
an extended period of time. The rewards will
be abundant. But a unique blue-water
sailor’s boot camp will likely have to be
endured first.
Marinas and boat yards are full of boaters
talking about and planning for that someday,
extended cruise. Sadly, most never move
beyond the talking and planning stage.
Somewhere in the readying process the
dream becomes a nightmare. Expenses
mount. Gear fails. Crews drift off. Reality
sets in. Boats are unceremoniously put back
on the market. Cruising World magazine is
replaced by Better Homes and Gardens.
The anxious to be salty vessels are
abandoned, left to bob woefully at the dock
as a chafing testament to the cruiser
wannabe’s failure, when ironically the
greatest challenge for a sailor has yet to
even have begun.
In most instances, trading safe house and
solid land for risky boat and rolling ocean is
a feat akin to finessing the toothpaste back
into the tube. However even that
accomplished and finally at sea, inaugural
cruisers may discover that they are horribly
seasick, claustrophobic, dirty, exhausted,
bored, useless, inept, and resigned to their
umpteenth bowl of cold dry cereal because
it’s all they can face preparing or manage to
keep down. They’ll likely find themselves
repairing, rebuilding, jerry rigging and
ultimately chucking the multitude of time
www.RIMarinas.com all rights reserved ©2011
Information on this website should be use as a guide only and should not be relied upon as the sole source of information relating to its content. Neither RIMarinas.com or
Quertz Corp. is responsible for any loss, inconvenience, damage or claims arising our of the use of the information contained on this website.
Sailing to the Far Horizon
Transient Boater?
RI MARINAS
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and life saving gear on which they’ve
overspent to overload their suddenly too
tiny, too frail vessel. Finally, they may find
themselves cast utterly adrift and
unavoidably attached to a mate who might
suddenly develop previously unrevealed
and seriously disturbing flaws in character.
Weather can be lousy, anchorages
difficult, customs official’s crooked, fellow
cruisers morally questionable. The rules
change out there. The entire experience
can be so disorienting that it’s often
impossibly hard to see beyond those initial
waves of fear, despair and loneliness. But
I promise, if you can hang in there, past
the freshman weeks and months, even
past the one year mark, the payoff will
come.
Self-confidence will blossom. Contentment
will evolve. Confirmation of the rightness
of this inimitable, once-in-a-lifetime leap of
faith you’ve taken will envelop a sailor like
a warm blanket. So I say, take the leap,
and give it time.
The three photos for Inspiration for a
cruise to distant shores, from top to
bottom:
*The author gazing out across the Atlantic,
on her maiden voyage aboard the
Schooner Sofia as she embarks upon her
second circumnavigation out of Boston,
Mass. in the autumn of 1978.
*The Schooner Sofia culminating her 28
day crossing of the largest expanse of
uninterrupted ocean in the world - on her
approach into Fatu Hiva in the Marquesa
Islands in the South Pacific in 1980.
Inspiration for a Cruise to
Distant Shores
Challenge yourself
Pamila Bitterman’s book, Sailing to the Far
Horizon, details the four years she spent
circumnavigating aboard the Schooner
Sofia. Starting out as a novice, she worked
her way up to ships Boatswain, and was
First Mate, second in command, at the time
of her final voyage. She holds a Merchant
Seaman’s Ticket.
Click to find out more about Pamela and
read excerpts from her book.
Read Pamila’s biography here
The Schooner
Sofia culminating
her 28 day
crossing of the
largest expanse
of uninterrupted
ocean in the
world - on her
approach into
Fatu Hiva in the
Marquesa Islands
in the South
Pacific in 1980
www.RIMarinas.com all rights reserved ©2011
Information on this website should be use as a guide only and should not be relied upon as the sole source of information relating to its content. Neither RIMarinas.com or
Quertz Corp. is responsible for any loss, inconvenience, damage or claims arising our of the use of the information contained on this website.
Sailing to the Far Horizon
Transient Boater?
and life saving gear on which they’ve
overspent to overload their suddenly too
tiny, too frail vessel. Finally, they may find
themselves cast utterly adrift and
unavoidably attached to a mate who might
suddenly develop previously unrevealed
and seriously disturbing flaws in character.
Weather can be lousy, anchorages
difficult, customs official’s crooked, fellow
cruisers morally questionable. The rules
change out there. The entire experience
can be so disorienting that it’s often
impossibly hard to see beyond those initial
waves of fear, despair and loneliness. But
I promise, if you can hang in there, past
the freshman weeks and months, even
past the one year mark, the payoff will
come.
Self-confidence will blossom. Contentment
will evolve. Confirmation of the rightness
of this inimitable, once-in-a-lifetime leap of
faith you’ve taken will envelop a sailor like
a warm blanket. So I say, take the leap,
and give it time.
The three photos for Inspiration for a
cruise to distant shores, from top to
bottom:
*The author gazing out across the Atlantic,
on her maiden voyage aboard the
Schooner Sofia as she embarks upon her
second circumnavigation out of Boston,
Mass. in the autumn of 1978.
*The Schooner Sofia culminating her 28
day crossing of the largest expanse of
uninterrupted ocean in the world - on her
approach into Fatu Hiva in the Marquesa
Islands in the South Pacific in 1980.
Inspiration for a Cruise to
Distant Shores
Challenge yourself
Pamila Bitterman’s book, Sailing to the Far
Horizon, details the four years she spent
circumnavigating aboard the Schooner
Sofia. Starting out as a novice, she worked
her way up to ships Boatswain, and was
First Mate, second in command, at the time
of her final voyage. She holds a Merchant
Seaman’s Ticket.
Click to find out more about Pamela and
read excerpts from her book.
Read Pamila’s biography here
The Schooner
Sofia culminating
her 28 day
crossing of the
largest expanse
of uninterrupted
ocean in the
world - on her
approach into
Fatu Hiva in the
Marquesa Islands
in the South
Pacific in 1980