The Funk

I haven't been posting lately, because I haven't been very happy.

There has been a bit of a hitch in our giddy-up and It has put me in the Funk.

My Funk that is not at all Funky. 

It's more like a ....Fuuuughhhnk and I don't like to write and or take pictures when I'm this place.

My words come out kind of petulant and boring and my pictures look dull.

Much as I adore and aspire to scathing cynicism, I'm not much good at it.

There's not really any reason for the gloom. 

We are just not  that having that amazing a time right now.

Even intrepid, scuba-diving, homeschooling wizards are subject to the doldrums.

We are in "the Waiting Place", as it were... 

If you have ever read ,Dr, Suess' "OH, THE PLACES YOU'LL GO...." you will know exactly what a carbuncle this spot can be. 

Old Dr. S, wrote many a zinger, but this one is a roadmap for what to expect out of life.

It should be taught in preschool and again in freshman college. One should read it before they get married and before they have children and before they go sailing...

if they taught this little nugget of self awareness in Sunday school instead of the Bible, we would live in a more tolerant world.

People would understand what they were experiencing and stop blaming one another- when it wasn't going their way.

At the moment we are "waiting" because our auto pilot took a dump.

This happened as we were sailing away from one of the most beautiful anchorages we have ever been in.

We had it to ourselves, the weather was perfect and the visibility was at least forty feet.

But we left, anyway, on a morning with no wind.

Why?

Because we were being stuck. We were adhering to foolish notions of busyness.

We had been on a treadmill of moving and storms and rebuilding engine parts and just cracking the whip in general and we just overworked perfection and fucked it up.

We were low on water-but not out.

and we had a fridge full of fresh fish and lobster tails...

We had no actual deadlines or timelines.

We just thought we should get moving...because....I can't even remember why.

We had no real reason to go.

We just did.

Even though the Universe had clearly conspired to lie down and roll in ecstasy at our feet-  we chose to ignore it and stepped over her instead.

Well, the Universe is a fickle bitch and she was rightly insulted by our attitude,

Not five minutes after we left the bay, our autopilot- very essential bit of mechanics on a boat roaming the seas- crapped out.

It is thirty years old, but until this moment, it has worked like a horse and not given us one bit of trouble.

But, oh, the trouble it has given us since.

To add insult to injury, its also been a very expensive and time consuming trouble.

Rather than writing blogs while sailing across the Gulf of California, this week, we hung around La Paz, trying to "shake the bushes"  for spare parts or someone to help us rebuild the motor on our fried steering arm-all to no avail.

The only solution, other than to go for a different, cheaper, less-badass, auto helm-at the moment we have only one, which also functions as our back-up steering because we have no rudder post-was to buy a new one from the archaic but excellent company in Seattle that made ours.

Not cheap. Not easy to get to Mexico.

Total pain in the butt.

There are people who would say this malfortune had nothing to do with leaving a perfect and idyllic cove on a divine morning, for no good reason.

These same people would say that it was a thirty years old, auto pilot and it was going to go anyway and we were lucky we weren't in the middle of the Pacific...

These people would not be sailors.

Sailors would laugh because they know we are all dependent on fiction and myth and Karma and luck.

A seaman would see our folly for what it was.

We didn't even have our sails up- serves us right.

So, this brought the Funk and the Funk led to petty battles with live-aboard children being forced from their wandering bliss and the freedom of days spent with loose structure and salty hair to hours at the galley table homeschooling from printed textbooks.

The Funk brought up concerns about money and what we will do and where we should go.

The Funk brought to light a myriad of other boat issues that needed to be addressed.

The Funk sucked.

There are no pictures of the Funk.

They would look like tears and grim faces and hours on the internet looking for parts.

As i write this, my good skipper has left us and journeyed North for parts and to cash checks and gather electronics...

I am now in a Marina treating Pura Vida like the queen she is.

I am scrubbing and scraping and cleaning and polishing,

A well deserved maritime mani-pedi, for our hardworking girl.

I had a good long look at a sensational sunset tonight , as I polished the eisenglass to a blistering shine...

and I took the moment to apologize to the Universe for not always responding to the magnificence of what is around me.

For letting my old notions of "got to do this and got to go that"...rule the day.

Our "days" are numbered on this planet and breathing slower makes them last longer.

Jon will return at the end of the week and make repairs...

and we will dig out our charts and listen to the weather...

and come up with a new plan of where to go and when.

And next time, when a day breaks fair and calm,

and the world is our oyster...

we will not cast it aside, to seek a pearl elsewhere.

We will sit and marvel and speak a mantra...

"Let's stay here...for one more day."

Bet you anything, if we had done that -our auto pilot would be working just fine.