Homeless may make you think of someone living under a bridge somewhere. If you live on a sailboat, you’re just houseless not homeless. It’s actually a wonderfully liberating feeling most of the time. I never thought my husband and I were homeless as we traveled forty-thousand miles on Wild Goose, our 43-foot sailboat. We just had to adjust to having a small locker instead of a walk-in closet and a shower that rains down on top of the toilet.
My husband Mark and I share a free spirit and a deep respect for the world’s oceans. From our college days studying Ocean Engineering, our ambition was to sail the oceans of the world absorbing the intrinsic nature of the people and places we encountered. Lofty dreams retreat to reality when the dreamer realizes a seaworthy sailboat is expensive and eating on a regular basis is a good thing. Without losing sight of our dreams, we followed the traditional work and family routine until we could afford a seaworthy sailboat. Twenty years and two children later, we found Wild Goose, a Shannon 43-foot sloop and she was a sleek beauty with great lines and a proven pedigree.
Cry of the Wild Goose
The name comes from a song Cry of the Wild Goose written in the 1940’s by singer and songwriter, Terry Gilkyson. The words described our persistent desire to roam:
A Dream, a Plan and 20 Years of Stuff
My heart knows what the wild goose knows,
I must go where the wild goose goes.
Wild goose, brother goose, which is best?
A wandering foot or a heart at rest?
Let me fly, let me fly, let me fly away.
After twenty years of accumulation, we ran newspaper ads, schlepped our furniture and belongings to the driveway for several weekend garage sales and unloaded the majority of everything we owned.
So, what it’s like moving from a relatively large home to a sailboat? Actually, it’s a bit like moving into your walk-in closet with a mini-bar attached. The living space, or cabin, is located inside the hull of the boat via a short ladder. Two tiny bedrooms have a triangular-shaped mattress for sleeping and just enough room to change clothes, if you don’t raise your arms. The bathroom, called a head because it’s the part of your anatomy consistently thwacked when using it, consists of a sink and toilet nestled together like conjoined twins. The entire room forms the shower.
Boats are a rallying force for efficiency. The kitchen, or galley, accommodates one person. There is a safety belt for attaching the cook to an adjacent bar during heavy seas although I can’t imagine why anyone wants to cook during a storm. In the center of the countertop is a hatch with a handle. It opens the refrigerated box below where desired object is always located next to the squished stick of butter on the bottom. It’s a given conclusion before you begin: you must unload the entire contents of the box before you’ll ever find what you’re looking for.
In the following blog posts, I'll tell you about the 40,000 miles we traveled on Wild Goose, about the people and the places, the storms and icebergs, whales and pirates. I’ll also tell you about other adventures we’ve tackled as this wild goose person treks around enjoying what life and the earth has to offer up. If you enjoy the blog, tell others about it. If you have comments or questions, be sure to let me know.
Cheers,
Bunny
