Time warps

Preventative maintenance… 29 days and counting

Time warps

Wild Matilda at the dock in Coral Cove Marina, Chaguaramas, Trinidad

by Christine Kling

I struggle with time. As a general rule, you can count on me to be slow. I think that’s a big part of the reason I like sailing so much. There is no expectation of real speed. I like it that way. You see I am that person at the traffic signal who always waits for the light to turn green before I shift my car into gear, and far too often, the car behind me blasts his horn in the three seconds before I move forward.

Therefore, on Tuesday morning when my son dropped me off curbside at the Miami International Airport, I was not in my element. Hundreds of people were rushing around me with their wheeled bags. My only checked luggage was a 61-pound replacement headsail for my friend Bruce’s boat.

“Where are you headed?” the fellow at American Airlines asked.

“Trinidad.”

“Lucky you.”

“Yeah.” I smiled for the first time that morning.

This is my second trip to Trinidad. The first time I sailed down on board Sunrise with my husband and 10-year-old son. That was roughly 18-19 years ago. As soon as I write that line, I have the natural inclination to follow that with the cliché, “Time flies.” When I think back on that month that we spent med-moored to the wall at TTYC, the Trinidad and Tobago Yacht Club, the images are bright and clear in my memory. It doesn’t seem like nearly 20 years ago. Where have the years gone? I think many people will agree with me when I say that as I age, each year seems to speed by faster.

Notice the SOG (Speed over Ground) and the ALT (altitude)

So then why was it that when I finally boarded the plane, and the captain then announced we had technical problems and would be delayed – why, oh why did it seem like time suddenly slowed to a crawl? They asked us all to deplane and take our luggage with us and as the crowd grumbled and pulled their bags out of the overhead compartments, it seemed as though it took far longer to get off than it had to get on. And when we were called to re-board a couple of hours later, why did the flight seem to take forever even though our speed, as recorded on my iPad, was significantly better than what I make on my boat?

How is it that the years seem to speed past, but within that time there are so often moments in meetings or in traffic or while waiting for a delayed flight, that time slows to an excruciatingly slow pace?

I’ve been thinking a lot about time on this trip. How is it that the plane trip (after 4 cups of coffee) traveling at 464.5 knots can seem interminable while the sailing passage sometimes goes by too fast?

CrewsInn Marina

Trinidad has also changed significantly from 1994. There are lots more marinas and they are full of cruisers’ boats. The boats are mostly bigger and newer with gobs more fancy gear, and the majority of the folks look prosperous. But one of the biggest changes I’ve seen is how much more social the cruisers have become. Our time is scheduled down to the minute. At 8:00 a.m, the day begins with the Cruisers’ Net on channel 68, then it’s off to aqua-aerobics with Willie. After that we must shop for the Friday barbecue . There are days for shopping at the fruit and vegetable market, excursions to visit island sights, Sunday evening cocktails, and movie/sushi night. I can’t keep any of it straight and I’m finding it somewhat exhausting just worrying about where I should be when. I understand that at Georgetown in the Exumas and at places in Grenada, the cruisers have similar jam-packed social schedules, and it makes me wonder why it is that folks who have quit the “rat race” of schedules and appointments, seem to recreate some of that madness out here. Is it just human nature? Or are the people cruising today different than they were when I first started cruising 30 years ago?

Then yesterday morning when I was standing on the foredeck helping the sailmaker measure how to recut the sail I brought down, I looked over at a dinghy approaching a little wooden boat and I felt like I had entered a time warp. A couple of slender young guys with beards and heads covered with long, shaggy curls stood in a dinghy around a young woman with long hair partly covered with a bandana. They (and their boat) looked the the sailors I used to see in the 1970’s, the young iconoclasts and non-conformists who were cruising on a real shoestring and had neither pensions nor 401K’s. Time has passed and I’m not one of them anymore, but it gives me hope to see they are still out here.