Lothlorien at the Isthmus

Most of life on Lothlorien was like normal living anywhere. We did laundry, went to work, fixed meals, washed dishes. I qualified for a homeowners exemption and we were even visited by the census taker for the 1980 census.

Erik was a junior in high school at the time. Each morning as we left for school, he and I found more and more interesting things to watch as we walked down the dock toward the car – starfish, tiny black crabs, even a baby octopus. His teachers couldn’t understand why he was always late for class.

Sometimes, on school holidays, when I was able to get away from work, we would go off on a short (and nearby) cruise. One of our favorite places was the Isthmus of Catalina Island, one of the California offshore islands with a fascinating history (http://www.catalina.com/history.html). Sometimes we picked up a mooring at Avalon, but our favorite spot continued to be at the Isthmus.

Now, I say “picked up a mooring” like it was easy. Wrong! It was a steep learning curve, and warrants an entire post on its own. But we had to learn soon enough or bang into some angry boaters!
http://virtualguidebooks.com/SouthCalif/ChannelIslands/TwoHarbors/IsthmusCoveWest.html

The Isthmus was quaint, laid back, neighborly, and generally more fun than Avalon. It was a place where even the local sheriff would hang out and smoke a doobie with us. There was local musical talen and sometimes a group would put on a little outdoor theater in town. Everyone who moored there quickly became friends with both villagers and boaters. http://virtualguidebooks.com/SouthCalif/ChannelIslands/TwoHarbors/DowntownTwoHarbors.html

I was accepted as just another sailor, but it seemed to be an outrage among some of the male boating population that a woman could have purchased a boat that size on her own without winning it in a divorce settlement! I have many stories about that prejudice, and I’ll leave them for another time, but there is one that I’ll never forget.

One year I took off from work, and spent two weeks there with my son Erik and my daughter Inga. While I lazed in the cockpit, they entertained themselves by taking the dinghy back and forth to shore, polishing the hull, catching some rays. A man and his wife with two teenage daughters pulled up and moored beside us. Their girls were sunning in skimpy bikinis for the benefit of my son (who seemed to be oblivious, but maybe wasn’t).

After about a week the man couldn’t stand it any longer and asked me if my husband was coming over for the weekend. I told him I didn’t have a husband and that the boat was mine. He gave a salute with a very sarcastic “Aye, aye, skipper!” and never spoke to us again.

If I didn’t have to go back to work to make mortgage payments on my floating home, I could have stayed right there on Lothlorien at the Isthmus forever!

DaVinci and Camels

One of my favorite books is How To Think Like Leonardo DaVinci by Michael J. Gelb. (See the Amazon link to the left.) Every second spring semester, I teach a college course called “Psychology and the Expressive Arts.” I use Gelb’s book to help students develop their creativity.

One purpose of this blog is to help me define and embrace variety within DaVinci’s seven principles throughout my whole life. It is in the creative realm where I discover many areas of interest and ability, as I aspire to be a “Renaissance Woman.”

Periodically, I will post something here that relates my everyday life (past, present and future) to one of his seven principles. It will be as much self-assessment as it is a way to share my interests with friends and family.

DaVinci’s first principle was “curiositá.” Gelb defines this as “an insatiably curious approach to life and an unrelenting quest for continuous learning.” My unique way of walking in this world keeps exploration and curiosity at the center of my life.

Riding a camel certainly has been one of my more unique experiences! I’d been riding horses for many years, so I thought a camel would be a cinch, but camels have a nasty disposition! Also, along with their constant complaining, they bend down in stages to let you climb on, which gives you the sensation of being on a very fluky rocking chair (or a slow roller coaster).

I ventured out on the guy in the above picture near the Qumran where ancient scrolls were found http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/deadsea.scrolls.exhibit/Library/library.html. Later, I visited the museum where these scrolls are on exhibit.

One of the exercises in Gelb’s book is to write out 100 questions of things you are curious about. Riding a camel can be marked off my list now.

But I do love being curious!

Shakedown Cruise Part 2

The shakedown wasn’t over yet! We felt like the pounding would never stop. Lothlorien would come up over some of the swells and surf down the other side. Sometimes she would come up and pound down on the other side with a huge bang, shuddering the whole boat.

After one of those particularly hard crashes, water started flooding into the cabin until we had several inches of water standing. I really wasn't ready to have my brand new boat sink! I had an image of the entire hull splitting in half beneath us. We started to bail out water, but they had not hooked up the pump, so we had to use an empty coffee can.

We finally got most of it out, so we started trying to figure out what was happening. When the water started coming in again, this time I decided to taste it - it was fresh water! With a little investigation, we found that the hose to the faucet had come off and every time we turned the water on, we were flooding the cabin. It could have been worse, and although it turned out to be a simple problem, with an equally simple solution, it was scary.

Because we decided to motor sail rather than try to sail into that mess, we had lashed the jib down with bungee cords on the bow deck. The jib came loose and started flying all around, going over the side into the water. Once more the boys made their way along the lifelines and were securing the jib. They would go down and green water would wash up over them and the deck. All I could do was watch - and pray, "Dear God, let them come up again!" I don't know if they ever realized how much danger they were in, and of course, there were no safety lines.

After fifteen hours of non-stop pounding, and when we felt we couldn't stand any more, we finally were able to put into Newport Beach. Any one of these incidents could have been total disaster. I could have lost my boys or we could have lost our mast.

During that whole trip, all I thought was, "Peace be still! God, please quiet the storm!" Three days later, we sailed into Oceanside Harbor under fair skies and calm seas to make our home.

This was truly a woman-owned boat, held together with bobby pins and prayer.

Shakedown Cruise Part 1

I have many sea stories to tell, but one of the most memorable is that first shakedown cruise after I picked up my new boat – the Lothlorien.

I bought her in the late 1970s in the middle of winter. My sons and I went to Marina del Rey to bring the boat down to Oceanside Harbor. One of those notoriously wicked winter storms of California came up and aborted several attempts.

At last it seemed everything had finally calmed down. Our weather station predicted smooth seas, two to four foot swells, five to ten knots of wind, almost perfect sailing weather. About three hours into the trip, we ran into an even worse storm. In a phrase most of you know, but that a friend states in a little different way, the ship really hit the sand!

We had gone too far and we were in a position too dangerous to turn around. The wind was coming directly at us and getting stronger. The swells were so high that we would have broached, or rolled, if we had turned broadside to them. We had no choice but to continue on.

It was soon obvious the weather man was not where we were, and he didn't change his report until about twelve hours later. He kept saying it was calm.

This was a bona fide "shakedown cruise." Murphy's law was certainly active that day. Everything that could go wrong, did - and at the worst possible moment. We discovered very quickly that the person who commissioned our boat had forgotten to put in a few cotter pins.

First the turnbuckle on one of the starboard shrouds came loose and started swinging in the air. One of the boys managed to crawl up to it, screw it back on, then secure it with an old bobby pin that I somehow had found in the pocket of my jacket.

Then my son's friend asked what held the boom onto the mast. I said, "That little cotter pin right...there..." Well, that little cotter pin was missing, too, and the boom was starting to work its way off the mast. The boys braced themselves against the wind, wrapped themselves around the mast, and put in another bobby pin.

I was poorly prepared. I had not thought to have a supply of spare cotter pins with me on board. I quickly replaced all the bobby pins with cotter pins when I reached Oceanside Harbor.

Lothlorien

In the late 1970s, when Flower Power and Free Love were languishing, I flirted with trading the equity in my house for equity in a new 37' O’Day sloop-rigged sailboat. Within five months, I became a “live-aboard” with fifteen-year-old Erik, my youngest child. We christened our new home Lothlorien, for the sanctuary in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings Trilogy to which the Elf King and Elf Queen transported Frodo and his friends at a critical point in their adventure.

It was within the Lothlorien that all their healing and protection took place, while all the dangers and threats were forced to remain outside its borders. Our Lothlorien was that haven for us, our personal sanctuary of peace, safety, and healing. We needed the storms of life to remain outside. We often invited our friends to savor that sanctuary with us for a day sail, a weekend cruise, or sometimes longer.

Characters who don’t know much about boats always ask, “How many does she sleep?” That’s the wrong question! We sailors usually respond by saying that a sailboat will “drink six, feed four and sleep two.” There may be room enough to sleep an army by spreading people out over decks and into hammocks, but you abandon all carnal comforts in doing so. Naturally, this can depend on just how close you are with the friends you bring along, too. My boat basically was designed to sleep six, but six people really wouldn’t do that if they wanted to remain friends after the cruise was over.

The moldy picture above shows me at the helm of the Lothlorien. Join me as I take you on a cruise through the various harbors and squalls of my life.