[extropy-chat] Sierra Vistans finish their circumnavigation

[Terry W. Colvin]

[Here is another boat story by proxy.  Glen is a retired SES-2 and Julie is
his second wife.  -Terry]


Sierra Vista (Arizona) Herald
Sunday/September 11, 2005


This is the final dispatch from Glen and Julie
Bradley, Sierra Vistans who went around the
world in their boat, the C'est Assez.


"How many years did you live on a boat?" our neighbors asked with shock and
amusement.  "How big was the sailboat?"

Actually, a little bigger than the master bathroom in our new house. 
And our
galley onboard was about 5 feet long and 3 feet wide.  One feature we had in
the boat galley that's missing from our kitchen ashore is that the stove 
on the
boat was gimbaled---swinging to and fro with the boat heeling so I could 
cook
while under way.

Thankfully, our new house in Winterhaven didn't come with a gimbaled stove
option.  In fact, it sure is nice to not have your food move while 
you're cooking.
Terra firma and all its delights have made us feel like kids seeing the 
world
through new eyes.  Simple pleasures like owning a car and being able to do
laundry without washing it in a bucket and hanging it out to dry on the
rigging.

I hope we never take those things for granted.

The biggest shore shock for us is that Sierra Vista looks a whole lot
different now than when we left.  When we sailed off in 1997 for the
big blue, Sierra Vista was much smaller.  It's difficult to believe that
so many years ago a mayor here ran for office on what we called the
Red Lobster platform.  His stated political goal was to attract a Red
Lobster restaurant to Sierra Vista so we wouldn't all have to drive to
Tucson for a nice meal.  Things sure have changed, with national chains
gobbling up land and some locals now pushing to limit the ultimate size
of this beautiful place to live.

Now that we've finished our circumnavigation, everyone wants to know
what we plan to do with out boat.  It's for sale.  If any other Sierra
Vistans feel the itch to explore the wild, blue yonder, we know a
trusty boat stocked and ready to go.  Her name, C'est Assez (French
for "It's Enough"), caused much confusion over the radio and we
probably would have renamed her but sailors are a superstitious
lot.  It's widely believed that it's bad luck to rename a boat.

If we had it to do all over again, we probably would have named her
something simple like Lollipop, as in "good ship Lollipop."

Right now the boat is taking a breather from our last very tough and
grueling three-month passage from Phuket [Thailand] across the Indian
Ocean, Gulf of Aden and Red Sea.  She's lazing in the Mediterranean
Sea waiting for us to find a new owner to take her to sea.  That boat
has taken care of us through storms and a tsunami and pirate-infested
areas in the Mideast.

Selling her will be difficult as she has been our home, refuge and
transportation for almost eight years.  Any mechanical thing that
you name develops a personality in your mind that makes parting
more difficult.

But we are really ready to enjoy our children, grandchildren and
wonderful friends here in Sierra Vista.

There may come a time when we have an itch to go sailing again, but
it probably won't be for a while, and we certainly hope to avoid
crossing any more oceans.

As far as what we'll do with ourselves, we've been enjoying spending
time and doing family work projects with our kids and grandkids in
Sierra Vista and Tucson.  The importance of family really hit home
the last two weeks.  Glen and I had family members in New Orleans,
and Julie's mom had a home on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.  Everyone
evacuated safely, so they are fine.

But we feel strongly about the impact to so many and we've volunteered
to deploy with the Red Cross to assist with disaster relief.  When a
Red Cross worker informed us there could be difficult living conditions,
I told her we had just been living on a small boat for 7 & 1/2 years,
which probably made her question our sanity.

We want to thank everyone in town who followed our adventures with
interest and laughed with us at our occasional mishaps.  The
circumnavigation wasn't always easy, but it was almost always
interesting.  At least it will be a long time before we run out of
stories to tell our grandkids.

All our best with many thanks.

Glen and Julie Bradley


[Note:  Hmmmm, 7 & 1/2 years to finally circumnavigate, actually a partial
circumnavigation as they left their boat in the Mediterranean.]


-- 
"Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, 
Frank Rice


Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
     Alternate: < fortean1 at msn.com >
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