The Martins Have Landed #1

by Dave and Jaja

After four years of cruising aboard DRIVER, we have returned to the States for a year or two to regroup. DRIVER is high and dry in a Norwegian boat yard and we are sitting high and dry in the mountains of Colorado. The house we are renting clings to a hillside at 8,600 feet.

Although we plan to return to DRIVER and continue cruising, we can understand why many ex-cruisers choose to live in the mountains when the lust for ocean voyaging has played itself out. The cynical conclusion, of course, is based on the old parable about the sailor who takes an oar in hand and begins walking inland, away from the coast. He will settle down only when people look at the oar and say: "What's that thing?"

Cruising is a nature-oriented lifestyle. You are frequently outside, absorbing whatever Mother Nature feels like throwing at you. The sun beats on your skull during the daytime, the wind stings your face and ruffles your clothes. Nighttime on the water unveils a cathedral of stars unsurpassed, due to the absence of peripheral city lights.

The mountains provide similar advantages. The often clear, high altitude air can be a star studded magnifying glass that rivals even the clearest night at sea. And most everywhere you look you see untamed land. Man tries to tame the mountains, but like cruising, the power of nature prevails.

Here in Avon, Colorado, we can exit our back door and access National Forest land in less than two minutes. A narrow dirt road takes us up 1000 vertical feet to a stand of aspen. If we keep walking, the aspen give way to pencil straight pines. Keep on walking, and we will reach a bald hillock that summits at 10,000 feet. To the east, the Gore Mountain Range is like a line a surf rising up in the distance, ready to break over the continental divide. To the west, the mountains flatten out like sand bars at low tide.

I remember crossing the Indian Ocean on DIRECTION in 1994. The swells rolling up from the Great Southern Ocean were mountainous. DIRECTION would canter through the troughs doggedly, then rise up slowly, determinedly, until she was balanced on the peaks of thin water. From the tops of the swells the whole world was visible. Nothing to see but white-water waves as big as houses. Our lofty perch on moving water lasted but a few seconds. DIRECTION would fall, the keel would take a bit of the sea, the sails would take a bit of wind, and we would move onwards--toward our destination. Even though our progress seemed minuscule, and often pathetic, we were always moving toward our goal: Land.

Jaja and I have a tendency to throw ourselves into situations that are often out of our scope of experiences. Leaving DRIVER behind in Norway and flying half way around the world to Colorado is a good example of what I mean. Perspective. Living in the mountains seems static, but we are still in motion. Our minds are churning with visions of our next goal: Going back to sea. Ocean sailing trains you not to focus solely on "getting to the next place". Whenever we wake up here and say "What the heck are we doing in Colorado!," we remember a lesson that has been good to us over the years: The riches of life are often locked up in our minds. Sometimes, however, it takes a little mental side-tracking to find out what they are. If we always stay on the same merry-go-round, the sights become repetitive. In our case, we've gone "uncruising" for a while. Contrasts are what make the world an inviting place.