Sure, I posted a lovely video of my first experience sailing. But there’s much more to the story, and it isn’t all pretty.
Monsieur B (that’s my husband if you’re new to my Substack) is a lifelong sailor. He learned to faire de la voile (sail) as a child en Corse (in Corsica), piloting and tipping out of a little Opti craft. He’s done it so much since then, he has a license and he even celebrated his fiftieth birthday by racing a big yacht in Antigua with friends.
But this particular story starts with him asking me to join him on a trip that he has made almost every Spring for the past thirty years—a trip to Friesland in the Netherlands, to sail in a group of very small Polyvalk boats (think 19 feet, no cabins, no toilets) in the rumbling lakes and grassy reed-bordered channels of the region.
The truth is, I did not want to go. Although I’m a strong swimmer and I love to be near water, and although I lived a large part of two years on a giant paquebot (cruise ship) traveling around the world (as a magician’s assistant), I don’t actually enjoy being in open water. Ce n’est pas mon truc. (It’s not my thing.) I’m not a boat person, not a lake person, not even really a beach person unless that means taking a walk at sunset. In my best water-themed moments, I am a bubble bath person.
I think it comes from a much-too-early viewing of Jaws (the movie) and from watching first-hand as the top of my father’s foot was badly torn up by “something in the water” in South Carolina on a summer vacation when I was a little girl.
Even when I’m swimming laps in a pool, some part of my imagination is always aware that a trap door just might open on the side wall, unleashing a Great White like a grinning bullet who will rip me to chlorinated shreds.
And even though I’m technically a (lapsed) member of Mensa, I don’t understand how boats work. I have no relationship with the direction of the wind. My skin blisters and burns after a few minutes in the sun. It may be true too that, having grown up in an apartment in a largely landlocked state, and never having had a chance to sail, it’s simply all too foreign a territory to me this late in the game.
Mostly, I don’t enjoy a lack of control, and I can’t control the water, its quirks, its contents, its moods. The water and I are not equals, and we never will be.
A bit of background. I am very active, and it’s not about the effort. I’m a four-time NYC marathoner and don’t consider myself a diva. I just generally prefer, for vacations, to do any intense sporty activities in the daytime and then end up at a nice hotel for a massage followed by a short nap and a great dinner.
Last year, I missed the Friesland trip because I was still in New York, packing up my life to move to Paris. When the topic of this year’s voyage came up, I felt I had to say yes. Of course, I wanted to experience the activities my husband loves, and I wanted a chance to get to know his friends better. So, I agreed.
The thing is, it’s often like this with future promises of difficult things, isn’t it? At the time I said yes, it was still months before the trip.
I couldn’t see the date ever really arriving. I gently ignored the fact that as days ticked off the calendar and our departure approached, it was causing me stress to think about it because it frightened and worried me on so many levels. After all, I’ve spent most of my adult life as a planner, and this was something I didn’t understand.
How would I manage to stay on a 19-foot boat for seven hours a day with no shade? Would all Monsieur B’s friends like me? How would I not get knocked overboard by the boom? Where would I go to the bathroom? Would there be Wi-Fi? How on Earth could I sleep on the floor of a beer-stained boat that everyone had trampled with their deck shoes all day long? How could I live for four full days and four full nights with no laptop?
Monsieur B sent me videos of how to tie knots. (Wait. Would I actually have to “do stuff” on this boat?) He took me shopping for a sailing suit and a camping mattress and a classic marinière. He showed me how to pack my waterproof bags and told me not to bring makeup, for example, as it would just take up space in the tiny boat storage compartments. (I brought it anyway.) He told me not to bring anything “extra” but to pack duchegulden, or shower money, as public showers when they were available, would cost between 50 cents and 1 Euro.
Friends shared the story of last year’s calamity (from the trip I had missed) where one of the boats, piloted by an expert skipper, had capsized in very bad weather, forcing all four sailors into the chilly, choppy water for nearly a half hour before the boat—and they—were rescued by professionals. They all laughed about it.
“Boats tip over after all, it can happen,” they said, winking at each other.
I definitely did not need to know this information.
We arrived in Ottenhome Heeg, our starting harbor (and the place where we rented the boats) in the evening. We met up with our group who were already setting up a potluck picnic dinner in the tent area, where half of us would sleep. We were fifteen in the party, with four boats.
Everyone was wonderful to me and very welcoming. I knew several people, but I still felt very “other.” The only American. The only non-German speaker (my husband is half French and half German). The only first-time sailor.
After dinner we prepared our boat for sleeping with a tarp that we tied down around the boat’s edges, and we climbed inside. We had only a clip-on light to illuminate the nearly complete darkness. I realized then that I hadn’t packed well. I couldn’t find my eyeglasses nor my pajamas nor my extra phone battery. I started to panic.
I worried that when I woke up at 3AM and had to go to the bathroom, I would have to climb off the boat (which was tied up pointing at the harbor, not alongside) and walk through the scruffy groups of drunk college students with their beer bongs and techno music to get to the dimly lit bathroom.
I decided to sleep in my clothes (and shoes), and I started crying.
“I can’t find my things,” I said, whimpering. “I can’t find anything at all.”
Of course was afraid of embarrassing my husband as after all, his friends were sleeping in the next boat. They surely heard me, even though I was trying to keep it down. He put his arms around me and just held me. I appreciated that he didn’t say anything, and I drifted off exhausted, tears dripping on the rolled-up neoprene bag that was my both my suitcase and my pillow.
I did awake in the middle of the night and didn’t want to bother Monsieur B who was clearly snoozing like a big, happy, and handsome cat. This was the first of four nights in different harbors where I woke up, needed the toilet, and had to figure out how I was going to get off the boat, get there, and get back on the boat. For me, very scary.
If this sounds ridiculous to you, I understand. Apparently I am just not that coordinated and low-key when it comes to jumping on and off a slippery, dew-covered tiny deck in complete darkness with nothing solid to hold onto. I don’t speak Dutch and didn’t have my glasses on, so I felt discombobulated and hazy walking all the way through the dimly lit harbor. I managed it but felt a bit like I had been in a car accident or lost in a foggy forest of gently bobbing boats.
The next day was our first day of sailing and it was incredibly difficult for me. I couldn’t believe how much work it took for the group to pack up all the tents and to maneuver all the food and supplies for fifteen people into the small compartments on each boat. On that unusually warm June morning, it was like a game of sunburned Tetris to just shove everything into its place so we could push off.
Finally near noon we raised our flags, drank a toast in the port, and started out on the adventure, pouring a little beer into the water to honor and attract the favor of the seafaring gods. Soon I discovered that I had no idea how to move on a small boat like this, especially when it tilts over dramatically in the wind.
Also, I didn’t understand the commands—“Klar zur Wende?” (Ready to turn?)— or the occasional urgent-seeming shouting in German when we were, say, approaching a low bridge and needed to bring down the sails and the mast (and sometimes actually lie down in the boat).
My whole body ached. My knees were bruised from trying to move side to side under the boom without understanding how to do that. I was terrified almost the whole time, especially when they’d decide not to use the motor on narrow channels because, “We’re real sailors,” and we’d point ourselves at a 90-degree angle directly toward another boat or the tall grasses, only to turn mere seconds before we’d have crashed.
We sailed that first day for about seven hours, stopping only to pee next to a bike path in full sight of passersby and eat a little picnic of sausages and bread sliced by two of the women in our group.
By hour five, the only way I can describe my feelings is to say that I was done. Done for, done in, and done with it all. Done with sailing, done with this trip. I felt broken. How in the world was this “fun?”
I tried very hard not to cry again, but it didn’t work. Luckily I was in the front of the boat, so I gazed out past the sails toward the marshy edges of the channel where I was convinced we were about to crash. I hoped nobody saw my shoulders shaking.
I asked myself, “How can I get a train or an Uber home from here tonight?”
That would’ve been an 8-hour Uber, by the way, but I was seriously trying to understand my options. I felt the need to flee.
The thing is, when you’re on a boat, you can’t easily run away, so I didn’t have much choice. I took some deep breaths and squinted my eyes at the harbor in the far distance. Later over cocktails, when one of my husband’s friends asked me if I had loved the day of sailing I said, “It was really hard,” and I could tell he didn’t understand at all what I meant, not because we didn’t speak a common language, but because it wasn’t difficult for him. He was made for sailing. They all were.
That evening I had what I can only call a self-reckoning. I was in physical pain and emotional discomfort. I didn’t want to do this. At all.
Before dinner, I took myself to the bathroom in the charming harbor where we’d tied up our boats. The only way to get there was to walk around the entire dock, then press and hold two buttons on a chain-operated self-ferry that made sounds you can only hear in one of the “Saw” movies. The harbor itself was absolutely beautiful with its colorful houses and a perfectly great looking little auberge with a restaurant. Why couldn’t we just book a table for dinner and une chambre for the night? Below is where we did sleep, our modest boats all in a row.
In the harbor bathroom, there was one shower, one electrical outlet, a toilet, a small sink and no lock on the outer door. After the day I’d had, I was so grateful for any small comforts. Charging my phone and brushing my teeth felt like a gift, and I realized I needed to make a serious attitude adjustment.
Then I discovered that I’d forgotten my shower money, so yep, I cried for a third time (because I wasn’t going to take the Scary Ferry two more times just to have a shower). I washed up in the sink and spoke out loud to myself. This is the gist of what I said:
You have the best husband in the world.
His friends are fantastic.
You are so happy.
You have a chance to learn something brand new and to experience life from atop (hopefully) the water, in nature.
You want to participate in things your husband loves, and he loves this.
He. Loves. This.
So you are going to pull yourself together, repack your frigging waterproof bags and organize your boat before you eat dinner so everything will be ready for you when you’re ready to sleep.
Tomorrow you’re going to figure out how to move on the boat and how to do at least one task that is helpful. That will be your task.
And you are not going to complain.
At the end, if you really really hate it, you can choose to not do this again. But you are going to make an effort out of love and respect for your partner, who has already made so many efforts for you.
And you know what? That’s what I did.
I got up the next morning with a new commitment to figuring things out and just trying to be helpful, but also attempting to actively relax and breathe and take in the gorgeous surroundings.
Did I absolutely fall in love with it? The sailing, no. But I can say I was able to like it once I started to be a part of what was going on. I finally caught the rhythm a bit and succeeded in lowering my constant stress. I made a conscious effort be in the moment, to look at nature and enjoy the new things I was seeing and doing.
One of the boats in our group crashed into a docked boat, while another got so stuck in the mud that they had to call a motorboat to pull them out (a thing that “real” sailors apparently try to avoid at all costs), and you know what? I chose not to think about it. After all, it can happen. Isn’t that a good lesson to accept? Shit happens.
I did love the people, and that’s what got me through. They were funny and smart and sweet and also, good cooks. I couldn’t believe how much fresh food they brought along. There were multiple whole pineapples (!) and at least thirty loaves of good bread and nineteen types of cheese and muesli and a whole barbecue thing and couscous and scrambled eggs with fresh herbs for fifteen people. There was French-press coffee in the morning and a festive apéritif each evening as soon as we docked.
Did I win the award the group gives out every trip for “most helpful person” ? Not a chance. But I also didn’t win the prize for “biggest screw-up.” I consider that a complete victory. By the end of the trip I was shouting “Klar!” in response to our captain’s commands. #Progress
Below are a few things I learned from this trip, and what I would’ve written in my journal if I’d brought my red notebook (I’d judged it as “extra” and left it at home):
It can be so hard to try big and bold new experiences, especially over fifty. It seems like everyone learns to ski or surf or ride horses as a kid and if not, that window kind of closes. But that’s not really the case. New adventures are available at any age.
You can say no to things you don’t like or don’t want to do. That’s your right. But saying yes, even (or maybe especially) to something that takes you far out of your comfort zone, can be rewarding. Getting through a difficult experience or learning a new skill (like how to raise a sail or bring down a mast) can build confidence and give you a true sense of growth and accomplishment.
In my case, I absolutely rejected the group tradition to be “baptized” as a part of my first voyage. I told Monsieur B before we left, and I told everyone else: if they as much as attempted to throw me in the open water, even jokingly, I would leave immediately and never come back. Too dramatic? This detail was non-negotiable for me. Everyone totally respected my boundaries (even if I may have seemed a bit overly dramatic), and that meant a lot.
You don’t have to be (and you can’t be) great at everything. The folks on this trip were so good to me, and they did all the real work on the boat, but they allowed me to try, and to have my little victories. As someone who is generally a leader, I had a very humble role in all of it, but by the end, I felt I belonged to the team, and that felt so good.
You don’t always need to be in control. Other people know how to sail boats, even if you don’t. So, you know, just let them sail the damn boats.
Reframing your perspective actively can be a great tool. For example, I decided to stop complaining in my mind and to stop calling myself an idiot for not packing properly, for being a wimp about jumping on and off the boat. That active shift in my behavior made the rest of my sailing trip possible. When you’re doing something that scares you, something physically and mentally hard for you, you need to a) make a plan and b) treat yourself well, with kindness and reassurance.
After we’d returned to Ottenhome Heeg on the fourth day, and had hauled off all our belongings and turned in our boats and life jackets, when we were dividing up leftover salami and boxed wine to take home and hugging one another goodbye, I said, “See you next year!”
And I think I really meant it.
Everyone seemed genuinely happy to hear that, and I smiled when I saw the smile on my husband’s face.
“You were great,” he said.
And I think he really meant it.
I’m kind of excited for next time, although I plan to ignore Monsieur B’s packing advice now that I’m a real sailor.
Bonne navigation, les amis !