A Gift from the Sea
by
Barb Hansen
April 2010
Recently I was on the phone with a man and we were
discussing plans for his family’s one-week yacht
charter vacation. Every day was planned to the max.
I
suggested he might not be able to keep such a
schedule due to weather or other factors. But he
told me he had been an officer in the U.S. Navy. He
had everything planned down to a five-minute
timetable.
It seems everybody wants to carry their busy
lifestyles over into their vacation on the water.
Hurry is their mantra, their default position. Hurry
to the office, hurry to pick up the kids, rush home,
eat dinner, homework, hurry.
Oh my. I’m not a paragon of the virtue of patience
but one thing I think I have learned in 25 years in
the yacht chartering business is that cruises can be
ruined by schedules that are too ambitious.
Sometimes the weatherman has some timely advice.
Winds are up. Waves are high. A storm is coming.
Stay in port. That kind of advice always trumps a
schedule.
But, even when safety is not a consideration, it’s
good to remember that sometimes doing something is
not as much fun as just doing nothing. Keeping to a
schedule can lessen the fun and spontaneity of
cruising. It can make the family-man-skipper the bad
guy even though he wants everybody to have a great
time.
Lately I have been reading an essay about A Gift
from the Sea, a book written by Anne Morrow
Lindberg, wife of the man who first flew solo across
the Atlantic Ocean.
She wrote, “The sea does not reward those who are
too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. Patience,
patience, patience, is what the sea teaches.
Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open,
choiceless as a beach – waiting for a gift from the
sea.”
Sometimes your gift from the sea is a placid cove
with the perfect spot to anchor-up. There is room
for just one boat. Yours. You “own” it. It’s
wonderful. Herons, egrets and spoonbills are wading
on that flat over there. A family of manatees comes
over to investigate. Oh, look, there’s a pod of
dolphins.
Sorry. Your schedule tells you to keep moving.
Awwww, Dad, do we have to?
Patience doesn’t come easy for many of us. Through
the ages men and women of wisdom have counseled
patience. Patience is wisdom. Patience is virtuous.
Okay. But still we’d rather check things off on our
to-do lists. I know somebody who confessed to adding
tasks to his to-do list so he could experience the
pleasure of checking them off, too.
Patience is a good thing, we say. But we still
prefer to rush through the day by repeating inner
voice truisms that have no relationship to the task
at hand. Time is of the essence. Get ‘er done. Do
something.
Successful cruising is not like that.
Auguste Rodin, who sculpted “The Thinker,” said,
“Patience is also a form of action.”
You could check it off.
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