Bear

 

 

Last week, I bought this sailboat.  It just came up and I had a chance to get it, so I did.  I’d thought before I did it how it might impact my thru-hike beginning next spring.  Nothing really hit home for me until I actually sailed the boat and then bought the boat, and then a couple days later when I was in Damariscotta finalizing the buying process with the owner, the signing over of the boat with the Coast Guard documents and having them notarized, that I told him, the owner, that I guess I am going to change my hiking plans now.  I explained… and it was tough because the older man had lost his hearing and it was difficult getting his attention, and then telling him that I’d been preparing to hike the Appalachian Trail starting in late February or early March for not quite but almost a year.  He responded by saying, “Well, that’ll get you into shape!”   And now that I have this boat, one of the ones I’ve wanted for almost as long as I’ve wanted to hike the AT, I have decided to be a section hiker and so I’ve decided that I’d still begin at Springer Mt., GA in March, but I’d hike until the first of June and then come back to Maine.  Come back to sail some… go on some sailing adventures, as I’ve always wanted to live in a sailboat and at least pretend that I’m living in it, just the way I will be living out of my tent.  Another thing, is that some work we’d wanted to get finished has not come close to being finished because we haven’t been able to find anybody to do the copper work we had hoped to get done.  Which means that it would be good for me to be here next June… hopefully we can book somebody to come in to do the work at that time.  That’ll give me 3 months to hike which should put me at Harper’s Ferry?  Maybe.  By then it will be too hot for me to hike anyway.  I’ll want to stop.  Then next year I can plan on hiking the rest of the way in cool weather… or relatively cool weather.  Or, I’ll just continue on… if it feels right and finish hiking the AT… I’ll see what that’s like when I get there.  At first, I just want to make it to Neel’s Gap and decide from there!

 

Bear had a tiller, now a wheel. Blue tape is wheel amidship.

 

 

So, what kind of boat did I get?  She is a John Hanna Tahiti Ketch, 30 feet long, built in 1960, very heavily built and in good shape.  She, “Bear”, has an easy starting and smooth running diesel motor.  ”Bear”, was originally a ketch rig, as she was meant to be… two masts… jib and staysail, mainsail, and mizzen.  The mizzen mast on a ketch is in front of the steering as opposed to the yawl whose mizzen mast is abaft the tiller or steering wheel.  ”Bear” was first changed to a Bermudan or Marconi rig and now she is a sloop with a gaff rigged mainsail, stays’l and jib and instead of the original tiller, which is still available in case of an emergency, there is wheel steering.  

 

Not my boat... but you get the idea.

 

 

I’m glad I’ve breeched my strict ideas about making this a do or die thru-hike.  It helps me to open up to possibilities.  This is the kind of approach I like to find in my art-work where it helps me to break through and access new thinking and allow myself other things… the things I don’t know.

Lately, I’ve gotten the willies every time I do anything even close to being strenuous.  I sweat, am aware of my shortness of breath.  The willies are about “can I do this?”  What will it be like to stand atop Springer Mt. in Georgia next spring?  A huge task ahead and plenty of unknowns.  Then I count on my fingers how many months I have to go until I leave for the south.  I tell myself it’s one step at a time.  I breath into it… the fear.  I reassure myself by thinking about something Skylar Purdy told his dad.  Skylar asked Brad if he would hike the AT.  Brad said he couldn’t because he could never get in shape for it.  In response to this, Skylar said “Within 20 days of hiking, you will be in good enough shape to hike the rest of the way.”  I keep that in mind.

Photo:  Amicalola Falls, Approach trail, Springer Mt.  Credit: Monk/Bhikku AT Thru-hiker 2008

“Walking is a blessing”  Henry David Thoreau

 

My name is Peter… Dabber is my chosen trail name for hiking purposes.  I plan on leaving Springer Mt. Georgia either late February or early March of next year.  So although I am also keeping a trail journal on trailjournals.com I decided to begin another type of journal here where I can perhaps write in a more expanded way.

Dabber comes from the sailboat the Drascombe Dabber from the Drascombe line of English lugger type boats.

I live in Maine on the island of Vinalhaven, which is 11 miles off the coast with Nancy.  The ferry leaves Rockland, Maine and arrives at Carver’s Harbor, Vinalhaven, one hour and fifteen minutes later.  One summer three years ago, the ad for the Drascombe Dabber appeared in our little newspaper, “The Wind”.  A family here on the island had put the boat up for sale.  We bought her and Wes and I sailed her around to where Nancy and I live on Winter Harbor.  I don’t think Wes had ever sailed before and he seemed to be thrilled to be handling the jib sail each time we came about and he just liked holding the jib sheet.  Wes is a fiddle playing carpenter who happened to be working with me at the time.

My main use of the 16 foot dabber has been just puttering about in Winter Harbor or sailing around Penobscot island which we can see across the way.  It’s a relatively long island and the sail takes me into Seal cove, a pretty, protected cove with seals.  I have to time the tide just right so I can make it through the little stream on the other end which gets me back into Winter Harbor and home.

 

Once a couple of years ago, Wayne, another carpenter working with me, staying with us here in our house, Nancy, and I went out in the dabber at night around 11:30.  The moon was full, I motored out a ways to where we could get a good view down the harbor to see the moon.  There was a slight breeze.  I cut the motor so we could just float in silence.  It was very beautiful.  It was in either late September or early October but the weather was mild and warmish for that time of year.  There was plenty of light.  I put up all the sails and we had a quite lovely midnight sail.

The dabber is blue, she’s a fiberglass boat, with three sails… jib, main, and mizzen.  she’s a lot of fun.