Plankowner
Posts: 9165
Location: Upper lefthand corner of the map. | Subject: Too funny but still applies to the "Navy" sailor too
The Sometimes Goofy Questions Non-Sailors Ask
So, we're headed to Aruba for Carnaval for two weeks - wild calypso music, warm sunshine, dancing in the streets, and a parade with costumes, and all the feathers and sequins you've ever imagined. Not to mention, warm clear water, white sand beaches, sunshine, and did I say warm? I can't get over the number of people who think, "ah, Caribbean island," and ask if we're sailing the boat there! So I patiently explain that we're flying because: (a) it's February, it would be cold and windy and seriously unpleasant to go sailing; and (b) it's 1500 miles, and our boat goes about 4 or 5 knots, or 100 to 125 miles per day - do the math and you'll realize it'll take our entire two-week vacation just to get there.
Once Dan and I stopped overnight at the home of a good (landlubber) friend, while driving home in a rented car after delivering a boat from Annapolis to Newport, RI. We were filled with stories, and on an adrenaline high from lack of sleep because we'd sailed all day and night for 5 days and 4 nights. So in all innocence my friend asked, "Well, why did you have to sail all night? Couldn't you have set out the anchor and slept?" When I tell this story to other sailors, they tend to laugh so hard that whatever they're drinking comes out their nose. But my friend Jim Hodson said that he was once asked the same question, and graciously points out that non-sailors understand only that anchoring is what ships do to hold them in place when they stop, and little more. The details are totally out of their experience, and they should be forgiven for not really registering that in order to anchor, you need a rope or chain from the boat to the anchor that sets on the bottom of the ocean. Practical in twenty or fifty feet of water, but the Atlantic is thousands of feet deep and so you can't anchor, just keep going till you get to the other side.
So I polled my sailing friends and acquaintances and e-quaintances for the most outrageous things non-sailors had asked them. Jim's example has reminded me to be charitable, but I'm not sure charity is the right word for some of the stories my friends told of people who don't have even a basic grasp of geography. One such guy asked a man who sails on an inland lake in Arizona how long it would take to sail to California? (There seems to be a mountain range in the way.) Another e-quaintance sailed into a fjord surrounded by steep rock walls and waterfalls, and a guest aboard asked how high up they were? Uh, that would be sea level. Another friend, Chris, claims that on a whale-watching tour, he and his wife overheard a school teacher (!) ask how they keep track of where all the islands were, since they float around and such?
Michael Johnson is a charter captain in St Thomas, USVI, he takes guests sailing in the crystal clear Caribbean waters. Depending on the depth and whether the bottom is sand, rock, or grass, the water appears every shade from brown, to green, to turquoise, to deep sapphire. He told me he once had a guest who asked where she could buy clear bottles, to take home all the different colors of water. Mmmkay - "appears" is the operative word here, the water part is crystal clear water ... "clear?" But my all-time favorite was one story I got from an e-quaintance on a sailing message board. He was doing day sails in the Florida Keys and was asked, "So, how many sunset sails do you do in a day?" This isn't a political blog, so I'm not going to comment on No Child Left Behind, or the importance of basic science education ... oops, guess I just did!
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Too funny but still applies to the "Navy" sailor too
