There Is No Place Like Home

Everything is better on a boat. Drinking is more fun on the water, food tastes better, rest is more restful. Sleeping on a gently rocking boat, with the rigging ringing upon soft impact with the mast and shrouds is unlike anything else. It is calming, soothing, and quiet. So calm and so very quiet. Usually.

Not so much this last weekend. This was more The Perfect Storm than The Blue Lagoon. It was absolutely miserable. I helped a friend move his sailboat (Libby Lou) from a harbor in East Boston to its summer home in Marion. A two hour car ride took a day and a half in a boat… kind of makes you wonder how anything got done in a reasonable amount of time 400 years ago.

I was very excited about this trip. I upended my schedule, ditched an interview that I have been looking forward to for ages (more on that next week!), and decided to screw off work for yet another day. What was meant to be a leisurely jaunt along coastal New England turned out to be a soaking wet, freezing cold, angry ocean nightmare. A day and a half on Libby Lou (past its prime, that boat. They really tend to go downhill after the third decade) in driving rain, 40 degree temperature, 5 foot swells and 20 knot winds (gusting to 30)… really not at all fun.

I clicked my heels together for two days and chanted “there is no place like home” under my breath but nothing changed, nothing happened, unless you count getting hit by yet another rolling wave... which made me sick. I have never EVER been sick on a boat before. Never, not in all my sailing years (all four of them). Never until this weekend. I have never missed home more in my life.

I stumbled into my apartment on Monday afternoon in a cold and nauseous stupor and ran straight into a hot shower, which rocked suspiciously under my feet. My whole body hurt. I reeked of motor oil (old boats can’t hold their liquor). I was starving.

I did not make anything creative, stupendous, unusual, or involved. I made what was fastest and importantly, freshest (not so much with the perishables on this particular sailing adventure). Creamy ripe avocado mixed with sweet and softly crunchy corn was summery, citrusy, refreshing, clean, and practically therapeutic. I hope not to forever associate this corny avocado with my Libby Lou trip. I would rather remember it as cooling and comforting.


Thank-the-Lord-I-am-home Avocado and Corn Salad

1 ripe avocado, cubed
2 cobs-worth of cooked corn kernels
a but load of lime juice (or the juice of 2 limes)
1/4 cup chopped cilantro, lightly packed
cayenne, salt, and pepper to taste

Mix all and pile on crackers or bread, while experiencing swells (pun intended) of appreciation for a warm, comfortable, welcoming home, with not an ocean in sight.


P.S. There were happy moments during the weekend, of course:

This bridge went up just for us! How cool is that? To leave the harbor in East Boston you have to call the bridge caretaker from the boat to lift the bridge and allow the boat out. See our tracks? Those are Libby Lou motoring tracks.