My Dreams in the Hands of Strangers

Today, Tuesday August 12th, is the big day. This is the day I have scheduled to have my boat towed to a new dockyard, craned out of the water, and placed on land where I will be assessing the feasibility of the work ahead.  Short of any major structural problems I will move forward with a lengthy DIY list to get the vessel back into the water for September and into a state where I can safely live aboard for two months. If there is something structurally wrong with the hull I will have to reevaluate this project. 

In my current mooring, I am surrounded by boats in various stages of repair, disrepair, and decay. Many have commented that it looks like I am situated in a boat graveyard. Tangles of wires, ropes and lines litter the decks half sunk in the water. A BBQ rests on the edge of a bow across from me, seemingly abandoned one day, as if there was no time to clean up after hosting a dock party. Plants are slowly rooting into a dock that is partially sunk into the mud, reclaiming the wood with each ebb and flow of the tidal waters. Chipped paint, rusted metal, and algae caked lines all add to the feeling that these boats have been sitting here for a very long time, left to slowly decompose in situ. 

Like a memento mori, each of them stands as a little reminder–the bridge between the idea of a thing and showing up to it is not always easy to cross. 

Currently I feel like I am hovering close to this edge. I am surrounded by abandoned dreams. I don’t know the stories behind these boats next to mine, but it looks like someone bought them with the intention of doing exactly what I am doing: fixing it up on the way to something else. Like a memento mori I am reminded of my own capacity to get this wrong–all the ways my little nomadic sailing dream can fail. 

Maybe it’s because today an unknown person is towing my boat to an uncertain place, where more unknown people will then crane it out. I am entirely in the hands and the good will of people I don’t know. Part of me will only believe when it actually happens. It is only after this point where I will be able to assess the feasibility of my plan–or abandon it if I find she holds damage that is simply beyond my capacity and budget to fix. 

There is so much uncertainty in this. So much trusting the process, trusting of strangers, hoping for the good will of the folks who share this space. It feels like another moment of contending with vulnerability. I am not certain this will work out. I have no idea what I will find under the vessel. 

All I know is that I can keep showing up. It is tempting to think that dreams are made of full complete plans, well funded, and critically thought through at each step. But if I were to wait for that, I would never cross the bridge from ideas to practicality. 

Maybe these boats met their end from too much planning.  Maybe to take on a project like this you have to be somewhat delusional–believing that all you need is a bowl of water and a scrubbrush–and time and time and time and time. Wherever it is that makes a boat renovation successful, I hope I have it. I don’t have perfect plan or a good idea of the work ahead–yet. I don’t know what this week will hold, but I do know I will keep showing up to it, one evening after another, with a tiny scrub brush in hand if I have to, and my dreams in the hands of strangers.