A man's got to believe in something, so I believe I will start another sailing school.
Oh yes, I had my world torn apart just three short years ago by the hands a maniacal mayor and a stammering imbecilic governor when I started my first. They broke the law, played unfairly and won with little regard for America or the rule of what is just, and I was powerless in the face of governmental overreach. I was lost and was broken completely after building my first, so much so that I almost gave it all up and went down to Davey Jones locker in a gale off the coast of Connecticut. (Yes Mr. and Mrs. America, Connecticut does have water). But somewhere in my broken state and feeling of self-pity, I managed to hop a boat southward and found myself cooking on a schooner in the North Carolina summer heat on Pamlico Sound and that's where I am today.
I'm in Love and living in East Carolina, and the truth is I have loved Carolina in my mind long before I ever arrived here. True, the winds are brisk, the flies and mosquitoes almost rabid and the dark water of the Tar and Neuse Rivers carry the heat of the hot East Carolina sun like a sea of black blood washing its way down a winding channel to the sea. Despite those decidedly foreign sensations on my lily-white New England chest, my heart swells for this semi-populated estuary perched on a forbidden coast set on an Emerald sea.
Since I stepped off that boat over a year ago, I have been living in obscurity among the creeks and canals garnished with a slow sun-tanned people clad in Spanish moss and Crape Myrtle berries. They have worked their way into my soul now and I have settled in a spot unknown to many but called to by all the hearts of every man, Beaufort, NC.
Beaufort is a town matched with Moorehead City and it is a strange tale of two cities. They are almost sister-like in their common features and grassy shores precariously placed between them and the mighty North Atlantic. But one has chosen to embrace the flash and glitz of a girl on the town, while the other stays at home guarding the family bible and holding onto the past. I have made my home in the City that looks back rather than live where the nightlife hums. My New England sensibilities will not let me abandon my perfectly starched tablecloths in favor of the picnic tables and beer of a Down East Oyster Roast. While I do so love how the ice cold yeasty flavors mix with the sweet and salty sensation of a freshly steamed oyster on a cool fall evening in Carolina, I feel it far safer to live where the loblolly pines whisper in the afternoon breezes and all progress is met with immediate concern. And so I have made Beaufort my home.
But ultimately it is the combination of these two communities that brings me to the notion that a sailing school is a proper pursuit here on the Crystal Coast.
I didn't really concern myself with the sailing world when I chose to drop anchor in this part of the world over a year ago. In fact, I was quite ready to walk away from sailing entirely when I disembarked my last voyage. The evils I have seen in the maritime world, the lack of gratitude offered from employers for risking one's life and limb in the perils of the sea to teach a few well-to-do kids how to hoist the main sail, the veritable poverty one must endure in pursuit of a love of the sea, these were all reasons I thought it better to try my hand at any other career other than sailing. Bartending, retail, marketing, writing- I tried and failed at all of them. Never to be dissuaded, I tried and tried again at a new job and new career path only to find all signs were pointing me back to sailing.
The truth is, however, there is a decided lack of sailing opportunities on the Crystal Coast. Ironic huh? One of the most beautiful coasts in the world, with clear water, bountiful breezes and unfettered access to the Gulf Stream, and sailing around here is like the marijuana your parents smoked with the neighbors late on Friday nights in June. Keep it hidden from the kids, coo coo cachoo.
Many here yearn to harness the wind and take command of their own vessel, yet for so many sailing is nearly impossible to find amid the kayaks and kite boards of Eastern Carolina. Why this blackout on the sport that is as much science as it is artform? And why hadn't I seen that when I moved here?
The sport of Ted Turner and Dennis Conner around here seems more like Oliver on the Brady Bunch, not really welcome to the fray but strangely part of the clan of watersports. Kite Boarding, Kite Boarding, Kite Boarding to me sounds much more like "Marsha Marsha Marsha". It is the forgotten and nearly unwelcome sibling of the pantheon of watersports in NC. And for good reason.
Sailing is expensive, elitist and around here, a nearly automatic grounding. The shallow waters and sand bars of the River Mouths and Inlets make navigating East Carolina a gauntlet for the relative deep drafts of a proper sailing vessel. And paying top dollar to sit on a sand bar for 12 hours in the hot Carolina sun, well that just sounds gross to me. So I get why sailing has a taken a back seat to more affordable and accessible sports like kayaking and kiteboarding in this part of the world.
But that's where I see an opportunity here on the Crystal Coast. It's not that sailing is and was always impossible or expensive. All we need to do is look at dear old Edward Teach, AKA Black Beard, to see sailing was not only possible, it could be quite profitable here on the Carolina Coast. With a 10 Month sailing season, a limitless supply of tourists, the cleanest and most lovely waters this side of the Caribbean and winds that brought a pair of bike-expert brothers from Ohio to pioneer the sport of flight here, Eastern Carolina boasts all the raw materials to make a sailing school successful. And Beaufort/Moorehead City, the two estranged sister cities, sit at the crossroads of maritime perfection and capitalistic opportunity.
Beaufort Inlet is a mear half dozen miles from the open Atlantic and another half dozen miles from the Pamlico Sound. It is the convergence of waters that have created a maze of islands and beaches that are perfect for exploring and anchoring. The currents of the two Neptunian bodies interchanging for the last Million years have etched deep channels and ground the bottomlands to a fine powdery sand making the art of careening a pleasure not just a chore for all but the deepest draft vessels. And a student that learns in the relative protection of this windy yet protected maze can find themselves within a year working on bettering their knowledge in real blue waters all while making it home in time for dinner on a nightly basis. This is the Sailing capital of the East Coast, if you ask me, in spite of the claims made by that certain Naval Port to our North that comes complete with freshly starched young people in white uniforms and imported hard crabs.
It is the Crystal Coast that begs for international recognition on the sailing front, and so I might as well be the guy to do that.
To my new friends in Carolina, I would like to tell you about my exploits as a sailing pro for the last 30 years. I would like to regale you with tales of the good fight I fought for the water rights of Connecticut and how I want to fight to make your waters free down here. But I won't. I'm not fighting anymore. It's too hot down here to get all worked up, and too many good days to sail, board and kayak. So let's leave the fighting to Big Washington, and spend our time together getting to know one another, enjoying the pleasant summer winds and kicking back with a cold beer and pile of seafood. I'll be happy to teach you how to harness the breeze, if you will only teach my the right way to smoke a pork shoulder and how to train a bird dog to hunt. We can learn a lot from each other.
To my old friends in Connecticut. I will miss you. I will most of all miss the pizza, but I will also miss the snowy mornings listening to school closings, and the smell of that first cold night in October when the leaves have fallen and the fireplaces are all alight. I will miss the ghost stories of Revolutions past and the taste of a lobster roll dockside in Mystic. I will miss the sound of a Sox game on in the bar room, a pats game on in the den, and the sounds of a New Yorker and a Bostonian having it out on a Hartford street corner. I will miss you Connecticut, but Carolina has called me home and I'm going sailing.
Oh yes, I had my world torn apart just three short years ago by the hands a maniacal mayor and a stammering imbecilic governor when I started my first. They broke the law, played unfairly and won with little regard for America or the rule of what is just, and I was powerless in the face of governmental overreach. I was lost and was broken completely after building my first, so much so that I almost gave it all up and went down to Davey Jones locker in a gale off the coast of Connecticut. (Yes Mr. and Mrs. America, Connecticut does have water). But somewhere in my broken state and feeling of self-pity, I managed to hop a boat southward and found myself cooking on a schooner in the North Carolina summer heat on Pamlico Sound and that's where I am today.
I'm in Love and living in East Carolina, and the truth is I have loved Carolina in my mind long before I ever arrived here. True, the winds are brisk, the flies and mosquitoes almost rabid and the dark water of the Tar and Neuse Rivers carry the heat of the hot East Carolina sun like a sea of black blood washing its way down a winding channel to the sea. Despite those decidedly foreign sensations on my lily-white New England chest, my heart swells for this semi-populated estuary perched on a forbidden coast set on an Emerald sea.
Since I stepped off that boat over a year ago, I have been living in obscurity among the creeks and canals garnished with a slow sun-tanned people clad in Spanish moss and Crape Myrtle berries. They have worked their way into my soul now and I have settled in a spot unknown to many but called to by all the hearts of every man, Beaufort, NC.
Beaufort is a town matched with Moorehead City and it is a strange tale of two cities. They are almost sister-like in their common features and grassy shores precariously placed between them and the mighty North Atlantic. But one has chosen to embrace the flash and glitz of a girl on the town, while the other stays at home guarding the family bible and holding onto the past. I have made my home in the City that looks back rather than live where the nightlife hums. My New England sensibilities will not let me abandon my perfectly starched tablecloths in favor of the picnic tables and beer of a Down East Oyster Roast. While I do so love how the ice cold yeasty flavors mix with the sweet and salty sensation of a freshly steamed oyster on a cool fall evening in Carolina, I feel it far safer to live where the loblolly pines whisper in the afternoon breezes and all progress is met with immediate concern. And so I have made Beaufort my home.
But ultimately it is the combination of these two communities that brings me to the notion that a sailing school is a proper pursuit here on the Crystal Coast.
I didn't really concern myself with the sailing world when I chose to drop anchor in this part of the world over a year ago. In fact, I was quite ready to walk away from sailing entirely when I disembarked my last voyage. The evils I have seen in the maritime world, the lack of gratitude offered from employers for risking one's life and limb in the perils of the sea to teach a few well-to-do kids how to hoist the main sail, the veritable poverty one must endure in pursuit of a love of the sea, these were all reasons I thought it better to try my hand at any other career other than sailing. Bartending, retail, marketing, writing- I tried and failed at all of them. Never to be dissuaded, I tried and tried again at a new job and new career path only to find all signs were pointing me back to sailing.
The truth is, however, there is a decided lack of sailing opportunities on the Crystal Coast. Ironic huh? One of the most beautiful coasts in the world, with clear water, bountiful breezes and unfettered access to the Gulf Stream, and sailing around here is like the marijuana your parents smoked with the neighbors late on Friday nights in June. Keep it hidden from the kids, coo coo cachoo.
Many here yearn to harness the wind and take command of their own vessel, yet for so many sailing is nearly impossible to find amid the kayaks and kite boards of Eastern Carolina. Why this blackout on the sport that is as much science as it is artform? And why hadn't I seen that when I moved here?
The sport of Ted Turner and Dennis Conner around here seems more like Oliver on the Brady Bunch, not really welcome to the fray but strangely part of the clan of watersports. Kite Boarding, Kite Boarding, Kite Boarding to me sounds much more like "Marsha Marsha Marsha". It is the forgotten and nearly unwelcome sibling of the pantheon of watersports in NC. And for good reason.
Sailing is expensive, elitist and around here, a nearly automatic grounding. The shallow waters and sand bars of the River Mouths and Inlets make navigating East Carolina a gauntlet for the relative deep drafts of a proper sailing vessel. And paying top dollar to sit on a sand bar for 12 hours in the hot Carolina sun, well that just sounds gross to me. So I get why sailing has a taken a back seat to more affordable and accessible sports like kayaking and kiteboarding in this part of the world.
But that's where I see an opportunity here on the Crystal Coast. It's not that sailing is and was always impossible or expensive. All we need to do is look at dear old Edward Teach, AKA Black Beard, to see sailing was not only possible, it could be quite profitable here on the Carolina Coast. With a 10 Month sailing season, a limitless supply of tourists, the cleanest and most lovely waters this side of the Caribbean and winds that brought a pair of bike-expert brothers from Ohio to pioneer the sport of flight here, Eastern Carolina boasts all the raw materials to make a sailing school successful. And Beaufort/Moorehead City, the two estranged sister cities, sit at the crossroads of maritime perfection and capitalistic opportunity.
Beaufort Inlet is a mear half dozen miles from the open Atlantic and another half dozen miles from the Pamlico Sound. It is the convergence of waters that have created a maze of islands and beaches that are perfect for exploring and anchoring. The currents of the two Neptunian bodies interchanging for the last Million years have etched deep channels and ground the bottomlands to a fine powdery sand making the art of careening a pleasure not just a chore for all but the deepest draft vessels. And a student that learns in the relative protection of this windy yet protected maze can find themselves within a year working on bettering their knowledge in real blue waters all while making it home in time for dinner on a nightly basis. This is the Sailing capital of the East Coast, if you ask me, in spite of the claims made by that certain Naval Port to our North that comes complete with freshly starched young people in white uniforms and imported hard crabs.
It is the Crystal Coast that begs for international recognition on the sailing front, and so I might as well be the guy to do that.
To my new friends in Carolina, I would like to tell you about my exploits as a sailing pro for the last 30 years. I would like to regale you with tales of the good fight I fought for the water rights of Connecticut and how I want to fight to make your waters free down here. But I won't. I'm not fighting anymore. It's too hot down here to get all worked up, and too many good days to sail, board and kayak. So let's leave the fighting to Big Washington, and spend our time together getting to know one another, enjoying the pleasant summer winds and kicking back with a cold beer and pile of seafood. I'll be happy to teach you how to harness the breeze, if you will only teach my the right way to smoke a pork shoulder and how to train a bird dog to hunt. We can learn a lot from each other.
To my old friends in Connecticut. I will miss you. I will most of all miss the pizza, but I will also miss the snowy mornings listening to school closings, and the smell of that first cold night in October when the leaves have fallen and the fireplaces are all alight. I will miss the ghost stories of Revolutions past and the taste of a lobster roll dockside in Mystic. I will miss the sound of a Sox game on in the bar room, a pats game on in the den, and the sounds of a New Yorker and a Bostonian having it out on a Hartford street corner. I will miss you Connecticut, but Carolina has called me home and I'm going sailing.
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