Step 4: Storms and Rough Water

2014 started with a lot of promise.  I was laying plans out for putting more pieces of our dream together.  Admittedly, our dreams of making a life aboard a boat in the Caribbean are missing many pieces still.  While some of those missing pieces simply take time, effort, and planning - others are not so easily acquired.  I have always been of the opinion that you can't always wait for all the pieces to be there, you have to go out and get what you can now.  In time, and with work, hopefully the rest of what's missing will be found.

We had decided I would pursue a captain's school.  A USCG Captains license is required in order to operate a boat commercially, carrying paying passengers.  After some research and creative scheduling, I was booked with local school to earn my USCG Operator of Uninspected Passenger Vessel (a basic license, otherwise known as the 6-pack because it limits the captain to 6 paying passengers).  A week before the school was scheduled to start - I got a short email saying it was canceled and my money was refunded.  No explanation.  This was a forecast of storms to come.  I was then scrambling to find another school in my area.

I soon found my only alternative was Sea School, and the schedule would require that between my normal job and captain's school, I wouldn't have a day off for a month, and my shortest day would be 12 hours.  As they say - "It is what it is".  This would be especially tough in the dead of winter which tends to be the most depressing part of the year here.

On the last week of my month long stretch of work and school, one of the best friends I will ever have in this lifetime, Zsolt Megai, fell suddenly ill.  He was diagnosed with Leukemia.  This news was like being run over by a truck, but I had faith my dear friend would fight the disease and prevail.  A week after his diagnosis, and on the last day of my month-long stretch without a break, we got the call to get to the hospital, nothing more could be done.  There was a big snowstorm that day.  Normally if there is even rain in the forecast I-95 is a parking lot.  That day I did 75mph all the way home.  It was a ghost town on the highway.  We went to the hospital to be with Zsolt in his last hours.  He wanted one more beer.  We ran through the snow laden streets of New Haven to get him that beer before his time.  In his final hours, he asked that I think of him when I'm out there on the ocean.  I promise I'll do that every time Zsolt.  A piece of me died on this day too.  It was Valentines Day.  One day when I can collect my thoughts more properly, I will write something fitting of Zsolt and what an amazing friend he was, and what a tremendous hole he left in the universe with his passing.  Zsolt and I will sail the crystal blue waters of the Caribbean together anyway, one way or another.

The following week, my brand new car's engine started violently knocking.  After less than 3000 miles, it needed a new engine and I spent the following month without it.  I spent the following weeks in a loaner car, mourning my friend, dealing with a job that was going crazy, getting buried with snow and ice on a daily basis, and attempting to steady my brain long enough to study for my captain's test.  Luckily, my ASA 104 Navigation course made the chart navigation portion of the test a breeze so I didn't need to study for that.  The test consists of four parts: Deck General, Nav General, Chart Plotting/Navigation, the infamous Nav Rules (which seems to hang everyone up).  At the end of the test, all four parts were passed, and the worst of my storms and rough water were over.  I would like to think Zsolt was looking down of me and proud of me for making it through and passing those tests.  Now only a mountain of paperwork stands between me and my captain's license, although I will need far more sea time before it is at an acceptible level for what I want to do.

I am sure this was just one stormy period of many that we will encounter on our journey towards our dreams.  The thing about storms - avoid them when and if you can, but know that when you can't it's a matter of getting through to the other side.  Easier said than done I know.