Growing up on the North Shore of Long Island, within easy walking distance of Hempstead Harbor and Long Island Sound beyond, i was a serious sailor. Well, serious as a comparatively dirt-poor kid could be.

It was the elder brother of my boyhood dentist, Ward Bell, who taught me, and thousands of other kids over the years, the facts of the sailing life. He taught me to read charts, know tides, take bearings and ranges, and how to know, more importantly to anticipate, what the wind would do at different times of day during different seasons.

[Ward Bell taught me to sail. Mead Schaffer taught me the value of fishing.]

But my dad didn’t bring home nearly enough scratch to join the local yacht club, nor would he indulge my sailing beyond helping me buy a series of second-hand AMF “fish” boats. This meant racing, which everybody else what all hot for, was basically closed to me. I really didn’t care as i couldn’t see the utility of racing. I mean, i was in my boat, on a beam reach with a following sea; i already was where i wanted to be. What was the need of an arbitrary “finish line?”

I came to understand i had a cruiser’s mentality. I met many transient sailors who were living aboard their boats while they were hauled and repaired at the various yacht yards dotting Glen Cove Creek. Most were full-on recluses who wouldn’t even say hello as i rode by on my green Schwinn with the banana saddle.

Years later i came very close to buying a blue-water sailboat and activating my big disappearing act. I researched over a full year what to look for in a boat, what the hierarchy of “what to bring” translated to in a boat of “x” size and an anticipated cruise duration of “y.” I spoke with anybody who’d talk with me. Looking back it was my first experience of “ask 5 people, get 10 opinions.”

And everybody willing to talk always had a boat to sell.

Flash forward about 25 years and now i own a dry land “farm” in Southern Oregon. The cruising dream fizzled undramatically for several reasons, but having now completed one year living at 556 Pelton Lane, i’ve come to understand that cruising and farming are eerily similar. Actually i shouldn’t say “farming” because all i’ve done so far is sell some eggs. The majority of the past year’s time and money has gone to slowly repairing the neglect left by the previous owners, but that is exactly in-keeping with cruising had i bought a used blue-water boat in my price range.

First and foremost, both activities occur at the mercy of the weather. Next, potable water is life. Single-handed sailing, like single-handed farming, is akin to billiards in that you never take a shot without setting up the next shot. Meaning you might sink the target ball, but if you fail to plan for the next shot you risk losing the game.

Then there’s equipment.  Ah equipment… who doesn’t love stuff, right? Guess what, stuff breaks. Some stuff breaks at alarming rates. All stuff depreciates. On a sailboat, especially during extended cruising, chafe is frequently reported to be the insidious villain thwarting the best laid plans. On the farm i would argue mud and water infiltration (wet rot) are the evil twins of chafe.

In The Shipping News, her lovely and gut-wrenching book (made into a paltry film), E. Annie Proulx opens most chapters with a bit from either the Ashley Book of Knots or The Mariner’s Dictionary. Among my favorites is “The Day’s Work.”

“The day’s work, consists, at least, of the dead reckoning from noon to noon, morning and afternoon time sights for longitude and meridian altitude for latitude.”

In other words where you are freaking headed. This is exactly the same for “farming.”

You bet this is to be continued.