The Man Who Jumped From A Ferry - Epilogue

Epilogue

Now I’m out of hospital, homeostasis is not an option. Keeping things, the same in my life will not address the fundamental sources for my depression. During the three months in hospital, I had plenty of time to evaluate how I live. With the help of my CBT therapist, I clarified the changes, when made, I determined would help keep me in robust good health.

Change can be challenging. Remaining within my comfort zone may seem safe, but doing so, continues to expose me to the familiar, and thus comfortable, elements which may stunt my recovery process. In much of my life, I haven’t been content to remain in my comfort zone. My many sea kayaking adventures are a testament to this. There were innumerable moments during these expeditions where I could have taken the safest path but instead chose the more arduous. The rewards for doing so were always incredibly richer.

I identified the key element in how I live which hinders my pursuit of joy in life as being loneliness. I miss day to day contact with others. I miss seeing my friends. I miss having friends to visit and stay. I miss sharing my love of the outdoors with friends and others. My outgoing and richly blessed online life cannot sustain this for me. There are many occasions where I find myself aching to meet Twitter friends for real, to chat, to share time with. Yet, it is through Twitter where I find my most intimate connections with others. It is where daily, I am recognised and valued. Of course, it is not possible to meet people in reality – I would have to travel the world to do so.

I can make changes in how I live which will enhance the possibilities for me to connect with others. The fundamental change is one which carries the greatest potential for loss and sadness for me. It requires me to give up on what I have long believed sustained me but in fact, I have sadly identified, is a major limiting factor in my life.

This is living on our yacht.

We have therefore decided to move ashore. The key reasons for this huge decision are these. I am isolated from others when I’m aboard on our mooring in Tobermory Bay. There is no chance of anyone dropping by and there are times when I can spend a week on board without any contact with others apart from my wife. The only contact I have is an online virtual one. This then leads me to become attached to my laptop, searching my timelines for any recognition for my existence. Although I purport to live a free and healthy outdoor life, this is in truth not the case. I am often cooped up in our saloon, sitting in the same spot all day. Only moving to make coffee or visit the heads. My wonderful photos often trawled from my numerous photographic catalogues. Of course, I do get out and about. I take the dog for a walk and there are times when I get my act together and go kayaking.

Yacht Life

This leads onto another debilitating factor regarding living on our boat in the bay. To get ashore we must row one of small dinghies. This means anything we need to transport ashore must be packed to keep it dry, and loaded in the small boat, rowed ashore, lumbered up onto the shore. There are many times when arriving at the shore, I have realised I have forgotten something on the boat which needed to be brought over. For example, the scutter in taking stuff ashore often demotivates me to the point I’ll choose not to go kayaking. Additionally, if I do go kayaking, there’s not much room aboard to dry my wet kit. All this occurs when we are on the mooring. In the winter months, we are berthed alongside one of the pontoon docks in the harbour marina.

This leads into another aspect which I have increasingly found challenging for me. Living on the boat through the winter. Winter is not a good time of year for me at the best of times. It’s when my mood is most likely to lessen to the point where I’m bordering on a depressive episode. Winter here in Tobermory can be tough. The winds often blow from a quarter which makes living aboard uncomfortable because of the noise and movement. When one of the many winter gales passes through, I can be guaranteed very little sleep. Another major factor which I’m increasingly finding challenging is keeping on top of dampness through the winter months. Condensation is a problem leading to things becoming mouldy and damaged as a result. We attempt to keep on top of this but it’s a never ending task. In the mornings I can be woken by large drips of condensation falling on my head from the window above me. With the heating we use, the boat is generally warm and cosy. We don’t suffer from being cold but with heating comes condensation.

Finally, I have come to accept I’m not a worthwhile handy-person. There are innumerable maintenance tasks which are required to keep the boat functional. For some reason, I find it extremely challenging to keep on top of these and ultimately perform them to a high quality. I accept I’m self-critical of myself, but this aspect does weigh heavily on me. It is an issue which I ruminate about and can build within me as a negative force.

There will be a huge amount I’ll miss about living on the boat. The first one, and this is probably the key one, is my loss of identity. I’m known as LifeAfloat to my many followers in my online world. Moving off the boat removes me from this attribution. I will personally miss acknowledging myself as a yacht live-aboard. An important part of my personal identity will be given up. This saddens me.

I will miss the elemental aspect of living on the boat. This is the deep connection I have developed with the weather, the sea, the tides, the birdlife and the boat herself. I will miss falling asleep to the movement created by the swell. I’ll miss becoming intimately knowledgeable about the weather and living my life, so I’m prepared for it and not too discomforted. To a certain extent I’ll miss the challenges the elements present because they remind me of my place in the world.

I’ll miss the opportunities to drop the mooring and sail off into the wide blue yonder. The itinerant lifestyle, not feeling anchored to one place. However, to be honest, we don’t do this half as much as we would like.

So, it’s with an extremely heavy heart, I’ve decided to bring to end my living on a yacht. It has been seven wonderfully interesting, joyful, challenging, and rewarding years. I’ve learned so much about living a simple life. I’ve learned much about myself too, namely I’m keen to live adventurously despite my age. Most of all, I’ve enjoyed the alternativeness of my lifestyle to the point it became a completely normal existence.

We are moving into a delightful terraced house looking over Tobermory Bay. We’ll have a garden which will offer us uninterrupted views across the bay, the Sound of Mull beyond and then the mountains of Morvern in the far distance. It’s a comfortable house with plenty of room. We were extremely fortunate to find this house, because rental accommodation in Tobermory is rare.

So, what are the opportunities?

I will have a room as my ‘office’ where I’ll write without having to clear my stuff away when we need to eat. We’ll enjoy all the aspects living in a house as opposed to living on a boat. Namely, no condensation. We’ll have a spare en-suite guest room.

There are many Twitter and Facebook friends I want to meet and get to know. Additionally, it’ll be so much easier to then share some wee adventures together; kayaking, walking, exploring Mull.

The latter is extremely important! We hope this will mean we no longer live in isolation with no visitors. We make this room available to all our friends, even those we have not yet met. I am particularly keen our house becomes a hive of visitors where we share time together and connect. There are many Twitter and Facebook friends I want to meet and get to know. Additionally, it’ll be so much easier to then share some wee adventures together; kayaking, walking, exploring Mull.

There will not be scutter involved in rowing everything ashore before I can enjoy a day out kayaking or walking. I’ll simply open the door and walk down to the quay. At the end of the day, I can wash and dry my salty wet kit without stringing it out in two small cabins. I think this means I’ll get out on the sea far more often.

When winter arrives, I won’t be struggling with the gales and the darkness as much as I would be on the boat. This will be good for my mental health.

I will invite friends around and folks can drop by. My life will become less lonely and this too will be good for my mental health.

Finally, our dear dog, Ziggy, is becoming stiff in his legs and no longer jumps with the youthful confidence he once had. Living in a house where he doesn’t have to jump into or out of the saloon will certainly benefit him.

Although I will no longer be a live-aboard, I’m not relinquishing my LifeAfloat moniker. It is my intention to spend more time on the sea in my kayak than I have ever done before. There are huge swathes of coastline for me to explore. Additionally, I will buy a traditional clinker built sea going sailing skiff. I have my eye on one already. I will do this once we have sold our yacht.

The View We Will Enjoy

This leads into the final point. The money we’ll realise from the sale of our yacht will not disappear into the general pot. We’ll divide it equally for each of us to realise our adventure dreams. I’m formulating a huge expedition to take place in a few years. Karen for example, has always wanted to trek through Iceland on a pony. There are many other aspirations we wish to fulfil. The key here is the spirit of ‘Anna-Maria’, our yacht, will live on through our commitment to enjoy adventures from her sale. This fills me with excitement. The possibilities!

We have no further plans than the immediate ones we have made. We aspire to live a life with as small a footprint as we can. This move into the house is a stepping stone towards our next life adventure.

Cleaning Her Bottom!

There comes a time when a necessary chore can no longer be deferred and it's necessary to get the job done. One which had been weighing heavily over me for many weeks was the need to clean Anna Maria's hull - her bottom.

As a yacht owner for six years now, I'm well used to the annual task of ensuring the hull of our boat is clean from barnacles, weed and other marine hangers on. Up until now, I have had the boat lifted out of the sea on a cradle and then put on stands in a boat yard so I could complete this job at my leisure. This year however, I found myself in the situation of not being moored within a marina with easy access to a boat lift and a dedicated boat yard. Instead I would have to sail the yacht a good days distance away to the closest marina and have her lifted out there. This presented me with the problem of finding the time to do this. To effectively get everything done it would take me at least three days and this was if the weather was settled enough to do this.

The only feasible option for me was to dry Anna Maria out alongside the old drystone Fishermen's Pier here in Tobermory one day during a spring tide, work as hard as I could between the tides to clean her and paint her with anti-foul paint. It was likely too that the financial cost for this would be a substantial fraction of the hundreds of pounds I had been quoted by the marina to have her lifted out, washed and put on stands - even for just one day. I had seen other local boat owners follow this process here and it was really the most obvious solution. 

Why then did it take me so long before I eventually took the task in hand? Well, I had never dried a yacht out alongside a pier before, let alone cleaned her hull and painted her between tides. I was nervous of making a mistake, getting things wrong and at worst, causing our beloved home to topple away from the pier onto her side in the mud of the harbour. So I vacillated and every spring tide put off the moment of taking her in all the while guiltily noticing the accumulation of vibrant green weed sprouting from her hull. 

In the end, after seeing how encrusted the hull was with barnacles during a particularly rough day when the lively sea state showed off to all and sundry the very sorry state of Anna Maria's bottom that I decided on the next spring tide I would take her in and clean her. Well, in my head I made the decision...

Needless to say the spring tide arrived and it was with guilt ridden relief that I saw a local tour operator had taken the drying out berth to enable them to clean their boat which meant I couldn't get in. However, I had made a decision so I wandered across to the pier to chat to a local fisherman about the protocol for bringing non-fishing boats alongside. I had been told anecdotally that it was fine for people to dry their boats out so long as they vacated the berth at high water to allow fishing boats to return, but I wanted to make sure. I really didn't want to put a black mark against my name here in the harbour amongst the hardworking fishing community.

I discovered as I had been told, it was fine to bring our boat in so long as I cleared away as soon as I was afloat again - additionally making a donation for the upkeep of the pier. Armed with this reassuring permission I felt my confidence in bringing our yacht in soar to a new level.

Two days later at eight in the morning I slipped our mooring and motored slowly into the calm waters of the pier, effortlessly berthing alongside. I was secretly very pleased with how I managed this without fluffing things in a mad panic to secure the mooring lines or heaven forbid, thumping the boat into the stonework. Feeling very much a local, I waited with copious mugs of coffee for the tide to recede and our boat to lower gently onto the harbour floor. In my overconfidence I di not consider how I was to list (tilt) Anna Maria against the pier wall so that there was little chance of her toppling away and onto her side. I had assumed that by securing her with lines fore and aft, preventing her from surging back and forth and by tying both masts (she's a ketch) from high up to the pier, she would be safe. However I was shaken when a wisened fisherman sagely offered me advice about listing her and spoke to me about the importance of doing this properly. Thankfully he helped me do this by lending me two large tubs which I filled with water and placed amidships on the deck on the side closest to the pier. Their combined weight ensured the boat eventually lay at an assuring jaunty angle against the wall once she had gently taken the ground.

I watched the depth sounder carefully when the time came close for her to touch the sea bed but the actual moment was difficult to determine. I think I noticed she was aground when it was obvious she did not move when I pushed away from the wall. However there was a significant amount of water beneath her to still drain away and it was a good couple of hours before I began to think of getting under her hull to have a look. Eventually it occurred to me that because I had missed the apex of the spring tides, I might not have complete dryness beneath to work so I dressed myself in my sea kayaking dry trousers and climbed down the pier ladder to have a good look.

I was dismayed! her hull was swathed in barnacles and weed hung like emerald green dreadlocks from much of her bottom. It looked to me to be a mammoth job. With a heavy sigh I looked morosely at the small paint stripper I had in my hand, waded into the water up to my waist and set about scraping what barnacles and marine detritus I could reach without having to submerge myself. It was pleasing to note that little effort was required to remove the encrustations but I also noted that with a small paint stripper, it was going to be a long job. Undeterred I set forth at a vigorous rate of knots - pleasingly scraping strips of barnacles from the smooth hull. Every now and again I would stop this process to use a stiff floor brush to clean as best I could the areas I had laid bare. I worked hard. As the sea receded so I was able to reach more of the hull until eventually I was standing by the rudder at her stern. The section of hull alongside the pier wall was the most challenging to clean and I emerged from under here covered in sea food smelling crustaceans. I looked a sight! The propeller took an effort to rid it of its growth and the rudder stock was a difficulty too. Eventually though, with the sea beginning to creep back in I was confident that her bottom was clean and I was pleased.

I replaced the badly corroded pear shaped anode and with a one last once over with a hose, fresh water and a brush I emerged back onto the pier feeling a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction - yet - I had not painted her with anti-foul paint. The returning tide was too quick for me and the job of cleaning her had taken too long so this was a task I had to leave for another day, another spring tide.

Now began the long wait for the water to rise enough to float the yacht and I hung about in the sunshine, surrounded by tourists taking photos of the iconic colourful Tobermory buildings and drinking copious mugs of lemon and ginger tea. Eventually I noticed with satisfaction that Anna Maria shifted when I stepped aboard her and she was ready to leave her temporary berth and head back out into the bay to her mooring. Not before time too. The sunshine had now been replaced by heavy rain and standing about on the pier was no longer an enjoyable pastime. With panache I cast off her lines and deftly manouvered her away from the pier wall and into the deep water. It almost felt to me that she was now far more sprightly than she had been of late and was twitchier and far more responsive to the helm. I imagined too that she felt a satisfying glow below - her bottom now nice and clean!

A Fresh Start

8th May 2106! That was my last blog entry and what a lot of water has flowed under my bridge since then. I'm not certain where to begin, so I think I'll resort to a hasty summary of what has happened since that last post.

I ended up staying in hospital well into the summer and returned to our home in the marina on Loch Fyne. My recovery was well under way and it was wonderful to be home again but I still had a way to go before I could confidently say this bout of depression was at an end. It wasn't long before we were making plans for a move to Tobermory on the Isle of Mull as well as making ready for the arrival of our new yacht too. Karen had found a job in Tobermory which suited her down to the ground and the opportunities for work there for me were far greater than they were on the Cowal Peninsula. So, in August 2016 Karen moved to Mull and I waited for the new yacht to arrive which it did at the beginning of September. It was a momentous moment when along with a friend I cast off from Portavadie Marina to sail our Colvic 33 to Tobermory. Four days later our new home was safely berthed on the pontoons in Tobermory Harbour.

There followed a period of settling in where I took time to establish myself in the community and sadly continued to struggle with severe bouts of depression. Thankfully I was well supported by the community mental health nurse and the psychiatrist. Despite the periods of deep lowness I found myself enjoying my new surroundings. The Isle of Mull is a lovely island with so much to explore and enjoy. The walking is second to none and the coastline is one of the finest to explore in a sea kayak. As the winter deepened we hunkered down in our boat and safely rode out the passing winter storms.

The new yacht has transformed our live aboard life. She is twice the size of our previous yacht and is well appointed with two sleeping cabins, two heads, a shower, hot water system, a lovely saloon and an excellent galley. She is also a lovely boat to sail - seaworthy, which is ideal for us. The extra space has allowed us to live comfortably with a sense that we are definitely in our home and not in a small yacht.

On our mooring in Tobermory Harbour.

On our mooring in Tobermory Harbour.

When the New Year arrived we found ourselves becoming accepted by the Tobermory community. I became involved with the local lifeboat fundraising committee and from this I was invited to become a Deputy Launching Authority for the Tobermory Lifeboat. An honour and a responsibility I'm proud to have taken on. In doing this I have found my social circle has widened to the point where I can't remember enjoying the company of so many friends for many years. It is a wonderful feeling to go about my business around the town and always be bumping into folks I know and who know me. Another important aspect for me is the fact that folks are interested in me and for the first time in a long, long while I feel acknowledged for who I am.

At the beginning of the summer I established a sea kayak guiding service in Tobermory with the generous assistance of Chris of Clearwater Paddling. Essentially I am working for him as a guide here on the Isle of Mull but without his generosity in agreeing to set up a Mull wing to his business, I would not be doing something I love - sea kayak guiding. So far the business is going well and there is a lot of interest. It is lovely to take people out and around Tobermory Bay, showing them the sights and sharing with them the joys of sea kayaking on the west coast of Scotland.

I am free of my deep depression at the moment and I look forward to the coming months with hope and excitement. There is a lot to be joyous about living here and there are many times when I pinch myself to make sure that I am where I am.

I look forward too to writing many more blog entries with a more upbeat tone to them.