A sense of community

3º 38.616n 123º 33.013w

Sun Apr 28 2019

We call ourselves cruisers. Folks who live on boats, wandering a region or perhaps the entire globe. We come from all walks of life, different economic circumstances, various countries around the world, and we sport a variety of political stripes.

Most of us seem to have a libertarian streak. We don’t want governmental or other societal institutions dictating our moral or ethical values. Equally, we don’t want them pawing around in our pockets for our hard earned and carefully saved money. We lived beneath our means for many years to save for our dream; buying a boat and wandering the globe like gypsies to experience other cultures and appreciate their point of view. We’re happy to pay for goods and services, but we’re thrifty and always look for value. We worked hard and paid our taxes, and at least in the USA we’re still paying our fair share of taxes on retirement income sources such as pensions and capital gains.

We help each other. When things break, someone gets hurt, someone runs low on fuel or water, we jump in the dinghy (our SUV) and buzz over to see how we can help out. We share our resources, knowledge and expertise when someone is in need. I’ve spent an entire day helping diagnose, troubleshoot and correct a diesel engine problem in one anchorage. At the end of the day I concluded that perhaps folks with a background in “finance” might ought to seriously consider a different lifestyle.

When we’re together in an anchorage, there’s lots of communal dining. We all have finite resources on board in terms of food, water, fuel, electrical power, adult beverages, dishes and cutlery, you name it. It’s extremely common to invite a bunch of folks over for dinner because we caught a nice fish, and they’ll all bring a side dish just like a church covered dish supper. Most folks also bring their own beverages, plates and cutlery. It takes water to wash dishes. It takes energy to make water. It takes personal time to do both.

Back when we were dirt dwellers, we routinely invited large groups of folks for brunch or dinner. Anywhere from 6 to 40. We had dishes for 8, otherwise it was paper plates, and it would have felt bizarre for people to bring their own dishes to eat off of. We didn’t worry about running out of food or drink; the grocery store was less than a mile away. We either budgeted for a bunch of groceries or we hosted a pot luck.

Now there’s no grocery just down the road, and we don’t have a large walk-in pantry full of Costco size food items. We don’t just expect water to run out of the faucet without considering where it came from. I think we only have 8 plates and the associated cutlery, perhaps less beverage containers. Needless to say, dishes don’t stack up for days or we’d have nothing to eat or drink from.

When we lived on dirt in a subdivision, we saw the folks next door as they were driving into their garage. Folks didn’t sit out on their front porches and visit with people out walking their dogs. We lived in a neighborhood, but there we felt no real sense of community. Everyone was just “too busy”. Perhaps our little piece of Arizona was an exception; my sister’s experience in her Cape Cod neighborhood is entirely different.

I think we finally found our people.