We Interrupt This Program, But Happy Birthday

Par for the Course

I read something interesting recently; “Those who put everything in God’s hands, will see the hand of God in everything.” And so it is. Now that we are eighteen months into our journey, as I write, remember and read through our adventures, it is easy to see the hand of God in our lives and in everything that has transpired.

Dean and I are truly just “nobodies”. We are not “rich” compared to the billionaire owners and charterers of the super yachts we regularly see here in the Med. We have no interest in wealth. Money is just the medium we need to continue on our journey. Eclipse is considered a “super yacht” due to her size, but Dean and I do not feel at all like “super yacht” owners. Neither do we fit in with the people living on their thirty foot sailboats in every harbor around the world. Other than my few brushes with media due to my long time relationship with an infamous person, we are just super ordinary people to whom God has given extraordinary opportunities. I believe what makes us different is that neither one of us would be happy with “safe”. “Safe”, at least the traditional American version, would bore us to death. And because of that, God has and is using us in ways we could never have imagined. But you will hear more about that later.

I want you to know that we made it. We are in Italy. Our application for citizenship is being processed and will soon be approved and we will officially become Italian - and EU - citizens.

But the point of this post is to let you know that between the time we closed on the purchase of Eclipse, arrived in the Mediterranean and even since then have been some of the hardest times of our entire lives. Neither of us, in our wildest imaginings or our most unlikely scenarios, ever thought things would have been this hard.

As I write this, I am sitting in a small industrial harbor several kilometers and down the mountain from Caccamo - the city from which Dean’s grandparents emigrated - just east of Palermo.

I am demolished; soul and spirit. I am crushed by all the challenges, the disappointments, the delays, the problems and especially from dealing with the crew. I think I have come to the end of my rope at last, to the point where I am experiencing a full blown heart palpitating, can’t breath, panic attack. The pain is so acute and the disappointment so deep, that tears can no longer come. God will have to take over - I am at peak stress and feel like I need a hospital.

This week, my big birthday week, is just the latest “thing” and icing on my non-existent birthday cake; the disappointment that put me over the edge.

The only destination I was truly excited to visit this summer is Sardinia. We had planned on spending this week there, soaking up the sun and celebrating my BIG birthday. We planned the route, where we would go. We provisioned and got excited. Sardinia is one of the most beautiful places on earth, in my opinion. The pictures are breathtaking and I have been told they do not do it justice.

Peparing for the trip, Dean and I were praying together as we do nearly every day. Dean was asking God to please give us a time of fun and refreshment in Sardinia. All I wanted was to soak in the sun, floating in the water, drink a few cocktails and listen to music. I wanted no discussion of boat repairs, issues with the crew, legal paperwork, our finances, the situation is the U.S., politics, logistics, customs challenges or anything that might shatter my fragile contentment. I wanted no expensive dinners, no hotel, no mingling with the thousands of tourists sure to be there during the height of tourist season. All I wanted was us, on Eclipse, beautiful water, Floating Coldie Holdies and yacht rock.

To give you an idea of what kind of summer we are having, it should be noted here that since we arrived in Italy in mid May, I have had one day of swimming in the beautiful Mediterranean Sea.

One.

Anyway, we had tickets for a concert on my birthday, July 23rd - a tribute to Burt Bacharach, one of my favorite songwriters - in Palermo, a planned stop on our way. The concert started at 9:15 in the evening.

Unfortunately, my birthday and our trip to Sardinia also happened to coincide with the hottest week; and on my birthday, hottest day; of the year with record breaking temperatures across all of Sicily. That Sunday, the temperature was expected to reach a blistering 118 degrees fahrenheit; coupled with record humidity and a dew point of 80 degrees. These were a potentially lethal combination.

We arrived in Palermo on Eclipse in the afternoon. The air was stifling. Our air conditioning, running full blast, could not keep up with the heat so even inside the boat in the upper salon, the temperature approached forty degrees celsius. Just a few minutes in the sun was almost unbearable. Not a breath of wind blew - the air was like a vampire, sucking all the energy from your body under a viciously bright and brittle sky. I have never felt heat so oppressive in my life.

But we were going to that concert. In our somewhat bearable cabin, we were dressing for the evening.

As the concert began so late, you would be forgiven for thinking that we had plenty of time for dinner before hand. Unfortunately, you would be wrong. In Sicily, restaurants do not open until 8 p.m and dinner takes at least two hours. However the day was so hot that we had not much appetite anyway. In lieu of dinner we decided to head over to the Villa Igiea, (that IS a mouthful) - a world famous hotel with a storied history of entertaining royalty and celebrity alike - for a small snack and cocktail before heading to the concert. We were overnight guests in their private marina and read that the Villa itself was truly magnificent. We were literally in their backyard and wanted to see the inside of the Villa as well.

And just to round off the perfection of the day, add to all this that Dean does not do well at all in high heat and humidity. But in his determination to make my birthday special, he put on a brave face and headed into the furnace.

It was 7:30 p.m. After clumsily climbing off Eclipse from an unstable, too low, dirty plastic step stool, (her elegant dock stairs still stowed, unused and uninstalled for a year, in the lazarette), I looked up at my beautiful girl. I felt my insides hollow out and tears hit my eyes. Eclipse was a filthy, dinged up, scratched, disgusting mess. White minerals clung everywhere to her dark blue paint. The algae had grown thick on her sides at the waterline, and there were scratches and chips everywhere. Hair and debris hung off of the drains on her sides. Her lines were strewn haphazardly on the decks and cleaning supplies and dirty towels were laying in heaps across the hatch openings on the fore deck. The fenders, all in different sizes and without covers, were haphazardly affixed to her sides. Our tender, tied up behind her, new just over a year ago, was covered in dirt and salt water, the custom cushions stained and looking much older than their age. The custom cut faux teak floor mats in the tender were pushed into corners and covered in dirt, dust and salt. From the dock, the algae growth on the bottom and black oil on the white rubber from the stern area where the diesel exhaust from Eclipse’s generators was expelled was painfully obvious in the clear water. The tender was no longer white; it was a dull grey. Rust streaks were dried on the stainless around the small boat, completing the look of total neglect. “No”, I said to myself. “I am NOT going to think about this tonight. We are taking steps to fix this. Don’t you dare cry right now”.

We climbed into the filthy, salt covered tender in our silks and wools so that the captain could take us across the small waterway to the back of the beautiful hotel. The Villa had a small dock and entrance to the gardens a short distance from where Eclipse was tied up, so it seemed natural to have the captain drop us off in the tender and go in the back. We attempted to get in, but as I suspected would be the case, the gate to the garden was locked. There was no phone or buzzer, so our only choice was to go to the marina gate, walk up to the main street and try to grab a taxi to take us the rest of the way. Without a taxi we faced an uphill walk with a climb of about 200 meters at a 10% incline for about a half a mile.

We stood at the entrance to the marina for fifteen minutes, but incredibly, in the second largest city in Sicily at the height of tourist season, we could not get a taxi. Not one went by. There is a shortage of taxis throughout Italy because of what I will call the “taxi mafia”, a very powerful protectionist racquet euphemistically called the “taxi driver’s lobby”. They have used their “influence”, (read; bribery) to prevent the government from issuing licenses to drive a taxi anywhere in Italy; in some places since 2006. I think Palermo may have it the worst. We were dressed to the nines - Dean in a formal long sleeve, beautiful Italian made shirt and wool pants, me in a pure silk summer dress - and no way to get to the Villa but walk. On any other day, literally a nothing for us. But on my birthday in Palermo 2023, I think that half mile walk may have been the longest of our entire lives.

By the time we arrived at the Villa entrance, it was after 8:00 p.m. After a mere ten or at most fifteen minute walk, I was ready to call an ambulance for Dean. He literally looked as if someone had poured a bucket of water on him. His fine Italian shirt was soaking wet and clung to his body, limp and disheveled. He had the pallor of a dead person. I wasn’t in much better shape; even though I wore what were normally very comfortable shoes, my feet, swollen from heat and humidity, were covered in blisters and I could barely walk at all.

I managed to get us through the hotel and into a seat at a table in the bar. I was really worried about Dean. The hotel was warm, as the open french doors which led to the numerous sitting areas outside allowed the stifling air in, but the bar room itself was dark and cavernous with thirty foot tall ceilings and archways throughout, allowing the heat to rise and the cool air to fall. I looked to see if there was any air conditioning outlet or fan - but there was nothing to be seen. Then I remembered something I had read while we were living in Arizona about treating someone with heat stroke. I hobbled painfully over to the bartender and had him bring me a large cloth napkin filled with ice, which I applied to the back of Dean’s neck while he downed two full liters of cold water.

I stood icing his spine and brain, cooling his blood and prayed the night would not end in the hospital.

Slowly, his color started to return. He started breathing normally and his head did not resemble a slowly running shower fixture. When he said, “let’s order some food”, I knew our night was thankfully salvaged. We had thirty minutes.

One drink and small plate later, we grabbed a taxi at the hotel entrance; (we later found out he charged us double simply because he came to the hotel); and with a few minutes to spare, arrived at the concert. (Our most memorable moment was when the female singer sang “do you know the way to San Joe-say”, although the harmonica player was EPIC). Dean managed not to pass out and at the end, after calling three different taxi companies and waiting forty five minutes, we finally managed to get a ride back to the marina. We were hoping one of the candidates for a new captain would be aboard when we arrived; another story for a different post; but he was not there as he had been unable to get a taxi from the airport and was still trying….two and a half hours after arrival…….to find a way to get to us.

(Insert BIG sigh here.) Italy.

Thus ended my “big” day. Believe it or not I was not discouraged; the real celebration was our trip to Sardinia, the trip I had been looking forward to since our arrival in May.

We were scheduled to leave the following afternoon after getting fuel. So around 4 p.m. on the 24th of July, we left Palermo for some islands off the far west end of Sicily, from which we would proceed to Sardinia the following day.

We had a lovely night of sailing; the breeze was balmy but stiff at around ten to fifteen knots; perfect sailing weather. Eclipse was comfortably slicing through the water at a steady twelve and a half knots. Towards 2:30 a.m. we arrived at the island. I came up from my stateroom to see the area but was surprised at what greeted me as I stepped outside. While I had been in my cabin, sleeping and enjoying a comfortable ride, the winds had shifted and increased to about 25 knots, while the sea had started to get a bit rough. Anchoring was suddenly trickier and the initial spot we had planned to stay was too exposed. The captain found another spot more protected from the wind to try to give everyone a less tumultuous nights’ sleep. The change in weather was not expected but also not unusual. Weather reports often got things wrong, with winds changing direction and a 10-20% margin of error on wind speeds or swell size. We got our spot, the crew set the anchor and we went to bed.

So it was NOT expected and very unusual when Dean and I were awoken to the sound of banshees screaming and the boat groaning and shaking against the anchor chain at about 5:15 a.m. I immediately looked out a porthole only to watch the island we were anchored next to fly wildly past my view at a speed of about 10 knots, whereupon reaching the end of our anchor chain, the boat groaned and shuddered only to swing the other direction immediately after hitting the apex - about 180 degrees. I could hear the chain rasp and scraping against the boat, as the wind shrieked around us. My first thought was “oh my God, I hope the anchor holds and that the crew is up”. My second thought was “that looks like at least 50 knot winds”. (They were gusting over 60 knots). My third thought was “Nothing like this was in the forecast!! Check the weather!” Dean was wide awake and a bit frantic as he scrambled up to check on the boat while I stayed in our cabin.

I pulled out my phone and opened my weather app immediately. All I could see was red and orange. To the north, in the area of Milan down to Marseille south of it, a huge area of red spoke of 50 - 60 knot winds, headed straight towards us. Where a mild low pressure system had been the day before was now a full fledged gale; the high pressure system causing the heatwave had collapsed in spectacular fashion, leaving a vacuum in its wake that would lash the entire Mediterranean for four full days. I later read about - and also saw pictures of - hailstones the size of softballs that came from the storm. A Delta jet out of Milan carrying more than two hundred people sustained heavy damage from the hail and had to turn back. Nine people died in the Lombardy region from fallen trees and flooding.

And we were stuck out off the coast of Sicily, in gale force winds and building seas, eight hours from any safe harbor.

I began to pray. Dean kept telling me not to worry - that the forecast said the winds would die down by the afternoon - but as the day progressed, the forecast got worse and the winds got stronger while the estimate of when they would let up increased by two days. Not only that, but our less than one meter seas were already at two and a half meters and building.

We were in for a rough ride.

We could not stay where we were. We had almost no protection from the wind or the building swells. The decision was made to make a beeline directly east back to the Sicilian coast, thankfully going with the wind and the seas at our back, to try to find a safe harbor and wait out the weather. The swells were still relatively small but Eclipse could handle even six meter waves relatively easily, as long as the intervals were not too short.

It took us a day and a half of thirty five knot winds and up to four meter swells with five second intervals before we reached a protected harbor, where I now sit. That trip the day before had taken eight hours. The reefed genoa, thankfully up, was on a starboard tack as I tried to sleep at a fifteen degree angle sideways in our bed, cuddled up with Boo to keep him from rolling off. Eclipse was a champ, rolling through the quartering swells with no effort. We found a small somewhat protected harbor early that evening and then experienced another very uncomfortable overnight, dragging our chain in the early hours after the wind changed direction yet again, alarms screaming loudly as we were pushed towards the rocks while the crew and Dean scrambled to pull it up and get us out of trouble. We traveled another seven hours to get into the harbor where we now sit and I write.

And lest you assume this is unusual, it typifies the experience we have had of our time on Eclipse: 95% work, emergencies and discomfort, 5% lovely days of enjoying the journey. It is no small wonder I feel completely defeated.

So why are we still at it? I think the vast majority of people would have given up and sold this boat by now. As our story unfolds, it will become clear to you that the “bad” days have far outweighed the “good”. There has been so much heartache, frustration, delay, fear, challenges, physical and mental exertion and exhaustion, that I literally am beginning to wonder if we are not just deluded masochists. I think it is highly probable that we are.

…………But God.

The only thing that has kept us holding onto our dream is the certainty that God has us exactly where he wants us to be. Dean and I are Abraham and Sarah - we have always been “wanderers”, nomads without roots or a place we truly feel at home on this earth, allowing God to lead us to a land filled with “milk and honey”. We are certain that the challenges we have and are still facing have a purpose; we just don’t know what they are yet. We are being pounded into dust by a God who is trusted by few and yet to whom he wants so desperately to prove that HE alone is worth trusting; over any other evidence our eyes and senses can experience. He is the Potter, we the clay. Who are we to question what he is in the process of making us? We must trust him.

Because without that trust, he cannot display his glory, his faithfulness, his provision or his love. We are simply the vessels he uses to put HIS glory on display.

So what does trust look like? It means that when we have no answers, we believe God will show us. It means that when we have no information, God will help us find it. It means that when we are out of resources, God will provide them. It means that when we think we have lost, God brings a victory or a path to one, no matter how small. It means that when we fail to find a solution, God brings it. It means that despite our inadequacies and frailties, God always has a path through to something better. It means sleeping peacefully when we face things we have no ability to change or influence, knowing that God will.

Is that easy? In a word, NO. BUT…..every time we have reached the end of our rope, God has given us exactly what we need at exactly the right moment. Every. Single. Time. And although our human emotions and our need for control and security scream against our vulnerability, we continue to walk forward, in trust. “Though he slay me, yet will I trust him”. Job said those words; words of faith and submission from a man that God allowed everything to be taken from. Even his children.

So who am I to complain? Despite my panics and pain and fear and disappointment, I need to pray, regroup and get my heart focused on Jesus. I am giving it all to Him, trusting that HE will never leave or forsake me. Which frankly, right now, seems somewhat trite, considering our struggle seems absolutely endless and how broken my heart is at present.

I cling to this: our story is still being written. He is still teaching us what living in faith means. I think about Jeremiah 29:11; “For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord…..” And although it is very, very hard, we are still here as his humble servants, wanting only one thing to come from it all: that through us, HIS glory will be on display to an ever darkening, lost world.

God bless you all and may our continuing saga inspire you to allow God to shine his glory through your life.