The Unbearable Lightness of Sailing

with our skipper Arnold

Last year when our older son Alex came to South Africa for the Christmas and New Year's holidays, our trip went off without a hitch. Even the things which are completely in the hands of the weather gods and the equally fickle safari animal gods were on our side.

The weather was fine enough for a hot air balloon ride on Christmas morning over Pilanesberg National Park. We saw all of the Big Five animals and a whole lot more during our game drives in the reserve. The ocean was calm enough for our motorboat to to go out for our swim with the sharks and there were plenty of sharks who obliged us with a visit. Even Table Mountain was clear enough for our ascent to the top.

Alex and Nick with their cousin Patrick

Unfortunately I cannot say the same for this year's planned visit from son #2 Nick who is a United States Marine. Let's start with the fact that at the last minute (about T-6 days before he was to arrive,) Nick called to say his travel approval from Africom had been revoked. (I cannot tell you why or I will have to kill you, but suffice it to say it is a dangerous world out there and it is probably better that we do not know just how dangerous.)

We were heartbroken. I tried to convince myself that everything happens for a reason and maybe if he had been allowed to come, something really bad would have happened. Like he might have been kidnapped at the airport in Frankfurt, held hostage by ISIS and eventually beheaded. That would be worse than his not coming for Christmas, I reasoned. But without Nietzsche's philosophy of eternal return allowing me to see an alternative ending, I was still inconsolable. Then I tried to adopt Milan Kundera's philosophy behind The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Nothing happens for a reason. It just happens. This tack was ultimately just unbearable.

Christmas in Breckenridge, CO

We thought about scrapping our entire trip and joining Nick in Colorado with his brother and my sister's family. Trade in our African Christmas for a snowy holiday in the Rockies. It was tempting. But while Nick was able to pretty much not lose anything to cancellation penalties due to his military status, we would be open to losing a bundle. We decided to carry on in spite of our disappointment.

But that was easier said than done. I had customized the entire itinerary to exactly what I knew Nick would love. His name was written all over it. For instance, the reason we spent Christmas in Rwanda and not on a game reserve in South Africa is because when asked if there was a particular animal he wanted to see on safari, Nick replied, "Yes I want to see a gorilla." But we do not have gorillas in South Africa! Rwanda, here we come.

Similarly with our plans in Cape Town. Nick, probably more than anyone in our family - although we all have this in common - is an experiential traveler. He would rather do something than than just see something. None of us have a travel bucket list of locations we have to visit and check off before we die, but we all have a list of experiences.

We knew that he, like Vince, would rather hike up Table Mountain than take the cable car up to the top like most visitors.

Simonstown (on the right) to Hout Bay (on the left) and back

The same goes with the Cape of Good Hope. Most tourists are happy enough to drive to the most southwesterly point in Africa and get their picture taken in front of the sign that says they were there. But we had a different plan which we knew Nick would love. We were going to show him the Cape Point and Cape of Good Hope from the sea. We chartered a sailboat and an experienced skipper and set aside two days for the journey around the Cape. (Unlike the Mediterranean and Caribbean, most charter companies in South Africa do not permit bare-boat charters.)

The plan was to leave out of the False Bay Yacht Club, round the points and spend the night on the boat in Hout Bay on the Atlantic Ocean side of the Cape. The next day we would retrace our steps and end up back in Cape Town just in time for New Year's Eve.

We decided to forge ahead with our plans even though we would be sailing without our most able-bodied seaman on board. The sky was crystal clear and blue and the sun was shining bright overhead in Cape Town that morning. As we drove to the boat docked in False Bay, we did notice the gusty wind and the white caps building, but we were naive to its ominous implications for our trip. By the time we arrived in Simonstown though we realized these were very bad signs.

Seal Island

Arnold informed us that while Vince and I were both experienced blue water sailors and therefore we could technically still carry on with the voyage, it would not be any fun for us. We would have to hack our way out into False Bay and back again for a treacherous round of the point and a slog up to Hout Bay only to have to do it all again in reverse the next day. (The marine forecast for New Year's Eve day was a duplicate of the first day of the voyage. Maybe worse.) By the time we would have made it back into Cape Town on NYE, we would have been frazzled wretches. If we made it back in time at all.

Now if Nick had been there, he would have surely insisted we set sail. Weather be damned! But since it was just Vince and I, we had the luxury to postpone the Cape rounding until another weekend with better conditions and take a short but very invigorating day trip to Seal Island instead. We will never know how we would have fared on that voyage rounding the point with Nick. That is the Unbearable Lightness of Sailing.