A Warm Sea: Dreaming of Sailing and Making It Happen: Tales of Our Cruising Life in the Mediterranean

By Ben Ho

This is the whimsical story of a couple who decided to leave their comfortable suburban life in Canada and embark on a journey of exploration and self-discovery by living on board their sailboat and cruising the Mediterranean. More of a travelogue than a sailing how-to, this book takes the readers through the joys and challenges of the cruising life. Starting with how they became attracted to sailing in their hometown in southern Ontario, through how they acquired the sailing skills and competencies for sailing in open waters, selecting a suitable boat, to sailing and visiting exotic countries throughout the Mediterranean, the book is written with poise and humor. It is about life under the perpetual blue sky, on the warm waters of the Mediterranean Sea, the fascinating and varied cultures and histories from the Middle East to the Tuscan Islands, the warm and friendly people they met, the challenges of the boating life, and the irresistible cuisines. The book contains enough details on sailing to whet the appetite of the readers who are sailors, while introducing the world of boat handling to non-sailors without getting technical. For the arm-chair sailors and dreamers, this book vividly illustrates how a couple-next-door pursued and realized their dream. Yes, you can do it too!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ben Ho
• Release date: Mar 10, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311502551

Ben Ho

Ben Ho worked as an engineer and business manager for technology companies in Canada before taking off to do something different and see the world. Born in China, grew up in Hong Kong, and moved to study in Canada, he belongs to a generation faced with constant migration and cultural change. But the stories and artifacts of human civilizations remain unchanged; it is this cultural landscape and the boundless beauty of nature that Ben attempts to understand, absorb, and appreciate in his travels. Educated in technology fields, he started working on a MBA later in life, but found that building a wooden sailboat was more satisfying. From that point on there was no turning back: drawn to the sea and the wind, he and his wife go sailing and traveling whenever they can.

Book preview

In early May, sometimes mid-April, spring arrives in southern Ontario after the long cold winter. Snow and sludge give way to lawns of green. Red maple trees rapidly sprout their green shades, counting the months when they can display their fiery glory in the fall. Cherry trees explode in white blossoms, the fine petals soon to be carried off by wind. The heart-shaped leaves of aspens tremble in the smallest breeze; willows sway over river banks, swiping their long fingers over fast-moving clear water. The cool, pristine water comes from, and feeds into, the numerous pristine lakes that have descended from ancient glaciers. Beautiful lakes sparkle under a warming sun, lakes big and small, beckoning one to sail, canoe, or kayak on their blue-green water. It is almost irresistible.

I am not sure when this attraction to wind and water took root in me, but many years ago, a chance browsing on the internet (then in its early age) brought me to the attention of adult sailing classes offered by the Conestogo Sailing Club. It was an intimate little sailing club operating at Conestogo Lake, a nearby reservoir formed by damming a river. The small lake is at the confluence of three river branches, and unpredictable breezes often roll down the river valleys in all directions, making it interesting and challenging for dinghy sailors to sail in this lake. The warm water of the shallow lake also makes it nearly enjoyable to learn to capsize and to recover from it. I took lessons here with my wife, Eliza, learning the intricacies of handling complicated-looking ropes (called sheets) that control the sails, strange nautical terms (left is ‘port’, right is ‘starboard’), discovering that when the wind blows whitecaps on the water it is too much of a handful for beginners, and finding that jibing is something to be very careful about - if you don’t want to meet the boom of a boat with your head. We also found that it was nothing unusual for not-so-young adults to learn to sail on a little boat, and that after a few lessons one could master enough of the art of sailing to begin enjoying it. On a typical summer afternoon, the lake breeze picks up enough to straighten a flag, small waves forming ripples in unison. You feel the wind on your face, the sails fill up and the sheet tugs on your grip, and the tiller (which controls the rudder) comes alive. You with your partner balance the boat like you do on a bicycle (or perhaps a see-saw). And the boat takes off, in complete silence except for the sound of the wind on the sails and the waves sliced by the bow. We found sailing to be utterly enjoyable, and we could not have enough of it. Sailing represented freedom, away from the madding crowd, in harmony with nature, solitude.

By the end of that summer we had bought our first sailboat, a little 17 foot (5.2 meter) fiberglass boat built in Florida. The Marsh Hen was a spacious open-cockpit (meaning no cabin and no enclosed area) boat that could sail in very shallow water. Someone had modified her and had installed a wooden mast and boom of Sitka Spruce, with a long, graceful gunwale of teak, giving her a classic, salty look. We towed the pretty little green boat behind our family van all over Ontario and sailed in lakes far and near, sometimes just us two, sometimes with our three daughters who also grew to love the outdoor life. We spent many evenings and weekends at the sailing club, often racing the 40 minutes drive after work to get to the club before the afternoon breeze ceased. The day’s stress was but all washed away once we were on the boat, with the wind on our faces, and the boat slightly heeling, slicing through small waves driven by the wind. We often lingered out there until sunset, to watch the cirrus clouds turn into swirls of orange and red against the indigo summer sky. By then the wind would have died down to a whisper, and we would catch the last breeze to slowly sail back to shore. Sometimes our timing was a little off, the wind stopping before we reached the dock, and we would slowly paddle back through the still water in the dwindling light. Often at the club there would be a small dinner party: a candlelit picnic supper by serendipity, meeting up with whichever of our sailing friends who happened to show up. Life was nearly perfect.

Our first boat ‘Optimystic’

风 风 风

After a few years I began to look for a bigger boat with a cabin so that we could partake in overnight trips on the boat. I wanted a boat small enough to be trailered with a family van, yet big enough to have sleeping accommodations for two, and sufficient storage and facilities to support an outing of several days. To my surprise, I found that most production boats were either too big and heavy or too small and flimsy. The few that were of the right size and quality were too expensive or not readily available in Canada. I could not find a suitable boat that matched my criteria: a trailerable sailboat that was not overly heavy, with a sizable cockpit, affordable, and had pleasing aesthetics. The last criterion was of course subjective; I am a lover of classical boats who craves the traditional lines of old-fashion sailboats. To me, a sailboat needs to have style and grace to justify its existence on the water; otherwise there is no point. To sail is to be with the elements, and to do that you need a vessel that has character and spirit - a boat that looks graceful both in motion and at anchor. Short of that, one might as well just take a ferry.

After a futile search I decided to build my own boat. I found a boat plan, a design model named Chebacco. The designer was Phil Bolger, a prolific American designer of all types of boats. The Chebacco is a traditional yawl, with two masts – a main mast and a smaller mizzen mast. At about 20 feet (6 meters), she has a very spacious cockpit ideal for relaxing under the sun, and a roomy cabin perfect for a couple. She has lines as graceful as a swan at rest on water, appearing ready to sail off to some remote, secluded coves. There was even a website put together by amateur Chebacco builders documenting their building experiences. I already had some practical boat-building experience, having helped to build a small fleet of Optimist sailboats for the club. After all, life is one big learning process, and I was attracted to the prospect of learning to work with wood and other materials in order to build a wooden boat from scratch. I found a two-week course on wooden boat building, offered by the renowned Wooden Boat School in Maine. On a cool fall day, Eliza and I drove for thirteen hours to Brooklin, Maine, where the course was held at the sprawling school’s waterfront compound. There were many types of courses held on that weekend with students learning to build boats of different designs and complexity. On-site accommodation was offered at a nicely restored historical house, and the two weeks felt like a vacation while I learned the basics of building a small lapstrake boat. Lapstrake is a traditional method of boat building where the edges of hull planks overlap, forming a strong and graceful hull. Viking longships were built that way. The ones at Wooden Boat were to be made of northern white cedar. We learned how to trace the lines on large planks of air-dried cedar, cut them on a band saw, fit the planks on steam-bent ribs of white oak, and nail the strakes together with hundreds of rivets. The class had a finished boat (more or less) at the end of two weeks. We launched it at the school’s dinghy dock, and it actually floated with nearly no leaks!

After that, the project proceeded quickly in my garage, which I insulated and equipped into a workshop to build my lapstrake cat-yawl. Much of the wood I used came from reclaimed lumber; the main reason being that aged, straight-grain Douglas fir is not easy to come by. I acquired some excellent fir that originated from the London (Ontario) Winery. The wine barrels, three stories high, were made of fir over a century ago, and when taken apart each stave was long and just slightly curved, perfect for boat building. As I made a cut into the wood, the scent of age-old wine was released and the sweet aroma permeated my workshop. It was definitely one of my favorite moments of boat-building!

After two years of steady work during evenings and weekends, the Chebacco was completed and we hauled her out of the garage with the help of many friends. We named her Three Rivers, after our three daughters: in harmony with nature - free, dynamic, fluid, and in motion. Also, as an ode to our Chinese ancestry - the word ‘Ho’, our last name, in Chinese it rhymes with the Chinese word ‘river’, hence Three Rivers. The spars (main mast, mizzen mast, and boom) were finished the following winter. It was mostly enjoyable wood-working, involving a fair degree of custom design as the boat plan only had details on the hull layout. I was very happy with the outcome. The hull was made of marine plywood and sheathed with layers of fiber glass, making the boat largely maintenance-free. The inside support was mainly made of Douglas fir or white oak. In the cabin, all exposed wood was made of maple, for its strength and understated elegant grains; and cherry, for its contrasting lush red undertone. The spars were made of high-grade fir, for its long-grain resiliency. The sails were Egyptian cotton white, custom-made by a sail maker in nearby Hamilton. For auxiliary power (handy for getting out and into the dock, or when the wind dies), I installed a battery-powered electric motor, which is completely quiet and without fumes.

We took many memorable sailing and camping trips in the boat, visiting lakes in Ontario and Maine. Our favorites were the remote shores and secluded lakes in northern Ontario, along the indented coasts of Georgian Bay, where windswept shores are littered with smooth, colorful granite rocks, and where whispering white pines are habitually bent to the direction of frequent gales. We enjoyed solitary lakes in remote provincial parks, where often the only sound is the call of the loons or fish slashing in the water while jumping up to catch flies. We would beach the boat and set up camp at a remote site to be completely in tune with nature. We sailed when there was wind, and ran the whisper-quiet electric motor and trolled for fish on calm days.

Building my own boat

Distant Lands and Warm Seas

While we enjoyed sailing in small lakes and coastal waters in our little boat, as sailors we also daydreamed about sailing to exotic places in open seas. There is no shortage of books to feed the imagination of arm-chair ocean sailors: The most well-known classic is probably Sailing Alone Around the World by Joshua Slocum, who built his own 33 feet (10 meter) sloop-rigged fishing boat named Spray and became the world’s first solo circumnavigator. Sailing and navigating with only rudimentary instruments, Slocum completed sailing around the world in three years, from 1895 to 1898. Another inspiring read on long-distance sailing is The Long Way by Bernard Moitessier, who raced in the first Golden Globe Race - a solo, non-stop circumnavigation rounding the three Great Capes of Good Hope, Leeuwin, and the Horn. At the end of seven months of grueling sailing, with victory nearly at hand, Moitessier pulled out of the race and sailed on, choosing the solitude and spirituality of the sea instead of the fame and glory waiting for him at the finishing line. For a more relaxing read on travel-cruising, we turned to Lin and Larry Pardey’s adventures on their boat Seraffn in Europe, Mediterranean, and Orients. The Pardeys completed two circumnavigations on a small wooden sailboat with no engine, and their books on cruising as a lifestyle and seamanship in challenging conditions were an inspiration to us.

And of course there are many, many other books on sailing adventures, disasters at sea, and trips to romantic shores. When one is inspired enough to start thinking about actually doing it, there are more practical books on cruise logistics, planning, maintenance, storm tactics, how to buy a boat, how to budget, how to choose crews, and how not to lose your mate. Eliza immersed herself in reading sailing disasters: The Fastnet Force Ten, by John Rousmaniere, is a classical must-read on the 1979 Fastnet Race about the Sydney Hobart tragedy that left 15 people dead and five yachts sunk. 66 Days Adrift: A True Story of Disaster and Survival on the Open Sea by William Butler, relates how a leisure Pacific crossing on their sloop turned deadly when their boat was attacked and sank by whales. Shipwrecked!: Deadly Adventures and Disasters at Sea by Evan L. Balkan, documents shipping disasters that occurred on all kinds of ships and by all kinds of causes, ranging from storms to mutineers to human errors. I suppose the idea is that if you are already well-versed on the disasters that might happen, you are not as frightened at sailing into the unknown.

Sailors are an interesting breed. We use the slowest mode of transportation, often with no specific destination in mind, take to the open water when others take shelter, get drenched by rain and spray and call it refreshing, and rely on something as temperamental and unpredictable as the weather to get to where we need to go. But there is nothing as rewarding as arriving at a distant port or a secluded beach after a hard day of sailing; the exhilaration of the boat slicing through green waves and the rigging moaning from the wind, and then anchoring at a sheltered cove, relaxing on the deck with a cold drink, watching the sun disappear behind the distant horizon.

Gradually the idea of living on a boat and sailing to distant shores began to grow in our minds, and slowly we started to acquire the knowledge and certifications needed for off-shore sailing. We were not looking to cross any new frontiers, or even to sail around the world necessarily, but taking a few years off to sail around the Pacific, or the Caribbean, or the Mediterranean, seemed enticing. Living in a warmer climate and escaping Canada’s freezing winter season sounded very ideal. Life is one big adventure, with many lessons to learn along the way, and cruising seemed to be a perfect way of living life to the fullest. I was fascinated with the prospect of learning to operate and maintain a larger boat, dealing with the elements, navigating unknown waters, and immersing in foreign cultures.

As it happens, most of the prevailing winds around the world blow from a easterly direction near the tropics. By picking the right times of the year, one can ride the trade winds starting from North America, through the Panama Canal, into the vast voids of the Pacific, to such exotic-sounding places such as Galapagos, Tahiti, and Tonga, with a stop by New Zealand, Australia, crossing the Indian Ocean; then going up the Suez Canal (if not for pirates) into the Mediterranean, and out into the Atlantic, stopping by the Canaries, and finally arriving back to the Caribbean. This could be done in, say, three years, through mostly moderate climates and warm seas. I found myself spending evenings browsing Jimmy Cornell’s book on World Cruising Routes, reading about the winds and currents of the world: the trade wind zone with its steady winds; the doldrums where winds are nonexistent and the weather is sultry and hot; monsoons and tropical squalls; and the much-feared tropical storms.

We took advantage of the many courses offered by the local chapter of Canadian Power and Sail Squadrons. We relearned how to tie sailing knots and basic navigation concepts in the Seamanship course. The Advanced Coastal Navigation taught us how to plan and plot coastal cruising out of sight of land and how to navigate in tidal waters. We took courses in Weather and Forecasting, hoping that we would be able to forecast the weather beyond the common saying, red sky at night, sailors’ delight (implying favorable weather). The Maritime Radio course prepared me to obtain the radio operator certificate, but I had a hard time remembering all the alphabet phonetics, which are required for spelling out names and words over the radio (Alpha for A and Charlie for C are easy enough, but how about Lima for L, Sierra for S, especially when you need to say it in a hurry). I skipped the Boat and Engine Maintenance course, reasoning that I already knew about most of it except for the engine, and for that I would rather learn it hands-on when I have the real thing to work with.

The most interesting courses were the on-water sailing courses. The last such course we took was the Advanced Cruising Course offered by the Canadian Yachting Association, a one-week course that takes students and an instructor sailing through three of the five Great Lakes in the Midwest. Often referred to as the inland seas, the Great Lakes are huge bodies of water that are prone to sudden and severe storms, in particular during the autumn. Big lake freighters still ply these lakes, moving through large canal locks connecting the lakes that are at different elevations. The trip started in Port Credit, near Toronto, headed south to cross Lake Ontario, passing via the Welland Canal, then eastward through Lake Erie, up the Detroit River. We crossed Lake St. Clair, heading north into Lake Huron, through the narrow channel at Tobermory, and finally sailed through Georgian Bay into the picturesque harbor of Penetanguishene. The total distance of about 700 nautical miles took 7 days of non-stop, day and night sailing through some of the most challenging bodies of water in the Great Lakes.

Advanced Cruising Course, sailed through three of the Great Lakes

Map courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey

Sailing the Great Lakes

Our voyage began at midnight as our crew of five students, under the guidance of an instructor, maneuvered the boat away from its moorage and left the protection of the Port Credit harbor. The boat was a 39 feet (12 meter) sailboat chartered by the school, with minimal equipment – no autopilot or radar. The departure was timed such that we would cross Lake Ontario and arrive at a canal entrance at daybreak. The sky was heavily overcast and it was so dark that we had to use handheld flashlights to avoid hitting channel markers as we left the harbor. A few drops of rain were soon followed by flashes of lightning. We were sailing right through an electric storm, with rapid flashes illuminating the pitch-black sky, contrasting against the Toronto skyline in the distance. It was an eerie but striking scene. Is it a good idea to venture out in this weather? Finally someone asked what we were all wondering. This is an all-weather class. We keep going unless there is a severe storm. This one isn’t, Oli the instructor answered, as the sound of distant thunder echoed around us. So we kept going.

To our relief, the storm soon passed, leaving behind clear sky and still air. There was completely no wind and we had to run the engine the entire night. We arrived safely at the entrance of the Welland Canal in the faint light of dawn, paid the canal fee and moved up the locks. Opened in 1932, the Canal is an engineering marvel that raises ships by 326 vertical feet (100 meters) using a series of 7 locks spread over 7 miles (11 km). Numerous ocean freighters and commercial ‘lakers’ use this canal to traverse the Great Lakes. Some of the lakers are designed for the exact width of the canal, and as we waited for our turn we watched one of these monsters emerge from the gate, the sides of the ship literally touching and scrapping the concrete sides of the canal – it was one-way traffic only! For small sailboats like ours, the dockmaster (who was barely visible from a height of five stories) dropped two heavy dock lines which we held onto by hand to help stabilize the bow and stern. The entrance gate closed, and millions of liters of water rapidly flooded the chamber to lift up the boat within minutes. In the confines of the lock chamber it was like a huge whirlpool, and it was unnerving at first.

Freighter exiting the Welland Canal

The southern terminal of the canal ends at Port Colborne and here ships enter the eastern end of Lake Erie., which is the fourth largest of the five Great Lakes and is the tenth largest lake in the world. Lake Erie is also the shallowest of the Great Lakes with an average depth of only 62 feet (19 meters). With its numerous shoals and sudden storms, Lake Erie once had a reputation as the graveyard of the Great Lakes in the centuries past. In a gale, Lake Erie’s shallow water creates steep waves which could be more destructive and dangerous than those in an open ocean. In the 19th century, hundreds of schooners and steamers were lost here, and numerous wrecks still litter the lake bottom. With today’s technologies the lake is of course perfectly safe to navigate, and there is substantial commercial traffic and fishing industry. The modern hazards to watch out for are gas wells – Lake Erie has a large deposit of natural gas and there are hundreds of gas wells spread throughout the lake. Some are bright flares burning off excess gas and can be seen from a distance, but some are just well heads and are totally unlit. It would cause serious damage to the boat if we were to run into them.

It was close to midnight when we pulled out of the safety of the harbor and continued our westward journey under a moderate breeze. Night watch was kept by a crew of two. Once we crossed Long Point, a 20 miles (32 km) sand spit jutting into the lake, the wind strengthened and we started to do some serious sailing. But soon the wind shifted to be dead on the nose and we had to run the engine to maintain our course and keep making headway. Trying to sleep was a real challenge as the boat heeled and bounced around. Occasionally the boat leaped off a large wave and ploughed into the next trough with a big ‘bang’ like a shot gun that reverberated through the whole boat. Sleeping in the front V-berth became impossible. By the next morning we were all tired, and half the crew had been sea sick, losing the previous night’s meal. I had never experienced sea sickness before; it was a most uncomfortable sensation. I had pressure patches that functioned by applying pressure at the wrist, supposedly to prevent motion sickness – well, it did not work.

Throughout the day we had wind which was moderate but from unfavorable directions, which meant we had to tack frequently. Modern sailboats have the amazing ability of sailing against the wind, with the wind coming close to the bow of the boat although not directly against it. In order to sail to windward, you sail on a course with the wind on one side; after a distance, change course (i.e. tacking) and sail with the wind on the other side. By sailing this zigzag course, you can make your way in the general direction of the wind, but of course taking longer as the effective distance is greater. Changing tack is a strenuous exercise; the headsail, usually a big genoa, has to be de-tensioned at the right moment, brought over to the opposite side as the boat tacks, and tensioned up again.

Our progress sailing against the wind was slow, so we thought perhaps we should run the engine again. Someone checked the fuel gage. It was near empty. What!? I thought we fueled up before we left the dock! One of the crew exclaimed. It turned out that the extended motoring against strong headwinds the previous day had emptied most of our fuel tank. There were no fuel stations nearby, so motoring was no longer an option and we had to keep sailing. By nightfall we were approaching the Pelee Passage, a narrow strip of water by a long sand spit known as Point Pelee that juts out 7 nautical miles into the lake, with some small islands and shoals. The waterway was well-marked by numerous buoys, but with a watch crew of two, tacking and man-handling the big genoa while trying to keep track of the boat’s position on a paper chart, under a moonless sky sailing in a brisk breeze, was almost overwhelming. If we had an electronic chart plotter it would have made life a lot easier, but the plotter on the boat was an antique model that did not have the data loaded for this region, rendering it useless except for showing the GPS coordinates. At one point we sailed so close to a large buoy that by the time we realized we needed to tack, we were almost on top of it. We frantically turned the steering and, with our hearts pounding, watched the bow turned through the wind and veered away from the large black metal buoy. We barely made it.

Eventually we made our way through the lake and by daybreak we were preparing to enter Detroit River, a busy waterway with the ‘Motown’ city of Detroit on one side and the quiet Canadian town of Windsor on the other. The wind had completely died and we had no choice but to turn on the motor. By the time we reached the first marina we could pull into, the fuel gauge indicated a completely empty fuel tank. It would have been expensive and embarrassing if we had to request a Sea Tow.

We entered St. Clair River, the sun setting behind us and the sky was a beautiful crimson red. It’s a small, muddy river, the depth just enough to clear our keel. A friendly coastguard boat went by, and then it turned around to remind us to turn on our running lights before continuing on their way. There were just the two of us in the cockpit, running the boat by motor at a leisurely pace. Mindful that we could get fined for not having navigation lights by sundown, we both scrambled to look around for the light switch. Before we knew it, the boat went off