Our Stories
Terry's Story
My name is Terry Zuckerman, and I live in Northampton now. And I'm retired. I'm old older. And, I'm enjoying this so much. It's good for my brain, and it's nice to meet Imani and everyone.
So, I'm liking it. But it's a little hard to condense a story into, like, three or four minutes, but I worked on it a bit. So here we go. So, my story is about taking off. It's 1999, closing in on a new century.
I had been working in IT for over thirty years and married for even longer. Our sweet daughter, Jessica, was grown 25 and on her own. Immediately after she was born in 1974, my husband, Jeff, ran out to buy our first sailboat. For just years, just about every weekend and summer vacation, and whenever we could, we spent time on the boat. I loved sailing, the exploring, the sunsets, the water, and it was great.
Meanwhile, we were often talking and thinking about doing some real cruising, some learn long term cruising, and it was time to take the plunge. So now I committed to a major lifestyle change. There was much to prepare mentally and physically. We needed to sharpen our skills such as navigation, reading the weather, the first aid, boat repairs, radio communications, the cell phone, we're not quite there yet, and hooking up with the queues cruising community. We already owned a 42 foot center cockpit sailboat.
It sounds big, but it's small. A major downsize was required. We cleaned out and whittled down our possessions and sold our house in Port Washington, New York, put some of our things in storage, got rid of our car, and moved aboard. It sounds easy, but it was hard. Every week, I felt lighter and lighter.
For five years, we lived twenty four seven on Ariel, our Moody four nineteen. We sailed down the coast from New York and onto Florida. Then we crossed the Gulf Stream to The Bahamas when we hit basically our only major storm, so that was a challenge. But we kept going. From there, over time, we made our way south and east, beating into the wind and onward to the Caribbean.
We went as far south as Tobago, totally immersed in different cultures, customs, and food. I'm glad to be telling this story, not just for you, but for me too, to remind me of all I learned from my cruising years. The importance of slowing down, the importance of downsizing and making do with less, how it both simplified and expanded my left life, realizing the everyday things that matter, things you might take for granted on land like getting water, electricity, finding and getting to a market, doing laundry, etcetera. The satisfaction of facing new challenges, crossing the stream, beating across the Mona Passage to Puerto Rico, etcetera, and thinking out of the box, looking at cultures and people in new ways. We relied on other cruisers from all over, sharing common challenges.
We met an amazing array of fellow cruisers and forged many friendships we have to this day as well. Towards the end of our adventure, I wrote this entry in our logbook. In a tiny space on a vast ocean, cooperating and participating and still talking to each other, a true test of our bond and a great adventure. Our space is small, but our life is big.