Two Hulls, Two Wheels. The Transition.
24 December 2024 | En Route Sunshine
Stuart Letton

Now we've been underway for a few days, I'm struck by the similarities in the two means of travel we've been using of late, Two Wheels and Two Hulls.
Some people have asked why on Two Wheels in South America we drove so far each day. The answer is simple. There's bugger all between towns. On Two Hulls it's much the same. Norfolk to Beaufort ; Beaufort to Charleston. You might be just three, or perhaps ten but never more than twenty miles off the twinkling, suductive warm lights of the beach. A beach that seems to extend from New York to Florida, but unfortunately, while there are towns along the coast, or, being America, maybe it's just one huge, long town, inlets providing access and respite are few and far between. Most of these towns are annoyingly and tiringly (is that a word?) about one point five times a doable, days sail away. At this time of year with short days and long, black nights, that means we leave in the dark, freeze all day then arrive in the dark, breaking at least one of our rules of safe passage, never entering anywhere new in the dark. (That's a fib. We run the heating all day and leave the high tech thermostats to manage our comfort levels. We only freeze when we dash out on deck, through the well greased patio doors, to do boaty type things. Things we can't do from inside, like look over the back to see if the Watt&Sea, set for nine knots is still there after hurtling off bigger than expected waves at a more than expected nineteen knots in the more than expected winds.
On Two Wheels, in the chilly south and Patagonia we'd get togged up in woolly socks, clumpy boots, Long Johns, which Lee Marvin would have been proud of, three layer biking jeans and waterproof trousers. On top, we had heated, long sleeved shirts plugged in and set to Gas Mark 7, quilted jacket, three layer biking jacket and waterproof. We could at best waddle and needed a small step ladder to mount the bike. On Two Hulls right now it's pretty similar, just change biking pants to sailing pants. We've thought about getting extension cords and wiring ourselves up to the boat batteries so we could A) be toasty and B) look like one of these cheap remote controlled cars from when I was a kid, before radio waves were invented.
On Two Wheels we often had fuel anxiety, the bugger all between towns extending to petrol stations. On Two Hulls, aforementioned heating is sucking away our reserves necessitating refills when we'd normally go for months without thinking about fuel. I lie in bed listening to the little pump squirting diesel into the mini furnace, doing the math in my head of litres per hour times hours running, divided into the capacity of our recently filled tanks. Maybe we should just put on more clothes.
On reflection, we've become our children when they stayed in our house, wandering around in T-shirts, central heating at full blast and the windows open for that cooling breeze.
Two Hulls? Two Wheels?
"Wouldn't it be nice if we had a wee house, a Stressless Recliner and a TV remote with big buttons?"
Happy Christmas.