Hurry Up Drop the Dinghy

About the Book

As you sit dreaming, have you ever wondered what it would be like to drop out for couple of years, and sail merrily off for a grand adventure on a sailboat? If so, then you will find “Hurry Up!! Drop the Dinghy!!” completely, and irrevocably irresistible. But, even if such a fantasy has never occurred to you, the Journal will gleefully introduce you to the vagaries of long distance coastal cruising, enthusiastically whisking you away into the exciting world of life aboard the “Panacea” as it heads out to sea and then races to anchor near shore where it can hurry up and drop the dinghy. Heave to, Matey!

Roberta Smith, homemaker, has successfully launched five children into the world, and with her husband Lee, is living the good life in Southern California. She is happily imbedded in the usual, ordinary things of life, except for their leisure times, when they are flirting with small adventures aboard the good ship “Panacea”, their thirty-four foot sailboat. Many hours and days are spent having grand old times, sailing up and down the coast from Catalina to San Diego and San Francisco and dropping the dinghy for sorties ashore. Everything is smooth sailing and seems to be under control.

And then, Roberta’s husband Lee drops a bombshell on her domesticated, unsuspecting head. He has secretly harbored a dream, to drop out of their current life and sail away for a “Luxury Cruise”. (Hah! Oh, really?), down the coast of Mexico and Central America to Panama and then to the Caribbean. His mind is made up. He will do it NOW!

For Roberta, this is out of the realm of possibilities. She’s happy where she is, but soon, realizes that the ship might leave without her, and she’d be left, standing on the dock, dabbing her eyes and waving goodbye with a soggy hanky! Oh, no! After much thrashing around in rebellion, she leaps up! She CAN do this! She CAN turn into an adventuress! Immediately, she is an enthusiastic whirlwind, making the necessary preparations for sailing off on The Grand Cruise. Finally, early one morning in February, it is time to leave her familiar world behind her and she and Lee climb aboard a boat that is loaded to the gunnels with life sustaining supplies, including quail eggs.

This is not a saga of long grueling days at sea, nor is it a traumatic tale of survival in a “Perfect Storm”, although it often comes mighty close. The plan of these two sailors is to drift pleasantly down the coast, stopping nightly to find a quiet cove every afternoon where they’d drop the precious dinghy, and the head for the shore. After a little exploring and snorkeling, they would return to the ship in time for a pleasant, before dinner glass of wine, maybe read or play a game Gin Rummy. If it were an especially lovely place, maybe they’d say a day or two, whatever.

This was a very good and workable plan. The basics were in place, and they sailed away, from cove to bay, and then, immediately after dropping the anchor, the call would go out and reverberate off the shore! “Hurry up!! Drop the Dinghy!!” and they were off to explore. So far. So good.

From there on, all visions of the “Luxury Cruise” disappear as they immediately get caught up in realities of primitive fishing villages, vagaries of the weather, and the unreliability of their ship and equipment. Every day that passed held such remarkable experiences, that they begged to be recorded and Roberta dug in a hatch and found a lined spiral notebook. As the “Panacea” cruised down the coast, more and more notebooks were filled with the daily, unbelievable things they saw and the adventures they survived. And so “Hurry Up!! Drop the Dinghy”, the Journal of the “Panacea” was created.

The daily record is awash with the constant, frantic search for fuel, ice and water, which, when loading, sometimes take on the proportions of major dramatic (or comedic) production. Always there i