Aboard and On Shore

Hey, there. My name is Normandie Ward Fischer, and I love hats.

I sail and I write. I also edit and mess about at home and on board our lovely ketch, Sea Venture. Hats define my roles. They also let me hide.

One of my sailing hats:

And my FACEBOOK HAT, the one that hides wrinkles: I call it my editor hat.

We have big boats and little boats, messing-about boats and living-on boats. Let me introduce you to Sea Venture, my on-board writing home, the lovely boat Michael and I (and sometimes Mama) sail wherever and whenever we can.

Michael took this picture through binoculars at Stillwater Cove, near Pebble Beach Golf Club in California. Sea Venture was on her way from Mexico to her temporary home until we could free ourselves from the land life and go cruising. You can read about our trip on SEA VENTURE’S JOURNEY. Be on the lookout for our beautiful big boat with the blue dove on its mainsail. When you see it, y’all come on by and say “Hey,” won’t you?

Here we are, anchored off Loreto, MX, one of our favorite towns in the Sea of Cortez. We spent weeks in 2009 and 2010 anchored either in a cove on Isla Carmen (in the background) or on the west side of Isla Coronado, just to the north. We’d up-anchor and bop over Loreto for groceries and an occasional cook’s lunch out.

When we’re not on board, I have the privilege of crafting stories from our beautiful North Carolina home. Why don’t you come on up and sit a spell.

We’ll sip a tall glass of sweet tea and wait for the egrets to swoop low on their way to Brown’s  Island for the night. The flight path of the ibis veers off to the right. You watch for the curved bill — that’ll be the ibis. Maybe a great blue heron will wander ’round the point and stand with his foot tucked up, his neck curled, searching the shallows. Maybe he’ll even spear a fish with that long beak and gulp it down. And if we get up really early tomorrow morning, we just may see a dolphin or two leap inside the bay. They don’t come often, especially not since Hurricane Floyd dumped all that silt in our water, but I did see them once, years ago. We can hope. Miracles happen.

If you do drop in to visit while I’m home in NC, maybe you can come for a sail on our little boat. The picture at the right is of me sailing us home from the Cape on my sharpie named Puff. You can read something about this wonderful wooden boat in the piece I wrote called Sailing Odyssey, linked under the Scribblings page.

The photo heading above is Bahia de la Paz, the morning after our third night at sea. We were novice voyagers, though not novice sailors, and we’d had to heave-to because of transmission trouble. A corumuel arose overnight, slinging us about in 35 knots until we settled into the gentle rocking of a hove-to boat. And then the morning woke, as the sun slipped over the horizon to promise a fine day. Soon, dolphins would cavort off our bow.

That was in 2004. We now have miles of sea under our keel, and still more to travel. I’ve discovered in these years of cruising that I can write anywhere, in comfort and without, and in chaos or quiet. But I prefer the homes I now enjoy and the pleasure of writing where there’s beauty. I haven’t always had that luxury, but, oh, I’m grateful for it now.