Sailing Away with Music and Books

Voyager, cruiser, sailor, reader …

My dream is to sail away, someday, with my spouse.

I want to go where the wind takes us, visit interesting new places, visit parts of this Earth slowly, tuck our boat away in secluded anchorages, and generally enjoy life from our floating home.

The dream includes a lot of reading, of course. Every sailor I know loves to read. Reading in the midst of paradise is just wonderful; when you have few ties — to land, place, deadline, interpersonal dynamics — it’s easy to suspend your own life and become absorbed into the life of the book. Reading is also useful to while away time during periods of bad weather.

Also — and I say this cautiously because I myself really, really hate hearing other people’s music breaking up the peaceful sounds of nature — I want to be able to listen to my own music when I want to — through headphones, or very quietly through the boat’s speakers if I’m not out on the open sea.

But there’s no room!

The problem is, our sailboat is only twenty feet long. There is a bookshelf, all right, but it will be filled with cruising guides, a first-aid book, engine manuals, piloting and sailing volumes, and other essential reference works.

Space that isn’t used for necessary written material will be filled with food, clothing, spare parts, and all of the sundry items that must accompany us wherever we sail.

I seriously doubt we’ll be able to find space for the number of books I envision wanting!

Enter Kindle and its ilk

Kindle DX

I’ve made a promise to myself: Amazon’s Kindle DX — or something very like it — is going to be my gift to each of us on the day we depart for our adventure.

This wonderful piece of electronica is about the size of an issue of Sail magazine, holds about 3500 books, works for about a week on one battery charge, and lets you download books anywhere in the U.S. (and many other places, too) because it’s connected to the 3G network.

Also, this item is able to accept pdf files, so I can load it with the pdf versions of my manuals, user guides, and other boat documentation, thus further relieving — or at least having a backup to — my overburdened bookshelf.

For two Kindles — because I hate to share — we would spend just under $1000, though I hope this price comes down as Amazon’s competitors introduce their own products.

iPod

My iPod has a sweet little gizmo that plugs into my car’s 12-volt socket to play my MP3 files through the FM radio.

My tiny sailboat also has a 12-volt socket, and a stereo system complete with pretty nice speakers and FM radio, in addition to its CD player.

Hmmm … why bring a stack of CDs when I can just bring my iPod and the gizmo? I’ve already tried it out, and it works just as well in the boat as it does in the car.

A 32 gig iPod Touch, which holds up to 7000 songs, currently sells for about $300 — that’s half the cost of the same item about a year ago. Not bad.

MacBook

I’ll admit that I am, and have always been, a fan of the Mac.

My cellphone would be an iPhone if I could afford the monthly fee.

But I won’t consider my cruising inventory complete without a laptop computer. As with the Kindle, I may use it to store redundant copies of pdf documents. But more importantly, it can be used in numerous ways for email, weather tracking, updates to our navigational charts, processing digital photographs taken during our adventure — and, of course, writing.

Apple is selling its latest laptop, the MacBook, for $1000.

Priceless

I have just talked about spending nearly $2300, which doesn’t even include the cost of book downloads for the Kindle (around $10 each), music files ($1.29 each), or software for the computer (thousands, probably).

Of course, I already own the iPod, and an antiquated laptop, but I may need to spring for new ones. I hope the prices will all come down.

All I can say to this immense outlay for electronic gadgetry primarily directed at our amusement is, consider the alternatives:

—≡—  1. We do not bring books or CDs, and slowly go psychotic from lack of reading or music to soothe the savage breast.

—≡—  2. We bring the books and CDs, and forfeit clothing, thus finding ourselves gravitating to nudist destinations.

—≡—  3. We bring the books and CDs, and forfeit food, thus committing ourselves to the peripatetic lives of mendicants — or, less elegantly, dock mooches who routinely crash parties and bum food off generous fellow sailors.

I think that any of the above alternatives will drive us back to life ashore prematurely, perhaps with the added expense of therapy. Life ashore is more expensive than life afloat, almost by definition. Throw therapy in, and you’re talking serious money.

My boat is my therapy, and hence worth the money. Priceless, in fact.

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What do you think? Feel free to post your comments below.

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Tags: books, cruising, iPod, Kindle, MacBook, Music, reading, Sailing, voyaging

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