Fate is truly amazing

I am a firm believer in a higher power at work in the universe. Like of a flow of energy, akin to a current in a channel or a trade wind, you can either go with it or try to beat against it. And when you're going with that flow, the universe responds in kind.

Back in July I posted about a couple, Scott and Kitty, who made their way around the world in an Allied Seawind called Bebinka. It took them 4 years and they took a lot of pictures. Recently, they posted them all to the web, complete with captions, which I read in its entirety before purchasing Soveraine. 

I returned from my cousins wedding in New York last Monday night and was up early that next Tuesday, determined to get my engine running. I went out and bought a new fuel tank and the materials to install it and got back to the boat at about 11 am. I was below when I heard a knock on the hull and someone say, "Allied Seawind! You in there?" I popped up to see an older man in his dinghy who told me that he and his wife had circumnavigated in a sister ship back in 1971. "In Bebinka?" I replied, "Are you Scott and is your wife Kitty??!?" He nearly fell out, clean into Newport harbor. We were both speechless for a moment, just kind of staring at each other. I was imagining this guy, now in his early 70s, at 30 embarking on a voyage around the world in a nearly identical craft while he gazed back at me, seeing himself in me some 40 years ago. 

"You have to come to our boat for coffee!" He exclaimed, and pointed to a Valiant 40 anchored just off my bow. 

"I'll be over in a heartbeat!"

I could hear from across the water as he got to Tamure, "Kitty! He's coming over for coffee! He's heard of us and seen our whole voyage on the internet!"

It was surreal seeing these two together and being in their cabin after seeing and reading about their voyage from so long ago. It was as if there was no middle ages, I saw Scott and Kitty when they were 30 and 25, newly married and glowing with youth. They were still glowing, for sure, from a lifetime of sailing and adventure. 

We spent the next 6 or so hours talking about absolutely everything. They asked me what plans I had for my boat and I told them about my goals of self-reliance and to start by voyaging in the Bahamas starting next fall. I picked their brains about rigging for my boat (among other things, including the galley, electrical system, their engine, etc), including a twin jib configuration they used frequently, running with the trades on both of their circumnavigations. A picture of that is below, as they left the Galapagos, bound for the Marquesas in 1972.

They still use the exact same wind vane in that picture on their Valiant 40.

Scott came to see my boat as well, giving me a lot of pointers to fixing her up and doing it right. He got very quiet as he came below into my now quite barren cabin. He looked around silently, and then to me, and I could see that gaze of reflection, as if looking in a 40 year old mirror. 

They left the next day, bound for home in Connecticut, and then voyaging on to the Bahamas in early October. It is relieving to see them, now in their late 60s and early 70s, still doing what they love, and to be still so in love with each other. I told them how privileged I felt to have met my own personal Larry and Lin Pardey, and in such a fateful way. They said they felt similar, and they too were relieved to see that young people like myself are still doing what they set out to do, at almost the exact same age and on the same vessel even, some 40 years ago.