Australia 31

Our final three days in Vero Beach were amazing, mostly because we were rafted on our mooring to Bernie and Yvonne Katchor. Bernie and Yvonne are Australian and have been cruising on a shoestring for about 45 years. Their boat, Australia 31, is the floating crossroads for ingenuity and economy. I cannot remember the last time I met two such charismatic people. What makes them so special is that they like people. As they explore countries around the world, they genuinely enjoy the people they meet. In fact, Bernie was moved to write Around the Next Bend, a book about their experiences with the people of Guyana and Venezuela. People are more important than anything else.

Perhaps this story will illustrate my point. Bernie and Yvonne needed to have their engine propeller balanced. Their original propeller was stolen in Venezuela five years earlier when their boat was stripped at a boatyard there. When telling the story they are matter of fact and express their good fortune at not being on board at the time. Others had been shot in the knees for resisting such intruders. For the past five years, they have been cruising with a make-shift propeller they were able to find and cut down to size so they could leave Venezuela. Now the propeller needed to be balanced at the very least. Bernie, at age 67, was not about to let someone charge him a fortune to do the simple job of removing the propeller. So, he donned his short-sleeved, short-legged wet suit and climbed down into the 65-degree water. John assisted him, mostly by watching for Bernie’s bubbles. Bernie had a bucket full of tools attached to a rope and in the water with him – a 49-cent WalMart-special type of bucket, plastic with a thin metal handle and about five years on it. As Bernie handed the bucket up to John, John grabbed the rope and the handle promptly separated from the bucket sending the bucket and tools straight to the bottom. John was crushed. Bernie had a lead line ready and dropped it into the water where the bucket fell so it would be easier to find the bucket again later as our boats moved around the mooring. Having removed the propeller, Bernie climbed back onto his boat, shivering and blue from being in the cold water for 30 minutes. If he was upset about the tools we did not know it. The next day he went back in the water to find the tools. He marked a line every three feet and swam in a circle feeling around on the bottom. The water was too murky to see. About nine feet from the lead line, he found the tools all in the bucket on the bottom. A lot of people would have been upset either in general or at John, thinking about the potential cost to replace all of those tools. A propeller puller alone could cost $75. Not Bernie and Yvonne. John was more important than the tools. These things happen sometimes - just another daily episode in the challenges of cruising. This was another fine example of it’s not what happens to you it’s how you handle it.

Later that evening, Bernie and Yvonne invited us to dinner on their boat so we could meet some of their friends who live in Vero Beach. Many cruisers settle in Vero Beach when they are ready to trade their sailboats for watching the grandkids, reading the paper, and walking the dog. They call themselves Cruisers Living on Dirt (CLODs) and meet for breakfast on Wednesday mornings.

During dinner, we learned the fine art of eating delicacies aboard. Did you know that all seaweed is edible? We were treated to dulse, a purple, salty sea lettuce. Eating it raw is like eating beef jerky. Bernie likes it better toasted, so he pulled out a blow-torch style lighter and roasted it like a marshmallow. We agree. Seaweed is definitely better toasted. We also learned that mushrooms we find can be edible. Bernie and Yvonne asked a park ranger if the ones growing in that particular park were the edible kind. He was not sure. They might be, or they might be the kind that look like the edible kind, but are toxic. So, Bernie ate one to find out. After 24 hours when he did not get sick, those mushrooms became part of their diet. Bernie thought the dogs in the park were what gave the mushrooms their rich flavor.

In addition to meeting former cruisers, through Bernie and Yvonne we met fellow first-time cruisers John and Elle. For a night they rafted up on our other side. Everyone came to dinner on Island Chariot. What fun! Bernie and Yvonne shared stories of the beaches in different cultures. In other parts of the world, people are more relaxed about their bodies. Nude beaches are commonplace. Bernie expressed that he had gained a bit of weight and was having trouble seeing “over the horizon”. With a grin he reported that he had to ask Yvonne – “Yvonne, am I naked?”.

Bernie and Yvonne are rich in every way that matters. When it comes to stuff, they do not have much, yet share everything they have. What a wonderful place this world would be if, like the Katchors, we all saw the world through the eyes of our hearts instead of the eyes in our heads.