Minimalism: What is it?

What minimalists have in common:
   The “enough is enough” moment
   A desire to live with less
   Making the decision to change
           Courtney Carver

Forty-four years ago Jane and I set sail on our home-built sailboat. We sold everything that would not go aboard. We sailed across distant horizons where the wind blew us, when the spirit moved us, and the price was right.
Sailing away was like leaping off a tall building, it might have seemed like the right thing to do at the time but once airborne our fate was sealed, and no matter how much remorse we might have had turning back was not an option.
Living out of the sea and off the land and foraging for food became a thrilling way of life.
We wrote four books covering these precious years: Sailing Beyond Lake Superior (our inspiration and motivation that made it happen,) Sailing the Sea Islands and Sailing the Florida Keys (our bicycling and boating adventure,) Sailing to St Augustine, (what we did to survive the economic rollercoaster rides.)
Like our favorite German author Herman Hesse so aptly put it when he described the Magic Theater: “Not for everybody.”
We became minimalists before minimalism was coined.
Attempting to leave the world a better place than we found it, we strive to make a positive environmental impact.
A final thought:
WHEN ASSETS BECOME A LIABILITY
Youthful dreams and aspirations whet your appetite for the unlimited acquisition of material things, and buying something shiny becomes irresistible because heaping more worldly positions on your pile is justified as asset building.
In your twilight years after you have played with your toys and time has removed their glittery luster those youthful assets become burdensome liabilities.

June 25, 2016 copyright John M. Grimsrud

Hein and Siggi Zenker - Thlaloca Dos

“The Goddess of opportunity may give us a chance only once in our lifetime; we couldn’t afford to miss it. With thirty-odd years of age, the time was right. We (my wife and I) built ourselves a boat – not very big; 20 feet – and off we were on the greatest adventure anyone could hope to experience.” Hein Zenker

Siggi and Hein Zenker on Thlaloca Dos signed our logbook on February 15, 1976, while Dursmirg was anchored at Boot Key Harbor, Marathon, Florida.

Without a doubt, the nicest looking boat to pull in and anchor at Boot Key anchorage was Thlaloca Dos. This precision built sailboat was sailed by the saltiest sailors of the group, Hein and Siggi Zenker. However, they were unassuming and immediately very much a part of our dropout anchorage community. They fit in to it naturally. In no time at all, they struck up friendships with all of the boaters in the harbor.

Hein Zenker on Thlaloca Dos and Bubba Schill aboard his Jaeger hit it off like life long friends and soon discovered that they both had something in common. Both served their country during World War II, but ironically they had been on opposing sides, Bubba in the American Navy and Hein in Germany’s Merchant Marine. They were each victims of geography and political leaders that had whipped the world into a monumental state of hate and terror. The chemistry that Bubba and Hein felt for each other was one that I am sure could only have been conveyed by the indelible scars left on their youthful souls and then carried throughout their lives.

Hein and Siggi could look at the world and especially this little collection of social outcasts that made up the Boot Key anchorage with empathy because they had both survived World War II Germany from within and gone on to fulfill a dream that took more determination, dedication, and forceful self-motivation than I had ever seen.

As a matter of fact, with only a couple of exceptions, all of the live-aboard boaters that made up Boot Key anchorage back in the mid 1970s did not come to boating with financial backing and each carried their own load in life.

Some were world-class sailors and others couldn’t even tie a nautical knot, but one common thread bound us together and that was that we all were in this boating life for the adventure and freedom of sailing over distant horizons.

Oh, by the way!

In the world of strange coincidences, this next story unfolded:

Back in St. Augustine, Florida, in the spring of 1973, after Jane and I had just spent our first winter living aboard Dursmirg, which we anchored for some time in Matanzas Bay near the St. Augustine City Yacht Pier, we met a young man living aboard a small sailboat. That spring we were the only two boats anchored in Matanzas Bay. We thought the longhaired hippie looking young man was strange because of his profession, which we had never heard of before.  He was a computer programmer who daily commuted to Jacksonville to work, leaving his boat Thlaloca anchored in the bay.

The thing we did not realize at the time was the significance of that little boat with its strange name.

We would later learn the incredible story of the vessel’s monumental maritime achievement plus become close friends with the very people that actually built the boat and then went on to sail it into world history. The builders were Hein and Siggi Zenker and their historical feat was to sail their 20-foot Thlaloca around the world. It was the smallest vessel to do so at the time.

Hein and Siggi started building their little 20-foot sailboat in Iron Bridge, Ontario, Canada, and finished it in California where they launched it to begin the Australian leg of their round the world cruise.  Siggi later told Jane and me that that trip was 95% misery. When I asked Hein about his navigational skills, he said that he did not have any at the time, but that he figured he would have plenty of time to study and besides he also figured that he could not possibly miss anything as large as the continent of Australia.

June 5, 1986, Hein and Siggi Zenker visit us at St. Augustine, Florida.

Recommended Reading:

West! Sail West, Man! Aroundthe World in Twenty Feet by Hein Zenker. Reviewed by John M. Grimsrud

This is a story about people that not only dreamed the impossible dream but also lived it to the fullest. The husband and wife team of Hein and Siggi Zenker tell their extraordinary story in riveting first person fashion that will leave the reader enthralled.

Jane and I became good friends and neighbors to these real life adventurers that did as we did and put the work-a-day world behind them, built their own boat, and sailed away. They did it ten years before we began our voyage of Dursmirg.

We are deeply impressed by their book and happen to know that the stories of their adventures within are very true but cannot fully relate the dynamics of their powerful free spirits.

To us, they are the kind of people that make the world a better place and knowing them has forever added to our hope that dreams are there to be lived.

Apathy scuttles many a dream boat.

Quotes from the book:

“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checked by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”

“Crouched deep in the cockpit, I remained there for a long time and observed the foaming seas and listened to the howling gale. And for the x-time, I pondered why apparently sane people venture into this mess repeatedly.”

“Are we the only dreamers? Blinded in believing we are at home in an element, which in reality is out to destroy us, by forces we are unable to control nor understand. Fortunately “dreamers” are optimists who do not cease believing in their power to prevail-like the man in the cartoon, floating on a raft in the middle of the ocean, catching wind in a net.”

I rank this book with the best of the best sea stories I have ever read, need I say more?

Read more about Hein and Siggi in Sailing the Florida Keys: Travelsof Dursmirg by John M. Grimsrud.

Diving Under the Waters of the Florida Keys: Marathon to Key West

Jane and I found a new world of adventure awaiting us in the shallow bay waters and mangroves of the Florida Keys.

We discovered that one man’s garbage may be another man's treasure. Hundreds of derelict and abandoned vessels litter the Florida waters. Many are from the huge influx of Cuban refugees who came across the Florida Straits from Cuba to Florida in anything that would float.  Hurricanes sent many wooden sport fishing boats and old wooden cabin cruisers that were past their prime to the bottom to feed the sea worms. 

This ancient bronze Sampson post with no foundry markings and lots of nicks from a long life of hard service arrived in the south Florida waters on a Cuban refugee boat. 

When we recovered it from the sea bottom it was green and heavily oxidized giving the appearance of rubbish. 

A little tender loving care brought it back to a thing of dazzling artistic beauty, and it became our treasure.  

This stainless steel dinghy boat anchor is made of a collection of items from an old sport fishing vessel left to die a slow death at the hands of Mother Nature. The flukes are rub-rail, the shank is a water pump drive shaft, and the eye is a bolt. A few minutes with a hack saw, a file, and one stainless welding rod, and I had another treasure from under the waters of Florida. 

This fun-filled pass-time in the tropical waters generated a huge collection of anchors, chain, and marine hardware that helped to support our cruising life style.

The only semi precious metal we ever found while diving in the Florida Keys was silverware, and it wasn’t old…no gold. 

Read the rest of this story in Sailing the Florida Keys: Travels of Dursmirg.  

Available in paperback and Kindle. Click here for more information.

 

Joshua Slocum. Miami, Florida, and the Bermuda Triangle

Joshua Slocum, author and first single handed sailor to circumnavigate the world, made Coconut Grove on Biscayne Bay his last port of call in 1909. His departure was to be the last time he would ever be seen. Sailing out of Biscayne Bay and into the Straits of Florida, the Bermuda Triangle was there to claim another vessel and its crew.

The Straits of Florida is one of the most heavily traveled bodies of water in the world and no place to be drifting at night. All of the shipping traffic from the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea converged here upon entering the Atlantic Ocean. This is the famous and treacherous “Bermuda Triangle”.

The above photo is of the schooner Our Dream, which is of similar rig and size to Joshua Slocum’s, was one of the last of its breed. Our Dream is a traditional Bahamas built wooden schooner that made Coconut Grove at Dinner Key, Miami, Florida, its home port. Owners Warren and Nira Brown called their Our Dream home anywhere they dropped their anchor.

For the rest of these interesting stories read  Sailing the Florida Keys by John M. Grimsrud.  It is available in paperback and digital editions from booksellers throughout the world.  Click here for more information. 

Recommended Reading:

Sailing Alone Around the World and The Voyage of the Liberdade by Joshua Slocum. These two books are all time classic sailing adventure stories that have stood the true test of time. These kinds of books are the variety that any lover of the sea or sailing will want to own and pass on to their next generation or also reread as I have.  Both books are available as free audio books from librivox.org or download as ePub, Kindle, or text from Project Gutenburg.