A Cruising Book You Won't Forget

Imagine the adventure of a lifetime. Outrageous. Dangerous. Exhilarating. Life Was A Cabaret is such a story - a true narrative of fear and audaciousness, adventure and arrogance, growth and humility.It is now almost thirty years ago that Tom and Becky Coffield honeymooned at Lake Shasta, California. Having eloped the week before, they pooled their meager resources to spend a few of what would prove to be the most life changing days of their young lives at a small cabin on this mammoth lake. While there, something wonderful and mysterious happened to them. A craziness seized them. An obsession took root and grew wildly out of control. Life Was a Cabaret is the story of this passion and of the 25,000 mile, six year odyssey that ensued. It was a miraculous journey of joy, of foolishness, and of terror. It was a journey of innocence and discovery. And sometimes one wonders if it is not "...a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." But it is, nonethele
ss, their tale.They were not born into sailing; they were not born into prams and sailing dinghies and the traditions of Cape Cod. Over a pitcher of margaritas an idea to buy a small sailboat unexpectedly morphed into the dream of owning a live aboard vessel. Not knowing anyone who sailed or lived aboard a boat, they had no idea what such a boat would cost - or even where to buy one. They groped their way from total ignorance to actual ownership of such a vessel over the course of the next year. They became dock rats, scouring waterfronts from Portland, Oregon, to Seattle, Washington. They enrolled in a self-taught cram course on boat ownership and bought their sailboat, Cabaret, nine months after they'd conceived the idea.Unable to sit idly for seven years until the boat was paid for, the Coffields left their idyllic moorage and life in Portland for the excitement of ocean escapades in Newport on the Oregon Coast. Like a portent of great fortune, both secured good jobs once
in port and began a year too unbelievably wonderful to be true. But the call of the sea was now in their blood, so in short order they left their new nest and headed Cabaret north to the archipelago of Southeast Alaska dreaming to strike it rich in this land of ice and snow.Their two years in the north country were sheer poetry - poetry that echoed from the isolated islands to the solitary bays that beckoned them to enter and take their ease. But, having finally "struck it rich" and paid off the boat, their wanderlust could not be contained despite the addiction they had to the vast and silent land they found so enchanting.Rarely out of sight of land, the two traversed the entire length of the North American continent as they harbor hopped from Sitka, Alaska, to Acapulco, Mexico, a voyage of some three thousand miles. Their escapades are enthralling as they traverse nautical charts and experience the false security of a fair wind and a following sea for nine months. From th
e (then) tiny, dusty, desert town of Cabo San Lucas, perched literally at the end of the Baja Peninsula, to the tropical allure of the mainland, Cabaret glided ever southward, over waters oily smooth, with fair tropical breezes carefully poofing out her large white sails. They became smug and brazen in their watery world.A major lesson in humility came on their first ocean passage, a journey of three thousand miles from Acapulco to the Marquesas, a journey largely traveled in terror. The Coffields had a thorough butt-kicking across the vast Pacific Ocean to the steamy island of Nuku Hiva that lay just nine degrees south of the equator. Becky learned first hand about the violent, tumultuous weather that Coleridge's ancient mariner experienced. And like the dying men aboard the mariner's vessel, she found herself praying for survival from the savage ravages of nature.But they survived, and so began the third leg of their long voyage, as they wound their way through the Marques
as from Nuku Hiva to Fatu Hiva, to the Tuomotos where they got lost for three days, and finally to the Society Islands and the materialistic comforts of Papeete and the splashy, beautiful paintings of Gaugain. For months the Coffields visited exotic sounding islands where they greedily relished the sight and feel of land, each of them inwardly knowing but not outwardly speaking of the two awaiting endurance trials they'd have at sea before they'd safely be home again.Leaving Bora Bora for the long, windward journey to Hawaii and the northern hemisphere produced perhaps one of the loneliest feelings the author says she's ever had. For twenty-one days they spoke little and thought much. Adrift in their own worlds of worry and uncertainty, they passed each other exchanging watches, and their hearts grew weary. A hurricane racing up the coast of Mexico made a false start at them, but they no longer feared a mere hurricane when a watery grave seemed more than imminent.At long las
t Hawaii came into view, but after only a three week visit, they reluctantly left the safety of shore once again and headed Cabaret homeward.Their final journey was perhaps their easiest. They seemed more masters of their little vessel and less passengers. Experiencing every type of weather with little or no travail, from the deep, disturbing, eerie calms of the Pacific high, to their brush with a typhoon, they sailed on quite unflappably. The handy Taffrail Log that had followed them on every passage, ticked off the miles as they melted away until one day the fog lifted and there was Cape Disappointment, harbinger of the mighty Columbia River, the river they'd begun their journey on so many years before when they'd traveled from Portland to Newport, and thence to Alaska and so many other ports of call. This delightful book is filled with valuable information for the new cruiser. It offers truth...it offers hope and inspiration. If you are a would-be sailor, or one just star
ting out, this book is well worth your time. The Coffields will save you many mistakes and give lots of helpful information in the process.

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