30 Years to Finland

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30 Years to Finland

by ERIK ORTON

It’s been 30 years since I’ve been to Finland.  My mother is Finnish.  She moved to NYC at age seventeen to be a nanny.  A few years later she met my dad and they got married.  I’m half Finnish.  I used to spend summers in Finland as a kid.  My last summer there I was fourteen.  My mom worried I would be bored spending all day in my grandmothers two-bedroom/one bath apartment, so she signed me up for a cycling race.  I was big into cycling at the time.

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Answer to the Question Everyone Asks

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Answer to the Question Everyone Asks

We’re not sailing again, but we are spending a lot of time thinking about sailing, because we’re presently working on a book about the trip.  It’s going to be epic, so stay tuned.   We promise it will make you laugh, make you cry, transform your life, double your income and probably be better than the iPhone 7.  But we’ll see. 

That said, digging into the book has conjured up lots of thoughts about our time on the water as well as what it means for our lives right now.  Life certainly never stops.  It’s a constant dynamic of going back to remember and extract meaning from the past, but also continuing to live going forward. 

I don’t see us spending a lot of time reminiscing about sailing Fezywig (we’ll save that for the book), but I couldn’t resist one crack at that time and what it meant.

Since living on our boat with our five kids, I would say there are two questions we’ve been asked most frequently: “Did you run into any storms?” and, “What did you learn?”  The answers are:  Yes, and keep reading.

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The End / The Beginning

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The End / The Beginning

So I suppose it’s worth writing about how all this ended up.  Wouldn’t want to leave anyone hanging.  Here goes 

After two weeks on blocks, Fezywig was back in the slings, ready to launch.  We packed the kids in the car and drove to NJ to pick up the boat.  We got there a little later then planned, but as usual with boats—there was a delay.  The starter motor needed to be replaced.  It finally rusted out as a result of the flooding.  It was 10am.  The part was supposed to arrive by 11am. We could wait.  We cleaned the boat.

There’s always a certain catharsis in cleaning something.

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Student Driver

/ Simpson Bay Lagoon/


Facing my fears, I drove the dinghy with moderate success.  As in life, the transitions are the most difficult part and my landings are still awkward.  Fortunately, Erik was standing by with calm steady instructions.  We made it shore and back without tipping over.  However, the wind kicked up and made our straight shot across the bay feel like an amusement park log ride.  We were just as drenched as if we had tipped.  The constant spray of warm saltwater in my face mixed with sunscreen and dripped into my eyes.  I could barely see through my squint as we approached the causeway bridge.  I shouted to Erik, “I need help!  I need help!”  His stuck to his seat and offered this versatile piece of advice, “Slow down.  When in doubt, you can always just slow down.”  I rotated the handle towards the symbol of a turtle, and regained control.  Oh, right.  Mastery first…then speed.  Got it.  Thanks, Love!