WHEN LIFE CALLS

By Mike Benjamin, SV Exodus, President SDSA

As cruisers, we live a charmed life, with beautiful beaches, exotic islands, clear water, quaint villages, remote locations, and good friends.  Sure, there is no Amazon, mostly smaller markets, and the occasional joker valve to replace.  Yet even with Starlink, we live somewhat detached from wherever you call “back home” and from the ubiquitous news cycle.  But we are also away from our loved ones, our parents, kids, grandkids, and good friends. So, when tragedy strikes, how do we deal?

As I write this, my son-in-law’s father, who has battled cancer for years, is in his final stages.  Back home, family is on the dreaded “death watch.”  Our kids need a big hug from Mom and Dad, but we are thousands of miles away.  We have no marina or mooring ball reservations, and there are no regular daily flights back to Boston from our current location.  Moreover, we don’t even know if or when we should go home.  Going home is a big deal.  You can’t just leave the boat.  There are preparations to be made, preparations that are different if our absence is days versus weeks.  And, honestly, this dilemma doesn’t even involve the illness of an immediate family member.

So, when do you make the decision to go home?  Death watch is indeterminate.  Should we be there to provide comfort before death or after?  Is it more important to attend the funeral and the grief that follows, or to be there now to provide support?  Maybe Ronna should go alone.  It would certainly be easier, as I could remain to tend to Exodus. 

These are not questions with clean answers nor are they unique to us, and they are made harder by distance, logistics, and the reality that our lives afloat require planning where others can simply pack a bag.  Cruising forces us to weigh emotional needs against practical constraints in a way that can feel uncomfortably transactional, even when the stakes are deeply personal.

What complicates this further is that these moments rarely arrive with certainty or clarity.  They come quietly, often without urgency at first, and then escalateand never on a convenient timetable.  You question your instincts.  You replay conversations.  You wonder whether waiting is wise or whether acting too soon will be regretted just as deeply.  There is no handbook for this part of cruising life, and it is rarely discussed while swapping anchorage tips or comparing weather windows.

Whatever we decide to do, this scenario has and will, unfortunately play out for all of us… eventually.  It goes with the territory.  It is another aspect of cruising that we don’t really think about until it is upon us. 

Perhaps the only real takeaway is this: choosing this life does not exempt us from life’s hardest moments.  It simply changes how we experience them and how we respond, with no clear roadmap.  When life calls, wherever we are, we do the best we can with the information we have at the time, guided by love, responsibility, and imperfect judgment that will always be second-guessed later.  This, too, is part of the voyage.

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