Burly girlies

Where are the women who love sailing their boat? Who raise and reef their main and raise their spinnaker? Where are the women who like to talk gear?

These questions might sound like the lament of a single straight male sailor looking for love, but instead they are those of a married straight woman.

I crave the community of women that I had when I was rock climbing and I'm struggling to find it in the cruising world. We called ourselves the burly girlies (you know, the kind of women who paint their toenails and then rope up for something tough).

It took me a while to realize that this new community I was part of was the cruising community not the sailing community and that many of its denizens are lukewarm about the sailing part. I understand that - travel is a big part of why I chose this lifestyle. When we first bought our boat I had little sailing experience and thus we had a long conversation about what would happen if I became a proficient but not eager sailor.

So, not everyone who cruises is a sailing addict. No biggie. When we come together, with our varying personalities, vastly different backgrounds and myriad interests, we still have cruising in common, right? We can talk about weather, boats, distant ports, gear bought, broken and repaired.

Except that with many of the women I meet, we run out of things to talk about after distant ports. When two couples get together there is rarely this problem because the dynamic of the foursome keeps the conversation to middle ground topics. But in a group of women, there is a moment where the conversation turns to what seems like everyone else's common ground - children, grandchildren, pets, decorating, the galley or other things about which I am a terrible conversationalist. I'm happy that the group is having fun but I begin to get bored.

At that moment, I start looking longly at the men's conversation and strain my ears trying to catch snippets of their interesting topics. My husband Carol throws me a life preserver by asking me the wattage of our solar panels or which model SSB we have. If I can do so at all politely, I switch my conversational participation over and I'm back in the game.

It has come to the point where I try to sit near the men if the genders look like they are segregating at a gathering so I can join in either groups conversation at will. How sad is that? And what is with gender segregating at co-ed parties post puberty? It's not that the men are more interesting. If we removed cruising topics from the conversation I am certain I would struggle to connect with most of the men for the same lack of common conversational ground.

I recently realized how desperate I was for burly girly friends in cruising when I was talking to a woman about cruising and I burst out somewhat inappropriately with the comment "It's just so nice to talk to a woman who knows about the gear on her boat!".

By writing this I know that some people will read it and come away with the impression that I think everyone should love sailing or that everyone should want to talk about gear or that there is something wrong with wanting to talk about your children. If so, they've missed the boat. I like people who are happy with where they are and the choices they've made. I just might not have much to talk with them about if their choices and mine are so far apart and I was surprised to join a sport and find out that, even with people in that sport, I don't have that sport in common with them.

My singles friends ad would be: Married women in her 30s interested in sailing, boat bits, and adventure sports. Looking for likeminded female friends of any age.