La Conner woman tests publishing waters with high seas adventure

Countless people have dreamt about selling all their worldly possessions and setting sail for parts unknown.

Linda Rumbolt wasn’t one of them.

But that’s exactly what she and her then-husband, David Solie, did a decade ago.

Their leap of faith would take them from La Conner down the Pacific Coast, through the Panama Canal, and eventually to Florida, a voyage lasting more than a year and a half.

Sailing was in Dave’s blood. His dad had a sailboat that he raced on Puget Sound.

Though born in Newfoundland to a family that had made its living on the sea, Linda, now part of the La Conner Schools Food Services staff, was less drawn to the sailing life.

“The smell of salt air is like music to my soul,” she says, “but that didn’t mean I had to become a sailor.

“I did enjoy a sail for an afternoon,” Linda adds, “but, still, it never entered my mind I’d be living on a sailboat.”

The 30-foot Starshine would indeed become the couple’s home from the fall of 2007 to spring of 2009, a period Linda has committed to manuscript form and with editing help from local author Claire Swedberg and others has submitted to publishers for review.

The story, entitled “Sailing Into Deep Waters”, is full of adventure. There was a near sinking. And that’s not the half of it. Linda and Dave had more than their share of close encounters with spiders, bats, lizards, crocodiles and various sorts of bugs. They endured all sorts of weather and at times were forced to rely on imprecise charts and guides. While ashore in Central America they witnessed a thief pummeled unconscious by his victims.

Linda twice broke one of her toes and was laid up at times by fever and infection. Seasickness was an all too frequent companion.

An adventure, to be sure. So much different than their former comfortable life here.

Dave and Linda had completed a major renovation of their house on South Third Street. He was a La Conner firefighter who served on various Town panels. She was in the midst of realizing her true dream, using a fine large Italian stove to operate a home bakery.

But that was all temporary.

“Little did I know that man I was married to for 20 years had always dreamed of sailing the seas and oceans of the world,” Linda recalls.

Linda brought along her sewing machine, which came in handy numerous times, and a lifelong appreciation for history. She researched most of the places the couple visited, gleaning fun anecdotes that are found throughout the manuscript.

Linda also proved a quick study picking up on maritime lingo.

‘I learned lots of boat stuff,” she quips, “like helm, mast, aft and port.”

Daily tasks included making sure the boats sails were ready, studying charts, and preparing food ahead of time.

“We learned,” says Linda, “if the food wasn’t ready to grab during rough times, we didn’t eat. It was too nauseating to be down in the cabin making food then.”

The toughest moments came off Punta Mala, the single most congested turning point for all ships from North America and the Pacific bound to and from the Panama Canal. It was there that Starshine began taking on water as it sloshed through the seams in its floorboards. Dave had to feverishly work a built-in hand pump to keep the boat afloat.

“We were within inches of sinking,” Linda says. “I had never seen Dave work so fast. He’s a tough man and thank God for his strength.”

In addition to navigating through sometimes treacherous waters, Linda and Dave also had to wade through the challenges of language barriers, monetary exchanges and very real threats of pirates and bandits.

Yet the places they saw and people they met made it all worthwhile.

There were brilliant sunrises, vivid sunsets, stunning views of volcanoes, repeated opportunities to fish for yellow fin tuna, the chance to see authentic Mexican fire dancers and days of checking out historic landmarks and native art.

Before entering the Panama Canal, Linda and Dave went ashore at Las Flores, a village on Taboga Island, largest of a cluster of islands in the area. It had been the home port of Francisco Pizarro and his fleet after their conquest of the Incas in Peru. It was later a hideout for pirates, then still later site of a hospital for French canal workers ailing with yellow fever and malaria.

“There’s historical information everywhere,” Linda says, “on plaques in both English and Spanish, in brochures and from knowledgeable natives.”

Linda and Dave were immediately welcomed into the community of boaters they encountered sailing in Pacific and Caribbean venues. They also befriended interesting characters whose paths they crossed while in port.

A favorite for Linda was a fellow Canadian, 70-ish Ron Drew, then known around Nuevo, Mexico as “Capt. Ron.” Tall and slight of build, Drew sported a head of white hair and long white beard.

“He looked like a skinny Santa Claus,” Linda says.

And, indeed, he was. At least to the local children. He was the Santa each Christmas at a large grocery store and was, according to Linda, especially devoted to the children of single moms. Each Dec. 26, she says, he would let the kids cut his beard.

Another person Linda won’t forget is the severe looking U.S. Coast Guard officer she met upon arriving in Florida.

“He came over to me and shook my hand,” she says. “He was still serious. He said I was a very brave woman to have sailed as far as I did on such a small boat, and with a man. Then he smiled at me and said when he was out in the Caribbean Sea doing Coast Guard duties they were always looking for small boats. Most were never found nor were the people because the pirates got to them first.

“He said they’d take the boats and any possessions and money the boaters had,” says Linda. “He said if they found a boat it was usually sunk and sometimes they’d see a mast sticking out of the water.”

Linda was more than a bit shaken by what he said. Had she heard it a year and a half earlier she likely wouldn’t have left La Conner.

“If I had known this story,” she says, “I never would have done it. But I’m glad I did and am happy to be alive on dry land.”

Still, she isn’t ruling out another long voyage.

“I might do it again,” says Linda, “but under different circumstances – like on a giant cruise ship.”