Why do we (women) cruise? Is it only because our spousal units want to? Do we want to get away from lousy jobs? Are we retired and bored?

Cruising singer/songwriter Eileen Quinn explains it best to all the world in her new tape, "No Significant Features". Anyone who has believed that line from weather radio will particularly enjoy the song "Three Days Out 45-Knot Wind Blues". (And for those a little slow on the uptake, the graphic on the front of the tape box shows a full-blown hurricane heading towards Hispanola.)

I first heard about Eileen the first night I arrived on the Rio Dulce in Guatemala. Several people in Suzanna’s Laguna Marina had heard her perform at the Bay Islands Sailing Regatta and Music Festival, her first real public performance, earlier this spring in Guanaja, Honduras. Word was that she was coming to the Rio Dulce--and come she did. Her first performance was standing room only at the Cayuco Club at Mario’s Marina. Although her songs tend to emphasize the female perspective of cruising, the guys certainly appeard to enjoy and relate to many of the songs. Not only were the music and lyrics pleasing, her voice and acoustic guitar playing were great too.

At that performance, members of the audience of both sexes set about convincing Eileen that she should find a recording studio in "The City" (Guatemala City) and make a tape so that we could send it to all our friends and relatives. After they listened to it, they would then understand why we cruise and share vicariously some of the joys and heartaches of this crazy cruising life.

So she did--went to The City, found a great recording studio and engineer (Hedras Ramos) who talked her into adding keyboards and drums to her songs--and then performed them all himself. Eileen sounded good live, but we were knocked out by how great the tape came out, "Wow, like really professiona!!". The packaging even came out great and contains all the lyrics (for those times you walk around singing "COLD BEER COLD BEER" and someone asks if there are any other words to that song).

Some of the song titles immediately trigger responses in those of us who hang out on boats and when we hear the songs we think, "that’s it exactly":

"The Anchoring Dance" (There’s always one more step--you can file for divorce--no better way to test a true romance than to do do do the anchoring dance),

"Passagemaker’s Holler" (Heave ho and away we go, the wind is fair and the waves are low. The moon is full and the sailin’s fine--we’re hauling up the hook, it’s passage time),

"Something Delicious" (Oh give me something delicious, I don’t care whether it is nutritious at this stage, I’ll lick the dishes. But if I’ve got a choice, then what I wish is--ice cream, French fries, Caesar salad and a T-Bone steak, BEER COLD BEER COLD BEER),

"Trouble in Paradise" (You are the weevils infesting my dry food stores, the mold under my shower grate, the stalk of bananas rotting on the rail, the waste that won’t macerate),

and "Tarpit Harbor" (Tarpit Harbor has sucked down my anchor and with it my will to be free. There’s some what go sailing--I seem to go anchoring, stuck in the muck this side of the sea).

Not all of Eileen’s songs are "fun"--some of the more poignant ones cause tears or nods of acknowledgment of the feelings invoked, memories brought to the fore. The song "Don’t Ask Your Love to Choose" seems to strike a major chord, particularly among the "retired" set, with lines like "...he’s thinking he’s lucky he checked out of the race; she’s thinking her grandchildren won’t know her face" and "Back a year, seen the grandkids maybe three times or four. She’s a little surprised to find her days are a bore...he laughs when she says let’s go cruising once more".

Didn’t mean to make this sound like a late-night infomercial--but when the tapes came from the manufacturers, some boats bought from 10 to 25 copies, saying "maybe NOW ‘they’ will stop asking us what the heck we’re doing or what cruising is REALLY like".

Eileen, a 37-year-old Canadian left her job as Chief of Staff for a Cabinet Minister three years ago to set out cruising on Little Gidding, aXXXXXXXXXXXX, with her husband, David Allester. The motivation was two-fold: she decided she couldn’t have an interesting job and a life at the same time and they realized that a number of friends and family members had died at fairly young ages, so they needed to "get out while we could". They spent 2 years in the Eastern Caribbean and are now doing the Northwestern side.

A year ago, if anyone had suggested she would be a "recording artist", Eileen says she would have laughed in their faces. She didn’t even begin writing songs until February of this year, sitting in the San Blas Islands: "I had lots of material by then and the place just triggered the creative juices--and there was plenty of solitude to work in". She performed at the regatta and music fest and then committed to "really doing it" by buying an amplifier and mike. A friend made her a "Starving Singing Sailor Fund" ditty bag to hang off the mike boom and the rest is history, at least in this part of the Caribbean.

Can’t wait until the day I can say "Yeah, I knew her when she was just getting started--too bad she’s so busy touring and making CDs--bet she hasn’t been able to go cruising in years."

(To order cassettes for yourself or YOUR friends and relatives, you can send $12 (Canadian funds for Canadian addresses, US funds for all others) by check or money order to Kevin Quinn, Unit 77, 3099 Uplands Drive, Ottowa, Ontario, Canada, K1V 9T6.)