INTO THE SUNSET : Couples Who Chuck It All and Cruise the Seas Are Soon Tested by More Than Aquatic Vagaries

The next time you are sitting in your car, creeping along the San Diego Freeway in an endless stream of bumper-to-bumper traffic, imagine instead sitting in a sailboat at anchor in the crescent-shaped cove of a deserted island, ringed by a white-sand beach, perfectly manicured by each high tide.

Instead of traffic sounds, you hear a gentle rustling on the water as the turquoise lagoon comes alive with clouds of dense, silvery fish. Snorkeling in the lagoon--a body of water as clear as a back-yard swimming pool--is like swimming through a Jacques Cousteau special.

Welcome to the world of cruising--a world where there are no cars, no Sig-Alerts, no phones, no mortgage payments, no schedules except those imposed by wind and weather. If you have ever dreamed of chucking it all and sailing off into the sunset, you are not alone.

Each year in the United States, dozens of ordinary 9-to-5 people slip the bonds of an urban existence and sail away to live afloat for a year or longer, according to the Seven Seas Cruising Assn., a worldwide club based in Florida.

But even paradise has its hazards. Instead of traffic accidents, there are storms at sea, treacherous coasts and hostile foreign governments--and intense strains on personal relationships. Instead of mortgage payments, there are engine repair bills and port fees.

When Art and Cheresse Smoot of Rossmoor set sail for Mexico in their 37-foot catamaran last month, their departure represented 7 years of hard work preparing for a 5-year voyage that will take them from the Gulf of California to Tahiti and eventually the South Pacific.

Art Smoot, 40, and Cheresse Smoot, 39, had been dreaming of this trip since 1974, when they took a 6-month sabbatical--which stretched into a year--to go sailing with her parents, who had retired. “That’s when we developed a real love for this type of life,” said Cheresse Smoot, who has been sailing since she was a child. “But we had to come back and get to work.”

When the Smoots returned to Orange County, both were in their mid-20s, and both set out to establish successful careers--she as a banking executive and he as a computer programmer. But they made a pact.

“We promised ourselves that we would work and save, and that we’d be out of here by the time we were 40,” she said, her face flushed with excitement a few days before departure.

“We figure that if we left when we were 40 and were gone 5 years,” Art Smoot said, “we could still come back and start another career and work 20 years and retire like everybody else at 65.

“Where I worked, I saw a lot of people who were there 20 or 25 years and wanted to do something. Maybe not go cruising--but something. So they waited all their lives until they retired. By then they were often physically disabled and couldn’t do it.”

For the Smoots, working toward their cruising dream affected the very fabric of their lives. For example, even though they bought a house in 1979 (mostly as an investment), they never bothered to furnish it with what Cheresse Smoot calls “nice things. We didn’t spend money buying china and crystal because what do you do with it when you leave?”

The Smoots never owned a videocassette recorder or even a TV until her mother gave them one. “We just didn’t buy those things because our attitudes were so different,” Cheresse Smoot said. “We always lived below our income. We kept very tight budgets, and for 10 years we saved money for this trip.”

“We just started packing away any money we had,” added Art Smoot, a lanky, soft-spoken man with an air of quiet determination.

The Smoots also chose to remain childless, a decision they said was made independently of their decision to go cruising--but one that they believe made it easier for them to pursue their dream.

They said they met many couples cruising with children during the year they were away.

“We saw people out there doing very well with children, and the kids were becoming independent, marvelous kids,” he said. “But having kids is a huge effort. You’ve got to get your head down and work, and it makes it more difficult to do something like this.”

With or without children, the Smoots admitted that breaking away is not easy. They sold their home in May to pay for the cruise. “And we recognize that we may not be able to come back here,” he said. “We have accepted that.”

Since April, the Smoots have been living aboard the catamaran they bought and began refurbishing about 10 years ago. They sold off all their belongings, except for a car they will keep stashed in Orange County to use during occasional trips home.

“Our plans are sort of open-ended because it depends on what the budget will handle,” said Cheresse Smoot, sounding more like the bank executive than the sailor. They expect to be gone for 5 years and have enough money in savings to live on. They estimate that they can live well in Mexico for about $2,500 a year and in the South Pacific for about $3,500.

“And we have saved up 6 months’ salary so that when we come back we have our re-entry financed,” Art Smoot said.

While they are away, their mail and banking will be handled by her mother in Oregon. “She understands the attraction of this life style, because she and my father lived aboard a boat for 7 years,” Cheresse Smoot said.

“In your own boat, you can get into places you can’t see any other way,” she said in a soft, wistful voice, as if remembering that yearlong cruise 15 years ago. “You can see a beautiful anchorage. Or sail along with pilot whales feeding off your bow.”

“We’re going because we want to get away together,” he said, “to experience the simplicity and beauty of the world outside the Los Angeles Basin.

“Also, it’s an adventure. A great thing to do--to see how far you get, and when we get back to say, ‘We did it!’ This is an experience of a lifetime, where our lives depend on each other.”

He glanced briefly at his wife, sitting close beside him in the boat’s cramped interior. “We’ll get to see the strength of each other. Most people don’t get to see that in their spouse.”

After leaving Orange County in 1980, Leo and Dolores LaJeunesse--Lee and Dee--spent 5 idyllic years sailing 16,000 miles down the Pacific coast of Mexico, through the Panama Canal and on to Florida and the Caribbean.

The cruise was everything they hoped it would be: deserted islands, sandy beaches, sunny skies, fresh seafood, pure air and tranquillity. And if things had stayed that way, the LaJeunesses probably would still be at sea.

Instead, they are back in Costa Mesa, land-bound in a small apartment, having lost everything--including their boat, which went aground in heavy surf near Zihuatanejo, Mexico, 4 years ago.

“The boat was uninsured,” said Dee LaJeunesse, 56, a trim part-time dance instructor.

“I found that it is the little things you miss (from the lost boat). After years of accumulating minor things, you’d go to reach for a whisk or a spoon and they weren’t there. It was like starting housekeeping all over again. And (once back in the county) it was hard having to dress up, act perky and go looking for a job.”

“We were too young for Social Security,” said Lee LaJeunesse, also 56 and a former associate dean at Orange Coast College. “And it’s not easy beginning a career again when you’re over 50.”

Since then, the LaJeunesses, with the resilience of eternal optimists, have re-established careers--he as vice president of a Christian educational organization and she as database manager for the same company.

Despite the tragic end for their cruising life style--and despite a heavily publicized incident in 1985 in which they were intercepted by the Nicaraguan military and detained by gun-toting soldiers for 18 days--the LaJeunesses said they have no regrets about selling their home and taking off on their sailing adventure.

Lee LaJeunesse had long dreamed of sailing his own boat through the Panama Canal. About 11 years ago, when he and his wife were in their mid-40s, he began to make serious plans for such a trip. With their three children grown and on their own, the LaJeunesses sold the four-bedroom home they had owned in Costa Mesa since 1963.

“We sold it to enable us to buy the boat,” he said. “You have to have some capital and some money in the bank in order to do this.”

“We felt that if we didn’t do it then, we might not be able to do it as we aged,” said Dee LaJeunesse, who had never sailed until she began preparing for the trip.

“And besides, we were tired of Orange County life in the fast lane,” she added.

Originally, Lee took a year’s leave of absence from his job, which he later changed to a simple resignation so they could continue cruising indefinitely.

From 1980 to 1983, the LaJeunesses traveled 10,000 miles in a 35-foot sailboat, which took them from California through the Panama Canal to Florida, where they sold the boat and bought a larger one.

“The first one was just too small,” he said. “So we bought a 61-foot steel ketch.”

The boat needed a lot of work, so the LaJeunesses spent months scraping off old paint, patching the hull and repainting the boat. They finally set sail again in June, 1985.

Two months later, their cruising life came to an abrupt halt when they were intercepted by the Nicaraguan military while anchored at Big Corn Island, near the Nicaraguan coast, to make engine repairs.

Their boat suffered extensive damage while in the hands of the Nicaraguans, and the LaJeunesses suffered extreme psychological damage during their 18-day ordeal.

When they were finally released, she flew home and he sailed the boat on to Panama, where he sold it and bought a smaller one. He was on his way back to California for rest and recuperation when he ran aground and wrecked the boat on the Mexican coast.

“The Nicaraguan thing was really bad,” he said, his voice tinged with bitterness. “It was really a hostage situation. And at that time, naturally, we were unhappy.

“But we still didn’t have any regrets about what we were doing. Now, the passage of time has eroded some of those bad memories, and I believe that everything was worth it.”

She is even more philosophical: “There is no question about it. Cruising is a high-risk life style. But what happened to us could have been a lot worse. We could have drowned at sea.”

“If the circumstances at the end hadn’t been what they were, we would probably still be out there,” said Lee LaJeunesse, who would like to set sail again, this time to Australia.

“I’d really like to do another extended sail.”

John La Montagne celebrated his 70th birthday Nov. 11, 1988, in the San Blas Islands near Panama, after accomplishing a lifelong dream of sailing his own boat through the Panama Canal.

A retired real estate broker, La Montagne and his wife, Joan, 65, a Corona del Mar psychologist, left Newport Beach on Jan. 5, 1988, “just to sail around,” he said.

“Friends say, ‘Are you sailing around the world?’ And I say, ‘No, just sailing around,’ ” said La Montagne, a silver-haired former Navy commander.

The couple are living aboard their 51-foot sailboat in the Bay Islands of Honduras, while trying to decide where to go from there. Recently, the La Montagnes returned to visit relatives in Orange County, where they talked about their first year at sea.

So far, despite a couple of harrowing storms, they have no regrets about making the trip.

“We both feel good that we have done it,” said Joan La Montagne, who learned to sail in the Balboa Island Yacht Club as a child. “We have both been sailing all our lives. So our own lives have prepared us to be doing what we are doing. I knew sailing, and John was a Navy commander and knew all about the ocean. So this was a dream we both had.”

But it was a dream that had to be put on hold while they reared three children. After the children were grown and John had retired, Joan La Montagne--a youthful woman with a spirit of adventure--agreed to take a sabbatical and do some extended cruising with her husband.

Once the decision to go was made, the La Montagnes sold their home and other investment property to buy a sailboat. They also bought a small condominium in Dana Point, where they lived until it was time to sail away.

“When we left, we rented the condo and put all our furniture in storage,” he said.

Thanks to their financial independence, the La Montagnes set sail in a bigger, more luxurious boat than many cruisers can afford. And because of their advanced ages, they are traveling with a crew. During the yearlong trip, they have had seven different crew members, mostly family friends from California who fly in and meet them along the way.

“We need a crew,” he said, “because the boat is large and I feel better with help along. If I were 25 or 30 years old, it might be different, but I’m not.”

During the year they have been cruising, said La Montagne--who looks much younger than his 70 years--his health has never been better. “I used to get a ringing in my ears all the time here,” he said about Orange County. “Since I have been cruising, it never happens. I’ve been back here a few weeks now, and the ringing has started again.”

Although the La Montagnes said they have had many idyllic experiences, they were quick to point out that the cruising life is not as rosy as yachting magazines would have you believe. “You have good times and bad times,” he said, “but that is true of life, isn’t it?”

Some of the best times have been spent at anchor in a snug harbor, off a deserted tropical island. And some of the worst times have been sailing through raging storms at sea, she said.

“The scariest time was in a storm off Nicaragua,” Joan La Montagne said. “There was thunder and lightning. Winds to 45 knots. Horizontal, wind-blown rain. I was absolutely drenched. There were squalls everywhere. The thunder and lightning were so scary that I really thought, ‘Well, this is it.’

“I always wondered how I would react in a situation like that. The surprising thing was I got really calm inside. At a time like that it’s between you and God.”

An articulate, introspective woman, she admitted that she does not enjoy the cruising life as much as she thought she would.

“Two things bother me,” she said. “Anxiety is one. I have been anxious for my safety. I meditate and try to keep myself on a calm, even keel, but it is difficult. Also, cruising is a hard life. It is not comfortable. It’s like being on a permanent camp-out.”

She also misses her work, her friends, her family and her professional life.

“I have concluded that I was happier in my life here than on the boat,” she said. “But I do not regret what we are doing. I wanted to get away from the pressure of ordinary society. I was getting discouraged about some things in our society. Disillusioned.

“Now (after cruising for a year), the U.S. never looked so good. I have never been prouder to be an American. We live in such a paradise and don’t know it.”

“Originally, when we left here,” her husband said, “we thought we would spend the rest of our lives doing this. Now Joan knows she doesn’t want to.”

According to an informal survey of 80 cruising couples in La Paz, Mexico, in 1985, many women share Joan’s feelings. During the 1985 cruising season, 14 out of 80 cruising couples separated during the first few months. Most of those wives flew home, leaving their husbands alone on the boat.

The La Montagnes agreed that the tension associated with the risks of cruising can strain a relationship. However, after 42 years together, they have no worries about their own marriage. “I know that one of the ways to make a successful trip is to keep a happy wife,” he said with a smile.

Although the La Montagnes eventually plan to come back home, they are in no hurry.

“Our goal was to get to the Virgin Islands,” he said, “but it isn’t that important to us anymore.

“I don’t care where I go as long as I’m going. To me, this is a fulfillment of something I have always wanted to do, and I am doing it while I am still young enough to enjoy it. It is so damned hard to be an individual these days. Cruising is an expression of your own individuality.”

Why does cruising hold such appeal--despite the hardships people such as the LaJeunesses have suffered?

“I don’t know,” Lee LaJeunesse said. “I suppose it’s the sense of adventure, of traveling and seeing the world. Of being your own person. The sea is the last frontier. It’s a challenge. Maybe the last challenge a man or a woman can face.”

Cruising is also an enriching experience, one that can literally change a person’s life, he said. “Your values change. The money-grubbing and the rat race don’t seem as important anymore.”

As for advice to others contemplating the cruising life, he said: “Do it, but weigh the consequences. And learn all you can about sailing and cruising before you go.”

“But don’t do what we did,” Dee LaJeunesse said. “Don’t sell everything before you go. I wish I hadn’t cut my ties with land so completely. And I would never want to encourage anyone who had never gone to sea before to do it without trying a short cruise first.”