Note: Of Matt, I only make fun.  It is only because of the thousands and thousands of hours that Matt labored on Syzygy that I am able to sail her here in Australia. I jest because it is so obviously hilarious to think Matt somehow did not maintain Syzygy to the highest of standards.

(refers to events that happened August 2nd – 6th)

After spending eight days just outside of Papeete, we were ready to move on.  The anchorage we were in had warm showers, but this was about the only up side.  The water was dark, cloudy and stank with sewage from runoff from Papeete.  You could almost see the rate at which stuff grew on the underside of our boat.

Matt and I sailed the boat over to Moorea, a short 25 mile sail.  He then went off to meet his and Karen’s moms who were visiting for a week.  Matt and Karen would stay that night at the hotel and the subsequent three or four nights.  I had the boat to myself!! Let the party start!

Before the party could start though, Matt had given me a list of jobs to accomplish.  The list had one item on it.  Redo the wooden floors inside the boat.

O.K., that’s melodramatic.  Matt and I discussed and we both wanted a nice newly polyurethaned floor.  Matt felt any more wear in certain spots would cause permanent damage.  It would look great and be a huge bang for our buck in terms of enjoyment and resell value.

Step one: Scrape.  Using a scraper take off most of the old polyurethane over the entire floor.  Time required: 6 hours.  Sweat level: high.  Battery power requirements: none.

Step two:  Use Orbital Sander on 80 grit over half of the floor.  Time required: 12 hours.  Sweat level: moderate to high.  Battery power requirements: moderate.

Step three:  Use Belt Sander with vacuum attached over entire floor.  Time required: 5 hours.  Sweat level: low.  Battery power requirements: enormous.

Step three should have been step one and would have saved the time required to do step one and step two.  But Matt had initially suggested the scraper and orbital sander route.  After a couple of days of this, I met up with Matt, described the progress, and realized the belt sander was the way to go.  That it took three days of work before I made the switch is a testament to some stubbornness and my oft detailed lack of handiness experience.

Step four: Redo entire floor with Orbital Sander on 80 grit.  Time required: 6 hours.  Sweat level: moderate. Battery power requirements: moderate.

Step five: Use Fein tool with triangular sander tool to get into the corners and edges.  Time required: 3 hours.  Sweat level: moderate.  Battery power requirements: low.  Frustration level:  Enormous.

The Fein tool is a beautiful instrument, but this was not its calling.  The sandpaper we had for the Fein tool gummed up quickly, in about 5 minutes, and would then need to be changed.  Extraordinarily frustrating.

Step six:  Entire floor with Orbital Sander on 200 grit.  Time required: 4 hours.  Sweat level: moderate. Battery power requirements: moderate.

The floor was now bare wood, light and baby bottom smooth.  It was impressive to run my hand across after I had used the belt sander and think ‘oh that’s pretty smooth.’   Then after the 80 grit orbital sander was used, I’d think, ‘wow, THAT’s smooth.’ Finally, after the 200 grit sand paper, I was thinking, ‘This is better than the sexiest pair of smooth woman’s legs I’ve ever felt.’  That’s not true, but you get the point.

Step seven: clean.  Time required: 2 hours.  Sweat level: low. Battery power requirements: none.  Frustration level: high.

There was now sawdust everywhere.  I had failed to use the vacuum attachment in steps two and four.  This was a colossal mistake.  Sawdust was everywhere.  I had taped off Matt and Karen’s bedroom, but everywhere else had a thin to thick layer of sawdust.  Before laying down layers of polyurethane, which if the the sawdust got airborne and settled onto, would hold it fast like fly-stick paper, the boat needed to be cleaned.  I got to probably 90% of it.  Karen, bless her heart, spent an additional few hours cleaning up my mess a week later, getting to all the more smaller nooks and crannies of the boat.  A month later there is still sawdust visible in a myriad of places.

Step eight: wipe down floor with rubbing alcohol to clean.  Time required: 3 hours.

Step nine: repeat.  I went through six rags coating them in sawdust that had settled on the floor.

Step ten:  Finally the first layer of polyurethane was ready to be applied.   Time required: 2 hours. Brain cells killed:  some.  Satisfaction level: high.  I wore a respirator while applying because the polyurethane has a terrible headache inducing odor that forced me to sleep outside that night.  This step, by the way, was finished after a 16 hour work day ending at 4 am.

Step eleven:  Wake up in the morning and bask in the glory of a beautiful floor.  Take pictures of your exquisite work.  Drink multiple beers in the morning toasting your success.  Then prepare for another coat of polyurethane.  The directions say to apply two coats.  Matt, in his infinite wisdom, and constant striving for anal perfection, wants four.  (In his defense, in hind sight, each layer was necessary and improved the floor markedly)

Step twelve: Lightly sand with the orbital attached to vacuum.  Wipe down with rubbing alcohol to clean.  Time required: 2 hours.  Battery power requirements: colossal.  It will be necessary to run the engine in order to charge the batteries.  This is the first time EVER this has been necessary.

Step thirteen:  Next layer of polyurethane.  Time required: 2 hours.  This time making sure, once an area is covered in poly, to ever so gently run the brush across the area.  Like tickling someone with a feather…

Step fourteen through nineteen: Repeat steps eleven through thirteen twice more.

A week worth of work later, and now we have a beautiful floor.

(refers to events that happened July 12th -July 20th)

We have never been happy with our outboard engine for our dinghy.  It sat on the rail of Syzygy for over a year before anyone bothered to start to tinker with it.  And what they found was not particularly encouraging.  It didn’t run particularly well.  We rarely used it.

Fast forward three years and once Matt and Karen left San Francisco, the dinghy actually started getting used.  And yet again, the outboard was not particularly reliable.

It puttered at higher RPM’s.  It was difficult to start.  It cut out randomly.  It seemed to be overheating.  Old supposedly adjustable plastic parts would break upon adjustment.  It looked old and ugly.

Then, once I arrived, shortly thereafter we did not tie up the dinghy well enough.  It came loose, and on its drift away, flipped over, submerging the engine in salt water.  When I say ‘we’ did not tie up the dinghy well enough, I mean ‘I’, but choose to use the royal ‘we’ in an attempt to lesson my embarrassment.  Submerging an outboard engine in salt water is not good for it.  In fact, it effectively dooms it.  Salt gets onto the piston walls, immediately begins to corrode them, which causes all sorts of bad things.

But really, my action only hastened what Matt has wanted to do for the last six months.  He even joked about purposely wanting to lose the dinghy not two days before it drifted away.  So after tinkering around and cleaning some of the salt off, I came around to Matt and Karen’s point of view.  It was time to spend serious money on our outboard, either a large overhaul on ours, buying a used one, or buying a new one.

A few days later, we arrived into Papette, Tahiti from Rangiroa after one long overnight sail.  First thing the next morning, I was up and motivated.  If we wanted to do something about our outboard, we needed to get started right away because it would take a few days and none of us wanted to be in Papette very long.  Matt supported, but did not share, my enthusiasm and so I struck off alone early Saturday morning around 8 am.  That it was Saturday was unlucky, as I knew many places would close at noon and some would not be open at all.  This is how they do business in paradise, ‘island time’.

Since I had wandered around Papette for a week before flying to meet Matt and Karen, I knew of at least one outboard engine store and so started there.  At each place I went, I had three questions.  Do you fix outboards?  Do you sell used outboards? What are your prices for new outboards?

The first place, Evinrude/Suzuki Outboards, said: “No.  No.  $1800.”

This was not particularly promising.

The salesman was extremely courteous however, and did direct me to the authorized Evinrude repair shop and other outboard engine retailers.  I spent the rest of Saturday wandering around, asking questions, saying “I am sorry I don’t speak French, do you speak English?” and trying to determine what to do about our engine situation.

Repeatedly I heard, ‘there are no used outboards for sale anywhere.  Tahitians run them until they disintegrate.’

On Monday, Matt and I went to the repair shop and on Tuesday returned with our engine.  I visited them again on Wednesday to hear their prognosis.

The owner gave me the gist:  “Pas possible,” he said.  Not Possible.  He then began telling me what might be wrong, but they weren’t exactly sure.  And to fix what might be wrong would take over a month to get the part and cost $500 just for that part.  With no insurance that would fix all our problems.  He was right.  Pas Possible.

Resigned to the fact that we would have to by a new engine, I asked him if he was interested in buying ours for the parts.  He crossed his arms, rubbed his chin and appeared in thought.  The head mechanic walked over and the owner asked him if he thought they should buy it for the parts.  The head mechanic was not so diplomatic and simply scoffed! Laughing out loud.  This was embarrassing.  I left saying we would be back to pick up the engine in a couple of days.  We never did return.

One of the shops I had contacted, Mercury, had quoted me a price of 130,000 Pacific Francs, about $1,300.  Matt had talked to them separately at a different location and they offered him a price of $1200.  I called back to confirm Matt’s price, he gave me a slightly higher price, I sort of paused on the phone, hedging, and then he gave me a final price of $1125.  Done.

We now have a brand new, shiny, 5 hp, 2-stroke Mercury outboard  It purrs.  It starts with one pull.  It easily goes up to its maximum RPM.  It planes over the water with ease.  Did I mention it purrs?

We are very happy.  We had to spend some money, but we are very happy.  Who says money can’t buy happiness? Misadventures part 4: success!

Part 3

(refers to events on July 11th)

“Syzygy, Syzygy, this the Gendarmarie.”  cracked the VHF in a heavy and thick French accent.  So thick, it was almost impossible to tell they were calling us.  My heart quickened as I glanced at Karen while answering.

“Gendarmarie.  this is Syzygy.  Want to go up one?”  I said, asking if they wanted to go to another channel.  They didn’t understand.

There was only one reason I thought they could be calling however.  They must have our dinghy!

“Syzygy.  We haz yur zodiac.”  Sweet!!!!!

The gendarmarie wanted us to report to them immediately.  Apparently, we were supposed to check in with them four days ago when we arrived in Rangiroa.  Technically we were outlaws.  Outlaws in the land of Rangiroa.  But they were pretty laid back about it.  They were, however, now effectively holding our dinghy hostage until we officially checked in.

We went ashore at 1 pm, the gendarmarie meeting us at the docks.  We were 30 minutes earlier than our scheduled arrival time.  They were a little too in a hurry for me.  We piled into the back of the car, and I couldn’t help but think we must look like fugitives to those whom we passed on the drive.  But they were pleasant enough and once we had officially checked in, the police chief himself took us to the restaurant/pension where our dinghy was.

And there it was!  Looking perfectly fine.  The engine was still there, though the fuel tank had mysteriously gone missing.  The oars were still there, as was snorkeling gear.  But no fuel tank.  Odd we thought, but if that’s the price, we easily acquiesce to that finder’s cost.

After a round of drinks, we began to contemplate our return.   There was the matter, however, of how to get the dingy back to our boat.  With no fuel, we couldn’t run the engine, and well, our outboard is a piece of shit anyway and probably couldn’t handle that.  Matt however, thought we could easily row back on our own.  Karen came down on the side of deflating the dinghy and getting a taxi.  I sided with Matt encouraged by appeal that it would be a fun team building exercise.  He seemed jazzed about the idea and so I was for it simply because he was jazzed about something.  So we pushed the dinghy into the water and began to row.

We rowed and rowed and rowed.  It quickly became apparent this was not going to be an exercise in team-building, but an exercise in futility.  We were taking on more water than we used to; there must be a leak somewhere.  There was no seat through the middle so the rower couldn’t sit properly.  We have miserable oarlocks and soft bottomed dinghy, both of which reduce the ability to row effectively.  We were fighting the current.  We were going against the prevailing wind.  This was a terrible idea.

After thirty minutes, we had made maybe 100 yards of progress.  I think that is generous. Karen was the first to get out of the dinghy and try to swim along and push the dinghy.  This didn’t work so well.  I took a turn at rowing.  It was miserable.  So then I hopped out, tied the painter line around me and began swimming in front of the boat pulling it along.  With Matt rowing and Karen bailing, this was our best method and we managed to increase our speed to about 300 yards per 30 minutes.  At this rate, it would take us over eight hours to get back to our boat.  Clearly, we were bumfuzzling idiots.  Well, maybe just Matt and me who originally thought this would be fun.  Karen, smartly, had never thought this was a good idea.

Luckily for us, another couple was motoring nearby in their dinghy looking for someplace to eat.  They took pity on us, and told us they would tow us back to our boat.  THANK YOU!

It still took us nearly an hour to get back.  Matt insisted we row to help us along.  I’m not sure how much it helped, though it made me feel more in control and helpful.  It also made me feel ridiculous.

Back at our boat, we begged them to let us thank them with some gift and ended up promising to deliver some movies and books to them in thanks sometime in the next couple of days.  We plopped down in various places on our boat, exhausted both mentally and physically from the ordeal.  The dinghy had yet again gotten the better of us.  So despite that we got the dinghy back to our boat, and could be happy at not having to buy a new dinghy, (the P.O.S. engine might be another thing) it still didn’t feel much like a victory.

Misadventures part 3: monetary success.  emotional failure.

I felt like a champ after having found the VHF.  Back at the boat, cold but ecstatic, we hurriedly tied up the dinghy and enjoyed a sweatshirt and beer in celebration.

I wish we had not hurried.  In the middle of the night, our dinghy decided to float away.  The knot somehow slipped.  Matt told me in the morning that he woke up at 3 am to pee and the dinghy was gone.  He then went back to sleep.  What else could he do?

I found out at 6 am when I woke up.  The prospect of a new dinghy was not pleasant.  A minimum of $1000 for an engine.  Another $2000 for the dinghy itself.  This was an expensive problem.  Getting to shore was now a major challenge, involving swimming, paddling the two-person kayak, or hitching a ride.

It slowly dawned on my through the morning that it was I who had tied up the dinghy.  In my rush and because I was cold, I apparently did a poor job.  Perhaps it wasn’t as tight as it needed to be on the cleat.  It is doubtful that I went back over the knot, and I clearly did not tie up the dinghy with the second painter line that has now become mandatory but at the time was rarely used.

Matt was always magnanimous as we talked to various people about the incident.  Careful to never blame me or express anger towards me.  I had in fact, watched a knot of his nearly come undone just two days before.  You would think this might have made me more wary and it did in the moment.  I did not remember to be wary when I was cold and wet and exhausted from searching for over an hour for the VHF.

We discussed what to do.  It was clear this was a blow to Matt and had effectively resigned to buying a new dinghy and engine.  He didn’t really like either anyway.  I thought we should go looking for it, for which I received a ‘Yep, you should do that.’  I radioed the anchorage intent on getting a ride to shore, and relayed my embarrassing sob story over the VHF.  “Good morning Rangiroa.  You know its a good day when you wake up and discover your dinghy has floated away in the middle of the night,” I began.  A couple of our yachty friends replied and two hours later I had a ride into shore.

There, my miserable French tried to describe to people on the dock what happened and ask them if there was any hope.  This was not easy and I certainly wished for Matt and Karen to help with the language.  My vocabulary is limited to “Des sole, je ne parle pas francais. Parlez-vous englais?”  However, with the help of a local dive operator, I managed to talk to one person who was insistent that our dinghy would be on sure somewhere.  Just walk the shore he said.  It will be there.  I am positive it will be there.  This was encouraging!  Others however were not so enthusiastic.  But I had to try.

So walk the shoreline I did.  It was six miles between Passe Tiputa and Passe Avatoru.  at which point I would have to stop.  Walking along the shore was not like some stroll along a beautiful white sandy beach.  Or even a kinda crappy beach.  There was no beach. It is all bits of coral, usually only 3 feet wide before land starts.  At the land were peoples’ houses, schools, restaurants, a police station: the gendarmarie, other businesses and dogs.  Lots of dogs.  I am not a dog lover in the United States, though I lived with one for 8 months and quite enjoyed it.  In French Polynesia, I strongly dislike dogs.  They’re mangy, dirty, underfed, bark randomly and bark protectively when coming near a home.

I filed a police report.  I a couple dozen people.  Walking through peoples backyards will do that, and they frequently eyed me suspiciously.  Particularly the couple I came across whose wife was sunbathing nude in her backyard.  The husband was quite nice about it, despite my intrusion.  Each time I would tell swallow my pride and relate my story, often in short keywords with much pantomiming, as the person I was talking to did spoke only a little English.  Yet again, having Matt or Karen along would have been nice to try and communicate.  Frequently, the people would exclaim something, walk closer to the shore, look either way and say something to the effect of, ‘i do not see it!’ Yes, I know.  I wouldn’t ask be asking or talking to you if I could see it.  My patience was growing thin.

One person would say it probably went out the western pass.  Another would say it might be at the school where the land bends south.  Another reiterated some of the people on the dock by saying it might be at the blue lagoon.  Each time I said merci, asked them to tell the gendarmarie, the police, if they heard of anyone finding it, and continue trudging on my way.

At about 5 pm, I had made it to the other pass.  Resignation beset me, Our dinghy was lost.  Misadventure part 2: failure.

Those first days of sewing in the gym were fun.  Huge panels getting sewn together and enormous visible progress of work.  It was fun back then!  But at Thanksgiving, I was no longer in a large gymnasium.   I was squashed into the smallish living room of a house.  The sail’s luff was three times the length of the room.  At one point, I felt it absolutely necessary to stretch out the luff of the sail.  It went through the living room, through the kitchen, over the island countertop, out the door to a deck off the kitchen and to the other side of deck railing where I anchored it so that I could stretch it taught.  There was snow out on the deck.  It felt ridiculous.

I was stretching the luff line of the sail to try and see by how much I had to chop off the top of our sail.  The luff line, which came with the sail-making kit from Sailrite is made of T900 from New England Ropes, requires two double braid eyesplices, one at each end, to attach the sail at it’s head to the mast, and at it’s tack to the bow of the boat.  After making the first eyesplice, I then,carefully measured the T900 line to the exact measure ment of our luff, (48’9”)  and marked that point as where the other eye-splice should end.  I then remeasured it as I’ve had trouble measuring things in the past.

With the second eyesplice made I tried as best I could in a 18′ wide room to see how well the luff line matched up to the length of the luff of the sail.  And everytime, it seemed to come up short.  And then I remembered that when making the second eye splice the rope will bunch up, thicken and consequently shorten. This happens because the eyesplice is designed to have the rope double back on itself.  The core of the rope, after going around the eye, goes back inside itself.  It’s a very cool thing and it locks itself into place.  I highly recommend making them simply because they are so cool.  At any rate, I had to chop off about 2 inches from the head of the sail and short both ends just a smidge so that the luff line would be better aligned.  Such are the trials and tribulations of a first time sail maker.

A week after Thanksgiving, I took two days off from work during a major push where I was determined to get 30 hours of work done on the sail.  Sorry boss, priorities.  One half of one of these days was spent trying to figure out how to install the cleats for the leech line and the foot line.  My first issue was with the rivot/grommet thing they sent me.  Home Depot was baffled as to what tool should be used to both A: cut a hole through the 9 layers of fabric where the cleats were to be installed, and B: how to press home the rivot/grommet.  Finally a leather store, Tandy Leather Factory, came through for me with a suggestion, while I was there buying a sewing palm.  I Suffice to say I ended up using a cordless drill to make the holes in the sail, at very low RPM and with clamps within milimeters of where the drill bit was.  All of this was conducted in the kitchen.  See pictures.  I was at Tandy after suffering through a day of using a makeshift palm out of duct tape and a tiny plastic cup.  Tandy wasn’t open on Sunday and I had work to do, so makeshift palm it was.

Within that time, though, there came a moment of celebration when I could finally put the sewing machine away and move on to hand sewing.  My roommates were also happy that I didn’t have to rearrange all of the living room furniture every time I wanted to work on the sail.  To begin the hand sewing, I first installed metal rings next to the head and tack of the sail.  Then there was anchoring those to the edges.  Then there was sewing the leather patches on.  When sewing the leather patches (this was done in California after driving out there over my winter break with an unfinished sail in the back seat), I began attaching the sewing palm to a leg of a chair turned upside down so I could then more effectively use both hands and all my weight as leverage to drive the needle through 5 layers of 1.5 oz ripstop nylon, 5 layers of 4 oz dacron, and if it was near the edge of the sail, another two layers of the 5 oz Dacron tape folded around the sail edge.  By my count that’s 37.5 ounces of fabric to push through.  That means something, I’m not sure what though.  No easy task is what it meant to me.  I had to simultaneously hold the needle so that it wouldn’t flex and bend and hold the fabric around the needle and hold the chair with the palm attached to it with my feet so that it wouldn’t slide away and make sure I didn’t stab myself.  I’m impressed I didn’t draw blood more than twice.

It’s finished though and I have an enormous sense of exhaustion, elation and pride.  This was the largest boat project I got to be a part of, and it was pretty much all on me.  No help, no other expertise from the other guys.  It felt good to be the sole expert.  At one point, Matt said, “You better finish it, ’cause I sure as hell have no clue how to.”  Well I finished it, even if I stretched it out until December 28th.

After finally finishing and toasting, with a much deserved beer, the official hand-over ceremony of the sail to Matt, Matt began playing with the scraps of sail left over for repairs if that might ever be necessary.  Karen, please make sure you’ve made him some better shorts by the time I get out there.  Because if I ever see him in just the sail cloth like he was showing off, I think I might be permanently scarred.

I was back out in San Francisco helping with a big last minute push on getting work done.  And giving Karen and Matt, and me in particular a big morale boost.  There was mention of going sailing to see the sail get flown.  Given the state of the boat, I knew that wasn’t really a possibility.  But we did end up hoisting my sail in the marina just to see how it looked, and to cut some drifter sheet lines for it.  It looked beautiful.  I felt proud.  I also felt embarrassed that I left on highly visible small stickers identifying each panel. I think Karen took some pictures.  If so, I hope she posts them.  I was too busy just looking at it,  thinking about how long it had taken, and how much has happened in my life since I started it.  A ten month sailboat project was right there flapping lightly in the breeze.  The last ten month saga of my life was there, playing lightly in my mind.

I’m envious that I won’t get to be there when it is first flown.  But I looking forward to joining the boat in June and being there as long as my money can sustain me.  We’re not exactly sure where the boat will be.  I’m committed as I can be to being there.  And finally getting to use the boat, instead of just talking about it.  Looking forward to it.

-We moved out of our studio apartment over the holidays, while four friends visited and slept in our living room.  Our guests were perfectly fine with the furniture and bed disappearing from underneath them (no kidding).  Jon and Rishona came out to see the boat, work a bit, and meet us, because they are planning on joining us in the south pacific this summer, if all goes according to plan.  Gary and Anna came out to california because they are awesome.

-We moved onto the boat, though half of the boat is intermittently unlivable (and I mean 1/4″ fiberglass dust snow all over everything toxic air to breathe unlivable).  Our belongings get shuttled around on an hourly basis like all those tiles in that hand held game where there is a grid of jumbled number tiles that you have to move around to put them in order but there’s only one blank space to use so you have to move all of the other tiles that you don’t want out of the way to move the number you want into place and it turns out that that process is difficult enough that they invented a game around it.  Fully 10% of my waking hours are occupied by moving the same stuff back and forth and around and around.

-As reported in the previous post, the knees of the boat came unbonded from the hull, a situation which justifies me giving a big middle finger to the fucking assholes who built this supposedly indestructible boat.  The bomber reputation of the Valiant 40 is bullshit.  Glassing the knees to the hull is second in importance only to actually having a hull in the first place, and the peons that glassed my knees to my hull did a shitty ass job of it and now I’m busting my ass to fix something that should have been included in the first 2,000 dollars of the much higher price of this boat.

-We were planning on leaving January 14th, and our good friends Pete and Ray bought plane tickets to fly out and join us (the only reason for the very specific jan 14th date) and help us sail down the coast for a month.   Since it’s down to just Karen and I and a busted boat, I am incredibly grateful to have their experienced assistance to do the first (wet cold worst) month.  Well, now that the boat is sucking a big fat one, I mailed Pete one of the chainplates that needs to be replaced and he’s making a new set for me.  How’s that for a friend, right?  I screw up their plans and as an apology he gets a hunk of metal in the mail to duplicate 8 times over for me and they don’t even give me a hard time for it?  Damn good friends, that’s for sure.  (I even called him this morning and greeted him with a “so I have this windlass, and the threads on the shaft are crossed . . .”)   I owe them big.   So now Pete and Ray changed their flights and we’re planning on leaving February 7th now.  All I have to do is rebuild the boat before then, no biggie.

-Karen is being much more productively outspoken about our current situation in her booming blog, so please visit her site to get cheered up after reading this post.

I’m actually not all that bummed out as I sound, I’m just super exhausted and it just started raining and all I can think of is how many places it is undoubtedly leaking into the boat this very moment.  A-we need to catch a break and B-we need to get the hell of out of this place, prontospeed.