Syzygy Sailing

Bought a boat, fixed a boat, sailed to Australia, sold the boat.

Category: victories

best of Syzygy

  • Surviving a Flood

    I gunned the engine fighting to move forward in the 4 knot current that was rushing through and under our marina. The four knot current looked tame compared to the 10 knots of the river. I had only 20 feet of room forwards and backwards within which to maneuver. The dinghy trailing behind me had already banged into the dock behind me once and I had twice nearly missed banging into the boats in front of me. Five people were managing the two dock lines that were holding me against the current. Somehow, Syzygy had been chosen to be the first of three single-handed sailboats out of the marina. With all of us lined up right next to each other, we were hoping to figure out a way to get us out. We needed to get out because the latest flood predictions were that in 24 hours the river would rise enough to lift the marina dock above the pylons that allow for the dock to rise and fall with the tide. If the docks got above those pylons, the flimsy gang plank leading from land to the docks, the only actual solid tethering the docks have, would be no match for the rushing river. The dock would start to whisk away along with boats still tied to the dock. You can imagine that the keel of any boat would inevitably crash into the just submerged concrete pylons, massive damage would ensue.

    It didn’t seem possible that flooding of this magnitude could happen. Brisbane is an an area of Australia called the Sunshine Coast. It’s supposed to be sunny. Not epic rain. They did have an epic flood here in 1974, but afterwards built a dam that was supposed to be able to contain any flood imaginable. Apparently rain 40 out of the last 50 days didn’t fit into the designers’ imagination. I had been melancholy and miserable over the month; the rain makes it difficult to a) get any work done on the boat and b) to have much fun around town. But up until two days ago, I didn’t give a single concern to the safety of the boat.

    Here’s an excerpt from an e-mail I sent to Gary on the 10th:

    “The Brisbane River is a small catchment, you only have to go a short way, and rivers start flowing west instead of east towards the ocean, which is crazy.  So that and flow controls on the Brisbane River itself mean there is no flooding here.  However, to the north and to the west they are not so lucky and flooding has been of biblical proportions.  I read somewhere that an area the size of France and Germany combined is under water. “

    Everyone, every-one… said the Wivenhoe Dam would make floods like 1974 impossible. Then at 3 pm on Tuesday marina residents got an e-mail from the marina office forwarding on the most recent flood warning and politely saying, ‘Get the hell out of here.’ A mass exodus of boats left immediately. I spent the next 6 hours hurriedly getting the boat back into shape to be sailed; half finished projects were everywhere. All of the reef lines were in the sail were off. The sail wasn’t fastened to the mast track in places while I worked on the batons and baton pockets in the main sail. The rail boards we tie our extra water and fuel containers to were off and the containers strewn idly about the deck. The automatic bilge pump wasn’t working.

    I and a dozen other boats talked and discussed and planned for a departure the next morning just after low tide Wednesday. The hope was that the tide coming in would partially mitigate the strong current heading out making the current easier to manage. And then, we watched the carnage float by. We watched as boats passed by spinning wildly. They were probably from private docks of people who live on the river bank upstream, were clearly unmanned and had simply torn free from their dock. Other boats floated by still attached to the the dock, the entire dock having ripped away from land. A boat still on air pontoons which keep it out of the water floated by. Another boat floated by attached to it’s dock. On the dock was an electrical box still intact, a gas grill bolted to the dock and a jet ski mounted there. The entire ensemble pirouetted by, rushing towards the sea.

    We also just waited. And the waiting was difficult. A lot of time to think about how to actually get the boat out. Too much time to think about what could go wrong. Plenty of time to question whether, honestly, I was up to this. I reflected on my lack of experience. I’ve never captained this boat before. I’ve never single-handed. I’ve never been alone with the decisions on me, and me alone. I reviewed my meager sailing resume in my mind. I just learned to sail three years ago and ever since, even if I was calling the shots on board, there was always someone, Matt, in the end to nod, confirm and assist if shit went wrong.

    To my family and Allison I e-mailed: “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.” To Matt, the title of my e-mail was: URGENT and I went over preparations and what needed to be done, soliciting advice, counsel and a reassuring tone. He knows the boat and right now that’s what I needed.

    Because I was driving myself crazy with anxiety and nervousness. My first adventure as captain wasn’t supposed to be until March. A friend of mine with some sailing experience would be joining and I would captain us out in easy, fair conditions. We would go sailing and enjoy ourselves as we soaked in the sun, leisurely meandering our way up the Australian Coast. Starting out in a high stress situation was not what I had anticipated.

    Syzygy had been sitting in it’s dock facing down stream, it’s fat bottom aft was upriver. The plan was to slowly ease out of the slip and start to turn towards the marina exit. As soon as I started to turn the current would catch the boat and whip it around. Lines from the front of the boat would still be attached to the dock, so Syzygy would do a nice 180 degree turn and then be facing up river. Facing upriver would allow me more control over the boat; I could use the engine much more effectively to battle the current and maneuverability would be better facing into the current. Then work the dock lines holding the bow to the dock from one finger of the dock to the next until we were at the end of the dock and next to the marina exit. Then gun the engine forward, let the bow lines off, turn the nose into the river and gun the engine more to get the boat far enough into the river so that it didn’t crash sidelong into the dock 20 feet away from Syzygy’s rear. This was the plan. The plan wasn’t going so well.

    After being eased slowly out, just as planned the boat started to rotate around, pivoting on two lines tied to the bow of Syzygy and to the dock. I had to gun the engine and get the boat moving forward into the current. As anticipated there wasn’t enough room for the back end of the boat to simply drift down and swing around. That would have required at least 80 feet, probably 100. We only had 70 feet to work with. But the turn was managed and Syzygy was now facing upriver and held on by two dock lines. We then spent the next 45 minutes trying to get Syzygy closer to the marina exit. We moved one dock line closer to the marina exit. I would let Syzygy drift back twenty feet, until it was nearly touching the fingers of the dock behind me. Then gunning the engine I fought upstream within the 70 foot space between docks, trying to turn towards the marina exit, trying to inch the boat closer to the exit. Coordinating my actions at the helm with the people manning the lines, when to ease one line or pull in another, was frustratingly close to futile. Turning our 12 ton sailboat in calm water is a slow momentum laden process. Pulling into a dock in calm water with even the tiniest amount of wind has me on alert. The wide open ocean is easy. The narrow confines of a marina, boats only a few feet away, their bow and stern frequently laden with anchors and other objects which are either easily breakable or, like anchors, could easily do damage to a boat. Or catch on a bow pulpit and rip it off.

    Adding to the mayham, Syzygy would surge five feet backwards downstream randomly when the current would pick up. Or an eddy would develop and the current slacken and Syzygy would surge forward five feet. At one point, one of the dock lines got tangled in another boat. I narrowly missed two other boats in front of me. I had poor visibility of how close the bow actually was to the boats in front of me. Poor visibility and the random surging made me hesitant to get too close, reducing further the scant room I had for maneuvering back and forth. The steerage felt all wrong as well. When I tried to move forward and turn to starboard, the right, the boat usually seemed to move to port. When I tried to steer while drifting backwards slightly, the boat never responded. The stern drifted a few degrees in one direction or another seemingly at random, immune to my steerage and following the haphazard chaos of the churning river. The people manning the docklines couldn’t just pull the boat the boat along from one finger to the next. The force of water on a 12 ton boat was enormous. It was all they could do to keep lines secured to cleats, and they were only able to bring in slack if I was able to put slack in the lines by maneuvering closer to where the lines were anchored.

    Finally, after 45 adrenaline laden minutes, Syzygy was tight onto a dock line on the last finger of the marina. The river surged past right next to me at 10 knots. David who rented the neighboring house boat (the actual owner of which had said to David just leave the boat, it’s insured, effectively sentencing David to losing his home if the marina did float away) climbed on board at this point; after having helped man the dock lines, he was going to accompany me down river to the new marina. This was it. Up until now I had been attached to the dock in some fashion. Now was time to cut loose and move into the turbulent river. Literally cut loose.  In a chaotic but coordinated event, when the stern of the boat kicked into the marina a touch, I revved the engine to start making my way into the river. At the same time, people on the dock cut the two bow lines holding me to the dock. As soon as I was free, I opened up the throttle all the way trying to move the boat as fast as possible away from the finger of the dock that was behind me only 30 feet away. This had to go off perfectly and it did. I cleared the dock easily the bow drifted down and pointed down river, and we coasted along to the ocean at 11 to 12 knots. Steerage was surprisingly good.

    Still amped with adrenaline, we looked hard for any debris like we had seen coming down the river in the evening. While the large docks that had floated past were imposing, however, I was confident that since we could see those we would have enough maneuverability and time be able to avoid them. I was most concerned with large wooden logs and tree debris that would be hard to see and that if got caught in the prop or the rudder could have horrifically bad consequences. As we made our way further down-stream though, the adrenaline wore off and emotion built up at how harrowing and edgy it had been. The intensity drained and I was left with the feeling that I was already having a hard time recalling exactly how I felt in the moment, how minuscule room for error was, and how intense it had been.

    I radioed the coast guard to ask about debris at the Gateway Bridge, we had heard rumors of sunken and submerged boats there, a terrifying prospect to not be able to see what you might hit. They came back with an all clear though. We saw none of the large debris pieces on the river. As we reached the river’s edge and pounded through waves that were like the standing waves of an atoll opening, the mudflats off to port caught our eye. A dozen boats had either eddied out into the mud flats to get stuck there, or the coast guard had towed them there. A 20 foot diameter water tank tumbled around. Once free of the river, I relaxed even more. Moreton Bay’s weather seemed like typical San Francisco Bay weather, and that, I was used to.

    I later learned the two other single-handed boats I left behind used the same techniques to leave the marina, having an easier time leaving after having learned a bit getting me out. One though, Dagmar, did not have such a trouble free time down the river. His engine overheated and so he had to begin sailing. Having to sail into the wind with such a strong current was not enjoyable. He got stuck once while tacking back and forth. He tried to set an anchor, only to a have a 4 story high 100 foot long paddle boat that had broken free bear down on him. He hastily got out of the way only two minutes before the paddle boat came by his old anchor point. He also saw an entire river side restaurant that had broken free and was now floating down the river.

    I have to hope this is the most intense experience I will ever have on the boat. The next day, sitting in a perfectly still marina The Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron in Manly, you wouldn’t even know the flooding is happening just 5 miles away. I’d prefer this for the rest of my time on the boat, thank you very much.

    This is just my story. There are tens of thousands of people who also have stories. And there are thousands of people who lost their homes or businesses. Their loss is certainly more crushing than me simply having to deal with an harrowing moment. My heart and thoughts go out to them as they try and cope with the disaster. It looks like today and the next four days may be rain free. What a relief!

  • Completion of a Journey, Passing of Command

    For Karen and me, this journey is completed. We departed the San Francisco Bay in mid February, and arrived in Australia nine months later to the day.

    In the beginning, when asked how long our trip would be, we would say “anywhere from a few months to two-years; however long it stays fun and the money lasts”.  And that’s how it turned out, too.  Nine months has been a pretty ideal length of time for us–both for the fun factor and the money factor.  When we return to life in the US (the details of which remain unknown), I will feel a measure of sadness about leaving this cruising life behind, and a distinct sense of happiness and gratitude for the future that I am returning to.  So: I am glad that we did it, and glad that we are moving on.

    I feel generally uncomfortable with the feeling of pride, and decidedly uncomfortable with any form of boasting–I don’t think they are attractive traits or behaviors, it being more respectable and impressive in my mind to, well, just do it, and then not mention it.  It is an indication that one is motivated by the right reasons: if you are willing to plan big then do it and afterwards not brag about it, then you sure didn’t do it merely “to say that you did”.

    But in this case, come on, right?  Can I throw my arms up here and give a shout?  We accomplished something pretty big here–who can look at this whole thing and say that I can’t do whatever it is I set out to do?  Even if a) I didn’t grow up doing it b) we don’t even know if I’m going to like it c) I have none of the required skills d) didn’t start out with any money e) almost everyone thinks I’m crazy f) it’s really hard, apparently these are all surmountable.  Well, hell yeah.

    We arrived in Brisbane on the 10th in the dark in the middle of the night–we seem to have established a predilection for navigating foreign ports in the dark. The passage from New Caledonia was the most enjoyable yet: we buddy-boated with a couple on Dagmar, staying within sight of them almost the whole way. We kept the radio on a private channel and used it like a phone all day long, which turned out to be a novel and successful way to stave off boredom.  Jamie and Isabelle rock.  Besides the friends, we also had killer wind–after an initial zone of the windy rainy shitty shit, we had perfect wind from the perfect direction for four days. On the final day jon set up as many sails as possible–the jib poled to windward, the drifter out to leeward through the end of the main boom, and the full main besides (which was sort of extraneous at that point).  It was beautiful–and we almost kept up with Dagmar.

    Brisbane is truly wonderful, especially for this convenience-starved traveler. The river runs right through the center of it, so the public transportation starts with an extensive and efficient ferry service, and continues with a large rail system and enormous bus network. To give you an idea of the emphasis they have put on the public transportation: some of the bus lines have their own dedicated overhead roadways (as do the railways, sometimes right next to each other). The whole city looks brand new, and everything is spotless. Walking through the financial district as people get out of work, you’ll see women in their business attire walking home barefoot down the city sidewalks–that’s how clean it is. Instead of having a single trendy district, it seems to be the whole city motto; every neighborhood we visit has a bewildering number of neat/trendy/upscale bars, restaurants and cafes.  They built a floating running path out in the river along the edge, extending around two bends of the river right in front of the financial district.  On the other side, there is a half-mile long rock cliff along the river with public climbing, lit by spotlights at night–climb as late as you want. Yesterday I got confused (turned around, partially lost if you will) while shopping with karen, in some sort of 7 floor maze of a mall, an underground bunker of womens clothing and jewelry and food and coffee and perfume-yness . . . that was just one building along an entire 10-block walking mall filled with identically sized buildings.  There’s a trendy restaurant district next to a park next to the river, with high-end stainless propane grills under gazebos, first-come-first-served, and four or five artfully landscaped pools spread out through the park, some with beaches, others with complicated fountains and waterfalls–go swim whenever you want.  Having the river through the center provides a gap of space, so that you can step back a bit to get a good view; they have seating on the roofs of the ferries as well.  At night, the city is particularly beautiful.  The downtown district of skyscrapers is lit up the way a city should be (all pretty-like).  Of our entire trip, this experience feels most like a honeymoon for karen and I.  I’m digging it, not gonna lie.

    With my departure, Jon becomes captain, and the responsibility for the boat passes to him.  Since joining us in the Tuamotus, he has come fully up to speed and turned into a first-rate sailor, and I have no qualms about leaving the boat in his care (no more trepidation, at least, than I would have with anyone else I’ve ever met).  Some people are never very good with finessing the sails, seeing and actually comprehending the systems; a good sailor gets it.  And Jon gets it; he understands the sailing, he can sense the nuances of trimming the sails just right.  He hears and knows when something isn’t right in the middle of the night.  He knows how to best baby the main so that it isn’t getting needlessly destroyed on the spreaders.  He sees and fixes things that aren’t just right–the way they should be, that is.  In fact, for a couple of months now he has been sailing the boat at least as well (or better) than me–a couple of times now he has corrected the trim of the sails to make things better after I went off watch.  Granted, he may not yet have fixed or f’d with all the boat systems that I did, but who in the world did?  That was part of the point of fixing it in the first place, so that it wouldn’t be breaking now.  So if something breaks he’ll have to figure out how to fix it, but that is no different than all of us, all the other sailors out there, and quite frankly he already has far more skills in that department than most other sailors out there.  So I’m not worried that he’ll fix whatever breaks.  In short, he’s fully ready to be the numero uno on Syzygy, and it is a relief that I can walk away from the boat knowing that, if anything happens, it will have been something unpreventable (or at least as unpreventable as it would have been even if it was me in the hot seat).

    There’s nothing to match the responsibility and reward of being the one to make the hard decisions–calling the quick shots when the squall hits, saving the day when the engine quits, slipping out of sticky situations, but also deciding wherever in the world to go, whenever you choose.  This trip didn’t turn out as it was initially conceived; specifically, it was originally three single guys and instead it started out as a newly-wed couple and became a newly-wed couple plus my best friend.  I know that Jon hasn’t had the same experience with Karen and I as it would have been with Jonny and I.  I also know that he’s okay with that, no problems, and has enjoyed the trip for what it is rather than what it might have been.  There’s never been any judgment on that account.  At the same time, he gets a different experience now flying solo, responsible now as captain in a way beyond even my experience (I always had someone else to share in the responsibilities).  I regret that I am leaving him to continue on by himself, but at the same time my departure will make possible a different level of satisfaction, and I wish him all the joy that the responsibility brought to my experience.

    As they used to say to newly promoted captains in the British Royal Navy: I wish him the joy of his command.

  • Diving in Fiji

    (This post refers to events that happened September 21st and 25th)

    I had designs to dive on beautiful reefs and coral bommies in Fiji while our guests were here.  Fiji is proclaimed as the soft coral capitol of the world.  I don’t even know the difference between hard coral, soft coral and mean coral but ‘capitol of the world….’ That must be good right? Alas, a broken wrist prevented Allison from being able to dive.  And while we did some great snorkeling, I never motivated to pull out the dive gear to dive while others snorkeled.  I am motivation-less when it comes to diving.  It’s also hard to bring along the dive gear in the dinghy when five other people are in there as well.  Dive gear being bulky and all.

    So while I never dove while others were snorkeling above me, or dove down to see beautiful coral, I did do two dives, both alone and to mundane non-beautiful things.

    The first dive was just off Octopus Resort on Waya, the day Gary and Anna arrived.  I am willing to bet large sums no one had ever dove my dive site, and so I feel empowered to give it a name. The dive plan was to head straight down to the bottom, a depth of forty-five feet.   Swim with the current along the bottom for sixty feet.  Then shift in one direction perpendicular where you just swam by about 8 feet.  Then swimming parallel to your original track, swim back to where you started.   Due to large amounts of silt, visibility was a mere fifteen feet.  During the quarter of an hour dive I saw no fish. The bottom was flat sand, bereft of any life or even a rock to break the monotony of the bottom.  Completely bereft save one item.  Matt’s snorkel mask.  The one item I was looking for.  This dive site is named Matt’s Mask.  I would not recommend this dive as the major attraction to the dive is no longer there.  I felt compelled to take it with me.  (As an aside, the snorkeling off Octopus Resort is excellent, we were anchored a bit away from it)

    The next dive site was located off Navadra Island.  There was actually some particularly nice coral to look at just a little ways away, in predominantly twenty feet of water or less.  Allison was up above snorkeling, so why bother dinking around in twenty feet once I was done with the dive’s purpose?  That purpose being to retrieve our $800 Fortress stern anchor because the line attached to the anchor had chaffed through during the night.  This dive lasted just over five minutes as our GPS point of the anchor location was exactly on.  The dive plan consisted of going down to the bottom at fifty feet.  Visibility was only thirty feet; the water was cloudy here, though near the better snorkeling, visibility seemed improved.  Once at the bottom, dig up the anchor which is excellently embedded in sand, two feet away from the large coral reef which chaffed the line.  This will reduce visibility to six inches, so digging must be done by feel.  And you will not see approaching sharks, which are probably large 25-foot man eating ones.  I don’t know if there were sharks approaching, visibility was six inches, but I assume there were.  None, thankfully, penetrated the six inch visual field.  None, not even tiny reef sharks, actually penetrated the entire visual field of anyone that day during a combined four plus hours of snorkeling.  While my visibility was six inches though, I am sure the man-eaters were approaching rapidly.

    Once the anchor is dug up, tie on a line to the anchor and return to the surface.  Job completed.

    Another two dives bring my total to an impressive six dives in the last five months.  Seven dives, if you include the pool in Denver where I took the refresher course.  Other things have taken my time, energy, focus, and enjoyment.  Perhaps Australia will bring more regular diving!

  • How Embarrassing

    (this post refers to events that happened on September 14th)

    We ran aground.  It wasn’t our fault.   We were within the channel markers, so perhaps Port Denarau was to blame for faulty markers.  We were giving a little space to a high speed catamaran that impatiently steamed by us, so perhaps South Seas Sailing is to blame.  Visibility into the water was zero feet, so perhaps god was to blame.

    Anyway you slice it, we ran aground.  Thankfully, it was a slow, easy, decrease in speed to zero, dirt and mud gently easing us to a stop.  Hard coral or rock would have been more jarring and unforgiving to our boat.

    As the high speed catamaran passed, the crew were motioning to come closer to them, a motion which is not at all clear as to its intent when viewed from fifty yards away.  We had turned slightly to port to cede more room to them, their large boat and their large wake, but when I realized what they were motioning for, I quickly tried to turn to starboard and sped up a touch.  Neither helped, and we gently came to a rest.

    Matt sprung into action, quickly getting out 200 feet of line, jumping into the dinghy which we happened to be pulling behind us, and clipping out orders for Karen and I to follow.  Get the anchor off it’s mount.  Tie the line to the anchor.  Move the line to the bow roller.  Tie on another line.  And with that off he zoomed with the anchor into the middle of the channel where he dropped the anchor.  Back at the boat, with Karen at the helm, it fell to me to pull us through the mud towards the anchor.  Pulling us primarily forward would allow us to use the engine to help propel us forward, assuming the mud wasn’t all the way up to the prop.  When I had pulled as much as I possibly could, we then wrapped the line around the anchor windlass and with Karen tailing, I cranked away, pushing and pulling the lever on the anchor windlass with all my might trying to pull us closer to the anchor Matt had dropped, and hopefully not simply pulling the anchor closer to us.

    We were inching closer when we caught a break.  A mid-size troller was exiting from the marina through the channel.  We tried hailing them to warn them of our anchor in the middle of the channel but they didn’t respond.  They did however, increase speed which through up a larger wake.  The larger wake allowed our boat to rise and break free of the mud.  As we rose, I desperately cranked the line as fast as I could go to get us over deeper water.  And then we were free.

    It was over in less than ten minutes, and Matt was particularly proud of our fast reaction that led to getting freed.  But we got stuck in the mud.  How embarrassing.

  • Tattoo

    (refers to events that happened most importantly on July 20th)

    I have toyed with the idea of getting a tattoo for about eight years now, starting right at the peak of my young adult ‘I’m-trying-to-find-and-define-myself’ phase.  We all have one right? Back then, my ideas for a tattoo ran the stereotypical Chinese or Japanese character, or a Greek or Latin word.  How cliche right?  Thankfully that phase passed before I acted on it.

    Matt rekindled my interest three years ago when he suggested Jonny, Matt and I all get similar tattoos to mark our journey, something with a sailing theme.  I toyed with a number of drawings.  Again nothing inspired a decision.  When it was clear the trip would not happen as planned with the three of us, our inaction seemed prescient.

    When, however, I was going to join the trip again, I knew the last last five years of effort towards a sailing trip and this past tumultuous year in particular deserved a special remembrance.  So I began researching traditional Polynesian designs and locations on the body.

    For a location, I settled on my right shoulder; my right because for some reason it feels more natural to look down at my right shoulder.  As for the design, Polynesians frequently make use of a spiral.  Most often, one path spirals around itself; Karen’s tattoo is an example of this.  Part of Matt’s tattoo has two paths that spiral around each other.  In all the pictures I looked through, I never saw a tattoo with three, so I painstakingly made a sketch that had three symmetrical paths that spiraled each other.  I then re-worked it on a computer.

    As for a design, I wanted a tattoo I could attach my own personal symbolism to, and my idea had three distinct parts representing three phases of life over the last five years.  As for location, I wanted to be able to see it.  This ruled out the popular Polynesian location of the entire ass-cheek.  It also needed to be somewhere I could live with should I rejoin the proper business world.  This ruled out the less popular but very traditional facial designs.  Recalling all the styling I had seen of Polynesian tattoos, I made a terrible sketch, I am a terrible artist, of what could be within each spiraled path.  My sketch was by no means what I actually wanted, just a visual to attach my very visual brain around.  One was a basic geometric design; simplicity and un-complex. Another, a dark swirling, heavily inked pattern; change, turmoil, confusion, loss, sadness.  The third, many Polynesian symbols and a smiling tiki face; looking forward, happiness and a trip realized.

    I took the outlines of the spirals (but not my styling sketch, I didn’t dare show a true artist my awful renderings!) to Simeone.  His shop is upstairs in the main market of Papeete, tucked away behind one of the myriad of jewelry and cloth booths.  Friends of Jerome, whom I stayed with in Papeete for a week, highly recommended him.  The many awards on his walls of contests won spoke to why.  I flipped through five books of pictures of tattoos he had done, pointing at styling that was similar to what I envisioned.  I then tried to indicate that he was free to do what he wanted within the spirals, let him do his artistry.  As usual, I was reduced to pantomiming and basic phrases; Simeon was not talkative and did not seem to speak much English.

    It took two and a half hours to draw and ink.  Normally, there wasn’t much pain, but a few times it was more painful that I anticipated, but not unbearable.  I am extremely happy with the result; Simeon did an excellent job reproducing the spirals and his artistry within them is definitely to my liking.  All in all, I know I’ll be happy 30 or 40 years down the road looking down at my shoulder.

  • Misadventures with the dinghy: Part 4

    (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!

  • Misadventures with Slurpy Part 3

    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.

  • Misadventures with Slurpy Part 1

    (refers to events on July 9th)

    The dinghy has provided a constant source of amusement for us.  Matt and Karen probably would chose a different word from ‘amusement’.  Like ‘hatred’.  This has only increased since I arrived.

    Since we have an inflatable dinghy, it does not deal with rough water well.  A hard bottom dinghy would do better. In rougher water with larger waves, larger being over 6 inches,  a blast of water will spray up over the boat.  The spray only increases with speed and wave height.  Luckily our dinghy, handicapped as it is by a poor engine, never goes very fast.

    I’ve noticed up until this point that to combat this spray, Matt or Karen will stand at the bow and pull up on a line connected to the bow.  The idea is that you pull the bow up so that a: waves more easily pass underneath the dinghy and b: even if they don’t a higher bow will block some of the waves.

    Now, I generally thought this dubious at best.  The bow, in my opinion, seems to get pulled up about one inch.  Better to just grin and enjoy the spray, a reminder that we are not cooped up in an office, working our 40 hour weeks, dressed in slacks and a button down, and paying lots of bills.  However, on one fine day in Rangiroa, I decided to give my hand at trying this, if for no other reason than everyone else on our boat was doing it, so I wanted to be cool too.

    As we pulled away from the dock, I grabbed the line and stood up.  Another boat passes by.  I note the wake (the waves eminating from behind the boat) they create, and think: not a problem.  Their wake reaches us and rocks us side to side.  I then think: this is a problem.  I stumble from side to side, and as there is not much room side to side on our dinghy, I proceed to be clipped in the calf by the sides of the dinghy and tumble backwards overboard.

    Man Overboard!

    I am perfectly O.K. save a bruised ego, and once Matt has ascertained this he immediately starts laughing.  I am not laughing.  Not yet.  I am frantically trying to get things out of my pockets that I don’t want to get wet.  Money.  My journal with months of entries I don’t want ruined.  Two long letters to Allison.  If those get wet, oh I would be so upset.  Hence my franticness.  However, the journal and letters are in a waterproof bag that I had remembered to seal, and the money was in a ziplock.  After fishing those out of my pockets and realizing they were fine, I too laughed at myself, treading water and just laughing.  Two cheapo glasses I had bought so you could look directly at the sun during the solar eclipse are within reach and I grab at them.  The third has already started to float under.  I pull myself back into the dinghy, sopping wet and laughing.

    I take inventory and as Matt is starting to pull away, I realize I’m missing something.  The handheld VHF radio.  The extremely-nice-christmas-present-from-Matt’s-parents handheld VHF.  Matt is displeased.  Both of us without even telling the other simultaneously start trying to take a bearing on land.  If you line up two points, say a pylon and a tree, then you return to this spot you can again line up the pylon and tree and know that you have returned to somewhere along that line.  Do that with another 2 objects, preferably two which form a line perpendicular to the first two, and you have two lines which can only intersect in once point.  Theoretically you can return to the same spot.  As long as you don’t use a mooring ball which might move with a shift in wind and current.  And you don’t forget what you used.  Both of which happened to me.

    After going to the boat to pick up snorkeling gear, we return to where we think I might have fallen in.  I flop out of the dinghy, and swim around, frequently diving down to the bottom, it’s only about 15 feet, looking around.  Matt moves around in the dinghy to scan a larger area, dunking his head in the water periodically.  Ten minutes of searching.  Twenty.  Thirty.  It seems inconceivable to me that we can’t find anything.  I know other things fell out of my pockets.

    And then I see the pair of glasses that had had been out of reach and sank to the bottom.  Here’s the right spot!!  Ten more minutes of searching.  Search time no longer feels fruitless.  The VHF must be here.  I find a coin, 100 francs, about 1 US dollar, bright and shiny.  This must have also fallen out of my pocket.  And there is a AA battery I bought for the GPS.  it must be here.

    And finally there it was.  A swell of relief first then a swell of apprehension.  Would it work?  I pop up out of the water.  The smart thing would have been to take it back to the boat, rinse it with fresh water, let it dry out thoroughly, open it up and continue to ensure proper drying.  I didn’t do that.  It was still on, and so as soon as I popped up on the service and waved to Matt and pushed the boat to call Karen back at our boat.  “Syzygy, Syzygy, this is Jon.”  Karen replied.  It worked.  Thank you to Matt parents for buying such a nice VHF that it withstood being in 15 feet of water for over an hour!  Misadventure part 1: a success!

  • Food and Fish

    (concerning events: July 3rd -July 6th)

    People have lived in French Polynesia for around 2000 years and ever since have been eating fish.  Lots and lots of fresh fish.  We have not been eating lots and lots of fresh fish.  We have been eating little to no fresh fish.  This vexes me to no end.  We had fresh fish once in the two weeks I have been here.  Native Tuomotians Ken and Martin caught it for us.

    Karen is a fantastic cook.  She probably cooks the most dinners, though I cook my fair share.  Matt and Karen seem to have tired of their repertoire of recipes.  I certainly haven’t though and everything that Karen makes I think is delicious.  Everything that Matt makes I think is delicious.  Everything that I make…. well Matt and Karen eat it, so it must be edible.

    But we all acknowledge that our meals are with drawbacks.  Nearly every meal is ‘x’ number of cans + [either] pasta or rice + alcoholic beverage of choice = meal.  Sometimes this is canned spaghetti sauce plus canned chicken plus pasta equals a meal.  Sometimes this is canned roast beef + canned corn + canned mushrooms + canned yams + canned gravy + boxed potatoes = meal.  I think they are delicious every time.  But something fresh would be wonderful.

    When Karen makes various fresh bread, it’s a little slice of heaven.  Sometimes sourdough english muffin.  Sometimes tortillas.  Or sourdough french bread.  Or puffy donut holes with cinnamon and sugar, oh sinfully delicious.  So bread, bread we can do fresh.  Otherwise, cans.

    I feel like we should be eating fish.  For one, it’s free.  For two, it’s not cans.

    Matt and Karen reported no luck fishing while sailing across the Pacific and while cruising the Marquesas and the Tuomotus.  This poor showing on the part of the fish to readily enjoy our lures, combined with Matt’s reticence at the idea of cutting up live things with guts in them has led to a decline in fishing attempts onboard s/v Syzygy.  Who can blame them?  They never caught anything.  With my arrival, I bring fresh hopes and renewed vigor to the idea of fishing.  And an indefatigable arrogance that it has to be possible to catch something.  Anything.

    And I have failed.  Failed as all other attempts at trailing lines has failed on s/v Syzygy.  Please other cruisers who are able to catch fish regularly,  tell us your exact set-up of trolling lines and how you catch fish, down to the minutest detail.  Because we are incompetent.  We have read a book and we have not learned.  Nearly all things done on this boat, all the sailing knowledge, all the boat projects completed are because we read a book and learned about it.  We read a book about fishing, but we cannot seem to learn how to fish.  Please tell us everything about your set-up.  Length of line out, type of knots, length of mono-filament.  Type of lure.  Color of lure.  Number of lures.  Depth of lure.  Time of day.  Depth to ocean floor.  Distance to land.  Boat speed.  Wind speed. Current. Hook size.  Hook placement within lure.  Allowable rust level on hook.  Bait used or not.  Leader weight used or not.  Chum used or not. Teasers used or not.  Pagan gods to whom you might give sacrifice in order to make the ocean share its bounty.  Please include video of ceremony, text of chants and incantations, list of all incense types used and step by step instructions for actual sacrifice.

    I have, actually, caught some fish.  But I was only able to do that at anchor.  When we were in Apataki, and in having beer and an excellent lunch at the cargneage(boat haul-out center)/pension/restaurant/happy hour/pearl farm establishment, fishing was brought up with the family who owns all this enterprise, Alfred and his wife.  They said they had a surefire way for us to catch fish involving hermit crabs as bait and that next time we come to shore, they would show us.  The next day, we show up but Alfred is off fishing and his wife is gone.  Karen manages to relate to the very nice ancient lady that met us at the dock (Alfred’s mom??) our intentions.  So before we know it, this 80-ish year old woman has grabbed a hermit crab.  Matt and I are hustling around trying to watch every little step of what she does.  She then gets a hammer, one shot smashes the shell, grabs the hermit crab, one hand around all it’s legs and claws, the other around its guts and rips it in two pieces.  She threads it on the hook and done.  30 seconds have passed.  I am in awe.  In a couple of days, I will no longer be in awe of the process.  Instead, I will be a one-man professional hermit crab death squad.

    We collect a dozen hermit crabs and head back to the boat.  At dusk, apparently good fishing time, I retrieve a hammer, a cutting board, and a hook.  I ask Karen to retrieve a video camera.  The nice ancient lady completed the steps in about 30 seconds.  It takes me 30 minutes.  So despite that it is now dark, I try to fish anyway.  Nothing.  Nothing.  Nothing.  I take solace in the fact that it is pitch black out and vow to try again in the morning.

    In the morning at 6 am I begin setting up to try again. Success!  Within a half an hour I’ve hooked two fish.  Karen comes on deck.  I ask her what to do now that I have a fish flopping around in a large green bin.  She says I have to kill it.  I don’t know how to do that I reply.  She fetches the book.  We read it.  We learn.  The fish dies.  Knife shot to the brain, one inch behind the eye.

    After reading the book for each step in the process of gutting and cleaning we take the fish into shore to make sure that we can eat them.  Some fish you can’t eat because of a nasty little disease called ciguterra  I refer you to a blog post from our good friends Mike and Hyo aboard Io, Mike is a marine biologist and so can explain all the nastiness of ciguterra better than I.

    Matt gets the job of cooking the fish and that night we finally dined on fresh fish.  The next night we again dined on fresh fish.  It was wonderful, albeit a bit bony.  Then we moved anchorages, losing our source for local knowledge of ciguterra (Different fish on different atolls have it) and we have not had fish again.  Back to cans.

    So fellow cruisers, please help us become better fishermen and fisherwomen.  Please help us spare the cans.

  • 25 days at sea

    We just arrived in Nuku Hiva after crossing the pacific.  Good lord was that a long time to be out in the ocean.  I’m going to ramble on and on now.  Let me tell you, there’s not much of anything out there. In terms of tourist attractions, you’re not missing anything. I had expected to see a fair amount of wildlife, different views of the ocean, something. Nope. It all looks the same. For 25 straight days one of us checked the horizon at least every twenty minutes–over 2,000 instances of climbing out of the cabin to check the horizon, and every time seeing exactly the same thing: nothing. The only thing we saw during that entire time were a few birds and a bunch of tiny flying fish. Not even other boats–for three straight weeks we saw no other boats.

    The pacific ocean does have boobies, I’ll give it that. Near the coast, at least. We had an exciting Booby-caused moment that I will now relate in entirely too much detail. A booby is a very annoying bird. For the first 5 days of the passage, we were frequently targeted by boobies. They want to land on the boat, hang out, and shit. There is no equivalent to a floating island in their evolutionary history: they do not need to do this. What I am saying is: don’t feel bad for them. Moreover, they have a hard time making the landing, but they are stupid and stubborn enough to continue attempting it without regard to the bodily risk. They will get smacked by the sail, tangle in the rigging and bounce off the deck into the water–then get up and try it again. The first time one landed on our solar panels, I was nice and let it hang out. Then a river of bird poop spilled into the cockpit, narrowly missing karen. Booby’s welcome expired. I took our boat hook and gently nudged him off (he didn’t like that–kept pecking at the pole and squawking at me). He came right back. I pushed him off again. A few dozen more times he came back, with progressively more aggressive expulsions on my part and angry squawks on his part. Eventually, I was flicking him a good ten feet off the boat before he would fall in the water and repeat his attempt. Like a bonk-the-booby video game. He landed high up on the spreaders; I duct taped all my long poles together and continued to battle him. Finally, at dusk, he landed on our spinnaker pole, from which our spinnaker (largest sail on the boat, by far) was flying. I shooed him out along the pole (funny image, a squawking sidestepping out of balance booby) until he was over the water and not the boat–i.e. a poop safe zone. The sun sets. I hear a noise. I look over: the booby has fallen off the pole and has his foot stuck in the tripline running down the pole. I know what’s coming. As he drops like a stone into the water, he triggers the release, opening the jaw and letting the tack of our spinnaker fly free. This is not something you want to happen to you in the dark with 15 knots of wind and a big spinnaker. Anyway, it took a half hour to get everything contained and put away–a frantic half hour reminiscent of racing on the bay when something goes horribly wrong. Boobies, man. No booby love, no more.

    What we did see: we saw beautiful sunsets and blue water. Moonless nights were very dark; you could see bright stars reflecting off the calm ocean. The milky way was prominent. The moon would often make a dramatic appearance–sneaking up from behind a cloud, bright orange until it got some searoom off the horizon.  Lots of sky, lots of water, that about sums it up.

    All in all, this passage was not as hard as our 9 days from Ensenada to Banderas Bay, but nevertheless it was harder than I expected it to be. I had heard great things about the trade winds and I was expecting good, consistent wind. Not for us, my friend, not for us. Two days out of La Cruz the wind died on us, and we sat bobbing around for a few days, not wanting to waste our fuel (we battled boobies during this time). Once the wind came back, we had a few good days of sailing before we hit the ITCZ (i.e. doldrums) and then the wind died again. Then we had 5 days and 5 degrees (300 miles) of doldrums, with no wind, occasionally punctuated by weak, unimpressive squalls and rain. On the other side of the ITCZ, the wind picked back up right in our face, together with a contrary current pushing us backwards as well, so we beat upwind and up-current for five more days before we could point towards our destination. Then, finally, the last week was glorious wind and glorious sailing in the southern trade winds.

    Boats both before and after us had better luck with both the wind and the ITCZ; most people had less than a hundred miles worth of doldrums and experienced solid trade winds on the north side. We just got unlucky in that regard. The result was that we ended up doing a lot of work, putting sails up and down, changing things around constantly, etc, until the last week.

    We crossed the equator in the middle of the night on May 3; Karen woke me up at 4 in the morning with a mixed drink (rum and jumex). Dutifully in my delirium I drank my drink.  In my state I was confused about what I was supposed to do. I watched karen pour some rum into the ocean. I believe I expressed gladness for our progress, and passed back out (memory of this event is hazy).

    At no point during the passage was I bored. Both of us read at least 10 books–best way to stay awake during a night watch. I did some boat projects. I got out karen’s sewing machine and made myself a pair of shorts out of a pillowcase. I relearned the turk’s head knot. I studied french. I learned some new constellations. I consolidated my lists. We watched some movies, listened to music. I made iced lattes. I made iced tea. I drank beers. Karen read, wrote, baked bread. During a dead calm, karen cut my hair on the foredeck. I got the best tan of my life (better have–I was butt-ass-nekkid most of the time).

    We made hundreds of entries in the log book.

    Much of my time was spent messing around with the boat. Trimming sails, changing sails, changing the lead of lines, adjusting the self-steering, tweaking the course, reefing, unreefing, furling, unfurling. At best, this business–the business of sailing the boat–would occupy only a few hours each day (spread out). At worst–when conditions were constantly changing–it took all of my waking hours to keep on top of it. The primary attribute of “great wind, great sailing” is above all consistency–conditions that don’t require constant changes.

    Watching our little boat depicted on the chart on the computer was strangely addictive–even though it was just a big blank white screen.

    At least once a day we participated in a net on the ssb radio with the other boats out there, all watching out for each other and tracking each other’s progress. I would estimate about 10 boats participating each night. The community was solid; we made a number of friends over the radio, people we had never met in person. Occasionally we would even set up a radio date where we met on a particular frequency at a particular time to chat. I was surprised by the enjoyment to be found via the radio.  And now we already have friends to meet up with on land.

    It was no problem staying clean; whenever we started to feel dirty we would take a shower with buckets of seawater. Maybe even use a little bit of freshwater to rinse, if we were feeling luxurious.

    Lack of sleep was an ongoing challenge. Usually each of us would be on watch for half the night, so we could get a decent stretch of sleep. Even so, that meant that neither of us slept more than 6 straight hours in a row during the entire passage. We always had plenty of time during the day in which we could nap–but it’s not so easy to go to sleep on demand.  The lack of sleep wasn’t dangerous,it just sapped our motivation, made us cranky at times.  Both karen and I found that the surest way of getting sleepy enough to pass out was to go on watch–all of a sudden it seems like all you want to do is sleep!

    During the final days, more than anything I just wanted the rolling to stop. I grew furious at the boat for constantly throwing me against the walls whenever I moved around, the same way one might get mad at being randomly shoved as you try to walk down the sidewalk. Didn’t matter that the boat is inanimate, still I blamed it for causing needless suffering. You try to walk from the head to the galley, and you get thrown on your ass on the settee. On your way past the mast, you get hip-checked into it by an unpredictable lurch of momentum. You’ll be slipping through a doorway and get a doorknob shoved in the gut. You’ll be standing at the sink and lose your balance, ending up all the way over on the nav seat with your feet in the air. The motion was incessant, inescapable. At the end, I just wanted to be still.

    We made landfall (feels sweet to be able to say that–the expression itself indicates a serious passage–after all you can’t go out sailing in the bay for a day and then “make landfall” back into the marina, no you need to sail across an ocean and then you can make a landfall) at Taioe Bay on Nuku Hiva, in the Marquesas, french polynesia, on the morning of Saturday May 8–a few hours ago.  We are both ecstatic to have the passage behind us.  I’m glad we did it; I’m more glad that it’s over.

    After getting the boat in order, I had a beer, then slept for 6 hours.  Just woke up in fact.

    Now it’s time for us to go explore land.

  • The Night Watch

    (post dated–this post generally refers to events on 3/29 and 3/30)

    At midnight Karen grabs my foot and gives it a shake. I take off my eye mask and take out the earphones I’m wearing which along with my I-Pod and Sarah McLachlan, had me asleep in minutes three hours earlier despite the noise of the engine.  I was surprised at how much louder the engine sounds at night versus during the day.  I suppose the new soundproofing in the engine room was doing something, but I couldn’t tell.  I stumble around for about 10 minutes, getting dressed slowly and wobbly.  I can’t find my headlamp or my sailing knife.  I want some light and so switch on a light in the cabin, and quickly move the switch to the red light setting that is supposed to preserve your night vision.  The cabin now resembles a submarine on high alert.  I half expect Gene Hackman to barrel down the companionway yelling “down ladder!”  I imagine us on high alert.  Matt is up, walking around and off-handedly comments that he and Karen stopped using the red lights.  They don’t really provide enough light to do anything, which I quickly found to be true, and your eyes adjust fast enough when you are up on deck. High alert deflates immediately.  The engine continues to groan away as we travel through unfortunately light winds for our passage.  I plop down at the nav station to look at the log book and the AIS chart on the computer.  My night watch is about to start.

    Before I even arrived, we had started talking about sailing a day or two north to San Blas.  However, the weather seemed to be less than ideal to the north, so Karen found a entry in the cruising guide that talked about a fine anchorage to the south that had some snorkeling and a fantastic sounding dinghy river trip.  South it was.  Next came talk of who was going to take what watch.  I knew this conversation was coming.  And i knew exactly what I wanted.  The night shift.  Wake me up at midnight or 1 am and send me out.  I wanted this for a number of reasons.  One, I feel, (it’s not just a feeling, I definitely am) behind in this obscure scale of mine that measures “personal discomfort” investment into the boat.  I don’t have much of this.  Matt has, well it’s somewhat amazing he hasn’t collapsed under the weight of how much he has endured.  Second, I wanted to experience as much of the cruising experience as possible.  Taking the night watch fit nicely there.  Finally, it just seemed the nice thing to do, to let Matt and Karen sleep together through the night.

    After examining where we were on the AIS, I head up on deck.  Matt joins me and says we should put up the main sail and the drifter.  I’m super excited that we’ll actually be sailing on my watch, at least to start, instead of motoring.  It feels so much more pure.  After Matt helps me put up the sail, he heads off to bed, and I’m left alone on the night watch.  An alarm is set to ring every 23 minutes.  After two iterations of the alarm, I’m starting to get tired, and so lie down in the cockpit, realizing that I’ll be sleeping during some of this watch.  I’m looking directly up at the stars, and soon I’m dozing off, 1/2 awake, 1/2 asleep, dully waiting for the alarm to go off.  It does, I go through the watch routine, and quickly get back to lying down.  This time I’m out quickly.  Thirty minutes later Matt is in the companionway reaching out to the cockpit to hit my feet saying “Dude, you slept through the alarm.  You can’t do that.  Put the alarm closer to your head.”

    On the night watch, there is one main responsibility.  Make sure the boat doesn’t hit anything.  Two lesser responsibilities are to 1) sail the boat well so you get to your destination faster. 2) control the boat so that it is easier for others to sleep.  Matt and Karen’s system they developed uses a watch that goes off at set intervals.  Pretty much all cruisers have an alarm set for certain intervals.  Matt and Karen have the watch set for 23 minutes.  So every 23 minutes, it’s the job of whoever is on watch to stand up, or wake up if necessary, look all around the horizon for other boats or land, and make sure you aren’t about to hit either of those.  It’s fascinating what you can see at night on the horizon.  All night we were in sight of shore so lights from there abounded.  At various times, other boats were on the horizon.  It’s enjoyable to spot lights on the horizon and watch over the next hour or two as they slowly move in relationship to the boat.  Of course if they are moving that slowly, it’s probably another sailboat.  The fast lights are the ones to worry about.  The cargo ships.

    Matt disappears back down the companionway, leaving me alone fuming at myself.  My first night watch and I’ve made a HUGE mistake.  Damn it.  Not how I wanted to start.  Not the impression I wanted to make on Matt and Karen that I was a competent addition to the sailing team.  I am furious at myself and embarrassed.  Sure, the likelihood that at the exact interval I fell asleep 1) another boat would be just over the horizon that I couldn’t see on the last sweep, 2) wasn’t on the AIS that would alert me to boats further out, 3) was headed on a collision course with us and 4)  did not veer off that collision course because they of course don’t want to hit us…. yes the likelihood of all that happening is low.  Doesn’t matter.  Sleeping through a watch interval is way out of line.  I was not happy with myself.

    Later in the night, the alarm goes off.  It is strapped to the band on my headlamp now, directly next to my ear, and so it wakes me immediately.  I get up and start to go through the routine I began to do at every alarm.  I rapidly check our compass heading and speed.  I then spend longer than necessary gazing in a slow 360 degrees off into the distance, looking for lights.  Each time I see lights, I get our binoculars (Thanks mom and dad!!!) and using the internal compass of them, note the heading to the lights and try to discern where it’s going.  If I see a red light, it means I’m looking at the port side of the other boat.  If I see green, I’m looking at the starboard side.  You can also tell things by the location and height of the white lights from a boat, but I’m not as sure about those. Need to learn that.  Next I slide down the companionway, moving as quietly as possible past the quarterberth where Matt and Karen are sleeping, generally with the door open to increase airflow and keep it cooler in the cabin.  I  have a seat at the nav station and take a look at the awesomest part of the night watch routine: checking the AIS transponder which is linked into the navigation software MacEnc, on the computer.  Matt has discussed his love for it in the past, and I have to back up that opinion 100%.  After checking the AIS both for ships and to ensure we are headed in the correct direction, I head back up on deck and do a quick scan of the horizon.  Finally, I look at our sails and see if they need adjustment.  Then it’s back to reading, writing or sleeping.

    At 2:30 am on the second night, I watched us thread the needle between two 900 foot long cargo ships doing 14-18 knots.  I had seen the two ships when they were 20 miles away on the computer, long before I would be able to see them on the horizon.  Nonetheless, as soon as I saw them on the computer headed straight for us, I excitedly hopped up on deck, grabbed the binoculars, and stared out into space to where the boats should be.  I was met with nothing but blackness.   A black sky with foreboding moon and a glistening, flat, black sea.  An hour later however, I could see lights.  Lots of lights.  High, towering lights.  That still seemed to be coming straight for us.  The AIS, though, showed their actual heading, and ours.  We would pass the first to our starboard, by a mere mile.  The other, five minutes later, passed to port by even less, about 1/2 a mile.  I didn’t sleep at all for that hour, and gained an enormous appreciation for the additional safety the AIS brought us.  I saw them when they were over an hour away and knew their exact heading relative to us.  If we didn’t the AIS, they would have been twenty minutes or less away on an uncertain course that would have looked extremely troubling.  With the AIS, we didn’t have to divert our course, and I felt no danger to the boat, though I did anxiously watch the AIS and the horizon for the entire hour.  I certainly was too excited to sleep, this being only my second night watch.  But I felt confidently safe.  Without the AIS, I would have had to hail the vessel, not always possible, and try and figure out a way by both ships.  I can envision this being a confusing hail, with both boats so close, heading in the same direction and with the approximate same speed.  With the AIS, there was minimal concern.  The rest of the night passed uneventful.  My second night watch slowly winding down, I finished most of the novel I was reading, enjoying the near full moon as it arced lazily across the sky.  My first real introduction to cruising.  I think I’m going to like it.

  • Screen shots of 1st Day’s Progress

    Jonathon here.  I thought I would post a couple of screen shots of Matt and Karen’s progress.  I know a lot of you have clicked through to the marinetraffic.com website with AIS tracking to try and find Syzygy.  Like Matt has said, if they aren’t in AIS range, you won’t see them.  But here’s two pictures of where they have been.

    The first is from when they departed until I went to bed around midnight California time.  They had been sailing about 13 hours at that point.

    The second is a somewhat overlapping track of their progress until about 6 am Thursday morning when they dropped off the map.  At this point they had gone about 110 miles in about 18 hours.  If they keep going through Thursday night they might be in the Santa Barbara/Los Angeles area Friday during the day sometime.  I imagine they will keep pushing through since wind and wave height seem to indicate good weather all the way down the California coast and Baja Mexico for at least the next 7 days. There are a number of AIS stations in Los Angeles and San Diego areas, so they might pop back up!

  • Sail update: Finished (back in December)

    Finally.  10 months after it started, the sail is finished.  It was supposed to be done by June.  Then…. that didn’t quite happen. And so it got put off.  And put off.  And put off.  And soon, the boat was threatening to leave!  So I doubled down over Thanksgiving break and brought the thought of the completion of the sail into the ballpark.

    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.

  • Refrigeration

    I built this:

     Out of this:

    I read Nigel Calder’s “Refrigeration for Pleasureboats” three times, I read Richard Kollman’s forum on marine refrigeration, and I spoke with Marcus a few times (a fellow cruiser-friend in the marina).  Marcus is lending me his top-quality, indispensable refrigeration tools (much thanks to Marcus!), and also turned me on to RParts, where I ordered all my stuff.  I learned how to “sweat” copper tubing (i.e. silver soldering copper), how to form flare fittings, how to use a refrigeration gauge set, the detailed principles behind refrigeration, and I built my own refrigeration system.  I’m pretty proud of this 1.5′ x 1.5′ x 1′ cube of refrigeration goodness–it’s hard to believe that a month ago I didn’t understand how this thing worked, and now I’ve built my own out of parts.  It’s not making anything cold yet, but I pressure tested it yesterday and to my immense satisfaction and relief I have no leaks!  (that’s huge–to find and fix a leak would have been a nightmare)

    Refrigeration is a lot more interesting once you understand how it works.  You don’t want to hear the details, but I have admin access on this blog so I’m going to tell you all about it.

    A refrigerator works by moving heat from one place to another.  It does not “create” cold.  Heat is removed from the icebox and deposited at the “hotbox” (that’s my own term, it will be helpful for the discussion).  On our boat, the hotbox happens to be the storage space under the quarterberth; for your fridge at home, the hotbox is just the space behind the fridge.

    On each side of the circuit there is a heat exchanger.  The heat exchanger transfers heat from the air to the refrigerant in the icebox, and from the refrigerant back to the air in the hotbox.  The heat exchanger in the icebox is called the evaporator; the heat exchanger in the hotbox is called the condenser.

    The refrigerant is the medium that moves the heat around the circuit.  If the refrigerant was simply pushed around in a circle, it would not be inclined to transfer heat out of the cool icebox into the warm hotbox–that would be trying to push the heat uphill, so to speak.  The key is to pressurize the refrigerant, using a compressor.  When the refrigerant is compressed, it warms up; when it de-compresses (expands) it gets cold.  The refrigerant comes out of the icebox medium-warm.  The compressor pressurizes the refrigerant, which heats it up.  Then the pressurized refrigerant passes through the condenser–which looks like a mini car radiator–and as the refrigerant passes through the condenser its heat is transferred to the air (just like your car radiator, in fact).  The refrigerant returns to the icebox at a mediumish temperature, but this time it’s pressurized.  At the icebox, the refrigerant is allowed to expand–which causes it to get cold.  The cold refrigerant sucks up heat as it passes through the evaporator.  Then the process is repeated.  Good diagram.

    There’s one more principle at work: phase changes.  If you just pumped a liquid around in circles, from the evaporator to the condenser to the evaporator to the condenser, etc, then you might be able to remove a small amount of heat from the icebox and dump it at the condenser.  However, you can’t suck up much heat just by warming up a liquid and then cooling it off.  The real way to suck up heat and drop it off elsewhere is to use a PHASE CHANGE to your advantage.  The phase change is the key to the whole process.

    Consider heating a quart of water in a pot on the stove.  It takes 320 BTU of energy to heat that water from 33 degrees F to 211 degrees–320 BTU to change the temperature of the water by 178 degrees.  Then, to heat that water only 2 more degrees, from just 211 degrees to 213 degrees, it takes 1934 BTU!  Because at 212 degrees, the H2O changes from water to steam; this is the phase change.  During the entire process of converting water to steam, you keep dumping in large quantities of energy and the temperature stays the same–all the energy goes into the conversion from liquid to gas.  The message is that the energy required to do a phase change from water to steam is WAY GREATER than the energy required to change the temperature of the water itself.

    In refrigeration, we store our heat as a phase change of the refrigerant in order to efficiently transfer it from the icebox to the hotbox.  We don’t use water though, because we want the phase change to take place around the 20 degrees F in our refrigerator (not very helpful to us for it to take place at 212 degrees).  We use refrigerant specially formulated to undergo the phase change near freezing (in our case, R134a).

    We pump a liquid to the evaporator, and then let it expand into a gas; that expansion to a gas sucks huge amounts of heat out of the box.  Then back at the compressor we compress the gas, which heats it up (essentially exchanging “pressure energy” for heat).  Then we send it through the condenser, where the the hot gas dumps off all its heat and turns back into a liquid (condenses!) in the process.  Then we sent the liquid back to the evaporator, where it turns into a gas again . . . and so on.  The refrigerant goes to the icebox as a liquid, but it returns as a gas; the phase changes that happens in the icebox and the hotbox are the primary means of temporarily storing the heat in the refrigerant for transfer from one location to another.

    Refrigeration is by far the single largest energy sink on a cruising sailboat.  In the average residential home, refrigeration is 5% of the energy bill–not an insignificant amount. One site says that the average fridge uses ~$8 of electricity per month, depending on how big, what kind, and where you live.  The efficiency of the refrigeration system depends very strongly on the refrigerant dumping off heat as it passes through the condenser.  Most systems use air-cooled condensers (I put in both air-cooled and water-cooled condensers–the air-cooled is the radiator-looking thing in the picture above; the water-cooled is the black circle of tubing on the top of the apparatus).  If the air-cooled condenser is located in a cool spot with good air-flow, this heat dump can happen very effectively; if the condenser is located in a hot spot with stagnant air, or even worse in the hot engine room, then the refrigeration cycle’s efficiency plummets.  Meaning that the fridge runs much longer, and consumes much more power.  Moral: the quickest improvement you can make to reduce your energy needs on a sailboat is to improve the air circulation around the refrigeration condenser.

    You can do the same for your fridge at home: just pull the fridge away from the wall an extra inch, and you’ll greatly increase the air-circulation around the condenser, improving the efficiency.  Avoid shoving plastic or paper bags between the wall and the fridge for storage–that’s not helping out your fridge, or your electrical bill.  Even better, use a vacuum to clean off the condenser tubing on the back of the fridge–that gunk kills the condenser’s ability to dump heat.

     

  • Mast Steps

    A while back I designed a mast step for us, we had a sailor/machinist friend advise us and then make them up for us, and Jonny installed them.  We love them, and it turns out that others do, too.  We had enough requests that we decided to start making and selling them on a small scale, and see if it goes anywhere.

    We’re calling it “Climb the Mast“.

    They are sweet steps, as far as mast steps go.  They’re small, so lines don’t catch on them, they’re easy to install, and they’re cheap.  The only reason we made our own is because we weren’t happy with any of the other options available–the others are either to big (the fixed stirrup-style), too unwieldy (the folding ones), or too expensive (all of them).

    They work so well that we’ve been running up the mast regularly while we are out in the bay under full sail.  It makes for good group pictures during our social sails, to do them from the top of the mast looking down with the sails flying and our wake spreading out behind us.

    Anyway, we hope that maybe this little side project could help fund the trip, so if you know of anyone looking to put in mast steps, point them to the website Jonny set up: www.climbthemast.com.  Also, check out the original maintenance blog post I did when we first put them in, and also Jonny’s post about drilling the holes in the mast.


  • How to describe the first time I went sailing on my boat

    What was it like to go sailing for the first time on my boat? It was a feeling not easily expressible in normal sentences; rather, much more elusively affective. And sensory. But read this and maybe you’ll catch a breeze of what I felt that day.

    Liberating. Freeing. Bliss. Matt at the wheel, slightly nervous; he hasn’t steered our boat since barely getting into the dock a month ago.

    Motoring out of the marina. All of us, grinning like sloppy newlyweds.

    Jonny on the foredeck, watching for other boat traffic. I slap Matt across the back. Whoop! Holler! I’m giddy.

    The hard work was worth it. 19 hour work days. No climbing. No biking. Just working. Doesn’t seem like work now.

    Time to raise the main sail. I don’t know how to do that. I’m about to learn. Wow, using the winch isn’t easy. That’s a lot of friction. Add it to the list of things to fix.

    But I don’t want to think about that right now. Cause the main sail just caught some wind; the boat begins to heel. I’ve never felt my boat heel. Look at it, you can see the wind flowing around the sail. Pushing us forward.

    Cut the engine: sweet! no more engine noise. water. listen to the water. The chop of the bay, hitting the boat. Wind. Listen to the wind. Whistling in my ears. The main sail flutters. It’s musical, poetical.

    Time to roll out the jib? Really? No problem captain. Wow using the winch isn’t easy. That’s a lot of friction. Add it to the list of things to fix.

    Rail in the water. Hard to balance. What fun!

    Matt has a sweater and heavy jacket on. Apparently it’s cold. I don’t notice. I’m in a T-shirt. Too busy soaking it all in. God, it’s beautiful. Can’t take 30 seconds to go put on a sweatshirt. Don’t want to. I might miss something. Too busy soaking it all in.

    Reef? Too much wind; bring in the mainsail a bit. Yep let’s practice. ’cause I don’t know how to do that. I’m about to learn. At the mast, holding on. It’s kinda bumpy up here. Bay chop. and spray. Fun! Pull the main sail down, ring around the reef hook. I can do that. “Hold!” Can’t… quite… get… ring… around…hook… ok! “Made!” Have fun with that winch Jonny.

    Keep winching Jonny. Woah! “What was that?” Something broke and flew off!” Bye bye reef hook. Add it to the list of things to fix.

    Take the wheel? Really? Feel the boat move. The wind pushes the boat down, the rudder pushing us up. Spray crashing, hitting me in the face. I love it.

    Hey Matt, we’re getting close to the pier, what should we do? Tack probably. uh, ok. I don’t know how to do that. I’m about to learn.

    Time to head in; do we have to?

    Out for 4 hours today. Pretty soon 2 years. If you lose track of time, Is there much difference?

  • Tingling with giddiness

    I sanded so much today that my fingers were still tingling 20 minutes after I put the sander down. My shoulders ache, my hands are sore, and if you were to ask me to pick something up off the ground, the manner in which I’d bend over to do so wouldn’t be very graceful. It reached 90 degrees here today — probably a record — and I spent most of the day in a full-body Tyvek suit, with rubber gloves and a face mask on, while holding a 10-lb sander above my head. My hair is matted with sweat, and my shirt (the same shirt I’ve worn all week) is a little bit stickier. My fingers are covered in blue dust. So are my feet. And my hat. And my cheeks. I’m about to go take a shower at Matt and Karen’s place, and am contemplating taking a bath in Gojo instead.

    How much work was it? I’ll put it this way. After two hours of sanding, and little to show for it, I asked Nick, a yardworker more or less my age, how long it takes him to sand a 40′ sailboat, to see if I was on track.

    -Nick: “Oh, I’m lucky. I hurt my shoulder, so I never have to sand any boats, because I can’t lift my arm above my shoulder. I can’t even do a pushup.”

    -Me: “How’d you hurt your shoulder?”

    -Nick: “Surfing. But I can still surf.”

    So the guys who work here, the guys who get paid to do work: they dislike sanding to the extent that a personal injury seems like a blessing.

    At any rate, Matt and I finished sanding the bottom of our boat (he sanded the port side, and I the starboard) and it looks really good. Actually, it looks bad, because the bottom is all scratched up and patchy, but it’s a good sanding job. In fact, Carl, our much-revered yard manager, walked by and said of our sanding work, “Wow, it doesn’t get much better than that. I like to see professional work.” That made us proud.

    So the bottom is almost ready to be painted. Of course, almost is a weighted term as far as sailboat repairs go. Almost means it feels like we’re done, even though many tasks remain. We’ve still got to prime on the bare metal parts. And we’ve got to lightly sand the parts that we fiberglassed and smoothed with fairing compound (aka marine-grade spackle). And we’ve got to put the through-hulls back in…It’s worth noting that putting the through-hulls back in isn’t the quickest task, either. We’ve got to level the backing plates (aka grind away the high spots), and measure the depth of each through-hull, and cut off the extra threads. Then we’ve got to mark the spot where the seacock rests on the backing plate, and drill holes for the lag bolts that hold the flange of the seacock in place. Then we have to fill in those holes with epoxy, so that the backing plates don’t rot. Then we have to let the epoxy cure. Then, at long last, we have to squeeze in a big glob of marine-grade caulk, and screw the seacock onto the through-hull, and insert the lag bolts.

    There’s a good analogy for this: Xeno’s paradox. After hours of grueling work, we’re half way done. Hours later, we’re half way through the remaining work. Hours after that, we’re halfway through the little bit that remains. Ad infinitum… and we never get there. We never finish. But like I’ve said before, it’s fun, and it sure beats an office job.

    Some friends stopped by this week. Dave and Ben, both engineers, spent an hour poking around the boat. Kevin did too.

    -Dave: “It’s so cool how everything fits together.”
    -My thoughts: Cool, maybe, when stuff works. Not cool when it needs to be repaired.

    -Ben: “This is totally comfier than a tent, and bigger than the back of my truck.”
    My thoughts: More expensive, too.

    Kevin: “You don’t get anxious? I’d be anxious.”
    My thoughts: I think the anxiety has been replaced by excitement.

    Phil wins the best-visitor award, though. He stopped by with a cooler full of sandwiches, cold drinks, chips, salsa, and brownies, and then lent a hand cleaning the bottom of the boat. Those beers at the end of the day were delicious – thank you, Phil.

    The week has flown by in a blur. One second it’s 10:20, and I’m kinda hungry, and the next it’s 12:47, and I’m so hungry I can’t think straight. Meanwhile, I’m neck deep in a project, so eating will have to wait. One second Carl walks by and, seeing me neck deep in said project, asks, “Are you winning?” My answer: “No, but it’s a good game.” A few hours later, I bump into Carl, and proudly report: “I won the game!” Carl: “Attaboy! Attaboy!”

    I’ve learned so much, and kept learning so many new things, that it’s been impossible to revel in the glory of each new thing learned. That I will have to successfully figure something out and then move on to another thing is no longer a surprise. Only when I stop to think about it do I realize that this week I learned how to tap threads, how to disassemble industrial bearings, how to splice coax cable, and how to fiberlgass, such that I can drill a hole in my boat and patch it and still sleep soundly onboard that boat. That beats an office job, too.

    We damn-near finished working on the mast: we rewired and re-sealed the deck/steaming light, and rewired and remounted the new ultra-efficient LED nav light, too. Matt installed new gold-plated VHF connectors for the antenna, after chopping off a foot of corroded wire on each end. I rigged up a new mount for the wind vane (the old one snapped off in a storm), and Matt cleaned the butyl rubber goop off of the anemometer connection. All that remains is the furler… and the much needed parts are coming tomorrow in the mail…

    On account of all this, I’m feeling kind of giddy… like, well, like it’s almost time to paint the bottom, and almost time to put the mast back in, and almost time to put the boat back in the water, where she belongs.

  • My first week on the boat

    I’ve worn the same pants for a week now; they tell the story of the last seven days — my first week living on the boat — better than I. Embedded in them are bits of caulk, epoxy, and grease; stains of sweat, salt, snot, and blood; smudges of pasta sauce, wine, and melted chocolate; metal filings, fiberglass strands, resin shards, and saw dust.

    It’s been a week. I haven’t shaved. I haven’t washed my hair. I’ve been washing dishes with my fingers, pissing in a bucket, drinking wine out of the bottle, and sleeping sound as a baby.

    If tools are like pets, and they enjoy being petted, or maybe just held, ours are very very happy. I’ve kept vice grips in my back pocket most of the time, and relied heavily on a screwdriver, crescent wrench, hammer, tape measure, and awl. I’ve alternated between the drill, dremel, grinder, and jig saw as if they were pens and pencils, occasionally using a drill press and a die grinder hooked up to our compressor.

    This week, Matt and I put the new rigging on the mast, which entailed disassembling and servicing the furler, which is an ordeal in itself — more on that next week. We poured resin into the rudder, patched up holes we’d drilled in the hull, and fiberglassed over a crack in the keel. We re-bedded the through-hulls, added backing plates, raised the exhaust through-hull 6 inches, and fiberglassed over the old hole. We cleaned the mast step. We drilled a bigger drain hole in the bottom of the mast, rewired the mast lights, and cleaned the propeller and shaft. And we’ve begun 10 other tasks, if not more.

    In between all that, I moved in, taking up residence in the V-berth – the little V-shaped room in the bow. I shoved all my clothes into one locker, and dumped a few extra things — my checkbook, toothbrush, and a few books, on the shelf above it. During a couple of other moments, I rode over to the grocery store, and bought some food; somehow the addition of food in the galley makes the boat seem more like a home, even if the counters are covered in stacks of toolboxes and bags of screws and pieces of hose and piles of brushes and cleaners and fixtures and instruments and other various boat parts.

    I mention these projects and tools and parts a) so I don’t forget, and b) because for a certain type of person, satisfaction is more meaningful than pleasure, and these projects have been intensely satisfying. I’ve rejoiced so many times over infinitesimal mechanical achievements — extracting rusted/welded screws, for example — that I’m beginning to feel like the master of the universe, or maybe just the master of the 40-foot universe that is my sailboat.

    Along the same lines, for a certain type of person there’s also a direct relationship between the length of time since the last shower, and happiness, such that if you’re that type of person, you’ll say oh yeah, and if you’re not that kind of person, you’ll have no idea what I mean. This only occurred to me recently, when I realized that I felt something like I felt when I rode my bicycle across the country seven years ago. I was so out-there, so busy doing my thing, so engaged, that there was no time or place to worry about comfort and cleanliness and appearance. That’s how I feel when I’m climbing, and that’s the feeling I’ve enjoyed most of this week.

    There’s a cliche about boat-owning: they say that the best two days of a boat-owner’s life are the day you buy your boat and the day you sell it. Empirical evidence already suggest the opposite.

    First, buying the boat was no fun. Buying the boat — literally paying for it — entailed electronically wiring the largest check of my life to some obscure bank in Seattle, while at the same time second-guessing myself and wondering if I’d made a grave mistake. Did I get the right boat? Did I take a big hasty jump too soon? Did I just screw myself for the next three years? Five years? Life? My concerns ranged from tiny to huge, such that the actual boat-buying was fraught with anxiety and concern and distress. Which is to say that the day I bought the boat was not one of the best days of my life — 99% of the other days in my life, in fact, were better. So I don’t know what’s up with most boat-owners. Maybe they lead very boring lives? Maybe psychologically, they think that they can buy their happiness, rather than create it? Who knows. Point is, every day since the day I bought the boat has been more satisfying. That much is clear after one week.

    Second, I saw the previous owners of this boat five months ago, when we took her for a sea trial, and I would testify in court that they assuredly did not enjoy selling this boat. I think having it made them feel young, spirited, engaged, and adventurous, and that selling it only reminded to them that life’s circumstances — age, ability, mobility — had finally caught up with them and forced their hand.

    I bring up the cliche because recognizing it as false is somewhat vindicating, given that I’ve only lived on the boat for a week. It makes me feel like my experiences thus far are propelling me into the life of a true sailor (or at least boat owner), and if taking this step only takes one week, then shit, maybe I will sail around the world next year.

    Speaking of time, I was concerned, to say the least, that moving onto the boat would eat up all my time. I wondered how I’d have time fix up the boat while still having time to cook, write emails, deal with work, and answer my cell phone, let alone read the news, keep up with the New Yorker, and keep playing Scrabble online. Thus far, things have worked out well. I’ve found that I can bounce from fix-it mode to domestic mode rapidly, and probably because fix-it mode is so satisfying, I look at my computer less. At the same time, I rejoice a little more when I get a good email. Unfortunately, I fall asleep reading, but I wake up rearing to go.

  • Victory in San Carlos, Mexico

    Matt and I spent last week in San Carlos, Mexico, readying Syzygy for shipment. It was a week full of victories and discoveries and very satisfying moments, in which our labors appeared to have paid off.

    We flew to Phoenix on Friday night, and then hussled over to the Tufesa bus station, to catch an overnight bus down to San Carlos. At midnight I gave Matt a pack of Mentos, and wished him a happy 30th birthday – what better place to celebrate than on an uncomfortable plastic chair beneath fluorescent lights in a shady part of Phoenix? We rolled into Nogales at 6am, and I laughed as yet again, after all these trips to Mexico, we got green lights at the border. All these trips, and never searched; while in the States, airport security takes my toothpaste because the tube exceeds 3 ounces.

    Our first day began with minor victories:
    – Syzygy was present and floating, with only 2lbs of caked bird shit on her solar panels. Even her hull was clean.
    -The engine’s oil was oily, as it should be, which was good news, since we thought maybe the oil cooler was leaking. It also started right up, purring along. Phew!

    There was only one small defeat: Rafael, the cushion guy, hadn’t left our cushions on the boat for us. I called him, and he agreed to meet us the next day.

    We went to bed excited about being back on the boat, optimistic about the week ahead. Since we lacked cushions, we slept on wood, with a pile of towels/clothes beneath us. Also, since we didn’t close the hatches, a small army of mosquitos (who knew they lived in the Sonoran desert?) invaded our quarters, and vexed us all night. I woke up in the V berth with bug bites all over my knuckles; Matt woke up in the quarter berth with bug bites all over his face, like some pimple-faced teenager.

    The next day, with the tides in our favor, we were able to escape from the marina, and take Syzygy sailing in light winds, in beautiful green water. She sailed great.

    Another victory: the packing gland (the seal around the propeller shaft) didn’t leak one drop. Here’s to Jon for fixing it well last time.

    Then began the fixing… Matt and I replaced the cruddy/clogged drain hose in the the propane locker, and rebuilt both of our manual bilge pumps.Screens in the hatches kept our quarters bug free, but since Rafael never showed up, we slept on wood yet again.

    The next morning, I climbed up the mast with a measuring tape and calipers, and we spent an hour measuring our rigging (here’s hoping we measured correctly) and inspecting parts like the tangs and spreader tips.

    Another victory: we successfully assembled, inflated, and rowed the dinghy (which we’ve named Cabron) across the marina, giddy as 10 year olds.

    I disassembled and serviced the bearings in a couple of blocks (pulleys), such that they run very smoothly. Two down, 40 to go.I also called Rafael and left a message; I told him I was contemplating kidnapping his firstborn son in return for our cushions.

    We started the next day with business, filling out the paperwork required for trucking Syzygy up to San Francisco while at the same time trying to keep my eyes from popping out of my head on account of the very big bill I’d be footing. Note: if there’s any problem with Customs, I’m blaming Jon, because his passport is expired.

    I called Rafael again; he said he’d meet us at 3pm. I crossed my fingers, and we returned to the boat.

    We spent the rest of the day removing the dodger and bimini frame, and lashing them to the deck; removing the solar panels and stowing them below deck; and spraying WD-40 on all of our old turnbuckles, hoping to loosen them just enough so that we could remove our old rigging when the time came.

    3pm came and went, and Rafael never showed up, so we slept on wood, yet again.

    We started the next day early and worked until midnight. First, Matt labeled all of the blocks and lines, so that when we disassembled everything we’d know what was what. We disconnected the wiring at the bottom of the mast, pulled off the mast boot (the waterproof rubber seal around the base of the mast on deck), and detached the table in the salon, which is bolted to the mast.

    And then, just before leaving the marina, Rafael showed up and forked over… half of our cushions. (Jon: you’re right, I love the color you picked.)

    Then, gear stowed, we went sailing around the peninsula, to the marina where Syzygy would be pulled out and put on a truck. With more wind, and some swells, we were getting some spray across the bow; perhaps we’d jumped the gun and removed the real mast boot a bit early. I quickly made an improv mast boot out of my towel, which worked pretty well.

    We sailed into the San Carlos marina in perfect conditions, with a stiff breeze off our port.

    We tied up at the dock for half an hour, then got hauled out and moved over to the workyard, beneath a tall crane and beside another boat on a truck, all wrapped up in plastic, ready for shipping. In a few more days, that’s what Syzygy would look like…

    At the workyard that evening, we set to work in a fury.

    We removed the boom and vang, and stowed the jib and mainsail. We unreeved all of the lines (pulled them through various pulleys), and tied them to the mast, and went to bed when we lacked the energy to do anything else.

    Early the next morning, we worked like madmen to prepare the mast for removal, so that we wouldn’t have to pay for many hours of labor at $150/hr — the fee for mast removal. (I’d heard a horror story of sorts, of a mast that became welded to the hull, such that it took 2 days to remove it… at, yes, $150/hour. Ouch.) We spent an hour fiddling with needlenose pliers and vice grips, wrestling with the rusty old cotter pins in the turnbuckles, and finally disconnected the 4 lower shrouds, the 2 intermediate shrouds, and the baby stay, leaving only the forestay, backstay, and uppers holding the mast up. Then we unwired the antenna from the backstay, unbolted the furler from the forestay (a task and a half), and struggled to get the spinnaker pole off of the mast, since the quick release mechanism had locked up.

    Just as we finished, five guys from the workyard climbed aboard, looped a thick rope around the mast, and turned on the crane’s winch. Slowly, the line rose up to the spreaders, and held the mast firmly. They removed the upper stays, while one of the guys went to the bow (to removed and then hold the forestay, and prevent the furler from bending), and another went to the stern (to remove and then hold the backstay, and prevent the antenna insulators from bending), and another guy went below deck to guide the mast up and out of the cabin. And then, just like that, the mast was up in the air, dangling from the crane, no longer part of Syzygy. Slowly, they lowered the mast to the ground, and propped it up, horizontally, on two stands beside the boat, and walked away. Total time: 25 minutes, close to record time.

    We spent the rest of the day removing the rigging from the mast (four of the clevis pins were rusted/welded to the tangs, requiring the assistance of others and the use of a grinder), drilling holes in the keel and rudder (to drain water which had gotten in there — we’ll repair the holes in San Francisco), removing the spreaders, and grinding away the crack in the keel from which the water entered. Of course, I also called Rafael, and pleaded, in my best Spanish, for him to bring us our friggin’ cushions.The next day, we removed the bow pulpit, which required unwiring the nav lights that feed through the poles, as well as removing the backing plates that hold the bow pulpit in place. This, in turn, required crawling in the chain locker to access the backing plates (which had rusted almost all the way through), and grinding away the heads of the bolts on the 2 rear poles, because we didn’t have the time or energy to dismantle the cabinets in the V berth so that we could access the backing plates. (Alas, there’s a job waiting for us when the boat gets up to San Francisco.) We cut off the old crappy lifelines with a grinder (which was very satisfying), and then loosened the radar arch, dealt with the wires that run through it, and lowered it to the cockpit. We took all the instruments off the top of the mast, then wrapped it up (w/backstay and forestay still on) with lines and rags and plastic, like a big, long, $30,000 Christmas present.

    That night, our work almost done, we gobbled up some fish tacos and tossed back a few beers at the Captain’s Club, and talked shop with captain Bob, an American expat/badass-sailor/amazing-old-fella who lives on a similar Valiant 40. We told him we felt like we’d learned so much about our boat just by taking it apart, and that everything — except for getting our cushions from Rafael — was pretty much working out for us.

    We spent our last day in San Carlos lashing/stowing/packing/cleaning everything else up, and realized that exhaustion was creeping up on us. We’d been in San Carlos exactly one week, and been working so constantly that it was hard to recall what jobs we completed only a few hours before, let alone a few days before. I was amazed at how much we’d gotten done; how desperately we needed an off-day; and how we just barely pulled this whole thing off. I was looking forward to returning home, and even to the bus ride back to Phoenix, and the comfort of soft, reclining seats.

    Speaking of which, on that last day in Mexico, just as were were headed to town to get some tacos, Rafael showed up. He delivered a few more of — but not all of — our cushions. What a cabron.

  • a challenge already

    A couple of friends have emailed me, asking about our progress. Have we sailed Syzygy yet? Is the engine running? Have we practiced motoring around the marina, in and out of our slip? Have we fixed our leaky water tanks?

    Until last night, my answer was a sad litany of qualified justifications and hedged excuses.

    Here’s what i mean:

    Q: Have we sailed yet?
    A: Nope… but we were GONNA sail yesterday, and were all set to do so. Sails up, stuff stowed, everything set. We were especially eager to sail for the most ridiculous reason, though. We wanted to cut up the port water tank while out at sea. Why? Because it wouldn’t fit out the companionway, and was just sitting there, a big hulk of stainless steel, in our cabin salon. Why couldn’t we just cut it up at the marina? Because the jig saw is really loud, and the marina master specifically told us not to use power tools on our boat, since we’re docked so close to a bunch of fancy beach-front houses. Given that we’re so new to most everything we’re doing, we didn’t wanna get kicked out of the marina for making a racket.

    So anyway, we really really really wanted to go sailing. Thing is, the tides totally screwed us. Actually, the marina sorta screwed us, too. The canal entrance to Marina Real is shallow — about 5’6″ shallow. Syzygy has a draft of 6’6″. So she can only get out of the marina when the tide is at least 1′ above the mean. And yesterday, high tide was at 4:30am. Here’s the chart for Jan 3rd:

    3:10 AM MST Moonrise
    4:26 AM MST High tide 0.62 Meters
    7:15 AM MST Sunrise
    1:49 PM MST Moonset
    2:13 PM MST Low tide -0.20 Meters
    5:40 PM MST Sunset

    We didn’t find this out until 8am, though, and by then it was too late. It all the begs the question, though: how does anyone go sailing around here? Are all the sailboats trapped in the marina until the stars align?

    At any rate, that’s why we didn’t go sailing.

    Q: Is the engine running?
    A: Yes, finally. This is a shameful story too. We put Syzygy in the water a week ago, and it felt glorious for about 10 minutes, until Matt tried to start the engine, and it just wouldn’t catch. Some small puffs of gray smoke came out of the exhaust pipe, but that’s it. So — and I hate to admit it — we got towed to our slip. Yep. We got towed, by a dinky little dinghy, with a tiny outboard motor, about 100 feet, over to our slip. And we almost crashed into the dock. It was pathetic.

    Anyway, we were gonna have a mechanic look at our engine, but Matt persevered. On the advice of another sailor, he bled the fuel line, letting pockets of air out so that diesel fuel could proceed straight to the engine. It worked. So the engine now runs. And we know now how to start it.

    Q: Have we practiced motoring around the marina, docking and such?
    A: Well, we had planned to spend days doing this, but got caught up a) dealing with the damn water tanks, b) not being able to start our engine (see above), and c) running around San Calors and Guaymas buying tools and supplies we needed.

    Q: Have we fixed our leaky water tanks?
    A: Not yet, but we’ve made good progress. We got the starboard watertank out of the boat, but the port watertank is a couple of inches bigger, and wouldn’t fit out the door. After finding the hand-saw worthless at cutting through 1/8″ stainless steel, and after having melted through six metal-cutting jig saw blades, and after having tried-but-finally-decided-against removing the companionway trim (to widen the door), we found a cutting disc for our grinder. After a brief test, we also decided to screw the marina rules and go for it. So late last night, we closed the hatches, padded the tank in pillows and cushions and blankets (to muffle the sound), and hacked away at the thing. Actually, Matt and Jon hacked away at the tank while I stealthily patrolled the dock, VHF radio in hand, so that we wouldn’t get busted. We used a code to disguise our operation:

    Shark to Whale – Are we clear to begin feeding?
    Whale to Shark – The waters are all clear to begin feeding. Proceed.

    -15 minutes later-

    Shark to Whale – Papa shark is, uh, getting bitten by electric eels. Mama shark is taking over, because she has thicker skin.
    Whale to Shark – Copy that, Shark. How’s feeding going?
    Shark to Whale – Uh, feeding is slowing down because, uh, the shark’s teeth are getting dull, and we don’t have any dentures. Also, there’s an oil spill.
    Whale to Shark – Um, copy that. Waddya mean, an oil spill?
    Shark to Whale – The waters are cloudy. It’s hard to breathe or feed, Whale.
    Whale to Shark — Ah, copy that.

    Shortly before midnight, the feeding was over, and for the first time in weeks, things seemed to go our way. Nobody haggled us for making noise. The grinder didn’t break (though Matt ground the cutting disc down to a tiny nubbin.) The power didn’t go out. Nothing caught fire (though Matt did burn a hole through a cushion, and ripped two blankets, and filled the cabin with smoke, and covered every surface in metal dust). NEVERTHELESS, we got that friggin’ water tank cut into 3 chunks, and got it out of the boat. Mission accomplished.

    Actually, that’s only the first half of the mission. The old, leaky watertanks are out of the boat, and now we’ve gotta build new tanks, which we’re gonna make out of epoxy-coated marine-grade plywood. We’ve cut the pieces, but run out of time on this trip to continue…so it’ll have to wait.

    All of which brings up a good point: the whole “fix up the sailboat thing” has forced us to readjust our perhaps overly-ambitious, landlubber-style, deadline-driven agendas. It’s put us in some tough spots, and brought out anger, frustration, exhaustion, and unwarranted criticism. It’s forced us to discuss out approaches to solving problems together, and forced us to admit to each other that we’ve got to be more patient and easy on each other. And we’ve only just started. It’s a challenge already.