Ean Has Fun While Jane Has None

Dear Ean,  Thanks very much for your live(ly) report and the reminder that you are off having fun (and showers and cable TV) while I am having none.  Here is MY report.

Picked up the new Raymarine control head from Air Facility yesterday - only $27 for shipping/handling and customs - how cool is that?  Had a couple of drinks with Rick at the Balboa Yacht Club, talking about how unlikely it is that we will actually get the control head installed sans hitches.  Oh, yes, there will be hitches, Rick warns.  You know how he is - ever the optimist.  But if you're lucky, the hitches will be unhitched before you get back.  

Steal THIS, panga-gang!

Then I had a couple of drinks with Ron and Heather, and I think I must have seemed a little pathetic, so Heather encouraged me to ramble on at great length about my Navy days - ha.  I mentioned about the drinks, right?

Shared a taxi from Balboa back to La Playita with an Aussie couple - they were headed for pizza night at La Eskinita.  They're staying on a mooring at Balboa, they told me, because they think it's a tad bit unsafe down here- four dinghies stolen from Las Brisas! Don't ask me about the fourth dinghy - I think it's just the cruisers' coconut telegraph, telescoping the bad news from the wrong side of the tracks causeway.


So, home sweet home!  I had a healthy dinner: some chocolate chip cookie dough and una copa de vino blanco con es-SKWIR ( that's a glass of wine with Squirt - in case you've forgotten all your español, now that you're in los estados unidos).  And then I went to bed.  But I didn't actually go to bed.  I was feeling a bit creeped out, I have to admit, being ALL ALONE out here.  And no way to raise the dinghy by myself.   I not only locked up the dinghy - I actually locked the door.  I even closed some random sea cocks, to ensure that the boat would remain afloat, and tried to check our anchor waypoint, to make sure we hadn't dragged.  Yes, it's true that we haven't budged from this spot for months - but still.  Then I realized that we put the waypoint not on the chartplotter, but on your iPad, which you are probably using to read this blog post, over yonder in los estados unidos.  So will you check it for me?  Have we dragged?  

New dinghy lift motor: fun, fun, fun all the time!

Finally fell asleep at about about three in the morning, after a fearsome lightning storm and lots of rain.  I slept with the fan running, even though it wasn't hot, after all the rain.  I wanted the white noise to cover up the sound of the panga quietly approaching the boat... of the swimmer slipping into the water and boarding JOY to cut the dinghy free so it could drift off.. of the panga picking up the swimmer and putting the dinghy under tow, once safely away.... None of that actually happened of course. But I'm going to thank Heather, when I see her, for all this helpful imagery about how dinghies get stolen here in Panama.

Tonight, though: no worries about the dinghy.  Juan and his amigo (did you catch that guy's name?) have finished installation of our shiny brand new dinghy lift motor.  The dinghy, as I live and breathe, is High and Dry.  Steal THIS, panga-gang. 

So... All is well on JOY... except... the cats miss you.  Not enough humans here to serve their needs.

Stupid stupid stupid everything

Ean and I have been sniping at each other lately.  I know, right?!  Us? The happy couple?  The smiling, laughing pair who put the JOY in More Joy Everywhere!?

Things have been going wrong.  Family tragedies, broken boat, ticking clock, draining bank account.  Disaster.  Delay.  Depression.  Disappointment.  Debby Downer?  Yep, that's me.

So this morning, after a couple of - shall we call them "verbal exchanges"? - I say, "Let's make a deal.  We won't say anything negative about the boat or each other for 24 hours."  Ean says: "DEAL!"

A half-hour later I am sorting through a bag of items we purchased during our last trip to the hardware store. We had MEANT to purchase a deep socket wrench and a socket set, which we need, we think, to fix our generator.  It was the primary purpose of our visit to Novey's.  We found the guy with the spiffy blue Novey polo shirt and the key to the display case, and he fished out the bits we wanted.  We already knew, from our other shopping excursions 'round these parts, that if it comes out of a locked case, you can't just stick it in your cart - it gets walked up to the cashier, and you pick it up and pay for it on the way out.  Off he goes, up to the front, while we nod and wave and then finish our shopping.  Only, by the time we got up to the caja with our other odds and ends, we forgot about the wrench and socket set. (It could be noted that if we would have remembered the tools, we wouldn't have known any words to help us get them from behind the counter, but probably wild exaggerated gestures would have done the trick eventually.)

As I'm emptying the Novey bag this morning, I say, "I can't BELIEVE we forgot the wrench and socket set.  How could we be so STUPID?" And without missing a beat, Ean replies sarcastically, "REALLY?  You can't believe it?  You can't believe that we would be that stupid?!" It dawns on us.  It is 11:52 a.m. We are Nattering Nabobs of Negativism.

I say, "Start over!"

Ten minutes later, Ean is engaging in his new favorite hobby: the door to the starboard head, which is still off its hinges - hinge-less, actually, to be more accurate.  You can read about how we got help to fix the port head door here.  Ean is tackling the starboard door on his own, but I am his trusty, if half-hearted, assistant. (I suggested we just throw the door away and put up a shower curtain.)  He broke off a drill bit in one of the holes for the hinge screws, so he asks me to bring him The Big Screwdriver, which is one of our favorite tools, because it is so multifunctional.  I say, "If it doesn't work on the screws or the broken drill bit, maybe you could just beat the door into submission."  His lightening-quick response: "Or I could just STAB myself."

Image borrowed from the cheery, ever-optimistic Livia
(SV Estrellita 5.10b -pfffftt, what kinda goofy boat name is that?)

Oh dear.  It is now 12:08 p.m. and we are resetting the clock again.

Sometimes CRUISING SUCKS.  People will tell you it doesn't.  But.  Really.  It.  Does.  And now it is 12:31 p.m., and NO, dear reader, I am NOT going to reset the clock.  I didn't say it out loud - doesn't count.

Tune in tomorrow (or maybe the next day?) to see if we manage to get through 24 hours of relentless POSITIVITY.

PS.  I just realized that I wrote this post on one of our many technological devices from which we cannot access the internet while on board.  And this particular device (an iPad) doesn't have a USB port, so I can't transfer the file anywhere unless I go ashore and find a wifi connection.  So. HOW COOL IS THAT?  An excuse to get lunch at Mi Ranchito, which is super close to the dock, and they're really friendly, they have free wifi, and good food - the most awesome papaya-melón smoothie - mmm hmmm....  Life is good.  (phew.  I turned that right around, didn't I?)  

PPS. And now it's 3:15 p.m., and we had a VERY nice lunch, and the Batido de Papaya y Melón  was AWESOME.  We have now been positive for 3 hours and 7 minutes - and counting!!!

Oh, JOY!

Heads Up

So how many times has this happened to you? There you are, transiting the 8th (or 11th or 5th depending on which list you consult) wonder of the modern world with people you've never met before and people you barely know. You've planned and prepped for days to make a good...no, a stellar, impression. You want people to look back and remark, even years later: "Do you remember that time we crossed the Panamá Canal in that boat 'More Joy to All'.. or, 'Lots of Joy for Everyone', or whatever it was and it was so awesome? Man, those guys sure knew how to throw a canal crossing party! I've been through the canal 9 times since then on other boats and none of them were anywhere as much fun as that More Joy Something boat."

an una-door-able situation

And thanks to all your planning and, yes, very generous spending, you pull off an excellent, once-in-a-lifetime event.  Flawless, really, except for one small technical difficulty: the head door comes loose from its "hinge" (by design, a piece of plastic covered wire running its length) causing your translucent door to dangle precariously and leaving the unlucky occupant to wonder at how he or she could have misunderstood so egregiously the operation of a door. But they are an exceptionally hardy bunch and all is forgiven, if not forgotten and, after all, the rest of the transit does go beautifully and you arrive at your anchorage and your anchor sets perfectly on the first go and all is well.

The Sad Facts Surrounding Our Current Lavatorial Plight

With tenuous wisps of sorrow, wrung from the once-supple sinews of a shimmering and momentaneously inexhaustible faith, will they, in successive dawn-brought bursts, tread, with or without malice, through the ruins of their legacies, those woebegone remnants of possibility ravaged by the myopic zeal of their ancestors.

Ah, but sadly, one cannot spend all one's time penning a pasquinade of Faulkner's prose style. Some days, one must look for a hose. Not really "a hose," which is to say not just any hose or even, for that matter, just any category of hose, but a special, nay, in fact, singularly unique type of hose. A plumbing hose, a hose that will, by its very purpose and design, enable us to use one of our two heads.

Raft-UP: Two-Toned Task Management

"Yeah, I see it. I just can't tell
where it's coming from."

WANTED: Mature couple experienced in all aspects of world cruising. Must be skilled in route planning and navigation, weather tracking, clearance procedures, diesel mechanics, marine electrical systems and electronics and sail repair. The successful candidates will also possess extensive handy-person aptitude and be completely trilingual (English, French, Spanish), with competence in at least one Germanic language. Additional duties will include, but are not limited to: provisioning, menu planning, cooking, cleaning (inside, out, and bottom), laundry, dish washing, and general straightening. Only those interested in paying their own way and living in a dinghy need apply.

In the meantime...

The Backside of the Dream

We're coming up on our one-year cruising anniversary, and Ean and I have been reflecting on our new life. We're still pretty clueless.  We've found this life to be more difficult than we expected.  Things break all the time and we don't know how to fix them.  Ean misses toast.  I miss floor space.  We hate being mono-lingual and sand.

We read a lot of cruising blogs and check-in with several cruisers who have facebook pages.  These people, as I have noted previously, are mostly

younger and prettier and smarter and more creative than we are.  They fix engines, install solar panels, sew cushions, grow sprouts, revarnish their teak, and understand how their systems work.  In their spare time, they sketch, make jewelry, write poetry, play the banjo, kayak, scuba dive, take fabulous underwater pictures, and never watch television.

Recently, a few of these cruisers, in their spare spare time, have begun posting lovely scenes with life-affirming messages.  For example, there will be an image of a sailboat, at anchor off a perfect deserted beach, and inscribed across the top, in an aesthetically pleasing font, a sentiment about Living Your Life: mindfully, in the moment, to the fullest, or whatnot.

These cruisers - they are inspiring.  We admire and envy them.  Early on, we, too, aspired to be inspiring.  But as it turns out, Ean and I - we're more like a cautionary tale.  But that's okay.  We've come to accept and even embrace our identity. In fact, we've come to understand it as a mission.

This mission: to anti-inspire others.  We're here to maintain the balance of the universe.  Our message to aspiring cruisers, or anyone who dares to dream of casting off the ties that bind and living a life full of fun/adventure and/or intention/meaning:  Is it too late to get your deposit back?

Here, humbly presented, for the first time in graphical format, an Expression of Anti-Inspiration.

Cast Off!

It's been a long cuatro semanas, but Jane is back to being her old left-handed self. We could have gone back to La Clínica Prada, the urgent care facility, but really, what have they got that we haven't got?  So for all you do-it-yourself types, here's how to remove a cast in a few easy steps.

Tools of the trade

First, collect all the necessary tools and supplies:

1. A towel to sop up drips
2. White vinegar
3. A hacksaw
4. Kitchen shears
5. A bucket of water

Learning as We Go

¿Comprende?

It's not often that I get to report on a success with anything related to our engines, so far it's not ever.  But I am pleased to finally be able to say that all the time (and money) I've spent watching diesel mechanics work on them has actually paid off.

To recap: our generator broke down, was fixed and broke down again in Marathon, FL--all within a week.  The starboard engine started overheating somewhere in the Bahamas, we don't recall where or when exactly.  So it was only a matter of time before our port engine demised in one of the eleven thousand four hundred and seventy-nine ways a diesel engine can. It did warn us, I must admit. It lost the use of its ignition stop button a couple of weeks after the starboard engine lost the use of its button. So it came as a shock to neither of us when I turned the ignition key this morning in order to power up the batteries in order to start the inverter in order to boil water for coffee and it only went "click, click, click."

...and Nearly Nary a Drop to Drink

There's a story told of a man who lives in a small house with his large family. Things, as you might imagine, are pretty crowded. But he loves his family, of course, so he takes it all in stride.

One day, his wife announces that her parents will be moving in with them indefinitely. Well, if he had been feeling crowded before, now he's climbing the walls. In desperation, he goes to see his rabbi.

"Rabbi," he says "I don't know what to do. My home, as you know, is pretty small and I've been blessed with a large family. Things are pretty crowded, but I love my family, so I try to take it in stride. My in-laws moved in with us recently and now we are bursting at the seams. I never have a moment to myself. We yell and curse one another from morning to night. I'm about to lose my mind. I love my wife, but I don't think I can take her parents living with us much longer. Rabbi, what should I do?"

As Threatened

I said I would do it and I've decided to keep my word. Fair warning to all you aspiring cruisers: This be your fate as well should ye fancy a life before the mast. ..Just sayin'.

(The key to successful cruising is the ability to fix things.  Failing that, the key to successful cruising is the ability to adapt.)

But wait. There's More!

Every so often, when my self esteem is in danger of reaching a psychologically healthy level, I threaten to start a "broke log." Similar in function to the maintenance log I will probably never get around to making, the purpose of my broke log is twofold. Primarily it is to help me plan my days. Variety, as we all know, is the spice of life and that, I have discovered, is also the secret to rewarding boat repair work. So rather than tackle similar types of repairs in succession, I like to mix it up a bit. If I fix (OK, fail to fix) a plumbing issue one day, I'll usually opt for, say, a carpentry or electrical problem to fail to fix the next.

I Am Shocked by How Little I Understand Electricity

As ardent followers of this blog well know, we now have lots of power on JOY. You know this because I've said so repeatedly. We know this because the guys at SALT said so repeatedly. Our solar panels generate 654 watts, our house battery bank has or is or is rated at or generates or stores over 1500 amp hours...of something. On top of that, we have (had) a 5 kilowatt diesel generator. Doubtless, it will be a generator again someday. It currently serves as a 392 pound stern weight, handy in the event a whale or some other leviathan runs up JOY's butt.

Top This (A Travesty in Two Acts)

                                                                                                                                                        ACT I

Scene 1

SETTING
Place: Hawk Channel, Florida Keys
Time: Early Sunday afternoon

Cap'n Jane and her trusty XO, Ean, are approaching Looe Key Reef where they plan to pick up a mooring ball for a couple of hours so Jane can put on her snorkeling gear and try out her new
underwater camera.

Cap'n Jane

OK, Let's put the sails down.

XO Ean

WTF!

Cap'n Jane

What's wrong?

XO Ean

The topping lift just came undone!

(They both look aloft.)

Cap'n Jane

Oh, yeah, there it is.  I see it.  Good thing you stopped winching when you did.  We'll deal with that tomorrow.  OK, I'm into the wind.  Drop the main.  

There's No Place(?) Like Home...

We have broken an anecdotal record here at the Marathon Marina: most packages ever delivered to a slipholder.  In another post, I'm taking up the issue of hobbies for live-aboards.  One of Jane's, we realized the other day, one that has carried over from our land lubbing days, is online shopping.  Since we can only get packages while in port, Jane buys all the items she's been putting into her online shopping cart for the past however long.  It's like Christmas morning meets Groundhog Day.

The day before yesterday, we got a clear acrylic tray which we're using as a spice rack.   While cleaning off that thin film of grease that always coats the tops of spice jars, I let out a quick chuckle.  To Jane's query regarding what I found funny about wiping off spice jars, I said with what felt like a sad smile, "spice jars always get that coat of grease on them, even on a boat.  It's something familiar.  So little is here."

The guys from SALT, who have been on JOY for so long now, they're practically crew are pretty much finished now.  They would have been finished sooner but we kept adding back those last few things on our original list.  Yesterday, our iPod integrated marine stereo arrived.  We were going to toss "install new stereo" onto the tail end of their list, but a potent combination of impatience (the stereo that was on JOY when we bought her didn't accomodate iPods, so the 626 song "boat track" we so lovingly compiled before we left has been shelved all this time)  and chagrin (it's embarrassing to own a boat and be so inept at all things electronic) inspired us to give hooking it up ourselves a go.

Good News from the Department of Redundancy Department

Of the many advantages afforded to the owner of the modern cruising catamaran, some are perhaps less readily apparent than others. Sure, there is the increased living space compared to monohulls, the greater access to sunlight, better stability, etc. But one less obviously useful--though by no means less obvious--feature of catamaran design is what I like to call "arkiness." Simply put, much of it comes in twos, for instance two hulls. It is in a very real way twice the boat that is a monohull (hence the joke among cat owners that monohullers own half a boat). This dualist design feature often enables catamaran owners to do something monohullers can only dream about--cannibalize their own boats.

Just a bit of rescrewing  and a starboard piece is perfect for port.

A Slice of Life

Ean is fixing the port forward berth, which caved in when we loaded it up with 350 cans of cat food, two cases of booze, six mega jars of peanut butter, two mega jars of olives, one case of tuna, one case of Dove body wash, and various other “provisions” (and, oh yeah, Ean was on it, too).

This morning I have TWICE managed to knock over Ean’s FULL glass of iced tea.  MORE TEA EVERYWHERE!

Making Our Way from TC to Great Harbour Cay

We left TC on Sunday, March 25, with two items left on our Abaco must-do list. 1. Guana: Partake of the world-famous Sunday pig roast at Nippers; and 2. Man-O-War: Pick up our sail from Jay, who was patching a small tear. (We need a sewing machine, we've decided.)

The wind was what they call "fresh" (when they don't want to say "damn it's windy"). We put a reef in the mainsail before we even got underway, which seemed prudent: we could see whitecaps even in the canal. We were also flying our baby jib (100%), since the big genoa was off getting some love from Jay. The wind was blowing hard from the southwest, and even with the greatly reduced sail area, we flew to Great Guana Cay averaging over eight knots. A great sail, and we were feeling quite competent - it was like we actually knew what we were doing, ya know what I mean?

Scanning...everything BUT the horizon

In case you were wondering how folks who chuck it all and go to sea decide what to bring with them, we can say now from both personal experience as well as the tales told to us by others, usually not by a means that enables them to be anywhere near as brutal as they'll ultimately need to be.  It's a weird thing, when you think about it.  Not living in the relatively confined space that is a yacht, even one on the "Wow, that's your first boat?  That's big!  How big IS it, it seems REALLY big!?" end per se, but living with all the things necessary for regular, everyday life plus ocean going travel always near at hand.  Put another way, our cooking oil and engine oil are stored about 5 steps apart, our life jackets are filed next to our laundry, and I can get from the cockpit where I was watching the sun set with a cigar and glass of whiskey to my tool box to grab a screwdriver and then to the stupid, f**king, STILL leaking water heater under the starboard aft berth in 7 seconds flat.  All of which is to say that any method by which one can reduce or eliminate a category of their inventory is well worth considering.

Ship's Scorecard

• Pilings (2) out
• Genoa: repaired and installed
• Battery charger: fried
• Water heater: rebusted again
• Refrigeration system: smoking
• Boat hook: broken

Later today, we sail, wind permitting, to Marsh Harbour where we'll anchor.  There's a boatyard there.  We'll call on Monday in the hopes that they can take us right away.  If we're extremely lucky, we'll be able to get a new battery charger (unlikely, they'll probably have to order one from The States), a new refrigeration system (ditto), and have the water heater repaired once and for all.  Although, the more I think about it, the more I'm ready to rip out both of the latter and just eat beef jerky and take cold showers.  Sure would free up a lot of space for storage (less the space required for a year or more's supply of beef jerky).  Although, Jane probably does not share my mounting animosity toward all things mechanical and electrical, nor my growing fondness for beef jerky.

Water, Water Everywhere...

fix #1(some hose clamps is good)

...And nary a drop to drink, quoth Jane this morning simultaneously impressing me with her store of maritime poetry and tidily summing up our situation.  We were anchored in Marsh Harbour with a still broken (or, more accurately re-broken) hot water heater.  You are, of course, wondering how a busted water heater could deprive us of potable water.  At least I hope for your sake you are, because I'm about to explain.  The hose that sends heated water to our faucets sprung a leak.  This caused the water pump to sense that water was being "called for" just as if a faucet were open so it kept pumping water out of our water tanks and into--and immediately out of--the water heater until it emptied itself out into the bilges.  "But, isn't the water pump noisy?" you ask.  "Didn't you hear it working?  Didn't it make you suspicious?"  Why, yes, it is noisy but not as noisy as the engines, wind, water, and stereo combined.  By the time we heard the pump it was pumpin' nothing but air.  Well, I'd only fixed it once, thus far, so it stood to reason it wasn't fixed fixed.