The Heroes

Any of you who have followed the blog for awhile were made aware of our good friend Mike's terrible tragedy in which he lost his wife and was badly injured. He was transported via Life Flight away from their catamaran in Staniel Cay, Bahamas, and taken to the hospital in Nassau. Later, he was transported via land medical transport back to his home in Colorado. This left one huge problem, how to get the boat back to the US to her home base.

I can't even begin to tell you how many people stepped up to the plate to offer help. Some folks guarded the boat in the anchorage so that it wouldn't get vandalized. Some took care of Mike's dog. Many many people donated to the GoFundMe effort. And many others offered their services free of charge to return the boat to NC.

In the end, it was Renee and her husband Chris of Oceanaire Yacht Delivery who brought the boat back to its home berth where it arrived yesterday. For Mike, this is a huge relief and some closure. For Renee and Chris it was a gift, a giving back, a paying forward, things that the cruising community are so wonderfully good at. And, in the end, I hope it deposits a huge ton of points in their Black Box.

So if you find yourself in need of a yacht delivery, please consider supporting these folks with your business.

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Oceanaire Yacht Delivery

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A Sad Goodbye

I've said it so many times before, that the cruising community was the best part of the years that we've lived on the boat. The friendships that we've made cruising have run the deepest of any friendships we've ever had. I've often wondered why and, in the end, I suppose it's that we all share that same longing for wandering and voyaging and nature and community.

One of those friendships was with Mike and Anja Boyd of This Rat Sailed. They were one of the first people that we connected with on this journey and we hit it off immediately. Over the years comments have flown back and forth between our blogs and we have shared time in various ports, over a hardtop build for their catamaran, over hurricane prep for Joaquin, over Ubiquiti Bullet frustrations, over Tim's cardiac arrest and my broken wrist.

But this week...this week was not supposed to be something we had to share, that no one should ever have to go through.

This past Sunday, as Mike and Anja explored the area around Staniel Cay in The Bahamas, a speedboat up on plane approached them in their dinghy. Mike tried every maneuver he could to avoid the boat but in the end he was unable to do so. The boat hit their dinghy and both Mike and Anja were thrown into the water. They were pulled out and taken to the local medical center where Anja was pronounced dead. Mike was critically injured with broken bones, and an even more broken heart.

How do you process such a needless tragedy? How do you account for the cost of another's recklessness? No words will suffice.

So hug your loved ones today, and count the blessings of each of those you call friends. They are a treasure of immeasurable value.

Tj:

If you are very lucky in life you will have a small collection of friends for whom you will do anything they ask without question or comment. My list of such friends included Mike and Anja. The challenges Deb and I faced less than a year ago were made much more bearable with Mike and Anja nearby. Deb had faced losing me. I was terrified when I heard her hit the concrete, sure that she was seriously injured.  As we worked our way through those events Mike and Anja were there. Whatever we needed they offered. No question. No comment. But what does one do in the face of such a loss? All I could do was sit stunned, not holding back the tears, as Deb relayed the news when I walked through the door, just home from work. No words suffice, but all of us can imagine how brutal life has become for Mike. Anything. Without question. Without comment. 

Ed Note: We have set up a GoFundMe to help Mike with medical, transport, and funeral expenses. Mike is completely overwhelmed and your kindness will go a long way to helping him heal.

https://gofund.me/160740c8

On being still

From where I sit in the cockpit, the still water is like glass, save for a very occasional ripple from a stray breeze. The cormorants, perched like yogis on the pilings of the abandoned dock next to us, spread their wings to dry in the late-day sun. The gulls swoop by just inches from the water, looking for their evening meal and offering their signature laugh as they execute a perfect hammerhead stall to repeat the glide in the other direction. The little silver fish they hunt flip and jump joyously, evading their captors. In the water just behind the boat, the jellyfish glide silently, their bells pulsing rhythmically.

Exiting the chaos that was last week and being transported here has been a bit of a shock. Every few minutes my mind replays the incidents of those few days, unbidden like an endless screen saver, images I fear will be forever burned there. But being here, in this place of peace, forced to stop what is for many a frenetic pace of life and just be still...is a gift, however much it nearly cost us.

When was the last time you just sat still? No phone, no TV, no computer, no tablet no Pandora. Just still. Many of us can’t even do it. We panic. How much is missed by our frenzy?

Stillness is an exercise that must be deliberate and practiced, and one I confess I avoid too often. I’m a doer. So much so that even my grandkids have stated to complete strangers that “DeMa is happiest when she has a project.” Cruising on a boat certainly offers opportunity to experience stillness—the quiet anchorage at the end of the day, the star-filled sky, the sunrise as you start the day's journey—but often the pressure of weather and The List steal away the stillness even on a boat.

This place, this sudden wrenching of our plans from our control, have forced me to stop. To be still. To realize in a very real way that we have a place in the network that is the natural life around us. It’s restorative. It’s calming. It’s peaceful. And right now, it’s the healing that we both need.

What it is

It has been a bit over a week since our plans got changed by my unanticipated visit to the cardiac ICU. At the one week check-up they downloaded a data dump from the thing in my chest. Apparently my heart fires normally 96% of the time, leaving the other 4% (a bit less than once a minute average) to be aided with a small jolt. At that rate, the battery life is estimated at 15 years. I was deemed as “doing just fine.” The bandage over the wound, which had grown to be more than a little irritating, was removed. The wound itself was also reported as "doing just fine". So now it is just a matter of waiting out the weeks it will take for the muscle to heal. Though limited to what can be done with my left arm, I'm not completely useless. (No snide remarks please.)

With Deb doing the heavy lifting, we assembled and installed a lift point for the dinghy at the aft starboard corner of the aft deck roof. With a newly purchased 8 to 1 block set at a much better (almost vertical) angle for the initial pull to get the thing out of the water, levering the Dink up onto the swim platform, motor and all, should be far less trying. We also added a U-bolt to the swim platform so the rig can be cleanly stowed but easily at hand when the Dink is in the water. The whole rig looks more “ship-shape” than did the one we were using. That one had the lines from two different block sets strung all the way across the aft deck to the top of the ladder up to the flybridge. We are waiting on the Dink motor to arrive after roughly 3/4 of a boat buck worth of work. Once it is mounted to the dink transom we will put the rig to the real test. It should be fine. As is usual for us, we likely overbuilt the anchor for the new lift point to some ridiculous degree. Other projects to help while away the weeks are mostly bright work and, maybe, some interior repairs. All things I can do without over taxing the still healing bits of my anatomy.

The enforced slow pace of my day makes time for sitting in the fly bridge, drinking coffee and watching nature do her thing with utter disregard to whatever foolishness us pesky humans might be up to. (I'm assuming the foolishness continues though we are not really paying much attention.) Thousands of little silver fish take to jumping in the mornings, ruffling the water and making it sound identical to rain. We are not sure what they are doing but cormorants and sea gulls swoop in for breakfast while larger birds, hawks and vultures, fly top cover. Dolphins can often be seen out in the river, casually broaching in a lazy way that suggests they are just poking around. Sunset and sunrise paint the waterscape with colors never seen in the city. There are no towering buildings in sight. With the exception of the bridge, the tallest structures around are the trees.  

Deb and I take long walks back to our old slip and then into town. My new heart control logs the “activity time” all by itself and blue tooth's the info to my phone. When necessary the info can be transmitted pretty much anywhere in the country. (The Borg weren't kidding when they claimed "Resistance is futile".) Often we chat with other live-a-board folks as we go. Sometimes we sit on another's boat and tell sea stories. Sometimes they wander over to our new parking place and come aboard. It all reminds me of a) how lucky I am and b) how much I enjoy this lifestyle. Once we get underway, there are plans to have various grandkids rotating on and off the boat, giving us some extra crew and them a chance to see what DeMa and Grampy T are doing while away. Eventually we will end up in St. Louis, mixing the two lifestyles together with the boat always available for an adventure. But for now we make the boat pretty, take it easy, and wait until it is time to go. Not bad considering what it is...and what it could have been.

The view of First Light from the bridge. First Light is in the center of the picture back 
near the tree line

After the storm...

Deb cranked up First Light yesterday morning and with the help of good friends we have made here in  Oriental, moved the boat about a half mile under the bridge and to a new marina. This one has floating docks so, once First Light was securely tied starboard side-to, I could get onboard using just one arm. Though less than a half mile away from the old slip, at the new one the boat rests an entirely different environment. Further from the bridge and around a bit of a corner into a small feeder creek, it is much quieter with very little fetch. The boat barely moves. All in all it is about as perfect a place to recover from the events of the last couple of days that one can imagine.

I was standing on the new dock as Deb pulled the boat in. There was no hint that this was her first time at the helm of a twin-engined trawler. Friends handled lines and helped her set fenders while I, under strict orders not to do anything dumb that would compromise my new accessory's install, didn't touch a thing. Though the boat is available, we will spend a couple of days in a hotel close to the hospital, just in case. After that, we will move back onto the boat, enjoy Oriental, and head off when this beat up old bod of mine is up to the task.

Our plans to do the Northern half of the Great Loop to St. Louis this year have, obviously, been derailed. It will be a couple of months before I can safely travel by boat as my left arm is, for all practical purposes, inoperable. The pacemaker is lodged between the muscle and skin that makes that arm go. It is vital that scar tissue forms around it and the electrical leads now imbedded in the heart muscles before I start using it for much more than scratching my nose. So I am recuperating in one of the prettiest places I have ever found in US waters. In a couple of months we will head off with the intent of taking one of the slowest passages up the ICW ever, landing in the north end of the Chesapeake Bay in the fall and putting First Light on the hard for the winter. Come spring we will pick up our journey, ending up in St. Louis sometime next year.

Messages, texts, emails, and phone calls have flooded in as news of the little episode spread, and I am deeply touched by all of the good thoughts and expressions of support. A life filled with good people is a good life. Mine is a really, really good life.

At least I can still play ukulele with the left hand!

Sunrise from the hotel this morning

Unexpected Chaos

cyborg

/ˌsaɪˈbɔrg/

noun

 a human being whose body has been taken over in whole or in part by electromechanical devices

synonyms:bionic man,

I am sitting in a hotel room after 2 nights in a hospital where I survived my very own near death experience. My heart simply stopped beating. The first attack came around 2 in the afternoon. I was laying back on the sofa on the boat after some easy buffing and polishing. A strange vertigo like haze (there are no words I know that can explain what was happening) flushed over me, instantly provoking a chaotic dream-like state too convoluted to describe. I came to with Deb shaking me and shouting my name, a look of panic on her face. I had been completely unresponsive for nearly a minute.

I came back completely disoriented, flowing with sweat, and barely able to move. Just sitting up was a long journey needing assistance. A 911 call brought help in the form of four large EMT workers who got me off the boat, into an ambulance, and to the ER a half hour drive away. It was the longest half hour I have ever endured. The vertigo-like experience was accompanied by a body-wide feeling of a brutal heart burn compounded by a feeling of complete dissociation. Every time the vehicle went around a corner or hit a bump the entire world dissolved into chaos. I had no idea what was wrong and, regardless of the multiple times I have managed to wreck myself, I don’t recall ever hurting that bad. The 911 crew was pumping in all kinds of drugs, none of which seemed to make any difference. Once in the ER, things didn’t improve much. They sat me in a chair and pushed me off to the side because they were so busy. The ride in the chair was as torturous as the ride in the ambulance. I clung onto Deb’s hand and the armrests, barely managing to stay in the seat. There was nothing but chaos and hurt. 

For what was roughly another (endless) half hour I was engaged in a relentless battle with a foe I couldn’t see and didn’t understand. After an eternity, someone finally got me on a gurney and connected up a heart monitor. The cause became apparent. My heart rate would plummet to 20 or less, the hurt and disorientation would become intense, then my heart would pick up the pace a little so I could hang on. That was what was happening. Why it was happening remained unknown. At one point my heart rate dropped to zero for more than 20 seconds. The alarms went off but no one noticed except Deb. She charged off to find help while the chaos and hurt returned to overrun the world. Somehow I struggled back from wherever it was that a heart rate of zero leaves you. But the 20 second flat line of a heartbeat was in the data file. Another eternity seemed to pass before an ER Doctor who could make some decisions saw the monitors. According to Deb he became more than a little angry and off I went to get a temporary pace maker probe installed through the right side of my neck and into my heart.

The first event on the boat happened at 2:28 pm. It was nearly 10:00 pm before I was wheeled into the Cardiac ICU, the temporary pacemaker finally bringing some relief. Over the course of the longest night ever, the device recorded having to step in to keep my heart going on at least 8 different occasions. The next morning the decision was made to implant a permanent and more sophisticated pacemaker near my left collarbone. I got out of the OR around 3:26. By 6:15 I was awake, eating, sitting up, with the chaos that had been my world collapsed back into one I recognized. And, to be fair, the care I received by the team in the Cardiac ICU was nothing short of excellent. For all of my practice, I am not a particularly good patient. But they took the best possible care of me during those initial hours of recovery. 

This afternoon I was discharged and now sit in a hotel near the hospital, just in case. The view out the window is of the river. The sky is quiet and blue.

If it had not been for the delay with the Dink motor we would have been in an isolated anchorage miles from any kind of help when the first event happened. There is little to no chance I would have survived the subsequent series of attacks. But now, except for the wounds inflicted by the temporary pacemaker wire run through the right side of my neck, the permanent install near my left collarbone, and four different places where IVs were inserted or blood was drawn, I am fine. My left shoulder is sore and it will be a few weeks before I will be allowed to lift that arm above shoulder height or reach across my torso. This is to give the pacemaker and the leads to my heart a chance to become buried in tissue and secured in place. I now fit the textbook definition of a cyborg. The thing is bluetooth enabled and can report my condition to a doctor half way across the country. It can also be adjusted as necessary. 

In the next day or so Deb and friends will move First Light from her current slip to a nearby marina that has floating docks. The move will make it possible for me to get on and off the boat over the six weeks or so I’m told it will take to fully recover. After that we will start a slow trek north with the goal of having First Light in the northern Chesapeake bay by fall. There she will go up on the hard until spring when we will splash once again to finish the trip to St. Louis. This is all very tentative but it is a good plan to start from. As the next few weeks of sitting on the boat in a beautiful place and in a quiet town we love pass, I will try to make sense of these last few days.

But I suspect that will not be possible. Nor, in a most basic way, does it matter. This is the day we have. What tomorrow will bring is mystery.

Moving Day

It is the last day in our little apartment for most of the rest of the year. The trailer is packed and waiting to go. Deb is doing last minute cleanups where I help by mostly trying to stay out of the way or doing whatever she needs help doing.

The plan is to be out the door no later than 0700 tomorrow to start the two day drive; though I am not at all sure we can do it in two days. My normal running speed on this trip is right against the speed limit. (Honest officer!) In a borrowed car and towing a trailer my guess is those (ahem) doing the speed limit will pass us like we are parked. The 15 hour drive time will be closer to 20. In addition we will have Grand daughter youngest along which will certainly add stops. Deb has an additional stop planned at Pilot Mountain State Park, the one we visited on a previous trip when the boys were along. It is really too wonderful a place to drive past when there are grandkids in the car. But we are in no hurry. I have already switched to cruiser standard time, which is the next best thing to no time at all. Tides, weather, currents, locks, bridges, and broken boat bits decide when and how far one goes when traveling by boat. To a long distance boater, discretion and a willingness to roll with the punches are the only parts of valor that matter.

Getting this close to returning to the water had me going back and reading a good portion of this blog. It always had a dual purpose. The first was to keep family and friends informed of where we were and what we were doing. The second was to share our adventures and challenges with those who might be considering a similar journey. We were as honest as we could be with both the ups and downs of full time cruising. Since we are about to drop the dock lines again after a nearly 5 year stint on land, a review of what we encountered that last time out seemed reasonable.

To be honest it provoked a few thoughts of “Why are we doing this again?” In the nearly 6 years we out the first time, less than half was spent wandering the Islands / ICW or anchored out in pretty places while rocking in the hammock and watching the world drift by. Most of the time we were dock bound fixing broken things, struggling to get to a dock to fix broken things, waiting out and/or hiding from weather, or holed up somewhere doing some of the toughest work I have ever done to refill the cruising kitty so we could keep going. (And, as always, fixing broken things.) Looking back it is a wonder that we managed to keep going as long as we did. Reviewing the challenges it took just to get Kintala to big water and underway had me wondering how we managed to get going at all. And yet here we are, eager to get back on the water to do it again.

There are a few differences this time around. Though we are not salted sailors like friends who have thousands of miles under their keels and ocean crossings in their logs, we are not newbies either. We have been this way before, are carrying Coast Guard licenses, and have taken a full measure of both the good and the bad of the marine industry. We know what questions to ask and, even more important, know when the answers we get are...shall we say...questionable. That doesn't mean I expect moving First Light half way around the Great Loop is going to be a breeze. Just getting her in the water was a year long struggle...but it was one we expected. Something that makes a huge difference. A good sign is that our experience with brokers, marinas, and contractors has been near the exact opposite what we struggled through with Kintala. I suspect they have all been just a different class of people than those we encountered at the beginning of our first sail. On the other hand, maybe we just sensed when trouble was afoot and immediately started looking for a fix or an alternate before things got out of hand. 

Another difference is that First Light is a trawler. Though I am going to guess that trawler living has its unique challenges, as a general rule I expect it to be far less taxing than was trying to cover miles on a 42 foot, underpowered and wayward handling sailboat with a 62 foot mast and massive sails. Particularly since this trip is going to be largely along the ICW and inland waterways. (Though I would not be surprised if the Great Lakes have me wishing that mast and those sails were at hand.)

In any case...here we go again. 

Regulation Heads Up and Travel to the Bahamas

A member of one of the sailing groups that I belong to on Facebook recently had a very troubling experience when checking back in to the US from the Bahamas. They had traveled to Brunswick, GA and used the CBP Roam app to check in with Customs, a process we have used quite successfully in the past. Within five minutes of checking in with the app, they received a phone call from Customs stating that they would be inspecting the vessel as soon as it arrived in the marina in Brunswick. Upon boarding, the Customs agents discovered a spoiled head of lettuce in the trash can in the galley and informed them that it was regulated trash and would have to be collected by the disposal facility in Jacksonville, FL (the nearest incinerator) at a cost to them of $1100.00. The trash had to be bagged in a 3 mil trash bag and placed in a rigid container that was sealed. 

***It is important to note that at all times the agents were courteous and helpful in educating the cruisers of the regulations***

 They were given the following document: 

It's also important to note that these enforcements seem to be pretty arbitrary. Many folks check in every day in Florida with no issue at all, and even many have checked in to Brunswick with no issue.

Here is an additional link that has helpful information:

What food items can I bring into the United States for personal use?

There is a lot of specific information on fruits and vegetables at this link:

Don't pack a pest 

Here are some of the highlights:

Most surprising to us was also the inclusion of some musical instruments to the list:

In addition to the food and garbage regulations, it's important to remember that there are still restrictions to travel in the Bahamas due to Covid. Here is the most recent update on those regulations:

Covid 19 Entry Requirements

 

If you have all your ducks in a row, travel to the Bahamas is definitely still worth it, but an $1100 surprise like happened to the folks mentioned above can severely dampen the enjoyment, so be sure to be prepared before you make that weather window to cross.

Just a couple more...

...projects ticked off the list. One of the things that came up on the pre-purchase survey was the lack of the lower life-lines on the stanchions below the teak rails. The holes were there, the lifelines not. We had replaced ours on Kintala  long ago with Samson Amsteel and loved it, so I looked online for some on sale since it can be quite expensive. After searching a bit, I found this truck winch line made of Amsteel with an eye already spliced into it at literally half the price of just the line itself from a marine supplier. Same. Exact. Stuff. Fifty feet for $22.99 as opposed to $51.50 with no spliced eye. Sold. Tim spent a couple hours cutting and splicing and adding hooks to open and close the lifelines at the gates. Another survey item crossed off the list and it cost less than a B.O.A.T. buck.

Another thing that we wanted to do was to install an Acu-Rite weather station to replace the badly corroded barometer and clock that were on the boat. We bought the Pro model, and while we're very pleased with the capabilities of the unit (time, date, pressure, rainfall, humidity, wind speed, wind direction, forecast, moon phase, and historical figures), it will remain to be seen whether it can survive the rigors of the marine world. It's really intended to be installed permanently on land, not on a boat, but I've heard from several people that it has worked for them on their boats so we thought we'd give it a try. Time will tell and we'll include a review about it on the Reviews tab up above after we've had it for awhile. It is one of the weird adjustments you have to make when you go from sail to power - that insatiable need to know what direction and speed the winds are - and the lack of a masthead anemometer is a little disconcerting. We had originally hoped to mount this thing on the radar arch, but it expressly warned in the installation instructions against mounting too near things like radar, so we opted for the side of the hardtop. This does not put it in optimum position for accurate wind readings, but at least it will give us some idea.

I had a daunting list for this work trip over a full notebook page long. It was good to get at least 3/4 of it checked off, much more than I had hoped. The few remaining items will get pushed to the next trip, but for now we're feeling pretty dang good about the progress.

The size of a corner

The port side of the salon as viewed
from the cockpit outside

Long ago in a class room far, far away, a math teacher once claimed that a true corner has no size. Most of the things called “corners” are actually arcs or bends, gentle or sharp, but still a change in direction whose length is easily measured. A corner is an abrupt change, a break in a straight line or, (as he described it) an intersection of two lines. Lines he defined as being an infinite collection of infinitesimally small points without width, height, or length. One such a point defines any true corner. Thus a corner is a thing without a size. Not being any kind of mathematician I will not vouch for his claim.

The first thing we noticed the first time boarded First Light was a salon stuffed with furniture. The starboard side was filled to overflowing with an enormous couch, one so large that entering through the aft sliding door meant walking around the edge of the thing. The port side wasn't quite as stuffed, but an imposing chair along with the folding ship's table left little room to spare. A narrow path separated the two areas. And the color? Not sure what one would call it, but it and my eyes did not make friends. I am sure the previous owner was quite content with the set-up and to each her (or his) own. Still, the first thing we did after handing over enough cash to make the boat ours was hire a couple of fit young men to lift couch and chair off the boat, toss them in a truck, and take them far, far away. 

Two deck chairs took up residence on the port side, along with a stack of parts bins in one corner and the folding boat table sitting against the forward bulkhead. It was the only space on the boat for Deb and I to sit, eat, and practice music. The starboard side became home for the imposing collection of tools, parts, and materials needed to get an on-the-hard-for-two-years trawler ready for service. The pile went from steering station to aft bulkhead, was piled nearly as high as the windows, and nudged right up against the floor panels that lift to access the engine room. Not an ideal working or living arrangement. It is impossible to cozy up to the one you love when each is sitting in a deck chair feeling the wear and tear of a long work day. And there have been many a moment when it felt like I was spending more time rooting through a junk pile for some particular tool than was spent using that tool after finally locating it. I love working on a project sitting in the middle of a well organized shop. The boat was a seriously disorganized shop sitting in the middle of a project. Living happened along the edges...about the worst conditions imaginable for either shop or living space.

From day one Deb has been on the lookout for new furniture, and many an hour has passed as we looked online for something that appeared “right”. Nothing was found that fit the bill. This trip, while in a store looking for something else, a one-off outdoor couch set-up sitting on display caught her attention. The next day we drove over to take another look. Being an out-door thing it was made of wicker and, compared to the old couch, was light as a feather. In addition it was built with a massive amount of storage under each leg of the “L” to store the cushions out of the weather. Even better, the lids ride on gas cylinders. No need to hold them up with your head while rummaging around looking for something. Moreover it was a color that would look good on the boat, was a comfortable sit, and long enough for a nap. After a bit of debate the decision was made to fork over the listed $$$, rent a pick-up for a couple of hours, and take the thing back to the boat yard.

 

Lifting it onboard was a breeze, as was dropping it in place. One leg of the “L” fit the length of the port bulkhead to, literally, within an inch. The other leg of the “L” spanned the aft salon bulkhead just short of where the sliding door opens; thus making it a perfect place to sit and shed boots or shoes before traipsing deeper into the living space. The folding boat table sits perfectly in the crux of the “L”. 

Virtually all of the tools, parts, and supplies disappeared into just one of the storage sections. The other easily held the six sections of the back porch sun screen plus the exterior covers for both the front windscreen and the back door...with room to spare. I am not sure we could have sat down and custom designed something that fit this close or worked this well. And Deb stumbled upon the only one like it in the world while looking for something else. What are the odds?

Even with the deck chairs still serving as additional seating on the starboard side, the work space / disaster area has been utterly transformed into a near magical space. And thus it is that we turned a huge corner. (Sorry Teach!) No longer a shop, or a project; not just another boat...but a home. 

 

Vacation?

Flybridge ladders make great tool
benches it seems...

Back for another stretch of working on First Light. Even with good progress being made launch date is still just a fuzzy event lurking somewhere in an uncertain future. But time spent on the boat is more than just time spent working on the boat. Each time we climb aboard I am a bit amazed that this thing actually belongs to us. Even sitting on the hard I have come to love the living space. From the forward main cabin to the stern cockpit everything feels like just the right size in just the right place. It is fun to imagine being anchored in No Name Harbor, watching the party from the fly bridge while sipping sundowners.

Until that day, working on the boat really is what being at the boat is all about. We are chewing up vacation days to get it done, but it makes for a strange kind of “vacation.” About 10 minutes after the tools start to appear all thoughts get focused on the task at hand. Just figuring out an initial approach to some modification, worn out “this,” broken “that,” or uncovering some bit of carnage due to rot, is the first hurdle. In the aviation world, whole manuals are written on the proper way to do just about any repair or maintenance task required. It is a level of precision that most people walking down the jet way have no idea exists. But boats? By comparison the marine world is the wild-wild-west of repair, maintenance, and servicing. Walk around any do-it-yourself boat yard (and some open only to “pros”) and see. Pretty much anything goes, and everything has.

I assume it is different in the super yacht world, but I don't know anyone who sails in those rarified waters. In our case, there is no maintenance manual specific to First Light. No parts manual. Even if there were, decades of after market parts, modifications, and repairs make her a unique collection of bits, with quarks and weirdness hiding in places no one would have guessed. Accessory units like engines and generators have some good documentation, but it ends where the accessory and boat come together. For example, there are maintenance and parts manuals for the 4BT3.9 engines in First Light. But they say nothing about how those engines are mounted and melded into the boat to make for a working whole. The same can be said for just about every pump, valve, relay, wire, and switch in every system. Helicopters are often described as an odd collection of parts flying in close formation but determined to head off in their own direction at the first opportunity. In like manner, boats are an odd collection of parts engaged in synchronized swimming, with any part being heavier than water determined to sink at the first opportunity.  

Sometimes facing a new job it is a bit scary, with no real idea of how to get done what needs to be done. But then comes the figuring, planning, cutting, fitting, backing-up and trying again (accompanied by the appropriate language) and making it work. The hours disappear, tools get misplaced and rediscovered, a little blood normally gets shed (again accompanied by the appropriate language). The path toward the finish will take strange and unanticipated twists. Time is lost while sourcing materials. What looked like a good idea at first didn't take into account some bit of impossible access or a weird, boat determined, shape. Eventually it all seems to come together and when the sun sets it feels like it was a good and proper way to spend one of the days allotted to this life. And with each repair, each modification, First Light becomes a bit more “our” boat. Something ever more rare in our made-by-a-machine, they-all-look-the-same, buy-it-in-a-box, then throw it away, world.

But that same sunset also brings sore arms, an aching back, bruised hands, and legs that feel like lead after countless trips up and down ladders and in and out of hatches. There is also the feeling of never having enough days to spend. So each day gets pushed to its limit and necessary compromises are made. Time is always running away, with funds often dwindling away as well. Much as we hate to admit it, there is no promise of it all working out in the end. But that is the way of all of life so we carry on.

Working on the boat comes with the live-aboard life (for most of us anyway). But we don't live aboard so we can work on the boat. I remember a lesson learned decades ago from my life-long, professional truck mechanic Grandfather: "Getting it perfect is always the enemy of getting it done." From him I learned to be a hard core pragmatist with just a hint of OCD. First you have make it work. Then you make it as safe as possible. Then, if time and money permits, you can make it as pretty as you like. It isn't easy, and there are few hard and fast rules. Just remember that the goal is to be on the water as safely and comfortably as possible.

It is a strange mix of skill, means, patience, personality, and creativity. I am happy to be back at it again. Even if it does make for a strange kind of “vacation.”

Espacios Útiles

Six months ago I started working on Duolingo to get my Spanish back, motivated by my grandchildren who are doing the lessons as part of their homeschool curriculum. A good part of my childhood was spent in Viña del Mar, a small coastal town in Chile, but as the years back home in the US progressed, the fluency was lost. I was also interested in the challenge as a way to keep this aging brain engaged. So, since boat projects are getting intermixed with my daily Duolingo lessons, the title of this post is Espaciós Útiles, or Useful Spaces.

One of the things you find yourself tackling when you purchase a new-to-you boat is making the space yours. Different people live in different ways, and their space reflects that, but those ways may not fit the next owner down the line. For the most part, First Light has been taken care of and arranged by previous owners who paid a great bit of attention to detail and quality. For this I am eternally grateful, especially after the experience that was the purchase of Kintala. But we live a bit differently, so some of the spaces require modification.

One of the examples of this are the storage areas. You might have read the post from a couple trips ago where we modified two hanging lockers on the boat into a shelf-filled closet (because we absolutely never hang any clothes on the boat) and a pantry (because there was zero food storage space in the galley.) Now I needed a safe and sturdy place to store my Sailrite machine and sewing supplies. The Sailrite is many things, but light is not one of them. As a result, it must be secured so that it won't tumble into anything when underway. First Light has a very large storage cabinet under the lower helm seat, perfectly sized for this purpose, but it required a shelf addition to accomodate the supplies. A few strategically placed shelf supports and a plywood shelf did the trick nicely.

 

I still have plans to repaint the interior of the cabinet at some point, but for now the project got crossed off the list.

The next space was one in the spare pullman berth on the port side. At one point, someone had installed a washing machine in a cabinet space there but the washer had long since been removed. Someone else had installed some sliding basket drawer things, but I found them highly unusable because it wasted so much of the storage space. It also bothered me that there was no door for the cabinet. So I built a couple shelves and (after three iterations) custom built some doors for the cabinet. This process was a real challenge because I wanted the doors to open toward the berth rather than towards the door so that you could access the cabinet from the hallway. Because of the handle on the storage compartment under the berth and the frame for the mattress, the doors couldn't open completely with my first two designs. After a bit of moving this and cutting that, I ended up with something I'm happy with. I still have to put the stain and finish coat on them to match the rest of the woodwork, but that will have to wait for warmer, drier weather. I also am in the process of changing the way the cabinet door opens under the berth. It currently is installed with self-stick velcro, and the self-stick part of that equation isn't cooperating. I've installed a proper hinge but still need a new handle that will clear the bifold doors for my new cabinet. All of that will have to be handled on the next trip as we're about out of time on this one. 

The first iteration shelf installation

The original hanging baskets

 

 

 

The doors without the upper trim

 

The doors with the trim installed

I still have to come up with a latch solution for these doors. I think I will use a magnetic catch on the left side, but only another trip to Lowe's will decide that. For now I'm pretty happy with the progress, and we have a couple of cabinets with much more useful space.