It is ALL alien. Using the toilet, getting hot water to do
dishes, putting down the drawbridge to get to the dock… even the most mundane
of chores are multi-step processes and are different and complicated. I am
barely coping and we are still, effectively, on land. What happens when we go to sea and there are a thousand more tasks that I will need to know how to do? I don’t want to think about it.
(Here she is, resplendent in her Canadian colours, docked in Spain. Note Canadian flag flying and rock of Gibraltar in background.)
There are a few things I can do, I few things I might
possibly be able to learn to do, and many many things I cannot and likely will
not ever be able to do.
But to start my story I have to back up a couple of days…
It was our first day in Spain, The Boat was on the hard. We
had an appointment to have her lifted into the water by crane at 6. I had spent
several hours on manual labour and HS had done a myriad of complicated jobs.
Finally everything seemed ready to go. ‘I’ll just start the engine,’ he said,
‘then we’ll go for lunch’. Oooh. Talk about famous last words. Four long hot
hours later the engine had not yet started. HS had spent most of the afternoon
down in the bowels of the boat. Every tool known to man and several more
besides were spread out on the floor. One loose wire had been found, one new
connection had been jury rigged, but the problem, the reason the engine was not
starting, had not been diagnosed. I had not been able to help. (And we had not
had lunch, which makes no difference to me, but, I am to learn in the coming
days, makes HS cranky.)
I pointed out that it was almost six, wondered aloud if we
ought to start getting ready to have her put in the water, only got a growl in
response, and then, suddenly, several things happened at once; the engine
started, the workmen were ready to put the boat in the water, the marina called
and insisted on being paid immediately - I guess some boats get in the water
and skip off - and, as he rode away out of sight in the small motor boat sent
by the office to pick him up, he shouted last minute instructions about closing
a sea cock before the boat was lowered into the water so that it didn’t fill
and flood. We had both been here all day, and now, two minutes before the big
put in, I am on my own. Akkk. I didn’t want this responsibility.
Fifteen minutes later the boat was in the water, it had not
flooded, HS was back, the engine was running smoothly, and we were headed to
our slip in the marina.
Then came a couple of docking disasters...
Docking Disaster #1: In which it was a two minute motor to
our slip and HS went slowly on purpose so I had time to get the docking lines
and fenders set but I messed up and HS had to circle three times in tight
quarters with wind and current pushing the boat all over the place and the
your-engine-is-overheating-alarm beeping before we made it into the slip. It
was a total fiasco and it was all my fault.
Docking Disaster #2:
In which we left the slip and headed off (from Spain) to another marina
(in a different country). Well, HS and the boat did. I was left on the dock as
it backed out away and was gone. (Hence the title to this entry.) Again, all my
fault. I was totally mortified.
Docking Disaster #3:
In which the marina we arrived at required us to dock stern-to and I
quipped, ‘Good thing you can sail this boat on your own,’ trying to make light
of my previous unfortunate docking experiences and he replied, ‘Actually,
getting this boat into a slip stern-to is one place where I really need your
help.’ (Oh No!) I get him to explain the technique three times. I don’t want to
discuss the result.
In short, I am currently shaken and uncertain, intimidated
and overwhelmed. This boat is a LOT bigger than mine, it has a lot more ‘stuff’
by which I mean electronic equipment and dodads and thingamabobs. ‘Why does
your mind just shut down when you see technology?’ my son asked me the other
day. I didn’t have a response. ‘You’re gonna have to learn not to be like
that,’ he said. Yes. So true. Especially here.
I sanded and painted. I cleaned the head and galley
(bathroom and kitchen) to within an ounce of their life. I even offered to swab
the decks. But I have done just about everything I know how to do. There are a
million jobs left and I really can’t even help with any of them. A new fridge
motor needs installing, the nav computer needs re-wiring, a touch screen
somewhere isn’t working, the list goes on. These I cannot do, cannot even help
with. I asked today if I could help by handing tools to HS as he did one of his
long list of jobs but, on a boat, there is usually not even really enough room
for the one person who is doing the work let alone for another person to get in
the way.
I know that we have a new leather wheel cover that needs
sewing on. I know that we have new docking lines that need splicing. These
seemed to me minor chores but a finicky time consuming ones, ones however I
could possibly do, but when I offered I was turned down. HS has bigger problems
at the moment, some AIS software (the program that shows, on our chart, where
the surrounding boats are) is not working for no reason and he has spent three
days troubleshooting it now without success. There are some things he could
teach me to do but, for most of them, like putting on a new wheel cover, it
would take him longer to show me than just to do them himself, and he is
starting to get stressed about getting everything done before he wants to go.
Like the engine, which was supposed to start in a couple minutes and took
several hours, every job seems to take longer than scheduled.
I would like to be more useful but am out of my depth.
HS had a talk with me today about how, at sea, everyone has
to be able to depend on the others for their very lives. I hope he was speaking
hypothetically, not for example, referring to my great success at helping him
dock. I am not sure, if I were him, if I would keep me on as crew. I am not
sure, at the moment, when he actually leaves, if he will take me with him, or,
if, instead, the boat will sail off without me.
