What I missed

Olve's report from the Bay of Biscay included the following: "...engine failure, genoa torn to pieces in 25 m/s (50 knots) wind, waves about 5-6 meters high..."

And Aitor added: " More problems with engine. And I'm pretty sure that it was not the time to go to the sea. We should go when the weather is good to go. Anyway, nothing runs ok."

Bay of Biscay - before the storm.

“The goal of life’s journey is not to arrive at the grave safely, in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting ‘Holy shit, what a ride!'” This is a philosophy I would like, in theory, to follow. But I am certainly not doing so at the moment. I look at the photos from the boat I am no longer on and I have mixed feelings. I left. I felt I had to. I know it was the right decision for me. I am sure of this. I had no desire to sail this fall into one storm after another on a boat on which everything kept breaking down because the schedule was so tight that there was no time to fix things properly or wait for good weather. (I would NOT have been happy sailing at 50 knots with no power, not once, not repeatedly.) But, but, but... part of me is envious. IF I had stayed, and lived, I would have been so so very proud of myself. Back in Deep River, supply teaching, I am safe but bored. I look at their photos and feel, yet again, old. And conflicted. What is life for if not for living to the max? But I know I made the right decision to leave. I do not have the skill or self-confidence for such extreme experience at this time. I might never. But, but, but... 

I decide not to go sailing

I decide not to go sailing this fall after all and in the end my decision has nothing to do with my jobless state, my homeless state, my single state, the boat, the captain, or his inclination to sail to schedule regardless of the weather conditions...

Self-portrait taken just minutes after leaving the boat.
Note reflection of green 'exit this way' sign.

Tune in next fall for chapter #3 - hopefully it will have less dithering and more sailing!

The saga continues...

The Saga continues...  AKA  One 48 hour story that I am very glad is not mine to tell!

Later: OK. I was wrong. My indecisiveness had not hit an all-time high.

After chilling in Hamburg for a few days (spent mostly drinking expensive premium venti hot chocolates and taking advantage of the free internet at Starbucks to chat with my oldest son online or walking the streets eating cheap but amazing Turkish doner kebabs) I wrote Olve a wee note apologizing for having been spooked and walking and asking if I could get back on the boat in France. Turns out they were not on their way to France after all, they’d done a couple miles out in the North Sea, turned back, and were still in Denmark. They’d decided to get a few things fixed before going on. Well shucky-darn, wish I’d been there to tell them that woulda’ been a good idea.

I checked the new weather forecast, saw that the wind was down to 15 knots gusting to 30 (instead of 30 knots gusting to 60) and that the sun was coming out, turned back myself, tucked my figurative tail between my legs, and slinked, somewhat shamefaced, back to the boat.

Turns out I’d missed a storm. Which is not, of course, my story to tell.

Ida: Emily, mostly I was glad that you weren’t with us. I was very very glad that you weren’t here. You would not have been happy.

Aitor: It was a storm. It was a huge storm. I was so sick. I vomited and vomited until I couldn’t vomit anymore and then I kept on vomiting.

Olve: Yes. It was a storm. The wind was steady about 50 knots gusting higher maybe. Water was washing right over the decks with every wave. I was up to my knees in water in the cockpit all the time.

Ida: Olve was sleeping when we first lost power and I didn’t know where we were going so after two hours I tried to turn on the engine but it wouldn’t start. I thought I just didn’t know how to turn it on so I sailed for another two hours and then I woke up Olve but he couldn’t get the engine started either.

Aitor: I have never been so sick in my life.

Olve: We started with four sails up and took them down one by one. It took Ida about an hour and a half to take each sail down. She was up on deck getting washed by wave after wave. After that we sailed with just one foresail.

Ida: It was so hard to pull the sails down. I didn’t think I was strong enough to do it. But Olve said I had to so I just stayed up on deck and pulled and pulled and pulled. I have never been so tired in my life.

Olve: Ida couldn’t tighten the back stay. She had to get Aitor up to do it. It’s a good thing he could because that was the only thing that kept us up.

Aitor: I’m learning new things every day. Not just things about sailing, things about myself.

Ida: By the end I had been up for 52 hours straight.

Olve: We broke the new wind generator going through the lock – we don’t talk about that.

Aitor: It was bad communication. We crashed into another boat. It was our fault. I don’t like to think about that moment.

Olve: If we’d had the wind generator we’d have had enough power to keep the computer running and then we would have had charts so we’d have known where we were.

Ida: Aitor was so sick he was totally useless. There were really only two of us.

Olve: The engine wouldn’t start. We had no power, no computer, no charts, no lights, no bilge pump. We didn’t know where we were, it was night, there were windmills all over the place and shoals where the sea was too shallow, at one point there was only three feet of water below the boat. I’ve worked in this part of the sea before and know it but he lights and bouys are confusing at night when you’re lost. The wind kept blowing us towards the shore. We sailed around in circles trying to stay where it was deep all night until it got light and we could see where to go.

Aitor: I spent a lot of money today. I bought new rain pants and new boots.

Olve: We were all wet. Everyone was wet. Everything was wet.

Aitor: I have no money left.

Ida: The hatches leaked rainwater first and then sea water.

Olve: When the fresh water tank broke and the water poured into the hold all around the engine it made a weird gonging sound. I went down and tasted the water and was so glad that it was fresh because then I knew that the boat wasn’t leaking.

Aitor: Inside it stank like acid. Outside it was terrifying.

Olve: I spent 18 hours straight on the wheel and all I had was one can of coke.

Ida: He had some cans of fish in his pocket that he thought he could pull out and eat with his fingers at some point but he didn’t have time. (Sorry, I just have to put in an editorial comment here, I can’t resist. Cans of fish? How Swedish is that?)

Olve: We’re going to sort out all the paper charts and have a system so we can find them if we need them.

Aitor: The boat was moving so much.

Ida: There are SO many good tools down there in the bilge. We lost every flashlight we have down there.

Olve: That was when we were still trying to fix the engine, before the storm got really bad.

Aitor: After 24 hours I was way too tired to stay up in the cockpit awake but way too sick to go below and sleep.

Ida: It was bad. It was really really bad. Olve thought we were going to have to abandon ship and use the life rafts.

Olve: The phosphorescence was stunning. Out there in the night it was so dark because of the clouds and not a light on anywhere in the boat but the wind was so strong… it was the most amazing phosphorescence I have ever seen in my life. Every wave that crashed over the boat was glowing bright green.

Ida: Olve was outstanding. I got to the point where I was too tired but Olve just kept going. He was incredible. I can’t describe how good he was.

Olve: Each time we sailed in to where it was only 20 feet deep instead of 60 the waves got huge and started to crash right over the side of the boat. The rails were in the water. A couple times so much water came over the side that the cockpit was completely full of water.

Aitor: I came up and Olve told me to help him go about. Couldn’t he see that I was too sick? There was nothing left in my stomach but I was heaving anyway. But he yelled at me to do the jib sheets and my stomach was so empty I knew nothing would come up so I did the jib sheets and vomited nothing at the same time.

Ida: You would not have been happy Emily.

Olve: As soon as it was light we started sailing into the nearest harbour but it was hard. The wind was howling and the waves were huge and we had 3 knots of current against us and we had to tack back and forth again and again.

Aitor: Olve was fantastic. I would have thought that it was impossible to sail in here in that wind but he did it. I still can’t believe that it was possible to sail in here with no motor.

Ida: When we got in we all just wanted to hug the wall.

Aitor: It was 6:30 in the morning when we got here and we went to bed and we slept, we slept for hours.

So now the generator is still not working, the new wind generators have been broken, the main engine has yet another undiagnosed problem that has incapacitated it, the fresh water tank has broken… the boat is way way more of a disaster zone than ever. Are the toilets fixed?, I ask. No. And I note that the boom vang block is still broken.

Why, exactly, did I come back?

Ida is leaving, she is due to go back to work, and a new young guy has been found to replace her. I get the impression he is disappointed that he missed the storm. ‘Sailing in nice weather, what’s special about that?’, he says, ‘but sailing right on the edge, at the maximum you can do, that’s when it becomes interesting.’

Olve knew the condition of the ship when we were in the canal. We had read the same weather forecast. I decided to jump ship. He decided to go to sea.  We were both right. I didn't want to be there. Both he and the boat proved themselves seaworthy, able to function together perfectly well for hours on end in adverse conditions (let me repeat: no engine, no generator, no alternate power source, no nav computer, no charts, no knowing where you are or where you’re going, no lights, no way for other boats to see you, no radar, no AIS, no bilge pump to empty the boat if water gets in, a dark night, heavy rain, heavy winds, shallow waters, many obstructions – in this case windmill fields - and a busy section of the sea with other boats likely…) Olve is happy to sail at 50 knots, would go out anytime at 50 knots, I mean why not, both he and the boat can easily handle it, whereas I would always choose to wait two days until after bad weather has passed and go out at 20 knots. I realize that you need to be able to sail in 50 knots, that sometimes at sea an unavoidable storm comes by, but I would never choose to leave port if I knew that that was the weather and he sees no reason not to. To me 50 knots is where, if things start to go wrong, they can go very wrong very fast. To him 50 knots is thriling. We are both right; we just see different sides of the same coin.
 

My question last week was: Is this how I want to sail? I stated that I thought the boat was seaworthy and that the captain was competent and, obviously, both are true. I am more sure now than ever that they will make it round the world as Olve is apparently fearless. But, honestly, I am quite happy to have missed the storm, missed being cold and wet, missed being terrified about whether we’d have to abandon ship and take to the life rafts or not. So my question remains: Is this how I want to sail?

I can’t believe that I have been back less than 24 hours and am considering, again, jumping ship. I can’t believe it. Am I incapable of making a single decision and sticking to it? (Apparently.) (When I decided to come back I didn’t know about the storm.) (Does that change anything?)

Man. Last year with HS we spent two weeks fixing up the boat and then two weeks waiting for good weather and then when we got out to sea it turned out that he didn’t know how to sail. This year Olve is not going to spend two weeks fixing up the boat or two weeks waiting for good weather but, apparently, when he gets out to sea he is an awesome sailor. 

He has a great itinerary set up for the fall. It can’t get worse than it was. I assume. Or could it? We are, after all, scheduled to cross the Atlantic before the end of hurricane season. 

I note that it is exactly a month since I left home and that I have had one day of sailing so far. 

How do I get myself into these situations? Oh yes, instead of heading out with people I know I choose random adventures off the internet and jump.

I think I want to sail my own boat. Make my own decisions. (But of course I don’t want to do it on my own… I want a partner to do it with me.)

AARRGGHH!!

Because of a Broken Block

Friday the 13^th (is that a coincidence?)

Because of a Broken Block  AKA  A somewhat long and rambling explanation – with several asides – of why I jumped ship

The broken block (hanging at about eye-level in the main cockpit).

To start this story I am going to go back to September 7^th, the day we sailed from Copenhagen. (I apologize to those who have heard much of this already.) We left at noon to a crowd of well-wishers and started off without too many hitches but by dark the situation was a little less happy: 1) despite hours of work by Ida the clogged heads (toilets) had not been fixed and it was so choppy out that it wasn’t safe to lean off the edge of the boat so everyone who wanted to pee or puke had to do so in a bucket and then wash the bucket, 2) the nav computer, loaded with our charts (maps), had run out of power and neither the generator nor main engine were working so we were sailing blind, and, 3) very trivial in comparison, a boom vang block had broken.

The mast is the pole that sticks straight up and the boom is the pole that goes out horizontally from this and the boom vang is a line (rope) that attaches the boom to the bottom of the mast to hold the boom down and help control the shape of the sail because without it the pressure of the wind on the sail would lift the boom up and the sail would be less effective. Because of the amount of pressure the boom vang has a block (pulley) on it to make it easier to adjust.

OK. So, Lee and Aitor were on watch, the first night, and I was napping in the main salon when Lee descended all in a tizzy saying that the boom was going crazy. I came up to see what the problem was and quickly diagnosed it as a broken boom vang block. I tried to take the block off, but it was stuck, and tried to find a new one to put on, but couldn’t, and so made a quick fix by putting a shackle on the boom and leading the line through that to hold the boom at the correct height. The boom was back under control, Lee was happy, and I went back to napping.

At the first port we had four layover days. The broken block, complete with two bits of sharp metal, hangs at about eye level in the main cockpit near the hatch (door down to the salon). I tried to take it off so I could replace it. I squirted it with WD40. I used every tool up to and including a crowbar on it. But it was old and was just stuck. Eventually I asked Olve to take it off for me.

Olve had more important jobs, from my point of view, that needed attending to, like, for example, looking at the broken generator and seeing if there was any hope of fixing it, like sorting out the tool shed so that when things went wrong at sea the appropriate tools and parts could be found, like helping Ida solve the clogged head issue… But Olve had different priorities. He didn’t look at the generator, he didn’t sort the tools, he didn’t help Ida with the heads, he didn’t even take the broken block off, he sat in his cabin and played video games. For four days. (Ida worked her butt off, Aitor and I helped where we could, Lee had fled in terror, Olve was not stressed about anything.) 

After four days we left at 4 am and sailed across to Kiel, went through the locks, motored half way up the Kiel canal, and then stopped for the night. (Olve shocked me by taking the 6 pm to 6 am shift leaving Ida with 6 am to 6 pm shift.  I found this an uncharacteristically chivalrous move on his part, I mean, after all, who wants to be on duty at night? until it became obvious that his night duty included lying on deck listening to an ipod whereas the list of chores he gave her to do during the day was endless: sort through a foot high stack of paperwork, scrape the barnacles off the bottom of the dingy, swab the decks, finish fixing the toilets (as if!)) 

Olve and Ida consult a chart as we motor up the Kiel Canal along with a couple of ships.

Not much of note happened during the day except the main engine started making such obnoxious and likely noxious fumes that we all fled outdoors. In Renesburg, part way through the canal, where we stopped for the night, the previous owners of the boat stopped by and helped Ida trouble shoot what the fumes might be. They ruled out an exhaust leak and an overheating of something else, they managed to coat the entire interior of the salon with countless fiberglass fibers, but they didn’t get a good diagnosis of what was causing the problem.

The captain, Olve, stated that he wanted to leave at 4 am the next morning, finish the canal, and set out into the English Channel (which is notoriously wet and cold and windy). I checked the weather forecast and found that the wind was predicted to be blowing at 30 knots gusting to 60. Which is windy. And that it was going to be raining. (Of course.)

                 

At this point I stop and take stock. Our toilets are still not working. After installing new pumps it was ascertained that at least part of the problem was that the exit tube is completely blocked by meters of fossilized cement-like poop (which begs the question: where has everything we have been putting into this system lately gone?) and so this tube is currently opened up and hanging, full of strong acid, which occasionally fizzes out, along with bits of the decade old crap, onto the bathroom floor. Yesterday we accidentally closed the hatch to which this tube is attached, when we were turning the boat around, and almost doused Ida with this lovely mixture. I dread to think what would have happened if she hadn’t have simultaneously been on a 2 minute break. 

The toilet tube burping strong acid and old poop onto the bathroom floor.

The generator, which was broken when we started, has not been looked at. The new wind generators have been installed but not tested. The main engine is producing noxious fumes of undiagnosed origin. Boxes of unsorted tools remain on the desk in the main salon ready to fly as the boat heels. Large wooden shelves are sitting loose on the floor. In other words the boat is still a disaster zone. And, of course, the main mast boom vang block has not been fixed. A broken boom vang block is not in itself a critical piece of equipment on a boat. But to me it is symbolic of both the state of the boat and of the captain’s attitude. Is this how I want to sail?

Ida convinces Olve to wait for first light before leaving but it is too late.

I feel too old.

I don’t think that the boat is intrinsically unsafe. I do think that the captain is likely a good sailor. I know that he has had 7 years formal training in seamanship and that he also knows how to sail. When we initially rigged the gib and genoa on the wrong forestays and I pointed this out to him he quickly realized that I was correct and helped me switch them. This is important because it shows two very different things; he has good knowledge of sailing theory but he is not familiar, yet, with his boat.

The boat is a classic. She is not state-of-the-art. Her foresails, for example, clip on, they are not on roller furling. Most lines are not led back to the cock-pit. This means that if you had to reduce sail because the wind had come up it would not be a quick process. You would have to go up on deck to do it which would be very wet. And, though I labelled all of them, none of us, not even Olve, knows yet instinctively which line is which, which would slow the process even more. 

 We are now five days behind schedule and he is feeling pressured to make up time – so that the boat will be in Portugal on time to pick up the crew who have booked to join there – and so the boat will sail longer legs, skipping some previously scheduled stops, and will sail regardless of the weather. I have been in this situation before. I don’t like it.

If I were 20 I might really enjoy playing the ‘let’s-rush-out-to-sea-in-this-new-to-me-boat- and-see-what-will-break-next’ game.  But I am not.

At midnight I decide I don’t want to do this. I have been, as you may have noticed, wavering back and forth all along but apparently my indecisiveness has hit an all-time high.

            I think the boat is safe, a little under-prepared, perhaps, but in no way not sea-worthy. I think the captain is competent, a little lazy, but definitely adept as opposed to inept. (Did I mention all this?) But I also think that I am too old for this particular situation. The teething troubles this boat is currently having are better suited to someone younger or at least more flexible.

So I say goodbye to Ida, who understands, at least, my position.

And I jump ship.

Because of a broken block and all that it symbolizes.

Layover days

If you peer closely you can see our boat against the wall here in exotic Rodbyhavn!

We are in Rodbyhavn, Denmark, moored to a wall. Outside the clouds are hanging low, the rain is spitting, and the wind is gusting so hard that it is impossible to walk upright. I am glad we are not at sea.

Rodbyhavn is not exactly an exotic destination. Pete says that houses are free here as it is so hard to attract people to live in this district and Ida adds that cases of child abuse are very high because everyone is bored.

The first day we don’t do much. We nap. We walk into the nearest town. We take a shower. We read our books. We nap again. It is all good.

The second day, however, I find a bit frustrating. There are a lot of chores left to do but they all need Olve or Ida to work on them. Aitor and I have done all we can and are sitting quite useless. Our fridge and freezer motors, which no one even knew there was a problem with, are not working, the generator is still out of commission, it has been discovered that the bildge pump has no suction, the heads remain unfixed, the tool shed needs to be organized, again, preferably before the other jobs get started so that tools can be found, and we have all agreed that there is no point for anyone to do this but Olve himself. I go for a long walk in the morning to the next town over and then head to the library in the afternoon to hang out on the internet. Aitor, at a bit of a loss, plays his recorder until we are all ready to strangle him. Ida, who is starting to remind me of the ever-ready bunny, works ceaselessly on her half of the chores but Olve, overwhelmed perhaps, stays in his cabin all day playing video games on his laptop. I am not impressed. At 8 pm I knock on his door and ask if he is OK. I am actually concerned about what is causing his total inactivity. ‘Just answering a few e-mails,’ he tells me somewhat sheepishly. ‘For 12 hours?’,  I think but don’t say. But my query embarrasses him enough that he gets up shortly after and starts tackling the tool shed for about 5 minutes before retreating to his cabin.

The third day we don’t see Olve at all; he remains in his cabin with the door firmly closed. I ask Ida which chores we could help with and before you know it she has got Aitor and I emptying the bilge with a borrowed wet vac, putting the oily sludge into old buckets and carting it to the harbour’s dirty water disposal site. I try not to let it annoy me that the three of us are on task while he, the captain, is not, but I am not very successful. It irks me. A lot. (My god, why am I so bloody negative all the time!) (HS, from last year, always did work first and then relaxed and is looking better and better from a distance!)

The fourth day the pattern continues! Aitor and I get Ida to give us chores to do. We work together, talk, laugh a lot, the three of us. The captain remains locked in his cabin. Is he ever going to do any work? Are we ever going to leave here? Or is Rodbyhavn our final destination? He says we will sail tonight. Last time when we set out the cockpit was littered with crates of unsorted tools, empty freezer boxes, and dirty clothes. These are still there. I have hung up the clothes to dry and would put the rest of the stuff away if I knew where it went but it’s not that easy. We all need some direction from the captain. The contents of the half-sorted tool shed are still covering both tables and the desk in the salon. We can’t sail like this. I bite my tongue and say nothing but wonder, ‘Why did I choose this boat exactly?’ I have been saying for a couple of years now that I am in the perfect demographic to be a crew, that there are many retired 50 something CEO’s with too much money who have bought a nice new boat and are living the dream but for whatever reason are not in a relationship and therefore are looking for crew and that I am perfect for them. So why didn’t I choose one of those boats for this fall? What am I doing here on another old wreck? What on earth does this say about my psyche? (I don’t think I want to know.) Will I ever learn? (Probably not.) Am I happy here? (Absolutely!)

Setting Sail

Setting Sail  AKA  It was an awesome party but…

Thursday I am set to swabbing the decks. It’s a pretty mindless job and takes a couple hours but I quite enjoy it. I feel a bit like an applied student - teach me a new skill, convince me it is useful, and then let me practice it endlessly. Olve comes behind with a pressure washer and by the time he is finished the decks look great. We tidy away a lot of stuff and move the boat from where it had been to a canal in downtown Copenhagen. For the first time I believe that we will in fact leave on Saturday.

Friday evening there is a goodbye party. It starts about 5 pm and only gets better as more and more people arrive. I turn in at midnight but get up again at 2 am as the music is blaring louder than ever. I had worried that perhaps this boat might not fit 12, a full crew compliment, but see that my fears were unjustified as there are currently at least 4 times that many people on board and they are all happy. A crowd is dancing in the salon and groups are scattered all over the cockpits and deck. About 4 am most people leave and Olve changes out of his best suit and heads off to bed.

Saturday morning at 7 am we are all up picking up empty beer cans and washing wine glasses. Our lovely decks, so clean only yesterday, are covered in sand and mud, spilt drinks, broken glass and worse, but we can’t reach our hose to the nearest water tap so there is nothing to do about it. By noon we are not nearly ready to go (among other things both of our heads (toilets) were totally clogged last night by party goers who didn’t know how to flush properly and will be out of commission until further notice) but a crowd has gathered to see us of and so we – the nine of us who are starting out - release the mooring lines and head out to sea.

Olve, despite being a wee bit hungover, is none-the-less trilled to be off. The boat has 4 co-owners but he is the captain, the one who had the dream to sail round the world, the one who convinced the others to join him in the venture, the one who has done the most work on the boat, the only one who will be on her for the whole trip.

As soon as we are out of the harbour we set sail without too much confusion, kill the engine, and sit back and sail past windmills and under bridges. Actually, there is quite a bit of confusion setting the sails. We initially rig the two foresails on the wrong forestays so have to take them down and switch them, also the genoa sheets keep flying off the clew no matter what knots we tie, and well, I won’t go into the problems we have with the main. And then we don’t actually sit back as we still have many chores left to do that really ought to have been done before leaving port such as finding a place to safely stow a dozen large gas cans. And, oh yes, Ida starts to try and de-clog the first of the heads, a process that will take over 12 hours, require significant digging in the tool shed for specialized instruments and spare parts, involve taking apart pumps and being literally sprayed in the face with bucket loads of crap. We are heading south close hauled in 20+ knots of wind and the ride is quite bumpy. Mase, a tall burly 6 foot fellow, turns green and begs for a bowl to be sick into.

Andreas at the helm and me on navigation duty before it gets dark.

 At 8 pm the wind seems to be picking up and we are constantly getting sprayed with sea water. I go below and make a huge pot of pasta with tomato sauce which is devoured as if no one had eaten for days, then decide to have a nap in case I am needed later on. Shortly thereafter I hear the engine being turned on and am happy to know that someone is watching the battery level and doing something about it. (Our regular generator doesn't work, you see, and neither our wind generators nor solar panels arrived before we left and so the only way to make power to keep the navigational computer running if the batteries get too low is to run the engine.) Five minutes later the very very loud fire alarm goes off and I pull myself out of my bunk, grab my foul weather jacket, and dash up on deck. The captain turns off the engine and he and Pete go below to try and figure out the problem. It turns out that the engine is not getting any cooling water but why this is so is unknown. Meanwhile I am up on deck with Adreas who is at the wheel. Without power we have no nav computer and therefore no chart, so no idea where we are or where we are going. It is dark out, no moon, and we are heading south between Denmark and Sweden towards Germany in an area of the sea that is full of islands and ships. And we don’t have a chart. I am not happy with this situation at all. I know where our paper charts are, I myself stowed them in a hidden cubby in the library. The only problems are 1) there are many things stowed on top of that cubby that would have to be moved, and 2) the hundreds of charts are all unsorted so even in the best of conditions it could take hours to find the right one and 3) I know if I go below and start the search I will end up seasick myself. Mase is lying on one of the couches in the salon. He has been puking on an off for hours and is not only sick but also terrified. Between regular dousing of cold sea water Andreas and I peer through the darkness to look for little things like ships or big things like countries that we might accidentally run into, and, frankly, I am not much happier with our situation than Mase.

In short it is not a good night.

When we stop the next morning beside a wall in a deserted industrial harbour to drop off Pete - who can’t leave Denmark - long story – four others jump ship and choose to catch the train back to Copenhagen with him. Olve, who has had 3 hours of sleep two nights in a row now, looks around at the tiny group of us who are left and declares a layover day. We all take a nap. 

First Few Days II

September 3^rd, I am woken by a racket on deck and when I peek my head out I see that the welder is being hoisted, by hand, winched up with brute force, to the top of the mast to fix a spinnaker fitting. In the library the carpenter is putting in new shelves. (Again I compare this boat to last year’s. HS would have done his own welding and his own carpentry and I, using my big toe on the electric anchor winch, would have hauled him up to the top.) Chores for the rest of us continue; Ida takes all the salon cushions home so she can make covers for them, Ole is doing something to the main engine powers switch, Aitor is back in the aft locker painting again, June and Pete, a couple of 20 something kids who have been helping out show up in the afternoon, Pete spends hours trying to figure out why the alternator isn’t working and June just grabs a bucket of soapy water and starts cleaning, I re-sand and re-varnish the cockpit floor boards and flag pole, coil endless ropes and store them in the fore locker. And, oh yes, all by myself, I am proud to announce, completely overhaul an $8000 winch; I start right after lunch, take it apart, clean the many gears tooth by tooth, clean the bearings ball by ball, clean the washers, the shafts, the other bits whose names I don’t know (using jet fuel to do all of this), get Olve to inspect it, then re-grease it and put it all back together, and, with a few breaks for beer when people drop by, finish at 8 p.m. just in time for pizza!

September 3^rd today, and we leave on the 7^th, apparently. Looking about the boat at the total chaos you’d never guess that we were going to leave this year even. We’re almost ready though: the AIS has been ordered, the wind generators have been ordered, the solar panels have been ordered – none of them have arrived yet, let alone had mountings made or been set up or had wiring laid or computer software connected or, been, as is sure to be needed at some point along the way, trouble shot, when problems occur during installation, but hey, who’s worrying? Not the captain that’s for sure. He spends the whole afternoon making a great photoshop picture of the boat to include in a farewell party invitation. He seems so young. I can imagine one of my kids doing just the same thing. ‘Shouldn’t we be panicking?’ I want to ask, but I manage to keep my mouth shut.

September 3^rd, and tomorrow we will turn the boat around so we can clean and wax the other side of the outer hull, install the second half of the cove line… But what about all the stuff? The deck is still covered in things, as is every horizontal space within the boat, and, given that it is a boat, it all has to be put away before we go or as we are tossed about at sea it will fall, land on the floor, break. Part of the problem is that things don’t have a home yet. No one knows where anything belongs. In my cabin for example, there is, on the teeny tiny floor, a foot tall pile of poster sized charts, a large duffle bag of first aid equipment, a salad bowl full of dice and cards, a huge crate of alcohol, several pairs of large flippers, some old solar panels that we might keep, and boxes and boxes of new spare parts for the main engine that just recently arrived… The spare parts, presumably, will go somewhere in the tool shed (but where? Ole and I cleaned it all out a few days ago but it is already a total mess again) and the rest of the stuff has been thrown there because no one knows, at all, where else to possibly put it. And, hopefully, someone will go shopping for food before we leave because there is none on board and ordering out for pizza is unlikely to be a viable option at sea, and if/when shopping is done then where oh where will any food bought even go?

September 3^rd, and we leave in 4 days! Really?

But it’s a beautiful day out. I put away my long underwear and get out my sunglasses. My mum asked if I was going to use time this year to try and resolve some issues. No, I answered, I tried that last year and nothing got resolved, this year I just plan to have fun. Now all I need to do is relax a bit so that I can manage that. I should have done this - bummed around the world on boats - in my 20’s, of course, but I was too busy having kids then and now is certainly better than never. Back home it is the first day of school. I could be there, unemployed, tied to my phone all fall waiting to be called in to supply. What a horrible thought. Seven of us sit around the main salon table after supper sipping wine and talking about all manner of things, Aitor is playing beautiful gentle background guitar music, and I am totally sure for the first time that this is exactly where I want to be right now. 

First few days I

After dropping both Alexander and Ben at the airport for their flights, going out for a fun evening  with Steph, and spending one last night in our now familiar hostel with its wonderful clean sheets and glorious hot showers, I repack my backpack and head out, walking, alone, to the boat, which is currently anchored in an industrial marina on the far side of town.

When I arrive two of the owners, Olve and Ole, are there, heads bent over a computer, trying to choose what brand of wind generator to buy and Aitor is down inside the aft locker painting it. The decks are now covered with all the rope and engine parts and unpainted wood that was previously on the dock and the boat looks a disaster. Down below stuff is piled high on every surface, the floor boards have been taken up so walking about is tricky, and my chosen bunk has 100s of paint cans stacked on it.

I am ready to work but the owners don’t really have an appropriate job for me at their fingertips and so they set me to cleaning out the tool room, taking everything out and putting it up on deck. (Really, on deck, is there even a square inch of empty space up there?) I start by reorganizing the stuff on deck to make room and then carry box after box of unsorted tools and spare engine seals and old hoses and oil cans and the like up and outside. When I am done I clean the shelves and drawers I have emptied and then Ole comes to help me sort and box the stuff, repack it more logically before putting it back into the tool room. This is not an easy job. There is a lot of humming and hawing, ‘Oooh, look at this, what could it possibly be?’. We try to make lists of what there is and where it has been put but many of the items are identified only as ‘filter –?’ since we can’t figure out if a given filter is for fuel or oil, if it is a replacement part for the main engine or the gen set, if it is new or used… Ole is not even sailing with us and he is the only one who will have any idea of what we might have or not have in the many drawers and cupboards. If we break down who will know how to fix anything, or even if we have the required spare parts on board or not, or where they might possibly be? I find myself thinking back to last year with HS who knew instantly and precisely, without any hesitation, in which tupperware container or tool box, in which drawer or under-floor compartment, each of the million spare parts that large boats always come with was stored.

This boat is rustic. Basic. Disorganized. Chaotic. Different than last year - that’s for sure. But I wanted different than last year, and, certainly, I have it.

Last year on Northern Magic, HS, who was older and had sailed her for years, not only knew the boat intimately but had well established autocratic, almost dictatorial, routines. This year on Southern Cross the owners, who are much younger, have only recently bought her and are still, obviously, fixing her up, have not sailed her before. I will be there for the beginning of their voyage. Routines are not established at all and, for example, when I ask how they are going to organize shifts and watches the answer is that they haven’t even started to think about it and will see what most crew want. I fear that the likely inefficiencies that will come with trying to figure things like this out through consensus will drive me nuts. Egad!  Last year I struggled accepting the long-standing almost tyrannical rules and routines; this year I expect to struggle with the lack of any!

Other things, however, are exactly the same. As we start to get ready to go the days fly by and there are lots of jobs that need doing and I, being willing to work hard but low on any really practical skills - like how to troubleshoot and then fix the very erratic generator or how to hook up the new satellite phone or how to figure out why there is no power getting to the overhead lights or why the only (cold water) shower just doesn’t work – am given what I think of as ‘chop wood carry water’ jobs. I spend my first mornings taking out the cockpit floorboards and sanding and varnishing them (they need to 12 coats to be applied one coat per day!) and my first afternoons helping Olve put on the cove line and washing and waxing the hull (hours and hours of hard manual labour). I learn to clean easy locks (a quick job involving WD40 and an air compressor and dry lube) and to overhaul blocks (each one takes 3 of us working together 3 hours to do, and there are, I count, 10 of them). If it rains for an hour or two we go inside and tackle one set of storage shelves after another removing stuff, cleaning the shelves, and putting things back. Days later Aitor is still wearing a gas mask painting the interior of the aft lockers (both lockers need 4 coats of paint each @ 12 hours/coat). It is not a fun job down in the cramped interior. I don’t envy him. I am enjoying the variety of jobs I am being given instead.

Also, since the Olve, one of the owners and the captain, is leaving for four years and won’t be back, lots of his friends drop round to say goodbye. Some stop by for an hour or two bringing with them cases of beer or bottles of champagne and, of course, we all stop to drink and celebrate and chat. Others come by for one or two days to help out and we work together during the days and then eat together at night. It is very social. I am starting, already, to feel like part of the community.

Despite visits we work 10 hours each day. I fall into my bunk exhausted, sleep well, and wake up aching.

I love it!

P.S. Below are Aitor (in his aft locker as usual) and Olve (working on a block). 

We are currently rafted up against a wall beside another boat and there is not a good place to take a photo of our boat, but soon, however, we will move to downtown Copenhagen and I hope to get one good shot of her to post before we set out to sea!

 

More Morning Misgivings

What have I done?

Yesterday I went back and poked around the boat that I had chosen for this fall and decided that I would, after all, despite my earlier misgivings, go sailing. Back at our hostel I skyped Delta and cancelled the second half of my ticket, the half that would have taken me home, a process I fear is reversible. And my path was committed.

Now, at 4 am, I am terrified.

I want to call Delta back up right now, beg and plead and cry, ask them to give me the other half of my ticket back. By committing to go sailing for four months on this boat (something relatively small – that I am not very sure about anyway) I have also committed to giving up my home (something huge). I wasn’t thinking about that yesterday afternoon when I was talking to Delta, I was only thinking of the boat. How could I have forgotten such a huge part of the equation? Do I really want to go? I don’t care, in the grand scheme of things, about this four months sailing. I have been sailing before and will go again… but giving up my house… deciding to not fight for it… to just hand it over to my husband… that is something I do care about.

Before I left home last week I boxed all my stuff up and while I am gone my husband will be moving back into ‘my’ house (well, ‘his’ house actually, which is, of course, the point). I have lived there for the past 15 years. My kids were, effectively, brought up there. Their tree fort is in the back woods. My memories of their childhoods are there; the room where Alexander suffered terrible migraines, the windows that Fred broke playing hockey in the backyard, the basement Ben and his friends hid out in watching endless sci-fi movies instead of going to dances... The alternative to going sailing is to go home, work my permanent supply job, and fight to keep the house for me. By committing to go sailing I am committing to honour my agreement with my ex that he can have the house back. Which leaves me homeless. And terrified.

My husband and I did a one month trial reconciliation last spring that was an unmitigated disaster. (Our marriage fell apart almost four years ago because he had ‘had the brilliant idea to have a discrete affair’. It fell apart this spring, or, rather, was irreconcilable, over another other woman he was seeing on a very regular basis…) Just before I left to come here we had a huge blow up (over her) and I felt for the first time in four years, in other words forever, that our marriage was over. Done. Finished. Over. (Which had me in tears for hours.) And at that point I considered staying home, fighting to keep our house for me. (He did after all move out over three years ago and is currently living in a different house he owns on the other side of town. It made a lot of sense, to me, for me to buy our house off of him and for him to stay in the house he is currently in. He didn’t want to do that however, he wanted our house back for him. He wanted to sell his other house, move back into our house, and kick me out (which, incidentally, to him, and somewhat more significantly, to me, would leave me homeless). I went over to talk to him, to try and convince him to let me keep our house. And he said the only thing that he could possibly have said that would have made any difference. (I don’t know how he managed to do that.) He talked about how, our marriage having failed and his parents having died, he is feeling somewhat lost in life, about how that house is his tether to reality. It blew me away. But it’s my tether to reality too, I said, so how do we decide what’s fair? There was no clear answer. We both wanted it for almost exactly the same nostalgic reasons. Which was weird. So I conceded, I said he could have it, mostly because, for the first time in ages, I could understand what he was saying, could sympathize with what he was saying, and it all seemed too bizarre for words.

But now, at 4 am, literally continents away, about to embark on a small adventure that I am not even sure I want to go on, I am very unsure that I made the right decision then, that I am making the right decision now, that I should be going sailing at all, that, rather, I “ought” – whatever that means – be going home and fighting (a likely expensive and acrimonious legal battle) to keep my house and the continuity it would provide in my life. Here, now, at 4 am, I am very very unsure.

I could always, of course, I tell myself, return to Deep River and just buy another house (if I could find some way to afford it). I could do that. But it would not have a tree fort built by my kids out back.

What have I done?

First Impressions II

            A week later, back in Copenhagen, staying at an upscale hostel, waiting for Ben and Steph to arrive, Alexander and I have a couple days free and when he asks what we are going to do today I say that I want to go back and see my boat again (maybe even snatch my bag off of it ready to flee back to Canada). So we do. We take the train to the nearest station and then walk towards the ocean.

This time the only person on the boat is a college student from Spain, Aitor, who is also booked to sail the first leg. He is happy to let Alexander and I look over the boat at our leisure. It seems a lot bigger than before. Also he points out to us that there will only be a maximum of 12 people on board, not 14, which, somehow seems to make a difference. Certainly 12 will easily sit round the salon table for meals. Certainly the boat will sleep 12 without too much trouble. Certainly it will all work. We test out all the bunks and I choose the one I want. It is in the foremost cabin, a cabin that sleeps 4, but has several advantages; it is big enough that one can breathe in it, it has a few cupboards, it has its own head (washroom). I choose the exact bunk I want and put my bag on it to claim it. Part of the reason that I chose a bigger boat this year was to look for more community, more camaraderie, so why not start out by choosing a bunk in a room for four? It fits. I like it.

We, Alexander and I, continue poking about, check out the captain’s cabin and look to see what is in the compartments under the floor. Yes, to both of us the boat seems bigger than on our previous visit, scarier perhaps, but bigger. The student is friendly. The day is sunny. I decide that, despite my previous misgivings, I am going to go. The duffel bag I have left on the boat seems large so I go through everything in it trying to decide what I could possibly pare out and send home with my son but apart from my foul weather gear, first aid kit, and snorkel, I have one book, one polar fleece, three pairs of shorts, four t-shirts, and a couple of sun dresses… nothing that seems large or un-necessary. I decide to keep it all. Most of my clothes come from ValuVillage anyway and so could be left at any port along the way should I decide that I really have too much stuff.

OK, I decide (not for the first time). I will go. Why not? 

Biking round Denmark

Biking round Denmark - No stories to tell

Alexander and I have an uneventful flight to Copenhagen. We use public transit to make it downtown without trouble. We have a bit of a panic at the bicycle rental store as their webpage said that they don’t take reservations but that there are usually about 100 bicycles to choose from and when we get there are exactly TWO left and we have to decide right now if we want them or they will rent them out to the next people in the lengthening line. We take these, the last two, a very pink woman’s bike and a very blue man’s one, which are, fortunately, about the right sizes. Miraculously we manage to fit everything into our panniers, not only the stuff we have brought for a week of biking round Denmark, clothes and computers and camping gear, but also everything I brought for four months of sailing, foul weather gear and books and snorkel gear including a wetsuit, and we bike the 25 km to where my boat is currently docked and unload a whole duffel bag of stuff off of the bikes and onto the boat.

We like the bicycle trails here in Denmark. Both in cities and out there are separated bike lanes, safe and well-marked, easy to navigate and going everywhere. The bicycle culture is well established; even on roundabouts there are separate bicycle lanes, wherever bicycles might want to cross a road they have the right of way, routes from one city to another are well laid out and signposted, and nowhere is it ambiguous wrt whether a bicycle lane or trail exists or not.

We also like the campgrounds here in Denmark. They are usually situated right in town and come with free internet and large clean washrooms and comfortable indoor common areas including kitchens and lounges and TV rooms. It is not a hardship to stay in them at all. We arrive in mid-afternoon, set up our tent, have a hot shower, then wander downtown to do some window shopping before finding a curbside café where we sit to drink a cold beer, eat an evening meal, and watch the people walk by.

During the day we cycle from castle to castle stopping to visit other tourist highlights along the way; picturesque little towns with thatched roof houses, a cathedral where generation upon generation of Danish royals have been buried, a modern art museum, a fantastic Viking display showcasing not only authentic reconstructed relics but also modern replicas made using traditional methods and used on current expeditions tracing the ancient routes…

The bike routes often offer spectacular views over the ocean or wind through surprisingly pastoral countryside. They detour past marinas, into villages, and through historic forests with 2000 year old oaks. The temperature is perfect, everyone speaks English, we seldom get lost and we find many good places to eat.

It is all good - there will be no stories to tell from this week.