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| 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!)
