It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

Churchill was referring to the changing tide of the Second World War after vanquishing German troops in Egypt.   I’m using it because Ondine is on dry dock, I’m writing this en-route to the USA, Emma-Kate, Paloma and Ronan are ensconced in an apartment in a British tourist enclave (in Turkey) and although I don’t want to admit it, this is looking increasingly like the end of our year at sea.

I didn’t know it, but our sail from the island of Kalymnos (Greece) to Didim (Turkey), via Leros (to pick up our missing P-Bracket) would be our last.  It was a great sailing day.  The meltemi was blowing about 20-25 knots, and we took it fairly easy putting a big reef in the sail and cruising along at 9-10 knots.  We arrived late in the day and the kids were THRILLED to see the lights of an amusment park right next to the Marina.  Emma-Kate and I?  Not so much.  So far we’ve avoided going.  Or rather, I’ve avoided going.  With me out of the picture for 10 days, I’m not so sure that Emma-Kate will manage to escape without a visit.

We’re having some painting work done as the hull above the waterline has consistently blistered and should be fixed.  And we’re fixing that pesky P-bracket (this time in bronze rather than carbon fiber – what were those crazy Frenchmen thinking?).  And we’ll fix a few other nits while we’re about it.

By the time I’m back, or more importantly, by the time the repairs are done, it will be October.  That’s a “transition” month for the Med.  Although she is notoriously troublesome in winter, a wise soul on Kalymnos pointed out to me: there are plenty of widows on this island whose husbands died [fishing] in October or May.   Those are the months where the unexpected happens.  In the winter, the weather can be horrendous, but at least it’s expected.

I’m sure I could have managed this differently and be sailing back to Gibraltar now if I’d focused more on getting the repairs done earlier.  But then we wouldn’t have been hanging out in the Aegean, swimming, eating at tavernas, and generally enjoying the Greek lifestyle.  And a good thing we enjoyed it now, as it’s a lifestyle that may be in jeopardy if Greece is going to stay within the Euro-zone.   Most of the Greeks I’ve met want all the banks to go bankrupt and revert back to the Drachma so that their touristy industry will be cheap and the villains who overspent will be punished.  Stay tuned…

Much as I’d like to return from the US, jump aboard Ondine, and then sail across the Med, past Gibraltar, out to the Canary Islands, then on to the Caribbean, it just isn’t going to happen.  The reasons are many-fold: (a) no one other than me would enjoy the rapid pace required before the outbreak of winter storms: it would be seriously hard-core sailing, (b) It is very likely that I’m going to be offered employment.  And if I am, I suspect that I will be asked to start “yesterday”, offering no time to find a (better) place to safely keep Ondine, (we would get to the Caribbean in December at the earliest if we left in October), (c) inevitably if we do that much sailing there will be a bunch more repairs – none of which I enjoy or want to afford, (d) we’ve found a brand new marina, whose prices are “right”, a yacht repair company I can trust, and an easy way to transition off the boat in a seaside resort next to the glistening Aegean Sea.

Every time I climb aboard Ondine (by scaffolding at the moment), I can feel the sea calling me back.   The memories flood through me, and I’m reminded of all my favorite things: diving into the cool ocean on a hot-hot day, listening to and feeling Ondine as she powers over the ocean in a 20 knot breeze, the ability to say “I’m done here”, pick up the anchor and be gone on a whim, meeting other similarly minded cruisers, seeing my children grow up every second of every day, looking at the night sky free from light pollution – the milky way and the multitude of stars, night sailing, the simplicity of knowing that there’s nothing that matters other than the boat and the people aboard.   But I’ve always felt that you should leave a party while it’s still in full-swing and everyone’s having a good time.  And so I’m blogging from an airport.   I suspect that there’ll be more of that in my future, and unfortunately, the subject matter will not be nautical.

Ondine will stay at dry dock until she is sold.   I will return to Turkey for 1-4 weeks, and then we’ll all pack up before Nov 1^st and move stateside.  Job or no job.

When you see us, if you look closely, each of us in our own way, you’ll see the salty stains of the sea.  And for me at least, they will forever be tempting me back.

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We sailed from Naxos to Amorgos today.   Before we left, I looked at the weather forecast, plotted the course accordingly and left with two reefs in the main as the meltemi (the local north wind) was forecast to blow at 20-25 knots and that usually means it’ll be gusting beyond 30 knots (up to 35 mph).

I had forgotten how radically land masses can effect the wind.   The first surprise was the enormous gusts we got between Paros and Naxos as the wind was funneled between the two land masses.

At one point we were travelling faster than the waves.   We were doing about 12 knots in 35 knots of wind from almost directly astern – usually when the wind is that fast the waves are travelling at about 20 knots or more.  But not today, so we were surfing up the back and down the front of the waves.

F U N !!

Then I got my big surprise.   I had expected when we rounded the southern tip of Naxos that we would be in the lee of the island and the wind would die.  What I hadn’t expect is that it would reverse it’s direction!   The seas were a mess/confused when it happened, one minute the wind is behind us at 35 knots, and the next its in front of us at 15 knots.  That’s a 50 knot wind shift!

I can only assume that the wind is funneled around both sides of Naxos – which is quite high.  And at the same time, Naxos gets very hot.   As the hot air rises it creates a vacuum and so the air rushes in.  This is normal and called an on-shore breeze.   But I’ve never seen an on-shore breeze reverse a 35 knot wind before.

AWESOME !!

Then as we appeared on the other side of Naxos and zipped in between a few lesser islands, the wind picked up to 45 knots from the north.  In fact it reversed itself about a dozen times before it finally decided to blow like mad from the north.  The seas were pretty flat because were were in the lee of the island (the island was protecting us from the open ocean) though as you can imagine with 50 mph winds there was a ton of spray.  You would have thought that the small islands would lessen the winds.  But my theory on this  is that the wind lifted up over the island and then accelerated as it slammed down onto the other side.  Ironically, I suspect it would have been calmer further away from the islands.

Then finally we were in the open ocean for a short sail to Amorgos.   It was gorgeous and fast.  The swells were gentle white caps – as they broke you could see the most beautiful green through the water.

Ondine handled it all with aplomb.   We saw lots of boats with just the jib out, but not us.  We had the main and the jib and we flew all day.

Now we’re here tucked into a little bay with a beach waiting for the day trippers to go home.  Tomorrow we’ll visit this monastery.

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I created this page as sometimes I have trouble sending pdfs by email.  If you click on the link below, a new window will open and you’ll be able to download a copy of my resume:

James Green Resume

If you have any trouble, I can be reached at:

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I had lunch with a  friend of mine: Matt Davidge, when I was in New York, and afterwards, he wrote me this e-mail.  I think it stands alone as an awesome post.  It’s one of the best letters I’ve ever received.  Thanks Matt!

James:

It was really great to see you yesterday and to hear tales of your trip/voyage.  It sounds like a truly remarkable experience both for you and your family.  In twenty years time when one of your kids is at a party, some idiot will yak away about going to Catalina and back on some idiotic speedboat and they’ll say, “cool, but I sailed across the Atlantic when I was 10.”  For you to have had that much time, that whole year, with your family is a gift.

You may in the coming months, feel like you are paying for it (I hope not) but paraphrasing what you said, tis better to have really lived, than gone from dawn to dusk in quiet desperation with a bland title on a business card.  When kids are rioting in London, when Leeds United lose the first match of the season, when the stock market is going up and down like a yo-yo, who really cares about another brand’s ad budget for next year?

If we don’t struggle to find meaning in the journey, what on earth is the point of being here on earth?  I am not for one second belittling those people who work hard, raise kids, grow old and fade away.  Not at all.  If it works for them, great, because we need about three hundred million of them in America.  But for those that want more, it may be worth the stretch to reach for it.  You have inspired me to keep looking at the horizon and keep trying to think of what I really want to do.

I really enjoyed catch up with you.  I hope that we stay in touch.  Your last year is an inspiration to me.  Good luck to you and your family with everything ahead.

Best–

Matthew

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One minute you are diving into the ocean wondering how to frolic through the day.

The next you are diving through a throng of people wearing a suit and wondering whether you’ll find suitable employment.

Which one would you rather be doing?  Yeah: we’ll I’ve been doing the other one for a change.  Ten days split between New York and LA.

On one hand, it is shocking to jump from one life to the other.   The contrasts are obvious:  open ocean vs. rivers of cars; schedules, mobile phones, texts & e-mails, vs. taking a VHF radio ashore in case you need to be in touch with the boat; wide open spaces and the twinkle of stars, vs. concrete & city lights.

But on the other hand, it is easy to fall back into my “old” existence: like putting on an old pair of shoes.   I’ve spent my whole life training to navigate my career; I’ve only spent the past year learning how to navigate the high seas.

The end is nigh for the Family Green’s sailing adventure: the time has come to start worrying about how to reverse the flow of $s from our bank accounts.   It is sad to think that we’ll be moving off the boat.   The kids have grown up so much over the past year and I worry about how the rampant consumerism of the world will affect them once we “go back”.  But on the other hand, not many people can say that they’ve done what we’ve done and no one can take it away from us.   This voyage has changed us all.  The bonds that hold The Family Green together have been strengthened and reinforced in ways I couldn’t possibly have imagined before we left.  And hell: we can always do it again!

So here’s the plan: we have some more repairs to make to Ondine (nothing new there), which we will complete in Greece, and then we will turn around and head west:

1. Between now & November: Head out of the Mediterranean via North Africa (no, not Libya or Egypt, but Algeria, Tunisia & Morocco).
2. Nov/Dec/Jan: Head out to the Canary Islands, and then across the Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean,
3. Jan-Mar: head past the ABC islands and up through the Panama canal,
4. Apr-May: up the coast of Mexico & Baha, and to Marina del Rey in Los Angeles, California.

That’s my dream, but we won’t make it.   As soon as one of the following happens, we will abort:

1. I accept a job offer
2. Emma-Kate accepts a job offer
3. Someone purchases Ondine (we listed her with a broker about a month ago).

So if you know of anyone who’s looking for a well-weathered CEO, a very talented screenwriter/director, or an recently updated catamaran, then by all means, point him or her in our direction.   We are switching on our e-mails and mobile phones and are cautiously preparing ourselves for re-entry.

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Today we visited Delos, I haven’t been since I was a kid, but I am pleased to say that it is still as I remember it: probably the best, most-intact set of ancient Greek ruins in the world.  Delos is a VERY special place.   I had five things I wanted to do with the family on the trip, based on my fuzzy memory.  Would we achieve them all?

1. Visit a (specifc) ancient temple that I remember
2. See a bathtub.  Yep, go to Delos to see a bathtub
3. Have lunch on a beautiful beach with a marble pillar in the middle
4. See the Delos Lions.
5. Go to the museum

Here’s our trip along with some graphical aids:

We left early on a Ferry from Mykonos.  Kinda nice to be on someone elses’ boat.

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Greece,

I grew up visiting here as a kid in the 1960s and 1970s (yes, I am that old).   I’ve always loved it, and the Greece I love is still here.  Of course the Greece that makes the headlines these days is the Greece whose debt cannot be serviced, whose citizens are protesting in Athens, and who will pull-apart the Euro.

We are not in that part of Greece, for the most part, we’re in the islands, and from out here, it seems to me that you can get a birds-eye view of what’s going on.

First of all: the Greeks have done an AWESOME job of preserving the beauty of their coastine and villages.   We sailed up and down the coast of Spain and whereas I can assure you the Spaniards have RUINED their coast, Greece is beautiful.  Here are some pics that we’ve taken along the way (in Greece).  Somehow, despite the craziness of Greek bureaucracy, they have avoided concrete monstrosities and palatial holiday resorts.  Of course some exist, but for the most part you can easily escape it all.

But there are so many things here that are crazy: for example, the government offices are only open from 8am to 1:30pm 5 days a week.   The schools (more government employees) are only open from 8am to noon.  If you are a government employee in some cases, you can PASS YOUR PENSION ON TO YOUR CHILDREN.  Talk about stifling the desire to work.  And no one enforces any rules!   For example, there are rules on the books that ban smoking in restaurants, require motorcyclists to wear helmets, prohibit parking in certain areas, etc.  NONE of these are enforced.   Talk about money waiting to be taken.

And then there is the corruption.   Out here in the islands, a couple of years ago all of the bureaucrats in Syros – the island that is the administrative center for the Cyclades – cleaned house by firing all of the administrators because it was discovered that the only way to get a permit FOR ANYTHING was to have a “special relationship” with one of the employees in the appropriate department.  The result? Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.  Today the situation is exactly the same.   My sister owns a house here and there’s no way that she can get building permits because she doesn’t know the right people.   The result?  She’s going to build illegally and because she knows the right people locally no one will tell.  More government money not collected.

And all the more shameful because the private sector thrives.  Every person I’ve dealt with (marinas, restaurants, laborers) work hard and at relatively reasonable wages (for Europe).   They are on time, on budget, polite and efficient.   So it’s not like the Greeks don’t know how to work.   In fact they have a great history of entrepreneurship (think Onassis and shipping).

The demonstrations that you read about in the media are isolated in Athens are and the results of government employees protesting because they are going to loose their overly-generous employment terms.   Where else could you get a bonus for showing up to work (I’d probably just not show up and take a second job and forgo the bonus, but then I’m a workaholic).  Of course the government employes 40% of the workforce, so the demonstrations are huge.  The private sector is just plain pissed off with all the antics.  Their taxes are going to go up even though they get none of the benefits of the other half.  They just laugh when I’m shocked at what goes on (it’s 2pm on Tuesday, what do you mean I can’t go to the post office?!).

My favorite experience here was going into a bank because I had to withdraw 4,000 Euros (oh, the joy of owning a boat).   Once inside, I picked a number that said 524 and they were currently serving 362.   Not wanting to wait, I marched up to someone who was on the phone and bothered them until they would deal with me.  After she got off the phone, she helped me, though I had to get signatures from four different people all of the building.  I was even told to go into their back office to photo copy my passport (they were too lazy to do it themselves).  I can’t tell you how bizarre it was walking through these bank offices and no one seemed to care.  What about security??  Some of these people still had rotary phones.  It was like a Kafka novel.  And then at the end as I was waiting to pick up my cash (from person #6) I was in a line of people with massive amounts of cash they were depositing ranging from 10,000 Euros to 150,000 Euros.  And amazingly these people didn’t have to fill out anything like the paperwork that I did.  In other words, the cash (black/tax free) economy is thriving.  And the banks are doing nothing to report on it: more tax revenue missed.   And the bank I was in was THE NATIONAL BANK OF GREECE: a nationalized (government owned) bank.

{sigh}

I love Greece.

They are in a pretty pickle at the moment, but they’ll get out of it.

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This blog was just hacked.  And because www.sailingondine.com is attached to my twitter, LinkedIn & Facebook accounts, I’ve probably just recommended some loans to you.  Several dozen times.  For the record, I don’t actually think that these loan providers are reputible.   In fact, I’m a 100% loan free guy at the moment (part of the spring cleaning when we sold everything to go sailing).

But First of All: my heartfelt apologies to all of you who had to risk RSI by repeatedly hitting the delete key.   I personally HATE getting spam, and I do *almost* everything I can to avoid it.  But I also love to share things openly and so I left our blog open for anyone to contribute.  Needless to say, the blog is now locked down.  If you’d like to contribute I’ll send you a username and password.  (The couple of hundred of you who already have usernames and passwords are grandfathered in.)

Second of all, a RANT: it pains me when predators take advantage of others openness, lack of security, or naivete.  It feels like someone broke into my house and robbed me.  But that happens too, and both actions go to show the same thing: in life, it is always about the money.

If you get any more SPAM from me after this blog post, please let me know immediately by sending an email to James at sailing ondine dot com (replace the at & dot with symbols and take out the spaces).

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Or as Emma-Kate said more accurately: rudderless in Zakynthos.

After zooming 6,000 nautical miles to Greece, we finally arrived in the Peloponnese in the island of Zakynthos on June 30^th at 2am.   We dropped the anchor just around the corner from the main port of the same name (Porto Roma is where we stopped for those of you who’d like to look it up) and we all went into a well-deserved slumber in the quiet windless anchorage.

Little did we know that a Greek tragedy (or comedy perhaps) was brewing overnight…

The next morning we woke up slowly, with me rising last of all, and when finally mustered, Manny had gone swimming and taken a look at the undersides of Ondine.  He had found some white stuff tied up to the prop.  Being the good sailor that he is, he got a knife and cut it away and brought it topsides.  It looked like we had driven over a fishing net, or something like it and the prop had got fouled, though I never felt anything as we were motoring or sailing.  When I dove in, I went down to take a look and to my horror, I realized that the P bracket that holds the prop shaft in place had become separated from the hull – probably because the prop pulled too hard and the net got caught on the wrong side of the bracket and yanked it off the boat.   Here’s a diagram of what a P bracket is:

After recovering from my initial depression, I called up the local port to ask if anyone could help and got referred to “Nickos”.  His son answered and referred me to another son “Dionysious”.  Clearly a Greek family business: repairing visiting yachts.  He was a very friendly guy, said he’d come out, dive down, and take a look the same day.

He confirmed my suspicions and we agreed that rather than trying to haul Ondine, we would try to raise one of her hulls (using a craine), quickly make the repairs and then put the hull back into the water.

Although I’ve heard of this being, done, I’ve never done it, but I figured at least it’ll be cheaper than doing a full haul out and it gave me comfort to think that Ondine wouldn’t be completely out of the water as she’s a really difficult boat to haul: the supports have to be in just the right place or you’ll puncture her hull.

They were very good and got everything organized for first thing the next morning.   In fact they came early while Manny, Alison and their kids were off for a walk.  No matter, Emma-Kate and I moved the boat across the harbor where the crane was waiting and we started lifting up Ondine’s port hull.  You had to be there.  The crane operator was a real character, he told me in his broken English with me chiming in in with my broken Greek that he was really smart but only did 6 years of school.   By my reckoning that means he left the education system aged about 13 – maybe younger.   And he’s pulling my baby out of the water – AHHHHHHH.  Here he is in action.

And here are a couple of pics as they pull Ondine out of the water.  I can’t say I was very comfortable.  Let me ask you this: do you see anything missing from these pics?

Then just as Manny and Alision came back to see Ondine imitating a mono-hull in a stiff breeze, one of the Greek guys said something that I still can’t believe I didn’t notice.   “Where’s your rudder?”  I looked at him blankly, and I looked at Ondine, and kept looking at Ondine. Here’s what we saw.

I sat down, turned into a lump of jello and nearly cried.  Here are two pics taken the moment it happened.

How on earth did I lose a rudder?

And WHEN?

AND HOW DID I MISS THAT WHEN I WENT DIVING DOWN TO TAKE A LOOK?

TWICE!!

I mean you’d think I’d notice.

The rudder is huge.  It stands about 4 feet tall and two feet long: it is over eight feet tall if you include the shaft.  It’s really not something you can miss…

Everyone was silent as all eyes went between the missing rudder and me: looking for direction.

I finally broke the silence by stating the obvious: “Well I guess we are now going to fix the rudder as well as the P Bracket.”  That little P Bracket now seemed so insignificant.

A catamaran has two rudders and as we all started discussing it, we came to the conclusion that we’d been sailing on one for a while.  We had noticed some minor steering issues, but as Ondine has a hydraulic steering system the helmsman is really insulated from the “feel” of the boat and those rudders are so big that you can (obviously) steer her with only one.  Whether we’d been missing the rudder for a day or a month I couldn’t tell you.  I’m pretty sure I saw the rudder in the Azores, but I haven’t checked for it specifically since then, so embarrassingly I cannot tell you how long it’s been missing!

When we took out the rudder shaft (it was still in place), it had been sheared off. Papa and his sons looked at me very doubtfully when I said I didn’t remember any impact.   The shaft is made of two inch solid stainless steel, it’s not that easy to break in two.  But as we looked more closely, it wasn’t a clean break which leads me to believe that someone (before me) had had an accident there and weakened it/cracked it, and it had been slowly, slowly getting worse and worse: and then finally just dropped off due to incessant pressure and movement.  The very last part of the break is clean – so perhaps a strong wave, or the fishing net that snared the prop and dislodged the P Bracket… we’ll never know.

Boats: just when you think all is going well, they come up and remind you that the salt, the UV and the incessant motion is enough to wear away every component on board one-after-another, and it will given enough time.  I’m going to call my next boat “Entropy”.

Right now as I write this we are sitting in Zakinthos harbor with no rudders: we’ve taken the starboard rudder out as well so that we can use that as a model for the missing port rudder.  It’s Sunday as I write this, all the drama took place on Friday, and I’m told the new rudder will be ready on Tuesday, maybe Monday afternoon if I’m lucky.  I’m certainly hoping we’ll be ready to continue our Greek odyssey by Wednesday with both rudders back in place.

In the meantime, we’ve been enjoying Zakynthos with our new guests Dave and Lisa (this wasn’t the start to their cruise that they’d been imagining), but that’s good subject matter for another post, until then we remain rudderless in Zakynthos.

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We’ve been pressing onward to Greece with an unwavering sense of purpose and everything else has taken second place.  We’ve not been blogging or exploring as much, but we have been doing one hell of a lot of sailing: about six thousand miles or more since we left the Caribbean….

I’ve been having such trouble keeping up with our Blog Posts: when we do arrive somewhere we cram in few boat repairs, try to clean up and do a wee bit of exploring, then we’re off again.  I can’t wait to get to Greece to    s  l  o  w    d  o  w  n.

By the time I post this we will be in Zakinthos off the western coast of Greece, but right now we are half way there (from Italy) having just crossed through the straits of Messina.    The weather has FINALLY warmed up.  Gibraltar was windy and brisk as was the coast of Spain, even Sardinia wasn’t that warm: The water temperature just broke 70 degrees which is about warm enough for me to dive into and scramble back out.   I kept asking myself: why am I here?   Why did I EVER leave the Caribbean?  Only in the last couple of days (Aeolian islands) has the water temperature started competing with the Caribbean (80+ degrees YAY!)

The winds have been fluky and have not followed the forecasts, we have repeatedly been hit with head winds and calm weather which require us to use the engines, and then gales where none should be: why did I leave the Caribbean where the trade winds are brisk and reliable?

And it is EXPENSIVE!   Whereas we used to drop an anchor and dinghy into town (for free), now we are in Europe we find out that all the sheltered anchorages have Marinas and the fees for a 55ft Catamaran are OUTRAGEOUS (high point so far was 270 Euros for one night in Lipari): remind me, why did we leave the Caribbean?

Even the Internet is difficult.  We used to have a USB stick with a Digicel card in it from St. Lucia for all-you-can-eat internet for a fixed monthly fee, I know that seems normal to a land lubber, but for us it was a luxury as we are now internet-less, searching incessantly for the wisps of Wi-Fi wherever we stop.   Longing for the Caribbean….

But we sure have done a lot of sailing since entering the Mediterranean:

• From Gibraltar, to Nerja, Spain: one overnight sail, one day at anchor in the bay.  Then off again in the evening.  This part of the Spanish coast has been ruined by over-development anyway so nothing missed here.

• From Nerja to Formentera, Spain (an island just south of Ibiza).  Ronan helped steer us there.

• From Formentera to Cagliari, Sardinia (Italy),

They bought face paints with them.  Here’s what Paloma did to Ronan:

We arrived in the early morning and stayed two nights leaving on the evening of the third day.   Probably worth noting that when we arrived, my forecast said wind: 5 knots from the north, but within 30 mins of my watch (3:30am) the winds shot up past 30.  Fortunately we’d taken down all of the sails because there was no wind.  Go figure.

• From Cagliari, to Ustica, Italy: a small island off the coast of Sicily.  Not a lot of wind, in fact, so little that we were able to go swimming in the middle of the ocean.  I saw some dolphins, stopped the engine, and jumped in.   But I think the dolphins were disappointing with my swimming ability as we didn’t see them again.

• We at mid-day and stayed the night leavning late the next day.  What a delightful place.  Great snorkeling, and the marina was FREE!   I could see coming back here for a vacation once I start working again.  Can you spot Ondine in the harbor?

• From Ustica to Stromboli, a volcano off the coast of Italy in the Aeolian island chain.  We arrived in the morning and stayed overnight after hiking up the volcano.

And we came down this part (you can see the diagonal train goin from left to right going d o w n).

A somewhat disappointing hike as we didn’t get to see the volcanic activity due to heavy could cover.   But fun nonetheless.  We’ve discovered that we rather like hiking (must be getting old).

Ondine off the volcanic beach; only black sand on Stromboli.  We were going to stay in Stromboli for another day, but we got woken up at 4am as the winds started to peak and we were forced to leave.   One boat that didn’t get up and go got washed ashore.

Just goes to show how much attention you have to pay when sailing.  ALL THE TIME.

• From Stromboli to Lipari – another Aeolian island, not originally on the schedule, but I was too tired for another passage having hiked up Stromboli getting back after midnight and then being woken at 4am by 30 knots winds with no protection.  We got in at 11am and left the next day at 2pm.  Lipari wins the award for most expensive marina (so far).  But it was long enough for us to send Manny (father of our cute new guests) up the mast: as I mentioned earlier, a new guest “must do”.  He took these pics.

• And from Lipari, we set sail for Zakithos – which I will be when I post this, though right now I’m getting ready for my midnight-3am watch and we are about 100 nautical miles away.  We did meet a boat on the way who took these pics of Ondine going nicely in light wind flying the Spinnaker (going at about 8 knots for those of you who care):

To put all of that into perspective, the distance described above is the same length as our Atlantic Crossing (from Bermuda to The Azores) and doesn’t count the bit where we got to Bermuda (800 nautical miles) or that other little stretch where we went from the Azores to the coast of Portugal (another 1,200 miles).

PHEW!  I’m tired just thinking about it.  And Ronan is too:

No sympathy cards, please.

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Whales in the Med

I had no idea that there were whales in the med, but today we saw some.   Forgive the TERRIBLE pictures.    But this is all I could grab.

There were two of them and they had a huge shark-like dorsal fin which I didn’t get a snap-shot of.   Dolphins I expected, but what a treat to see a couple of whales.

They were sited between Sardinia & Sicily…

We love sea mammals…

Since posting this, I’ve discovered that these were Pilot Whales…

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So we’ve been saying we sailed to Gibraltar, but you know, its not true.

Sure, we crossed through the straits, and we had every intention of mooring in Gibraltar.  Hell, we’d already reserved a space in Queensway Quay Marina.  When we took down the sails it was night time, and as we motored past the breakwater dawn was breaking, and the water was an inky black but when we got to the Marina, it was closed.  I’ve never seen a marina closed, but this one had little floating barrier between us and the marina entrance.   We put down the dinghy to take a closer look, and sure enough that was our marina, but there was no way in.  It was about 6am, and no one was answering the phone or the VHF, so we hung out, going around in circles waiting for someone to arrive.

While we waited, I fell in love with this very practical oil rig boat:

The first thing that happened is that Ondine decided that she’d had enough of waiting and that she didn’t want to run her port engine anymore.  (I’ve since fixed the problem, I’m getting much better at this stuff: it was the cable that runs from the electronic control to the transmission – it needed some TLC – lubrication in this case.)  But there wasn’t really time to trouble shoot the problem immediately, and we had “Sea Rover” (our dinghy) down anyway, so we tied Sea Rover to the port side and she and Grant became our port engine.

When we asked what happened, we were told that there we these too guys who were welding an empty fuel/oil container.  Fine, it was empty, but guess what, it was right next to a FULL container.  One arc flew across and – well pictures can tell you more than words.

We hear that the two guys were in critical condition but are now recovering.  WELDING BY A FUEL DUMP?  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!  I hope they recover soon, and I hope that they start posting those “SAFTEY FIRST” signs I see on so many work sites…

Anyway, with Queensway unavailable and the other marina without a suitable mooring, we went to Spain (about 500 yard North) and stayed at a lovely new marina in a town called La Linea de la Conception. It was brand new, and far nicer than anything that was on offer in Gibraltar.  I guess I’d forgotten how much the Spanish HATE Gibraltar.  It’s like a thorn in their side.   The British Stole it from them.  And when the Spanish tried to take it back, not only was “The Rock” successfully defended, but the Limeys had the impunity to counter attack.  Gibraltar is the stuff of legend in England: “Solid like the Rock of Gibraltar” has become part of the English lexicon.  But for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, and all of the pride that is felt in the United Kingdom is shame (at best) from the Spanish side.  The Spanish make it difficult in as many ways as possible (it’s illegal to drive in Spain on a Gibraltar drivers license).  And I can only imagine how much they hate the tax free status of Gibraltar – guess where we decided to buy our diesel fuel…

It sounds trivial, but the most awesome thing about Gibraltar from my point of view is the airport runway.  You have to cross it – on foot, bike, or car in order to get into Gibraltar.  This is not a hoax, check out this link:

http://www.hoax-slayer.com/gibraltar-airport-runway.shtml.

Here’s us on the runway.

It really is kinda awesome to walk across the runway as we did and stop in the middle to see the heat mirages rising on each end, the rock of Gibraltar in the background and the packed streets on both sides.  But apart from that Gibraltar was a bit of a disappointment.  I cannot recommend it as anything more than a tax haven and a good place to buy tax free goods.  We were late, eager to leave, I had (more) repairs to do, and once they were done, we were off.

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If there was a beginning to our Atlantic Crossing, it was our sail from The British Virgin Islands to Bermuda.  And although we have been claiming the crossing from “North America” to “Europe” was done from Bermuda to the Azores (Portugal), it took us another week to get to the European continent 1,200 miles away.

The final leg was mostly uneventful until we were within a couple of hundred miles of land.  The winds were tight off our starboard bow (again) but for once they were reasonable (10-20 knots) and the seas were pretty flat (3-5ft).   Half way through the trip I realized that The Atlantic Ocean has been completely different from my expectations.   I thought that there would be big rollers that we would sail up and down – rollers I have experienced both in the Caribbean and off the coast of Maine.   But it was not to be.   The seas for our entire trip have been “lumpy” or “confused”.  For much of it, we would have swells coming in from two different directions and wind-waves on-top of those going in a third: a result of big circular wind conditions that churned up the ocean.  As a result, Ondine went up, down, sawed this way and that, surging forward as waves pushed her and stopped as she slammed into them.

The highlight of the crossing for me was when a pod of dolphins came racing towards us and then sped buy in a J around our port side and stern.  There must have been over 50 of them, and unlike most of the dolphins we’ve encountered they the vast majority didn’t focus on us.  We think that they must have been chasing tuna or some other food source.  Here are some pics:

The speed at which they travelled and the frequency of their jumping was spectacular.  I LOVE DOPHINS!  J

A couple of them came by for a quick “hello” at the end.

The crossing took us six days, but when we got to the Straits of Gibraltar, the wind (as predicted) was directly on our nose at 25+ knots, and so rather than try to fight that we ducked into Portugal to a well protected anchorage in Faro.

We were lucky enough to be welcomed by the Portuguese authorities just before reaching Faro: we were boarded by the coast guard!   They were very friendly, checked all of our documents and then bid us welcome to Portugal (though for the record, we never really left as the Azores are part of Portugal, but we didn’t focus on that).  My favorite part of the process was when they asked for my “qualifications”, or Captains License.  Now that’s a pet peeve of mine, because before we left the US, I wanted to get a license, but it’s really not required and in fact, I can’t get the US certification because it’s offered by the coast guard and is only available to US citizens. So I didn’t get one.  I could have got a British one, but I really think of myself as a North American at this point, so I didn’t.  But in with my boat papers and passport, I do have my Green Card, and the Portuguese Authorities asked me “are you carrying this card in place of your Captains License”.  I thought about it quickly, and I figured, well, yes, I kinda am.  I mean if I were a citizen, I’d have  a “six pack” (slang for a particular kind of skipper license offered by the Coast Guard), but because I only have a Green Card, and because I live in the US0fA, I don’t have  a license (you are expected to have one if your boat is European), so yes, I am carrying this Green Card in place of my skippers license.  And that was that.  We took some pics and we were on our way.

We stayed in Faro for a couple of days to recover and send Steve – our longest-serving crew member home.  Thanks Steve for spending a month on Ondine.  Looking forward to seeing your pics!    Here’s a couple Emma-Kate took of Faro:

From there we sailed to Cadiz – the sailing capital of Spain and picked up Grant Lee.  Poor Grant, we were supposed to pick him up in Gibraltar on June 1^st, but what with the head winds and a late departure from Horta we were a few days late and several nautical miles short.  And although we offered to meet him in Faro, Grant said “I’m on holiday and I’d rather not take the 10 hour bus ride”.  Fair enough, Cadiz it was.

And that was how we finally made our overnight trip to Gibraltar: from Cadiz.   And what a spectacular sail!   It might be my favorite sail of all time.  We had a small hole in the main sail caused by chaffing where we had been reefed and so I decided not to put up the entire sail for the trip.  But as we picked up the anchor at the end of the day, the winds picked up to about 20 knots on our beam and even with only half her canvas flying, Ondine was doing 7 ½ – 9 knots.   We zoomed down to the straits in time to catch the favorable tides and zipped through.   And oh-my what a lot of traffic.  In the Caribbean we were used to seeing lots of sailing boats and local fishing vessels interspersed with the odd cargo ship or tanker.  But for the entire crossing we really saw very few vessels and when one showed up, everyone on board talked about it.  The straits of Gibraltar and Gibraltar itself now looked like Times Square to us.   Here is a picture from our AIS (Ondine is the triangle at the middle of the screen nearest the top near “TARIFA”

Brief digression on AIS for any geeks reading this.  Feel free to skp this paragraph!

AIS stands for Automatic Identification System and they became mandatory for all commercial vessels after 9/11.   They work exactly like a planes transponder, but operate (digitally) over unused VHF channels.  Using its own GPS receiver, the AIS transmits the vessels’: Name, Type (Cargo ship, tanker, sailing boat), Call Sign (for radio contact, ours is WDF 5957), MMSI (unique identifier for each vessel for identification and search & rescue purposes), Type (Tanker, Cargo Ship, Sailing Vessel, etc.), Class (Three classes of AIS: A, B & C), Destination, Heading, SOG (Speed over Ground), COG, (Course over Ground), Latitude and Longitude.  And from this, our receiver can calculate the vessels bearing and distance (where is it in relation to us), as well as – most importantly – its closest point of approach.

Of the three classes of AIS, “A” is reserved for commercial vessles, “B” sends and receives information, and “C” only receives.   We have a class B AIS so that all those tankers and cargo ships can see us on their screens (if you get C, you can see them, but they can’t see you).  Worth every penny of the investment when you look at all of those boats!

OK Digression Over.

As I mentioned, we sailed to Gibraltar overnight, and sailing through the straits at night is spectacular.  You see all these tankers and cargo ships – some with as few as four lights (two white, one red and one green), and others lit up like small cities, parading down a virtual sea-highway keeping to their “side of the road” (ships drive on the right in case you wondered).  And as you go through, you have Europe to port and Africa starboard  – both clearly visible.  Every now and again you’ll see the bobbing red, green and/or white lights of another sailing vessel looking precarious next to the monsters of the ocean.  Even boats that we usually think of as H U G E – say a 110ft sailing boat, look like tiny gnats in the Straits of Gibraltar.   The biggest ship I’ve seen so far was 1,600 feet long!   That makes a 350 ft cargo ship look puny let alone a “megayacht”.  I wish I had a camera that could have captured it.  But there was no moon and it was just too dark.

And then finally we were in Gibraltar.   Even taking down the sails was an interesting exercise.  Here we are cruising along at 8 knots with limited maneuverability due to the constraints of wind and sails and then there are all of these tankers and cargo ships entering the same space – all in the pitch black: once again, praise be to AIS.   We wanted to keep the hell out of their way so we headed up into the wind on the west side of the bay in between some Cargo ships that were at anchor.  Here’s another snapshot from our AIS to illustrate

I figured if we stayed between the anchored ships (on the left of the pic above) we’d be safe from new ones entering the harbor.   Emma-Kate and I lowered the sails quickly while tucked in between the slumbering behemoths.  Then as we were about to come out our AIS indicated that a super-fast vessel (20+ knots) seemed to be about to cut off our path so with our new found ability to stop (no sails up anymore) we waited until the vessel cleared – only to find out that it was in fact the port authority zooming down to see who we were.  I thought we were going to be “welcomed” again as we were in Portugal.  They stopped a couple of hundred yards of our starboard bow and waited while we picked our moment to zoom across the bay between breaks in tanker traffic.  And they left us alone.

The green lines on the snapshot above illustrate how far the vessel will move in 15 mins, and you can see the “PILOT” vessel coming towards us – it has a green line that streaks from nearly the top of the bay right into the strait of Gibraltar because it’s moving so fast.

Finally: Gibraltar.

{phew}

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The Azores were COMPLETELY different than I imagined them. First of all they were cold! The water temperature just broke the sixties. So no swimming for yours truly. Though I did see the locals getting wet. (Crazy!) Blustery and windswept are two words that come to mind. We wore sweaters mostly and jackets at night.

Secondly, they are sophisticated. Not like the Caribbean AT ALL.  It really feels like you are in Europe, not on a speck in the Ocean 1,200 miles from the continent.

Thirdly the islands cover a much larger area than I imagined (duh: James, look at a chart next time!). They consist of about 10 populated islands and some smaller unpopulated ones and although the biggest island (Sao Miguel) is only about 36 miles long, the distance from the most northerly/westerly island (Flores) to the most southerly/easterly one (Santa Maria) is over 300 miles. A good two-day sail, whereas I thought we’d be able to hop from one island to another in just a few hours.

And finally, I guess because I never thought about it, I was surprised by the extent of volcanic activity on the island. The Azores are part of the North Atlantic Ridge and as such they straddle the North American and European continents. They are volcanic islands created where the North American continent slips away from the European one. The same process that forces California into the ocean and created Iceland (where Emma-Kate and I visited for our 10 year wedding anniversary in June 2010 just one year and entire lifetime ago).

Like Iceland, the scenery and geography is spectacular. Though Iceland wins in terms of raw drama.

The volcanic action that created the islands continues to this day – though thankfully mostly underwater. There is a spectacular museum on Faial (the island we visited) dedicated to the volcanism in general and the volcanic growth of Faial specifically – especially the eruption in the 1950s that caused an evacuation (to the USA) of 1,500 people (a huge portion of the islands population at the time), and the growth of the island by several hundred acres. There is a museum built on the ground of the 1950s eruption and the curators have done almost nothing to change the environment since it happened – which is awesome. You get to see how the volcano has changed Faial – without mankind trying to change it back. The explosion of the underwater volcano caused devastation to the light house there, but rather than re-build it, the new lighthouse was built inside the burnt out shell and the museum is a hyper modern facility built underground.

It’s very cool and a must-see for anyone visiting the island.

Before leaving Horta (the Capital of Faial) it is tradition for every boat to paint a picture commemorating their visit. This painting is supposed to bring good luck and fair winds to the vessel so it’s not something a worthy sailor can ignore: The whole family got in on the action.

We looked for other friends of ours who had painted pictures and found Juno’s which has weather the test of time well.

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DAY NINE: Friday, May 13th

The Weather

Up until now, the weather has more-or-less cooperated with us.  OK, there were a few frightening electrical storms and we did have to run away from the water spouts, but once we were a day out of Bermuda, at least there was wind.

Our updated weather forecast says that there is a high-pressure system over the Azores that is creating easterly winds.   All this time I was lead to believe that there were trade winds in the south that blew east and westerlies in the north that took you to Europe.  But not for us.  At least not this year.   The wind is blowing us back to North America, so we’ve got two choices:

1. Move a little further south so that when we get to the Azores we will have more favorable winds and can make a left-hand turn and sail northwards.
2. Continue on our current course and motor into the Azores once we hit the easterlies.

We spend most of the day talking about what to do.  How much fuel do we have if we decide to motor (ie how long can we motor for)?   But as we are talking the wind begins to shift to the east.  At the beginning of our conversation the wind was from the south, but by the end of the day it is from the southeast, the future is upon us.  With the wind from this direction, we can head east, but we can’t go any further south unless we motor.  We all decide that we’d rather sail when we can and motor later.   So we keep as close to the wind as we can and find that we are sailing more-or-less due east and can’t go south at all.  In fact just heading east without going a little north is a challenge.  When I look at the weather forecasts, it is clear to me that we’ll be heading straight into the wind for the last 300+ nautical miles.  That means tacking or turning on the engines is part of our future.

Ondine HATES sailing this close to the wind.  Despite winds of 15-20 knots, Ondine moves along at 6 knots.  As you take the wheel you can feel her begging to move off the wind so that she can leap across the waves at 9-10 knots.   But we can’t let her.   It sinks in that this trip is going to take much longer than we had hoped.

Normally we make about 175 nautical miles per day.  Some trips we average over 200 miles per day.  But now a couple of things have happened:

1. Due to the winds, we are no longer sailing directly to the Azores, we are staying as far south as we can, and then as the wind moves more eastwards and we are forced to sail a more northerly route, we’ll be able to.  This means we will be sailing about 2,100 nautical miles or more rather than 1,800 miles if you sailed the “rhumb line” (a direct route) to the Azores.
2. Rather than averaging 8 knots we are averaging 6 – or maybe less.   So the trip will take at least 25% longer.

So now we’re doing no more than 140 nautical miles per day.  And I know that if we turn on the engines and motor straight into the wind, this will fall to 100-120 miles per day.  This means that our trip will take more like two weeks rather than 10 days.

The crew is tired and wet and want to get there.  The weather is grey.  It’s been grey almost every day.  We’re all a bit gloomy by the end of the day.

DAYS TEN and ELEVEN: May 14^th and 15^th

The Weekend: not that we’d know it!

Days have now become pretty meaningless.   The crew is restless and everyone now wants to “get there”.

Then our (Emma-Kate and my) head (toilet) breaks.  God if there’s one thing I don’t like fixing is the “black water” (sewage) systems on boats.   It breaks right after it’s been used (#2) which means I have to use the shop vac to scoop up its contents and put it overboard.   YUK.   And these heads are less than a year old.   I hope the warranty hasn’t expired….   We’ll see…

Pretty much all of our days are punctuated by visits with dolphins and that always cheers everyone up.

DAY TWELVE: Monday, May 16^th

Monday Morning

It’s happened, we have reached the easterlies.   We have been “headed”, meaning the wind has moved around and forced us to move off course.  We alter course sufficiently that we are now going nearly due north.  We spend the morning trying to cheat the wind but we all know that the inevitable will happen.  We will either have to tack which will mean it’ll take a REALLY LONG TIME to get to the Azores because we’ll be going nearly twice the distance, or we’ll turn on the engines and motor for the last couple of days.   It’s not really a discussion; we all want to get there.  Apart from being at sea now for 10 days, the crew have flights to catch, jobs to get back to, and would like to see the Azores for a day or two before departing.   In preparation I have filled two “bladder tanks” full of diesel which we now have to transfer into the fuel tanks so that we get there under power.   We plug in the fuel transfer pump and guess what: it blows up.  Well not exactly explodes, but it certainly starts smoking and stops working.  So now we’ve got 300 lbs of fuel in a big plastic bag that needs to get transferred on rolling seas into the tanks so that my engines can burn it.

Ahh the life of a sailor….

There’s much discussion about how to achieve this.  We try a couple of different pumps I’ve got lying around, but none are really suited to the task.  So we resort to gravity.  We’ll move this huge bladder tank to the side of Ondine where it will be higher than the fuel tank, then we’ll place a hose inside the bladder tank and suck the fuel through it, and once it’s coming through we will place the hose in the tank and suction & gravity will do the rest.  Of course we’ve got no volunteers to do the sucking part, so I get my trusty shop vac out and use it to prime the hose.

Here are some videos. It’s pretty comic.  But it works.

Video 1: My introduction

 

 
Part II: Carrying the body-bag
 

 
Part III: Everything gets a little X-rated by this point. We’re all a little tired and punch. Viewers discretion is advised.

 
Part IV: Success!!
 

We are still sailing north.  But by evening we’ve turned on the engines, altered course and are heading directly to the Azores on a bearing of 85 degrees.  The wind is right on our nose.  Thank God the seas are pretty flat.  It’s a relief to be going in the right direction.  But we are only getting there at 4-5 knots due to the headwind.  No surprise.  2+ days of diesel engines ahead.   I hate that.

DAY THIRTEEN: Tuesday, May 17^th

Eulogy

It’s a quiet day today.  Paloma makes some delicious brownies.   Tracy bakes some fresh bread.  And we have a very short very informal ceremony for my Father.

For those of you that don’t know, I wanted my Father to join me on this trip, but he got sick (cancer) and died earlier this year.   (Insert link.)   So I decided to take his ashes with me on this trip so he can “sail with me” to Greece where we will scatter his ashes with my Mothers on Mykonos, the island where we spent every summer from the mid 1960s until I went to college.   (The rest of my family continued to go there until my Mother died in 1997.  And now my sister and her family spend the summer months there every year.)

Here’s a link to the Eulogy I read at my Father’s funeral in February of this year:

http://sailingondine.com/2011/05/25/eulogy-for-oswald-ivor-jim-green/

Enough said.

The rest of our trip to Horta was pretty uneventful.  We motored for almost two days.   We had a bet to see who would see land first and one afternoon Emma-Kate popped her head up and said “who won”.

Everyone looks at her like she’s from Mars.

“Who saw land first?”

And there it was – right in front of us.   Emma-Kate’s a winner!

We only put one of the bladder tanks into the boat, and so of course we ran out of fuel.   But not until we were inside the harbour!   So I just dropped the anchor and we’re here.

We crossed the Atlantic Ocean in 13 days.  3 days longer and many stories more than I expected.  But now we’re in Europe.  Gibraltar beckons.

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It is still hard for me to believe that my Father is not with us.   He was always there.

I wanted to bring my family with to his funeral.  But for obvious reasons, that was not possible.  I asked my kids if they’d write something for this service.   Paloma said it was “too hard” to write anything.

Ronan (my 7 year old) also found it very hard to write anything.  Though he did come up with this:

I had fun at grandpa’s house. He had a beautiful garden. We would play in the backyard. He has lots of books to read. He had Mini bonbells and I love Mimi Bonbells.  I miss Grandpa because we also had fun together. I wish he could have stayed alive longer.

My father epitomized this generation and was an English Gentleman to the T.    He would never talk about himself, how he felt, or his accomplishments.  He believed in the British “Still Upper Lip”.  As recently as the month he passed away, he would tell Claire (whom he married after my Mother passed away) to have patience and courage rather than thinking of himself.

All of which is a long-winded way of saying that I thought I’d boast a little about my father because he certainly never did.   I loved him.  He had an awesome life.   And here are a few highlights.

Born in 1920 in the North of England to a relatively poor family – his Dad had a variety of jobs including post office delivery person and coal miner – he spoke with a strong “Jordy” accent – that I can’t possibly imitate – until his late teens possibly into his 20s.  And then the 2nd world war broke out.  He of course signed up, but got Tuberculosis.  And was sent to a farm in the countryside to convalesce.  Once recovered, he joined the army and served in Italy in the communications corps where he learned morse code, and how to use, repair and build “wireless radios”.

At the end of the 2nd world war, he wanted badly to go to University.  But he had no money and he just couldn’t make it happen.  He got a job working for the government in the civil service as a mail delivery person.  He went to school at night to get a diploma in government administration and moved from the mail room to the lowest wrung in the Civil Aviation Administration.  Over the course of his career rose from there to become a diplomat.

Before he met my Mother, Dad was stationed in a variety of places: Libya before Quadaffi is one that stands out to me.  And from 1966-1969 we lived in Beirut Lebanon where Dad was Civil Aviation Attache to the Middle East and Lucy and I learned to ski in the Cedar Mountains.

In 1977 he was promoted to the most senior diplomatic post in Civil Aviation in the UK: he became the UK representative on the International Civil Aviation Organization based in Montreal.  We all moved to Canada in 1978 and became Canadians.

He was an avid sailor and took part in many sailing trips and regattas around England.

He was also an avid skier – that’s how he met my Mother – they were both skiing in Austria and she broke her leg.  Dad gave up his room – ever the gentleman – so that she could stay longer and heal.

And he was a mountaineer.   I remember when I was very small – 4 or 5 – his going to climb Snowdon – the tallest mountain in the Wales.    After his marriage and children, he continued the sailing and the skiing into his 80s, but gave up the mountaineering.  I believe that my Mother was not too fond of him putting his life at risk in that way.

One of the most spectacular things he did – especially given the time he did it in.  Was to travel to Tunisia – in the 1950s.  I’ve no idea how he got there.   He climbed the Atlas Mountains.   As if that wasn’t enough, he climbed them – with a group of friends and they carried up their skinny, wooden, long, bear-trap binding, skis with them.  And then skied down.   No gore-tex, no light weight materials.  Just warm wool and leather boots.   He flimed it.  We still have the footage.

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DAY SEVEN: May 11^th

Everything is wet.

It’s been raining, the wind has moved forward from south-west to south-east and we are now heading east and sailing into it. The waves have been crashing over the boat from starboard bow to port stern, (diagonally across the entire boat from right to left) and if there’s a tiny leak somewhere it’s now a flood.  Every space in the boat feels like it has moisture in it. If I don’t get some shelter, Oh yeah, I’m gonna fade away. I thought that the worst was above the galley, a leak we’ve been trying unsuccessfully to locate for moths, but then the emergency hatch on the starboard hull starts leaking.  Although the hatch is between the hulls the seas have been pounding it.   And what started as a small trickle just a couple of hours earlier has become enough to fill a cup with sea water each time a wave hits.  As the hatch is only inches above the water, the waves hit it incessantly.   In fact, (prior to the leak) I sometimes like to hang out down here and look out of these windows to the sea – the emergency hatches are behind the stairs on either side of the boat that lead down to the galley (starboard side) or nav station (port side) – because waves cover them quite often you can see what’s underwater, even if it’s only the other hull.  It’s pretty cool.  Anyway, my view is definitely spoiled by the flood of seawater.  If the leak continues to get bigger at this rate, it will allow water into the boat faster than my bilge pumps can handle and the starboard side of the boat will fill up!  Holes in boats:  not a good thing.

I wake up Steve who is good at carpentry and show him what’s going on.   I pull on the handle and if I pull hard enough the leak stops.  So Steve suggests getting something that we can attach to the handle so that we can pull on that.  I’ve got a locking bar that goes across the handles.  That works great.  Then Steve suggests tying something around it to a stationary object so that we can pull the exit shut.  I’ve got a ratchet strap and we can tie it around one of the steps.  We perform a little carpentry to ensure that the step is secure, attach the strap, tighten, and voila.  No leak.   Big {sigh} relief.

DAY EIGHT: May 12^th.

Time to repair the water damage

Emma-Kate and I sit watch together again from 4-7am.  The watch schedule cycles every three days, so every day you do watches with a new partner just to mix it up a little – and then on the third day you are back to your original partner.  We’ve got the schedule posted so it can be easily seen in the cockpit:

I’ve had the boat switch to GMT/Azores time yesterday so at 7am it’s not quite dawn yet because we’re still 900 nautical miles from the Azores.  But with all the other systems already on GMT I just decided to make the switch early.  The phosphorescence is awesome in the dark, wet, stormy, rainy night.  But it’s cold and we huddle together in a corner in the driest spot just outside the salon on the port side.  It’s lovely to spend time together and go to bed at the same time.   But at bedtime, there is noise of water sloshing around.  I open up the bilge in our cabin, and it is COMPLETELY full of water.  Somehow the bilge pump switch has been turned off (by accident) and as all the water from the multitude of leaks end up in the bilge, it’s full.  We pump it out and go to bed tired, damp, and exhausted by the weather.

Then at 11:30am I’m woken up with another “emergency”.  There’s a flood on the other (starboard) side of the boat.  The wind had died, the engine had been turned on, and Brett and Tracy had both (independently) decided to use the warm water generated by the engines to take showers (good idea!)  But for some reason the water isn’t draining from their shower drains and it’s flooding everywhere.   As I investigate, I have to look at the bilge under the galley floor, but as there’s been a leak above the galley for a few days, the floorboards have expanded and I can’t open up the bilges.  I call in the muscle: Brett opens up the bilge like it’s child’s play.  I check the filter on the gray water pump (gray water = shower and sink water)  it is COMPLETELY blocked with the ugliest, smelliest, gunk known to humanity.   I take it out, clean it, and all is OK.  I do the same with the port side as an ounce of prevention.   Put baking powder and vinegar down the drains to sanitize it.   And it’s all working.

Now I’ve got to go forward to the trampoline.  In the foul weather we’ve lost one of the rods that supports the port side of the trampoline and we’re in danger of losing another and possibly the whole netting.  So I’ve got to go and rig up a repair.  Brett helps.  It’s cold and wet up there, but we substitute some line for the rod and get it done.

David’s got his own work cut out from him defending his own against Paloma’s chess onslaught.

It’s 1pm.  {Sigh}.  Finally I can have some breakfast!

And then I find out that in the middle of all of this, Paloma – while challenging David to Chess – has made Pizza FROM SCRATCH. Go Girl! Skipping breakfast and going straight to lunch.

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DAY FIVE, May 9th: Waterspouts.

Brett wakes me up in the morning.  There are low hanging thunder clouds in the sky everywhere.

He had looked off the port stern and pointed to Steve and said.  “WHAT THE *$%! IS THAT?!”.

Steve: “I think you’d better call James”.

I come up all bleary-eyed and quickly am very wide-awake.

“HEAD THAT WAY”.  I point in a direction 180 degrees away, which is about one o’clock of the starboard bow.

What Brett has seen is a huge waterspout.   We’re still discussing how big it was.  I wish I’d taken a picture.  Brett thinks that is was several hundred feet wide and of course it went straight up to the clouds so it was at least a thousand feet high.  Tracy thinks it was much smaller.  I think it was at least 100 ft wide.  Maybe more.   It’s one of the most spectacular things I’ve ever seen.    Like a tornado, or a dust devil, but made out of water.   We could see the white water and the whirlpool it created as it touched down not more than a couple of miles away.  I wanted to get out of there as fast as we could.  For a while it looked like the spout was moving towards us, but then it began to recede and I went back to bed.  Brett and Steve saw two of them.   WOW.  Did I mention that I wish we’d taken pictures?

The storm cleared and the wind died at 11am and the engine went on.  The seas were flat and it turned into a beautiful day.

The UNO Championship continues.

Brett complains that Ronan (aged seven) has no strategy, but Brett’s in last place and Ronan’s in third, and Brett has been sneaking peaks at Ronan’s cards and he’s STILL losing, so I think Ronan had better give Brett lessons not the other way around.

In the middle of the game, Brett spots a tanker half a mile off our port bow.   Like Scotty had beamed it there from outer space.  Tracy and Steve (watch crew) will be docked a months pay for paying more attention to UNO than their watch duties (and not winning).

Then Brett spots whales in the afternoon, a whole pod of them.  He’s become our official look-out.

Emma-Kate conjured up some delicious Mexican food from somewhere.  She’s been doing a magnificent job feeding the crew.   There are a lot of hungry mouths.  And they are all happy!

It’s a glorious day.  And on my night watch I’m mesmerized by the phosphorous and the luminous jelly-fish that show up as little light bombs as we sail over them.

DAY SIX, May 10th: World Speed Records

Woken up by Emma-Kate at 8:30am (I had come off watch at 4am).  “Maybe you should come up?”  I’m groggy, but after some prodding I agree.  Good thing too!  The wind is 45 knots! And we are sailing along at 14 knots! We’ve got one small reef in the main, but that’s clearly not enough to hold our course.

I grab the helm, turn off the auto pilot and follow my favorite heavy-weather tactic: run with the wind.  The boat speed averages 15-16 knots and we see a high of 18.6 on the GPS.  DAMNATION THAT IS FAST: a new boat speed record for Ondine (at least since we’ve had her).

I take the helm for the next six hours as we navigate through the edge of a huge storm that is centered north of Bermuda but whose tentacles are still being felt 500 miles east.  Seven hours later, once it calms down to the mid 20 knots we head up into the wind and take in a HUGE reef.  Basically we now only have half the main sail up. I’ve been driving the boat manually for most of that time averaging insane speeds and I’m exhausted.

Better hold on for this ride.

Brett tells me that as I’ve been looking forward he would look astern and see these huge waves build up behind us and then just sit there like a huge wall of water as we surf their crests.  He says you could have reached off the sugar scoop and touched them they were so vertical and behind us.

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DAY THREE, May 7^th: The Calm before the Storm

The engine is on all day today.  The weather is beautiful but there’s no wind.

The UNO championship begins.  Brett manages to amass 300 points most of it in one hand.  Did I mention that the object of the game is to score as few points as possible?  Ronan (who is seven) does much better, but Paloma is in the lead.  Go girl!

While we are sailing, we keep seeing plastic bottles, but then on closer inspection we realize they are jellyfish.  This variety has evolved sails!   They extend what looks like a piece of plastic above the waves and are blown with the wind. Sailing Jelly-fish, who knew?!

DAY FOUR,  May 8^th: Look at me I’m in tatters.  I’m a shattered.

Finally, this morning the wind begins to pick up and we turn off the engines at 8:30am.

The wind is behind the beam and not too heavy – 10-15 knots so we put up the spinnaker.

I LOVE the Spinnaker.  It’s a beautiful day.   The seas are pretty flat, the wind is perfect, there are a few fluffy clouds in the sky and the spinnaker is beautiful.  Although it’s my watch, I head below to mess around with the electronics (AIS, charts, etc, I love gadgets as well).   I get a call from Steve who is at the helm and run up.  The spinnaker is shattered.  I mean Tattered.   (Can’t give it away on 7^th Avenue.)  It’s in little pieces.   I run forward and start pulling the bits out of the water, then run to lower the halyard and remove what’s left aloft.

As I do this, Steve heads downwind, but totally loses track of what he’s doing.  As I’m watching him, I yell.  “NO”.  David yells.  “DON’T JIBE”.  Which is a little more helpful than my comment.  But it’s too late.

I’ve rigged a preventer on the main, just to stop the boom bumping up and down in the following seas.  But I’ve rigged it to the toe rail as I really didn’t think there was any risk of a jibe.  There is no way that the toe rail is strong enough to stop the boom from jibing.

I yell.  “NO. NO.  NO.”  Not very useful and certainly it’s too late.   We jibe and I watch as the boom rips the toe rail up from the boat.  I’m furious.  I’m yelling at Steven and David acting like a jerk: “I’m captain of this boat, did I tell you to turn off the auto-pilot, or alter course”?  “I’m working on the spinnaker expecting the wind to be constant and you’re altering course!?  You’re jibing?   I run back to the helm and briskly kick Steve off.   When I look at our position we are heading back to Bermuda.  We are exactly 180 degrees off our desired course.  I’m furious.  I don’t remember what else I said but it wasn’t nice.  I put on the engines, correct the course.  Go back to the spinnaker and finish putting the tattered remains back in the sail bag.  I look at the ripped toe rail and start adding up the damages.   I AM PISSED OFF.   Not so much about the spinnaker.  That’s my fault, I shouldn’t have left it to Steve all alone.  But I’m really upset about the other damage.  Emma-Kate is doing a good job of diffusing the situation with some jokes.  I’m not ready for humor yet but I’m grateful to her for trying to dispel the thunderclouds that are appearing over my head.

The wind continues to pick up into the evening.  And overnight real storms start to materialize.   There’s thunder and lighting as if to mimic my mood.  I hang jumper cables off both sets of shrouds (shrouds are the thick cable that supports the mast and is fastened to the deck) I’m told this might help if we are struck by lightning.

Emma-Kate and I do our first watch together and watch the storms overnight.

It’s a pretty spectacular storm.  Lightening is one of the few things that really worry me on a boat as you can’t do anything about it.  And we start to see lighting strikes pretty close – the time between the strike and the thunder varies between three and eight seconds so it’s 1-3 miles away.  It’s still thundering as we head off to bed.

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DAY ONE: May 5^th.   My Birthday.

Cinco de Mayo.  The beginning of my 50^th year on the planet.  I’m 49 years old today.   We get up at dawn to weigh anchor and head over to the Royal Navy Dockyard which is where all the cruise ships dock.

Our crew is made up of: our family of four plus:

David Puchkoff, fearless and knowledgeable sailer/racer, and a friend of mine from squash.

Steven Kahn, David’s friend and the only person who’s crossed The Atlantic before, great carpentry and general boat skills.

Brett Erasmus, squash player extraordinaire and a monster of a man, my height (6ft 3in) but twice the size, just the right person to have on board if you’re in a tight spot, probably stronger than any other two people on board combined.  Maybe three.  Hope we have enough food to feed him!

And Tracy Gates, another squash buddy, and fearless adventurer with trips to Mongolia and other far away places under her belt.  Neither Tracy nor Brett has any significant sailing experience, they here for the adventure, the camaraderie and a good time.

But before I go into the epic start of the adventure, I should say that not all went smoothly in the preparations.  There were things to repair from the trip up from Bermuda and there were things that broke in Bermuda.  Far and away the funniest thing we had to fix was our dinghy.  Now you may not think that a broken dinghy is very funny.  Hell I don’t see the humor in it.   But when you combine a broken dinghy with a wonky engine, things start to get amusing.  Because of the enigine (which is now fine, and needed only minor tweaking) it was too hard to pull up and dock the boat so we had to stay at anchor.  And because of the broken dinghy (the outboard motor decided it needed some TLC) the only way ashore was on Paloma’s little sailing vessel: Sea Leaf – which I rowed rather than sailed.   Now when you combine Brett + me + Brett’s luggage + Sea Leaf things start to get more entertaining.  Check it out…

I’m proud to say that I did not capsize the boat.  But when Brett tried to go it alone – well lets just say that he says he wanted to go swimming and it was intentional…

Anyway, after re-fuelling, and crew breafing, we raised the main and set sail for Europe.

BANG.

SNAP.

WHAT IS THAT!

We bring down the sail.  The same car that we just repaired is now broken.   In fact, where one shackle was broken, both cars are now broken.

And we certainly can’t sail across The Atlantic Ocean like that…

Down with the sail.

Make a 180.

Back to Bermuda.

I can’t get no satisfaction. Cause I try, and I try, and I try, and I try…

Clearly our “fix” from the little incident we had coming up from Bermuda didn’t work.  So I can’t blame Ondine for this one.  It’s all my fault.

We arrive in Bermuda in the early evening.  The customs officials are delightful.   We are allowed back in without completing all the formalities again.  In their words: “let’s just pretend you never left”.  Gosh if only all bureaucracies were so lovely.

After dropping our anchor, I insist on drinking a bottle of champagne.  It is my birthday after all.  Then Emma-Kate and I grab another one and head over to some friends of ours on board “Life Part Two” who just arrived a day earlier and are going to cross to the Azores once they’ve repaired the various things that broke on their way to Bermuda.  (Isn’t sailing fun?!)   Later that evening the crew take me out for a lovely dinner at the world famous Swizzle Inn.   We have rum drinks, wine, tequila shots and top it off with a home made chocolate cake and some more champagne.   I know we had dinner in there somewhere too.  But my memory is a little hazy.  I do remember we all had a lot of fun for such a short aborted trip to the Azores.

DAY TWO: May 6^th. Departure Day.

I’m the first up.  Headache isn’t too bad.   I’ve already taken apart the cars and blocks from the traveler and I head in on the dinghy to see if I can find someone to help me.  It’s a miracle, but Steve from Ocean Sails has most of the necessary spare parts and together we cobble together what we’re missing from my damaged goods.

By noon I have what we need.

By 3pm we’ve made all the repairs.

I go dinghy in to do some last minute stuff on the internet and check out.

We leave.  It’s 5pm.

We head out through the cut.

Raise the sails.  Sail for a few hours and then the wind dies at 11pm and we turn on the engine.  The watch schedule is now in effect.  Three teams of two, three hours on, six hours off, one afternoon watch with only one person.  Switch watch partners.  Repeat forever until the Azores.

The adventure begins.

I go to bed.

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We have begun our 5,000+ sailing trip to Greece.

And I’ve begun the trip I’ve wanted to complete since I was a little kid. Sail across the Atlantic Ocean as Captain of my own sailing vessel. I’m so excited I can hardly contain myself.

I wrote most of this blog on our trip from Virgin Gorda (BVI) to Bermuda, but unfortunately for everyone, I couldn’t post it until now – as I sit on Ondine in St. George’s Harbour Bermuda.

Just as we were about to leave the BVIs, our Starboard Engine failed. OF COURSE. Sometimes I think Ondine is cursed. But I know it’s just the same with all boats. Fortunately we are a catamaran so we have two engines – we really only need one – hell we don’t really need any as we are a SAILING boat, so we’ve left anyway. We’ll fix it in Bermuda. We’ve got great solar panels, a lame wind generator, and an uppity generator that can keep the batteries charged without the engines so who cares.

On our first night out two things happened: First of all, while Emma-Kate was on watch (and I along with everyone else was asleep), she came down below and told me “the sail made a funny noise”. We went up to look at it – it was pitch black, so we were shining lights up and down the main sail and everything looked fine. Then we came back into the cockpit and there it was: our main sheet (the rope that controls the main sail) is attached to the boat by a series of blocks (pulleys) and cars (pieces of metal that run on a rail so you can move the sail from starboard to port). A shackle that holds one of the blocks to a car had broken. There had been no special “event”. It was just twenty years old and its time had come. Fortunately, it’s a big piece of equipment and there are three blocks attached to two cars, so one was still in place. We jury-rigged something to help support the one that was in place and I went back to bed. Here’s a pic:

I figured that was all that would happen to us for the night.

I was up on watch next. And half an hour into it at about 1am, I was caught completely by surprise as the wind suddenly went from a nice 15-20 knots to 40+ (that’s about 45mph) in less than five seconds. The waves were suddenly 12 feet high (and felt worse) and we went from a comfortable 8-9 knots to an uncomfortable 14 in no time. Worse, as I was not expecting this squall (my bad, I should have, I was warned that there may be some by the weather service we use: Commanders Weather) I had left all the sails up. I immediately turned off the auto-pilot (I’ve heard horror stories about Cats who left them on in those conditions) and let out the main sail. Then I had two choices: point up into the wind, put on the engine and take the pressure off the sails, maybe heave to. Or head down wind and just go with it. I opted for option two and we were off to the races. Ondine handled it like a pro. We were averaging about 12 knots on the GPS and I saw 15 as we raced downhill pushed by the waves and the wind. Needless to say, I didn’t bother with sail trim – other than to make sure that the sails were NOT trimmed as we were going fast enough thank–you-very-much. We saw 35-40 knots winds for about half an hour. And then it “calmed down” to what we’ve seen since which is about 20-25 knots or Force 6 on the Beaufort scale. Emma-Kate came up after about 5 mins to ask if “all was OK”. I said “NO!” and we rode it out together.  God Bless Emma-Kate.

At day-break we headed into the wind and put the massive reef into the sail that I should have put in at dusk. For once, our Leisure Furl system that I’ve been cursing since we bought Ondine was terrific. It was simple to put in the reef. And just as we put it in we were hit by another squall. But this time we didn’t need to alter course. We just held our position and kept going. Once again we were seeing 12 knots but this time we were going in the right direction and were firmly in control.

☺

We’ve got a guest on board (Richard Parsons) a friend of a friend (thank you Grant) who has really wanted to complete some big open water sailing. And it has been great to see his ear-to-ear grin as we get the big wind and sea conditions and we speed towards our destination.

As we talk about speed, we’ve now completed the trip and we made it in 4 days and 4 hours.  That’s 839 miles.  Or about 210 miles per day on average.  That’s definitely the fastest trip we’ve ever done.   Thank you Ondine.

Unfortunately, due largely to the speed and the wave direction, this has been one wet ride. The true wind has been just in front of our beam (about 80 degrees to be exact). But with our speed the apparent wind – ie the wind we really experience on board – has been in front of us, from about 60 degrees. And has added about 5 knots to the wind speed we experience. Thus when it’s blowing 25 knots from our side, we experience 30 knots in front of us. The waves have been coming at us from the same direction as the apparent wind and they have been 10-12 feet high. Thus we are continually getting big “green water” as Ondine’s twin bows dip deeply into the water and the waves come up over the trampolines, over the entire salon and dump into the cockpit. Needless to say, despite the warm weather we’ve been wearing foul weather gear. I got caught in that first squall wearing shorts and a T-shirt and after one minute I looked like I’d gone swimming in them! Thanks to this drenching, Ondine has shown us that she has some leaks in some unexpected places that we’ll need to address when we get to Bermuda – ahh more work on the boat, how unexpected.

Probably the most frustrating part of the ride thus far have been the smells. I’ve worked so hard to make sure that all of the smelly bits of Ondine: the black water systems (toilets etc) and gray water systems (sink and shower water) are in good working condition, but as soon as we got underway, Ondine STANK. It was so depressing. Depressing for me, literally retching for poor Emma-Kate.  Somehow now that we’ve been sailing for 48 hours the smells have gone away (mostly), but there must be some way to avoid them. I’m going to take another look in Bermuda. Though it looks like that Bermuda work list is getting pretty long: Fix the starboard engine, address about six different leaks, address the gray and black water issues, provision, add another ditch bag as our bigger crew (eight people) won’t fit into one life raft (at least we do have two life rafts) and a bunch of carpentry stuff to keep things more secure.

And the highlight of the trip so far? The little fairies that I keep seeing jump on board. When you peer off the twin sterns of Ondine at night, she churns up the water, and small photosynthesizing organisms generate little luminescent light shows in her wake. I’ve seen this lots of times. But with the water coming over the bows, every now and again, once of these little creatures comes over with it, and you see this little “fairy” jumping up and landing on Ondine. Keeps me entertained for hours.

But this is just the beginning:  First Bermuda, then The Azores, then Gibraltar, then Sardinia followed by Sicily and 5,000 nautical miles later we should be in Greece.  I’m pretty confident we’ll have some more adventures to tell by then.

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Today is the first time we’ve set sail IN A MONTH!

Yep.  We’re living on a sailing boat and what with one thing and another, we’ve not managed to actually go anywhere let alone raise a sail.

Of course we have our excuses.

1. The first 10 days we were just hanging around exporing St. Lucia
2. The next 10 days I wasn’t on board.
3. And finally when I returned we had a huge job to do that – no surprise – took a little longer than forecast.

But today, I’m happy to report that we are back on the open ocean.  And for the first time in a long time I’ve actually (a) had time, and (b) felt like, blogging.

Ever since I got back from Canada, it’s been work, work work – no I’m not kidding, and it’s unpaid work too!  We’ve come oh-so-close to getting the generator working.  We now know exactly what the problem is: something has become caught in the water intake that cools the engine, so the engine overheats.  I’m confident that we can fix it.

But the majority of my time was spent recovering from inadvertently bending my prop shaft.   The repairs are a little anti-climactic in the re-telling as it all went pretty smoothly.   The steps were:

1.  Move the engine so that we can get at the prop shaft.   I had some locals do this with me as quite frankly moving a 500lb diesel engine is something that is just a tad beyond my comfort zone.

This descritpion makes it sound so easy.  But it took four days and I spent so many hours in the water that even with my shorty wet-suit and 82 degree water, I got freezing cold and had to get out and take a break.   We went through 2 big oxygen tanks a day.  Thank God I’ve got a compressor on board.

In the evenings I was so exhausted that I just couldn’t bring myself to write anything.  In fact, I would collapse, Emma-Kate would make us dinner, we’ve been watching movies after dinner and then collapsing in a pile in our bunks.  (At the moment we are exactly half way through the six Star Wars movies.  Looking forward to part 4 – and of course the first one to be made which is next up.)  Then in the morning at 6:30am, Emma-Kate gets up first, then we slowly follow her and off to work for me.   I’ve been sleeping very well.

Being back on the ocean feels SO GREAT.   Unfortuantely, I am the most excited.

The kids had made friends in St. Lucia whom we have left so they are a little grumpy.  And Emma-Kate was feeling a little woozy and has gone to sleep.  But I’m here under a beautiful starry night with a 15 knot breeze on my beam and cruising along at 8.5 knots.   I’m sooo happy.

Tobago Cays is next and we’ll go swimming with turtles….

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My favorite moment of 2011 happened today.  And it’s really my favorite moment because all of the following things came together at the same moment.  J O Y !!

1.  It all starts innocently enough: I get a call from my Emma-Kate on my mobile and she says “I love you”.  This should never be underestimated.   We’ve been together 14 years now and it’s a bloody miracle that she still puts up with me.  After all, we live on a sailing boat and she gets seasick!

2.  When she calls I’m on a ski lift at Whistler.  It’s snowing, the snow is AWESOME, there is almost no one on the hill, and I’m skiing with a bunch of people who are better and faster than me which is FANTASTIC.  I love working to keep up.   We’ve been racking up the vertical.

3.  We chat about how I’m leaving the next day to return to Ondine.  So how great is that: one day I’m on a ski lift on Whistler, and the next day I’m going to be on a sailing boat in Saint Lucia.  I mean it really doesn’t suck to be me.

4.  Emma-Kate tells me that the reason for her call is because she’s organized a SQUASH GAME for me in Saint Lucia.  I’m a squash freak and I’ve been missing playing.  I’m squeezing in a game just before my flight leaves Vancouver and now I’ve got another one in Saint Lucia.  An abundance of good fortune.

All of this means that within about 48 hours (it’ll take me 24 hours just to get back to Ondine), I will have skiied my favorite mountain, be back on board Ondine in the Caribbean fulfilling my dream of sailing for a year, playing not one but TWO squash games, and be back in the arms of the woman I love.

Can life really get any better?

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Just when I thought I was on top of everything.

I haven’t been blogging much because quite frankly good news is so much less interesting that bad news. The weather’s been great. We’ve made some new friends. Ondine has been behaving herself. And generally the trip has started to settle down to more of what I thought it would be. Waking up in a beautiful location, doing a little swimming, a little sight seeing, doing some routine maintenance, and generally enjoying the slower pace of life. Indeed, we’ve been so on top of it that I’ve actually been planning improvements to Ondine.

And then today happened.

It all started with the anchor. We’ve got four anchors on board. I started out using the CQR, but it’s really a crappy anchor and it never held us well which meant I never got a good nights sleep. So I swapped it for the Bruce. The Bruce anchor ROCKS – it’s never let us down, we never drag, it’s wonderful. But: it doesn’t really fit on the bow of Ondine. So I decided to extend the anchor holder so that it fits a bit better and more importantly so that it doesn’t wear on the (very structurally important) cross beam.

I found a good guy to do the work here in St. Lucia: Lawrence, known as “Chinaman” locally. Chinaman works in the boat yard in Rodney Bay. We of course are at anchor out in the bay where the water is clear and the beautiful beach is right in front of us. Which means I had to bring Chinaman out to the boat on our dinghy. And as I’m on a bit of a schedule (I’m about to fly out to Vancouver click here for more details), and he was tied up today, he didn’t have much time. So he asked if we could pull up our  anchor so that he could zoom out, take a few measurements, zoom back, give me a quote and do the work while I’m in Canada. No problem. As I said, I’ve got a couple of other anchors, and some extra chain – admittedly the chain isn’t that long and it’s attached to rode (rope) but it’ll work for a short visit.

I should have known something was going to go wrong when Emma-Kate said, “James, you shouldn’t rush”. We only had 45 minutes to make the change and dinghy back in to pick up the Chinaman so I was feeling a little time pressure.

YOU SHOULD NOT ALLOW TIME TO PRESSURE YOU ON A BOAT!

Anyway, we successfully pulled up the anchor and got the Chinaman. He took his measurements and I took him back. And then it was time to swap anchors again.

Now the Bruce is on a Windlass (automated pulley thing that means you don’t have to act like a he-man and pull up that heavy piece of metal all by your lonesome). The other anchor on the other hand is not. No problem. I’m up for it. I ask Emma-Kate to take the helm (from me) and I go forward to start a wee bit of exercise. It’s not that hard once Emma-Kate has pushed forward the twin throttles and taken the pressure off. But then suddenly she puts the engines in neutral and yells “JAMES!”. My heart stops. I know that tone. I rush back to see what has happened. I go back and Emma-Kate tells me that the boom suddenly moved violently and the engine alarm went off at the same time. Sure enough, the engine is stalled. I switch off the ignition and the alarm goes silent. Now how is the boom connected to the engine? It turns out that the boom and the engine are connected via a rope: it had been tied onto the boom for the kids to swing off and was hanging in the water, and then got wrapped on the propeller. I quickly strip and dive into the water with a knife and cut it free. Unfortunately the damage is done. It’s a big thick rope and the force of it wrapping around the prop has bent the propeller shaft.

@#$_!@#$ @$ @#$ )( @#$ @#$)( $ (I cannot write the expletives I yelled when I realized what had happened.)

The right way to fix this problem is to TAKE THE BOAT OUT OF THE WATER. But there’s nowhere near by that can handle Ondine – at 30ft wide, all the cranes are too narrow for her (24ft maximum in St. Lucia.)

I go back to the Chinaman and tell him he’s got a little more work to do. Together we decide that we can in fact get the shaft off the boat (so he can fix it) when it’s in the water. But the shaft goes through the hull of the boat, so when you take it out, there’s going to be a big hole in the boat. And even the least nautical of you know that you’re not supposed to have a hole in a boat. What it means is that when we take out the shaft, we have to QUICKLY plug the hole from both the inside and the outside. The Chinaman asks me if I have dive equipment. Well it just so happens that I do! But have I used it? Nope. Am I qualified? Nope. I have a dive compressor, two tanks, three BCDs, no weights, but plenty of masks, flippers, etc. So I went back to the boat, dragged the compressor on-deck and fired her up.

I’ve never filled dive tanks in my life and they TERRIFY me. Little bombs fueled by compressed air as far as I’m concerned. Also, the pressure gauge that tells you how much air you’ve put into the tank as you are filling it up doesn’t work. However, I have bought a new one. So the first step is to swap out the broken one for the new one.

OK. Check. Done that.

Now connect the compressor to the dive tank.

Check. Done that.

Now fire up the compressor.

Check. Done that.

BROOOOOM. THAT COMPRESSOR IS VERY VERY NOISY. Suddenly I’m feeling very self-conscious. It’s sunset. There are half a dozen boats all near us and I’ve fired up something that sounds like a monster sized chain saw to help them enjoy the evening.

SORRY! I shout, but it’s drowned out by the engine. I’ve got no choice anyway, I’ve got to get this done, so sheepishly I continue. And slowly, slowly, the gauge on the tank indicates more-and-more pressure. The question is: how much is enough? And will the tanks hold? They are not new tanks. I picked them up from a friend in Dominica. They have been tested but I’ve never used them.

Sweat appears on my forehead.

I seem to remember that the tanks take about 2,500 psi. Am I right? Our Internet connection is down so its not that easy to look it up. So I figure 2,000 psi is safe. And all seems to go smoothly. And then we’re there! I’ve filled up one tank. And it’s time to remove it from the compressor. But I can’t. I try to undo the fitting, and it won’t come undone. I attach a wrench to it, and slowly it turns and then suddenly there is a loud POP! I duck. What happened?!

Well it turns out that there’s a little pressure release valve on the fitting that I should have used to remove the pressure. But no one told me that. God alone knows what damage I could have done. I don’t think I lost anything in that POP. But I’m sure I could have hurt myself. But anyway. I’m OK. I clean up.

There’s a lot to clean up. The extra chain, the anchor, the dive compressor, tools, gasoline, and on-and-on.

Emma-Kate has made a lovely dinner. We sit down. I need a beer. They are cold and it tastes great.

And now I’m writing this blog post.

Tomorrow I’m going to make a hole in my boat at 7:30am…

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My father died today. It’s been expected. I had a chance to go back and see him when we knew the end was near. He’s had Mantel Cell Lymphoma and although he “kicked it” when it first showed up five years ago, it came knocking again in November (2010) right around his 90th birthday. And this time he couldn’t handle the chemo. Once he was off the meds, the outcome was a foregone conclusion.

I flew out of Dominica to see him on January 4th.

I was picked up from Ondine by Charlie Love (one of the local boatmen) during some huge rainstorms. There was so much rain that the Indian River that spills into the bay had overflown and the water was a muddy brown. As Charlie pulled away from Ondine, his propeller stirred up water from deeper depths and the wake of the boat turned black. It looked almost as though he was spilling motor oil into the water. Not the crystal clear beauty that we’ve come to expect from the ocean we’ve been sailing in.

The rain abated long enough for me to get ashore and took up again as soon as I got into the taxi for the airport. It felt like everyone in Dominica knew why I was flying home. It’s such a small place and we’ve been hanging around such a long time. That’s a double-edged sword, because I’m not really sure what to say about my Father passing away.

Boarding the small plane that left Dominica for Puerto Rico was still very much part of the aesthetic that is Dominica: a tiny island of 71,000 people, it’s four dramatic and lush peaks draped in cloud and rain; breathtakingly beautiful whether you drive, hike or fly over them. Once the plane pushes through the clouds into sunshine, Dominica appears every bit the mysterious Caribbean island of legends: its peaks shrouded by clouds and the waves crashing against its Atlantic coast.

And suddenly I’ve left.

I’m no longer sailing with my family. I’m flying home to say goodbye to my Father. As if to emphasize the change, Puerto Rico (my first stop) quickly looms into view. And much to my surprise, although they are both Caribbean islands, the change from Dominica to Puerto Rico is as big as my change in circumstance. Having lived my life in the capitals of the world (London, New York, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Hong Kong and others), I am not a stranger to modern developments. But our lives have slowed down to such a degree, and we have become so used to the one road town of Portsmouth (Dominica) that even Puerto Rico seems dauntingly huge in comparison.

The rest of the trip is a 30 hour blur: A connecting flight to Tampa where I slept on the floor in the airport (a six hour layover means that once you factor getting in and out of airport security a hotel just doesn’t seem worth it); then the plane to Dallas; and on to Vancouver.

Boom. I’m in the house with my Father and his wife Claire. (He re-married 11 years ago a few months after I got married so calling Claire my “Step-Mother” doesn’t seem appropriate).

My Father is confined to bed and is a shadow of his former self. But despite this there are funny moments: He is completely lucid.

Canada (or more specifically, British Columbia/Vancouver) will provide nurses for up to 4 hours a day to visit your home and help you look after a “palliative care patient” (my Dad fits the bill). But Claire has rules, one of which is that you are NOT allowed to wear shoes in the house. Everything is white. Carpets, walls, couches, chairs. Even Claire’s shoes! So once you walk inside, you’ve got two choices: Stocking feet or different shoes. But these government-supplied nurses are union employees and they have rules as well, including a clause in their contract that says that they are NOT allowed to remove their shoes when they come into the house due to potential liability issues. (Nope, I’m not kidding.)

This upsets Claire. She even tries getting them to wear little baggies over them like the ones surgeons wear in an operating room. But they refuse.

An upset Claire is an upset Dad. He’s pissed with the nurses. When they come in to examine them he is incredibly rude to them. For example:

Nurse: “How are we today”

Dad: “What do you think? I’m dying of Cancer”

Nurse: “Is there any change from when we last saw you”

Dad: “Nope, you still won’t take off your shoes when you come to see me”.

All delivered with a dry slightly upper crust English Accent. (Not that he was born with that, his Dad was a coal miner.)

Dad doesn’t want to talk about dying. My Mother didn’t either (she died in 1998). This surprises me. But all of his affairs are in order, and he’s never been one to chat about anything personal (so why am I surprised?) A member of “The Silent Generation”, he’s always kept himself to himself and shunned all emotion. He’d have made a great Vulcan. Indeed, he chose the profession that – in my opinion – is as close to the Vulcan philosophy as you can get here on earth: he became a diplomat for Her Majesty’s Government. His last assignment before retirement: United Kingdom Representative to the International Civil Aviation Organization. You should have seen the size of the nameplate on his desk.

I share photos from our trip: pictures of his grandkids sailing a dinghy with me. Just as he once taught me to sail at the same age. I remind him that if it were not for him we would not be taking this trip. It’s unfortunate he can’t just hop on a plane and join us.

Claire and I behave as though everything is normal. Despite the doctors visits, nurses comedies, trips to the hospital, draining of lungs, arrival of a hospital bed, help with bowel movements and spoon feeding. I’m now his flat mate. I’ve always been here. And indeed that is nice. Dad doesn’t want to talk. But he tells me that he likes having me in the room with him. I’m moved. But say nothing.

Finally, I’m about to leave and want to say something. Even though I know it’s more for me than it is for him.

“Dad, I’m leaving tomorrow, and whether because of my poor sailing skills, or your virulent affliction, it is possible we won’t see one another again”

“I know”

“I just wanted to tell you that you’ve been a good Dad. You provided me with what I needed and you where there when I needed you to be. Thank you.”

“You’ve been a good son”

“I love you Dad”

“And I love you James”

A swell in two pairs of eyes.

A short hug – a little awkward given the hospital bead and the personality.

“Let’s talk about something else…”

I left the next morning.

That was about four weeks ago.

Today he had a massive heart attack. It lasted four minutes. He was scared. He knew what was happening. My sister was with him. I was not. I will fly home for the funeral.

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The ocean is tough on everything.   When we bought Ondine, my good friend David Puchkoff had me buy a New American Flag to go with Ondine as the existing one was a little worn – nothing terrible, just needed an upgrade.  And although (despite valiant efforts) I’m not yet American one must fly the flag of the country the vessel is registered in off the stern (back) of the boat.  Hell, I love living in the US of A so that’s another reason to fly the flag.  But take a look at it now.   It is now COMPLETELY worn out after 7 months at sea.  Here’s Ronan doing his best Vanna White impression to compare the old with the new.

As we were buying a flag anyway, we decided to go whole hog and buy one for every nationality on the boat.  That’s American (Paloma & Ronan), Canadian (Paloma, Ronan and me), Australian (Paloma, Ronan & Emma-Kate) and English (all four of us).  According to maritime etiquette you can fly the flag of any guests on board off your port spreader (basically on the left side of the boat).  Here they are.  Personally, I think they look GREAT.

The red one with the Union Jack in the corner is the British Ensign or British Maritime Flag.  Trust the Brits to change the flag based on whether it’s on a boat or a palace.  In fact, the red is for us commoners.  I believe The British Admiralty can fly a blue one with the Union Jack in the corner and the Navy has a white one or some such nonsense.  More here if you care.

Anyway, the starboard spreader (right side of the boat) is reserved for the flag of whatever country you are currently in.  So we are currently flying the French Flag as we are in Martinique.  Here’s a picture of all the flags together on the spreaders.

With the US Flag off the stern we’re a veritable UN and I love it!

Here are a few photos that Emma-Kate took of Ronan as we were changing the flags.  Maybe he’ll become a ROCK STAR!  Certainly no matter what our nationality is, we are raising American Children.

Emma-Kate is using the best image (not included here) for her pic of the week.

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Gosh it was hard to leave Dominica.  We met so many great people.  Had a great time.  And every time we tried to leave, something kept us back.  Once we decided to leave:

Day 1: My diving accident (more details here: http://sailingondine.com/2011/01/20/physics/)

Day 3: We blew the pad eye that holds the clew of the main sail (the corner of the main nearest the back of the boat) and had to have it repaired.  This is the 2nd time this has happened.  The first time we were in Long Island Sound testing out a Spinnaker in way too much wind and the results there were much worse, a good friend ended up with several stitches in his head!  At least we were close to my yard: I was told they made it really secure.  Just goes to show, you should check for yourself.  This time, although the wind was blowing, it was only about 25 knots – maybe 30 – when it blew out.  I found out (the hard way) that it was only bolted on – no nuts to go with the bolts.  Thankfully our sail maker (there was damage to the main last time this happened) thought to put some canvas webbing in addition to the pad-eye or things would have been worse.  No injuries or damage to the main this time.  So back we went back to Dominica.  I took the whole boom apart and added bolts on the other side of the pad-eye.  There’s no way the clew is coming off again.  And I kept the extra webbing just for security.  Here’s a pic before I took it all apart showing the pad-eye removed from the boom furler.

Day 4: Perhaps because of the accident with the clew, the furler inside the boom came off and became damaged at the other end this time!  This is basically where the main sail is attached to the mast.  So it was kinda traumatic – as always it was blowing hard – we were in a squall when it happened.  God Bless Emma-Kate for quickly figuring out what it was.  But this time we said we were going to leave Dominica anyway and sailed on to Martinique.   Where with a little help from a local welder I put it all back together again.

And this was after she let me cut her hair!  Gosh I’m a lucky guy!!  (She cut mine too.)

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We were woken up this morning by sounds of “Woo Hoo”,  “Allo”,  “Woo Hoo”.  I guess that’s French for “Wake up you sleepyheads”.  So that’s what we did.  There was a funny moment when Emma-Kate was insisting that I put on a T-Shirt she had got for me while I was looking for something to cover stuff a little lower down.  But after a quick giggle, we quickly made it up to the deck.  And what did we find?

There was a Catamaran bumping into us!   I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and said

(All of the following happened in French)

“Is it me?  Or is it you?”  Meaning, did my anchor drag or did yours?

“Oh, it’s you, it’s you, we only just dropped ours” came the reply.

“See, you are moving forward”.  I had to supress a giggle when she said that.   I wasn’t sure if she was serious!   There’s this thing about boats at anchor with no sails up.  They don’t really go forward.  And there’s this other thing.  If you’ve just dropped your anchor you don’t know yet whether or not your anchor is stuck in yet especially with the mind moving around from place to place and blowing about 25 knots (which it was).  We have been here 3 days and haven’t moved a millimeter.  I checked my surroundings to be sure and said.

“I think it’s you…”

And with that I took another look at my  neighbors as Emma-Kate and I began to put some fenders out to protect ourselves.  I noticed that all four of them were all working with one hand.  The other was being used to hold a cigarette. Priorities. They were close enough that I could smell the alcohol on their breath.  So I guess that had sacrificed their driniking hands to put out the anchor and put out fenders.  Fair enough.  It was 6 am.  Time for a break I say.

We were very polite.  No damage was done. I waved and said “a la prochaine” (until next time) as they moved by (I’m not even sure their anchor was on the bottom they were moving by so quickly).   And we’ve been laughing about it ever since.   I think they were embarassed because they didn’t try to re-anchor.  They just left.

Location: St. Pierre, Martinique.  I do love the French.

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I love physics.

Particles that are waves.

Objects that bend space.

Tiny little things that occupy more than the 4 dimensions we can understand.

But right now, physics is giving me a headache.

First off, I’m proud chalk one more up for the good guys and I’ve fixed our generator.  Admittedly I had lots of help from Igna, a local one-armed machanic who is AWESOME.  If it’s mechanical, Igna can fix it.  Pilots Point Marina who did most of the (excellent) work on Ondine before we left basically refused to repair my generator using age and unreliability as reasons to not move ahead (they recommended buying a new one for $15,000+).  But here we are and it’s working.  Just a couple more bolts to keep the capacitors snug and we’re good-to-go.

Just as I was in the process of doing this, I dropped a wrench off the side.   So I immediately dove in to get it.  We’re in about 30 feet of water, and I’ve snorkeled that deep plenty of times before.

So there’s this thing about physics.  You just can’t break the rules.  And it pays to remember that the beautiful Caribbean water we are living on weighs signifcantly more than air.  And that when the pressure of the water is greater than the pressure in the air spaces in your body, nasty things can start to happen – even if you are not using compressed oxygen (dive tanks) to breath.

I’m not a rookey snorkler or free-diver, I’ve been doing it since I was about seven years old.  Maybe younger.  I used to dive for sea urchins as a kid so that my Mother could eat “uni” for lunch on the Greek beaches.  But for whatever thoughtless reason, I didn’t take the time to equalize as I decended.  Probably because I was a little short of breath, in a hurry, and just wanted to get the generator going.  Anyway, as my mask squeezed tighter on my face (should have put more air in there) and  my ears and head began to feel like they were squeezed (should have held my nose and blown out), I just thought “wimp” and kept going to the bottom to get the wrench (replacement value less than $20.)  Of course I got it, but then when I came up to get out of the water, I noticed blood in my mask,  and as I took off the mask, blood seemed to be *everywhere*.   I called for Emma-Kate as I was feeling a little disoriented.   She looked really shocked when she saw me as my eyes had already started to swell up.  In fact I had blown blood vessels in my eyes.  (The pic above is after I recovered a little – we really should have taken pictures right away, but I thankfully, Emma-Kate cares more about me than blogging.)

So lesson learned: I’m not a kid anymore.  I can’t just dive off the boat and hit the bottom 30ft below without equalizing.  If I ever could.  And of course the “quick” job to finish fixing the generator still isn’t done as I recuperate on my bunk and write about the experience.

In case this worries anyone, we did consult a Dr. immediately, and I’m going to be fine.  Just a few broken blood vessels and a bruised ego.  Both of which are expected to heal quickly.

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Whether you made it or not to the cold November night when we “left” Manhattan, you should check out this video put together by Gary Philip and his crew over at EMD Agency (www.EMDAgency.com).  Featuring all members of the Family Green, and speceial guest appearances from Brett, Eli, Brad, Clarissa, Ryan and others, this video is dramatic and hysterical.  And I LOVE Gary for putting it together.

Thank you, thank you, thank you Gary.  You rock my world.

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Tomorrow I fly back to Ondine.  I’ve been in Vancouver to see my Father who is gravely ill.   But I’m not ready to write about that yet.  The crew have asked me to bring a variety of goodies back from Canada, through the US, via Dallas, Tampa and Puerto Rico to Dominica.   And as I pack them, I realize that with tightened security, I’M GOING TO BE ARRESTED.

Take a look and let me know what you think.  It all starts off innocently enough.  I mean chocolate?  That’s not so bad?  Right?  But I have about 40 bars of the stuff and I worry what that’s going to look like on the X-Ray.

Then there’s the Lara bars.  Same issue as the chocolate.  Only twice as many. They look like little bars of C4 to me.  Or at least they will on the X-Ray machine.

Then there’s the four bags of almonds like this one.

Personally, I think they look like bullets…

What about the clippers?

Look forward to the next big YouTube event when Emma-Kate and I shave off all our hair.  (It’s true, it’s coming.)  But in the mean time, there are sizzors and blades in this package….

The tins of chocolate spread and coffee are not good in these days where a tube of toothpaste is confiscated.

The French Press?  OK.  Maybe I’m getting paranoid and I’ve seen too many James Bond Movies, but to me it looks like a detonnator.

And no matter what you think of the above, these two ultra-sharp ceramic knives with their own sheathes just are no’t going to go down well in an airport.

Put it all together and this is what you get:

It’s been nice knowing you all.  Please visit me when I go to “college”.

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When we were leaving New York, the weather decided to teach us a lesson or two.  We had a crew of 9 of us that were scheduled to sail to Bermuda, and then a huge Nor’Easter blew down with winds over 50 mph and it became apparent that we just couldn’t sail away.

You can read about the delay in my blog post here.

In the end as the dates got delayed, all my crew had to drop out and I had to hire crew to sail with me.   And on very short notice.  I interviewed five or six captains and crew.  Lots of them had plenty of delivery experience, but they didn’t make me feel like I was going to have a very good time sailing with them.  A common break down point would be when I told them that I wanted to Captain the boat.  Obviously I’ve got less experience than all of the Captains I spoke to (I’m not a professional), but it’s my boat, my year, and it is important to me for symbolic reasons that I am Captain for the entire trip.  I would assure them that if things really started to go wrong, I would cede command, but that wasn’t good enough.  Several Captains dropped out.  And others made me feel insecure and inadequate to the task.

And then I met Rowan (Captain) and Chase (Mate) from Sail2Adventure.   It was like a breath of fresh air.  They weren’t the cheapest folk I talked to, but they made me so much more comfortable and I was certain that I would be able to get along with them.  And most importantly, they understood that this was my trip and they were helping me out.  But that I’d be looking to them if we got into any difficulties.

And what a pleasure it was to sail with them.   You expect professional and courteousness.  But these guys did so much more.  I got sailing lessons and more important Diesel lessons thrown in.  After we arrived in Bermuda, they offered to spend additional time with me (at no cost) to make sure that I understood all of the mechancal aspects of Ondine.   We changed filters, oil, belts, bled engines, and generally got ourselves good and greasy while making me feel more and more secure.

If you are looking for someone to sail with or a delivery, you just couldn’t do better than these guys.  They will take care of you, your boat, and you’ll be so happy you met them.

If you’d like to get in touch with them, send an email to info@Sail2Adventure.com, or visit their webside: www.Sail2Adventure.com

We sailed with Rowan and Chase again from Antigua to Guadeloupe.  And I would no longer trust Ondine to anyone else.

Rowan giving us a guided tour of Antigua

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We love Dominica.  There are only 71,000 people here.  And unlike other small islands with similar populations (US Virgin Islands, Antigua, etc) there are no major developments: no five star hotels, no high-rises, no major corporations – with one interesting exception that I’ll get into later.

My investigations started while we were being driven along the coast: I saw a beautiful gravestone perched on a hill overlooking the ocean.  Upon closer inspection, I noticed it was engraved with the name “Michael Douglas”.  You’ve got to ask when you see something like that.  My driver explained that Michael Douglas was an illustrious leader of the Dominica Labor Party.  And so we got talking about the local politics in the island.

Apparently, in the 1990s, the island was (mis) governed by the United Workers Party, who were more than a little corrupt.  The country amassed enormous debt, money was siphoned off by politicians, the national bank was accused of money laundering, and Dominica was blacklisted by international aid agencies.  The good news is that Dominica is an active democracy, (became independent from the UK in 1978) and the United Workers Party got booted out of office in 2000 and Roosevelt Douglas – brother of Michael Douglas (of the beautiful grave stone) was elected.  However, Mr. Douglas died in office after only 8 months.  And his replacement also died in office a couple of years later.   And so when it came time to choose the next Prime Minister, they chose the youngest candidate possible, who as a result is currently in power: Roosevelt Skerrit.  The United Workers Party has been doing all they can to discredit him and forced him to call a snap election last year.   But that only resulted in his party getting 18 of the 21 seats!  So now they are accusing him of being a dual national which is illegal according to the constitution as his mother lived in Guadeloupe and registered for a French passport when he was a kid.  (Roosevelt has since renounced his French citizenship).  So it’s nice to see that no matter where you go, big or small, there’s plenty of mud slinging in the local politics.  Hopefully, now that he’s amassed so much power and support, Mr. Skerrit won’t prove that famous law of politics: power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

There are plenty of other interesting (to my point of view) things about Dominica’s politics:

1. Just like Antigua & Barbuda, the Japanese have been investing in fisheries here in order to curry votes in the UN to allow the hunting of whales (see this article).   However, this decision was made under the previous party and as Dominica is an eco-tourism destination, the current government have reneged on their promise to vote with Japan and are currently voting against whaling.  Interestingly, the Japanese are continuing to invest.  I counted at least two different ports funded by the Japanese one of which is currently under construction (in Portsmouth) and have been told of a third.
2. China is also a big investor in Dominica (see here).   I am told that China doesn’t give money, they give resources (an interesting way to ensure what you give goes where you want it to). In this case, the Chinese are helping to build roads and schools.  So when you’re driving around Dominica, you suddenly see a bunch of Chinese construction workers in Orange jump-suits and brand new (Chinese) digging equipment.   There are persistent rumors that the men working on the road crews are criminals, but I don’t believe it and put it down to the dirty politics being waged by the United Workers Party.  I’m told that there are some decent Chinese restaurants sprouting up around the island which is a pleasant side effect.  I have made the assumption that as Dominica doesn’t have natural resources that China wants (oil, minerals, etc) that Dominica is trading in sovereignty on this issue: probably taking aid in exchange for not recognizing Taiwan.  This has been backed up by a couple of locals who say that trade with Taiwan has all but dried up.
3. Venezuela is another of Dominica’s partners.  They helped build the main airport, (Hugo Chavez visited with a fleet of jets when it opened) and are the main supplier of oil to the country.  I’m told that they are going to build an oil refinery on the island (see here).  One of the side effects of this is that diesel here is the cheapest we’ve ever seen.  It cost about $300 to fill up the tanks in Dominica vs. $450 in the USA, $500 in Antigua and $950 in Bermuda.  Interestingly, the locals don’t seem to differentiate between Venezuelan aid and Chinese aid. Which can be very confusing when you’re trying to get a story straight.  For example, one guy kept insisting that Dominica bought all their oil from China…
4. And lastly, there is that major development, the one exception I referred to at the beginning of this article: Medical Tourism has a whole new meaning in Dominica.  Due to the incredible rising costs of tuition, medical schools have begun going off-shore.  (Who knew?  Not me.)   Dominica has been one of the lucky recipients of this trend.  Ross University is based in Portsmouth and is a large 3,000 student facility with all of the modern conveniences.  Right outside the school are a couple of franchise fast food restaurants (KFC and another) but I loved finding a local entrepreneur who has set up a “7-11″ store.  Clearly not a franchise as it is more of a grocery store and has the wrong logo.  But it stocks what homesick American kids would want and I’m sure the proprietor is doing well for him (or her) self.  This University must be a HUGE deal for the economy as it represents a boost of about 4% to the population of the country!  And if I were a student looking to go to medical school this Ross University deal seems like a great idea!

A final little intrigue are the large number of wrecks that are dotted around Portsmouth Harbor where we are anchored.

They have accumulated as various hurricanes have hit over the years.  Dominica has been too poor to do anything about it, but finally got a private party to pay to salvage them all.  However, just as they began to cart the wrecks away, the Venezuelan government also offered help.  I don’t know which deal is better, or any of the details, but I do know that this has resulted in a stand-off.  There is a large salvage vessel that’s been sitting empty in the bay for four or five months while the government dithers about what to do and the wrecks continue to rust away.

I love Dominica.  My sister is considering buying a house here.  Not sure what the US is doing to help out.  It’s probably too small to worry about.

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All of the pictures below were taken on the same day.  They are an incomplete snapshots of the incredible variety of foods that can be found/grown on Dominica.

Dominica is incredibly fertile.  Most of the islanders appear to grow at least some of their own vegetables.  And many make a side living by selling what they don’t eat at the local market which in Portsmouth happens every Saturday starting at about dawn.  We’ve been told that no one is poor in Dominica because everyone can always get plenty to eat.

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We just left Guadeloupe. We arrived on Dec 11th and left on the 21st. Lots of people told me I would hate it. One Englishman in particular looked at me incredulously when I said we were visiting and said “why on earth would do THAT!?” Having visited, I can only assume that was an English/French thing. Because we’ve loved it! (And I’m English BTW.) The French have done MUCH more for their islands than any of the other colonial powers. It is obvious from the infrastructure that the French have poured tons of French Francs followed by millions (billions?) more Euros into Guadeloupe. The infrastructure is flawless: everything works. Of course back in the day they killed off all the native Caribs, so now the populations’ ethnicity mirrors that of France: predominantly white with a rainbow of other colors – none of them local. And prices are just like Paris. When you ask someone why everything is so expensive, they all say exactly the same thing: “This is France!”. I guess taxes are probably through the roof to pay for everything.

But I don’t want to knock Guadeloupe at all as you really have to take your hat off to the French who have a much better respect for the good life than your average workaholic Anglo Saxon (me!). It seems that if you are in a territory owned by France, whether you are on the Champs Elysee or a remote postage stamp in the Atlantic Ocean, you have the right to:
• Fresh Baguettes and Croissants
• Great coffee
• Great wine at low low prices (I couldn’t drink the stuff under 5 Euros, but between 5-12 Euros there was lots and lots to choose from)
• Fine food, all fresh. They have two 747s a day that fly in whatever is not available locally.
• A good/wide selection of cheeses
• No overtime. Working hours seem to vary, but something like 8am-1pm and 3-6pm seems average. I love that everything shuts down in the middle of the day. Can you imagine New York doing that!!
• Good infrastructure
• Strikes (there was one when we were there, though it didn’t amount to much).

There was a referendum recently in Guadeloupe suggesting that the island become a separate autonomous region. And 80% of the voters said: “Hell No”. That wasn’t even a vote for independence – just for a little more local authority. Clearly, the island wants to be French.
Our favorite place was Iles-des-Saints: a tiny outcropping of islands of the southern tip of Guadeloupe. It is a sleepy little place where you can tuck away in a cove by yourself, or hang out in the town square and drink rum drinks while admiring the sunset. We had a marvelous time.

On the mainland, we hiked up the bottom part of a volcano for an hour to the most spectacular waterfall where we all went for a swim. The kids loved it, which is pretty impressive given that it was a rough one-hour hike in both directions. No problem when you’re a fit man, but Ronan (7) and Kailey (6) just loved the rainforest, the vegetation, the animals and the exoticism of it so much that they didn’t seem to notice that they were on a tough hike. And Paloma (10) became their “team leader”.

So if you are thinking of a vacation in the Caribbean with a European flair, great food, and 1st world services. Visit Guadeloupe! If you make the effort to speak French, they’ll love you for it.
Sponsored by the French Bureau for Tourism. (I wish.)

☺

Oh yes: and in case you think everything is sweetness and light, read this.

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We are now 10 days into sailing with my sister (Lucy) and her family (Jon and Kailey who is 6). They are with us for three more weeks. Lucy and I looked at each other this morning and asked each other the same question: will be make it?

I call Lucy and Jon modern day plumbers. They run a hosting/sys admin/computer consulting business called Dynaworx out of Vancouver, BC. If you have a small to medium sized business and need help with technology, then they’ve got what you need. They have several employees in Vancouver, and have figured out how to manage their business remotely. Which means they spend three months a year on a Greek island and are joining us for a month over the holiday season. They take other vacations throughout the year.

The downside is that when they are “on holiday” they have to work. Not all day, but for several hours. And if a server goes sideways or a client has an emergency then they drop everything and figure out the solution.

What that means to me most explicitly is that Ondine’s electrical systems now have to power up several laptops and flat screen monitors not only during the day, but at night as well. So we seem always to be low on power. The batteries are routinely run down to 20% capacity, and for those of you in the know, I have 1,620 amp hours (@ 12v) in 6x8D batteries. Which is a lot to run down and charge back up.

In addition, my port engine just started acting up. I was running it to charge the batteries – because my generator isn’t working and my solar panels and wind generator weren’t making enough juice – and when I was ready to shut it down, the engine wouldn’t shut off. OUCH! Jon and I ended up getting very up-close-and-personal with the engine as it was running and forcing the throttle – by hand while the engine was running – to shut off the gas supply. Finally the engine stopped. And now it won’t start.

Then I discovered that my engine driven fridge drive is broken (I have two ways to make the fridge cold: one from the batteries and one from the engine). A nut came loose and the vibration of the engine was enough to crack then break the bracket that holds it in place. There’s a lot of chaffing that goes on when you are sailing on a boat….
So now I’ve got a whole mess of issues. It’s funny, but when you’ve got one or two things go wrong, then a you get a cascading effect, check this out:
1. The port engine won’t run which limits our ability to maneuver.
2. As a result of our inability to maneuver, we can’t pull up to a fuel dock and get fuel.
3. Passengers on board are creating a greater demand for electricity than is normal so we have to run the engine to charge the batteries.
4. Due to the increased electrical demand and therefore engine use, we are now running low on fuel.
5. I cannot reduce the load that the fridge draws on the electrical system because the engine driven fridge drive doesn’t work (and we are low on fuel anyway)
6. Usually we make water with our water maker, but that takes electricity and we are short so we haven’t been making water to conserve power. So now we are low on water. Let’s not even talk about the washing machine…
7. We can’t pull up to get water because we have limited ability to maneuver (check out item 1).
So now we have arrived in Dominica and as I have no port engine, no generator, low fuel, low water and no ability to get to the fuel dock or run the water maker, I’ve got to fix some things quickly.

Meanwhile Lucy and Jon’s business doesn’t stop and they need to work, so the tension is palpable, especially between Lucy and me. I’ve been re-named the “Juice Nazi” as I try to limit everyone’s electrical usage. I keep thinking that Grease Monkey is more like it as I get up to my armpits in engine oil…

But it’s not all bad.  Here’s the flip side.

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Ever since Paloma discovered that sailing boats have masts, she’s wanted to climb them. She knows I get vertigo, but that just eggs her on.

When a boat pulls into port, you are supposed to raise a yellow flag (the “Q” flag) until you clear customs and immigration and then you’re supposed to raise a “courtesy” flag of the country you are in when you are clear. It’s Paloma’s job to lower and raise these flags. When we came to Guadeloupe, Paloma had to lower the Q flag and raise the French flag, but somehow the halyard (the rope that raises the flag) got loose and the end or the rope was at the top of the mast. The only way to retrieve it: someone had to climb the mast.

So I will ask you what I asked Paloma: was that an accident? Or did that happen on purpose? Check out the pictures and you decide for yourself:

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Here are a couple of videos that we took on the way down south. They are very short clips. I think we can do better in the future as all three add up to less than sixty seconds, but this’ll give you a feel for what it’s like to Sail Ondine in the open ocean.

Ronan makes a sneak appearance in this first one:

Here’s Ondine without any special appearances:

And here’s how fast we were going and where we were (Lat/Lon) when the video was taken.

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We are currently at Anchor in Iles-des-Saints, which is a small group of islands that are just south of and part of Guadeloupe (France).   Although we were planning on coming here at some point, we were not planning on arriving today.

Earlier today, we were at anchor at Marie Galante – also part of Guadelope.  My sister and her family (husband: Jon and daughter: Kailey – 6) are visiting us for a month over the holidays.   We found a nice little anchorage just off a small beach club where we could get internet access.  (Lucy and Jon are still working which is the only way they could get to take 4 weeks away so they really need the Internet.)  Although the anchorage was rocky and we were contemplating moving, we left because something else entirely rocked our world: Lucy got word from our brother (Nick) that our father is doing very badly and that we should fly back to Canada immediately to see him as this might be our last chance.

We immediately upped anchor and began to sail back to the port with the closest airport (Pointe-a-Pitre in Guadalopue) to purchase some exorbitant airplane tix ($2,500 pp/rt).   But en-route, we managed to talk to Dad and he told us not to come as that he’d be around for a few weeks yet.  Nevertheless, the doctors are talking about Palliative Care….  It was tough to let him talk us out of jumping on a plane.  But we’re still here…

With the anchor raised we decided to move locations anyway as Marie Galante clearly had bad “ju ju” (Emma-Kate’s words).  So here we are in Iles-des-Saints.  We arrived late: after sunset.  And as we made it into the harbor and dropped anchor, the anchor dragged.  And by the time we pulled it up, it was pitch black.  I motored around the other yachts in the charming but crowded harbor.  If there were people aboard, they came out to look at us clearly hoping that we wouldn’t try to anchor anywhere near them as it really was inky black.  And in the end, after several attempts we’ve come back to our first location where our anchor is clearly slipping in 55ft of water.  And so I’m up on Anchor Watch thinking of black things.

My father had non-Hodgkins lymphoma about 5 years ago (Mantel Cell for those in the know).  Everyone told him “this was it”.  He was put on Chemo therapy and no one thought he’d make it to the end of the course.  But he did.  And I went around boasting to everyone: “that’s my Dad, even at 85 he’s got it.  And I’ve got his genes”.  I was sure he’d kicked it though he kept telling me “this type of lymphoma doesn’t go into remission”.  He was 85 back then.  He’s 90 now.  And the doctors are not putting him on the same treatment as last time.  Clearly this time it is only to “make him comfortable”.  I’m told he’s signed a do not resuscitate order.

As I’ve said in other posts: the roots of our current adventure can be clearly traced back to my Father.  He bought “me” a dinghy when I was 12 and we used to sail it in “Fishers Green”: a gravel pit outside London.   We’d grab a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken and take out the dinghy.  Stopping on some little outcropping for lunch.  And I was bitten.  The bug took hold and grew inside me until here I am with my  family on a slightly larger vessel in a rougher patch of water.

I don’t want to lose my father.  But something tells me that I’ll be visiting some cold weather very soon and that nothing good will come of it.

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Paloma and my first snorkling expedition a week ago in Antigua just of Great Bird Island found tons of these crabs in the most beautiful shells.  We all loved them especially Ronan.

But in the end, he had to be put back into the ocean with his buddies.

As you can tell, Ronan doesn’t like to get out of his PJs if he can help it.  We’ve taken to calling him Hugh (short for Hugh Heffner) which he HATES.  But he doesn’t dislike it enough to change out of his PJs.  They are just too comfortable.

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Barbuda is a tiny island just north of Antigua.  It’s got a lovely Frigate bird community (check out Paloma’s interviews here and here and pictures here) and only has a few thousand residents.   Although it is technically part of Antigua and Barbuda (the English decided to manage the two islands as one although historically they were not connected), it has separate laws, the most interesting of which is about land ownership.  Unless you were born in Barbuda, you can’t own land.  And even then, you don’t actually own it, the islanders own all the land as a group, but a native Barbudan’s can have the right to use it.  No one else can..

When our guide pictured here

took us to Codrington,the Capital of Barbuda (also the only town in Barbuda), there was a bunch of construction going on (pictured above).  I asked him what it was.  He said it was a fisheries plant, freezing facility and new marina paid for by the Japanese.

“Why would the Japanese want to buy Barbuda a new marina facility?” I asked.

“Oh, because they want to buy our vote on the UN council” he casually replied.  [WHAT!!]  “They want to kill the whales, and our government has agreed to vote with them when the issue comes to a vote in the UN.  The Japanese are doing this throughout out the Caribbean” he continued.  “Although we are small countries, we still get one equal vote in the UN and for a couple of million dollars we are prepared to vote with the Japanese as the whales don’t really effect our economy much.”

“What do Barbudan’s think of this?”

“Our polititians are very excited about the new plant and marina, but the rest of us have mixed feelings about it.  Anyway, it has happened and is happening.  It’s the way it is.”

Geopolitical bribery:  I read about these things in The Economist Magazine, but it seems somehow much more brazen when you experience it first hand.

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When we were in Antigua, there was a boat show.    And I thought, hey, this’ll be cool.  I’ve been to a few boat shows, and usually, there’s the big and the small, the beautiful and the ugly, the sophisticated and the simple, and you always learn something.  So I was looking forward to the boat show in Antigua.

Then I found out it was a “charter” boat show.  In other words, showing off boats that are available for charter.  So I still thought.  Hey: that’ll be cool.  I imagined that it would still be like most other boat shows.  Maybe they’d even have another Lagoon 55 (Ondine) for charter.  That really would be fun.

And then the boats sailed in.

Let’s start with the Maltese Falcon.  The biggest sailing vessel in the world!  And NOT the biggest boat in the show!   It turns out that the boat show was all about super yachts of the power and sail variety.   Before I owned Ondine, the boats I had or had use of were a Beneteau 1^st 31.5 ft and a Pierson 26 (ft).  Oh and dinghies.  Now Ondine is 55ft long and 30ft wide.  So she’s pretty much as wide as the biggest boat I’ve had before.  But my GOD, Ondine was puny besides these monsters.  We were absolutely the smallest vessel in the marina!

So much for having a “big boat”.

Our boat may not be as big as theirs, but she’s a catamaran, and she can move pretty well through the water.  I’m proud of the speeds she can achieve.  We can do 200 nautical miles a day if the wind is above 15 knots (that’s an average of over 8 knots, which is pretty respectable).  And we’ve done 10-12 knots for extended periods of time in 25 knots of wind.  (Multiply about about 1.2 for miles per hour).

But now I don’t think that means much either, because after Antigua, we sailed to Guadalope, and as we went into the Marina, there was another boat show of sorts: multihulls (trimarans in this case) and monohulls that had just completed the “Route du Rhum” (Rum Race) from France to Guadalope.  The winning boat had made it (3,500 miles) in 8 days.  That’s an average of 400 miles a day or 18 knots.  That is enourmously fast for a sailing boat.  It means the boats must have been travelling and over 20 knots for a significant portion of the trip.  And that is so fast that you can’t be outside or you’ll be blasted by the sea spray.  You’d have to wear goggles just to see forward.

So now I know.  We’re a modest little 4 cabin boat.  We can putter around at speeds that everyone reading this can out-run: well not on water, but you get the picture.  But hey: our cabins are nicer than the racing yachts, and we can still sail as fast as those mega-yachts, well as long as they don’t turn on their engines we can.  So I’ll take that and sail on to our next destination.

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Picts Emma-Kate and Paloma took as we sailed away from Antigua towards Guadalope.  The guys are me and Chase.  Rowan and Chase helped us sail from Westbrook to Bermuda and we met up with them again in Antigua and they joined us to Guadalope.

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When I started this adventure, I promised that I’d write a blog post every single day.  And that if for some reason I didn’t, that someone else – probably in my immediate family – would post for me.

But damn: I’m so busy!  You’d never know I wasn’t working.  I’m going to keep trying to post every day.  But for now, here’s a summary of what’s been happening over the past couple of weeks:

At work, I’m usually responsible for funding, running, growing, nuturing, leading, a company.  I’m the “man at the helm”.  (If you don’t know what I do when I’m working, click here).

And somehow, it seems to be EXACTLY THE SAME now, but with less money, fewer resources, and crew who don’t like me to tell them what to do.  Not that I’ve had a mutiny by any means, I think everyone’s settling in and having a good time – especially the kids, but you try giving your wife a “command”.  I’d hazard a guess that no men who are married and have not had divorces go telling their wives what to do.  Besides, at work, I’ve got a finance DEPARTMENT and they are EXPERTS at what they do, and the same for sales, legal, technology, you name it.   On board, I am basically a department of one.  Ronan, Paloma and Emma-Kate are all troopers, but they have learned more about sailing in the past two or three weeks than in their entire lives.  And I love what they’ve learned.  It moves me to see the family raise the main sail.  We’ve finally got it down to an art where everyone knows exactly what they have to do.  Even Ronan (aged 7) has his part to play and it’s great to see him yell “stop” and put up his hand when he sees something not going as planned and then he goes and corrects it.  But that doesn’t make them the engineering department, or the rigging experts, or the electronics gurus.

But I digress.  I have tales to tell.

Ondine has now sailed about 1,500 miles south – maybe a wee bit more.  First from New York to Bermuda and then from Bermuda to Antigua.  And now we will slowly work our way down the windward islands to Venezuela.  Slipping slowing into our sailing lives.  We could paint picture perfect stories about what’s happening to us.  But where is the fun in that!

On our way down, I completely freaked out our guest David Uprichard (see his post here).  I have this habit, when things start to go wrong of imagining just what the worst situation could possibly be and then going through what that is, accepting it, and working out how to do better.  So of course the worst situation on a boat is that it sinks, or capsizes, so when the wind picked up more than forecast, and Ondine was doing 12 knots in about 25-30 knots of wind with all her canvas up, I started to analyze her movements out loud, looking for tell-tale signs of stress that might indicate we needed to reef or that we were pushing her too hard.  It was pitch black (night) and I really didn’t want to have to modify our sail plan unless I had to.

James: If the leeward hull starts exhibiting more spray than the windward hull, please let me know.

David: OK

James: From what I’ve heard, the only reason Catamarans’ turn over in this kind of weather is because someone isn’t paying attention.   For example, there was a Chris White Catamaran that when belly up (link here) because.  Well of course because there was too much wind.  But also because they had too much sail, had the auto pilot on, and didn’t adjust course.  So if you think that the wind is picking up, hit this button (the off button on the auto pilot) and move the helm to starboard to remove the pressure from the sails.

David: [no words, just blank worried expression]

David’s not a sailor.  And he just didn’t enjoy being told that there was real risk in the voyage.  He was just along for the ride.  But a 950 nautical mile ride in the Atlantic ocean always has risks.  And as I’ve discovered, it is my job to minimize these risks, and not demoralize the crew as I do it.  The crew has no interest in knowing that a boat might have something terrible happen to it.  Any more than employees want to know that a company might run out of cash.  They just want to know that the man at the helm is in control and will steer them through whatever troubles manifest themselves.

Oh boy.  So much for leaving work stress behind.

The situation got worse the next day when David took over from me at 6am.   He got up and my first words to him were: “take your log readings, and let me tell you what’s been going wrong”.  As you get more and more tired, which is inevitable when you are on 3 hours and then off six for six days in a row (we were on day 4 when this happened), your ability to control your vocabulary diminishes (understatement).

When I had gone on watch at 3am, there was very little wind (unlike 24 hours earlier) and we had turned on the engines.   I looked at the fuel guages and decided that it was time to give the starboard engine a turn.  (We don’t bother using both engines simultaneously as it is a waste of gas and only adds about 15-20% to the speed of Ondine.)   Once I did that, we promptly went around in a circle.  Yep: 400 naticle miles from the nearest land and I’m going round and round in circles while the crew sleeps.  I’m not the most experienced sailor in the world, so I’m certain that it’s all my fault.  I’ve done something wrong.  So I switch back on the port engine and think for a while.

About 7 hours earlier, I had just made a big mistake.  We had all sat down to dinner, and there was still enough wind to sail by.  I had the main out, and a “preventer” that kept it tied down as the wind was coming from about 150 degrees or off our port stern.  Anyway, as dinner finished, I looked over at the preventer and I noticed that it was under an ENORMOUS amount of pressure.  I looked at the sail, and somehow, without anyone noticing, the wind had moved from the port to the starboard and the preventer was the only thing stopping us from jibing (having the boom and 2,500 sq ft of canvas move from one side of the boat to the other).  The pressure was big enough that it was ripping the toe rail right off the boat.  This is a rail that runs down the side of Ondine and is bolted through her hull.  It takes A LOT of force to do that.  I quickly adjusted course, corrected the problem, took of the preventer and started worrying about how many $s that would cost to fix.

And now here I was 7 hours later (my watch again) and I couldn’t steer my boat straight?

I tried turning on the starboard engine again and sure enough I went round in a circle.  Again.

And again.

And again.

I’ve got to laugh about it now: the image of me at the helm going round in circles in the middle of the Atlantic ocean while everyone sleeps.  But it sure didn’t seem funny at the time.

No matter how hard I kept the helm over, I couldn’t stop Ondine from going around in circles.

So back to the port engine we went.

Over the course of the next three hours I figured out that the only way I could go straight was to put on the port engine, and even then I couldn’t have the helm pointed straight forward.  It had to be hard over just to go in a straight line.  And it was getting worse.  I began to really worry about having to get someone to rescue us from the boat.  I was determined to understand and fix the problem but I had to wait until David work up to have (a) daylight, and (b) a helping hand.   (You don’t want to go doing anything crazy all alone at night in the Atlantic.)

I cannot tell you how WONDERFUL, SUBLIME, and just generally AWESOME it felt when we figured out what was wrong and fixed it.  (The rudders were not in sync and so when one pointed stright, the other pointed in the other direction).  Of course you have the joy of knowing that you’re out of danger.  But the joy of being the captain, knowing what’s going on on your boat, figuring out all the technical issues, and keeping your crew safe, is almost indescribable.  I’m not sure I remember being as happy as I felt when we got that figured out.

Since then, we’ve arrived (safely) in Antigua.

We’ve sailed to Barbuda to see the Frigate Birds (see Paloma’s posts, here and here).

I saw a far more experienced captain lose his live-aboard boat because he drifted onto the rocks while at anchor.  Here’s a pic:

We’ve sailed back to Antigua and explored some nooks and crannies.

I’ve played my first game of squash since leaving New York (thank you Paloma).

And I’ve had the windlass (doohicky that raises the anchor) fail on me which means (a) that I’ve been doing some weight lifting, and (b) that I’ve had to take it apart, figure out what’s wrong and fix it.  Which I’m still doing sitting on a dock in Falmouth Harbour at the moment.

I think there wi’ll be a lot more of that in my future.

We’re off to Guadalope on Sunday and I promise, promise, promise to have shorter and more frequent communiques in the future.

And I hope, hope, hope that as our trip goes on, the systems that fail will be more and more minor and less and less time consuming.  Even if that means losing the indescribable joy of saving your family from disaster.

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A few pics of Ondine that we took from the Dinghy as we motored by on our way to the beach.  The day was beautiful, the clouds were fabulous, and Ondine seemed in her element.

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Enjoy the photos.  They’re better than words.  Thanks to Jerry Clements for all the night shots.

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I have a whole new understanding of dysfunctional relationships thanks to Ondine.   So far, I have replaced on Macerator Pump and taken apart another in an effort to fix it.  For those of you that still lead blessed lives where you don’t know what a Macerator Pump is.  It’s a part of the plumbing system that smells – a lot.  And  in case that isn’t clear enough, let’s say that repairing it is a pretty shi**y job.

Just like in any healthy dysfunctional relationship, one party (Ondine), continues to abuse the other (me).  And the abused party is so in love that they begin to think that this is normal.  Up to my armpits in brown smelly liquid and I’m smiling about it.  Well I would be if the job was done.  But unfortunately, Ondine being a catamaran has two of these devilish devices and they both decided to go at the same time.  Being the prepared sailor that I am, I had replacements for both.  But one of the brand-new-in-the-box units simply doesn’t work.  Nevermind, I thought, I’ll just take the sucker apart and replace the broken part (you have no idea how badly I needed a shower before I started writing this).   And I was nearly successful except that I broke a piece when putting it back together again and now – to me at least – the whole thing is irreparable.

Did I mention that I’m doing this while sailing to Antigua?  With the boat climbing and falling the Atlantic swells.   And everything rolling around everywhere?

At least I’ve fixed the water maker and we’ve got hot water.  Otherwise, there’s no way Emma-Kate would let me near this computer.  (Let alone near her.)

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My whole blogging thing is going to sound like tales of woe, however, the feeling of elation that happens when I fix something is worth every penny.

We just had a very scary thing happen.  In the middle of the night, on my shift, the steering suddenly failed to work properly.  It became very hard to turn to starboard (right).  We freaked out.  Slowed down.  Looked at the problem.  Even ended up doing two or three 360s in the ocean (when no one was watching).  But I couldn’t figure out what was wrong.  The steering would steer to the right, but the boat wouldn’t.    David Uprichard (guest on board) was obviously starting to freak out.  And I noticed that the boat speed was not what it should be.  So I went into both engine rooms to inspect the rudders and found that they were no longer “in sync”.  When one was turned, the other was straight ahead.  And the problem was getting worse.   We didn’t know how we would make it to Antigua.  Indeed, would Ondine even be able to sail in the direction we wanted her to at all?  Finally, after much thinking I narrowed down the problem to the hydraulic steering and called an “expert” in Antigua.  Steve gave a few helpful hints and voila.  Both rudders were pointed in the right direction and we were up to speed again.

The joy of deciphering, figuring out, and finally repairing the problem is indescribable.  Of course, the reason it happened hasn’t been fixed yet (a leak in the system).  And that’ll cost $s.  And that gives me all kinds of pain.  But let’s not focus on the cup being half full.  Because no matter how much is in my cup, I still think it’s overflowing.

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It’s 2:00am and after nearly six days, we have sailed 875 of the 950 Nautical Miles from Bermuda to Antigua.  I’m on watch.  Someone has to be on watch 24/7 when you’re at sea.  Most of the time there’s nothing that needs to be taken care of.  But every now and then…

It is SUCH a beautiful night.  The moon is shining down on the sea putting snowy caps on the inky darkness.   The ocean is interesting at night.  It doesn’t appear as fluid as it does in the day.  More like lava than sea.   Odd sharp edged shapes appear in the waves and form, deform, and surround you.   I can stare at the sea for hours when it’s like this.  The waves are about 4ft.  Which means when we are in the bottom of a trough, the wave is about 8ft up.  In the deepest trough, the approaching peak is almost eye-to-eye with me.  It’s fun to see the wave approach Ondine, and have her slowly ride up and an over it.  These are fairly moderate rollers for the Atlantic Ocean.   In about 25 miles, we will no longer be in the Atlantic, we’ll be passing the island Barbuda and into the Caribbean Sea.  The waves are from the North. They were probably created by a “Noreaster” way up eastern coast of the USA.  Back where we came from.   Cold hard weather that requires serious bundling up when you encounter it person.  Serious enough that the effects are felt down here at 18 degrees longitude.  On the other hand the weather we are experiencing is from the East: the trade winds.  Warm, strong winds so that even at night when they are blowing hard, I’m in a T-Shirt and shorts.   They were named the trade winds because back in the day when sailing ships were the only means of crossing an ocean, they could be counted on to blow every day in the same direction and more-or-less the same speed.  At the moment, the wind is blowing hard, 20-25 knots (a little less than 30 mph).   Ondine is loving it.  We’ve taken in the main sail a little (one reef) and she is surfing down the waves at 10-12 knots and coming up the other side at 8-10 knots in little leaps and bounds like a puppy dog running and jumping along a rolling odd shaped and seeming never ending field.

This experience is certainly one of the reasons I am taking a year off to go sailing…

This image is the best I could do with the camera available to me at the time…

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Half Way There: and several illusions go up in smoke.

I’m writing this post from Ondine at LAT 37 degrees north, LON 68 degrees west.  For those of you that don’t want to look that up (everyone, including me), I’m about half way between Manhattan and Bermuda in the middle of the Gulf Stream.

We started off slowly on Sunday morning with more things that needed to get fixed: It took the 4 of us over an hour to get the main sail up as the “bolt rope” – the leading edge of the sail that goes up the mast – kept slipping out of the track.  I’m pretty confident that lowest part of the rail is damaged.   After lots of trials and errors, we finally got going, with no wind whatsoever.

So that was my first bubble burst: I had this idea that I’d be able to fill up with diesel once and use that for six months.   It turns out that I have this tiny weather window, which amounts to no wind at the beginning, lots of wind in the middle, no wind at the end, and if I don’t get into Bermuda by Wed morning in the “no wind” section then I’ll wind up in a gale pointed in the wrong direction.  All of which means I have to motor.  And by the time we get to Bermuda I’ll be filing up with diesel again.  “Puff”.  First illusion (and $1,000) gone.

On the first night, the wind picked up to about 20 knots and Ondine did her thing.  She seemed to love the wind, picking up more and more speed and settling down to a cruising speed of between 9 and 10 knots in 15-20 knots of wind.   Over time, the wind picked up, and poor Helena (a guest on board) discovered that the movement of the boat wasn’t agreeable to her.  And in her defense it really was a little rough.  Seas were 7-10 feet high and coming from a different direction than the wind, so Ondine was pitching, yawing, see-sawing, and moving in every other direction imaginable.   This continued as the wind picked up and Ondine picked up speed.

There’s a funny thing that happens when the boat is moving all over the place.  You just don’t want to do anything.  And I’ve taken to worrying about what the trip to Antigua will be like.

Today I have two professional sailors on board, myself, + Helena.

When we sail to Antigua we will have Emma-Kate and the kids (who will probably all be sick like Helena), plus David “DavidLostToAGirl.com” Uprichard and his daughter who are complete unknowns.  But that makes it entirely possible that the entire crew will be sea-sick but me.  Which on a 5 day sail makes me VERY nervous.  Someone has to be up all the time, and I simply cannot stay awake for 5 days while everyone vomits over the side.

Poof illusion number two up in smoke: that sailing around with the family will be all fun and games.

The upside to Ondine’s performance (I shouldn’t care, BUT I DO) is that we sped past a couple of 70-80ft yachts at 11-12 knots.  I love the AIS systems we have on board, it’s like a planes transponder and it dentifies the other yachts, says how big they are, what direction they are headed and how fast they are going.

But now, two hours into the gulf stream, the wind has died, and I am finding time to write this post.

Oh: did I mention that neither the solar panels nor the wind generator are charging the batteries at the moment?  It is Sunday, so I can’t call the yard that installed them on my fancy pants sat phone.  But you can bet I will on Sunday.  I’m sure (I hope?) that it’s some silly button that I pressed or didn’t press.  But I fear something worse…

Poof: illusion #3 up in smoke: that the work I’ve had done on the boat will function smoothly.

Stay tuned….

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Well, this is embarrassing. We were supposed to sail away to Bermuda right after a big party at Pier 66 on Saturday, November 6th. And the crew was supposed to be 6 squash players plus 3 for a crew of 9. I allowed for three days of “weather hold” in case we didn’t get optimal conditions.

But then Mother Nature realized that I hadn’t paid her enough attention and shut down the party.

That was on Nov 6th. A freezing cold night. Many thanks to the couple of hundred people who showed up to see us off. Of course we only sailed around the corner to North Cove in Manhattan.

We are now at Nov 11th and I still haven’t left the area. On Monday the 8th in winds gusting to 50mph I sailed = well motored mostly – back to Westbrook which is where I’m waiting for permission from Nature to depart.

And as a result, no one in the crew can make it.

I’m in New York this evenign, scrambling for crew. And I’m not the only one, every boat on the Eastern Seaboard has been delayed and crew are a scarce commodity. Looks like I’ll be paying for mine.

Paying because I’m late.

Paying because I took Mother Nature for granted.

Paying because I will miss my beloved squash tournament.

Paying because my kids will get to Bermuda before me (we decided to have them fly on the first leg and then continue with us after Bermuda).

Paying because my Emma-Kate (my wife) now has to fly with the kids. They leave tomorrow morning.

Paying literally to have people sail with me.

What is they say about boats? A big hole in the water into which you throw money.

I cannot WAIT to get going. Even if it is with a bunch of paid strangers. It looks like the weather will let up around Saturday morning and then we have to split with alacrity as there is another system coming up right behind it and I don’t want Mother Nature to prove who is boss AGAIN.

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I just felt Like I had to re-post this from Brett.

Seems self serving to say that’s it’s one of the best blog posts I’ve read, so I’ll just say I like it A LOT!

Here’s the original:  http://www.brettssquashblog.com/2010/10/from-bermuda-with-love.html

Here’s some info about Brett:  http://squashzag.wordpress.com/2010/09/06/squash-profile-brett-erasmus/#more-56

Re-posted with permission.

Thanks Brett!

=========================

http://www.brettssquashblog.com/

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Finally, we are able to announce our launch party.

First the important details:
Special Guests: ?uestLove on the turntables and Ondine at the dock
Location: “The Frying Pan”. Pier 66. 26th Street and the West Side Highway in Manhattan.
Date: Saturday, Nov 6th @ 6pm. (If you’ve got kids you are welcome to show up earlier.)
End: Sailors will leave the dock at 9:30pm (ish). You are welcome to stay as long as you’d like.
Tickets: $15 in advance, $20 at the door. Can be bought here: http://bit.ly/djy0jQ
Proceeds (if there is any profit) to go to one of my favorite charities: StreetSquash

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At the moment, I have left work, but we have not yet moved onto Ondine. So we live in Manhattan, and Ondine is two and a half hours away in Westbrook, CT. Which means that I end up with days like today where I drive 2 1/2 hours in each direction to the boat, clean out the bilges and perform other maintenance tasks, then drive back again.

Seems to me that I’ll mind this much less when the temperature is in the mid 70s and higher and I can dive into the ocean to clean off. Rather than temperature in the high 50s and I have to bundle up just to keep warm.

Nevertheless, there is something very satisfying about performing these tasks and seeing Ondine get closer and closer to ready. Ready to depart. Ready to sail. Bermuda: here we come!

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Sailing is fickle. I met a harbor master once who said “there are no beginner sailors at the bottom of the ocean”. What he meant was that if you are a beginner you’re scared, nervous and have the appropriate amount of respect for the sea. There’s no way you are heading out if it’s too windy. But as you get better, you become more capable, and as you become more capable, you believe that there’s more and more you can do. But sometimes things don’t go as planned.

Mario: a friend of ours just told us of a story about a Frenchman who decided to go cross the Atlantic in his 45ft monhull. All but one of the crew backed out at the last minute. His radio failed. He didn’t have a weather forecast. He was an experienced sailor, and he went anyway. Guess what: he didn’t know that Hurricane Earl was coming and he had to abandon ship when water was coming on board faster than he could bail it out. He was rescued by a Portuguese fishing vessel. Mario’s friend (the only crew) has some great stories and fortunately she got off the boat with pretty much everything she went on board with.

I was reminded of the need to be humble this weekend when I took some friends on a quick sail. The weather was perfect: blowing about 15 knots and sunny and once we arrived at our destination I set the kids out on our new Cape Dory: a 7 1/2 ft sailing boat “Sea Leaf”. They squeezed three of them into the boat and my daughter – the most experienced of the three – took the tiller. Their destination was to windward so they were supposed to tack there, but as soon as they took off, they allowed the wind to blow them downwind – and out to sea. I jumped in our tender “Sea Rover” and blasted over to them shouting all the time saying: let the main out, get some more speed and then head up! But they couldn’t. I was very frustrated. The mother of the other two kids said that she was not comfortable and so as soon as we got to them, the kids got out and I jumped into the Cape Dory convinced that I could show my daughter what’s what.

Sea Rover went back to Ondine.

And I continued to drift downwind with Paloma.

And out to sea.

I could not sail upwind.

I’ve never seen Paloma so happy. Glee is the right word. And I had to eat humble pie. Turns out the center board was inoperable and so we couldn’t sail up wind no matter what we tried. That wasn’t obvious because it lowers from 90 degrees as opposed to rising out of the dinghy. So even when the wind is perfect and you think you know everything. Stuff can go wrong.

As punishment, I had to sail to the other side of the cove and then wade through frigid water up to my waste over rocks for two hours so that we could sail back to Ondine from an upwind position. Paloma walked along the beach with warm sand in her toes and reminded me repeatedly of why we were there.

We actually had a pretty good afternoon.

We are never really in control of our situation. And we never really know everything that is going on. I’m expecting to be reminded of that frequently over the next year or so.

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Paloma completed her third year at the Manhattan Sailing School this year. She’s probably now the most experienced sailor we have.

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I’ve been told that there is a significant proportion of the worlds population who are prepared to suffer on earth because they are looking forward to rewards that come later.

I’m not one of them.

When you think about how long our lives are compared to: (a) How long mankind has been around: 250,000 years or so, (b) how long mammals have been on the planet: about 150+ million years, or (c) dare we go back to when life started on planet earth over 3.5 BILLION years ago.  Gosh a hundred years (if you are lucky) is kinda short.  And I don’t know which one of these events marked the start of us or some other species dreaming/wanting/desiring something.  But surely it’s people who have perfected wanting something and not going after it.  Most animals instinctively do whatever they want.  But I can’t tell you how often I’ve heard someone start a sentence with: “if only….”, or “I wish…”, or “if circumstances were different…”.  Well the hell with that I say.

There’s tons of things that we are doing that don’t make sense.  The apartment we used to own in The West Village in Manhattan would have continued to appreciate in value until Manhattan is flooded by the sea rising to global warming (almost certainly after I’m dead).  The boat I have bought is going to depreciate in value until it is sitting at the bottom of an ocean somewhere.  Trading one for the other makes no sense whatsoever.  Except that it enables me to do what I want.  And God Bless My Family for joining me on my dream.

Of course, before you throw everything away to pursue whatever it is you want, you might want to wait a year and see how this turns out for us.

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OK.  So that’s definitely over the top.  But today is my last day of work and what do I find myself worrying about?  Updating my LinkedIn profile:  What is everyone going to think?  How do I communicate with everyone so that when I come back from this sailing adventure I can get another J O B.  Or whatever.

I’m having this feeling on steroids right now because I just watched a documentary called “Teen. Paparazzo” by Adrian Grenier.  (The movie star from Entourage.)  It was pretty good and it was all about the need we have for recognition.  There was a great quote in there by some behaviorist who had studied monkeys and found that they would give up food to look at two kinds of pictures: the leaders of their pack, and sexy bottoms.  Seems we haven’t evolved so much after all.

But seriously, I am excited about going sailing, about all the adventures I’ll have over the next year, and it’ll be great.  Really.  No nervousness at all about whether anyone will remember me.  And I’m writing this blog for me.  Really. I am.

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It isn’t just the material items we are getting rid of.  For better or worse, we are deleting or at least putting on hold our professional lives as well.   Although we have used the word “sabbatical” to describe what we are doing.  That’s not really true.  In a sabbatical you take a year off work and then you go back to what you were doing.  We have a plan for a year (six months in the Caribbean + six months in the Meditteranean), but after that there is no plan.  We’ve sold all of our stuff.  And we couldn’t tell you where we will live, how we will live, or what we’ll be doing a year from now.  And we’re not going to spend the rest of our lives on a boat.

Not everyone can do what we are doing as most people have a “home” whether that is defined by friends, family, or just the place you grew up.  But by a fluke of our heritage, we don’t really have a “natural” home base.  Allow me to explain:

I was born in London, England and grew up in the UK until I was 16.  Then the family moved to Montreal, Canada where I stayed until I was 24.  Since then I’ve lived in (list in chronological order), LA, New York, LA, Paris, Munich, Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Tokyo, San Francisco, LA, and finally New York.  And my family (brother, sister and Father) have moved to Vancouver – a pace I’ve visited many times but never lived.  So the 10 years I’ve spent in New York where we were married and had our children is probably as close to “home” as I could get.  But the reality is friends and family are spread out all over.

Emma-Kate was born in Adelaide, Australia, and grew up in Melbourne which is where she was living when we met (in a film festival in Japan in 1997).  Then she moved to Sydney.  We moved in together in LA in 1999.  And now we live in NY.  But Emma-Kate grew up as an only child.  And her mother passed away a few months before we met.  So although Emma-Kate is more Australian than I am English she doesn’t have parents or siblings that she grew up with to go up to.

Between the four of us, we have four passports: English, Australian, Canadian and American.  So we could live anywhere.  Do anything.  On November 6th, we will jump off the cliff.  We’ll let you know where the water is when we land there.  In the mean time, we want to focus on the important things in our lives: our family and friends, and the events that make an impact.  And in the clarity that we hope will come from having nothing and no ties to anywhere or anything, we hope to be able to choose what’s next for ourselves rather than allowing the river of life to sweep us along.

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There are so many reasons that we are uprooting our lives to go sailing, and so I thought I’d write them all down one blog at a time in no particular order.  Reason #1: Loosing weight.

We accumulate so much STUFF in our lives.  I don’t think I know anyone whose closets and storage spaces aren’t overflowing.  It seems that no matter how big a place you get, STUFF accumulates to fill it.  And then we become emotionally attached to it.  I remember when I first got married, Emma-Kate (my wife) took a look in my (now our) closet and strongly suggested that some things had to go in order to make more space: In fact as I remember it, we were already keeping a storage unit as we’d outgrown our Manhattan apartment.  Suddenly, in the middle of the storage unit, Emma-Kate began to laugh.  “Why are you keeping your zoot suits, glam rock gear, and skinny ties”.  I stumbled to think of a good reason, then confidently came up with “I thought one day my son might want them”.  Now that might conceivably hold water if you’ve got a son.  But at that point, I didn’t.  Which made Emma-Kate laugh hysterically.  She made some good points about the costs of storage vs. the costs of buying vintage clothes in the future.  And, well I don’t own any leather pants any more…   But I really didn’t want to throw them away.  At least until I began to think about it.  And then when you think about what you need vs. what you have.  Gosh, there’s a lot you can get rid of.  And although it is somewhat traumatic, it is also cathartic.  I *love* the idea of getting rid of everything.  Clothing is just the start.

We’ve sold the big things (our house and our car).  Of course, we couldn’t have bought the boat if we hadn’t done that so I’m not sure it counts.  But we are selling *almost* everything – or giving it away.   We are trying to limit ourselves to a 5×5 storage space.  (I’ve got a friend who runs a storage facility, so of course we keep our stuff there: www.ARCselfstorage.com, plug, plug).  It’s a liberating feeling to get rid of beds, chairs, TVs, bicycles (though we may buy folding ones), cabinets, clothes, cuddly toys (how did we ever get so many) and everything else that doesn’t fit on a boat.

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Ever since my Father took me sailing in his dinghy at the age of 12 in a gravel pit in England, I’ve dreamed of taking my own boat out into the wide-open ocean. But for one reason or another I’ve delayed, prevaricated, and generally found excuses. Of course we’ve gone sailing. A week in the BVI’s here, a honeymoon in Tonga there, nothing to complain about. But it’s not the same as just dropping everything and setting sail on your own vessel.

Then one winter about three years ago, when we were coming back from a vacation and getting ready to go back into a particularly nasty work situation, I blurted out: “If this doesn’t get any better, we should just sell everything and go sailing”. Much to my surprise I didn’t get much push back from the family. Of course that’s probably because I can be a right pain in the rear when I’m unhappy and everyone was probably fed up with me. But for better or worse, the seed was sown and the idea began its evolution to reality. Books about boats became my nighttime readying. Jimmy Cornell’s “World Cruising Routes” became my bible. And in every free moment I went online to see how other people did it. Emma-Kate (my wife) referred to it as “boat porn”.

Then finally a real opportunity presented itself. My company was being sold, the kids were 6 and 9, and we all decided to do it. As we the company was sold and my job went into “transition” we sold the house and did what is arguably one of the worst financial transactions in history: sold a valuable apartment in Manhattan and used the money to buy a hole in the water that is otherwise known as a boat.

All those sleepless nights reading and looking at (boat) porn ended up pointing me towards a Catamaran: they are more comfortable for the family, they go faster, they are (now) very safe. But Catamaran’s have their weaknesses. As I read more, I found that I liked two kinds of boats: really sexy new ones:

Chris White Atlantic 57

Gunboat 48

wharram Islander 55

To the left is a Chris White 57 and on the right is the cheapest Gunboat (a 48).  Two of my favorite current designs.

But I also found that I had a soft spot for older catamarans.  Particularly Wharrams.  Below is my all time favoriate Wharram: An Islander 55.

Of course there was no WAY I could afford the sexy new ones, so I started looking at the older boats. And after deciding for a variety of reasons that the Wharram’s were not for me, I finally fell in love with a French beauty: a 1991 Lagoon 55. If it’s not too much of an oxymoron for a catamaran, I’d say she has “classically” good looks and dimensions. Below is a pic from the original sales material.

Ondine in the BVIs

But of course she was too much money. Nearly twice what I had budgeted. But after negotiating a steep discount, and carefully counting my marbles again, we closed. I wired the money. And that’s when the troubles began.

The first thing I did was have the engines looked over in more detail. A blown turbo charger. Ugh. A leaking transmission! Why weren’t these things picked up on survey? Had to fix those. And I hired some locals to refinish a couple of fiber glass cracks. That alone cost the better part of $15,000. OK. Only 15 “boat units” as everyone told me with smiles on their faces.

I took a deep breath, got a group of four friends to join me:
Captain: David Puchkoff
First Mate: Steve Kahn
Crew: Paul & Marc Bricault
We all flew in to pick her up in St. Augustine Florida and sail her back to New York. (Westbrook, CT really, but I live in NYC.)

When we got there boat wasn’t ready. And more troubles were being found by the minute. The generator wasn’t working. More engine problems. A Yanmar expert was called in. They even damaged the boat taking it out of the water and then charged me to repair it. (That doesn’t seem right does it?)
After a dramatic 48 hours of trying to fix things with glue and string we decided to limp out of port. Not exactly the glorious sail I was looking for, but I knew that if I could just get the boat “home” I could get to work making her mine.

We left Florida late in the day on Friday. And headed into the Gulf Stream. Wouldn’t you know it, the wind was on our nose and the Gulf Stream was strong. In other words, the wind and the current were exactly opposed to one another, which meant tacking and using the engine, in short, steep confused seas. No one was feeling great. And then the bilge alarm started going off. For you rookies that means that there’s water pouring into the boat from somewhere AND THAT’S NOT GOOD. Worse the bilge pump didn’t appear to be working. We dove into the bilges (yes, there was that much water) and fortunately I had the forethought to buy an extra bilge pump. So as two of us were manually pumping water out, another was replacing the pump. We got it all switched out. And the water level began to subside. But where was the water coming from? Someone had the wherewithal to taste the water and reported that it wasn’t salt. So good news/bad news. No hole in the boat, but we are running out of water! (The leak was in the water tank: not to worry, we had lots of extra drinking water in containers.) God Bless Steve Kahn for getting up multiple times in the middle of the night and repeatedly fixing the bilge pump. Even after he vomited all over it. And god bless Marc Bricault, who found the leak, replaced a hose clamp and fixed it.

There was a moment the next morning when I thought we wouldn’t make it and we’d have to pull in to one of the Carloina’s and start working on her there. Although we fixed the leak, the batteries were terribly low. And everyone was worried that more things would go wrong. But in the end, after turning off everything, even the auto pilot and turning on our one good engine, the batteries slowly limped back to life (so much for the wind generator).

By now my crew was well bonded. They had got along well in the first 48 hours as the boat was being repaired. I had given them my credit card and told them to go to West Marine and make sure we had “all the essentials”. I guess I’m lucky, because when I tell that to my wife nothing bad ever happens. But my FRIENDS: Damn, let’s just say that I’m now a gold member at West Marine, and I’ve been awarded courtesy memberships to all kinds of new places (BoatUS). But it was the disasters of the first 36 hours on board really sealed the deal. We were one close knit group. Paul dedicated himself to fishing. We’re pretty sure he hooked a tuna but we couldn’t reel it in. In hindsight it would have helped if I’d slowed the boat down to less than 9 knots. But what’s a rookie to know? We didn’t actually catch anything until we got close to Long Island and the Blue Fish started biting (they’ll bite at anything). Well that’s not exactly true. Paul did manage to catch the life raft after the auto release deployed the damn thing. I’m taking them off the transom and putting them into a locker somewhere for future (non) use.

The Florida - NY crew

Paul and Marc had done a splendid job shopping so although we didn’t get to eat much fish, they cooked gourmet means for the entire journey and by the time we got home we were all happy.

But for me. That was just the beginning of the financial storm.

I don’t think I’ll admit how much money I’ve actually spent upgrading Ondine. But I will say this. Originally, I thought I’d spend about $30,000. And here’s a list of the things that I’ve done. You can do the math and figure out what it costs. You can buy me a beer if you get it right because I surely can’t afford to buy you one anymore!

Not including the engine work and fiberglass work that was done in Florida. The folks at Pilots Point Marina have done the following for me:
• Converted Crew Quarters to Storage/Laundry facility
• Converted Crew Head to shower
• Converted Workroom to Sail Storage
• Replaced all the cabin house windows in the salon (they were leaking)
• Replaced all the hatches throughout
• Added Solar Power
• Completely gutted all of the electrical systems including engine alternators, batteries (6x8D), inverter, 100v panel, and all the bits in between.
• Added two new six man life rafts
• Replaced the dinghy with an 11ft 25hp (two stroke) Avon RIB
• Added Inmarsat Fleet Broadband 150 Satellite internet and phone system
• Electronic charts (Navionics) and chart plotter for my Mac (MacENC) and iPad (iNavX)
• AIS system
• Replaced the SSB antennae
• Added a WiFi amplifier
• Repaired and refurbished all six sails.
• Replaced most of the moving parts in the windlass.
• Replaced all the cushions and covers in the salon and cockpit area
• Installed a propane system and replaced the electrical stove with a propane stove
• Spent INSANE amounts of money making the refreigeration systems work, fixing the rotton wood due to leaks from the fridges, and replacing the generator driven system with a 12volt system. (This was the one item where we kept on finding more and more wrong.)
• And my personal favorite item – and the single largest bill on the invoice – a Spectra water maker

And now. As I write this, I think we are just about ready to start. It feels like I’ve had an adventure just getting this far.

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