A Gift for You

Our Boat Parrot is a Cat
toastfloats on Flickr

We are awakened in the wee hours to the sound of bells chiming like nautical reindeer past the gatehouse, down the ramp and up our transom. DrC launches himself abruptly skyward. I put out a hand to stop him, "No. Don't worry. No kill."

"What?"

"No announcement, no kill."

This makes sense to my husband who, apparently not actually awake, simply flops back into somnolence and resumes snoring. It occurs to me to wonder how many patients were the beneficiary of this half-asleep wakefulness during his medical residency. In the meantime, Dulcinea rummages around the salon for a few minutes while she waits out the latest summer squall.

Dulcinea doesn't like summer in Auckland. Like the rest of us, she is waiting for weather that could be more reasonably credited with the sobriquet summer. Chill overcast mornings, frequent squalls, long days with no sun whatsoever, this is hardly summer. Dulcinea doesn't like prowling in the rain. Rain is wet. Wet is bad. Bad is not good. Not good means we must all suffer her frustration and unhappiness. There is scratching of the scratch post and nibbling at the nibble bowl and slurping at the slurp bowl. There is thumping up on to salon seats, bunks, cockpit benches and the boom. There is thumping down off seats, boom, and benches. All this activity is accompanied by the cheery sounds of Dulcinea's collar bell, only the most recent in my husband's efforts to prevent our cat from decimating New Zealand's precious wildlife. Then the squall stops, Dulcinea ventures out, peace and quiet descends, and I drop back into sleep.

Some unknown time later, bells chime and DrC repeats his leap out of bed act. This time I let him. Dulcinea is yelling about how wonderful she is, announcing to all and sundry that she is the most magnificent hunter on all the dock. I can also hear a buzzing whirr of wings. Experience compels me to tell my husband, "Beetle." In other words, don't bother getting out of bed. By the time you get up there, she will have eaten it. First, however, we must acknowledge the kill. I call out to my cat, "Good kitty. Wonderful kitty. Shut up you lovely wonderful hunter. Just eat it and shut up." This is all said in the most loving tones. It reminds me of those times when the girls were small and suckling at my breast when I would say in the most sweet, motherly tones, "Of course mommy loves you, you little shit. I can't believe you woke me up at 2am. Now just suck it up and go back to sleep, beautiful girl." A loud crunching sound from the salon affirms my conviction that it is merely the tone of voice that matters in situations like this one. Beetle wing sounds disappear, yowling stops. Quiet again.

The days when Dulcinea brought us wingless, legless crickets and laid them on our chest are long gone. I believe the night I launched her out the cabin, down the hall and halfway to La Paz was probably the end of that routine. Now she brings her catch only as far as the salon where she waits until she receives proper respect and accolades for her skill and cleverness. As soon as she catches something, she exults in her superior hunterlyness, shouting to the world about the wonder that is Dulcinea. As a rule, the yowling starts somewhere in the parking lot, then she'll trot past the gatehouse and down the ramp, across the dock and up into our boat chattering about the event all the way. The incongruity of her chirruping, shrieking merrowwing combined with the friendly tinkle of bells wakes me every time.

She is a very loud cat. She is probably the loudest cat in all of New Zealand. She is also an extremely good hunter. While we crossed the Pacific, Dulcinea focused her attentions on the squid and flying fish who inadvertently launched themselves into our orbit and from there succumbed to Dulci's voracious appetites. Here in Bayswater, she gives every domestic housecat a bad name as she brings home mice, birds, bugs, and on one memorable occasion a foot long rat. Worried that perhaps we might somehow be single-paw-ed-ly destroying a New Zealand endangered species, I verified with the harbor staff that there are no kiwis in Bayswater. In fact, there is nothing particularly precious in our neighborhood. The staff is all for Dulci eating the mice and rats, don't mind so much the occasional finch, and are rather hoping she'll take a liking to the flying roaches.

The Intrepid Hunter Rests Quietly
toastfloats on Flickr

It's not as easy being the proud parent of such a voracious hunter, however. If Dulcinea were silent… if she could just eat with her feline mouth closed… it wouldn't be so bad. The nightly ritual, however, in which either DrC or I must go up, examine her kill, pet her, and then stumble back to our beds has grown stale. A few nights ago, her catch was a small bug of indeterminate species. She had it eaten before I had even turned around and started back down the companionway, upon which she started yowling again. I spin on one heel presented with the sight of that damn cat sitting next to her bowl quite clearly demanding that I feed her. "It's three o'clock in the morning and you couldn't be bothered to catch more than a half inch beetle and you want me to feed you?"

Apparently so.

Did I mention that she is loud?

Tonight, we are awakened by a third hunting alarm. Patting my husband on the shoulder, I go up, fill the dish, toss a cricket overboard, pat the cat, rub my tummy, and go back to bed. As I climb in, my husband mutters at me asking what I think I am about. "Why do you keep going up there?"

I groan as I settle back into the sheets, "I am completely pussy whipped."

Leash Your Pet

Considering My Options
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

Mera leaps out of the van, hot on the trail of Dulcinea who zipped out at the first crack of the sliding door. Or more accurately, hot on the trail of Dulcinea's leash. Yes, I said leash. Because folding three young children, my six foot husband, my mother, myself and everything we own into our Chevy wasn't enough of a burden, we decided to bring the cat.

We started with an unleashed cat. This worked through Baja, across Arizona, and into New Mexico. However, at a KOA in Albuquerque, Dulcinea slipped out one night and over a gulch, managing to trap herself on the other side when the local water authority released flood waters upstream. For a horrible 24 hours, we thought she was gone forever. After hearing her plaintiff merows and sending the man of the house swimming across the muddy gulch to rescue her, the family resolved to leash Dulcinea forever more.

So now Dulci wears a harness, and we clip her to a 20 foot long leash every time she ventures out of the van. This slows her down hardly at all. She loves to prowl and explore. She chases lizards, birds, and insects. With great dignity, she does her personal business – as long as the ground is not too rocky. With a child, DrC, or Grandma Sue in tow, Dulci wanders our campgrounds, attempts to investigate the cars and tents of our fellow campers, and even takes an occasional detour up a hardy tree.

Walking a cat is nothing like walking a dog. For one thing, a dog enjoys the time you spend with him. Your cat pretends you don't exist. Generally, you can encourage a dog to head down a trail or path; Your cat simply heads out across country and assumes you will follow in her wake. Dogs pee on everything. Somehow a dog always has a bit of extra piss for that special bush of tree. A cat pees once, gets the entire smell business covered instantly, and then stalks away head and tail held high despite the indignity of the experience. When done walking, you can coax your dog back to camp with promises of “cookies.” Your cat is never done walking. Never. When she tires, she will twist her leash around a dozen branches and then hide under the prickliest object in the vicinity. Extracting her from the wilderness to put her back in the vehicle requires dexterity and the willingness to sacrifice several inches of skin. It is a thankless job, so we make the children do it.

At road stops, DrC often walks the cat. Sometimes Dulci agrees to go potty. Sometimes she sits down in a shady spot and stares at him like he has taken complete leave of his senses. On one memorable stop at Hoover Dam, Dulci didn't like the heat and dove between, through, and under the rocks piled high by the side of the road. Quicker than I could stop her, she'd twined herself down into the boulders a good ten feet on her own personal, feline spelunking tour. It took me a half hour prone on the rocks in the blazing sun to coax, pull, yank, and plead for her to emerge. We both came out of the experience scratching, biting, and hissing.

Can I Pee Over the Cliff?
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

All the rules regarding pets are about dogs. Pick up pet poo. Keep pet on six foot leash. Do not let pet make noise after 10PM. Don't let pet bark at the wild life. Ducli basically ignores the rules. She buries her poo six inches deep, sleeps after 10 pm, likes her leashes to be a minimum of 20 feet so she can successfully catch the wildlife, and would not bark if her life depended on it... though she does make an interesting mur-grr-chirp when hunting. She attracts comment and visitors wherever we go, though she allows no one to pet her. And each night she settles more or less resignedly into the van with Aeron and Mera safe from bears, coyotes, and stray chihauhaus.

Traveling with a cat on a leash turns out to be relatively easy. Just start young and prepare to be walked by your pet across hill, over dale, and through the shrubbery.

Cat On a Hot Plastic Dock

Tuna Tuna
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

I hear a piercing scream from the port hull. Mera sounds terrified, frantic. There are loud thuds and bangs, a howl, and more screaming. Within a flash, I'm up and have launched myself out of bed, up the companion way and across the salon.

“Mera! Mera!! What is it? Are you okay? What happened?” The torrent of motherly catch phrases pours out of my mouth even before my brain has fully wakened out of a sound sleep to the situation. “Are you hurt?”

Dulcinea gives a triumphant growl and a sickening crunch is heard from Mera's room. The cat streaks between my legs and out the cockpit, a blur of feline aggression. Mera sounds like she's hyperventilating, “Mom... mom...”

But I know what's happened now. I know with a dread certainty that my pleasant dreams of young men with coconut oil are gone for at least an hour while I straighten out this mess and calm the family down. “Another grasshopper?” I guess.

“Yes. She she... she put it on my stomach.”

I try to imagine this. You're sound asleep, pleasantly dreaming of something less pornographic than what's going on in the rather twisted mind of your parent in the opposite hull – something age appropriate, mind you, probably featuring Robert Pattinson and ice cream cones -- when a 3 inch grasshopper is victoriously placed on your chest. A live 3 inch grasshopper with no legs. And if that isn't enough, at the same time a happy, loving cat is meowing an announcement of her gift in your ear. The grasshopper flaps and flutters. The cat purrs and merrows. And suddenly the thing flits up off your chest to land, say... on your face.

I move into her cabin and soothe Mera, “It's okay, hun. It's okay.” Not the grasshopper. We both know the grasshopper is not okay. We both know that if we turn on the light we're going to see legs on the floor. We both know that Mera is not okay either. Her heart is racing and she's fast approaching a pathological, long term horror of crickets. What's okay is the scream. She had a perfect right to scream and wake up the whole family. Aeron and I are in complete accord with Mera. This was worth an ear-piercing, heart thudding, terror inducing howl.

Napping in the Underwear
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

As if to confirm my words, Aeron says, “S'all right Mera. She left two in my room, but they were on the floor,” tacit acknowledgement that there is a limit to our patience, with ourselves, with our cat. If the grasshoppers are on the floor, you don't get to wake everyone up any more. Stepping on a dismembered wing is so common an occurrence as to not rank sufficiently horrific for even so much as a whimper. But a chest deposit? Okay, fair enough. Scream to your heart's content, Mera.

I soothe Mera with a hug and the deft removal of grasshopper parts from her hair. “It's okay, baby. Go back to sleep.” We both glance out the hatch at the distinctive sound of Dulcinea thudding down the dock, collar chiming, voice calling, “perrrupppppp, chirp, perrumeoooowppp” as she returns to her hunting grounds. Absently, I rub Mera's back, “There can't be that many more out there...”

Boat Cat Stories

Dulcinea's Favorite Spot
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

“Oh wow! Check this out!!!” Jaime calls from below. There is a burring buzz, a thump, and peals of laughter.

The cat is at it again.

This time, I'd argue that the hubbub is the girls' fault. In Mera's endless efforts to make the Spy Game more entertaining, she created spy cameras out of yarn and paper and strung them in strategic positions around the boat. The cat just discovered one dangling mid-companion way in front of Mera's door about five feet off the ground. With the boat swaying in a southwest swell, Dulcinea has decided that the camera is a target of opportunity and is repeatedly leaping to try and catch it. This continues until the cat wises up and heads for the salon. This time she dives straight down, catching the “camera” en route, landing with a victorious thud and a triumphant growl seven feet below whereupon she shreds it in vicious glee.

I fought hard to keep a pet off the boat, arguing vigorously against adding yet another problem and more work to our boat lives. Pets require food, water, places to go potty, and care. They make a mess, and they cost money. It is a true pain in the ass to get them across many international borders. We do not need more hair on the boat.

I was wrong.

Dulcinea is friend, guardian, comfort toy, entertainment, and child. She adds tremendously to our lives on Don Quixote. She is a really good boat cat, loves to be underway, and appears to have no trouble with her rather constricted living space. When the sea or anchorage are rough, she digs into a confined space. When things are hot, she flops in the coolest places on the boat.

I asked the family for anecdotes of life with Dulcinea:

The Cat Ate My Homework – Dulcinea likes paper. She likes to shred paper, specifically. You can not leave a notebook or map lying around anywhere. On more than one occasion, the girls have finished a long science or history assignment, walked off to get a juice or use the head, and come back to find their schoolwork shredded beyond recognition. When it is necessary to tear up paper so that we can heave it overboard, we put it in a box and let kitty go to town.

Crazy Cat – The cat starts running, meowing, and twitching. First, she does two laps of the salon. Without pause, she tears out the cockpit, down the port side, and up onto the salon top. There are a series of pattering thuds and then silence. We all look up... waiting expectantly. “BAM!!” Jaime says what we're all thinking, “Dulcinea's trying to climb the mast again.” DrC concurs, “Yep. Crazy ass cat.”

Cat Overboard! – We're rafted up to Endless Summer. This is the first time we've rafted since Dulcinea joined us. Her nature and inclination is that anything tied to Don Quixote is, by definition, her territory. In La Cruz, that meant the entire A dock including all the boats and cruisers. In this case, Dulcinea starts the takeover of her extended domain by jumping on Endless Summer's port bow. Within a minute, however, she's back – every hair on her body extended straight out and a wild look in her eye. Suky, a lovely Dalmatian, comes bounding over to the rail and slips onto Don Quixote enjoying the new game. With a slip and a yowl, Dulcinea sidesteps gracelessly into the gap between the boats. A half second later we hear a splash and everyone scrambles to the edge to see if she's okay. Disoriented, Dulcinea first heads towards the bows but soon realizes her error and turns around. “Wow, she's a really strong swimmer,” Steve notes. The cat is moving so fast it doesn't occur to any of us to try to get her. By the time DrC moves to the transom, Dulcinea flings herself out of the water and tears into the salon. I shudder. “Goddamnit...” I have no doubt whatsoever, Dulci is now hiding in my bed covers, the most supremely cold, wet, and pissed off cat in a 100 miles. It'll be hours before we get her rinsed in fresh water and dried out. And in the meantime, she'll manage to soak every bed and seat on the boat.

Tuna, Tuna! – “27 seconds!” Aeron calls out. It's a new Don Quixote record. That's 27 seconds from the time I crack open the can of tuna to the moment Dulcinea runs into the salon and meows for her portion. Dulcinea is not crazy about beef or chicken. She's a mad cat for sea food. Boat cat.

Kitty Headlights – “Shine the light to the left,” DrC asks Mera who is sitting on the bow. We have several ways to find our boat at night in a dark anchorage. The corners of the boat have solar sidewalk lights which glow a faint orange. We use a kludgy, very bright 12 volt incandescent bulb which we clip to the boom every night. In addition, DrC put strips of reflective tape on the edges of the deck and at key places up the mast. The tape shines a bright silver when you point a flashlight anywhere towards our boat. Finally, we have Dulcinea.

Shredder Cat
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

As we approach the back of the boat, Dulcinea runs down the transom to greet us. “Kitty kitty kitty!” everyone starts to call. Mera exclaims, “Kitty headlights!” And there they are. We know it's Don Quixote, because there are two stripes of silver and then on the right, shining back at us a diamond white light, are the twin beams of the flashlight reflecting in Dulcinea's eyes.

We hear a plaintive mrrreeow as our boat cat starts bitching about the reduced state of her food dish. A cat makes a home, and we're home.

Check!

Duclinea
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

Arrived in Seattle four days ago to refit the boat for our journey south. By salty standards, we are still pathetic sailors. However, we do know enough now to get into lots of trouble. We also know enough that our list of things to do in Seattle is roughly four hundred items long. Our social life since we arrived is also a bit ridiculous. I had no idea we knew so many people.

It isn't all going to get done before we head out again, so we had to prioritize:

[ ] Replace starboard alternator
[ ] Get SSB to tune in more than 3 channels
[ ] Get C-map chip, hard copy charts, and cruising guides for coastline from Neah Bay to Aculpulco
[ ] Purchase materials for projects such as dinghy wheels, water maker, wind scoops, boat shade, and dry bags
[ ] Store up provisions of favorite foods hard to get in Mexico
[ ] Swap out academic and recreational library for new content
[ ] Resolve commercial loan issue
[ ] Resolve Medicare outstanding bill fiasco
[ ] Get kitten

What have we managed to accomplished in those 5 days?

You've got it. Meet Dulcinea.