How Do You Eat a Boat?

Obviously, one bite at a time... and invite absolutely everyone you know.

Time to Go
toastfloats on Flickr

Our trip is over. As with any great life passage, we punctuated our journey with a big party at the beginning and end: opening and closing ceremonies at the Olympics, baby shower and wake, bridal shower and girls' recovery night out, bon voyage and fin du voyage. Our Bon Voyage party was in May 2008. We invited our neighbors, our friends, our family. It was a stunningly beautiful day as only Seattle can be when the weather is perfect. In fact, the mountain was out... a statement meaningful to anyone who has lived in the Puget Sound for any length of time. We were happy and scared, excited and absolutely ready to embark on completely new lives.

Our Fin du Voyage is a bit diferent. We are bringing to a close an amazing phase of our lives. We aren't quite moving forward into something utterly new and strange. Yet, we aren't really doing anything we've ever done before. Living aboard a boat, going to public schools, working... it's been a long time. Morever, when we did these things last, we were very different people with utterly different priorities. It's possible that our emotional roller coaster could be described using almost the same adjective: happy, scared, excited, ready for a new way of life.

Don Quixote Girls Marvel at Our Boat Cake
toastfloats on Flickr

We broke our Fin du Voyage party into several separate gatherings. If we've learned anything over the intervening years, it is that there are a finite number of people you can host on Don Quixote at any given time. A few too many and she starts to sink. Her waterline way back when with all those people on her was a bit terrifying in retrospect. So we broke the party into bits hoping that the fickle weather gods of this Lousy Summer from Hell would cut us a break and at least one of our parties would be pleasant. Give those fickle gods credit for consistency. The weather sucked each and every time. As a rule, the weather was perfect either the day before or the day after each gathering. On the day of the BBQ, cruise, or gathering, however, it was either a) super windy, b) overcast and drizzly, c) colder than Idaho caves, or d) all of the above.

As a result, we had a far fewer guests joining us during our Fin du Voyage do's than we had hoped. It's also fair to say that we just don't know all that many people yet. We know a few amazingly cool people, mind you, but it's not like we spent our first year in New Zealand becoming the social life of the Auckland party. DrC and I are not all that good about getting out of the house as it is. Give us the mistaken notion that we're only going to be in New Zealand for "a few months", and we basically failed to extend our reach beyond a very tight, close circle in Pukekohe.

Never Sail Without Your Cake Dinghy
toastfloats on Flickr

It is probably time to change that approach, however. First, Pukekohe is 30km and 45 minutes south of here. We can't simply pop over for a glass of wine of an evening when we are in the mood. So as a start, we are making a concious effort to reach out to our marina neighbors. The summer (that really an inappropriate word for it but for lack of a better one...) is winding down. The fair weather sailors and the owners of stunning dock jewelry are gradually abandoning the liveaboards for the duration. The nights are chilly, the parking lots emptying out, and our sense of the marina as belonging only to the live aboards increases weekly. Time to dig in for the winter.

So to speak.

To kick off this spirit of neighborliness, I've been pushing for bi-weekly liveaboard dinners. I have read countless accounts of liveaboards who talk about their marinas as the best neighborhood possible. Liveaboards in good marinas take care of one another. They take care of the boats around them. So, we kicked off dinner this month at the lounge with a feast of boat cake.

The boat cake was the best idea ever. The genesis -- as with so many good things -- was over a glass or two or three of wine while we visited with a friend before leaving for Mexico. Peter's vocation is computer geekery. His avocation, however, is cake making. He crafts the most amazing cakes. We thumbed through pictures of his many creations ooo'ing and ahh'ing. Somewhere it just popped out, "You should make US a cake! When we get back!"

"What do you want?" asks Peter.

Peter With His Creation
toastfloats on Flickr

"I don't know... the sea, the Toast Floats logo, our navigation path..." my voice trails off.

Aeron pipes up, "Don Quixote! You should make Don Quixote."

I think DrC and I laughed. Whoever heard of a cake boat. Or a boat cake. Far too fancy. Far too much time and trouble. Never mind. The Don Quixote cake was stunning.

My favorite bit was the dinghy on the davits at the back complete with a wee outboard motor. I think I'll just throw a bunch of pictures on this post and call it done.

The cake really speaks for itself.

Friends of Friends

Dean Learns Tahitian Dance
toastfloats on Flickr

The crew of s/v Ceilydh is here in Auckland due to a completely unreasonable and absurd requirement of Australian immigration law. With very little forewarning, Evan, Diane, and Maia showed up on our transom looking for a place to stay while they sort out the kerfuffle. Unsurprisingly, they settled into our boat with grace, ease, and little disruption to our crew. Frankly, the best guests to have on a boat are fellow yachties. They know not to bring a lot of luggage and to immediately store the luggage out of the way. They never put toilet paper down the head, immediately start helping with boat chores, and when the time comes to leave the boat for the day, they don't leave the hatches open, the lights on, or their crap lying around. In fact, Ceilydh makes betters guests than my eldest daughter to whom I should probably secure everything she owns with a spring loaded, retractable tether.

The homeschool community routinely faces the question of socialization. Boat schoolers must address this issue to an even greater extent. How can we explain to land-based folk just how well socialized our children have become? Our children learn to play with kids of all ages, become instant play mates, enjoy the presence and company of adults. They can talk with anyone, share games and ideas regardless of age, race, or country of origin. Why did it not occur to me until tonight that the same processes that make my girls so capable -- such confident, well-spoken young people -- worked their magic on DrC and I as well?

Tonight as I watch Evan and Diane slip easily and comfortably into a group of Don Quixote's New Zealand friends, I recognize another truism of cruisers: We do well with strangers. Cruisers quite literally drift in and out of each others lives. We meet each other in one anchorage, have a dinner and sundowners, maybe go on a hike, and then we depart in different directions. It is a survival skill to become amiable, to take genuine interest in the lives of people known for less than a day. We learn how to be entertaining ourselves and in turn be diverted by newness, friendly and comfortable in a crowd of people formed of varying social strata, education, political or religious ideology. This isn't the artificial amiability of the politician, but rather a sincere adaptation to a transient social environment.

Just look at my husband. I remember the night years ago in Seattle when my good friend Wyatt looked at me over a glass of red and admitted, "I've known you for a long time. It's only now I think I understand why you married Dean." It took years for my husband to open up enough to let Wyatt know him, to reveal to someone outside our family the deeply sensitive, strong, and giving person inside. DrC has a wicked sense of humor, a keen and insightful intellect, and a wide ranging interest in the world. He is articulate, well read, and very current in his understanding of politics, economics, and society. But back in the day -- in those days before we become cruisers -- I was one of the only people in the world who knew this. He was shy, quiet, extremely private. At parties, he would functionally disappear, particularly in the presence of my loud, widely gesticulating, opinionated self. It was partially my fault, as I was unfortunately the obnoxious bore who would talk way too much, way too loudly, and with rarely a pause to listen. It was partially his fault, as he was a man who listened intently but almost never participated in the conversation.

Yet, here we are. I am settled on the couch listening to Deb tell me all about her broken leg. Moreover, I genuinely am interested; I am not just waiting until she takes a breath before I start in about me-me-me. Her story is actually a bit horrifying, a nasty break with lots of fits and starts in the healing process and the plot includes a great deal of morphine. My participation consists of a skill I learned from my husband, active and engaged listening, comments injected only to spur more revelations from Deb. It is such a pleasure to sit, sip my wine and listen to her voice, take inspiration from her strength both physical and emotional. In turn, DrC is actively engaged across the room sharing ideas about some dang thing with a man I know he's known for all of a half hour. His arms are waving, and he laughs at a comment while maintaining a running stream of dialog. We haven't switched places. I'm not silent, he's not loud and overwhelming, but we are also not the same people. Evan and Mark are sitting on the couch chatting about the performance characteristics of some old schooner Mark used to crew. Diane is giving Steve ideas how to get started in the travel writing business. My cruising friends have slipped seamlessly, effortlessly into this crowd of strangers. All four of us appear to be enjoying ourselves, and perhaps just as importantly give every appearance of providing interest, pleasure and mutual entertainment to the people with whom we interact.

"What about socialization?" The They of the world always ask.

"You mean ours, don't you?" I will now respond. DrC and I have finally completed our socialization, and for damn sure we didn't learn it in school. While DrC and I were out with our daughters on quiet anchorages and busy little port towns, our girls showed us what it means to be well socialized, highly functional members of society. I finally feel like a grown up.

Don Quixote and Ceilydh
by Toastfloats on Flickr

The Memory Project

Family Outing at the Gardens
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

The theft knocked the wind out of the New Zealand Conger sails, but the family is gradually putting ourselves back together. Fortunately, we still own property in the United States for which we maintain rather pricey property insurance. As a result, it appears that monetarily we are going to be able to fund a shopping spree to replace our valuables. The emotional hit is harder to take. My rational mind recognizes that on the scale of things, this isn't that tremendous. We have a 'net friend who had a car stolen recently, another who lost her house to a bank … which is just another form of theft... and a third who nearly lost everything in the economic downturn. One of DrC's new colleagues fled his home country with a few bills in his pocket and the clothes on his back. By this measure, we are doing well with an embarrassment of riches and things.

Yet, it hurts to lose those precious items that we'd gathered over the years of our cruising. Arguably, Mera and Aeron lost the most irreplaceable items. Mera lost three years of diaries, and Aeron lost her keepsake box. Yesterday, the girls hit on ideas for how to make their hearts whole again and recovery their valuables. I'm ashamed to admit that in the interest of distraction, I've been letting them watch the tele (bad mommy). They got the idea from the Jonas Brothers. In a recent episode, the brothers accidentally destroyed their parents' home videos. While they couldn't replace the videos, they lit on the idea to recreate the key moments. The Jonas brothers reenacted scenes from their childhood at 3, 5, 7, 14, and then clipped the scenes together into a video. The new video wasn't the same as the old one, but their mother said that somehow, someway it was better.

So Mera and Aeron are undertaking The Memory Project. For Mera, we are going to select and print between thirty to fifty pictures from the past four years. Mera intends to paste these into a journal and write everything she remembers about the time and events that took place around that photograph. If this were any eleven year old other than our Marvelous Mysterious one, I'd say the project was doomed. Those who know Mera well, however, no doubt agree with me that all this one requires is that I get her the photos, the pens and the journal before her desire cools.

Aeron's version of The Memory Project, however, requires your help. She decided to harness all the offers of help and good will and support sent over the past few days. Aeron's keepsake box contained small, monetarily insignificant bits gathered from the top end of Vancouver Island to Zihautenejo. There were painted shells and smooth worry stones, tourist town maps, postcards and event tickets, hand made crafts and pictures from boat kids everywhere, and little touristy items from Mexican markets. The most monetarily valuable item in the box was probably a 50 ($4USD) peso painted turtle from a market in Mazatlan, the most personal a polished shell from Skylar of Ocean Blue. Each item reminded her of a place or a person.

Aeron is asking everyone to send her replacements. They don't have to be the same… they don't even have to be similar. The point is that the new items, letters, postcards, bits of kid work… well they will all represent places and loved ones. Nothing should really cost anything… a bookmark from a local bookshop or a map of the marina your boat is in, a postcard, or a cheap knockoff Huichol key chain, a bracelet wound of Spectra or a stray plastic Mexican train marker, a little fan or a bead bracelet made by the kids on your boat. Anything really that comes from the heart, arrives with a note to Aeron from the sender, and reminds us all of our trip and the wonderful people we met.

And mind you, this is everyone... not just our cruising friends in Mexico. Aeron collected stuff in La Connor, Nanaimo, Seattle, and San Francisco. She went to every national park in the Southwest gathering detritus the whole way. My little magpie knows a 1,000 people; It seems every one of them touched her heart somehow, and she memorialized it with something that would all together fit in a space smaller than a bread box.

You can send these letters and bits to one of the following three addresses:

United States
Suellen Jost
The Memory Project
224 East Ranch Road
Seattle, WA 95825

Mexico
Club Cruceros de La Paz A.C.
APDO Postal 366
La Paz, B.C.S.   Mexico
CP23000
ATTN: Don Quixote (Dean Conger)

New Zealand
Manukau SuperClinic™
PO Box 98743
Manukau City
Manukau 2241
New Zealand
ATTN: Module 6 - Ophthalmology, Dr. Dean M. Conger

Our Magpie
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

Those sent to Mexico or the United States will be gathered into a bundle which I'll pick up in late May. For those in the cruising world, please pass on this request to our friends who do not get online very often.

I want to thank everyone again for the outpouring of support. Combined with carbo and retail therapy, the messages have helped us enormously. When all is said an done, we are a very lucky family.

Buddy Boat

His is Cleaner
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

s/v Beach Access pulled into La Ropa two mornings after DrC left us to plump the cruising kitty in Seattle. The girls and I were a bit lonely, a tiny bit nervous about our three weeks alone on the hook, and more than a bit ready for diversion. We could see one scruffy looking gentleman moving around on the deck. He looked tired – which was not a bit surprising. The only way to pull into La Ropa at 9:00 AM is if you have done an overnight from the nearest anchorage up north. He'd been single-handing all night. Our neighbor to the west s/v Sky apparently knew Beach Access and told him to park between the two boats so that we could keep an eye on him while the captain caught a much needed nap.

The most striking thing about Beach Access, of course, is that she's a Lagoon 380 catamaran. There are only a half dozen of these boats on the entire western Pacific coastline, so we were excited! We'd seen one up in Bellingham, another in charter in Neuvo Vallarta. But now we had a sister ship clearly in our model range dropping hook not 50 feet off our starboard.

The girls did what the girls always do. They visited. They charmed. They sweet talked. It was a foregone conclusion that within a matter of hours, Glen would be wrapped around their fast talking, swift moving little fingers. They swam over and chatted him up, swarmed over his boat comparing customizations, and drew out every little bit of his story. There was little I could do to stop them. Within a few days, Glen of Beach Access was as much a part of the Don Quixote family as Dulcinea or myself. Within two weeks, Glen was awarded a highly coveted title of “honorary Uncle.”

Now the girls have a few honorary uncles. These are men that the girls love unreservedly and essentially adopt -- for whatever rhythm or reason motivates them. Their taste is excellent, but even if it were not, DrC and I would just have to roll with it. All three of the girls insist that continued, constant contact with honorary uncles is a minimum requirement for cruising or they will jump ship. It is more important than books, more critical than school friends.

The first and most important honorary Uncle is Noey of Seattle. I worked with him for many years at a computer development firm. He's smart, good looking, and in my humble opinion a great photographer. For nearly a year and a half, we had Noey over for Sunday dinner or spent Sunday at his house. The girls consistently cite leaving Noey behind as one of the hardest parts of leaving Seattle. Probably next in the honorary Uncle line is Greg. Another computer geek, we lived with Greg for about 6 months when he and his family rented our upstairs unit. Greg can cook. Greg has a cool cat. Greg is another smart, good looking geek. There appears to be a theme.

With Glen, the girls have broken their pattern a bit. Glen is a lot more like their father except a few years older and with more surfing experience. He's a carpenter/contractor by trade, likes Led Zeppelin and Wachowski brothers movies, and has a passion for his boat. We ladies knew within a short period of time that Glen was a great fit for our family. He sincerely enjoys spending time with the girls, and he is great company in the evenings drinking wine with Mom. But more importantly, we knew we had finally found a boat with a guy on it that DrC would relate to instantly.

When DrC came home, we celebrated by having Glen over for dinner. The next day, we gave Daddy permission to escape the Don Quixote estrogen fest by visiting Beach Access. The two disappeared for hours. In the late afternoon, we got a drunken call on the VHF, “Don Quixote Don Quixote, Beach Access.”

“Beach Access go ahead.”

“When are you women feeding us?”

It's a match made in trail magic heaven.

On Saturday, the family – including Glen – are going to get our teeth cleaned. Then we will pull up all four hooks on our two catamarans and start heading north. I don't think this is a matter of us crossing paths on the trip. I suspect that these two Lagoon 380s – hulls #60 and #61 – will buddy our way all the way into the Sea of Cortez. So if you pull into a Mexican anchorage this spring only to find two essentially identical cats anchored close enough to pass the PouPon, you'll know you've found us.

Ours is the one with the Picasso graphic. His is the clean one.

Friendship Meme for 2009

Here We Go!
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

We all get these over the ‘tubes... and as a rule, I ignore them. On the other hand, 2008 was a banner year for folks starting to read Toast Floats for the first time. In fact, it was the year in which the number of readers related to me was far surpassed by the readers who simply stumbled over this blog. So maybe a Friendship Meme actually offers an opportunity to those folks to get to know something about me rather than an insipid recreation of middle school slam books. Or maybe I just can’t think of anything else to write about this week.

What time did you get up this morning?
Sunrise. Does anyone know what time that is in Zihua this time of year?

Diamonds or pearls?
Tanzanite.

What was the last film you saw at the cinema?
I have absolutely no idea. The damn thing was in Spanish, animated, it had a dog, there wasn’t any popcorn, and the Coke was divine. I love Mexican Coke. Americans need to dump corn syrup in favor of whatever they are using down here if our country is ever to get back on track.

What is your favorite TV show?
We have all seven seasons of Angel, two seasons of Farscape, and three seasons of Battlestar Galatica. I’d trade them all at this point for Eureka and the rest of Farscape. It’s all about the trade, baby.

What do you usually have for breakfast?
Pan dulce and a cafe au lait. Thanks to s/v Beach Access, though, we’re beginning to reclaim the concept of fruit smoothie for the morning meal. Probably healthier. The fruit down here is just amazing.

What is your middle name?
Toast. *laughs* No shit. There have got to be at least a dozen readers blinking in amazement. What? Did you think I just pulled “Toast” out of a hat? Okay, I did... but I also had it changed to my legal middle name when I married DrC.

What foods do you dislike?

I -want- to dislike packaged foods, but I have an unfortunate love of cookies and sugar corn pops. I’ve discovered I have a strong aversion to innards, and the more times I see them spread out at the mercado, the firmer I am of the opinion that guts are nasty and should not be eaten. Nor should pig heads or chicken feet... although Behan really wants to convince me otherwise on the feet, “Tastes just like chicken!”

What is your favorite CD at the moment?
No CDs. We ripped everything to iTunes before we cut the lines and left the disks in an enormous box in my mother’s garage. I’m really fond of a mix my father in law made of every piece of popular music he could find with the words “sail” or “sailing” in the lyrics. I’m also painfully addicted to listening to the score for High School Musical while doing chores.

What kind of car do you drive?
Avon 10’ dinghy with a Mercury outboard. I think we’ll go back to the 9.9 Yamaha, though, as soon as we can move the planing fins and get the 15HP upgrade.

Favorite sandwich?
Tacos.

What characteristic do you despise?
Isms. All of them. Indiscriminately.

Favorite item of clothing?
Clean panties.

If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go?
Some place featuring a king sized bed with box springs and dry sheets.

Where would you retire?
Any place cleaner than my boat.

Favorite sport to watch?
Kitty Climb the Main Sail

When is your birthday?
September -- I’m a Virgo. 


Are you a morning person or a night person?
Morningish.
 
What is your shoe size?
My Crocs say that I’m a Mens 6. That’s weird.

Pets?
Do children count?

Any new and exciting news you'd like to share with us?
DrC has been in Seattle for nearly two weeks, and I have neither sunk the boat nor drowned my children. I’m feeling pretty smug about that.


What did you want to be when you were little?
I wanted to build an electric car.

What is your favorite candy?
Whatever is on the boat at the moment I have a craving for sweets.

What is your favorite flower?
Lavender.

What is a day on the calendar you are looking forward to? 
I deleted the calendar. I even emptied the Trash just to make sure it was gone. It’s a little frustrating, but it turns out that you can’t delete the Date & Time function on a Mac so Apple Bruce tells me what time it is every hour. Tomorrow is a good day. I’ll figure out how to shut up Bruce tomorrow.

What is your favorite pastime?
Wasting time on the Internet.

What are you listening to right now?
Skidoos. I hate those things. I need a weapon that I could mount on the bow that would neatly take them out when they get too close. The only thing worse than skidoos are those idiot parasailors who keep trying to hit the mast.

What was the last thing you ate?
Bollo and manchega with sliced cucumbers and papaya.

Do you wish on stars?
Yep.

If you were a crayon, what color would you be?
Okay, that’s just a stupid question. As an aside, did you know they now have Crayons of the color “Macaroni and cheese”? Do you ever wonder how much Kraft had to pay Crayola to make that happen?

How is the weather right now?
Tropical paradise if you like that sort of thing.

The first person you spoke to on the phone today?
No phone. Girls did the morning cruisers’ net, so it was probably a fellow boat.

Favorite soft drink?
Fresca Toranja. I could live on it. You might know it as just Fresca.

Favorite restaurant? 
We always walk up into town far enough to leave behind 95% of the fat, white tourists from up North. The prices drop and the quality improves. Then we search out a restaurant stuffed to the gills with locals.

Real hair color?
Black and grey wires are starting to insert themselves into my mousy brown bristle brush while at the same time, the sun is bleaching the hell out of the lot of it. It’s just a disaster.

What was your favorite toy as a child? 
Men.

Summer or winter? 
Spring.

Hugs or kisses?
Cuddling.

Chocolate or Vanilla?
Blackberries. Okay, there is definitely a theme here, I realize. These memes assume you are essentially normal. What do you bet the next question is “Coffee or tea?” “Paper or plastic?” or “Skis or snowboard?”

Coffee or tea?
See?

When was the last time you cried?
The kids brought me to tears a few days ago from sheer, unadulterated frustration. I haven’t had a really good all and out bawl however in quite awhile. It might have been when Greg died, and I was reminded that we’re not immortal.

What is under your bed? 
Two giganormous D-Cell batteries, a 26 HP Yanmar engine and 20 gallons of highly explosive fuel... Booo yah! There aren’t many women who can say that.

What did you do last night?
Made grilled cheese and smoothies for the girls and Beach Access. Went skinny dipping after everyone went to bed and watched my body light up the water as I moved around the boat.

What are you afraid of?
Something happening to DrC when the girls and are not there to help him.

Salty or sweet?
Salty.

How many keys on your key ring?
It’s more like a float. Let’s see... dinghy lock, starter engine x 2, door padlock. Five? That sounds about right. Any more and the thing would sink.

How many towns have you lived in?
Counting Zihua? A lot.

How many years at your current job?
*laughs*

Drunken Stupor Observations

Enrique's
Uploaded by toastfloats.

Actually, I’m not as inebriated as I’d like to be. If I were, I suppose I wouldn’t be able to feel the tips of my fingers and typing would become impossible. On the other hand, maybe as a technical writer, typing has become so integral to my existence that I can accomplish the task in any mental state. You hear of musicians, for example, who are capable of feats of tremendous virtuosity even when high on all sorts of illegal substances. So too might I, a technical writer, be highly capable of producing wit and grammatically correct prose after consuming multiple alcoholic beverages.

Alternatively, spellcheck is saving my ass.

Without sober reflection, here are my observations on the cruising life:

I really want a bath. I miss bathing. I miss the little ritual of asking DrC if I can take an hour to bathe, heading for the bath, locking the door. I would turn the spigot on hot hot hot, drop in half a Lush bath bomb, and sink in. I’d take a good book, preferably one with very little character development and a great deal of hot, uninhibited sex on moors, in closets and pressed on the stairs to the second floor. My flesh would turn pink, then red, and my head would spin as I stepped out of the tub. DrC would be ready with a cold glass of water, knowing I’d spent too long in the hot water, dehydrated, and was about to pass out. Then I’d flop like a stranded fish on my bed, too hot to cover myself with clothes or bedding, the cool night air chilling my heated skin while my head swam and spun in delicious slow whirls until I’d fall to a limp, warm sleep.

I’d like my boat better if it didn’t move all the time. When you’re slightly drunk and your head is two sips short of a complete spin, it would be nice if the ground didn’t move. The movement, the sloshy sounds, the honking of the sea lions on the nearby breakwater, combine to make me feel considerably more intoxicated than I should be forced to feel after such a small quantity of wine and large quantity of tasty pork and vegetable curry.

I’d like my family better if they stopped arguing with me. There is a Rule. It’s like the Rule of Three, I suppose, a guideline for better living. Not like running a stop light... more like shutting off the lights before leaving the house. The Rule is that if three or more people have the same problem with you, the problem is you not them and you need to fix it yourself. So I have a really big problem with my family which causes me to yell at them all the time. The problem is that I want a clean, healthy, safe environment, and they want to live like pigs with a self-immolation complex. The whole place would smell like a Saturday morning bacon fry if I let them live like they apparently want to. This is my problem. I must fix it. I think a good start would be to adopt a more carnivorous approach to life.

Spore is not an educational game no matter how much we want it to be so. I’m sorry; As a homeschool parent, you can not justify the purchase of this game as an educational expense. It’s a great deal of fun, and I recommend it highly, but we all need to stop pretending we’re learning more about evolution and societal development by playing it.

I shouldn’t miss friends I’ve only known for a few weeks, but I do anyway. I miss s/v Wish and s/v Carasan. I want to spend more time with s/v Walking on Water and s/v Tango. I miss Ted and Sue of s/v Indigo so much it hurts. I miss s/v Rubber Duckies, with their great attitude and wonderful children. I miss Laureen and Jason and Behan in a way that strikes to the heart of what I am. There are boats ahead of me with more wonderful people, but part of me is afraid to meet them. I am not sure I’m cut out for this love ‘em and leave ‘em approach to friendships. In the real world, I made friends by the decade: Joe and Alex in one, Jim and Keet in another, Kristina and Joann in a third. Now I make them monthly, but it’s hard to feel right about the transient nature of these relationships. DrC was probably right: I’m ideally cut out for monogamy. I didn’t believe him at the time, but 20 years and counting suggests that once again he was right and I was wrong.

Finally, I have decided not to participate in NaNoWriMo this year. Last year, I used it as a grand excuse to write “go look at my prior great art” posts. I think that would have been acceptable had I simultaneously either produced a great work of fiction or -- alternatively -- merely spun out 50,000 words of drivel for future use on this blog. Since I did neither, it was a complete cop out. This year -- starting October 1 -- I started pounding out 50,000 words of blog content with nary a pause in the delivery schedule. Never mind the why, I don’t plan on changing the delivery schedule to the blog any time soon.

And with that, I get to sign off. 923 words later, I feel as though I’ve not only exercised my wine soaked demons, but also made significant progress towards my 50,000 word objective.

My Posse
Uploaded by toastfloats

Questions from the Class - Honored Guests

There's Always Room
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

Keet asks, “If you're preparing a meal on the boat for honored guests, what do you make?”

If you cruise at all, you know that what you make when guests are aboard is whatever you currently have stored in lockers in sufficient quantity that you can serve that many people. Sometimes, you do something really nice for friendly fellow boaters. Sometimes, you’re lucky to find stale pretzels. It depends a great deal on how long it has been since the last provisioning stop.

The cruiser culture is amazingly generous and open. People share everything when necessity requires. Socializing is lubricated with shared food and beverages. The trick is not to have something really special -- the trick is just to have something to share. A bag of chips, a box of crackers, a hand made dip, a fresh baked loaf of bread with butter, or a cabbage slaw salad to add to the fish someone else supplies.

If you are just getting started in the cruising life, I encourage you to take these steps:

Guest Food -- Keep a box or locker of foods that you pull out only when you have a guest aboard. For example, I keep a spice cake mix and can of pumpkin at all times so I can throw together breakfast muffins. I always have a bag of chips and a jar of salsa that are off limits as well. Cream cheese keeps for weeks in the refrigerator, so I maintain a supply of dried herbs and a box of crackers which I can throw together when needed.

Signature Drink -- Do not underestimate the value of creating your own boat’s signature drink. Once you’ve selected the drink, always always ALWAYS have the ingredients in stock. For Don Quixote’s drink recipe, see Stormy Sunset.

Pot Dinner -- In contrast with pot luck, pot dinner is a recipe you can make in large quantity in your pressure cooker. Make sure you have at least one recipe for which the majority of ingredients are dried or cured. Like your guest food, you save these ingredients until either the last few days before you provision or for the night you come into an anchorage to see a boat you haven’t visited with in four weeks. The pot dinner recipe should be something you can throw into the pot and pressure cook for a half hour while the rest of the family is frantically scraping sand and hair out of the cockpit. Ours is a tomato basil soup which I’ll write up as my next cooking idea.

Note to cruiser dreamers: It takes about a half hour for any boat to roust out their own offering, wrestle it into the dingy and row over to your boat. Any cruiser who manages this maneuver more rapidly is not a good guest. We all need time to hide the dirty underwear.

Bottles of Wine -- The other side to this equation is what do you bring when invited. Of course Guest Food can travel either way; You serve it or you take it to another boat. You can’t nip to the nearest liquor store on your way to a fellow anchored vessel, however, so stock up. Cheap is fine, just make sure you have conveniently stashed away a good half dozen “guest bottles” you can grab when you go visiting.

Portable Dishware -- Nobody ships out with enough glasses, plates, and utensils for guests. When you visit other boats, take your own dishware as well as your shared food. If you are new to the boat, you won’t be expected to help with clean up. Just take your dirties with you. I recommend a sturdy, plastic carrying bag for this purpose that you can sluice out after visits. We use a two dollar variety available from Ikea. If you are visiting a buddy boat -- and thus routinely meet up for breakfasts, hikes, dinners, and other adventures -- you should ease your way into helping with after meal clean up. Some galley chefs will fend you off, others welcome your assistance. Play it by ear.

Remember Your Ratio -- We have five mouths to feed. Most boats we visit have considerably fewer. As a result, we contribute proportionately to shared meals. Remember, most cruisers have a well thought out plan to provision the boat from Point A to Point B. Particularly if you are in a zone with “next services 2 weeks”, we all have enough food aboard to feed our family for the duration and not a great deal more. It is rude to eat two days of another boat’s rations.

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s/v Walking on Water
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

The solitude of cruising pristine waters and private coves is, in my opinion, a greatly overrated commodity. The most satisfying part of cruising for our crew is the experiences shared with fellow boaters of beach walks, muddy hikes, more or less successful fishing days, and wine soaked sunsets at anchor. A crew who provisions with an eye towards enticing the boat next door opens themselves to an infinite variety of enjoyable moments.

Goodbye Greg

Today I learned about the loss of a friend. Greg Jennings was a tall, slender, quiet man with a mystic smile that made you wonder what he was thinking. It was college, and Greg was a phase in my life where I experimented with the concept of Great Romance. I was young, stupid, overly emotive, and quite frankly the world's most psychotic girl friend. It's lucky we both survived the experience.

Fortunately, Greg stayed his mellow self. He became a forest ecologist for the Bureau of Land Management, married Lisa, and lived his life by his own terms. A motorist killed him Monday as he commuted home from work on his bike. All accounts suggest that he was doing the commute right, with all the correct gear, behavior, and location on the road. Some complete idiot hit him anyway.

The news came to me through a mutual friend with a long list of CC email addresses, each name of which triggered a series of flashbacks. These were the people of my young adulthood with whom I spent hours drinking, dancing, philosophizing over coffee in East Bay diners, and contemplating the infinite possibilities of the navel. Some were at my wedding, others were lovers, most were people I haven't seen in two decades. Our musings on Greg's death remind me why Dean and I are cruising.

There is no assurance. We assume we will all just keep going. Hoffman and Mulloy, Kalin and Dyer, Jost, Hickman, Makler... Jennings. And then we find out they stop. This leads to the inevitable conclusion that we all stop. So obvious. Live today for tomorrow some asshole will change the music on his iPod and strike us down.

I don't miss Greg; I haven't seen him since the 80's so it would be complete drama queen to say I miss him or that this is extraordinarily painful news. I miss the idea of Greg being somewhere living his life, doing his thing, smiling his enigmatic smile, and smelling good to his wife. I miss the total fallacy of a certain future. I want him back so that I can once again ignore mortality.

I want to sail away this afternoon with my husband and children and never come back.

Sail Gale Whale Ale Day

Dingy Fleet
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

The trip was roughly 35 nautical miles if you followed the coast line from Winter Harbor, across to Cape Cook, around Brooks Peninsula, and over to the tuck into beautiful little Columbia Cove. Other than rounding Cape Scott, this trip around Brooks Peninsula is considered by many to be the hairiest part of any passage up or down the west coast of Vancouver Island.

Brooks is a thumb of land pushing into the Pacific like a hitch hiker grabbing the nearest earthly plate to drift northwards. Apparently, this nearly square jut of land is the only part of Vancouver not covered by glaciers during the last ice age. It stands several thousand feet tall and funnels the prevailing summer northeasterly in a vicious hook around Cape Cook and Solander Island where winds are routinely 30 to 40 and at least 10 to 15 higher than everywhere else.

As a result, we all timed the weather window carefully, hanging on hooks in or near Winter Harbor for a few days until satisfied with the reports off Solander and South Brooks. The sail boats were, of course, the first to leave the harbors. We swarmed out of Quatsino Sound, little pickup sticks bouncing vertically on the waves as we coalesced from north and west towards our course at the first waypoint off Kwakiutl Point. The wind freshened inexplicably from the east to 15 and the horizon sparkled with the handkerchief dots of main sails and jibs happily taking advantage of the beam reach for the first leg.

Just as all our sails went up, the power boaters steamed by thumping out cross wakes which were immediately lost in the developing chop created by an easterly wind and a northwesterly swell. Their objectives were no doubt considerably more ambitious than our own, bypassing the hidden coves of South Brooks entirely and heading deep into the friendly harbors and calm waters of Kyuquot Channel. There was also the practical consideration of the weather report. Winds nasty in the morning, dying off mid day, returning with a vengeance in late afternoon. Our p/v compatriots were simply getting while the getting was good.

We, however, were sailing into a fog bank as the winds shifted finally to their usual northwest and picked up to 20. The seas were only 2 meters. Only. The girls and I are complete noobs in the world of oceanic voyaging so six feet of steep wave with white caps was both intimidating and sickening. One by one, the girls went down with gimpy tummy. No one tossed anything smelly, but I settled them all down with blankies, stuffed animals, and motherly love, and they promptly followed the body’s most useful defense against seasickness -- they passed out. This left Dr C and I on the deck with no company. All the other boats, the shore, and the horizon were lost in a dense blanket of mist.

I said 35 miles, right? But that was, of course, assuming we followed the coast line. We never follow the coast line. We never follow a straight line. We are a sail boat, so of course the wind never permits us to travel the shortest distance. Instead, we headed off into the deep blue in a course somewhat orthogonal to our destination. The winds were cold and wet, the skies grey, the water slate and dusted with spray. Tracking via the chart plotter, backed up by our handheld GPS and chart, was the only indicator we were making progress. It all looked the same. Seas high and choppy, steep waves with short periods, wind steady 23 gusting occasionally to 30. Dr C kept reassuring me that it could be so much worse. We headed out out out into the ocean, then finally tacked and headed back back back to the unseen coastline.

One mile before the chart insisted we’d duck behind Brooks on the last leg of our journey, the sun suddenly made an appearance, the headland loomed above us, and the water began to sparkle. A half mile later, the winds dipped to 14, and the chop disappeared. Another mile and we were well into the shelter of Brooks, the winds died to 5, and the swell disappeared. Even shaking out reefs didn’t help, and the motor went on. We were so hot we started shedding clothing, stripping the covers off the bimini, and turning on the fans.

We Saw Whales!
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

Another mile behind the peninsula and the blow holes started spouting in every direction. The girls, fully recovered from nap and mal de mer, swarmed over the deck shouting and pointing. Dr C throttled back as a large pod of orcas herded fish past us and towards the shore. At one point a trio headed straight for the boat, blowing not 10 yards from our starboard bow. The girls bounced on the tramp as the beasts passed under them before emerging for air again 20 yards off the port. Fins were visible in every direction, tails occasionally flapped the water, and one broached and jumped partially out of the water. Dr C idled forward after their passage only to be brought up short again, this time by a pair of humpbacks. These were much much larger and much slower. They seemed to enjoy looking at our boat, and spent a good five minutes showing their humps as they circled us before moving on to something more interesting.

I took the helm threading our way into the microscopic dip in the shoreline that constitutes the Columbia Cove anchorage as Dr C and the girls continued their Discovery Channel moment on the bow. There, tucked between rock and headland, were our buddy boats s/v Indigo and s/v Mercedes. Like the orcas, dinghies flowed out from our friends towards our boat, greetings and invitations extended, and guidance on where to anchor proffered. Forty to fifty miles later through sail, gale and whale, it was time to settle in for sea stories and ale. Welcome home!

The Firebox ToastMaster

The Firebox ToastMaster
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

Recently, I've been exchanging a few messages to Leo Laporte and Dick DeBartolo. I admire them both and very much enjoy their many contributions to tech culture and news, and I recommended their podcast to all my fellow travelers as a good source of entertainment and the occasionally useful bit of gadgetry. Moreover, the best thing about Internet celebrities is that they answer their mail like real people.

So a few weeks ago, as they were chatting about toasters which would toast bread with designs, they asked their audience if any one knew of such a thing. While I don't have anything like that, I was given a toaster which also serves as a network router, firewall, and wifi hotspot. It was a going away gift from my colleagues at WatchGuard Technologies.

Firebox ToastMaster Interface
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

In DGW 557, Dick and Leo chat about it and Leo mentions some pictures I'd sent him. I wish I could take credit for this thing, but there is no question the Firebox ToastMaster was the by-product of some very clever engineering brains. I love geeks. I always felt this toaster said that geeks loved me. BION, I actually teared up when they gave it to me.

So thank you to Steve and Lucas and all their helpers for the creativity and the sheer orthogonal thinking that produced one of the greatest gifts I've ever received. And thanks Leo for letting me publicly show off their special, strange genius.