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We Are Out Again!
toastfloats on Flickr

We did it. We got out of the marina. We actually took the boat. We started the motors. We dropped off the lines, and we motored around the corner.

Amazing.

I was beginning to think we might never go out again. After arriving in New Zealand and settling into slip F3 in Bayswater, we started to grow roots… both figuratively and literally. While other boats celebrated summer -- the summer that never was down here where the weather has been absolutely miserable since we arrived, Don Quixote sat on the dock. When the sun actually decided to make an appearance after months of avoiding Auckland, we sat on the dock. We even sat through holiday weekends as the entire country took off three weeks for Christmas and New Years.

Our neighbors were astonished, and I mean that in the most negative way possible. You have this lovely boat all prepared for cruising, yet you don't want to go out for the week? Why ever not? But six months of living on the hook somehow made going out the most unappealing prospect possible. When the weekends came, it felt good to just sit here. At night, we could sleep even when the wind started to howl. The girls could get off and go both other people's parents. The cat prowled every night. We took showers whenever we felt like it… and the water was HOT.

Until last week. Jaime asked us to take her friends out on a harbor cruise to celebrate her sixteenth birthday. Honestly? I was a bit surprised. There are times when it feels like Jaime would do positively anything to distance herself from her family, her history, her boatiness. So I greeted this somewhat out of character enthusiasm for the boat as a positive sign of maturity and reattachment to family matters. I know. I can read an entire, heartrending story of family reunion into a simple request to get drunk on a boat with friends. You'll just have to trust me that it worked for both of us.

The evening was neither perfect nor glorious, but it was fun. Don Quixote -- laden with all our worldly goods, full tanks of water, gas, and beer, as well as a dozen teenagers, my client and his wife, and a partridge in a pear tree -- was about as fun to drive as a stoned hippopotamus. Instead of dancing gracefully over the waves, she slammed into them with indomitable will and an almost barge-like competence. At the end of the evening, it took the rugby team of teenagers, a dock hand and both engines to wedge ourselves back into our slip looking somewhat like a fat lady rolling on the couch while squeezing herself into a 10-year old pair of jeans. Parts of us kept squirting out sideways until we nailed her down with a spider web of lines. It was a complete farce and had me red-faced on the potty run for the next few days, afraid of chance encounters with witnesses on my way to the shore showers.

Summer Weekend on Waiheke

toastfloats on Flickr

What the evening did accomplish, however, was remind the entire family why we live on this boat. It is not too much of a stretch to say it reminded us of who we are. It is true that we are the loud, funky American family with the loud funky and very silly tortoise shell cat who lives on dock F. We are also That Family, the definition of which is ever so much more interesting and ever so much more family-like than the fractured, busy, almost normal group of people who have been sharing these hulls for the past few months.

So That Family went on a real sail this weekend. We took off for the islands. There really is no point in my describing the details. If you've read my blog for any length of time, there will not be one single thing about the experience that is any way unique or interesting. Waves, boats, wind, islands, anchors, dinghies, little towns to explore and fishing boats to dodge, shops to drift around in, beaches on which to hunt shells, sail drives to service, zincs to check, thru hulls to clean. It was all so very normal.

Just a family together, sharing dinner and a card game and a movie, on a boat, at anchor, off shore of a pretty island surrounded in water and wind and birds and ocean.

Rough Weather Off the North Island

Auckland - The City of Sails
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

Oddly enough to us, practically the first question of every Kiwi on learning that we recently sailed across the Pacific from North America is: “Did you have any really bad weather?” Generally, this isn’t the first question asked by Americans. Americans ask us about pirates, sometimes about banditos and avian bird flu, and memorably once about the availability of Starbucks coffee in Puerto Vallarta.* Experienced cruisers don’t ask either type of question since the answers are well known. Instead, they ask which islands we visited on the crossing and have we yet found a cheap place to do laundry.

Kiwis focus on the weather. This is smart. New Zealand coastal weather is challenging at best. At her worst, New Zealand’s coasts kill boats, boaters, and fishermen with a dreary regularity which provides a steady trickle of articles for page three of the New Zealand Herald. I believe it might even provide enough work to qualify as a journalistic beat. Of course, by far the majority of vessels and individuals lost are very small motor craft and weekend fishers. A well-founded cruising yacht which has already proven herself transiting the world’s oceans with a crew that is alert and on their game is unlikely to come to too much grief. Listen to the regularly broadcast weather reports, pay very close attention to your charts at their most detailed setting as most of the coastline is distressingly shallow and littered with obstacles, and do not get cocky.

Because New Zealand is likely to offer a global sailor some of the worst weather seen since leaving the Pacific Northwest or the Caribbean on the front end of the hurricane season. She certainly served Don Quixote a quick smack in the face translated as roughly, “Wake up you idiots! You’re not in the tropics anymore.” While it is difficult to say with precision since our wind instrument head unit abruptly died in Tonga, we estimate that we saw the highest wind speeds of our entire journey while making the passage from Whangarei to Auckland.

Not surprisingly, we were out in the rough weather because of a calendar. It really can not be said enough times: The most dangerous piece of equipment on a cruising sail boat is the calendar. We were under direct orders from BioSecurity AND Customs to get ourselves down to Auckland by Friday. BioSecurity wanted us to get Dulcinea into quarantine; Customs needed us to import the boat since we were not applying for the temporary import permit used by most vessels entering the country. As a side note, if you are planning to import your yacht into New Zealand and you are going to try to do so under the Work visa personal goods exemption, you must do this in Opua or Auckland. Details details.

It was leave Thursday or not leave until Monday which clearly would not suit New Zealand officialdom, so off we went in spite of rather nasty weather reports. We knew going into it that Thursday would entail very brisk winds from the north sweeping us south at high speed while Friday would clock the wind around 180 degrees and hit us on the nose for the last 20 miles into Auckland. Unlike the vast middle of the planet, the weather reports from Whangarei to Auckland are frequent, broadcast on VHF radio every three hours, and quite accurate out to 3 or 4 days. Trusting the reports, we knew that the trip was going to be unpleasant but completely within our wheelhouse.

The trip was precisely as predicted. On Thursday, we put up our downwind sails wing on wing and sped south roughly 60 NM. We were chased by a truly ominous black cloud virtually the entire time. At one point, we were clocking a steady 10 NM speed over ground. With no swell, virtually no wind waves, pointed downwind with probably 35 knots gusting to 40 behind us, I’m not even certain we could have slowed down if we wanted to. We made the trip in record time. For those keeping score, 10 NM is ridiculously fast for Don Quixote, and we haven’t seen 40 knots since we left the Oregon coast in 2008.

Friday was much much worse. We got up early to make the last bit into Auckland in time to get all our paperwork complete by mid-afternoon. As we rounded the corner into the Whangaparoa Passage, it was clear that the forecast had been depressingly specific and accurate. It was blowing 30, gusts to 35 but now straight on the nose. Rounding the point, it might have been worse as spray was blowing off the tiny wind caps and straight at us. We attempted to tack back and forth for awhile. I stopped looking at the knot meter. Why bother. We suck going upwind. We were making 7 to 8 over ground but our speed towards our destination was virtually negative. Eventually, we gave up, pulled down the sails, and motored into the teeth of gale. Unlike the prior day, the channel in this area caused a seriously nasty tidal current vs. wind wave action so the entire 20 miles was spent in a banging, bashing, smashing slog. We arrived in sunny, breezy Auckland beaten to a pulp and exhausted.

This is normal weather at this time of year off the west coast of New Zealand. It isn’t even particularly exciting to the locals. Yachtsmen here, like in British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon have a wary and respectful relationship with their coastline. High tide swings, shallow seas, and thousands of islands, islets and rocks require experience and caution. I am not at all surprised that New Zealand sailors are some of the best in the world. Just navigating their home waters is an incredible proving ground.

This area is also tremendously beautiful and extremely fun to navigate. There are pocket anchorages all over everywhere. The holding for anchors is mud, mud, and more mud putting us back into gunkholing mode. Little towns dot the coastline complete with parks where a cruiser can land a dinghy and go for a walk-about. Small volcanoes dot the seas and spear up on the horizon, wildlife is abundant, and they tell us that the fish leap on to the hooks. We’ll stick to crabbing and mussels since the only thing we do worse than sailing up wind is catching fish.

But it will all have to wait. The family is united on precisely one thing right now. We do not want to go sailing. We absolutely do NOT want to go to some pristine, quiet anchorage and enjoy each other’s company. Stick a fork in us. We are done.

* Yes, there is a Starbucks in Neuvo Vallarta at the mall outside the marina. However, no… they do not sell whole bean coffee. I am not proud I know this.

Beach Access Arrives in Auckland
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

Good Crew

It Was His Idea
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

I wouldn't say that DrC and I are experts at being crew or hiring crew. We've taken on a few, volunteered ourselves on occasion. We've read numerous accounts and spent hours and hours drinking beer with both captains and crews. Over time we've developed a laundry list of attributes and behaviors which we believe make “good crew.” I'd like to offer these to readers of my blog as a starting point for a discussion. For those in particular with experience on either side, let me know what you'd add or change about this list.

A lot of being good crew is about being a courteous guest. It is also about being a competent, contributing employee. Crewing on someone else's boat can open opportunities to learn, travel, and expand your understanding of the cruising life. It is not, however, an easy role to undertake. Here are our thoughts:

Pack Light – Add-on crew doesn't live on the boat. As a result, your stuff is extra, and it will be hard to wedge into existing lockers which are chock-o-block with stuffed owned by the owner's family. Ideally, all you bring with you can fit into a single duffle which you can comfortably fit on your bunk … even when you are yourself lying in that bunk. A small day pack with your electronic toys (e.g. laptop, iPod, books) is also acceptable if it too can fit on the bunk and do double-duty as a pillow.

Be Prepared – Like a Boy Scout, assume responsibility for your own gear. From foulies and life jacket to iPod/laptop chargers and reading material, supply it yourself. Ask the captain in advance regarding linens (towels, bedding), fishing gear, and items. Personally, I'd also take my own GPS, charting tools, handheld VHF, and personal EPIRB since no boat can have too many redundant safety and communication systems.

Food Issues – It is really amazing how many captain-crew relationships die on the issue of food. Set expectations between you and the captain regarding your dietary requirements, food preparation, and clean up responsibilities before you leave the first port and the last grocery store. The more open-minded and less picky an eater you are, the better. And while you shouldn't expect surf-and-turf with fine cabernets every night, you should be fed well. At minimum, crew and captain should eat from the same trough – and yes, we have heard of boats with the captain drinking the expensive chardonnay and the crew expected to survive on reconstituted gatorade drink mix. If you have special, specific dietary requirements, it is your responsibility to be up front in advance. For some items such as your favorite salad dressing, salsa, or tea, bring your own. Someday remind me to explain to you why I must have rice cakes during night helm watches.

Set Expectations in Advance – The pre-negotiation required for food can and should be extended to just about every boat issue. In particular, make sure you understand what the captain expects regarding watch schedules and boat maintenance. You don't want to learn two days out of port that the captain plans to sand down and revarnish the teak deck during your voyage... and you've been volunteered to do the work.

You Are a Consultant – I have a rule as a consultant which I believe applies well to being a crew member. You are on the boat because you know stuff and can do things. In exchange for your labor and expertise, you are “paid” in room, board, transportation, and sometimes even money. If you believe a captain is making a mistake and you have experience and advise to offer, it is your responsibility to do so. Once. However, if the captain chooses to ignore you and your life is not in any danger, keep your mouth shut. Captains need to break things; It's part of their learning process as both sailors and managers. The title captain – like manager, director, vice president, team lead, or doctor – does not confer infallibility, but for most newbies, it feels like it should. Only after breaking something expensive and/or inconvenient do most newly minted authority figures understand that nothing magical happened to transform them when their title changed.

When to Mutiny – On the other hand, no matter how valuable the lesson is to your manager, a captain doesn't have the right to break crew in the process. This isn't the British Navy in the 1700's. No, a boat in the middle of the ocean isn't a democracy. But if your life is in danger and your captain is a royal flaming idiot, you have the right to mutiny. We read about these accounts in sailing magazines, online, and in books. Sometimes, you really have no other choice. While I don't want to blame the victim, my recommendation here is not get on a boat with a captain whose expertise is considerably below your own AND the captain appears to be completely disinterested in taking your recommendations in serious conditions. Hard to figure that out in advance; Try anyway.

Take the Drugs – If you have any tendency to nausea, start taking Meclazine a day before you board. Keep taking it until I tell you to stop. If you start to feel gimpy, take the drugs immediately. Do not use the trip as an opportunity to experiment with holistic herbs, naturopathic patches, acupressure bands, or tantric chants. Unless you know that one or more of these work on you already, save them for your own boat. You have the right to drive your own family nuts, but you have a responsibility on someone else's boat to not vomit on the cabin sole if you can possibly avoid it.

Pitch In – As crew, you should help whenever and where ever you can. Show up prior to departure ready to assist with loading and provisioning. Contribute to cooking, K.P. and boat maintenance during the journey. Don't leave the boat on arrival until the boat is clean and buttoned down tight. Your contributions will ease relations between you and the rest of the crew. More practically, it'll give you something to do and an opportunity to see that the work is done carefully and correctly the first time.

Our New Electric Guitar
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

Entertain – Find some way to contribute to the social well-being of your boat as well. Do you play an instrument? Sing? Tell stories? You could bring cards or small, lightweight games such as Yahtzee, chess or mancala. Be generous with the use of the media – music, books, or movies – that you packed. Maybe no one will take you up on your social offers, but the offers nevertheless indicate your desire and willingness to be a part of the lives your fellow travelers.

* * *

Now your turn. What would you add, remove or change about this list?

Upwind Sailing

Endless Coolness
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

A picture graces the cover of Sail Magazine of a magnificent catamaran cresting a wave, bows thrust out over the peaks looking for all the world as though the craft is about to launch itself into space. The sails are full, lines straining, and if you can see the captain and crew their faces are caught in a rictus grin of manic sailing glee. The sun is bright, the boat gleams. As a reader, you can not look at the picture without seriously contemplating purchasing one of these amazing craft. It's 35 degrees out, you're soggy and bundled to the eyebrows in a slightly skanky smelling wool coat, boarding a plane home from a meeting in Chicago. You grab the magazine, a pack of Juicy Fruit, an Odwalla, and a tired looking bagel before heading out of the shop to get in line.

It might improve your state of mind to know that approximately .05 seconds after the picture was taken, the boat slammed back to reality as it smashed bows forward into the back of the wave. Someone screamed over at the camera man, “Do you have the damn picture yet?” If the answer was in the affirmative, the crew breathed a sigh of relief, relaxed the lines a bit and fell at least ten degrees more off the wind; They might take longer to get back to the dock, but at least it won't be a miserable flipping slog. If the answer was in the negative, the crew braced themselves for another 15 minutes of loud, uncomfortable bashing into swells, wind, and a very hard ocean.

In my considered opinion, upwind sailing is romantic only in magazines. In the real world where boats actually float, gentlemen never sail to wind. While it is true that sail boats are generally designed to sail to windward, and in fact many sail considerably better and more rapidly pointed into the teeth of the gale, it is rarely a comfortable ride. In truth, the problem is not really the wind, it is the unfortunate truism that where cometh the wind, there cometh the swell. After only an hour of steady 20 knot winds from the northwest, you can count on a seriously nasty northwest chop. The stronger and longer the winds persist, the steadier, bigger, and crestier the waves become. Ocean swell, in fact, is largely a by-product of really big, really strong, really steady winds someplace out in the middle of the ocean which like ripples in a global pond just radiate out out out out until they roll you in an anchorage on the Mexican coastline during otherwise perfectly calm and windless night.

Just to make life entertaining out here, swell often comes from one direction – let's say a pineapple express from the southwest – while wind waves emerge from a norther. So now we're looking at a 2 foot swell every 7 seconds from your stern port side and a 4 foot wave every 3 seconds from your bow port, 15 knots on the bow port, and a helm woman in a very bad temper. The kids are just queasy enough even after a year at sea to be rendered incapable of geometry and history, while the captain is puzzling over the latest cause for coolant loss in the refrigerator.

We call it “the bash.” The bash is not a party. The bash is precisely what the boat does every few seconds for hours on end as you push your way north. This same coastline southbound in precisely the same conditions is a gentle roller coaster ride, water sluicing down the sides of the boat with an occasional swell thumping playfully on the bridge deck. Current, wind, and the fine performance of a cat in light winds ensure a quick passage with speeds averaging seven or eight knots an hour even in our dog slow condomaran. Upwind, however, is an entirely different story. We barely average four as our poor home crashes against the wind driven waves.

The famously rocking horse motion ascribed to catamarans is strongly evident... no heeled slicing of bow through waves for us. We rock up, push our bows into open air, then bang down. If we start to make too much speed and headway, instead of bashing down on the back of the wave, we swoop our bows directly into the face of the following wave. The girls love it when this happens as the result is a flood of water through the tramp and over the bows, wind driven spray pushing all the way into the cockpit even – when the angle is just right – drenching the helm in her cursing, exhausted splendor. Lest anyone worry about us, Don Quixote is in no danger in these seas of turning turtle. While it is true that burying bows into the face of a wave is precisely how a catamaran can flip, let's be clear that to do so requires much bigger waves, much greater wind than what Don Quixote is facing on the Mexican Riviera. Ironically, it also requires a downwind sail, which I can assure you we are not doing at present.

I'm a Serious Boat Cat
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

No, our catamaran is a really solid boat. She doesn't actually object to this type of sailing, and beats steady progress northwards with a resigned, firm approach. She takes the waves, she handles the wind, she explains in small creaks and the occasional smashed wine glass that if we're going to bash upwind, there is a price to pay.

Dulcinea is not nearly so sanguine; She'll meow whenever Don Quixote does one of those magazine worthy flying leaps into the next wave, lifting her head to reproachfully glance at me at the helm, her message obvious, “A smoother ride, please. We cats prefer a downwind sail.”

Baja Ha Ha - First Movement

Better Sail Boat Picture
Originally uploaded by purpleteeleaf.

A quick, picture-less update from Turtle Bay. We completed the first leg of the Baja Ha Ha in a catamaran record low time of several days and many hours of motoring. The winds were beyond light. They were almost negatively light -- if you can imagine such a thing. We did have a really strong, fun sail the first day and a half. Then we motored. Then we sailed. Then we motored. Then we turned off the engines a drifted an entire day at .5 knots. It was great! We swam off the back of the boat. I swam faster than the boat was moving.

Casualties:
* My sinuses. Jaime picked up a head cold someplace in San Diego which she then passed on to the rest of us. My head felt like it was going to pop most of the trip. It made the entire thing quite challenging.
* On the last day, I did a credible job of ripping the GPS dome off the bimini. This somehow managed to short out the entire system which includes our radar, chart plotter and primary GPS. Urg. Thank you very much, we were smart enough to carry paper charts, another computer with charts, and a handheld GPS. We'll tailgate other boats all the way down to Cabo so radar shouldn't be a big issue either. And then when we get to Cabo, we'll mail the damn thing back to Seattle and tell them to fix it or else.
* Dinghy motor? Don't know about this. I think DrC and Jaime just flooded it past all hope of recall for this afternoon.

Highlights:
* More dolphins. Actually, it was the squeeling dolphins in the bow wave that distracted me sufficiently to rip the GPS dome. Not feeling great about dolphins.
* Absolutely spectacular lightening show. This is something you can enjoy at sea only if you can see the strike from top to bottom and can't hear the thunder indicating the storm is at least 30 miles off. It was amazing.
* Stars, shooting stars, planets, satellites, constellations, more shooting stars. Mera and I enjoyed several star gazing lessons on the bows during night watch.
* Sitting in the cockpit last night, listening to the music drift over the water and watching the masthead lights flicker on the bay like june bugs on a summer night in Philly. The air was sweet and warm with a nice off shore cooling breeze, the wine was chilled, and DrC was in an unusually happy, talkative mood.

The Ha Ha is not for everyone, but it is absolutely where the crew of Don Quixote needs to be. We are all enjoying ourselves immensely. The girls and I try to participate as much as possible in the morning roll call, doing the VHF to SSB relay. It provides a notoriety that the girls (and I) revel in. Just about everyone is getting to know our names and our boat. They love the attention, they like trying to hook up with the other kids, and they really really REALLY want to go ashore to play.

What they don't appreciate is Mexican pastry; It's not sweet enough. Pearls before swine.

It's a Big Deal

Approaching the Gate
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

s/v Excellent Adventure invited the girls and I for a sail Saturday. There were a number of really good reasons I did not want to go:

Aeron fitched a pit and jumped into it, refusing to bathe. This not only induced in her mother a strong desire to strangle her, it also resulted in one of those cowboy western standoffs wherein I was stupid enough to say, “If you do not take a shower, you can not go with the Hudsons.” Ugh. I should know better.

Mera slammed my head between the sliding glass door and the navigation table while I was cleaning the scum out of the tracks. I had a splitting headache and a rather scary lancing pain from my neck to my butt.

Hello! I own a sailboat. I live on a sailboat. Why the heck would I want to “go sailing” for the afternoon. Bah humbug!

But the kids really superduper wanted to go, and I’m basically in love with Laureen and Jason. So we strongarmed Aeron into s/v EA’s shower, and I boarded for an afternoon of sitting in an ibuprofinic stupor in the cockpit with a cherubic baby catatonic in my lap. The Hudsons fortunately had a few other friends aboard to help with lines and helm. The wind was brisk, the sun was shining. It was a perfect day for a sail on the Bay.

Jason pointed his 47’ Lagoon straight for the Golden Gate Bridge and ZOOM! off we went. Excellent Adventure is a wonderful boat in the old school of Lagoon manufacture. Back in the day, Lagoon was well known for racing catamarans and the only thing compelling about the otherwise horrid movie Waterworld - the protagonist’s spectacular blade thin catamaran. It was not long before we were ripping out to the Bridge at plus 10 knots.

As we approached the Bridge, all the adults started getting excited and pointing. This struck me as peculiar in a group of otherwise rational crew members who had probably been under the Gate a million times. They mustered me out of my seat to see “It.” It was a 290 foot sailboat under full sail escorted by a fleet of hundreds of small pleasure craft, buzzing around like bees around a hive.

The Back Side
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

s/y Maltese Falcon is one of the most stunning craft on the water today. She has the proportions of a sailing vessel of yore, but the sleek, modern lines of a 21st century craft. She stands nearly 200 feet with three enormous, independently rotating masts. The pictures -- mine, Jason’s and those of the many professional photographers present on Saturday -- do not do her justice. In person, she is simply amazing.

Our intrepid Cap’n Jason did his standard bold and heart stopping maneuver, positioning us to swing across her bow just before she passed into the Gate zone. We took a lot of photos, had our breath stolen by her beauty, and pissed off a lot of other craft whose bows we zoomed in front of. Later as the Falcon rounded Angel Island, we had another opportunity at low speed to get up close and personal. We even exchanged very happy words with the crew, and a few warning honks with the captain.

Trail magic begins when you are ready to open yourself to experience. Had I not grudgingly agreed to shlep my children over to EA, I would have missed the high point of our visit to the San Francisco Bay area. Thank you, Jason and Laureen. What a treat!!!

Get a Cat* - Underway

Let Me Explain
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

Two men stand on a field of white. The one on the left is a handsome white man, about 50, distinguished, knowledgeable, and stylishly dressed for dinner at a seaside restaurant. He’s standing at an angle while trying with limited success to eat from a package of Cup-O-Noodles.

On the right is a much younger man, casually attired in Bermuda shorts, Crocs, an open T-shirt, and hailing from some mixed Pan-Pacific ancestry. He’s seated at a table with a glass of wine, a steaming bowl of what appears to be bouillabaisse, and a crusty loaf of bread.
A pleasant jingle plays unobtrusively in the background.

The younger man takes a sip and speaks first in a relaxed, cheerful tone of voice, “Hello, I’m a Catamaran.”

Monohull glances up and says wearily, “And I’m a Monohull.”

Catamaran addresses the audience, “Today, my friend Monohull and I have had a really nice sail down the coast. We left early this morning, but we are almost there. Good, strong winds and a bit of chop, but absolutely beautiful weather. I’ve been tacking a lot, but Monohull here has been having a great run pointed up into the wind. He’s made fantastic time!”

Monohull demurs, “Well, I don’t like to blast my own horn, but I do think I’ve made better time than you today. Just shows you, Catamaran, that you’re not as speedy as you thought, heh?”

Catamaran smiles and shakes his head in admiration, “You are so right, Monohull. This is your sea! You look great, sleek, fast!”

Monohull blushes and looks down, but clearly he’s rather proud of himself. “Well… you know… I am a trim vessel…” He pats his belly with a tired smile and allows, “It’s been a good day for both of us.”

Catamaran apparently agrees and stands, holding up his wine glass. “A toast to you, Monohull, for a well sailed trip!” The younger man is standing straight, throwing into sharp relief the slant of Monohull man. Catamaran looks full of energy and happy for his friend.

Monohull glances over, “A toast? What’s that?...” For the first time he notices Catamaran’s dinner, the elegant table setting, the steaming fragrant soup. He asks incredulously, “What are you eating?”

“Oh, we whipped up some soup from the shellfish we got at the market yesterday.” Catamaran glances at the table, then the glass in his hand. “Baked some bread, found a good bottle of Merlot in the starboard bow that I’d forgotten was there. I think we’ll make a crème brulee for dessert.” He turns his gaze to Monohull, “What are you having?”

Monohull glances at his Cup-O-Soup and then hurriedly hides it behind his back, “The same.”


Point of sail makes a difference. Catamarans do not point as high into the wind as monohulls. So depending on the wind direction, you can find yourself following a monohull all day long as you tack back and forth, or you can sail off on a downwind run at half again their speed but way out of your way. It is a rare day when you're lucky enough to turn the much ballyhoo'd speed differential of your multi-hull into an actual improvement in time to anchor.

Name That Mountain
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

However, a crucial difference in sailing a catamaran is that the double-hulls dramatically reduce heel. So no matter how good the sail or how long it takes you to get there, you've spent the day on a largely even surface. Just the lean alone on a fast moving monohull can exhaust the crew. Cooking on a swinging stove is dicey at best. Moving on the slanting deck can be tricky, slippery, and add to the fatigue. Soups and liquids are not happy at a 20 degree tilt either.

Ditching the rail on a leaner represents the height of sailing excitement, and at times we regret the loss of that exhilarating feeling of speed and movement. However, for the long haul, we prefer to arrive refreshed and ready to dance the night away at the local cantina.

* Author’s Note: All credit to the Get a Mac marketing team whose incredibly clever work inspired this series.

Battle of the Bulge

Oozing Out the Sides
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

They say cruisers lose about twenty pounds of land lubber fat when they leave the shore. God, I sure hope so. I could stand to lose at least one, possibly two, cruiser loads. I’m not seeing it happen. Yet. Ever the optimist, I’ll point out that we cut the lines less than a month ago. Losing weight any faster than a pound per week is not healthy in any case, no matter how much I’d like to do so.

I have a new reason to lose weight, however. Boat trim.

Our boat is fat. Don Quixote has a weight problem. All cats have a weight problem. Cruising cats have a particularly unhealthy obsession with their weight. To stay safe, speedy, and strong, a cat should stay well above her water line and balance fore and aft, hull to hull. We know of cruising cats who raise their water line. This is a form of letting out your belt buckle by stretching thin, worn, cotton tank top over crucial parts such as your belly roll and butt cheeks. Yeah, you can do it. But as I tell my children repeatedly, “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.”

Yet for all our fine words, Don Quixote lists in an obvious and distressing fashion to the forward starboard side. This is tantamount to trying to run uphill with your right leg bent and a backpack perched precariously over your right ear. Her starboard bow is at or just a hair below the water line. In contrast, she’s got her left ass cheek flying up in the air on the port side nearly 3 inches above the water line.

Easy problem to fix, neh? Just move everything in the forward starboard bow locker (a.k.a. kid’s rumpus room) to somewhere under Mera and Aeron in the aft port cabin. Not so fast. First, the idiots who designed and built this boat decided to put the only water tank and the anchor rode on the starboard side. We have 250 of heavy gauge chain up there. When they say heavy gauge, that means it weighs a metric buttload per foot. Moving either item is basically a feat of extreme nautical engineering and not something we can easily undertake at the moment physically or financially.

Another problem is the holding tanks. We’re currently only using the starboard tank -- which of course is up near the bow. Dumb dumb dumb. So next time we’re at anchor for a few days, guess who gets to tear apart and fix the port holding tank. Time to pee only on the left.

More weight? The office, shower, and pantry are on the starboard side. We’ve been using those spaces to store all sorts of crucial, need-to-get-your-hands-on-in-a-hurry items as well as all kinds of useless crap. Also, most of the galley supplies somehow ended up starboard of mid-line. It’s feels as if in a vain effort to recover from the excessively liberal left-leaning, politically correct mind set of our home port, our crew decided to put all our eggs in the Right basket.

Inventory or Insanity
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

In a fit of parental homeschoolyness, I thought it would be a great math lesson for Mera and Aeron to conduct an inventory. This consisted first of pulling everything we own out of the salon seats and pantry cupboards and spreading it all over hell’s breakfast. Then, they wrote all the items down and counted them. At this point, I pretty much despaired for the survival of my family. We somehow shipped out without cinnamon, red wine vinegar, or sugar, but we did stock six bottles of rum, three bottles of tequila, 13 packages of MacNCheese, 24 cans of tuna (in springwater), and four tubes of high quality wasabi.

The good news is we remembered to pack three jars of pickled ginger. The bad news is there is no soy sauce.

I'm Having a Really Bad Day

Seriously Scruffy
Originally uploaded by toastfloats, taken by Jaime.

My cruising life does not feel it is getting off to a great start if today is an indicator species. Today... well today sucked.

We can start with the Big F*up which is that I hit a rock. Hard. We were on our way into Nanaimo Harbor, DrC called me up to take the helm while he dropped sail, and I promptly ran into a known hazard. In my defense, he’d pointed us at it. To my shame, it took me too long to figure out where the hell we were going before we hit.

We hit hard. Not hard enough to cause a leak, hard enough to hear scraping sounds that could well require a haul out to fix. The rudders are fine, and nothing appears broken. It’s probably a gel coat nightmare and an expensive, ugly few days on the hard. The question is whether or not we’ll have to do it now or if it’s cosmetic enough to do later. Given the rest of our luck lately, I’d guess for whichever option is more expensive.

Moving on to a lesser issue, we parked in the wrong spot. Apparently, we dropped anchor in the middle of a flight path. This isn’t surprising when you take in the whole rock issue. We were all in a flipping uproar, and I for one was shaking so bad I could barely draw breath. While it has all the same aspects of stupidity as the rock (e.g. we shouldn’t have done it, we should have known better), it was more understandably a by-product of post-smack-into-underwater-obstacleness than a true verbal flip of the finger at port authority. In this case, it was only moderately well marked and, as I said, we were not in the best frame of mind.

Let’s see... moving back from there we had a tense moment going through Dodd Narrows at mid-flood. That’s a wild ride, let me tell you. Up here they have currents that rival any river for speed and trickiness. At one point, we were swept along at plus 8 knots. Weeee!!! Of course, to create that current, the pass narrows to about 50 feet. Threading our 21 foot beam through that was like trying to get my ass into a pair of my high school jeans.

Again, moving back in time we get to this morning’s absurdity. We motored over from Telegraph Harbor to Chamainish to see the sights and found no place to park. Little microdot of a public dock and we couldn’t stop. I’m sorry we didn’t get to see the famed murals of that small town. On the other hand, it was kind of sweet just moving our tennis court into the middle of Stuart Channel, turning everything off, throwing up the main mostly so that power boats would be required to go around us, and drifting through school and morning chores.

And if we really want to push ourselves backwards, we can even talk about two nights ago in Maple Bay when we broke anchor and started drifting out of the harbor. Jaime caught us.

In fact, there is my light at the end of the tunnel, my raison d’etre, my cause celebre, my entire reason for doing this trip. Because Jaime has been magnificent through the past 48 hours. Jaime was the first to spot us break anchor in Maple Bay. Jaime was the first to volunteer for anchor watch last night when the wind was blowing like snot, and we all felt some one should be at the helm paying attention. Jaime was the smart crew who called off the watch at one in the morning when it became clear the wind was dying and the weather report called for it to stay down till tonight. She leaped to help with the sheets while we sailed, stood on the bow and took pictures through the Narrows, and dove into the port bilge to check for leaks after we hit the rock.

I always said I thought this trip would benefit her spirit the most. Because I am typically a blow-hard, it is probable that in my innermost, icky self, I didn’t really believe that but just said it. Now, I am a believer. My daughter is shining even while I collapse in the cockpit this evening with a Stormy Sunset*, completely shot nerves, and a strong desire to crawl home with my tail between my legs.

I should have said this before. Let me say it now. My eldest daughter is something very special.

My Hero Jaime
Originally uploaded by toastfloats, taken by Jaime.

Inventory of Heroics

Recovering a Wallet
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

I do not plan to be a heroic cruiser. In fact, as cruisers go, I consider myself right up there with couch potatoes who have refrigerators built into the arm rests. I want to relax. I want to spend time with my children. I want my husband to spend a lot of time making me appreciate the difference between the sexes by showing off his big muscles and tremendous handyman skills.

However, we are only two weeks into the active portion of this extended cruising lifestyle, and I feel compelled to point out that I’ve been called upon to do many more physically demanding things than I had ever really intended. Moreover, I’m dreadfully certain that this is barely scratching the surface. It appears quite possible that I will be forced to lose 20 pounds, put on some muscle pretty much everywhere, and start wearing a kidney protective belt.

It started when Dr C’s back decided that the air mattress idea was not a good one. One week out of Seattle and he was moving around the boat like a 70 year old with arthritis, a bad hip, and a melded spinal cord. He was in severe, crippling pain. He was -- in other words -- a complete waste of space.

This meant that I would have to step up to the plate. Or the winch. And the mooring ball. And the dinghy davits. Just because I have spent quite a few brain cells ensuring that I can single hand this boat, doesn’t mean I ever really wanted to do so. There is something very satisfying about helming the boat until you slide the main down just before gliding into an anchorage and then letting the Man take over wrestling with all that physical stuff.

Never mind. We have now definitely proven that when required to do so, I am capable of handling it. My brief list of Toast-heroics are unfortunately the basic items of any cruiser’s daily challenges.

1. Changed out the anchors. (Thank you, Captain! I hate the delta.) They only weigh 45 pounds, but for some reason the Bruce decided to anchor itself to the crab pot, spinnaker sail and the girls’ scooters at the bottom of the locker.
   
2. Rowed, rowed and rowed some more shlepping the girls to shore and back during the time when the 70 pound Yamaha sat on the stanchion taunting us. I wasn’t about to try to get it on and off the dinghy without the pulley system we have rigged on the end of the boom.
   
3. Wrestled with the bridle, mooring ball chain, safety line, a 2 knot current and the dinghy for a half hour to get untangled from the ball at Fort Flagler.
   
4. Walked 8 miles (in the snow uphill both ways) to the post office.
   
5. Struggled for an interminable amount of time with a broken zipper on the sail cover while perched on the bimini in 35 knot winds and 5 foot seas, and this time I swear to god it was raining. No joke. Even jacked in with lines, I was scared spitless.

Then a miracle happened. Dr C insisted we remove the air mattress deeming it a miserable failure. The skies opened up, the sun shone, his back got better, and mine is now so sore I can hardly sit here to type. I have never been so happy to come from a long line of folks with gimpy backs.

6) Gather Wood
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

Fuel Efficiency

Siesta in Transit
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

Gas is expensive. Diesel is really expensive. Sailing is free.

I should have bumper stickers made. Sailing is free.

I love the irony of that statement. Let us remember it contradicts another favorite saying of mine, “Owning a sailboat in the Pacific Northwest is like standing in a shower and ripping up $100 bills.

However, as a cruiser, you really can start to take advantage of the freeness thing. It's not like you are in any great hurry to go anywhere, right? So if you pull out of the anchorage and the wind is only 6 knots, what the hell. Put up the sail and let the wind carry you towards your destination. Never mind that the resulting speed over ground is something less than a full trot for a chihuahua in a hurry to take a piss. This mode of travel earns you the privilege of smugly reducing your carbon foot print while you take in the sights.

Unless and until the children get bored.

Peels of laughter skating perilously close to hysterical rise from the children's hull where Aeron and Mera play some rather vigorous wrestling game in an attempt to keep themselves amused. There is roaring and growling and giggling and then a small blond head pops out of the hatch. “Are we there yet?” asks Aeron. “Yah!” screams the birthday girl Mera, “We're there, right?!”

Jaime at the helm is possibly the worst. “Oh god I'm bored. Omigod I'm so bored. I'm so bored. This is so boring. Wow. This is just... boring.” She leans on the wheel and stares bleakly through her sun glasses past the sparkling seas at the stunning vista complete with basking sea lions, green skyline, and distant sail boats. “Oh god I'm bored.”

A Way to Pass Time
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

Dr C, of course, is blissfully unaware of the mutiny brewing aboard. He's busy cutting holes in something. Or rebuilding something else. Or possibly changing some fluid or other.

Ten minutes go by, “Are we there yet?”

Um, well not yet. It's only a 3 mile trip today but at 2 knots per hour on a very broad tack the amount we'll have to travel over ground would just about take us to Canada if we straightened it out and went as the crow flies. It'll take us... let me do the math. Hold on a second.

Three hours. Omigod.

“Dr C, we really need to motor. We really need to motor,” I inform the captain. Saving fuel and money be damned. Get me to the shore on time.

War of the Roses

There are some choices in life for which there is no correct answer: paper vs. plastic, cloth vs. disposable, tastes great vs. less filling. Then there are others which you simply must avoid in the interest of self-preservation since registering your opinion will bring down the wrath of fundamentalists on both sides of the debate: to vaccinate or not to vaccinate, pro-life or pro-choice, Starbuck’s or Tully’s.

I try to avoid these debates. It’s not that I don’t have strong opinions. In fact, it is probably fair to say that I have strong opinions about virtually any topic you should care to mention. But as I grow older I have begun to recognize my limits, and there are hills I just do not care to die on. Unfortunately, along with my new cruising life my husband accidentally thrust us into one of the most vigorous verbal battles of our generation: mono-hull versus multi-hull.

Monohull
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

The two camps break down roughly as follows. In the right corner, we have rich and fascinating 500 year history of western European mono-hull sailing. There are literally berzillions of words written on the topic and entire regions of the world devoted to the successful production and maintenance of these vessels. The modern cruising community as we know it started with mono-hulls, and these single-keeled craft still dominate the cruising landscape. Certainly, most of the major authors writing in the trade magazines, publishing their work and delivering seminars at boat shows, began in a mono-hull and remain convinced of their superiority. This camp is championed by a handsome white man, about 50, distinguished, knowledgeable, stylishly dressed for dinner at a seaside restaurant.

Multihull
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

In the left corner, we have an eclectic, pan-Pacific 3,000 year history of multi-hull crafts reaching from tiny Polynesian trading trimarans to the stunning, blade sharp 180 foot long hulls of modern racing catamarans. Catamarans enjoy increasing popularity in the charter trade as folks discover how many more relatives you can fit on a 50’ boat with six bedrooms and four heads. As a result production manufacturers appeared on the scene about a decade ago pumping out two-hulled, house boats with a profligacy resembling a rabbit breeding program. This camp is represented by a guy in his early 30’s of indeterminate Heinz-57 varieties ethnicity who casually tossed on a pair of Crocs, Bermuda shorts, and a loose tropical shirt.

Ding ding ding! Round 1 – Safety

Monohull Man: Catamarans break anchor and run aground.

Catamaran Guy: Snort. Everything breaks anchor some day. But when your boat does it, the thing hits shore and flops over like a dead fish. With my boat, we call it beaching and do it on purpose.

Monohull Man: Yes, but your two hulled wonder flips over and stays that way.

Catamaran Guy: Yeah, but your leaner sinks when you put a hole in the hull.

Monohull Man: Ha! Your boat can’t handle the stress of heavy winds!

Catamaran Guy: Fine! But your boat is so deep keeled you can’t get into half as many protected anchorages.

Judgement – I’m going to call this one a draw. Any boat is dangerous in the wrong hands. Any decently well-founded boat is safe if not taken into conditions it can’t handle. Know your boat, watch the weather, and make your decisions based on the conditions rather than the calendar.

Ding Ding Ding! Round 2 – Cost

Monohull Man: Cost per square foot on a catamaran is higher.

Catamaran Guy: What do you want? Two hulls for the price of one? Yeah, sure, it’s a bit pricier, but you can bring the entire gang, invite all your friends, share the cost.

Monohull Man: Two engines, two electrical systems, two hulls to paint. Need I say more?

Catamaran Guy: Yeah, how about you sing the Safety Dance? Re-dun-dan-cy, babe. You keep harping about safety… how about the safety of having two engines?

Monohull Man: Dock space for those enormous floating turtles is hard to find and more expensive.

Catamaran Guy: Dude, there you are flat out smoking crack. You pay by the foot at most guest docks, and my boat’s a good fifteen feet shorter than yours. You want to park that long tube in a marina for months, your problem. You want to anchor out, ride the non-existent waves of my boat.

Judgement – Round 2 to Monohull Man. No question cats are more expensive in dozens of different ways. It takes a well-heeled dreamer to afford the space and comfort. It’s also true, though, that there ways to reduce the cost of cat ownership including anchoring out more and in greater comfort even in choppy weather.

Ding Ding Ding! Round 3 – Comfort

Catamaran Guy: We aren’t really going to have this conversation, are we?

Monohull Man: Well…um… no.

Judgement – Round 3 to Catamaran Guy. Only the most hardened and fanatic monohull manic will tell you the single hull life life is more comfortable. They’ll try to spin a yarn about rocking horse motion and booming against the bridge deck. It’s sour grapes.

Ding Ding Ding! Final Round – Performance

Monohull Man: Can we skip this one too?

Catamaran Guy: Yeah.

Judgement – Final round goes to neither actually. While sailors agree in principle that cats should be faster than monohulls, the truth is neither category takes the prize here. Our lovely Lagoon is a complete lazy bag and couldn’t win a race if her very existence depended on it. She truly is a floating house. On the other hand, catamarans are handily winning major races around the world with their longer water lines and lean lines. Performance is about a specific design not about whether there is one hull or two. You’d be hard pressed, however, to find a trimaran that doesn’t blow past all the competition at faster than wind speed.

* * *

So who wins this War of the Roses? Those who buy a boat and go.

Turn About is Fair Play

Author Note: As protected static pointed out, a repeat of something I posted awhile ago. Ugh. I'll leave it up because I've been DARED to delete the comment... Hah! Not me. At least I did different pictures.

Don Quixote Under Sail
Uploaded by toastfloats

There are two types of folks on a sail boat: those who twiddle the sails, and those who avoid it.

What is a sail twiddler, you ask? Well let me tell you. A sail twiddler is a person who can't leave the lines alone during a long tack. He trims the jib, twitches the main sheet, fiddles with the traveler. She constantly fidgets at the helm, adjusts the bearing and the course. His eye is always on the telltales and the knot meter, her attention never wavers from the GPS indicator for speed over ground. All of these actions are taken in the hope of coaxing additional teeny weeny fractions of a knot out of the sails.

A sail twiddler is the least relaxing human being you can possibly cruise with. The scenario looks like this: you are trapped in a boat with four people for five hours. The wind is 12 knots from the south 55 degrees off your starboard bow. Ideally, as helmsman you set the sails for a starboard close haul and put Auto in charge. Then you grab a good book, a glass of lemonade and a bag of pretzels, and settle in on the tramp, glancing up every few minutes to check for freighters, power boats, and stray seals.

But if there is a sail twiddler on board, you'll find that your starboard close haul is not the most efficient way to get from Point A to Point B. No, your boat is a catamaran and would go a lot faster if you were to fall off the wind a bit. Then you're going to let out this deelybob, slide over that thingamajig, tug on the other whatchamaclallit, and poof! now you are going at least a half knot faster.

The problem with this theory is that at some point in the not so distant future, you are going to have to tack. Tacking involves getting up off your cozy cushion on the tramp and shlepping to the back of the boat to mess with rope. There will be yelling even if everything goes well because that's what you do. You yell cryptic things like, "Helms alee!" and "Fire in the hole!" Then you yank on stuff. Inevitably when you get back to your cushions, the wind will have lost your page or knocked over your drink. But now you can sit, right?

Wrong. Because now you're whipping along in this broad zag toward a big rock in the middle of friggin’ nowhere and at some point you are going to have to zig to avoid it, then zag to get more wind and speed along, then zig to get back to your course, then zag into a tidal current, then zig to avoid running into an island.

And so on.

And the horrible thing to admit is that I always thought Dr C was a sail twiddler. I really expected him to be a sail twiddler. He sure as hell is an everything else twiddler. The man doesn't have the slightest clue how to sit still. On our first vacation down at his parents' cabin in Baja, I drank tequila on the deck and read romance novels for three days while Dr C moved the water tank and rebuilt the outhouse. His idea of relaxing at anchor is to install a new inverter.

So pardon me if my natural expectation was that I would expend a great deal of ingenuity in conjuring clever methods to avoid helping trim the sails. He would twiddle, I would drink lemonade, and basically we'd do same ole' same ole' at the Conger household... except on a boat.

DrC the Craftsman
Uploaded by toastfloats

However, this pleasant familiar scene does not play out on Don Quixote. Au contraire! Dr C has better things to do while we are underway. Take today, for example. During our three-hour trip from Seattle to Port Madison, Dr C reinstalled the galley foot pump, changed the lamp mantle, fixed the squeaky starboard doors, and installed a speaker for the VHF in the cockpit.

You know what I did? I twiddled the sails. And let me tell you, the pleasure I get from twiddling the sails makes it feels as pornographic as it sounds.

My name is Toast. And I'm a sail twiddler.

When You Live in a Kite

She Looks So Peaceful
Uploaded by toastfloats

This weekend I came to the sad realization that there are more ways to break a boat than there are days to live on one. Don't get me wrong. I love our boat, but... I say that about my children, too. I love my children, but... I'm stuck with the children, of course, but you'd think I could find a way to get out of this relationship with our boat. However, it appears that we are stuck with her as well.

This time what fell apart was the ignition switch for the starboard engine. It literally dissolved in my hands as I went to turn the motor on preparatory to dropping anchor in Port Madison. We had just dropped the sails, Dr C and Jaime were tying everything down, Aeron and Mera were straightening the salon in case guests came over from the Seattle Yacht Club, and my responsibility was to motor us smoothly and gracefully into place. Except with the ignition switch in five pieces in my lap, I was left with only the port engine, a ten-knot breeze on the bow, and a bad feeling about this.

Have I mentioned that Don Quixote is big? She sits on the water instead of in it? Have I mentioned that her windage is roughly the same as a hot air balloon?

With Dr C standing blithely on the bow pointing to his preferred anchor location in full view of the yacht club dining room, there was nothing to do but to power forward. Literally. Momentum was at least on my side and the port engine did her job and pushed us roughly into place. Within a few yards of the desired location, however, a slight gust caught her and she started to turn to starboard. Dr C glared back at me with his “where the hell are you going” look. He should patent that. Grimacing, I threw the rudder over and tried to juice her back into place.

No can do. She was now happily turning to starboard and there ain't nuthin’ you can do about it. With the rudder hard to port, we could turn slowly. In any other position, we could turn more rapidly. So we did a graceful circle around our anchor spot like a cat examining a lap before settling down for a nap.

But the anchorage was tight. We really needed a way to cover those precious twenty yards to the perfect spot so we wouldn't rudely swing into our neighbors during the night. Dr C was now at the helm having given up on my ability to steer us into our desired location. Of course, he was spinning us around not 100 yards off the SYC dock, and we must have looked a lot like a dog chasing its tail. Anything like graceful had disappeared from our lexicon. At this point, I just wanted to stop moving before we all got dizzy.

And then I had it. It. One of those flashes of brilliance or madness that so characterize my hero Jack Sparrow. Stop moving. Just stop upwind of where we want to be with the beam to the breeze and let nature do her thing. I shoved the captain out of my seat and told him in my sternest mommy voice to get his ass back on the bow to handle the anchor. On the next revolution, I eased back on the port engine and let her come to a stop. With the inevitability of taxes, Don Quixote took that breeze like the kite she is and started sliding sideways into her anchorage. It was slow. It was agonizing. But it worked.

Now if I'd only thought of that before gathering a crowd of wine drinking yacht club members, it would have been perfect.

Looking Good
Uploaded by toastfloats

Tell It Like It Is

toast_boat_Jun07-29
Originally uploaded by rolling2hills

Do you remember the uproar when Mattel produced a Barbie that whined in a gratingly chipper voice, “Math is hard!”? I remember. I remember virtuously supporting the NOW call to action, boycotting the errant toy company, and prohibiting Barbie shoes in the house. Okay, truth be told the Barbie shoe prohibition technically predated the Barbie Math fiasco. Those high heeled shoes with their strong affinity for the bottom of bare feet should be classified as one of America’s most powerful cultural weapons.

The thing is… in retrospect this particular social tempest not only did not deserve a teacup, it also missed a key point. Math is hard. So is biochemistry, astrophysics, and getting the top off a bottle of Advil. Somehow Barbie stating the obvious was offensive because a woman admitted it – a pretty woman with small feet and big breasts.

In much the same way, there is a strong social pressure among those of us preparing to cut the lines to avoid admitting to Regular People how difficult it is to leave. It is easier to perpetuate the myth that the cruising adventure is a lark, a whim – expensive navel gazing combined with extended camping trip and lots of rum.

It is also probably easier for the shore-bound to watch us go if they believe that cruisers are not like Regular People. Regular People would find the whole process of selling everything, saying goodbye to everyone, and leaving all that is well known and understood daunting to the point of intestinal clenching terror.

But here’s your Barbie moment straight from Toast: Leaving is hard.

In for a penny, in for a pound, let me further state that: Leaving is harder for women.

There you have it. I’ve said it. I’ve obviously lost my mind, my feminist credentials, and my captain’s license. I brace myself for the pending boycott from the Seven Seas Sailing crowd. Shoot me. Drum me out of the women’s seminars at Strictly Sail. The real shame is I don't have big breasts. Nor do I have small feet, more's the pity.

But stating the obvious, gut churning truth does not make it any less true, because the bottom line is that wannabe cruisers are regular people with a bug up their ass. Whatever our current motivation, most of us start out with careers, real estate, and white-picket-fence goals. By far the majority of cruisers do not self-identify as heroic, brave, or adventurous. We send our kids to school, we go to the Church of Home Depot on Sundays, and we carefully deposit a small amount into our 401(k) each month. Our starting point is so banal, it is unimaginable that in a mere few years we’ll be thousands of miles away hauling in a tuna off an azure coast to the dulcet strains of our children’s urgent screams of encouragement.

And why is it harder for women? I've heard a variety of theories. The one that resonates most strongly for me is the lack of a bathtub on a boat. However, perhaps you identify with the hypothesis that for men there is more support for reaching for the “exotic adventure.” Or maybe you're in the “woman are nesters, men are not” camp. Some of you might find compelling the claim that “women have stronger social ties and rely on them more deeply than men.” Or maybe you've been surrounded by folks who support the theory that children are proof of fragility. Obviously, if you are a mother, you can't be strong, self reliant, and highly capable.

Makes Me Want to Shout
Uploaded by toastfloats

Whatever your personal pet theory, there is broad consensus among the female sailing community that the whole letting go thing is much harder for women. Mind you, there is not unanimity! You can't put five sailors of any gender in a dinghy and get them to agree on the time of day, let alone something as fundamental as this. However, I've got the anecdotes to support my theory. And if you doubt me, go take a poke at the startling volume of cruising literature devoted to the dragged aboard spouse.

But women are not fragile. Women make great sailors. Women are spectacularly adept at making a life of value and passion and interest even under the worst conditions and in the mankiest of boats. And if women were afraid to do hard things, the species would have long since withered away.

Wow, this is starting to sound like a motivational video. So I’ll conclude with a a gratingly chipper shout into a virtual mike as I bounce at the front of the class, “Leaving is HARD! Feel the burn, ladies!! No pain, no main!!!”

Role Reversal

A Critical Team of Observers
Uploaded by toastfloats

There are two types of folks on a sail boat: those who twiddle the sails, and those who avoid it.

What is a sail twiddler, you ask? Well let me tell you. A sail twiddler is a person who can't leave the lines alone during a long tack. He trims the jib, twitches the main sheet, fiddles with the traveler. She constantly fidgets at the helm, adjusts the bearing and the course. His eye is always on the telltales and the knot meter, her attention never wavers from the GPS indicator for speed over ground. All of these actions are taken in the hope of coaxing additional teeny weeny fractions of a knot out of the sails.

A sail twiddler is the least relaxing human being you can possibly cruise with. The scenario looks like this: you are trapped in a boat with four people for five hours. The wind is 12 knots from the south 55 degrees off your starboard bow. Ideally, as helmsman you set the sails for a starboard close haul and put Auto in charge. Then you grab a good book, a glass of lemonade and a bag of pretzels, and settle in on the tramp, glancing up every few minutes to check for freighters, power boats, and stray seals.

But if there is a sail twiddler on board, you'll find that your starboard close haul is not the most efficient way to get from Point A to Point B. No, your boat is a catamaran and would go a lot faster if you were to fall off the wind a bit. Then you're going to let out this deelybob, slide over that thingamajig, tug on the other whatchamaclallit, and poof! now you are going at least a half knot faster.

The problem with this theory is that at some point in the not so distant future, you are going to have to tack. Tacking involves getting up off your cozy cushion on the tramp and shlepping to the back of the boat to mess with rope. There will be yelling even if everything goes well because that's what you do. You yell cryptic things like, "Helms alee!" and "Fire in the hole!" Then you yank on stuff. Inevitably when you get back to your cushions, the wind will have lost your page or knocked over your drink. But now you can sit, right?

Wrong. Because now you're whipping along in this broad zag toward a big rock in the middle of friggin’ nowhere and at some point you are going to have to zig to avoid it, then zag to get more wind and speed along, then zig to get back to your course, then zag into a tidal current, then zig to avoid running into an island.

And so on.

And the horrible thing to admit is that I always thought Dr C was a sail twiddler. I really expected him to be a sail twiddler. He sure as hell is an everything else twiddler. The man doesn't have the slightest clue how to sit still. On our first vacation down at his parents' cabin in Baja, I drank tequila on the deck and read romance novels for three days while Dr C moved the water tank and rebuilt the outhouse. His idea of relaxing at anchor is to install a new inverter.

So pardon me if my natural expectation was that I would expend a great deal of ingenuity conjuring clever methods to avoid helping trim the sails. He would twiddle, I would drink lemonade, and basically we'd do same ole' same ole' at the Conger household... except on a boat.

Rainbow Around the Sun
Uploaded by toastfloats

However, this pleasantly familiar scene does not play out on Don Quixote. Au contraire! Dr C has better things to do while we are underway. Take today, for example. During our three-hour trip from Seattle to Port Madison, Dr C reinstalled the galley foot pump, changed the lamp mantle, fixed the squeaky starboard doors, and installed a speaker for the VHF in the cockpit.

You know what I did? I twiddled the sails. And let me tell you, the pleasure I get from twiddling the sails makes it feels as pornographic as it sounds.

My name is Toast. And I'm a sail twiddler.

A Failure of Saltiness

But I Play One on the Web...
Uploaded by toastfloats

Just in case prior articles have somehow left the impression that I am an Experienced, Salty Sailor, let me just state for the record that I am not. Experienced, that is. Technically, I’m not even sure it’s appropriate to call me a Sailor unless you can loosely define the term as “someone who pulls the jib line on a sailboat when forced to do so at the point of a gun.”

Real Sailors (trademark pending) are also known as Salty Sailors, and these fine men and women are full of pithy advice. (I did NOT say “pissy.”) They drip these pearls of wisdom liberally over your ego like corrosive splats of bird guano on the shining deck of your vessel. These unlooke- for gems of information have the power to simultaneously save your life and ensure your utter lack of confidence to put it at risk. Their collective wisdom is priceless but daunting, both in its scope and its power to terrify.

I, on the other hand, lack a certain depth of knowledge on this subject. Prior to purchasing s/v Don Quixote, my entire sailing resume consisted of an overnight on the Chesapeake, the chief memorable moment being running aground on a sand bar. There was also a week in the San Juan Islands on a Cal 28’ for our honeymoon during which I believe I threatened to divorce my new husband no less than four times. So it’s pretty much impossible to say that I know what I’m talking about when it comes to all things nautical. Certainly, salty sailors will inform you that I don’t know my aft quarters from a whirlpool in the water.

Thus, to those lured to this web site with notions of learning how to sail, live aboard, or cruise in a catamaran, so sorry. I’m not really capable of telling you the safe, sane, and proper way to do it. I can only offer my own creative commomns protected, honed in the fine crucible of the real world, and orthogonal to anything officially supported by Real Sailors (trademark still pending) techniques. My admittedly naïve approach to the subject is – as with so many things in life – stubbornness uber alles.

You can.
You will.
You just need to want it badly enough.

Proof of the Pacific
Uploaded by toastfloats

A question I often hear when people learn that in my salad days I rode my bike across the United States is, “How do you prepare for a trip like that?” And I reply, “You can’t.” Or more accurately, the way to prepare to ride your bike across the United States is to buy some equipment, get a map, read a book, and get on the bike. Ride 70 miles. Camp for the night in a field or park. Get up the next morning and get on the bike. Ride another 70 miles. Rinse, repeat for roughly a month. Two things happen: First, you will have ridden from Yorktown to the Mississippi River; and second, you will know how to get across the next two thirds of the country.

So when I tell you that the way to learn how to be a cruising sailor is to buy some equipment, get a map, read a book, and get in a boat, I speak with some experience, although none particularly useful to the endeavor. It’s pretty safe to assume that you can move the boat to the next inlet, drop anchor and spend the night. Get up, put up the sails, pull up the anchor (maybe even in that order), and move down the coast another few nautical miles. Rinse, repeat for a season. Two things will happen: First, you’ll probably make it from Seattle to someplace south of Mexico; and second, you’ll know how to cruise.

And while you may not be Salty, I can assure you that you will be a Sailor.

If Not You, Then Who?

Naturally, a question posed and answered in the memoirs of every author about the cruising life is: "Why did you do it?" Since I’ve consumed a good fraction of that literature, it strikes me that the motivation can be categorized into three nouns: escape, dream, or challenge.

#1 – Run Away! Run Away!
In this category we have those who take a deep breath, look around at the wonders of modern civilization, and ask themselves why the hell they are here. What does it all mean? Is there a better life? On balance, what happens if I trade my wide screen TV and daily shower for poverty, quiet, and ports unknown?

These are the people who work 60 hours a week to pay for their “things,” only to realize that the one with the most toys doesn't actually win. In fact, the game has rules no one explained when we were young and ambitious and on our way up the corporate ladder. These are people who watched their parents work hard their entire lives only to die within months of retirement. They pull up the profit and loss statement on their lives to realize that they spend four months working for the IRS, one month for the state, three months for the bank, and one month for their health insurer. They see their children growing up without them, maturing more rapidly than a parent would have thought possible during those early sleepless nights.

Squeezed in with these folks, I will also lump those folks who have more money than God and decide to run away just because they can. I suppose technically they could have their own category, but let's face it. I'm not one of them. You're not one of them. All we know about those folks is that they made money somehow, some way, and it would be very nice if we knew they did it illegally so we could feel morally superior. Instead, we're just going to drink rum in their cockpit because it's the most spacious and has the ice cubes and pretend they are like us. Running away from it all.

#2 – A Star to Sail Her By

Dreamers in Marinas
Uploaded by toastfloats.

The seas are awash with boats owned by dreamers. Actually, the marinas are afloat with them. I'm not clear that there are a large number of these owners actually living the dream. For many, the mere fact of the boat is enough. However, for every boat full of people running away from the busy life (see #1 above), you have at least two with a sailor on board who always longed to go to sea and live the cruising life.

It is an unfortunate statistic that the majority of sailor dreamers are men. A depressing number of these men are accompanied by women who have been dragged aboard against all their objections to the contrary. In fact, an entire sub-genre of cruising literature is devoted to the reluctant female spouse: How to get her on the boat, how to keep her there, how to make her feel empowered. To date, the small cadre of intrepid female sailor dreamers is lost in the cacophony of put-upon spouses.

Never mind.

A sailor dreamer buys a boat and, if all the stars are in alignment, eventually lives the dream. By far the majority of these dreams are a retirement plan. “When I get my pension and fund the IRA and we sell the house for a tremendous profit, we'll leave!” Cutting the lines on a sailor dreamer's boat can be a difficult process. Dreamers have rather high standards which makes sense when you think about it. Your dreams should be bigger and better than life. It is unfortunate when your boat cannot be.

#3 -- Because It's There

Adventurers of All Sorts
Uploaded by toastfloats.

Of course, there are still heroes and madmen in the world. These are the ones who like to throw on a backpack and hike the Appalachian Trail for fun. They take a year off to live in Nepal or volunteer to help victims of natural disasters in mosquito-infested places with unpronounceable names. We admire these bold adventurers while simultaneously thinking to ourselves, "Holy bananas, that guy is a fruitcake!"

And there are a lot of adventurers dinking around in boats out there. They are often young with no roots and a taste for danger. I think the more fascinating ones are the folks trying something different -- a single-handed trip never before attempted, a voyage in a boat patterned after something from 2000 years ago, a cruise entirely funded on the proceeds of an unproven educational Web site. To me, their stories hold a horrible fascination much like that of a multi-car wreck on the autobahn.

#4 – Other
I take it back. It's four not three. No categorical list is actually complete without the elastic clause of “other.” In the boating world, it is hard to describe these others. They are the genetic anomalies for whom Darwinian principles were established. Either they make it in this world and reproduce more oddities like themselves who eventually build AI robots to take over the world, or they don't. Simplicity itself. So far I've met only one, and even after roughly half a bottle of rum and a bag full of limes, I'm still not clear how this individual ticks. You just have to take it as an article of blind faith that these folks know what they are doing.

* * *

Ultimately, why you do something is less important than the established fact that you have. Why did you go to college? Daddy made me. Does that diminish the value of the lessons you learned there? Does it diminish your accomplishments -- mastering the separation of laundry, frying of eggs, or drinking a beer bong without vomiting on your shoes? Of course not. If delusional fantasies were a deterrent to garnering respect, we would never have dot com CEOs, toaster strudel, or shoes that tell you whether you’ve had a good workout.

So don't ask me why I do it! Simply marvel that it can be done by people less capable, less grounded, and less stable than you.

Territorial Prerogatives

Investigative Reporting At It's Best
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

We met a couple a few years ago preparing to leave for a year long cruise to Mexico. I liked both of them. I didn’t like their kids, but then again, I frequently don’t even like my own. The lot of them are too noisy, too fast, too sassy, and they get in my way. But never mind, the point is I thought we would bond with this couple. Here were two people in the middle of their lives with three small children and dream to sail the world on a catamaran. Who could be a better match?

Well maybe someone who isn’t dragged aboard.

There is an entire genre of the sailing literature to address the spouse dragged aboard by her sailing husband. The alternative is to sip high balls on the deck overlooking the golf course with the golf widows, and frankly any sensible woman would rather rot in hell. So these women accede to the pressures and cajoling of their loving partners, leave behind all their worldly goods, and step on to the deck of {insert husband’s dream boat here}.

God help these women because nothing else can. The problem is that hubby’s dream boat is inevitably an uncomfortable speedy tub with a smelly head, no storage space and an oven that doesn’t work. They are expected to cook, clean, and apparently put out. Repeatedly. Isn’t that what every captain deserves after a hard day of sailing upwind in the Trades? Uh, no. Not on our boat. There’ll be no putting out until he does the dishes at least.

I thought our friends had it made. She must have had some influence, because they were sailing out of our marina in MY dream boat: a beautiful, luxury 41 foot catamaran with enough space to play basketball in the saloon and complete with a dreamy 10’ Walker Bay dinghy. I drooled when I stepped on that boat. I could feel saliva pooling and my heart rate increase. I wanted that boat. I lusted for that boat. It had room for laundry, two Lewmar winches on either side of the cockpit, and a vacuum head with macerator.

But as we toured their boat, I felt a troubling sensation in the pit of my stomach. It took me awhile before I could put my finger on it. They had owned this boat for over a year. They were leaving in four months. I could not see a single sign that she existed on the craft. Anywhere. There was no evidence of her presence. When the discussion drifted to boat systems – as it inevitably does in the cruising world – she fell silent or played with her children.

I tested my hypothesis with a leading question, “So, you’ve had her for awhile now. How’s the oven? We’ve got a similar one, and I’m wondering what kind of performance you’re getting?”

She laughed and replied, “Oh, I have no idea. We’ve never used it.”

Blink.

The day before her husband left with the boat to ship it from Seattle down to San Francisco, she told me with delight, “I finally got into that sailing class I told you about!” The beginning sailing class. The class to begin. The first class. That class? The first class you take to learn how to sail. You’re leaving on a one year cruise of coastal Mexico in two weeks, and you’re just now enrolling in a sailing class?

I think she had a good time. They all returned alive. I understand that they basically spent their cruising season moving from marina to marina. Fortunately, yachtistas are a well cared for breed of migrating animal in Mexican cruising grounds. And let’s be clear, I believe they found a compromise that works for their boat and their needs. He has his boat and his cruise and his dream, and she lives on the dock. Even in Mexico.

Toast at the Helm
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

But with this lesson in hand, I found myself doing three things immediately on delivery of our boat. First, I put pictures of the girls in the salon. Second, I ripped out every dog gamn deodorizer left by the former owner and burned Beanpod candles and incense for 2 days. Third, I started designing new curtains, cushion covers, and a bimini. In a fit of nesting – albeit in a floaty boaty sort of way – I scrubbed every bit of the interior, orange oiled every wood surface, and took apart both heads. I wasn’t satisfied that the boat was truly mine until I stood in manky bilge water and informed my captain that he needed to replace the water impeller before we lost the port engine.

As far as I’m concerned, you can be dragged aboard or you can piss on the tree and make your mark. It’s your territory, too.