Extreme Makeover: Boat Edition

Simon and I have moved into a boatyard. Polar Bear was placed high on stilts, so we get on and off her with the aid of a ladder (we're about twelve feet off the ground).

We've run an extension cord to an outdoor outlet for power, use the marina's public showers and toilets (we have no plumbing on board yet and the wiring is shot), and we sleep in sleeping bags. Blue water cruising is so sexy.

I began sanding, painting and varnishing while Simon moved forward with bilge cleaning and demolition. Naturally, a previous owner used glue to secure every single screw, so only about five percent of them can be driven out. As a result, Simon's been hacksawing like crazy. Saw dust is everywhere. It is a bit sad, as the wood was good but so much of it has to be wasted now.

But our vision for Polar Bear is unwavering. We started by ripping out the entire forepeak cabin and the godawful head. We've decided to put in a luxurious bathroom in the front of the boat, using the point of the bow as a place for a tub. The shower will be right under the hatch, so you can look up and see the sky.

And that is only the beginning. This is a process better captured in pictures. Here are some "before" pictures. We're looking forward to sharing the "afters"!

PS - If you are in the neighborhood, please come visit us but be prepared to sand and paint. Free beer!

Team Polar Bear is successful in their first mission (even if it took a couple months). Woo hoo! Part II.

We shared our bottle of wine (a lovely Pinot Noir that I brought with me from California) with Simon's friend, Cameron. It's nice to have friends in high places -- he let us moor up for free that night. He is one of many people whom Simon has inspired (at least in part) to take up sailing as a career. We run into such people with increasing frequency and I think it is quite remarkable. Anyway, the two of them also apparently got arrested in Africa (a tale I haven't heard fully yet), so I guess that is one of those experiences that bonds people for life. A future retro-chronicle, I think.

After wine, we took a water taxi into Salcombe town and had an unremarkable dinner and Irish coffee, before settling down for the evening. We walked up and down the narrow high street, which was filled with yachtie shops, but nothing that greatly impressed me. It was moderately busy as it was a Saturday night in June, but I would bet good money that it is normally very quiet.

The next morning we headed out early to catch the tides and conserve fuel. The wind was against us, so it looked like we would have to motor to get back on schedule.

Our original plan had been to stop the night before in Dartmouth and then head out into the English Channel more and get around the headland to a small bay in a nature reserve, where we would drop an anchor for the night. Fearing the unpredictability of our fuel supplies, we decided to add miles by going a less direct course, but stick closer to towns with fueling barges. We sailed into Dartmouth to fuel up around noon. Simon had told me a lot about Dartmouth (it has castles, beautiful houses, caves, an old square-rigged boat, access only by steam train or boat, a car ferry that is steered by a tug boat, and the naval college). Unfortunately, we weren't able to stop, but I took all these pictures driving in and out of the harbor. We'll go back, for sure.

We then headed towards Weymouth. Late that evening, just as the sun was going down, we arrived in the shallow waters outside of Weymouth and dropped anchor. We don't have a motor on our anchor chain, so Simon lowered it by hand. Henceforth, he shall be known as Hans, the beefy manly-man. I had the much more fun job of steering the boat and shifting the motor from forward, to neutral, to reverse, to neutral. Yup, I can handle that!

The bay outside of Weymouth was fabulously breathtaking. The beaches were white sand with red, sheer bluffs towering above them. The water was abandoned except for one tiny fishing trawler and about fifty lobster pots (it was a lobster pot minefield!). After we shut down the engine, we sat on the bow of the boat and looked at the moon in silence.
In that moment, I felt like I was in a dream. My life is just insane and I can't believe it is real. I couldn't believe in that moment that I was sitting in the midst of the great power and gentle beauty of the natural world, with nothing to do but enjoy it. I can't really describe that transcendental moment with justice, but I will say that it was surreal and awesome.

That night, in bed, the rock of the swell was more intense than I've ever felt, but also very relaxing. I practically purred like a kitten as I curled into the warm down of the sleeping bag and drifted off to sleep.

We awoke at 3:30 am. The tide was strong heading out of the bay and around the headland, so it was essential that we catch it at the right time. So, we were up, shivering in the idyllic moonlight, drinking coffee, and grumbling about time and tide and all that. Simon hauled up the anchor and I kicked her into gear. I told Simon I would be OK and that he should go back to bed. He did -- and he trusted me so much, that he slept with the door open, slung across the bed in his full foulies and shoes still on, ready to jump into action the second I crashed into something.

The swells were really big and the tide increased our speed by a swift four knots, but I got us around the headland with little trouble. I could hear French sailors on the radio as we pulled into the Channel.

Simon and I switched places and I slept for a couple hours. When I got up, we were pulling into another quiet bay to drop anchor as the tide had now turned against us. We were going to wait for a few hours, and then head to the Isle of Wight, which was on the far horizon.

This day was lovely. It was warm and sunny. We had the hatches open as we ate lunch and then took a nap in the sunlight. Just as we drifted back off to sleep in the rock of the ocean, I noticed what sounded like hundreds of little clicking noises -- like twenty people were typing on a typewriter in the next room, or like soft hail on a roof. "What's that noise?" I asked Simon, rousing him slightly.

"It's fish and crabs eating the grass on the side of our boat." He answered sleepily.

Wow, I thought. It was such a cool sound. I listened to it for a long time and thought about ways to fix up the boat and make her pretty and homey.

Laying in the sun felt so good, I almost didn't want to get up... but the Isle of Wight offered showers, which I hadn't had in days, so it didn't take much coaxing to get going again. Soon we were sailing through "the Needles," which is apparently famous for its shipwrecking capabilities as it is a shallow and rocky channel. Simon pointed out old forts and a Victorian battery.

We got into Cowes earlier than expected by an hour. Driving up the mouth of the river Medina to the marina, I asked Simon if it was "Moo-dina." He groaned.Pulling into the marina, at least two other skippers shouted out to Simon as friends. I guess I am in his home territory now, so I'll have to get used to people he knows seeing us, even when I look awful for not having had a shower in days. Fortunately, that was quickly remedied and we wandered into a pub for dinner and a well-done beer.

Cowes high street looks just like all the high streets I saw in London suburbs, but again with more yachtie stores. It was nice to see Cowes, where Simon will often be this summer for work, but it wasn't amazing, like the two bays we had just been in. I figure I will get to know it a lot better later in this summer during Cowes Week.

The next morning, we got up at 8:30 to drive across to Portsmouth, for our haul-out at 1 pm. That should be easily accomplished, and we had pushed hard to get to Cowes by this time as Simon did not want to "trip just as we approach the finish line."

Alas, tripping occurred nonetheless.

We got to the fuel barge for a little back up fuel, just in case. They asked us to wait a few minutes while they finished getting diesel off of the tanker that had arrived that morning. "Half an hour" the man on the fuel barge assured us. An hour and a half later, we were fueled up, but had missed the tide. At nearly full steam, we were going a mere four knots and the wind was completely dead.

At least the slow speed allowed us to fully enjoy views of Spinnaker Tower, the navy yard, and the HMS Victory. We basked in the sun on the deck, although it wasn't particularly warm.

We didn't make it to Port Solent marina until 2 pm. We missed our haul out, but they let us stay on the pontoon until the next morning, when they would haul us out first thing.
We made it! More well done beers and a couple lamb burgers were our reward.

Team Polar Bear is successful in their first mission (even if it took a couple months). Woo hoo! Part I.

Polar Bear is no longer stuck in Wales (or any other crappy corner of the UK -- Simon's words, not mine). She is now safely on the hardstanding in Portsmouth, ready for more refit.

Last Monday and Tuesday, I flew to London from Los Angeles, via Dublin (picking up some whiskey in the jar for Simon along the way). We stopped at the Ailsa pub (which was our local this last winter while camping out in Richmond) for a pint or two, had dinner with Simon's family, then headed to Falmouth by train. The trip was a full day affair, as we hauled over 100 pounds of luggage (no exaggeration) by foot, train and bus. Eventually, we ended up in Falmouth and begged a ride off the tug boat captain, who brought us to Polar Bear.

We were happy to see her, although she looked a bit worse for the wear. In the intervening month, Polar Bear had grown a grass skirt and some mildew and had gained a nasty black gash on the bow. But she was up and running again, so we headed out the next morning. We sailed about twenty miles to the nearby town of Fowey. Fowey was an adorable little town, with old world buildings and narrow streets.

It just so happens that this little trip was my absolute first time sailing with Simon. I think that's a little funny, considering how committed we are to this plan of sailing around the world together. Even worse: I'm pretty much a sailing neophyte. I learned to sail twelve years ago, but have gone only a few times since then, and only for easygoing jollies where I did little of the hard work. I'm pretty much a novice.

I tend to be a bit "deep-endy," as Simon puts it. Liz will confirm, for example, that I went white-water rafting in Chile on the Futaleufu (one of the most challenging rivers in the world), without having ever rafted before or even looking at the trip's website. I just went. After the first day, I feared that I was going to die... but by the second day, I was more comfortable and now I'm all over it.

This sailing excursion wasn't really any different. Here I am, jumping in head first! I wasn't as afraid of dying, but I was nervous about how I would fare with steering, mooring, knot-tying, and staying generally upright and out of the water. I was also worried about annoying the pants off of Simon.

So, I was beating myself up a little when it took me three tries to toss the bow mooring line to the harbor master, who was waiting in a dinghy to tie us to a mooring buoy. "Crap," I thought, "I'm a total gimp just as I feared!" But the next morning, I was surprised at how easily I was able to jump off the boat and pull her close to the town quay before tying her off. My confidence boosted a little.

Later that day, we sailed off to Newton Ferrers, a cute and crowded little marina, up a quiet, shallow river. The weather was beautiful and the wind kind, so I enjoyed the peaceful sway down the coast. Mooring again turned out to be a difficult thing, though, as the only available space was on a floating jetty between two boats, and it was exactly the length of our boat. Simon slid it in brilliantly, and the other yachties all seemed quite impressed. With him, anyway. I got lectured that I wasn't tying up the bow line correctly.

"Twist it that way!" a frustrated onlooker instructed me. "No, no, you're doing it wrong. OK, go back to how you had it before and twist it." After five minutes of this, I shrugged. "Oh, let him do it," the helpful onlooker advised, pointing at Simon. Gimp strikes again, I thought. (When Simon came over, though, it turns out that I was doing the knot he wanted, so I was actually doing it right. Phew!)

We never went into town because the water taxi stops running in the mid-afternoon. Our kind neighbors offered to lend us their dinghy, but we decided to spend the evening watching the sunset on our boat and eating canned steak and kidney pies.

The next morning, our engine wouldn't start. We soon determined that we were out of diesel. (This appears to be a dumb mistake, but in our defense, the fuel injectors are deteriorating rapidly, so we were losing fuel at an unknown rate and we don't have a fuel gauge.) There wasn't a fuel barge anywhere nearby, naturally. We resorted to begging other boats to sell us their emergency supply. After two unsuccessful hours, Simon began muttering to himself that this was a stupid time to quit smoking. I contemplated selling sexual favors. Luckily, I didn't have to as a good Samaritan offered us twenty-five liters at cost. We were off again.

This time we went to Salcombe, which was not on our itinerary, but had a fuel barge. I managed tying up to the tall barge with some trepidation, but successfully. I think I am getting the hang of this.

It turns out that the new harbor master in Salcombe is an old friend of Simon's by the name of Cameron. "Simon!?!" he exclaimed from his dinghy as we motored by, obviously thrilled to see him. The harbor was extremely busy, so he instructed us to moor onto another boat, which was already tied to a buoy. He had several other yachts to contend with, but promised to stop by to catch up later on.

No one was on the other boat to help us moor up, I determined after shouting their boat name during our first drive by. Simon instructed me to take the bow line and, as he pulls alongside the other boat, jump onto it, run to the bow, thread our line through a strong point, pull us close, and tie to the cleat.

Um, yeah.

I positioned myself to jump while pushing visions of horrible accidents out of my head. I could hear Simon complaining that the other boat was swaying around quite a bit, making his approach hard. I ignored him.

The first time we went by, I didn't have the nerve to jump. "You have to tell me if you can't make it," Simon scolded me as we reversed and tried again. I didn't tell him that I could have made it, but just lacked the will to try. I screwed up my courage for the second approach. This time, as we drew close, I threw myself at the other boat and scurried across the deck, while weaving my rope through various impediments. I heard Simon instructing me as I went along, but I was too busy at my task to pay any attention.

Somehow, I managed to make it to the front and got my rope around their cleat. "Good job!" Simon shouted, and he instructed me on how to use the rope to pull the boats together while still using the cleat to bear the load. I tied us securely and opened a bottle of wine. Maybe I am a little less of a gimp than I thought. Rock on.

Simon the Monkey-Slayer.

Have I ever told you about the time when Simon was bit by a monkey?

He was driving in Thailand on his motorcycle when a gaggle of monkeys jumped out of the trees and onto a group of school children walking along the road in front of him. Most of the kids were able to fend off their rambunctious attackers, but one little girl with a clubbed foot and a banana in her sack was getting the worst of it. Simon jumped off the motorbike and grabbed the monkey by its tail, freeing the sobbing and frightened little girl.

The monkey turned on him, screeching, clawing and biting. It chomped down hard on Simon's forearm and wouldn't let go. Despite seeing his blood mixing with monkey spit and running down his hand, Simon calmly poked the dirty beast sharply in the eyes. The monkey let go and ran back into the woods. The children cheered him and began calling him, "hua petong nga whi," which is Thai for "Big white monkey slayer."

Simon suffered a severe a case of monkey fever about a week later, but has lived to tell the tale (which he leaves entirely to me, as he is too modest to brag about it). Indeed, Simon is so shy and modest about his celebrity status in Thailand, that he will almost certainly deny it to anyone who asks.

How did I learn about it, then? Simon told me once, over a static-y Turkish pay phone, "I got bit by a monkey." My mind scrambled to understand how he got bit by a monkey in Turkey.

"You got bit by a monkey!?!" I repeated incredulously. "Where? In Thailand?"

"No, I got bit by a mozzie. A mosquito." Simon laughed.

"I distinctly heard you say that you got bit by a monkey," I replied. "You can't take a statement like that back."

Several conversations later, I put together the rest of the monkey story.

Simon has a new monkey that he is slaying right now, which is what prompted the telling of this story on the Chronicles. He quit smoking a week ago. I'm very proud of him as he gets this monkey off his back. Admittedly, it has not been the easiest thing. Anyone who knows Simon at all, knows he loved his "rollies."

So, I need two things from all our friends and family: First, root for his success, please. We need all the support and silent good wishes we can get. Second, for any of our smoking friends, please note that Polar Bear is a strictly non-smoking boat, at least until Simon is safely beyond the danger of relapse.

Thanks!

Travel is the meaning of life.

Simon and I expect that we are going to be traveling most of our lives and certainly for the better part of the next several years.

I said this to my mother last night, who apparently thought that "sailing around the world" meant goofing off in a boat along the coast of Europe for a few months before settling down in San Diego. She got mad at me. She said, "You are going to abandon your family to go see a world that doesn't give a shit about you." I laughed, which didn't help.

Penultimately, she has never understood why I want to see all of the world so badly. So let me try to explain. Traveling is aligned with the purpose of my existence. Without it, I wouldn't know why I was alive.

I live on Earth to experience the joys and abundance of the world that God put me on. I'm here to experience. That's it. That's the meaning of life. So, I want to experience the wide and vast array of life, rather than just one small slice of it. I want to absorb the world like a sponge absorbs water. I feel like I would be ungrateful to God for the life I was given if I did anything else.

A year and a half ago, my sister asked me, "Why are you going to Chile?"

My response: "Because it is on the planet." That's the honest answer, in its simplest form.

I may be a success or a failure. I may be brave or irresponsible. I may be searching or content. It's all a matter of perspective. What I am is what I am. But travel is my truth. It gives me the greatest joy and makes me grateful to be alive. I doubt that will ever change as long as I live.

Team Polar Bear on Temporary Hiatus

Team Polar Bear continues to be on hiatus, but only for a few more days. We had originally intended to reunite on May 28th. Then June 1st. Then June 8th. Now it is June 10th... set in stone.

So, continuing our saga from where I last left off....

I left Simon in Wales to head back to California to handle some nagging business. (I sold my car just in time for $4 per gallon gas prices. I've got wind power now! Haha, suckers!)

Simon returned to the boat to get it into the water and down to Portsmouth. After several days of work, he finally managed to get it hauled into the water, only to find out that the engine wouldn't start. The starter motor had to be replaced. Rats.

A few days later, he was finally on the high seas! But the engine has a strange knock. After a few days, the knocking got worse and Simon shut it down. Unfortunately, it was 4 am and the tide was against him, bringing him straight to some rocks; the water was too deep to anchor, and there wasn't enough wind to give the beasty boat any power.

Despite the knocking, Simon tried turning on the engine again, but it wouldn't start at all. With no other choice, he called for help and was towed to a mooring buoy up a river in nearby Falmouth. (I can assure you that towing a 13 ton boat in the middle of the night is not a cheap proposition.)

The next day, we spent several hours on the phone together trying to troubleshoot the engine. We were in no position to do it, however, without much experience taking apart and re-building diesel engines. I had bought a book on marine diesels, but it hadn't arrived yet. Plus, I was in California and Simon was stuck on the boat (we don't have a dinghy yet) in Falmouth. We moved to Plan B and paid an engineer to fix it.

The engineer said he would need at least a week, so Simon packed up to go work in Portsmouth. A few days later, the engineer said he needed more time. Simultaneously, Simon was offered work for two weeks in Lanzarote, Spain (the Canary Islands, off the coast of Africa). We decided he should take it while the boat was in the shop. Team Polar Bear's rendezvous was rescheduled for June 1.

In the meantime, I've been going crazy at home. I am renting out my condo, which means I have to move the rest of my stuff out of it. I've packed up stuff that I'm taking with me to the yacht, but it is too much to carry. The rest was going to various storage spaces. I no longer have my car, so I've been renting/borrowing/walking. The logistics began to make me a little nutty, so I decided I needed more time. To be frank, though, as much as I love San Diego, my house, my family and my friends, I cannot wait to get back. I'm tired of running in fifty directions and I look forward to completing my tasks here so I can focus on my business and Polar Bear full time.

Good news, though. Polar Bear is all fixed up. The engine problems turned out to be loose parts, resulting in another small part becoming bent and jamming the whole thing. This was the best case scenario, and also what Simon and I thought might be the issue due to improper winterizing, so we are pleased with that. Simon is currently working again in Portsmouth, but on June 10, we are getting back on track. We have a fun itinerary planned of batting around the West country for about a week before returning to Portsmouth.

So, yes, things are a bit boring right now while we continue in this slow phase of gearing up for extreme nomadism. We're impatient to get going, of course, but at least things are moving along in the right direction.