Reflections on “life at sea”

When we talked of taking this trip and my mother asked us to explain our plans, I described our trip much as using a motor home to get from place to place and see the sights, only we’d be on the sea in a boat. Reflecting upon our trip now, six months on, I still feel this is a very apt description. There are so many comparisons.

Sailing often feels like camping – but with a motor home or trailer, not a tent. We are provisioning to last for a few days on the boat so we don’t rely on restaurants. Generally we go out for a meal every couple of days but prepare quite a few meals on the boat. We have a BBQ and grill very often just like camping. We have a fridge but supplement it with frozen water bottles to reduce energy consumption. We use less electric at night (when we aren’t at a marina) and end up feeling tired when the sun goes down. When it rains or storms you can really hear the sounds of wind, rain, and thunder. If you aren’t quite so lucky you may be bashed around a bit if there are waves accompanying the tempest which hopefully is unlike camping!

When we are out and about, we’ll often jump in the water to cleanse and because it is sea water, soap and rinse at the back of the boat – kind of taking a swim to refresh while camping. That said, even though we have washroom facilities on the boat (2 heads with showers in fact) we still jump at the chance to have a shower at the marina where we will often have high water pressure, high water volume, and space to reach our body parts without major contortions.

Then there are clothes. We don’t smell like smoke all the time but our clothes can get a bit salt stained. Washing clothes is often the biggest challenge and we haven’t camped long enough to know what it is like on the road. In Canada, if you are stuck you find a laundry where you can get a wash and fold or do it yourself, pretty much everywhere. Here it isn’t like that. Some, very few, marinas have washers and dryers you can use. More often there may be a “service” which means you can mortgage your house and wash your clothes (think hotel prices). If you are lucky there is a service in a small village where they will wash the clothes and hang them out to dry for a very reasonable cost. Last night we arrived in a marina where they had two washers and two dryers, 5 kg capacity, European manufacture, all working, all for the only slightly high price of 10 euro per wash and dry load. We did 4 loads of laundry and were thrilled to have thoroughly clean and dry clothes. We usually do our wash in a bucket and hang it on the boat to dry. When I do that, I feel like I’m camping. I think it is safe to say we are looking forward to coming home to our Miele washer and dryer and doing laundry whenever we feel like it and complaining about it to boot.

Those are the every day things of life. More important, this lifestyle is all about slowing down and appreciating life as it happens which is also the best part of camping. We have enjoyed the places we planned to see and they were all as expected (Athens, Rome, Venice, Dubrovnik, Split) but as or even more special are those which we didn’t expressly plan for but were marvelous. Corinth, Kos, Trogir, Starigrad,….frankly I could write down nearly every island we went to. I can’t think of one that didn’t have a peaceful bay with a nice view, an unexpected street performance, a tribute to a native son, a museum dedicated to a special find or unique element of the region. We have found shops selling local wine, oil, soap, cheese and art. We have consumed marvelous treats from around the Med. In every place I really feel we made an effort to explore, digest, and learn.

I have learned much about my family, myself, and the world we live in. I’ve got clever children who are eager to find their place in the world and contribute in their own unique ways. I’ve learned I need to ask more, speak less, and listen to my kids. They absorb more than I ever would have believed and I admit that I haven’t appreciated how much influence we parents have in their lives.

Teaching Theo has been a learning experience. He has no problem diving into topics of interest like the life of Leonardo, history of the gladiators, ancient stories of the Gods, and computer programming but it has been like putting camels through needle eyes to get him to do math and English. I have had to learn patience at a new level but we are making progress. We definitely have a greater appreciation for how Theo learns and this will help as he progresses through school. I’m sure Sheila feels the same way (I do math and she does English more by accident than design).

Margaret continues to impress me with her sense of adventure, desire to explore the world, self-discipline, and independence. I often have to remind myself she is 17. I’m a proud papa and we miss her presence on the boat.

Sailing has taught me both humility and confidence. Confidence in that we stated as relative neophytes and had to learn about sailing, weather, boat maintenance, patience with officials, and regularly finding arcane things in new locations. We’ve retained our spirit of adventure and are trying new things in new places as we go. Humility in that when we think we are getting pretty good at sailing, an unexpected gust of wind makes a normal docking situation go wrong. I’ve learned to take a breath, reset and try again…and forget that I’m entertainment for the 15 or 20 people that like to gather and watch – it is like people watching car racing for the accidents. (I do it too…if I hear yelling, extended motor or bow thrusters, or the like I’m on the boat quickly, ostensibly in case they are near our boat but after that I watch the action). I had one difficult situation docking where someone came onboard to help after our bow thruster ran out of juice on a beam wind. He gave me some great advice and pointers which I’ve since used. Humility and an ability to learn from others I think make me a better sailor than I might be otherwise.

We have had great input from many people but the one piece of advice I continue to think about came from our neighbor, Brian, who has sailed for many years, who told us if we think we should do something (to mitigate some risk) then do it. We are likely right and it is better to be safe. We’ve used this advice to stay in port, tie an extra line, pick a different location to anchor/berth, or plan alternative destinations when weather doesn’t go our way.

I have really appreciated this time to know Sheila better. We’ve enjoyed 28 years of marriage and I figured we’d be just fine, however, we haven’t been together 24x7 in those 28 years, at least not for such a long period and I have to admit to some trepidation. I’m pleased to share that we are still best friends and this adventure has brought us closer together. This may seem a brief sharing on a big item but I’m at heart a private guy.

What have I learned bout the world around me? Well fundamentally we are more the same than different and that mankind really hasn’t fundamentally changed that much over a few thousand years. Everyone cares about their family and community, contributing, being respected and valued. Everyone makes mistakes individually and collectively and the world has seen more than its fair share of tragedy spun by ambition, greed, and ego (I believe history is fundamentally shaped by the 3 Es, economics, ego, and environment). You really get a chance to understand migration driven by commerce, war, and environment as you tour sites and museums around the Med and see how this region has been so interconnected over the past 5000 years. I always “knew” this but it has resonated with me in a deeper way and I now fundamentally believe in the inevitability of migration and integration of commerce at a global level, assuming we can overcome our tribalistic tendencies and open ourselves to the holistic world around us.

So reflecting, I shared recently with a colleague that I wouldn’t trade this time for the world and I hold by that statement. It is amazing what happens when you camp on a sea-going motor home for a few months.

Kevin

Boat Maintenance

It wouldn’t be a sailing post with out some boat issue. Our stuffing box still leaked but not quite as much. Researching we learned that we have a Volvo lip seal stuffing box and that it requires attention every 200 hours or so. We are to be greasing it. The next mission became finding the Volvo stuffing box grease. I won’t belabor it beyond saying that our first Marina couldn’t help us on a Sunday – the service people didn’t want to sell the grease but the service to grease it. The chandlery didn’t have any grease and didn’t want any more to do with us once they realized they weren’t selling me anything. We kept looking and eventually found a well stocked chandlery in a very nice, quiet marina in Funtana so we’ve started to service the stuffing box. It still is leaking but less. We’ll keep at it.

The other running topic has been dealing with the holding tank. We did find some magic juice called “Aqua clean green” which purports to have environment credentials but essentially liquefies the waste to facilitate emptying of the tank. So far so good. It is expensive but seems very effective.

Batteries are always interesting. You may recall we replaced the engine battery. The service bank for everything else is relatively new but we watch carefully so we don’t drain it too far. If you drain the batteries too low their life is shortened and they are expensive to replace. We use a generator to recharge unless we are in a marina connected to shore power. As we’ve been in Croatia we spend more time away from Marinas so the generator is used more. We keep the freezer off to preserve power and only recharge devices when the generator runs. It seems if we run it a couple hours a day it keeps things generally OK. Batteries are also charged when the engine runs but the alternator is slow to charge. If we keep the boat we’ll get a bigger alternator as well as a solar chargine system to supplement the generator. In addition to engine and service batteries we also have batteries at the front of the boat for the bow thruster (moves the front of the boat right and left) and one for the generator. It’s a long story but we think the bow thruster batteries may be wearing out so we’ll be examining that further. They are of course very buried and hard to reach. [Update: So far so good - no issues with bow thruster]

The bilge (bottom of the boat where all water goes, hopefully) before it is pumped back out had some unexpected extras yesterday. We check it often to ensure there isn’t more water than expected and that the pump works (if water came in unexpectedly you’d want to know your bilge pump will pump it out again. When I checked it there was an odd growth in the bilge. Closer smelling revealed it was mould you’d smell in rotten milk. I was transported back to a morning a few days before when I found the milk on its side and leaking through the opening. I had cleaned up the mess but likely not before some milk went through the fridge drain. So I scraped the layer of growth from the bilge and poured a couple buckets of water through to clear it. When we next got to a marina, I cleaned the fridge out, purged the drain line from the fridge to the bilge, and then ran water through the bilge for some time to clean it. No more rotten milk smell!

An interesting and somewhat embarrassing note (because it shows we haven't thoroughly cleaned the fridge before), when we found the fridge issue, we decided on a more thorough clean and did a full defrost of the fridge. When all the ice buildup went away, we found we had a freezer at the top of the fridge - since we started sailing the fridge has been on and this door was not obvious to us. Exploring during the thorough clean we were surprised to find this new place to keep ice. it also means that we don't need the big freezer going to have ice. This may sound like a small thing but the freezer is the biggest power hog. we've been using it to freeze large bottles of water when we have shore power and use those in the fridge to reduce electricity consumption when not on shore power. When it was 30 plus celsius this made a big difference for us. So we have a more serviceable fridge and ice!

We also recently found some water in the forward bilge which is unusual. It is under our bed so we don’t pull the access open too often. We cleaned up all the water so we could determine the source. I thought maybe it was from when we used a bilge cleaning liquid because the water was soapy. We found some water, however, on a higher area. Since the weather was rough we though perhaps it had just sprayed around. As always with leaks, we taste to see if sweet or salty (fresh water or sea) and then try to find the source. We figured it was either from some spot in the deck that was leaking, a pipe leak from when we refilled water, or perhaps something in the deck when we wash to boat.

We had a rocky, wet trip to get to this marina but the bilge was dry (good news). I washed the boat after we arrived and was going to check for leaks but got distracted talking to some people on the dock who had spent time in Canada. We had a great little conversation but I then filled the water tank. Water was back in the bilge. It is sweet so it is from either washing (leak somewhere forward) or from filling the tank. Stay tuned for more.

When we were diagnosing this issue, we found a whole area of mildew in our forward cabin that we immediately addressed.

On other topics, seawater combined with urine forms calcium. Our toilets flush with seawater so you are constantly seeing calcium buildup. We’ve learned that vinegar works best to clear it so right now both heads have the bowls full of vinegar.

Today we are Marina bound due to 35-50 knot gusts today so we pulled cushions out to air in the breeze as well as Theo’s soft toys. The boat hatches are also letting air through so hopefully this strong breeze will refresh the boat and dry things a bit. After all the humidity we’ver had, sheets and fabrics can get a bit clammy on a boat.

In other boat maintenance there were lose bolts to tighen, a floor compartment to clean, vacuuming to remove crumbs and debris, and other minor chores. There is always something to do on a boat!

We did a brief sail to Cres in Croatia and the log wasn’t working. Further looking and our speed wasn’t showing up either. Today I pulled the transducer which is under the boat and found 2 tiny barnacles as well as other growth on the device so it has now been completely cleaned. We’ll see tomorrow if it all worked.

In other good news, the stuffing box did not leak at all and we were under motor for about 4 hours. It is good for now!