Big News...and a little bit of nostalgia

Savannah at anchor in one of our favorite places
in Palau

When we sold our house, all of our stuff and bought Savannah, it was the hardest, scariest and most exciting thing we’ve ever done.  After 10 years of planning and saving, w were finally realizing our goal of a five-year cruise around the world.  Looking back, I guess we were kind of naïve on the timeline…after all, it is a great big world.  Anyway, I agreed to six months in Mexico to see if I could, indeed live on a tiny boat with my husband and son 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  Six months turned into a year and soon enough we found ourselves crossing the big scary ocean to tropical islands far away.  At some point, Savannah became home and our little life of traveling from place to place via the ocean became normal.  When asked how long we would sail, we quit quoting our five-year plan and instead said “when one of us isn’t having fun or we run out of money.”

The morning we left San Diego.

3 days later, our approach to Isla Guadalupe

Fast forward five years and we find ourselves only half way around the world.  We’ve traveled to 16 different countries visiting some of the most remote places in existence and crossed the largest ocean in the world.    We have seen and done some amazing things.  While it’s not always an easy life, for the most part, we’re still happy and having fun.  However, after many long hours of discussion and doing some math, the sad fact is that we have finally run out of money.  It’s something we knew would happen one day, we just hoped it would be later and we’d be closer to home.  We could probably get to South Africa, but then we’d be stuck without many appealing options.   We’ve both stopped and worked before and while we could do that again, we don’t want to be separated again for so long (or in Andy’s case, get shot at).  In reality, with the travel involved and living expenses, we really don’t ever save as much as planned and it ends up just being a long time apart. 

Our first bonfire in Mexico

Pirates in La Cruz, Mexico

Crossing the equator for the first time

Island kids (and Jake) in the Tuamotos

Jake, participating in the French Polynesian games
at a school in the Tuamotos

In our effort to pretend to be responsible adults and avoid that ever growing population of people receiving gov’t assistance (Andy says we have a taste for fine cheddar, not gov’t cheese! Which may be part of the problem…), we have come to the very hard and sad reality that we need to put Savannah on the market here in Malaysia and go back to the United States to take a break.  We’ll get jobs and settle down somewhere on the south east coast while we save up for our next adventure. 

It’s been a hard couple of months.  Jake “refused to allow it” when we first told him and there have been tears all around.  But just like in the beginning, this is the hardest, scariest and most exciting thing we’ve done.  They say the two happiest days of your life (aside from marriage and children, of course) is the day you buy your boat and the day you sell it.  We’re trying to focus on the good things about selling, like being back with family, dishwashers, washing machines, The Big Green Egg, and Chick-fil-a!

I believe this was in the Mortlocks in Micronesia

Christmas celebration in Lamotrek, Micronesia with the locals.

Our first anchorage after arriving in the Philippines

I’m sure this won’t be my last post on the subject, but I’m going to try and not dwell on it all too much.  There’s no point.  In the meantime, we’re on the hard here in Thailand getting her all fixed up (being reminded of what BOAT stands for….Break Out Another Thousand) In between working on Savannah, we’ll try to squeeze in a little more fun before we actually list her.  It’ll be a few weeks before it all happens so don’t abandon us just yet…I promise lots of honest, if not exciting posts on the trials and tribulations of wrapping things up.

Feeding giraffes in the Philippines

Amazing vacation in Australia

Sailing to Thailand

Savannah...safe and sound...and stinky.

After four long months, Andy finally made it back to the boat safe and sound!  Originally, I was supposed to get back first and then he would join a few weeks later.  It turns out to be a pretty good thing that Andy got back first as I’m not sure I would have known what to do (I have to say, my lady sense kind of kicked in and anticipated this). First off was the smell….it smelled like it did when we bought it.  You know what we did then?  Ripped it all out and started over!  But this was anticipated.  You can’t leave a boat closed up for four months in the middle of the wettest place on earth and expect not to have a little mold and a little stink.

 

I’m not sure the order of things, but lets imagine Andy is working hard at cleaning and scrubbing and decides he wants to go in to shore to get more paper towels, cleaning solution, whatever (cold beer?).  He pumps up the dinghy, lowers it, unlocks everything, and goes to start it.  The outboard carburetor freezes up.  Minor set back…Andy being the handy man he is, gets that fixed pretty quickly (relatively speaking) in between rain showers.  Now he’s off to shore.  Almost there and “vroommmmm….put, put, put”….nothing.  Water in the fuel tank.  I’m guessing he paddled back to the boat at this point (more than likely in the rain).  He dried out the spark plugs, carburetor and fuel tank and got her going one more time.

By this time, it’s probably time to eat and not wanting to hop right back into the rain, Andy decides to have a nice hot bowl of Ramen noodles.  He goes to light the propane and well, no good.  The solenoid is stuck closed.  You can guess my laid back husband is starting to lose his patience.  After all, he’s been traveling for four days and comes home to sleep in a stinky boat with no fan (it broke right before we left), and no ability to raise the hatches since it’s raining cats and dogs and now every attempt he makes to get things right is failing.  You know the drill….one problem leads to many.

So he does the only thing a man in his position would do…he goes to grab a cold beer.  Not happening…the fridge isn’t keeping its charge. 

I’m glad I wasn’t there. 

Lots of trips to ACE hardware later (and no doubt lots of cold beers at the Rusty Anchor), all is on the way to working the way it’s supposed to.

One thing that wasn’t nasty that I felt sure would be was the head.  Andy said it was surprisingly normal, with the exception of one poor goby that was unfortunate enough to be sucked in when Andy filled the bowl with water.  He made his way back out on the next flush, but you can imagine he wasn’t happy.

Even with all of the problems Andy had, I think we’re pretty lucky in the overall scheme of things.  It was the first time leaving Savannah for more than a week and given the things that could have gone wrong, we’re in pretty good shape.  After all, the boat is still there, right (and floating)?  And it contains all the stuff it had in it when we left J.

Just three more weeks and Jake and I will be happily reunited with Andy and we’ll all be bitching about the rain and smell together (because in reality, that boat will never get aired out if there isn’t a break in the clouds).  We’ll be sporting new sheets for Jake’s bed and new fabric for our pillows (that should take care of some of those smells).  We’re bringing a new wifi booster antenna – if the post office ever gets it here – and some cable so Andy can hook up his latest purchase, a depth sounder!  I’ll have snow pea with drawls (and all other fresh veggies while we’re talking about it) and Jake will miss Chick-fil-a, but I think we’ll adjust fine as we eat our $1/lb tuna.

Living on a boat sounds strange to some, but we’ve learned from this trip that as uncomfortable and cramped as it can be at times, it’s a small price to pay for getting to wake up every day with each other while living our dream.  We’re definitely looking forward to being a family again.

Thanks to everyone for all of your prayers and well wishes…it looks like it worked.

Boat Living - Part 2

More opinions and answers to your questions....

What does Jake do for fun on the boat while underway?  The same thing he did on land.  Play, play, play.  He has legos, spaceships, books, submarines, airplanes, cars, trains.  I really thought we sold most of this stuff but I was wrong!  Our boat is regularly scattered with kid stuff.  He also likes to do crafts, cook and watch movies…after the movie, he reenacts whatever story was playing.  Mostly though, he just blows things up.  He has become a Star Wars freak ... making light sabors with play dough is his latest activity while underway.

How can you afford to do this?  It’s not as difficult as one might think.  We’ve met people out here on retirement checks, Social Security checks and some lucky souls who still make money from their investments.  We are able to fund our day to day living on Andy’s Navy retirement, using investments for emergencies and big purchases.   From our conversations with other cruisers, we appear to be lucky in this aspect and are not on as tight of a budget as most others (albeit an 80% a month pay cut for us – difficult for anyone, I imagine).  The cool thing is if you’re in a place and you see you’re blowing your budget….you leave and go to some island or cove where you can’t spend any money.  That’s been our method and so far we’ve come under budget each month (with the exception of August – spare parts and two weeks in the states blew that right out of the water).

How do you get your news?  We don’t.  I have no idea what’s going on in the world.  But if I do want to know, I can usually check the internet or ask someone else.  With out new SSB radio, we have been able to pick up BBC news if we really want to, but so far, we don’t want to.

What do you do when you run out of food?  We try not to let that happen.  No one has lost any weight so we’re good so far!  The thing we run out of the most is fresh vegetables, so we try to keep a number of canned and frozen items on hand.  Most of the small towns we go to sell at least eggs, tomatoes and avacados.  We also run out of bread quite frequently.  I’ve been able to make simple white bread, tortillas and the latest is Nan bread – our favorite so far.  For meat, we have one of those vacuum sealer/food saver things.  This has been invaluable.  When we find something good, we buy a lot and separate it and freeze it.  But the best part of running out of food is that we have a resident fisherman on board.  He’s a pro at spear fishing and we can almost always get something fresh for supper.  Gringos aren’t supposed to get clams, lobster, scallops or any other crustacean, so of course we don’t eat those fresh…ever… of course not. 

If you’re thinking about cruising and are curious as to what to bring on board with you, I would say to bring anything you just can’t live without.  For us, that means balsalmic vinegar, rice wine vinegar, wasabi, Jiff peanut butter, Israeli couscous, gnocci, good wine, and diet dr. pepper.  While I’ve been able to find some of this stuff along the way (vinegar, wasabi, mediocre wine), I didn’t want to chance it!  When it’s gone, it’s gone.  More than likely you’re going to want to eat like you eat at home.  We’ve tried some new things and being the adventurous eaters we are, I’m sure we’ll try some more.  But overall, we still cook and eat basically the same as always.

Stay tuned for part 3... technical questions.

All play and no work?

Someone commented and asked me with all this play, surely I was working hard too.  Yes, but I didn’t think anyone cared J.  So, since I was prompted, I thought I would share my latest project that almost sent me (and the sewing machine) over the side of the boat.  Note:  If you're looking for a tutorial, this entry is not for you.

Before we left San Diego, we bought yards and yards of no see ‘um net.  For anyone who doesn’t know what no see ‘ums are, they’re tiny little bugs that are hard to see (go figure) and bite you.  They usually come out in the morning and at night in warm, humid weather.  Well, we’re far enough south now, that we’re starting to see both no see ‘ums and mosquitoes.  Mosquitoes in Mexico are known to carry diseases so we’ve been advised by every doctor and person we see to wear lots of bug repellent (not the kind that’s regulated in the U.S., the big daddy strength they sell down here in Mexico) so as to prevent things like Malaria and the Dengue Fever.  I was supposed to sew screens for all of our hatches (nine of them) before we left.  For anyone who has followed this blog from the beginning, you’ve learned that I do own a sewing machine but I’ve only used it twice – once when I was pregnant and felt I should sew something for my new baby, and once when we bought the boat and I was too cheap to pay someone to sew curtains.  So here we are again.   Non crafty Monica trying to be crafty (red lights should flash and sirens should go off here).  I started the screens when we were in Cabo (I think, can’t remember).  In Los Muertos, I decided to take another poke at it.  I got four of them done.  They’re awful.  Really.  Ugly, not straight, ugly…did I mention ugly?  I put a picture here to prove it.  I had a near meltdown. 

The problem is I have no useful skills on this boat.  I may have mentioned this before, but my only real asset (from a working perspective) is my ability to make order out of chaos, plan, get people to talk to each other that wouldn’t normally do so, project management stuff.  Well, this is fine when you’re getting paid for it and dealing with a bunch of people that have been told they need to listen to you.  Not such a useful skill when you’re dealing with your husband and a 4 year old.  I had the chance to show I had a useful skill, right?  I really thought I could pull this sewing thing off.  Andy tried to help me by offering suggestions and all it did was work me up (why am I the one doing this?  Of course he would have better ideas and be able to pull this off…HE HAS SKILLS!)  Just as I was about to crack, he saw my tears and told me they looked like they would keep mosquitoes out so it looked good to him.  Nice guy, huh?

So, for the safety of the crew, I’ve put my sewing machine away.  I know I have five more screens to sew, but I’ve decided to wait for a day when there’s not so much fun to be had J.  

Almost off the hard (cross your fingers)

Good news is the engine doesn't need a total rebuild (yet).  Not so good news is we're still on the hard getting the bottom painted.  It's taking a few extra days given the delay of getting it out of the water as well as finding some spots that needed sanding and new epoxy before repainting.  But it could be a whole lot worse.  I want to thank our good friends Eric and Nicole for letting us stay at their house (2 extra days, might I add).  Since Eric was out of town most of the time, I would especially like to thank Nicole.  When we stay with someone, we move in.  We take over the kitchen, do numerous loads of laundry and come with lots of toys.  Nicole has been very generous.  Eric came home today and he and Jake entertained us with an impromptu jam session.

As for the boat, the oil pressure loss turned out to be due to a kinked exhaust that created back pressure in the oil pan which blew out the dipstick and most of the oil.  We have a few more checks to do once it's back in the water but we think we're good to go.  We're trying to get a rebuild kit to take with us in case we have any problems along the way.  We know within the next year we're going to have to do something with it.  In the meantime, we'll just run on our port engine to be safe.  It's a good thing we have two engines!

The last few days have been spent running around for last minute parts, last minute shots and medications, getting visas and new military ids, etc.  Neither one of us feels 100% prepared but I don't suspect we ever will.  Emotions are on high.  This weekend we'll spend some time with family, last minute maintenance and then weather permitting, Wednesday morning we'll set sail for Ensenada.  It should be about a 12 hour sail.  The last time we were in Ensenada someone told me of the Global Mercado - about a 4 square block market.  But it was closed due to the Mexican Independence day.  I'm hoping this time we can make it there and buy any produce we might need and anything else I don't know I want, oops I mean need.  From there we're off to Isla Guadalupe to see the sharks (still without a shark cage)!

Once we head out I'll start the official homeschooling curriculum I bought.  I took a good look at it the other day and it looks like we'll sail through (no pun intended) some of it and strive to make the other parts interesting.  I don't see Jake sitting at the table for very long with lots of worksheets.  It does however, provide me with a cheat sheet of what I should be focusing on should I get lost.  There's lots of philosophies on homeschooling, most of which I can find some sort of validity in.  After we get a little more experience under out belts, I'll venture out and provide my 2 cents for anyone interested.

For all of my landlubber friends, take a good luck at the pictures here.  This should clear up any confusion on "what is a catamaran?"

On the hard! Not.

I was expecting to post cool pictures of the boat being hauled out today, but instead I'm posting a picture of our engine after it spewed oil everywhere.

Andy took the boat over to the boat yard this morning at Shelter Island.  He pulled in around noon and we had two surprises.  First, there was a racing boat on the only lift that can fit our boat, and that boat is too long/deep to put on a stand to free the lift for us.  After talking with the guy it turns out that this boat was towed in for emergency repairs and with any luck at all, we'll have ours pulled out tonight or first thing tomorrow.  They promise us we'll be out by Thursday as originally planned.

Secondly, and most important...right before Andy pulled into the yard, the oil pressure on the starboard engine went to zero.  After he docked, we opened up the engine compartment and there was oil everywhere and the dipstick was hanging out.  He did a little troubleshooting and decided to put more oil in and clean it up a bit to see what happened.  No more oil spewed out but after reading the various manuals and doing research on the internet, we're thinking (i.e Andy is thinking) we may have a problem that unfortunately I can't find a way to describe without insinuating many other things (ring job, blow by, engines loose, etc.)  So, tomorrow we're having a diesel mechanic look at it to get a second opinion.  Andy's handy, but he weary of the potential of such a big job. So stand by for more updates.  Hopefully tomorrow will come with much better news.  We're praying this doesn't turn into our first dip into savings and push back our departure date.

Remodeling - Part 2

Despite a rainy weekend and a cast on his foot, The Chief managed to finish Jake's room.  "We" still have to put down wood floors and build him another bookshelf, but I think it's safe to share the before and afters with everyone.  I've gotten a lot of questions about Jake and his "stuff" so I've elaborated a little on the details.

Before:

After:

For everyone who was worried about Jake giving away his toys, or not having enough room, or books, or clothes, or whatever you were worried about, rest assured, he has plenty room/clothes/toys/to do...sometimes I actually lose him in there (no, not on purpose)! Here are some pictures of the details...

Close up of his bed.  It's not really as big as the picture up top makes it out to be.  The Chief's camera has a funky lens on it that helps you see the whole thing.  For those that know us and have seen Jake's room in the past, you can see that we didn't make much of a dent in the yard sale on the stuffed animals.  The big ones found a nice new home, but the rest just had to share in our experiences.

Book shelf with a special bungee to keep everything from falling off when we sail.  LOTS of books!

Toys...Toys...and more Toys...  The white tubs and garbage truck are actually stored in those doors under his bed.  There's a ton of storage under there.  Behind that is a HUGE spinnaker sail.  If we moved that, we could fit Toys R Us under there.

Where you see the two blue baskets, we're going to put more book shelves to house all of his school stuff and the overflow of books we already have, which will eliminate one of the blue baskets.  The other one is for dirty clothes.

Last but not least is the closet.  I've been asked lots of questions about where we put our clothes.  Of course Jake's clothes are a third the size of ours, but you can see he has plenty of space.  We put baskets on each of the shelves with pictures of the clothes on the front so he knows what's in each basket and can find his clothes himself (as well as help with putting up the laundry).

And if you missed it, the theme of his room is...Boy. He couldn't decide between space, ocean, zoo, or monster truck.  So we did it all.  The fabric on the ceiling has spaceships and rockets.  The poster on the wall is full of sharks, and the hammock is full of animals in the ocean as well as any animal you could possibly find in the zoo (or Africa/Asia).

He's very pleased with his room, as am I.  Next stop....the Galley!

Happy Thanksgiving

Our first Thanksgiving on the boat was great.  While we missed our families in various other states, we enjoyed spending a quiet, relaxed day with just the three of us.  Our day began with cartoons, pancakes and bacon.  For "dinner" Andy rigged up the grill to cook our Turkey breast (wrapped in bacon...because anything wrapped in bacon is good) and I cooked the side dishes one by one in our tiny little oven...turning every 10-15 minutes to cook evenly (it heats from the back).  At the end of the day, the turkey and pecan pie was great, oyster stuffing pretty good, and broccoli/gruyere casserole tasty.

While we were making dinner, Jake occupied his time by drawing spaceships, volcanoes and fire.

Jake played on the front of the boat while we called family and began predicting Thanksgivings to come (my favorite comes with a lobster).  I ended the day with giving away the remainder of the pecan pie (Andy still hasn't forgiven me) to our neighbors getting ready for a weekend sail to Catalina.

I hope everyone had a very Happy Thanksgiving as we all continue to count our blessings and give thanks for those we love.

Main Salon - Before and After

As promised, I'm putting some before and after pictures out here of the main salon. We bought this boat from an older gentleman who had sailed around the world twice in her. She had/has every spare part you can imagine as well as very solid electronics and navigational equipment. But she didn't have much in the way of style. Hopefully, we've changed that. You be the judge.

Before:

After:

We (i.e. The Chief) ripped out all of the insides (including the heater) and added more seating and storage.  He added a new radio and cool little shelves.  We had new cushions made, refinished the table, and installed wood floors.  Since this picture, we've managed to improve on the windows and I, yes me, sewed some curtains.

This past weekend, with one foot, he managed to start and near completion on remodeling Jake's cabin.  I'm so lucky, a man with skills and ambition!  I was laid up in our cabin after Lasik Surgery (I said I was going to find a way to get taken care of) milking it for all I could.

I'm taking The Chief to get his cast off tomorrow and have really high hopes for this holiday weekend... installation of a new stove?  expansion of the refrigerator?  I'll keep you posted.


Update:  Cast off, another cast on...the foot is still broke :(  3 more weeks.  I'm not giving up on the new fridge though...

My introduction to "Blue" jobs

The Chief informed me last week that our zincs needed to be replaced...right away. Well, if anyone missed it, his foot is broke. Diving down under the boat is not on his agenda for at least another 4 weeks. Guess who he enlisted to do it? Me. I was both flattered and flabberghasted. I don't do ship's husbandry...I organize, clean, shop, cook. You know, the girl stuff, what they call "pink" jobs in the cruising world. But I am an equal opportunity kind of girl (and have read all the cruising books saying I need to learn "blue" jobs as well) so I agreed.

It turned out to be quite fun. The water was freezing and I did have an audience (apparently most of our dock wasn't quite sure I was up for it and had to see for themselves), however once I got down there and could see that indeed it wasn't rocket science, I actually enjoyed it. Usually when I dive, it's to look at fish or reefs or things along that nature and it's in 80 degree water in the Carribean. Diving in murky, cold water and actually accomplishing a task was something I had never done before.

Since I did so good on the first task, my "honey do" list has expanded to scrubbing the boat and cleaning the solar panels, ripping out the headliner in Jake's cabin, going to Home Depot to buy wood to replace the headliner, and then, get this...use the saw to cut the wood :). All while keeping my day job, taking care of the kid, cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc. Am I whining? Not intentionally. But I am gaining a healthy respect for all the things The Chief does that I take for granted. Now, when he's well, I think I'll fall down or something and return the favor ;)

One step closer....

We're finally done. We've moved out of our house and onto the boat...for good. The idea seems simple but the task itself was very complicated. It started with me getting vertigo about a week and a half ago. Not so good on land, even worse on a boat. Then, in the last week of packing, moving furniture to storage, loads and loads to the boat, piles of trash to the dump...Andy breaks his foot at work after shooting a special for National Geographic. I have a whole new respect for both single parents and men in general. I have to say that I prefer "woman's work." If I never have to move furniture again, load a truck, or drive a truck, I'll be ok with that.

The boat is an absolute mess though. We haven't even begun to find a place for everything. The head is temporary home to my scuba tanks while the navigation station is currently a garage for Jake's favorite garbage truck.

But we're living on the boat!!! We've been waiting for this for 10 years and it's finally here. While stressful, it was very liberating finally getting rid of all that "stuff" that we just had to have. The last 12 years of our life together was sold for less than $5000. But the freedom to just get up and leave at any time is priceless.

Pics of the boat

In all of my obsession with putting pictures on facebook and keeping my son's blog updated with pictures, I failed to realize that our sailing blog doesn't have any pictures of our sailboat.  So here they are.  It's a 40 ft Owen Easton Catamaran.  It was built in Australia and is made of aluminum.  There are two cabins forward and a head and "locker" aft.  The galley is down on the starboard side with a work area/navigation station on the port side.  There is surprisingly a lot of room and so far we haven't felt the pinch.  

We're making some changes on the inside.  I'll be sure to post those pictures as they're ready (I'm really just stalling...I can't find my camera).