Maintenance

The Indian Ocean is not my favorite ocean! Perhaps there has been another blog post of the same name; this is not a fun blog post; or a feelings story. This is just a tally; an acknowledgment that our exhaustion after a year and a half of travel is well earned, and a shoutout to the folks who live that cruiser adage “it’s just what we do [for each other].” We’re not entirely done with the Indian Ocean, but we have certainly crossed it. These nine months on this ocean between Indonesia and South Africa were hard on Convivia and challenging for the crew but as my friend Diane told me a year ago, “The Indian is rewarding.” ...

A few days ago I was told that my dorades were dusty. The next day another person mentioned how dirty my decks were. And yet another person asked me why I had so much crap in my cockpit. All of these criticisms hit me deeply and personally and brought back every single boat insult ever slung my way. I emotionally fled to a perfectly polished tiny cottage where I could live alone in shiny silence with a hand blown glass vase full of pink peonies on the table and not a single crumb on the floor. ...

Our time in the boatyard was so long and the spectrum of emotions so vast, that I decided to make it into a little slideshow video. Enjoy!

We have been in the boat yard for two weeks now. Things are moving along at the expected pace (slower than I would hope, but reasonable for this oppressive climate). The boat is covered, and has its first coat of primer. The propeller shaft is off, the old swim ladder (which has been held captive by the Monitor for years now) is being removed and welded over. While we have the hull exposed, we are also adding glass around the keel (about 6mm at the widest point) and removing some blisters. ...

The sky feels too low here. That was my first and most enduring sentiment about Darwin. I also have an overwhelming desire to open my photo editor and drop the exposure, turn up the contrast, add a bit of saturation, and mess with the white balance. What Darwin lacks aesthetically, it more than makes up for in hospitality. On the business side, I have never had more things gifted to me. Including engine parts (small but significant, and delivered to my door), ice cream for the kids, tiny glass bottles with a scroll for messages, and rides. The kids are free on the busses, sailing club, and generally (it seems) anywhere there isn’t a specific kids price. ...

I feel like I’ve been moving at light speed for the last five days. We arrived in Cairns on Sunday. Unlike a lot of marinas in Australia, the arrival was really smooth. The marina left keys for us so we could access the showers and be free to come and go at night, and they were very relaxed about check in protocols. After 12 days of passage making (with one trip to shore on Maggie) we were more than eager to grab a familiar burger at Grill’d. It was nice to finally relax and get a full night’s sleep. ...

After nearly a year of gathering moss, Convivia and her crew are overcoming inertia and getting ready to cruise again. This week, we took advantage of the public holiday and school break and got Convivia out of the river and onto her anchor. Before we could do that though, there were a number of boat-list items that needed to be knocked off. Dodger repair Our dodger was hit hard during the big hail storm. Several large holes were punched in the old, brittle, windshield panes. We couldn’t go anywhere without fixing them. Unfortunately, this was a much larger task than it seemed at first blush. The old Sunbrela was worn out, and even if we could have salvaged it, the hardware was installed over the plexiglass, and the zippers were shot. The upshot was that the whole frame had to be remade. ...

When I talk about our time in Papeete (Tahiti) I am inclined to describe it as all work and no play. When one is bogged down with projects like the Frankenfold (a.k.a the mainfold from hell), it is easy to forget that much fun has also been had. So before elaborating further on All The Fun® allow me to describe this particular bit of boat owner’s misery. Frankenfold Convivia has had numerous small fresh water leaks since we bought her. These have been dealt with more or less as they came up, and along the way I have even managed to improve on the system. On passage we started to develop a leak at the kitchen faucet, the location and disposition of which made it very difficult to fix. The short term solution was to decommission the faucet. Plumbing then took top priority on my project list. I had plenty of time to think about how best to address the situation. I wanted to remedy the existing problem and also make a substantial improvement to the overall stability of our ship’s pressurized water system. Ultimately this would have meant removing all of the hose and replacing it with Sea Tech hose. This being the middle of nowhere, I was not holding out of that. Plan B was to replace as many of the nylon fittings as I could and add a manifold as close to the pump as possible. After several (though it seemed like several hundred) trips to several hardware and marine stores, I was able to get all of the part together and complete the project. The result (as seen below) is not beautiful, but it works and solves a problem that would have been inevitable had I not taken the time. ...

Well we have covered about 3000 miles since we left Mexico and as any passage maker can attest, stuff breaks. I was actually kind of surprised by what broke and, by and large, how quickly and easily it was repaired. Most of our damage was small, interior, and caused by our kids. I left a lot of the little stuff off this list because it was already getting long. A few of the breaks were avoidable, and we have learned some good preventative maintenance lessons (like don’t let the sails flog at all). The remainder was either just old boat stuff, or general maintenance. ...

We have been living on dirt for a week now and it’s not as totally weird as I thought it would be. Of course, I have been working on the boat every day, so it’s not like Convivia and I are estranged, but it is strange to watch the kids spread out all over this little house like gas (filling all available space). The boat was supposed to splash on Friday, but they found hundreds of blisters and they had to be dealt with. The yard has been great. Their staff have helped me through countless hardships and even lent me tools (an unheard of generosity in the realm of boatyards). ...

We are about a month away from setting out across the largest ocean on the planet. The list of things to do; for the boat; for the kids; for us; just gets longer but we are confident that we will be able to make the trip safely and comfortably. This week we are working on the haul-out. We got an insanely high quote last week, and then subsequent tips from fellow cruisers gave us renewed hope that we might not have to spend a fortune for a few coats of paint and some holes in the hull. Once we figure out where and when to haul, we have to decide what we are going to do with the family. Depending on where we haul out we may be able to live on Convivia, but do we want to? Living on a boat “on the hard” means no grey water, no potty, and a 15’ drop if anything or anyone falls off the deck. It most likely means a lot of eating out. Right now I am leaning towards a cheap apartment or hotel for the week that Convivia is out of the water. ...

We just sailed through our one hundred and first day. In this time we have begun to set the routines, behaviors, and mentalities that will be the foundations of our cruising lifestyle. After 101 days I can say with confidence that, while I haven’t experienced everything (who has) I am most definitely a cruiser, and I know that this life choice was the right one. As with any milestone (and this one is arguably more arbitrary than most), I thought I would take a moment to publicly reflect on what life looks like at 101. So here, in no particular order, are some thoughts: ...

This was a pretty productive weekend. I had hoped to get started on the Monitor install but instead got all of the New England Ropes (Dyneema) halyards run as well as one of the genoa sheets. I had a very simple method planned for swapping out the old halyards. I was going to tape the old halyard to the 5mm Dyneema®, run it back up the mast, over the sheave and down. Then I thought I would just tape the new halyard on and run it back up. I tried it Friday night and it worked great until the new halyard got back up to the sheave. Apparently the tight turn was too much for the tape and the halyard and 5mm fell back down. ...

Today I got home to find several large boxes waiting for me. Okay, true, I did have to walk 1/4 mile up to the marina office to pick them up, and I did have to call Ed (the security guard/awesome guy) to let me into said office and then wheel those large boxes back to the boat; artistic license. In said boxes were: a) A Ukulele. Which I have been wanting for a long time but didn’t quite get over the hump until Merileigh (our boat neighbor) got one. ...

I just got a note from Kevin at New England Ropes. Our Dyneema® line will ship from the West Marine rig shop today. With any luck they will arrive before the end of the week. I should be able to get at least the sheets installed before the long weekend. If so we’ll be able to test our new vang and some beautiful new line on our long weekend cruise. That will take some of the sting out of not getting the Monitor installed.