Almost Chewed in Two

We have been shore (at home) for 22 days now and today is supposedly the day the mast ships from Gainesville, Fl to the yard. We are not sure how long it will be in transit but every day on the truck leaves room for damage or outright destruction. We will keep the optimistic face on this one and hope for a delivery the first of next week.


We will have been ashore long enough to require almost full provisioning of our house plus some supplies for the boat. Now, we start winding down the house and its provisions and start the transition to the boat once again. That goes for the mental side of things too. I almost have the leash chewed in two and am really looking forward to boarding Why Knot again. It so happens that during our time at home, several sailing magazines have arrived. There were several articles reflecting the transition to the liquid world. Most of them discuss built in “holds” where the crew stop for a rest or to make repairs. Hopefully, by the time Why Knot swims again, we will have eliminated many of the failure possibilities. Although one cannot foresee mechanical challenges or even crew needs for furthering experiences, we learned a great deal over the past month. As one fellow put it, get over the last incident and move on to make others. I am guessing here that, as we said in an earlier post, there will be at least one challenge per day that does not appear in the frilly articles about cruising.

While we do not have a dog or cat aboard, we do have a pet, of sorts. I have been trying to catch it to no success. I thought I did him in about a month ago but noticed him (guessing gender here) just as we left the boat in the yard. He is quick, quiet and demands nothing of us. Certainly he takes up very little room and he likes to play hide and seek with me. He is a spider that lives in the cockpit. He is not one of those messy types and as far as I can tell, does not do webs. He is fuzzy and sort of cute although one never knows which eye to look into. Having said that, I do plan to unship him when go aboard again. Why, you ask? One such critter tried to, as the Captain of Rima once said, liquefy his face. It was the cause of a medical hold while they were on the East coast.

The Go Box

Anticipating a return to Why Knot next week sometime, we are starting what we call the “go box”. For folks with senior moments, it is a way to take things aboard that have rambled across our thinking at some point before we actually climb aboard. If you ever jumped in the car, drove to the grocery store and forgot why you went, you know what I mean. There is nothing quite like ordering a doodad which was deemed to be an absolute necessity then upon arrival at the boat, you remembered it was on the floor in the kitchen at home 500 miles away. It was on the floor so as not to forget it. So, our way of dealing with such is to take a go box. In this case, said box was started last week. It includes electrical, mechanical and soft stuff. As we remember stuff, we swing by the box and deposit same. So far, it is only about the size of a small suitcase but we still have a week to go. Who knows what will wind up in that box? There are some frequent travelers in the go box. For instance, that very nautical canvas bucket has been on and off Why Knot at least 4 times and has made its way back and forth via the go box.


In anticipation of more time underway, we are searching for directions to marlinspike fancywork called St. Mary’s coxcomb or Spanish coxcomb. It is a method of using line to completely wrap a handrail or in our case the handle of our dock pole. If you have ever been aboard a war ship or a proper sailing vessel from the 19th century or older, you might recall seeing how the crew covered much of the handrails and vertical grab bars with really fancy line weaving. I am thinking it was not so much to present fancy marlinspike but to cover up that which needed regular polishing. In the absence of a grip on our dock pole, that might make a very reliable way to keep from committing the pole to the deep as we did in Houma. We tolerate no fancy floating aluminum store bought dock pole aboard Why Knot (except for the secret standby one hidden in the port locker).

By the way, I am published, well sort of. My essay on The Call of the Sea appears in the current issue of Seafaring Magazine, aka, Latitudes and Attitudes. It might help explain a few things.

Still chewing on the leash but we are getting closer to freedom. More later.

Peanut Butter

About the closest one can come to preparing a boat for a lengthy time away is to take all your closets and kitchen stuff and put them in a small bathroom along with bedding. Those who RV face the same problem when making ready for a long vacation with the difference being that there are no square places or storage lockers on a boat (remember boats have a fat end and the pointy end?). With the exception of our voyage to Veracruz, Mexico in ’05, we have kept WK fairly stripped of stuff, ready to receive guests and light for faster speeds.

For this adventure, the first thing that we realized is that we have a blivet (five pounds of stuff in a four pound bag). We held a crew meeting (the entire crew, both of us) and decided that we must convert one of our cabins and one of our heads (not the device but the whole compartment) to storage lockers. Wherever possible the heavy stuff must be stowed low in the boat and as near to the centerline as possible. Paper towels can go anywhere, but not the wine locker. That gallon jug of vinegar cannot go up high in a galley cabinet. Actually, it fits in the toilet in the converted head quite nicely but that may be too much information. Another consideration is to imagine how the cabin would look in the event of a knockdown. A knockdown is when waves, wind or stupidity cause the boat to roll horizontally so that the mast hits the water. Picture rolling your house over on its side. Then picture being in the middle of the kitchen when that happens. To minimize collateral damage to the crew, a locker with a latch is a good thing. Our converted head has a very nice latch and I am sure it will contain the stuff we put in there in the event of a knockdown. Hey, it could happen.

That aft guest cabin is now our garage. Originally, we just stacked stuff there without a loading plan based on frequency of use of the stuff in there. We did do an inventory so we can at least find the right compartment where we stowed stuff, but again not planned. Hey Bear, where did it put the dooderflam? Gee, dear, I have no idea?  And then comes the question that always comes after that:  "Where did you leave it?"  Huh?  I whip open the inventory program and learn it is in the garage, but where? After removing almost everything in that place, I find it in the very darkest part of the garage, way in the back. Since we will use the dooderflam often, it goes to the front of the garage. Later that same day, the same thing happens as I attempt to locate something else. This is an ongoing process and stuff gradually works its way into the right order. In the process of inventory restack, I am finding stuff I have not seen since we bought Why Knot. Thus another level of entertainment is born.

 midship head conversion

guest cabin/ garage to the left

Hopefully we will soon be in warmer weather (that global warming thing). That means that we will gain some space aboard because we will convert to warm weather clothes. Tee shirts and shorts are way less bulky than parkas and muck lucks. The triple thick duvet, apologies for using that word, will be replaced by something a tenth as thick.

A good friend on the west coast has a great deal of sea time. He actually campaigned a Soling in the1960’s attempting to join the Olympic team. He has several Pacific crossings and a number of Farallon Island races out of San Francisco. He keeps asking about our peanut butter. I did not pay much attention to the question but we do have peanut butter aboard, two jars in fact. We actually like peanut butter but not over some of the other provisions aboard. You see, just like the submariners of old, stuff gets stowed, yes even in the galley, in anticipated order of usage. The crews of those “Pig Boats” started voyages eating the stuff on top of the pile, usually the fresh stuff that would spoil. Toward the end of the patrols, they were down to Spam (which by the way, I like) and peanut butter. PB tends to be at the back of the cabinet. As he put it, when the crew is at sea, and the ice and wine are exhausted, most likely the galley will be bare too. It is too far to make a port just to lay in ice or bread, then the crew resorts to meals of PB. Most likely the bread will also be depleted so spoons come into play. Picture this: a hot windless day at sea. The sun is in full bake mode and the galley is bare except for the liquid jar of peanut butter. “Bear, what’s for breakfast?” That is a good reason to avoid long ocean passages. Maybe I will perfect, ahead of need, a recipe of Spam and peanut butter. Yummy. My friend said that until that happens, one cannot claim to be a true cruiser. So let me see, one must dismast, spend the night aground in a receding tide and at some point run out of food to be considered a “cruiser”. Methinks that if and when the latter happens, I might well become a solo sailor. I am thinking the Bear might just consider that type of cruising a bit too Spartan.  And so it goes.

Miss Carolyn

A rare sight without barges

Repair update:  Mast ships Friday, Bow rail Wedensday.  Canvas is being repaired.  We may return to New Orleans as soon as next week. 

Planning Ahead to the 19th Century

Since our first sailboat on the coast, some 18 years or so, we have looked forward to charging to Port Aransas at every opportunity. Our first salt water boat, a 24 feet Seidelmann, had only about 4 feet of head room. We ran around below on our knees. It was comfortable for that size boat but it had no refrigeration, air conditioning or heat, no generator, a chemical RV type head and only cold water, and not much of that. I remember making a quantum leap in luxury aboard Lady J as she was known.  One winter night while at Port Lavaca, I whipped by Wallyworld and bought a small space heater and a really long extension chord.  Once warm below, I did not see Bear topside for the rest of the weekend.

Our next boat was a Cal 28, a vast improvement in creature comfort and performance. It had a/c, hot and cold water, a small galley and even a shower. She was a beauty. We had no plans to sell her. One day, whilst aboard in a three day rain, we decided to get off the boat and go yard walking. We were not looking for a boat, just looking to see the variety of boats in the yard. There were dozens of boats, both loved and abandoned of all types. It was in that yard, on a rainy day that we saw a Gulfstar 40 Sailmaster. She was in bad shape but being renovated. Her hull had been skinned, meaning that all the gel coat had been removed. It took some fine imagination to see “the possibilities” of her, but we did. We spent those five years literally replacing every mechanical system aboard, including the engine. She was great fun to sail and the problem was staying awake offshore. She was heavy and slow but very sea kindly. We kept her for about five years and had no plans to sell her. Then we learned Why Knot was for sale! I know by now you are seeing a trend here but it ends here. IF we do not destroy her in the process, Why Knot will sail under us, as I said at the head of this blog, until we cannot.

That brings us to today. One would think that since the boat is in the yard, there is nothing for the crew to do. Not so. Anticipating getting underway in a couple of weeks or so we begin the process of checking weather trends for future ports of call. We also start reviewing the charts and unlike sailing in the GIWW, aka “doing the ditch”, we will be in bays and in the Gulf where we will have proper sea room for actual sailing. Friends who have gone before are telling us about great anchorage, restaurants, marinas and historical stuff along the way.

Ship Island and Fort Massachusetts, Mississippi

Shore Battery in Galveston

Speaking of historical stuff, I noticed a reference to a fort on Ship Island in Mississippi Sound. That is one of the suggested anchorages from friends and the guide books. Being a wee bit of a history freak, I started to research the fortifications along the Gulf. Most Port A. folks know there were batteries guarding the ship channel during WWII. They were earthen gun mounts and they were on the two largest dunes next to the jetties. While in Galveston, I noticed a huge bunker partially buried between some hotel and the seawall. One in the Dry Tortugas is Fort Jefferson. We visited it when we were aboard Liberty Call, then berthed in Key West. Google Fort Jefferson for the history of that place. Think sixteen million bricks!

There were forts guarding the approaches to most Gulf ports. They were part of The Third System started in 1816. Some of them still stand today and several were in service through WWII.  Eureka, I have found motivations to go ashore on some of the islands of the Gulf. The main challenge, other than mosquitoes is convincing the Bear to accompany me. She has not been so inclined since I talked her into hiking to see Pass Cavallo lighthouse on Matagorda Island a few years ago. It had something to do with being waste deep in a Vietnam style slimy swamp and seeing the snake. It wasn’t really that big of a snake but to her all snakes are big killers. We (most likely I) will dive headlong into the Third System along the way. 

A couple of very good information sources:

http://andy_bennett.home.mindspring.com/coastal.html

http://www.nps.gov/guis/historyculture/index.htm