A Sail of Two Idiots

by Renee Petrillo

  LESSON 9: SH** HAPPENS

  As I was chewing over that one, wondering what we were going to do, we got a notice from the State of Florida telling us we had about two weeks to get the boat out of Florida before we’d have to pay sales tax on it (about $18,000). We had been told upon closing that we had 90 days to move the boat out of the state (I think you may get 180 days now), but those days had passed in a blur. What now?

  We obviously weren’t ready to move the boat. Ten pages of things to fix or buy was eating up a lot of cash (with lots more to be spent). Our to-do list included our own desires, what had been on the survey, and the added things that Michael had found wrong since he’d moved aboard. We tapped our savings, and I did some creative financing, transferring money back and forth between two credit cards to keep us afloat (so to speak) and avoid hefty finance charges (ooooh, the frequent flyer miles we earned).

  LESSON 10: CA CHING! Here’s the biggest lesson of all. The quaint sayings you hear ad nauseum are true (and if you haven’t heard them, you will):

  B.O.A.T. = Break Out Another Thousand

  Yachting is just fixing your boat in exotic places

  The two best days of your life are when you buy your boat and when you sell it

  You get the idea. There is a reason why every boater quotes these phrases to you … repeatedly. Pay attention! You will fix your boat—a lot. You will spend money on your boat—a lot. You will be relieved when you sell your boat—a lot. However, you’ll also learn a lot, laugh a lot, and be the envy of all your friends … a lot.

  Here’s a portion of the B.O.A.T. list so you can get a feel for the fun we had from the get-go.

  Replace two of the severely crazed side windows ($2,000). We couldn’t see out of them, and you already know how I feel about that (if we wanted to be blind, we would have bought a monohull).

  Fix the wind sensors on top of the mast ($350, seller paid)—very important instrument that reports wind direction and wind speed.

  Replace the cushions with some incredibly badly sewn ones made with festive fabrics ($2,000). Seafoam cushioning is necessary, but it’s expensive and not very comfortable.

  Install new carpeting in some areas ($100).

  Replace all lights with LEDs for less amp usage ($100).

  Replace the swollen house batteries. We upgraded to absorbed glass mat batteries (AGMs), which were maintenance-free and longer lasting (and more expensive) than the more traditional wet-cell batteries ($1,500).

  Clean, clean, clean ($1,000).

  Pay for tools, repairs, food, et cetera ($$$$$$$).

  Michael may not be the handiest person, and he knew absolutely nothing about engines, but he was good at reading manuals and figuring things out and was able to muddle through quite a few projects. He had also moved aboard and had relocated the boat (with help) from the Fort Lauderdale docks to our broker’s slip in a pleasant Miami marina. (The broker and his wife were now our friends and were up north with their yacht.)

  With just two weeks left before we had to get the boat out of Florida, I decided to quit my job. I had to believe that our house would sell soon. And I needed to get on board and familiarize myself with the boat and its systems. I also needed to find a captain, since we were obviously not going to be able to learn enough (well, learn anything, truth be told) before we had to move the vessel out of state.

  Okay then. Take this job and shove … Actually it was more like take this job and keep my space open because I may be back.

  LESSON 11: PAST EMPLOYERS ARE YOUR FRIENDS Do not ever burn your bridges. You never know when a former employer can help you. We’ve benefited from that advice time and again.

  Before I left Arizona for Florida, I arranged to have our remaining bills paid via online banking, I canceled whatever mailings I could and rerouted the rest to friends or family willing to accept the stuff for us, I got Shaka all his shots and completed the necessary paperwork, and I did some final home and landscape maintenance—with scissors and knives since Michael had taken all the tools.

  I also sold my car, which was one of the most depressing things I had to do. I had an ancient Miata, which I loved. I actually cried when the new owner shifted gears and revved off down the street.

  The only thing left to do was pack, grab the cat, lock the door, mooch a ride to the airport, say good-bye to my friends, and hop on the flight that would whisk me toward a new awakening.

  5

  Ahoy, Matey!

  The anticipation! I had an interesting flight with Shaka, who had never been on a plane and was unhappily announcing our arrival all the way to the waiting area. I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw Michael grinning there. We barely recognized each other because we had both lost so much weight—he because he had been working his butt off for three months and me because I couldn’t cook and my chef had moved to Florida without me.

  He was giddy to show me the boat (and to get someone to help him with it, of course). In spite of my excitement, I was anxious and silent all the way to the marina. I cannot explain how bizarre it felt to walk up to a dock and see a 37-foot-long, 23-foot-wide, 9-ton catamaran, realizing that this is my new home, my new transportation, my new life. Were we crazy? Maybe, but it sure was exhilarating.

  The timing was good because our broker pals returned a week later to reclaim their slip. Then they helped us anchor in Biscayne Bay because, of course, we didn’t know how to set an anchor. It was such a different experience to just be floating out there like a … like a … well, like a boat!

  What’s in a Name?

  With many of the larger tasks out of the way and about a week left before leaving Florida, we decided to change the name of the boat. Many sailors warn you that this is bad luck. Should you decide to pursue this folly anyway, you are advised to do some weird rituals or risk the wrath of the sea gods. Not the superstitious types, we didn’t listen (hmmm, I think I’ve just had an epiphany).

  We changed the boat name to Jacumba. (Accepting Donations was in the running but was too long, although it would have been more apropos.)

  Jacumba is a town in California, and we had always liked the name. We had figured we’d give that name to our next kitty cat, but, well, this boat was a “cat,” wasn’t it?

  I decided to look up the meaning, thinking it surely had one, and incredibly found that it meant “hut by the water” in San Diegos Indian. How cool was that? Maybe the kismet of the name itself would cancel out the fact that we hadn’t completed the aforementioned name-changing rituals: we hadn’t spun the boat in three circles and hadn’t run it backward and forward 10 times, all while sprinting around the deck with nothing on but our anchor tattoos while flying our quarantine flag at half mast. Note: Said rituals vary.

  LESSON 12: VOODOO IS REAL If you change the name of your boat, you might want to heed the above ritual.

  Speaking of kitty cats, Shaka was doing amazingly well, much to our relief. He’d always been scared of engines (the car engine, for example), so I wasn’t sure how he would handle the loud wind generators, the outboard on the dinghy, and the two main engines, but he adapted as though he’d been a boat cat his whole life. Good kitty!

  Thanks … I Think

  Now that we were at anchor, we discovered a number of things wrong with the outboard on the dinghy (another problem of a sitting boat). Our main transportation on and off the big boat was a 12-foot inflatable dinghy with a fiberglass bottom. Our 9.9 horsepower outboard powered us when it felt so inclined. Although we had oars, we weren’t close to the marina and spent more time going in circles and yelling at each other than going where we wanted to go. Tip: Some people carry an extra dinghy motor; if you’ve got the space for it, it’s not a bad idea.

  Late one afternoon when we were relaxing after a long day’s work, we saw a woman floating away in a dinghy that was clearly having engine trouble. We weren’t sure we would be rescuing her if our engine died too and we floated into oblivion together, but we figured we’d give it a shot. Michael headed after her
while I stayed on Jacumba and close to the VHF in case I needed to summon help.

  After confirming that he was indeed dealing with a damsel in distress, he grabbed the towline (sometimes called a painter) of her dinghy and presumably headed to the woman’s floating abode. About 10 minutes later, he was still towing the other dinghy but in the other direction. Another 10 minutes and they were passing me again, both pulling madly at their dinghy motor cords. Of course, the sun was setting.

  LESSON 13: BE AFRAID Be very afraid when the sun goes down. Bad things almost always seemed to happen at sunset or in the middle of the night. Spooky.

  LESSON 14: CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? A handheld VHF can come in handy when you or your crew is away from the mother ship. Take it with you in your dinghy. We bought one after this incident.

  Michael finally managed to get our dinghy outboard going and then they disappeared again. When he eventually made it back to our boat (alone), he said the woman had taken a while to remember where the yacht she was crewing on had “parked.” See, anyone can be an airhead.

  LESSON 15: BUILD GOOD KARMA Nothing feels better than helping another boater. We were helped by so many people that we felt bad knowing we could never repay them. The thing is, boaters never expect repayment. They believe in the pay-it-forward method. You’ll help someone else down the line, and that’s how it’s possible for all of us experienced and inexperienced sailors to survive on the water. What a great philosophy.

  Final Preparations

  When we weren’t bringing bad luck upon ourselves or saving others from their own misfortune, we were buying every spare part we could think of, hoping we had covered everything. We wanted to make sure we could make all the outstanding repairs necessary, wherever we ended up. The clock was ticking.

  LESSON 16A: YOU CAN NEVER HAVE ENOUGH SPARES Carry as many spares as possible. If you can have at least two of something, then do. If starved for space, you will have to take a chance on what you think may go wrong and get parts unlikely to be found elsewhere. Our choices are included in the Observations and Lists at the end of the book.

  LESSON 16B: BE SHIPSHAPE Every single thing should be in top working condition when you leave your home port. Daily maintenance—a must—will keep you plenty busy, so don’t worry about saving projects for later to fill the time. New things will break, I promise!

  We also shopped endlessly for groceries and general sundries. We filled every nook and cranny on the boat with stuff we liked and were afraid we’d never find elsewhere.

  LESSON 17: YOU CANNOT HAVE TOO MUCH STUFF! General provisioning is an expensive exercise, but whatever you spend at home will be double the cost elsewhere. So if you want it, buy it. A lot of it. Chips, beer, paper towels, your favorite peanut butter, canned goods (labeled in marker on top). This is when you’ll be happy you bought a catamaran. Treat the goods that you buy like gold, because once you’re out of them, you may never see them again.

  We were once invited to a boat whose hostess offered us tostada chips with dip. We knew that these chips were a luxury and mentioned this with great appreciation. We were told that we were “chip-worthy.” We have used this excellent term ever since, because it couldn’t have summed it up any better. Sometimes I wasn’t sure if I was pretzel-worthy on my own boat, they were so rare!

  That said, don’t buy food you wouldn’t buy normally. If you didn’t eat pickled eggs while a landlubber, you probably won’t eat them while you’re a liveaboard!

  With our credit cards maxed out and our boat full to the brim, it was time to go. But where? We thought about heading to Georgia so we could keep working on the boat, but we were told we couldn’t live aboard there (we’ve since heard otherwise) and didn’t want to go any farther up the Intracoastal Waterway and away from the Caribbean. Winter was coming! We decided to head for the Bahamas. Why not?

  Casting Off

  6

  And We’re Off—Not

  Wahoo! We were going to the Bahamas—it’s better there (or so they say). Well, we were going to the Bahamas after we found someone to take us there. Based on a recommendation from our surveyor, we ended up with Captain Tim, a down-to-earth old salt and a vegetarian like us (or willing to be while he was on our boat). We didn’t double-check his credentials, but he was recommended, asked the right price, and was available.

  First we had to figure out exactly where in the Bahamas we were going. We needed to stay close to the United States so we could deal with home-sale issues. After reading Bahamas cruising guides, we decided that the Abacos (the most northern in the chain of islands known as the Bahamas) might be a good place to settle in. Green Turtle sounded promising as a long-term anchorage and became our final destination. Our captain had also done this route before, which made us all happy.

  Aiming for reasonable five- to six-hour days after the first long haul, Captain Tim chose the following route: Miami northeast to West End, at the west end of Grand Bahama Island (98 miles); northeast to Great Sale Cay (40 miles); east to Allans-Pensacola Cay (38 miles); and finally 25 miles southeast for the final hop to Green Turtle Cay. The whole trip would take three days. Three days to go 201 miles? Where’s my Miata! Well, it was certainly enough time to learn the ropes, so to speak, or at least some of them, which was the point, wasn’t it?

  We set a date to start out, November 5, and prepared to sail to our first stop, West End, Grand Bahama Island. I got busy studying the chartplotter (the electronic version of paper charts) and other electronics. I’m the computer geek in the family, so I automatically took on the task of electronically plotting the course and figuring out how all the navigation equipment worked. The only way we could pull off this sailing thing without lessons would be with the electronics: autopilot, radar, wind reader (anemometer), depth sounder, and chartplotter. Think about it. We could “sail” without ever putting the sails up as long as we understood these essentials. All set!

  Sunday, November 5, 2006: Off we go! Oh, wait, here comes a weather system. No go. Nor would it be until three days later. We obtained this bad news via NOAA weather broadcasts on our VHF radio (Wx channels) and were being advised by both Captain Tim and Stephen, who was in the nearby marina on Siyaya on the same make of boat as ours. We also had a small battery-powered single-sideband radio (SSB) that let us listen to Chris Parker, a meteorologist specializing in weather for boaters in the southern Florida to Caribbean areas. All said stay put, so we did.

  LESSON 18: YOU WILL WAIT FOR WEATHER—A LOT Repeat after me, “I will spend a lot of time waiting for weather.” This is one reason why the boating life is not quite as free as you think. If you’re retired and have nowhere to be, then you have no worries (although hurricane season will usually force a move). But many of us have a timeline, even if it is a three-year one, as we had. Look at the delay as an opportunity to get to know the other in-limbo boaters around you, the locals of the place you’re staying, and the points of interest of the land you’re anchored off, and/or utilize the time to work on your boat.

  Ah, yes, more time to work on the boat.

  Need Fuel?

  Before we could leave, we had to fill our two diesel tanks, about 90 gallons each. We didn’t know how to dock (Captain Tim wasn’t on the boat yet, and we were tired of bothering our friends on Siyaya), so when we discovered a way to get fueled mid-float, we couldn’t resist. We just stayed put while a tanker pulled up next to us in the harbor, tied off to us (rubber fenders are your friend), threw out some hoses, and filled our tanks. Now we knew how those military planes felt getting fueled in midair. It was cool, until the fuel overflowed into our anchor bin. As with a car, there is a specific place on a boat to insert the hose to prevent this, but we wanted to filter the fuel with a cone made for that purpose. So we opened the actual fuel tanks, located in the anchor locker, to make the filtering easier and the fueling faster. So fast, we spilled. We then cleaned the chain, the ropes, and the fiberglass. Now we were ready.

  So Thirsty

  Or not. The freshwater tanks sudden
ly started sucking air. Incredibly, most boats (at least older ones) have no way of monitoring the freshwater level in the tanks. It’s almost impossible to do so in a catamaran, particularly this one. We used the same water tanks for drinking and washing. We had a filter on our kitchen sink to allow us to drink worry-free.

  Okay, fine, we were out of water. We went to turn on the electric watermaker for the first time to “make” some (it converts salt water to fresh) and found that it didn’t work. Evidently all the pistons were shot because no one had “pickled” the system before taking it out of use. It would cost so much to fix that we decided to leave it broken.

  We had a rainwater catchment system—two rain gutters that ran down the outside of the salon (living area) directly into our water tanks. This would work beautifully—when it rained. We needed water now, and a lot of it.

  Just as with the fueling, the easiest method would have been taking the boat to the docks and using a water hose, but our inexperience kept rearing its ugly little head. That left filling six 5-gallon jerry cans with water and dinghying back and forth until we reached our 185-gallon capacity. Oy.

  Motor to dock, fill cans, load into dinghy, haul onto boat, empty into tanks, toss empty containers back into dinghy, motor back. Do it again … and again … and again … Our aching backs. Let’s fill the dinghy gas tank again while we’re there too, shall we?

  Once done, we turned on the faucets and were rewarded with … nothing. Just the constant whirring of our electric water pump, which was supposed to be bringing water to the faucets. Frickin’ Frackin’. We speed-dialed Stephen and were told we had an air pocket in the system. No problem. All we had to do was turn on all the faucets for a while … and release all that hard earned water?!