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At Least we Didn't Die: A Non-Exhaustive List of Things that can go Wrong on a Boat Trip, Part 1

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Location: Simpson Bay Lagoon, Sint Maarten Unfortunately, approximately half of my worldy possessions grew moldy. Fortunately, I had the time of my life. A lot has happened in the past couple of weeks. This story will be divided into three posts: Part 1, which consists of the departure from Cartagena and the wavy part of the crossing during which things got damp, Part 2, which is the peaceful part of the crossing during which I saw many constellations, and Part 3, consisting of the semi-wavy part of the crossing during which a few more things broke and the arrival. I also attempted to write all three parts in two days, and so I apologize in advance for the lack of editing. Shortly after I made my previous post using supermarket wifi, we filled two carts worth of food. One of the cashiers at the supermarket helped us bring it to the boat. Later that evening, Daniella, our Cartagena agent, passed by with our passports and gave us some adorable keychains as a goodbye gift. Daniella was ve...
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The End of an Era

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Location: Montreal, Canada Yesterday I had my third PCR test in three weeks. This time, the swab was self-inserted. We love new experiences. Anyway, back to Antigua. As the boat was going to be hauled out, all of the food had to be taken out and stored in the house. There was an impressive amount of truffle-related products, including a truffle-infused soy sauce. There were also four cupboards' worth of spices. Cleaning the upper cupboards required climbing on top of various counters and standing in strange poses; in one case, I had one foot on the starboard counter, the other on the port counter, and I was hunched over with my upper back touching the ceiling. My six-foot-tall crew members who had never had to do this were slightly unnerved. More cleaning of the boat included scrubbing the deck and polishing the fiberglass. Cleaning the teak deck involved scrubbing it with a mixture of water, cleaner, oxiclean, and a heavy acid that really burned in your cuts. (Apparently, the acid...
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A Rather Angry Sidenote

Hello. I was initially going to make this topic a single paragraph, but I've decided to dedicate a whole post to it. The next post, in which I fly home after we haul out the boat, can wait a bit. I don't have any pictures this time. I do, however, have funny stories to tell about certain middle-aged men and their unfortunately non-platonic interest in me. So last week we have a party at the crew house. We’re having some great food, people are putting on nice music, we’re all dancing, life is great. This one guy in particular has been absolutely tearing up the dancing floor. He's got great energy. He’s approximately fifty years old, has a few kids, and has a small business as a massage therapist. I love talking to him and his wife; they're laid-back, easy-going, and funny. They're not originally from the West Indies, but they really have that Caribbean vibe. At some point, the guy says, "let's put our feet in the water, the water's healing." Hell ye...
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Son of a Bilge!

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Location: Antigua Damn, it's been a week. There have been good parts and there have been bad parts, but the main takeaways are that boats are great but bilges suck. The unfortunate reality of boat life is that every week you say goodbye to people. Last weekend, it was Flora's turn. She would fly to Miami to be flown afterwards by private jet to a private island in the Bahamas that she would co-manage. Talk about a sweet gig. We started her last day with an extravagant brunch. David and Kyle's dishes were served on plates the size of platters, and included four eggs, bacon, hash browns, an enormous serving of baked beans, and mushrooms. They finished almost all of it and went into a food coma almost immediately afterwards. After a long nap, we went to a local bar for all of Flora's friends to be able to make their goodbyes. Flora has many friends. There were at least twenty people spread out across several tables, with more arriving by the minute. Also, Bryce came back! ...
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Anti-ga-ga

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Location: Picadilly, Antigua Well folks, my time on Heaven's Door is over for now. Jem has invited me to visit him when he visits French Polynesia, but that's still in awhile. In the meantime, I have months' worth of memories of sailing, being, at anchor, and watching sunsets at sea. Jem has moved back into the boat! We moved everything over the course of two days. Unfortunately the rainy season had started, and those two days happened to be the most humid and disgusting ones of the week. I dearly missed the apartment's AC, but it was nice seeing the boat getting cleaned up and everything put in its proper place again, the exception being the ceiling boards, which are now in the hallway of the starboard hull. Anna and I left a few traces of our passing on the boat. We both filled in entries in Jem's crew book, in which every crew member writes at the end of their stay. Anna also left some notes on sail theory that she had tacked up, and I left a watergun that I had ...
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Sailing to France, Splashing Heaven's Door, and Packing a Box of Eggs

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Location: the apartment next to Lagoonies, Sint Maarten This time, I really need to keep this post short, because I only have an hour to write it. Of course, this is entirely my fault; I could have written it two days ago when I had an entire half day free, but I chose to watch four hours of TV instead. In my defense, the show was "Below Deck," which is a reality TV show about people working on a megayacht, so it was somewhat on-theme. Too dramatic, though; if it weren't filmed, half the crew would probably be fired by now. Heaven's Door is back in the water! The fiberglass work is done, the windows and hatches have been re-sealed, the engines have been replaced, Jem's nerved have been fried, the deck has been cleaned, and she looks absolutely beautiful! Of course, the engines had a few more problems, the replacement winches haven't arrived, and half of the ceiling is on the couch (they needed to access underneath), but she's doing great. Yesterday, as I t...
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Wednesday Night's Alright

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Location: apartment in Sint Maarten Hello! Things are going well. I've started settling into life here. I've made friends with the ladies running the local corner store. The boss's name is Lovely and I speak to her in English, Hong is a cashier and I speak to her in a mix of English and terrible Mandarin. Lovely and Hong speak to each other in Cantonese. Lovely has told me that I look like "a handsome young boy" and Hong has told me that I look fifteen. They sell cheap fresh vegetables and have an excellent selection of Oreo's. It's a great place. A week or two ago, Fly's mother had given me some chai. Unfortunately, we ran out and the Chinese place didn't stock any, so on Wednesday Anna and I decided to go to Carrefour to pick some up. Jean had a medical appointment at 10am in Phillipsburg and offered to drop us off on the way there. At 10:05, he dinghied into Lagoonies, where his car was kept. With him was his friend who was still drunk from the ...
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