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

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 very nice; I hope to meet many more Daniellas in my life. Also later that evening, I tried and failed to use the watergun on a bird that had landed on the boat. Jem took the opportunity of the filled watergun to squirt it in my face, "to check the range." Jem should sleep with one eye open for the rest of my stay with him.

The next day, after leaving the fuel dock, we motored out of Cartagena, joining the ranks of speedboats going out for the motoring equivalent of a daysail. On our way out, we passed four optis being coached by three instructors on a single motorboat. It looked fun, but I did not approve of this inefficient use of staff. As the waves built a bit, I started to feel a little seasick, so I popped a few Gravol and took some ginger tea, both of which helped immensely. Minor thought about wording: "I take seasickness tablets and herbal tea" sounds way better than "I drink and do drugs to cope."

The first couple of days of any sailing trip are always the worst, because your body hasn't adapted to the boat's movement, nor to the strange sleep schedule. Because Anna is here, the time in between watches has doubled, so I can potentially get 6 consecutive hours of sleep instead of the 3 that I got in the St. Vincent-Panama crossing. This rarely happens, however, as sleep conditions aren't ideal, as large waves tend to toss you and your stomach around, and, as the boat slams into waves (and this happens a lot going upwind, as the wave direction is against you), the hull acts like the inside of a giant drum and makes things very loud, despite use of earplugs. Furthermore, when it's windy, you tend to be woken up at least once a night outside your watch to either tack or reef a sail. In conclusion, eye bags are prevalent.

Jem's weather app had predicted an eight-day sail, with the first few days having light winds. You know by now that the first part was wrong. The second part was wrong as well. This is especially true, as, due to a nasty physics trick, when you go upwind, the wind speed that the sails feel is stronger than the actual wind speed, sometimes by almost 10 kts (20 km/h). When winds become too high, the sails have a chance of breaking, and so we reduce the sail area--this is called "reefing." Most reefing mechanisms on this boat are easy: you pull one line, you loosen another, and voila, your sail is smaller. There is one notable exception: the 2nd reefing point in the mainsail has no line attached to it. It is partially due to this that Jem has in fact never used this second reef. However, second reefs are good, because the only alternative in 27-kt winds is to have no mainsail at all. And so, on Sunday, we improvised a reefing line by attaching a carabiner to a short bit of line. Thus was repeated the splashy process described two posts ago of climbing the bottom 3m of mast in order to attach the carabiner to the reefing point. Then came the ordeal of tying the end somewhere to make it hold. First I tied it to the boom, but it slipped. Then I tied it around a cleat, but it also slipped. Finally, I tied it with a bowline to a metal bracket that helps guide the lines going from the cockpit into the mast. This was most definitely not the bracket's intended use, but the bowline held (although it did look look slightly stressed, like the knot equivalent of someone taking a math final).

Altogether, in 13 days, we changed the sail configuration 20 times. Three of these included taking in a second reef in the mainsail. One of these was during the dead of the night, and as we turned into wind to lower the sail, I got smacked in the head a couple of times by the very large genoa sheets (lines to control the genoa angle). Luckily, my glasses stayed on, and Jem finally got the boat at an angle that allowed me to complete the maneuver.

Sunday night, I was woken up because we were caught in a gale and, ironically, were headed straight towards Santa Marta, our original destination before the Cartagena situation. Winds were at 33 kts. After our various layers of gear had been put on, winds had increased, and we performed a surprisingly painless tack in 40 kts of wind, just 20 nm (40 km--the precise conversions are in the "Miscellaneous" page) off Santa Marta. Much to my annoyance, the winds decreased back to 33 kts almost immediately after we finished.

Lack of sleep takes a toll on the psyche as well. At some point, I started hallucinating my actions. I was on night watch at 2am, and wanted to turn the volume of my music down. I went through all the actions: moving the muscles to lift my arm, reaching for my phone, pressing the "volume down" button twice with my thumb (hearing the buttons click), and slowly laying my arm across my stomach. But I was confused; the music volume hadn't gone down. Then I realized that my arm was still in its original position, and I had imagined the whole thing. As I had done when I was sleep-deprived on the St. Vincent-Panama crossing and saw a gargantuan 4m wave rise menacingly above the stern of the boat, I said, "Huh." and went back to doing whatever I had been previously occupied with.

The one thing possibly more adventurous than sailing a boat in wavy conditions is cooking on a boat in wavy conditions. Tuesday, Anna and I decided to make spaghetti with ragu for dinner, and egg salad for lunch. We decided to start the ragu early because everything takes twice as long in 3m waves. Picture the scene: I am standing at a counter chopping onions with a knife that is too large to be used safely when you stumble every few seconds. Anna is mashing boiled eggs while sitting on the floor, because it's more stable there. Anna hands me some parsley to be chopped. Some of the parsley does not make it to the cutting board. There is bread being toasted under the oven's grill, and the oven door is precariously cracked open. I have chopped one of my two onions. I must now take the cutting board, turn around, walk two steps to the other side of the kitchen where the pot is (there is no room on my side of the counter), and tip the chopped onion in the pot. I turn around, and make it one and a half steps. A wave hits. The onions make it into the pot only with the help of Anna. Anna returns to the floor. I check on the toast. It is burnt. I must now flip it. I attempt to pull the oven rack out slightly to be able to access the bread. A wave hits, and the entire rack falls out. I attempt pick up the rack. Another wave hits, and the oven door closes, spilling the bread onto the bottom of the oven. Again, with Anna comes to the rescue and holds the oven door open long enough for me to be able to grab the toast with chopsticks (because that's what was in reach), flip each slice, place them all on the rack again, and reinsert the rack into the oven. Anna returns to the floor. I return to my second onion. The precarious onion transfer is repeated. And finally, the toast is ready. We have succeeded.

Tuesday afternoon, I turned all 88 eggs. We used to have 95, but one was cracked and we ate 6 others in the sandwiches. Throughout the trip, the egg number slowly decreased to 74, then 60. We currently have approximately 40 eggs. Tuesday evening, when we cooked the ragu, due to the lack of ventilation, the windows steamed up. This may have contributed to the overall dampness, although not by much; at this point in time, all hatches and windows leaked, and there was water getting onto the main floor, possibly through somewhere near the mast. The bottom two thirds of my bunk was wet. Luckily, Heaven's Door is a big boat, and my bunk has a nearly queen-sized mattress, and so I developed a sleeping method in which I cocooned myself in my still-dry sheets and laid along the head of the bed, in a position that somewhat resembles the semi-prone recovery position (used on unconscious people) for wave stability, but slightly more cramped, due to the length restriction. This allowed me to stay relatively dry, with the exception of my pillows that became damp because everything becomes damp. Also, there were leaks in both cupboards under my bed, and all of my clean clothes were wet. Sometimes, when I was bored, I would watch the extent to which the ceiling mold had spread over the last few days. (Jem reassured me that as long as it was this damp, the spores couldn't get airborne, so I had nothing to worry about.)

By Wednesday, my morale was low. Every day, Jem's wind prediction app would predict a trip lasting one day more than before. What little morale that was left was held up solely by food. In my log, I wrote, "Night watch is an excuse to eat a cookie at 1am. What used to be labelled as a 'poor life decision' is now an 'efficient energy booster'." Also, in an excellent turn of events, Anna took up the hobby of making pita bread. By the way, I heard that Anna's mom reads this blog. Hello! Your daughter is doing great, although she may have picked up a Quebec swear word or two.

A few things broke on this part of the crossing. The first to go was the stitching of one of the outdoor bags. This was easily repaired with a sail repair kit, which includes thread that you wax, a large, three-sided needle, and a sailmaker's palm, which is essentially the thimble's gym rat brother. The next thing to go was, more concerningly, the fresh water system. One night, I turned the water pump on, and, although no taps were on, water started gushing out somewhere, draining half the tank. Luckily, it turned out to only be a broken fitting on a hot water pipe in the engine room where the water maker is. That valve was turned off, and we had fresh water again. The final thing break happened just as the winds were starting to lessen, which made the repair much easier. Trampolines, in addition to making for a comfortable seating area during calm seas, have the quite important role of breaking up waves so that, as they go over the deck, they don't have enough force to break the boat. Wednesday afternoon, a third of the plastic slides that hold the trampoline to the deck had broken on both sides, the starboard one due to wear, and the port one due to the fact that the snubber, an anchor chain attachment consisting of two heavy, two-inch-wide lines attached to an enormous hook, had come undone and had ripped through the lines on the side. We took advantage of the two hours that it took to stop and make the repairs to open the hatches and ventilate the boat.

On this part of the crossing, I finished reading Windfall: The End of an Affair by William F. Buckley Jr. When I started, I didn't know that the author was a prominent US republican, and he unfortunately wrote about various career stories throughout what was supposed to be a book about sailing across the Atlantic ocean. There were, however, some amusing vintage sailing pictures of men at sea wearing polos, khakis, and, of all things, socks. I haven't worn socks in months. Jem hasn't worn socks in years.

That's the end of Part 1. Part 2 will arrive shortly.