Being comfortable at sea

1º 38.627s 126º 25.438w

Wed May 01 2019

Isabel’s dad always emphasized comfort when sailing or seeking a protected anchorage. At the time I didn’t quite get it. He had a Maxi 38’ monohull, a nice mid-cockpit boat with in-mast furling, big master cabin aft, and a decent V-berth where we slept when we came to visit. Great marinized version of an RV, but in a rolly anchorage it wasn’t fun, and Isabel’s mom wasn’t happy. Best to keep Sue happy - best to seek a well protected, comfortable anchorage AND to avoid sailing in messy conditions.

A couple days ago, Thad, Isabel and I were getting really tired of the salt water spray, the sneakers that would occasionally nail us even in our well protected cockpit, the irregular and large swells on the port beam that were rolling us and making moving around difficult. It was sticky and stuffy with the hatches all closed. We mused that while there might be a few folks who were envying our Pacific passage adventure, if they could be here now they’d think it sucks. We certainly did.

Fortunately that day passed, the seas mellowed, the wind came round a bit, and yesterday was an absolutely spectacular day of sailing. Feeling chuff about our equatorial crossing, we had a great time and the misery of the previous day faded from memory.

There are points of sail where JollyDogs is happier than others. A lot of it has to do with the seas; whether we’re pushing into them, whether it’s a short period or long period swell, whether choppy wind waves are building on a freshening breeze, whether we’re close hauled or deep downwind.

I just rolled up the screecher, hardened up the main and fired up the port diesel. It’s just about midnight and my patience is running thin with flukey wind that can’t make up its mind regarding how hard to blow and from which direction, on top of beam seas that roll us every few seconds. We’ve been sailing deep downwind with the main way out and the screecher bulging, and the rolling action was beginning to beat the crap out of the sails. Given the wind conditions our VMG (velocity made good to the waypoint) was getting below 3 knots, my own personal threshold of pain, as the best we could point was about 20 degrees off course and keep the sails filled.

Well, sails aren’t cheap and we’ve got a little diesel to spare. Now we’re laying the course, the screecher is furled, the main ain’t flappin’ and the seas are aft of the port beam. We don’t really care for the noise of the diesel, but by golly it’s now comfortable. Thad and Isabel should be able to sleep, and that’s imporant too.

Thad and I will launch the Parasailor at dawn tomorrow and we’ll be able to point directly down the course line to our next waypoint. The seas will be aft. We’ll put the autopilot on wind mode and let the Parasailor look after itself. Low stress sailing. Our kind of sailing. We’re not racing out here, we’re cruising.

Personal defense and the illusion of safety

0º 30.452s 125º 45.407w

Tue Apr 30 2019

Isabel and I used to live in a nice neighborhood in Chandler, a burb of Phoenix, Arizona. Firefighters, paramedics and the police were about a two minute call away. It was perhaps a ten minute flight to a Class One trauma center. It all created an illusion of safety and security. Nevertheless there was a gang shootout in a neighborhood park a mile from our home. I called it in myself. There was also a murder of an early morning runner about two miles from our house - part of a gang initiation. A very close friend was kidnapped from his home and had to kill one of his assailants with his own concealed weapon so he could escape. Score one for a highly trained and discipined gun enthusiast with a concealed carry permit. A car was stolen from us and our home was burglarized. Bastard took the wedding ring I had given Isabel. The police advised her to purchase it back from the pawn shop where it was eventually located. Can you believe that?

We just spent about three years sailing and living in Mexico. We almost never locked the boat. We were in big marinas near cities, and we were in extremely remote anchorages, many with fishing camps. Pongas are small outboard driven boats. Very seaworthy. The fishermen are called “pongeros” and they work their asses off, doing what’s necessary to provide for their familes by living in a beach shack or tent and fishing for days or weeks at a time. La familia - nothing is more important in Mexican culture.

Mexican fishermen often cover their entire bodies for protection from the sun; kind of reminds me of those Muslim women that cover everything but their hands and eyes. If they dressed like that in America, most folks would probably assume they were terrorists or just plain criminals and call the police. Maybe the SWAT team would roar up in a big armored personnel carrier, shoot first then ask questions later.

I’m ambivalent about personal firearms. I grew up with them, did a bit of hunting and target practice with dad, but precision shooting never became a personal hobby. In college my next door neighbor was a cop, eventually a Captain on the Raleigh, NC police force. He cited the statistics regarding the number of family member deaths in the home that involved firearms. Heck, my own dad nearly shot me one night; would have been one of those tragic accidents, but that’s another story.

As we lived with the police just down the road, I never felt the need for personal firearms in the home. Had we lived out in the countryside with the sherrif 20 minutes drive away, I reckon I’d have wanted to keep a shotgun under the bed.

As legal visitors to Mexico, we were not allowed to carry firearms or ammunition. We’ve got a flare pistol. We’ve got a couple of spear guns and fish filleting knives. More than one of my gun enthusiast pals has noted that he’d never travel to a place where he couldn’t carry his pistola. That would be a whole lot of the world. What a way to limit one’s life experiences.

Pongeros would sometimes approach us to ask if we’d like to buy a fish. Never made us nervous, but we always paid close attention. Once some guys stopped by to see if we had any extra AA batteries for their hand held GPS receiver. They gratefully gave us six lobster tails for four AA batteries, and would have kept shoveling them at us if Isabel hadn’t told them “no mas, no mas”. Her Spanish was better than mine then, still is now. Woman’s got a gift for languages.

In the US, we always locked our home and cars, and still bad things happened to us. Nobody ever took anything from us in Mexico, and we never felt threatened by any Mexican. We found them to be warm and friendly, generous and hard working. They look you in the eye and say “buenos dias” if you pass them while out for a morning walk. Nice, cordial folks.

We did hear the occasional story about someone’s dinghy outboard being stolen. There are thieves in every society. Altogether we felt safer and more secure in Mexico than we ever felt in America.

Every city has it’s tough section - any smart person just doesn’t go there. There are pirate infested waters in a few places around the world, places we know better than to visit.

We don’t live in fear, and we’re not going to let an artificial feeling of “being safe” limit our travels, but we don’t behave like idiots either.

I suppose we could keep a can of bear spray handy. . .

A better way to raise a family?

0º 26.650s 125º 43.010w

Tue Apr 30 2019

Isabel and I didn’t have children, but I did scratch that itch a bit by helping to raise a kid. Valley Big Brothers and Big Sisters in Phoenix introduced me to Joe Verason when he was 8 years old, and we did our best to spend a good part of one day a week until he graduated high school at 18. Joe has had a lot of challenges in his lifetime, but now in his 30’s he is a loving dad and provides for his family. He frustrated the hell out of me over the early years, but I’m darned proud of him now.

It turns out a lot of young couples are out here sailing around Mexico, around the South Pacific, around the world. Many of them are raising small children, toddlers in some cases, all the way to young adults about ready for college. We call them “kid boats”. They use home schooling materials to meet public education policy standards, then supplement the material with the natural world around them. It’s amazing how much more excited a kid can get about biology or physics if they get to go snorkeling every day, or if they learn to surf. The influence of local, regional and global weather patterns are abundantly apparent and more easily understood. The mechanics of mast and rigging, winches or diesel engines becomes second nature. The hydrodynamics of a hull or propeller moving through the water, or the aerodynamics of sail shapes become obvious.

These children learn to accept great resposibility at a young age. They stand watches, prepare meals, assist in boat repairs and maintenance. And all the while, they’re aware of the natural world around them. They swim with dolphins and sea lions and whale sharks, they witness first hand humpback whales teaching their babies to play. They catch, clean, and prepare fish for meals. They see plastic trash floating in the sea and on some of the remotest beaches in the world, and they understand how mankind is trashing mother Earth.

They sense and respect how dangerous this maritime environment can be, and they learn to be careful. They learn a strong sense of family, and to play well with kids of all ages from other boats. They look after one another.

Our friends Jack and Nicole Midence on SV Let It Be have two small children. They’re a blast to be around, and it’s amazing to watch them play in the rigging, swinging about in a bosun’s chair suspended from a spare halyard. There’s no parent shrieking at them to “get down from there”. They’re given just about enough rope to hang themselves, and they’ve learned what lines not to cross.

Behan and Jamie Gifford on SV Totem just sent their oldest off the college last Fall. They’ve got two more getting ready for college. All were raised on a sailboat, and they made their way slowly around the world over a 10 year period. Imagine the cultures they’ve experienced, the diffences in beliefs and attitudes. Jamie recently told me that the kids have experieced 100 churches, mosques, temples and sacred animistic grounds. They’re open minded, critical thinkers.

An encounter with one of these boat kids is initially a confusing and bizarre experience. It’s like having an intelligent conversation with a very small adult. They’re wise and mature way beyond their years, and yet they still know how to play and socialize with individuals of all ages.

Behan and Jamie keep a blog, something like www.sailingtotem.com, and absolutely worth a look. They’re an interesting couple, and remind me of husband and wife teams who run a restaurant, but who take turns running the front of the house or cooking. Jamie is a former America’s Cup sail maker and rigger who has extremely depth in all things sailboats. Behan is a great writer and skilled photographer; she documents their adventures on the blog. Together they mentor people who want to transition to this lifestyle.

Behan recently told us that she occasionally gets hate mail from folks who think they are horrible parents for raising their kids this way. Ignorance is bliss. Stupid is as stupid does, Forrest Gump. . .

The litmus test is when these kids go to public high school so they can participate in competitive organized sports like football, or when they go off to college. They find themselves bored because they are so far ahead in their studies, and they’re amazed at how much time is wasted in traditional classroom education. They’re surpised at how their chronological peers are years behind in maturity and social skills.

There’s more than one way to skin a cat.