Whale Watching in Baie du Prony

"You want to go whale watching?" I asked.  "On someone else's boat?"
"Heck, yes!" said Erik, rubbing his hands together.  "The season has started; there should be humpbacks in Prony by now.  Come on, it'll be fun."
Fun Daddy was back in town.  We only see Erik for a few days every month, and he is always keen to make the most of his time with us.
I looked over the brochure. With Papillon due to get hauled out and checked over in a couple of weeks, we weren't going to make it down there under our own steam.  It would be kind of fun to be purely a passenger for once.  And, let's face it, I'm a sucker for marine mammals.

The day was clear but cold.  By six a.m. we had boarded the catamaran, because early is how these New Caledonians roll.  The dozen of us scrunched around the table as the captain began his departure talk.

I leaned over to Erik.  "My money is on this being 50% about not breaking the toilet."

Tackling Leaks and Selling the Dream

Amy: Girls, they are going to be here in half an hour.  I need you to tidy up the cockpit.

Indy: Who?

Amy: Those people... Dave's friends. Like we talked about at breakfast? It doesn't matter. Just tidy up.

Indy & Stylish: Okay, Mom.

Papillon: Hee hee hee.

Amy: Why are you laughing?  Let's see, I need to cut up some baguette--

Papillon: I have a surprise for you.

Amy: What? No. No surprises. I have an unknown quantity of Kiwis arriving in thirty minutes.  I have to finish getting ready.

[pause]

Amy: What is that dripping noise?

Papillon: Chortle!

Amy: Girls! I need to take the companionway stairs off.  Don't come down this... girls?

[Looks outside. The girls are playing with friends on the dock.]

Amy: Stylish and Indy! Get this cockpit tidied!  And don't come down the... never mind.

[Puts in boards to avoid a fall. Removes stairs. Removes floorboard. Locates drip with a flashlight.]

Amy: Why is it dripping there? The water isn't running.  The sump pump is off.  Everything is off.

[Removes two more floorboards. Sticks head into bilge.]

Amy: Okay, it is coming from somewhere forward on the port side. Hmm. I did laundry earlier; maybe the hose leaked.

[Checks laundry locker. Dry as a bone.]

Amy: Let's try the galley.

[Removes galley floorboard. A small river is running aft.]

Amy. Aha.  By which I mean, unprintable.

[Looks at the salon.  Removing the port side floorboard necessitates removing two other floorboards first and judicious use of a shim.]

-creeeaaaak-

Amy: [balancing the six-foot board]  There we go.  And let's see what we UNPRINTABLE!

Dealing With Bureaucracy, French-Style

It is a strange truth that, the longer you stay in a country, the more irritating their bureaucracy becomes. Maybe the French are just tired of me and want to speed me on my way.  Maybe I'm just burnt out on doing taxes and taking ever-more-hideous passport photos for visa applications.  Or maybe I just don't see eye to eye with these upholders of the Napoleonic Code.

A few weeks ago, I found a notice in my mailbox that a registered letter was waiting for me at the post office. I was bound to need some iron-clad identification, so I scooped up my passport and carte de sejour, waited for the designated pick-up time, and wandered over.

I eventually found my way to special guichet 15, where, as all the world knows, registered letters reside.  I handed over my notice and my ID, and waited to be sent home.

The Evils of Cockpit Flooring

There are many things I love about my boat.  It is a comfortable home. It sails beautifully in heavy weather. It is very pretty.  But even Papillon has its flaws.

The girls and I were playing a game in the cockpit. Stylish rolled, and the die skittered off the table. All of us shrieked and grabbed for it, but it was too late. It fell through the cockpit floor.

What, you might wonder, is the big deal? Our floor is painted aluminum with a teak grid overlay. It is a good concept: when water gets into the cockpit, it falls through the grate and disappears down the drains in the corners. Meanwhile, you have something non-slippery to stand on. Simple and practical - two of my favourite things.

But let's think this through a little. More than water can fall through those holes. Noodles, Lego people, beads, coins, shells - down it goes. Now add some dust and hair, and you've got a thick mat of yuckiness coating the floor.

I made a face at the die nestled in one of the squares. The squares are too small to allow you to extract anything from the top. Instead, I had to put a finger in each of the adjacent squares and nudge the die up from underneath.

"Catch it!" I cried as it toppled out of my fingers and fell into another hole.

I washed the dust off my fingers and the die. "That's it," I said. "Time to clean the floor."

Which is no big deal... as long as you have a few hours to kill.

Do You Want To Build A Snowman?

My girls love the movie Frozen. They sing the catchy songs. They play dress up. They act out their own fanfic. But, when they play, are they Elsa and Anna? They are not. They are Elsa and Olaf. Because Indy has become obsessed with snow.

The last time Indy experienced a real winter, she was a year and a half old.  Stylish remembers building snow forts and sledding, but Indy was too little that year to do much more than get toted around in a fluffy pink snowsuit.  And she resents it.

"Mom, the next time we visit Canada, can we see snow?" Indy posed the question over breakfast.
I swallowed a bite of toast to stall.  "We can try," I said.  "We'll definitely be home for winter sometime. Just probably not this year."
"Because there was no snow when we went there last time," she said accusingly. "It was hot."
"It was June," I said for what felt like the thousandth time.  "That's summertime in Canada.  I told you before we went there wouldn't be snow - you just didn't want to believe me."
"I wanted snow," she grumbled into her cornflakes.

Living With Less

Travel is an exercise in discovering many other wonderful ways of life.  Everywhere we have been, we have found something that we loved.  It is tempting to grab our favorite ideas from these various places and weld them into a sort of Frankenlife.  Cruising only exacerbates the issue, because cruisers definitely do things their own way.  And that's all well and good - I'm comfortable with my TV-less, underscheduled, more-spontaneous life.  It's only when you go home that you really get the reality check of How Weird Have We Become?

While I was home, I spent a day helping a friend sort through her clothes in preparation for moving house. I used to do the same thing every time I moved: cull the clothes you will never wear again, and pack them up to be donated. Everybody wins.

But as we got started, and kept going, and kept going, and... kept going, I started to get chest pains.