Trying Not To Get Eaten By Komodo Dragons

My mom is in town, and we're trying to show her a good time. And what better way to entertain a guest than put her in harm's way?

Being in the Komodo islands, it would be silly not to try to see the Komodo dragons. And if you are going to bother travelling to see the dragons, you might as well go in the early morning when they are feeling frisky.

We anchored off Rinca, and headed off bright and early to the ranger's station to pay and collect a guide. The guides are there not only as experts, but for protection. Not only are the dragons huge, their saliva carries all sorts of horrible bacteria and they have venom glands under their teeth to inhibit coagulation. They bite their prey (deer, buffalo - little things like that), hang around for a couple of weeks waiting for it to die a horrible death, then they eat it it. Charming. So I was expecting our walk would be rather like it is on a Kruger National Park walk: a couple of rangers with big guns in front and running sweep, and tourists in the middle.

You Are Likely To Be Eaten By A Grue

First, a very happy belated Star Wars Day to you all. May the Fourth be with you! We celebrated by watching The Empire Strikes Back. (We try to observe the most important days in the calendar. Raise the kids up right.)

Once again, I've been slow to blog. And I have heard your complaints. I submit two reasons for my poor performance, namely a) we have been working nonstop to get the boat ready and I just don't have it in me to write after ten long hours of manual labour, and b) I have been following the principle of If You Don't Have Anything Nice to Say, Don't Say Anything At All. We have spent the last two weeks wandering through the valley of the shadow of death. Everything broke. Nothing worked. A horde of tiny biting flies invaded. I reached epic levels of crabbiness. You would not have wanted a blow-by-blow.

But now, finally, we're getting there. Sure, the cockpit is still cushionless and full of junk, but Erik has built new shelves to stow all that stuff and new cushions sit below, awaiting only a clean surface on which to rest. The salon overflows with milk crates, but the new tool bench will absorb most of that. And so on. We have reached that point in the refit journey when we can crack open one eye to peak at the future. To ponder sandy beaches, clear snorkelling and our next port of call. To break the seal on the guide books.

I'm Tired of Finding Plastic on the Beach

 

Imagine a desert island. Ocean breezes blowing, palm trees swaying, perhaps some decorative coconuts strewn about the place. Just you, your beach chair, the waves lapping your toes, and the gentle clink of plastic bottles washing up on shore.

Not quite what you pictured? After four years aboard, I am sorry to say that this is reality. Every windward beach has plastic. Unless someone works every day to clean it, flip flops and plastic bottles are the order of the day. Everywhere. And I am sick of it.

Aluminum + Copper: A Horror Story

Q:  My friend has a metal boat.  I had him over for beers last night, and all he talked about was electrolytic corrosion.  I love boat talk as much as the next sailor, but I nearly threw him overboard.  What is it with you metal boat people and your corrosion issues?*

A:  Electrolytic corrosion is the worst.  The worst!  It is a creeping horror ready to eat away our hulls and leave us sad and boatless.  I'm sorry your imaginary friend bored you, but this is a real concern for us.  Why?  Because a penny and a little saltwater could send us to the bottom of the sea.

For those of you in need of a chemistry review, galvanic corrosion (or electrolytic corrosion - same thing) happens when two metals are in contact in an electrolytic solution, like salt water.  Essentially, one metal will corrode preferentially to save the other.  The bad news for us is that Aluminum likes to give up its electrons to almost every other metal.

"Really?" asked Stylish after we explained for the 8,793rd time why Copper pennies do not make good toys.  "Can we try it?"
Hurrah!  Science day!

Troubleshooting the Generator, Lady Style

When Erik went back to work, Papillon became My Boat.  By which I mean, Papillon became My Problem.  With my resident handyman thousands of miles away, anything that broke was going to be my responsibility.  And it was just a matter of time before something bad happened.  This is a boat, after all.  So when the generator died this week, I wasn't surprised.

I've made no secret of the fact that I'm not very handy.  As Erik kindly puts it, I'm not a natural tool user.  No arguments here.  But, being the big boss that I am now, I thought I could show some maturity and give this a whirl.  I've watched Erik fix the genset before, usually in my role as Tool Monkey.  I may not be able to do it as quickly as he could, but surely I could start the troubleshooting process.  At worst, I would be setting a good example for my girls.

How to begin?  First, I fell back on my scientific training: I gathered data.  What did I know?  When I tried the system a second time, it died after five minutes, just like the first go-around.  No sputtering, just sudden death.  So probably not lack of fuel.  I checked the temperature.  Aha.  Too high.  Probably a cooling system issue, then.

But it was barely seven o'clock: time to get the kids off to school.  I met our carpool moms in the parking lot, and mentioned my issue.  Immediately, they both offered up their husbands to help me.
"Oh no," I said, "I'm okay for now, but I'll let you know if I need some help."  What a nice gesture, I thought.  People are so kind.

Sinking Just a Little Bit

We woke up on Monday to discover the boat was sinking.  On my way to the bathroom, I heard an unwelcome drip drip sound coming from beneath the companionway.  We pulled up the floorboards, and, sure enough, the centerboard trunk was leaking.  The bilge was full.  We were going down.

"Ugh," I said, slapping the bilge pump switch.  "Does it have to be now?  I haven't even made tea yet."
Erik stared at the spitting centerboard and sighed.  "Well.  Let's get 'er fixed."

Guest Post: Stylish Recounts an Adventure and Gets in a Fight

Adventure: Mangroves to Tall Grass
by Stylish

"Indy, come on!"
"No."
"Why?"
"I don't want to go into the tall grass."
"Please?"
"No."
"Please?"
"No."
"Fine.  I'll go by myself," I said.  The tall grass was really sharp.  Then I noticed a small grass tunnel. "Indy," I said, "come over here."

Don't Hide From The Problem

This is a piece of our hull.  Looks a little on the thin side, wouldn't you say?  Not quite as much meat as you might like between you and the deep blue sea?  Well, you're right.  And that is why that delicate piece of Aluminum is in Erik's hand instead of on the port side of the hull.

One of the first things you learn as a boatowner is not to wait.  This is funny, because most of cruising is about waiting: for weather, for customs officials, for provisions, for Godot.  Patience is a virtue.

Up In The Air

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen; this is your captain speaking.  We have turned on the seat belt sign as we are experiencing light turbulence at the moment. We currently have a 101 knot tailwind up here in the jetstream...

I nearly fell out of my seat.  One hundred and one knots?  What!?  And this sleek bit of aluminum we were riding hadn't crumpled into a useless ball?  And I used to think that picking up an extra knot or two of current was a pretty big achievement.

In-transit Interlude: Q&A

Q:  What do you do when your parents take a breather from dragging you around to tourist hotspots?

Book Junkies

We have a friend on another boat who is obsessed with "keeping the weight down".  This isn't directed at any of the crew (luckily for him - you take your life in your hands with that kind of action,) but rather at the boat itself.  Every few months, a sort of fever grabs Mr Light Boat, and he starts sorting through their possessions with a grim and critical eye.

The first time we witnessed this, Mrs Light Boat was not a happy camper.  She drove the dingy over to Papillon, and offered us a stack of books for the kids.  I accepted gratefully, but we were shocked when we realized the problem.

"You don't mean he's making you get rid of books?" I asked.  She nodded sadly.
"Because they are too heavy?  Books?" asked Erik.
I was still having trouble processing this.  "Yours and the kids - not just his own books."
"Everyone's," she confirmed.  "It's the seasonal purge.  Just give those a good home, would you?"
"Books," Erik repeated as her dingy retreated into the distance.  "That can't be right."
I shook my head.  You wonder how a marriage can survive such trials.

Fish Out Of Water

Wait a minute...

Don’t be alarmed.  I know that is Papillon on the hard.  And you must be concerned.  Why are we out of the water?  Sure, we have no mizzen and lost our forestay, but that is no reason to haul out.  What could have possibly brought about this unwelcome change?  Because, as we all know, the hard is not one of your correspondent’s favorite places.  No running water.  No toilet.  Just grinder dust and painty elbows.

The fact of the matter is, into every life a little work must fall.  Cruising isn’t that expensive, aside from the repairs.  But one does need money in the bank account in order to eat regularly.  And call me an over-indulged first-worlder, but I like eating regularly.  And so, in order to keep eating and carry out all of those repairs we talked about, it is working time.

Long story short, we are in Adelaide for a couple of months.  Erik took the project on Tuesday, and by Saturday night we were in Australia.  I don’t think we’ve had to move that fast since we left Canada.  But here we are, in a sunny apartment in a lovely town, and I’m getting used to the ground staying still beneath my feet.  Erik starts work on Tuesday.  The girls start school a day or two later.  And poor Amy will be left at home, all alone, wondering what to do with her time.

Hee hee hee!

But in all seriousness, I have mixed feelings.  This is the first time we have been off the boat for any length of time since we moved aboard in October 2010.  I fear I have lost all of my land skills.  Can I readapt?  Do I want to readapt?  As much as I love having a fridge with a door in the front, is this really what I want long term?

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be examining the land life from a cruiser’s perspective.  The good, the bad and the ugly.  Then we’ll be back on our beloved Papillon, and we’ll see how that feels after a break on land.  I hope you’ll stick with me, and wish me luck during my time on an alien planet.

Time to Talk

Like many North Americans, my foreign language skills were never the greatest.  It is a sad fact of life that English is the new Latin.  You can get away with anything as an English-speaker - where is the push to branch out?  Growing up, French was something you studied in school because you had to.  Oh, maybe you would visit Quebec someday, and having a second language looked good on your university application.  But mostly, you didn’t have a choice, and it was more about the grade than the learning.

I’ve hesitated to write this post.  I have held back, because I don’t want to write anything that well-meaning keener parents are going to wave at their children and say, “See, this is why we encourage you to study.”  But the fact of the matter is this: the single most useful skill I’ve brought to this sailing adventure is my ability to speak other languages.

I learned German for the usual reason: because my boyfriend spoke German.  Erik took a job in Switzerland, and I thought it might be handy when I visited.  (Of course, Swiss German turned out to be an entirely different animal, but no matter.  I had some basic grammar and vocabulary under my belt.)  And then we got married and moved to Germany, and German became not just handy, but essential.  I practiced, I got over my shyness about my hideous accent, I got a job, and my German got better.  And I met some cool people.

After a stint in Boston, we moved to Montreal.  And you had better believe that you ought to speak French in Quebec.  So I practiced with the doormen in our building, and my terrible French became slightly less terrible.

I thought my foreign language days were at an end... then we moved aboard Papillon.  And if I had thought about our intended route at all, I would have taken a Spanish course.  Because my Spanish sucks.  I’ve never taken Spanish, and I feel lost without the basic grammar.  I’ve cobbled together some phrases and worked really hard to understand the people around me, but I still haven’t mapped out the basics.  I’m pretty much back on “Yo voy,” “Yo deseo,” and “sobre el barco.”

But here is the thing.  And while you are breaking your back for your 95% in French or loafing at the back of the room balancing pencils on your nose, you might not see this.  But the real, actual, completely-for-true reason we learn other languages is to talk to other people.  Not to order at a restaurant on vacation or get directions to the Metro.  That’s crap.  You learn it because people out there are interesting, and different, and funny and cool and generally awesome, but you are never going to know that unless you try to talk to them.  Not in English.  In their own language.  If you want to get to know people, it is time for you to do some of the heavy lifting.

One of the conversations I’m most proud of happened with one of the guys working on the dock in Cartagena.  It was Christmas, and I managed to explain the difference between “wrap” and “rap” entirely in Spanish.  I was forever La Señora Rap after that, and my friend would go into a rapper pose whenever he saw me.  That is success, my friends.

We made friends in Cartagena on the strength of Erik’s Spanish.  That’s how we got to spend New Year’s Eve in the Barrio.  We had painters aboard for four months, and by the end Erik was spending Sunday afternoons at their house playing dominoes.  The man who rented us lines and tires for the Canal crossing told us about how his son got shot in Colon in a case of mistaken identity.  We talked to the Kuna people living on Miriadiadup about how village life is disappearing.  Our policeman friend from Providencia invited us to visit him in Cali.  And so on.  We’ve met so many interesting people – some for a few minutes, some for much longer – that we never would have known otherwise.

Because here is the thing.  You can kind of make friends with someone when you are making them speak English.  But you are going to come out a lot further ahead when you can speak a little of their own language back to them.  And the other thing?  Not everyone speaks English.  I know!  It’s a shocker!  And even more shocking is they shouldn’t have to.

When we arrived in San Cristobal, we found two German boats and a Swiss boat here.  We have five kids between us, and we have seen a lot of each other over the past week.  The kids got past the language barrier right away, just as some of Stylish’s best friends on this trip have been from France and Quebec.  We have had a potluck and a birthday party with our new friends, and I have hauled out my rusty German to the best of my ability.

I know I make mistakes.  I forget my grammar, I forget my vocab, I lose the thread of the conversation sometimes.  Once upon a time, it would have really bothered me that I wasn’t speaking correctly.  But now, when I see the relief in other people’s eyes that they can relax and speak their own language without catering to the North American, I don’t care how many mistakes I’m making.  It’s worth it.  Now we’re moving on to the Marquesas, and I’ll have to dredge out my high school French.  And I’m actually looking forward to it.

So, kids, learn those languages.  Learn six words if that is all you can manage.  But do it.  And use those six words whenever you can.  I promise you, what you will get out of it is better than any grade in school.

The kids understand.

5-0

When you find yourself bouncing along in the back of a Colombian police van, there are questions you should ask yourself.  “How did this happen?” is probably the best one.

Looking back, I suppose this really came of trusting people.  At every step of this trip, people have softened us up, worn us down with their kindness.  Bringing us banana bread.  Offering their condos and cars.  Touring us around the area.  Giving our girls birthday parties.  In the Vivorillos, unpopulated islands off the tip of Honduras, we were alone except for the shrimp boats that anchored there during the day.  One day, two shrimp boats came by and gave us 15 pounds of shrimp.

So.  Much.  Shrimp.

Trust and kindness.  Look where it gets you.  Looking out at the world through a metal grate, that is where it gets you.

We arrived on a small Colombian island with happy smiles.  We’d had calm seas, the place was beautiful, the people (once again) friendly.  What could be better?  Checked in, clean(er) once again, the next day we decided to go exploring.  Sometimes this is an easy business, sometimes not.  We decided to go by land for once, and asked our customs agent for advice.  The bus (singular) wasn’t around at the moment, so he walked us down the street to look for a taxi.  No taxis.  Hmm.

Back in the police van, the rain was starting to pound the metal roof, little rat-a-tat-tats asking me “what-did-you-do? what-did-you-do?”

The agent spotted a man he knew parked at the side of the road.  They chatted for a minute, then seemed to come to an agreement.  We were told to climb in, as the man would take us where we wanted to go.  Relaxed, trusting, we smiled and climbed aboard.  Accepting rides with strangers?  Pfft.  Small potatoes for Papillon.  What could possibly go wrong?

And then we were attacked and robbed and beaten and shot full of drugs and left for dead bleeding in the gutter and I cried out “Why oh why did I ever trust anyone?” and I then I died.

No.

Nothing went wrong, of course.  That man parked on the road was an off-duty cop, and he had use of the police van for the day.  So he took us all over the island – to a dive shop, the beach, a great seafood restaurant.  We chatted about the neighbourhoods and people there, his life, our lives.  At the end of the day, well after dark, we got back to the dinghy, waited out the rain, then gently roused the sleeping girls in my lap, and headed back to Papillon.   Another new friend, another invitation to visit a new corner of the world.

Kids love sleeping in police vans!

I have to tell you, people, all this is making me cast a stern eye on some habits and attitudes from back home.  Too much watching the news and not enough interacting with the neighbours is making people suspicious of their fellow man.  It is a crying shame, I have to tell you.  Yes, we all have to be careful in this ol’ world, but it is not as bad and scary as you might think.  That homeless guy shuffling over to your kids?  He just wants to tell them about the Australian pine tree they have been playing under.  He actually knows a lot about them.  And that hard-faced lady at the small hotel?  She’s just tired of being talked to like she wants to screw you over.  If you talk to her like a human being, you’d be surprised at how nice she is.

More than once we’ve heard from other cruisers, “be careful here – the locals all want to rip you off.”  And then we have seen how those same people treat the locals, and I’ll tell you – I’d want to rip them off, too.

All I can say is, it hasn’t been our experience.  And I’m pretty sure I know why.

 
 

Rodent vs Insect

In my youth, I wasn’t very fond of spiders.  Alright, I was kind of scared of them.  This wasn’t helped by the fact that our house backed onto a ravine, and every once in a while a spider the size of the Loch Ness monster would scuttle across my bedroom floor.  In general, I could manage if they were a) outside the house, and b) couldn’t contact me in any way, but if they violated either of those terms, their creepy little lives were forfeit. 

Once I had Stylish, I tried very hard to get over my spider issues.  When we encountered bugs and spiders, I would take a steadying breath, then we would examine them and talk about how interesting they were.  Eventually, my feigned non-revulsion became real.  And once we moved aboard, I was quite happy for any spiders I saw, because I knew they were keeping the bug population down.  As for the bugs themselves, pfft.  Bugs.  Big deal.

And then, it happened.

A giant cockroach.

We call them palmettos, because it sounds better, but the fact of the matter is that when two inches of dark brown buggy horror runs across the bathroom, you wish you were holding an elephant gun.  Truth be told, I jump on a chair and squeal like a cartoon housewife from the fifties who spotted a mouse.  Every time.  Erik always has to kill the damn thing, and he's getting pretty disgusted at my totally irrational reaction.  I'm trying, but so far I'm failing.  When I turn around of an evening to see those long, long antennae wiggling out from behind something, rational thought deserts me.

Sightings are rare, so we know we aren’t infested.  We seem to specialize in bringing home orphans – hiding in corrugated cardboard, hitchhiking out of the hot and humid laundry room.  We are are careful as we can be, but somehow, once in a while, they still show up.  I have Boraxed the heck out of this boat, so I know not much will survive.  Certainly not for long.  They can’t hurt me; they are just gross.  And yet, and yet...

A couple of weeks ago, we actually spotted two in one night (instead of about one every month), and Erik and I were worried.  Out came the special poisons and traps.  No way do we want to haul this boat out of the water to fumigate it.  But then a strange thing happened.

The next morning, Erik found palmetto parts strewn around the back deck.  He speculated that a bat had caught one, and we joked about building a bat house on the mizzen.  A few days later, I found some palmetto legs under the stove as I was cleaning.  And then I found mouse poops in the cupboard.

I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the wall and wondered why we had stayed in a marina.  You’re just asking for critters to run up the lines.  And here was a mouse.  A mouse to eat our food, chew the lines, chew the upholstery, chew the hoses and maybe even sink the boat.

Mice don't bother me.  At all.  I spent too long in a lab to be afraid of mice.  But I still don't want them here, so we bought sticky traps, warfarin, snap traps and a live trap.  No way was Mr Mousie going to stay on Papillon, and we sure weren't going to give it a chance to breed.

Because the food is packed in hard plastic (yes, all of it). Mr Mousie had no luck in the pantry.

Animal proof

I found he was going on deck at night to chew through the full garbage bags.  I baited the live trap with ham and peanut butter and tucked it in beside the garbage bag.  Then, off to bed.

In the night, I thought I heard the trap snap shut, and accompanying shrieking and clanging.  But it was a windy night and the sounds disappeared quickly, so I was afraid to hope.

In the morning, I crept on deck like a child afraid Santa hasn’t come.  I tiptoed through the cockpit, and saw the trap door was closed!  Oh happy day!  I traipsed to the back deck to give Mr Mousie a good scolding.

I found a big.  Stinking.  Rat.

Too big, too big!

Just call me Samuel Whiskers.

Holy cats!  He was HUGE!  Look at how he filled that trap!  Jesus H., how did that thing move around the boat undetected?  Mr Mousie, indeed.  No wonder the palmettos disappeared – Ratty ate them all, and probably in one gulp!  We’re lucky he didn’t eat us, too!

I hopped around in ataxtic terror for a few moments, then fled.  But this time, I helped Erik commit the murder.  Like I said, even big rodents aren't as scary as palmettos.  Don't ask me why.

Well.  Ratty is gone.  The palmettos are gone.  And any and all spiders are welcome, welcome, welcome.  No questions asked.

Wilkommen, bienvenue, welcome!