A Boat is a Hole in the Water

Ka-Ching, Ka-Ching

There are many jokes about the expense of boats.  Not just the cost of buying one, but the regular maintenance and inevitable repairs, which can seem endless at times.  You see, boats are like thoroughbred horses – they are fragile, temperamental, and expensive to maintain.  In a similar vein, marine stores are like bridal shops - take an item at a reasonable cost, mark it up an absurd percentage over wholesale…… well, you get the picture.  Taken together, these factors give rise to the old adage “A boat is a hole in the water into which you pour money.”  Since we’ve bought Dreamcatcher, I often find myself wondering if we aren’t living the sailboat version of the old movie Moneypit with Tom Hanks.  I’ve given up asking Ken how much something costs, because, frankly, I don’t want to know anymore.  I just figure that we’ll add it onto the number of years I’ll be working upon our return.  Most concerning, it seems that disaster can strike at the most innocuous moments.  Take our entry into Nassau, for example.  Yes, it was blowing hard on our beam as we tried to move into the marina slip – but did that mean that a stray line had to find its way into the water at that very moment and wrap around our propeller?!  And, yes, we were running a test on the watermaker because it didn’t seem to be producing the right amount of water – but did that mean that it had to continue running when we shut it down and start sinking the boat?!  Okay, that last bit is an exaggeration, but the event was sufficiently nerve-wracking that I had to break into a new bar of chocolate just to pull myself together.  (Thank you, Marie, for leaving us so well stocked!)  Not surprisingly, I slept fitfully that night, with dreams of swimming against the current.  As usual, everything looked better in the morning when the bent sail drive turned out to be just an optical illusion, and the watermaker issue was a manufacturer failure.  Though we both ended up emotionally frayed from the experience, we were also happy that we didn’t have to spend a month on the hard in a boat yard ($$$) waiting for parts ($$$$) to be shipped from the US ($$) and repairs to be made ($$$), while we stayed in a hotel ($$$), before re-launching the boat ($$).  What seems like a disaster at first glance can be like that sometimes:  a narrow but sobering miss causing tremendous anxiety, followed by great sighs of relief. 

Projects Galore

Since then, we’ve had a steady stream of “issues.”  The generator that we spent $1,000 to fix in Nassau began to act up again shortly after our arrival in George Town.  Really??!!  We babied it a bit, trying this and that, and troubleshooting to no avail.  Eventually, Ken got around to checking the impeller, something he did not suspect because it had been replaced last summer and we only began using the generator after we left Connecticut in September.  When he showed the part to me, it looked ancient (was it really replaced when we paid someone to do it?) and was not even the right one, according to the documentation!  Fortunately, he had a spare and replaced it with no problem.  It’s a relief to have a reliably working genset again!  Ken was also able to resolve the watermaker malfunction when his sister Lisa brought the parts he had shipped to her (thank you, Lisa!).  We can now make our own water, which is especially important here where fresh water is so scarce.  On the other hand, while recalibrating the fuel tank gauge, the fuel sender was broken, which just happens to be a part that must be ordered through a company in Europe.  International shipping charges?  Like I said, I don’t want to know.  Then, a short time later, an essential rudder fitting on our sailing dinghy became bent out of shape as Ken sailed it into shore.  I couldn’t help but think, “Et tu, Pico?”  While that little mishap cut short our sailing fun that day, the repair was quick and required nothing more than a pair of vise grips and some elbow grease. 

Since I began writing this entry, the watermaker has acted up AGAIN!!  While it didn’t try to sink the boat this time, it’s producing water that is too saline – never a good thing for a reverse osmosis mechanism.  At present, Ken and Eric from Makai (one of Ken’s go-to, fix-everything guys) are chest deep in the hold beneath our berth where the watermaker resides.  Before they got started, Eric regaled us with his latest close-call project.  One of the heads on Makai was malfunctioning.  After tinkering around with the flushing mechanism, he discovered that an octopus had made its way into the intake valve!  While it was not happy to be dislodged from its new home, we’ve no doubt that both the head and the octopus will be happier for the separation. 

My Super-Hero battling the evil Spectra Watermaker!

Misery Loves Company

George Town is an ideal place for cruisers’ gatherings.  Every day there are events and established routines that invite cruisers to get together.  In our case, we typically join the other parents in the afternoons as our kids play on the beach “after school.”  Inevitably, our conversations turn to boat projects, successful repairs, and what’s not working.  The array of “what can go wrong” is mind-boggling.  Exchanges become almost comical, at times, and one wonders how any of us ever made it this far when our boats seem to be constantly riding the razor’s edge, a hair’s breadth away from complete and utter ruin.  Our friend Andrea on Rollick explained it this way:  Although not many people know this, the word “BOAT” is actually an acronym for Break Out Another Thousand.  We all laughed, though I, for one, was secretly crying inside. 

Each view more beautiful than the last.....

All’s Well That Ends Well

As I pass tools to Ken while he’s squeezed into one compartment or another, there’s always the temptation to throw in the towel and give up.  Then we take a look around at where we are and figure that we’d rather be sweating over a boat project in the Exumas than shoveling snow in the Northeast.  We agonize over whatever happens to be on the blink and then, once it’s fixed, quickly forget the misery it caused us.  We spend more time together now than we have in years and are sharing experiences, making memories, and re-discovering each other in ways that will stay with us for a lifetime.  “What’s that odd sound?”  “Do you smell that?”  “Is that smoke?”  “Is there supposed to be water in here?”  Moments of real panic are short-lived and we are learning to take it all in stride.  Laughter and Surrender are our best allies; and, in the long run, whatever inconveniences we experience by our misfortunes are eclipsed by the beauty and wonder of this place.   Each day seems to bring new challenges; one of the realities of cruising in a very tough marine environment that we have come to accept.  We just hope that they continue to be solvable problems rather than cruise-ending catastrophes.