WHATS IN A NAME?

A name is an important part of a vessel and I was always under the impression that unless you wanted to anger the 'sea gods' and bestow bad luck upon it and yourself, you did not rename your boat. However, after some great research and the realisation that the  previous owners had renamed her Catalpa only a year and a half before she became mine, I figured I can do whatever I want. 

The morning of the hurricane the whole 'what should I name my boat' conversation came up (as it did quite often). At that particular time I must have been hungry because naming the boat tortilla seemed like a brilliant idea to me... Apparently not so brilliant - that only lasted moments.

By mid afternoon, once we had prepped the boat for the hurricane and done all we knew to do, I was laying down, reading a story about a ship that was stolen by pirates and re-named 'The Fancy'. I thought this was an incredible name for a boat and it quickly evolved into 'Fancy Pants'. 

I was beside myself. I had spent ages looking for names and finally I had found one that I loved that had a theme song and everything. Partial love for the name was also due to the fact that every time I would have to be hailed on the radio, or we would enter a port the hailer would have to say 'fancy pants, fancy pants, fancy pants! I had struck Gold!

That night the hurricane happened. 

Two days later, when we were prepping the boat to have it pulled off the mud, we were reflecting on the previous nights misadventures. Talking about how in hindsight we should have done this and in hindsight we should have done that. There were sentences starting over and over again with 'in hindsight'.

After about the 5th time Hendo and I looked at each with a look of astonishment and realisation... an epiphany. Some might say, even similar to that of Isaac Newton when the apple fell on his head and he discovered gravity. Instantly it had become apparent that as much as I loved the name Fancy Pants, the boat wanted... In fact needed to be called Hindsight.

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ANCHOR WANKER

Anchored in the bay

Anchor Tattoo's

Picture courtesy of Westmarine.com - Doesn't fully capture the part where you have to smoke.

Now this is not technical... And all my sailor mates, be gentle with your criticism... But I feel learning to set an anchor properly was imperative for me.

Talking anchors in the sailing/boating community is like talking religion or politics. Everyone has their own opinion and discussions can get very heated. What type of anchor? how much rode to let out? chain or rope? What anchor for what bottom, etc. Endless contradictive advice came on how to anchor the best way.

Let's be honest, I didn't really care, as long as my boat wasn't  going to go for a wander during the night. 

My boat is already rigged with a CQR as the main anchor and a Bruce as a backup.

With some good guidance, Paul came over and checked out the ground tackle. He told us of some extra items that were needed. After a trip to the chandlery, Paul showed me how to very technically wire up the new swivels to the anchor and chain (which will never ever come loose) and he taught Hendo how to splice a rope into a snubber. 

We had some of it down, but he ran us through it all again. He told us to Angle the boat towards the wind until in the desired position, keeping in mind depth, swing area, etc. Once in position, Put the boat in neutral and drop the anchor with the desired length of chain at 4x depth. Once chain is out, put the boat into reverse until the anchor grabs. Then, put the vessel hard into reverse for as long as it takes to have a cigarette (none of us smoked, though we have since thought about taking it up just for this exercise) at that point the anchor should be fully set. Let out more chain at another 3x depth for good measure.

Other than hurricane night this proved to be incredibly successful.

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RECOVERING THE BOAT FROM THE MOGOTE

Dinghy and Power Boat towing in the distance

 

Tieing rope to the channel marker to winch over

Hendo checking for holes



Concerned face, getting towed

 

 We had been off the grid in our hotel sanctuary since we were picked up from the boat the day before, so we headed to the marina first thing, with the intentions of seeing what was happening with the boats, missing people, etc.

Club Cruceras along with the sailing community was in full form. Shelly the commodore rounded up people, dinghies, supplies and fuel. It became apparent that there were people still on their boats and sailors still missing. 

The priorities were to get the people still on boats supplies and to take advantage of the high tides by pulling boats off the Mogote. 

We were pretty keen to get out to my boat to see what

we were dealing with so we grabbed a lift with a dinghy heading past and got dropped off at it.

When we got there we saw possibly the most positive sight we could. The boat was now leaning on her starboard side - the opposite to when we had left her. This meant with high tide she had the possibility of being floated high enough that pulling her off wouldn't be too difficult.

Hendo checked the hull for holes (fortunately their were none) while I tried to pull the anchor that we had dropped. Unfortunately number 20 channel marker which was now about 30 metres behind had still not stopped mocking us. During the hurricane it had wrapped itself around the anchor rode which made recovering it a mission. 

We would have just cut the rope, but it was literally the longest piece that we had and thought we might need it to use as a bridal, or at least to assist in getting the boat of the mud. 

We were having so much trouble untangling it that we ended up tieing a rope to the top of the marker and winching it over. It still proved a mission but we got their in the end. The navy watched us battle with it, from their boat. 

We organised for M/v Oso Negro to come at high tide to pull us off. Green at sailing life, we had no idea how to coordinate a boat tow and stress was still running high from literally everyone involved. Lucky for us, Don from M/v Double Overheard came through with a massive rope and tied it for us to use as a bridal. He showed us where to attach it and made it all happen.

Apparently the theory behind floating a boat that has run aground, is to pull the mast down from the halyard with dinghys and so it rolls the boat over. Then using the massive power boat, the bridal is pulled from the bow. This will swing the boat around and off she goes. 

Sure enough this works a treat. Mind you it is actually pretty scary being on the boat while they pull your cruiser so that the rails dip under the water. For a moment, I was worried if the hurricane didn't de-mast or shipwreck it, this might.

But alas, as soon as she was in deep enough for the saltwater intake to be covered, we cranked the engine. As always she purred instantly. Everybody cheered (I don't know if they actually cheered, but in my mind they did).

We were the second boat to be pulled off the Mogote, the first being our good friend on S/v Rascal. 

We paid out a lot of cartons of beer for that day and the whole ordeal.

 

 

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NIGHT OF HURRICANE ODILE - HOW WE FARED

Storm clouds rolling in over La Paz

Lapaz has a hurricane season. It usually consists of hurricanes coming near but only close enough to get some above average winds, with the last one just over a week before Odile proving nothing more than some rain and strong winds.

We were sitting on deck drinking our mid-morning coffee, talking about how we were going to eat fish tacos for lunch, do a shop and then head out sailing the next day. Paul came by and asked us if we had checked the weather and told us a hurricane was coming. Luckily he had shown us how to properly set the anchor a couple of days before. He told us exactly what we needed to do to prepare.

We bunkered up, stripped the decks of anything that could get loose, lashed lanyards, checked anchors and made sure we had a plan in place. 

By mid-afternoon we were bored and pretty sure it was an empty threat, we went for a swim at the mogote with Autumn, decided on a new name for the boat and cruised around very nonchalant. 

At about 9 o'clock the winds started howling and rain set in. At this point the eye wasn't due to pass over cabo til 1am so it had started early and was kicking up a fuss.

We were doing ok, we had a CQR anchor out with 250 feet of chain and we had just put a new swivel on in preparation. We also had a Bruce anchor as backup and a dan forth on rode that we could run as a back anchor if necessary... We had this. 

It was pretty early when the windlass broke and we lost our whole anchor and chain. The wind was so strong that we immediately started drifting at 6 knots. We had seen other boats that had gotten loose go past at similar speeds. Hendo was on top of the fact that we needed to get the engine going so we could steer around the powerboat we were drifting towards and start fighting against the wind and current so that we could try and reset a new anchor with one of our backups. 

Almost instantly we lost our dinghy. That didn't really surprise us because we had been watching it do back flips for at least half an hour before. But was still a sad moment, we were all quite attached.. except the dinghy obviously.

The weather was so rugged that falling off the boat was a huge possibility so being on deck required a lot of care. Hendo steered around the power boat and then was heading up his port side to back where we has been. He said he would head to the front and drop the anchor while I took the helm. I was sure to make him put a life jacket on.

I didn't last long at the helm, the swell was too strong and I couldn't fight it enough so we started to run aground. Luckily for us we hit the muddy bottom of the Mogote.

I have never been so stressed or felt so uneasy. We instantly tipped to one side and set in to get bashed and beaten by the wind and swell. Wet and cold we sat not knowing what to expect.

We ran through different scenarios about what we would do in different situations and decided that the absolute last resort was jumping off the boat. It couldn't sink now at least, because we were already on the bottom. At worst we could sit on the deck and hold on for dear life.

By 1 am the eye hit cabo, we had the radio for constant updates. Everyone was going through the same thing. Dragging, running aground and even taking on water. The desperation of the voices on the radio as people's boats broke free was spine chilling. Everyone could listen, but no one could help because we were all struggling to fight our own battle. 

At about midnight Hendo told me to get low and hold on to something tight. I didn't really know what was coming, but a small sailboat hit us. Luckily for us my boat is old and solid, so could take some brunt.

We started to bounce along the Mogote so dropped an anchor off the front to keep us from moving too far. We didn't want to drift any further into the Mogote, but we also didn't particularly want to drift back out to sea. At least we were safe-ish on the mud.

Must have been no longer than another hour later that another small sailboat decided to come and cosy up with us. Next coming from behind a huge steel power boat was coming directly for us. Luckily he ran aground before he could contact us. He bounced around right aft of us for a while so all we could see when we looked through the companionway was a big ass boat right at our tail. 

About another hour later we gained a big red channel marker. This was probably the meanest to the boat of them all. This marker started at the bow and worked it's way aft, beating the hull continuously for about an hour, destroying rails, life lines, my gas bottle connection and leaving beautiful red scratches on my white bottom.

We were told that Odile wasn't going to become level with la Paz til approx 5 am. It felt like time couldn't go any slower. We were counting down the time til daybreak and I kept saying  how I just didn't want to be doing this anymore. 

It wasn't til daybreak hit and the winds died down that we could really assess the damage. Missing dinghy and kayak, broken wind vein, broken rails, missing and broken rigging, lost anchor, water logged electrics and that's not to mention the hull that still needs to be hauled for proper inspection.

The scariest thing is we got off lightly. On going outside in daylight we discovered that approx 27 boats had run aground - most in worse situations than us. We could see that several had sunk and after the morning radio update it became apparent that there were boats missing with the owners that were on board, whereabouts unknown. Our friend Autumn had run aground into the mogote and got blown off her boat so spent the night in the mangroves.

When I wrote the bulk of this, I was still on the boat reflecting. We were waiting on the 'rescue team' to come and grab us. We were safe so low priority.

Al on M/v Tuna Tamer came out at about midday and collected us. If we had to wait for the Mexican navy, we would have been there for days  

**Vid and Pic courtesy of Hendo... Along with a heap of others over the blog I have not given him credits for.

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THE LEAST GLAMOROUS JOB ON A BOAT - FIXING THE HEAD

Re-sealing the pump

Me broken after finding a whole pump assembly

Flash brand new, newly installed pump

A well deserved sunset beer, while painting my nails

I keep getting told that sailboats are good for character building and I think the head  aka toilet, was the first thing on the boat to help build character.

The head has been an issue for me since the start. Originally the boat had a compost head. Emptying it involved carrying the 'jug' of urine or bag of compost out past the galley (kitchen) to throw overboard. Safe to say the compost head was made redundant on my boat almost immediately. 

Now the new standard pump head wasn't working properly and was leaking. As with any component, it seemed a $90 seal kit/service was in order. 

In all fairness Hendo offered to do it, but with my weak stomach and average mechanical aptitude, I figured if I could do this, then I could actually do anything.

WORST JOB EVER!!! The grossest thing I have done to date. Once it was all back together, the toilet was now working, but it was still leaking out of the cover. Turns out there was a crack in the plastic. At this point I was shitty - no pun intended! 

I had to go back to the Chandlery and find a cover which of course they didn't have. To make sure we were talking about the same cover the shop assitant pulled out a complete pump unit. I asked the price very half-assed thinking a whole unit wouldn't even be an option when he told me it was $125.

At this point I was broken! 

I spent 4 hours of my life, covered in poo, to save $35! 15 mins (minus the 30 mins I spent telling everyone about my outrage) and an extra $125 later toilet was fixed, there were no leaks and I had learnt a very valuable lesson.

When it comes to anything on a boat that has to do with human excrement, don't repair it, replace it!

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LEAVING THE BOATYARD

On the trailer all ready to hit water




Hendo and I excited after the final coat



Captain Spec

  



*Notice the CAT tractor!!

The day after we arrived back in La Paz we applied the final coat of paint that was needed and we made plans with the yard to put the boat back in the water. First smoothly run, simple task complete for the trip.

The boat going into the water however proved nervous times for everyone as Hendo had replaced the prop seal aswell as changed some thru hulls so he was hoping that they had sealed properly and I was just nervous about the fact these guys were putting my boat on a trailer hauled by an old cat logging skidder and driving it into the water. 

As they were about to hit water they pulled back up the ramp a little and realised it wasn't straight. They hadn't set it on the trailer right so had to get the stands back out and straighten the boat up properly and re-set it. Not something you particularly want to watch when your already nervous. 

Hendo was already on the boat when it hit water checking the hull for leaks. Some water was expected to leak as the prop seal has to swell from the water, which was happening, but it wasn't more than the bilge pump could keep up with, which was perfect.

Pulling out of the Marina we had our first hairy moment - we were expecting many as new sailors, but not quite so soon.

 We knew that in reverse the boat would walk to starboard but not quite to the point that it did. As it was put into reverse, it instantly became like a magnetic force attracted to the rocks just past the dock.  

We were inches from smashing into them. I thought we were done. Apparently time is meant to feel like it stops at points like that, it definitely didn't feel like it, but maybe it actually did stop because somehow with Hendo yelling directions and me being somewhat responsive on the helm we fluked our way into not hitting them.

After several attempts, we managed to get it off the ramp and into open water, celebrations were in order, we hadn't shipwrecked it.

We were close enough to the rocks though, that we even did a bit of a dive on the hull to see if it had contacted. At this point, she was still pristine! 

We were ready for our next obstacle... Anchoring!

 

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THREE WEEKS ON

Sunset over Marina Don Jose



Dive Operations on Tobasco II



Fleet of Dinghy's for Gunthers Memorial

 

Getting Sexy Bruce Ink from Manuel

 

Nearly 3 weeks post hurricane Odile and life around the sailing community has started to come back together. The constant hugs and questions of how you are coping are getting few and further between.

A lot of the boats have been pulled off the beaches and the ones too far gone signed over to salvagers. 

The bodies of the three fellow sailors lost at sea were found and memorials have been held in their honour.

We have spent a week diving for the personal items of Paul and Simone on Tobasco II. An honour to be able to help out the family of an amazing couple that I know would have done the same if the circumstances had have been reversed.

Once again, the dolphins are visiting, the sunsets have become beautiful and the gentle rock of the boat at night is soothing to sleep to. All signs that La Paz and the sailing community here is slowly healing. 

 

 

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HURRICANE ODILE



The boat two days after the hurricane

 

The morning after, The Marker and Powerboat that nearly hit us

La Paz after Hurricane Odile



Morning after Hurricane Odile, pics from the boat




I really am not 100% sure how to write about this.. I know for myself and the people around me this is still very raw.

 

For the first time in my life, I was scared sh*tless. Like not just superficial fear, like fear of losing my life and in all honesty, we got off really lightly. 

 

In short, we lost our whole anchor and chain, nearly drifted into a powerboat, managed to power around them but then as we were trying to set another anchor we ran aground. We spent the rest of the night sitting on a 45 degree angle. Every time we thought we were all good for a bit, something would happen. We had a couple of sailboats run into us, a powerboat come charging for us, as we watched through the companionway - luckily it hit the ground before us. We also had a red channel marker that mocked us even into the next day while recovering the anchor rope, we did get free racing stripes however.

In comparison to the boats with sailors still on them a week later - bailing out water and still on the beach, or the amazing chick Autumn that got thrown from her boat and spent the night in the mangroves, or the two boats that sunk with lives lost, we really have nothing to complain about.

I don't think anyone in the sailing community knew quite what was coming and I think if we did hurricane Odile would have been tackled differently. 

I haven't seen Cabo, where the eye of the hurricane hit. But I keep hearing the word devastation as a common description of it. It is currently under Marshall Law. Riots have been happening as food and water has been scarce.

 

La Paz has been more peaceful. Without power and water, but shops have food in them. There are still places not accessible but for us as foreigner's we don't see them unless we look.

 

Hurricane Odile is said to have been the strongest storm on par with the 1967 Hurricane Olivia to hit the southern tip of Baja. Death toll according to media says 4, all of which are foreigner's. Seems uncanny that not a single Mexican has died in this Hurricane. 

 

My heart goes out to the family of Gunther, long time resident of La Paz and the sailing community. Gunther and Fritz (the most amazing and charismatic Chihuahua) will be well missed.

 

The biggest shock to me is the sinking of Tobasco II. It shows me how ferocious the hurricane was to see this outcome for these so well equipped and knowledgeable sailors. Paul and Simone have played a massive role in a lot of people lives, whether it be offering advice or helping with the most difficult tasks, they were always happy to lend a hand.

The clean up and searching is still continuing. All we can do is continue to put more back into the community and help out where we can.

 

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TRYING TO EMBRACE WINTER

 

Apparently I can't avoid winter, no matter how much I try so I decided this break while visiting mum in country Vic, that instead of loathing winter, I would embrace it. 

In the theme of winter, I pulled out my snowgear and got excited enough to peel myself away from the heater and drive two hours each way to spend the day hitting the 'slopes' at Mt Baw Baw. Snowboarding is my only exception to winter and it was actually awesome. The vis was bad, the snow was sludgy and it was drizzling all day but it was fun to be 'shredding'. 

Mt Baw Baw surprised me a little. Firstly I didn't realise the resort only had pommers and T-bars. Initially I found this kind of daunting, but after several runs and no incidences I realised this wasn't a problem. Secondly, Baw Baw is packed with tree runs. All are quite short, but there are heaps of little kickers over soft terrain which allowed me to hit them unnoticeably confident.

The really good thing about having a mountain so close to mums is the recovery from the cold at the end of the day. This meant I got to sit back in my spot in front of the heater, with a hot water bottle, mums pea and ham soup and two very warm, cuddly sausage dogs.

My winter advice... find some sun! If you can't, find your local mountain. 

 

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THE BEST FLIGHTS WEBSITE EVER!

 

Western Sahara, Morocco

 

Great Wall of China, Beijing

I feel like It's only right to share the cheap flight love with the 15 people that read my blog.

 

Now its actually pretty manageable affording to travel as much as I do, simply because I have learnt to manipulate a website www.skyscanner.com to find me the cheapest flights on offer. Maybe everyone already knows this.. but my mind was blown when I learnt about it.

 

Thanks to my sidekick Jordan who has stars in his eyes when it comes to travel, I was shown ways to find the cheapest destinations as well as cheapest times of year to travel.

Its simple. Just a matter of searching a city or country and being as vague or exact as you want. You can simply choose your departure city and destination as everywhere, a country or a specific city.

Dates can be chosen as whole years, months or days.

 

If you are flexible, you then can go through the next year to see what the cheapest dates are. It shows all flights as they are looked at by other people and updated as requested.

 

Sometimes this can be inaccurate but most the time is spot on.. $69 one way flights from Bali to Perth, $780 Perth to dublin return (a rare find), $373 Perth to Ho Chi Minh return and $1490 Melb to Cabo return are just a few of the random fares at low prices I have seen.

 

Even without booking flights, its my favourite website to checkout. Dreaming about all the amazing places I could go. The map function shows even more unusual destinations, making the world your oyster!

 

 

*maybe if all 15 of you read this blog, skyscanner will start paying me for advertising!

 

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BOAT UPDATE # 4 - PAINT THE TOWN RED... ONLY AFTER YOU HAVE SANDED, PRIMED AND PAINTED IT BLACK'

Tri-coloured Hull with stand marks

 

Before pic - Haul out last year

 

After Pic - Sexiest Hull in La Paz

 

According to Hendo, the last few coats went on a treat, with several tiny conundrums along the way, but nothing too unexpected and difficult to solve.

One thing that was established and explained to me is that putting the last coat of paint on now and then leaving the boat sit on the hard for a couple of months will cause the copper to oxidise and the paint will lose it's barnacle killing ability. Therefore there is one last coat to go on just before she goes back in the water... And more than likely I will finally be there to help with it. 

It seems boat paint is copper based and has big warnings about being carcinogenic. Who knew that it would take both Hendo and Eddie to use a drill to mix the paint and spill most of it on themselves before coming up with this ingenious 'hole in paint lid idea'.

 

*For the record (it's in the blog so it's a legal disclaimer), no compo will b paid for work carried out on this boat...

 

The two troopers moved stands back and forth, sanded, painted, and spent time strategically placing and sikaflexing zincs so that water cant get behind them, yet also ensuring that the zincs have good contact for electrical current.

 

Looking at the obvious difference from the haul out until now you can appreciate the amazing amount of effort and work gone into it. I am so stoked, who knew a mechanic could be such a craftsman with a hull.

 

 

*I will be sure to update with a picture of Hendo and Eddie with a finished Hull.

 

 

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BOAT UPDATE # 3 - A SEXY PRIMED HULL



Almost a fully primed white hull, minus the teak run off from the rain
 

My mate Hayley giving Hendo a hand

 

No words necessary

 

Just kidding when I said pack up the tools... There's heaps more work to b done....

The original plan was to have the boat (I really need a name for her) back in the water on June 27th, but now looks like it will b staying on the hard for a couple more months.

Due to a few storms and really high humidity, work on the hull was slightly delayed. Luckily now the weather is just back to dry and hot the work has continued.

The yard took the generator away so Hendo and Eddie had to do the last hull pre-paint prep sanding by hand.

The painting/mixing process as explained to me by Hendo

"3 parts big tin, 1 part small tin, 20-25% of the mix green tin (that makes no sense I know....). Stir the shit out of it, pour into paint tray and roll on hull while copping paint all over yourself and in your beard"

Unfortunately I am not there to observe this intricate process but am kept well informed by email. She looks a beauty all white.

 

I have been told, 'Only one coat of primer, one coat of black, two coats of red and four sands in between and her hull will be done...'

 

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