A bit late, but better late than never...

We composed this and thought we sent a few days ago - but now are posting it from Lagos in the south of Portugal having arrived here safely late Monday night April 23rd. All is well here.....

Irena and Cress

Amazing. The Straits of Gibraltar and the continent of Europe lay less than a day away. Since leaving Cape Town February 24th, we have been continuously at sea, except for four days in Saint Helena and six days in the Azores.  Over two months, we have sailed over 6000 Nautical Miles (10,000 kilometers)in 48 days at sea, to bring us to what we think of as our final passage in this phase of our trip around the world.  This last passage of only 1000 miles from the Azores to Portugal, will end in about 24 hours at a smallish town, Lagos, on the south coast of Portugal.  I get to fly back to South Africa to facilitate a coaching workshop in Johannesburg, then Irena and I will leave the boat and fly home to Canada in May for a much overdue visit with our loved ones. When we return to the boat on June 1st, if the facilities check out in Lagos, we will lay the boat up on land for at least a year and go to work. We don't have work yet, don't know exactly where we will find work, but we do know for a bunch of reasons, we need and indeed want to work for the next 'while'.

Reflection:
"...is it possible that the one thing we are looking for - STABILITY - is the thing that could lead to unhappiness??"
This is such a great question to arrive as we arrive in Europe.  It came by email from one of our family members, who, like us, are in transition! And is not transition the opposite of stability?

But who is not in transition? Most of our family is in transition. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I see a good argument that all of us are in transition, one way or another, most of the time.

Sometimes transitions are thrust upon us(good and bad), and sometimes we seek out transitions in the course of seeking out our heart's desire.  I realize so many of our transitions have been from seeking out our heart's desire. We are arriving in Portugal 7 years to the week since leaving Vancouver in our first boat on May 1st, 2005. We left Vancouver to pursuit our hearts desire of sailing to Australia. We bought the boat, transitioned out of jobs and our then 'life' and set sail. In Australia, when work prospects did not work out the way we hoped there, we pursued a desire to work in Asia. And so we did, in Singapore for 5 years. Our heart's desire there was to save money, buy a faster boat with room for family and friends, a boat to continue, we decided then, to sail around the world. And so we went to work; the boat we are arriving in Portugal with is the boat we bought in California and restored in Thailand. Next it was sailing to South Africa. Our heart's desire was then to settle for a while in South Africa as we did in Singapore and work, but when we arrived there, we decided against it, as much as we loved South Africa. So we set off in pursuit of an alternative; to sail the boat to Europe and the Mediterranean and to work in the Middle East. And so it will go I am sure. We don't get everything we want, but the art of it seems to be trying to get what we want, then doing our best to love what we get.

So if we are lucky, as we have been, we get to transition to seek our hearts desire. And this, it seems to me is a big part of happiness. I think happiness comes when we are 'actively engaged in the process of pursuing' our heart's desire. I don't think it even matters much if we succeed in the object of our desire all the time, but I think our happiness does depend on us being on passage in pursuit of our dreams. We need to be at sea in the adventure, figuratively speaking, not standing on the shore, if we are to be happy. And, if at first we don't know what our dreams are, to be happy we need to on passage - almost any passage --  trying to find out what our dreams are by experimenting, exploring, testing and failing sometimes.  It doesn't matter much what Course we set in pursuit our life's desire, it matters most that we pick one and set sail!

But what if transition is thrust upon us? What if someone gets sick, dies, we lose our jobs, whatever. Well, because such transitions are thrust upon us, they are perhaps even more uncomfortable, but what is there to do but make the best of it? After some pain and adjustment, we shift our expectations - our hearts desire -- to what is doable, and head off again in search of a new heart's desire.

But after 48 days at sea in the last two months I can say with confidence the process of being on passage is inherently UN-STABLE. And instability is uncomfortable.  And as human beings we don't like being uncomfortable, because its, well.... uncomfortable! Yet if we sought the stability to avoid our discomfort, --stood on shore  -- would we be happy? I think not for long. I think our society over rates stability. Advertisers pander to it, we are easily seduced by its false promises of happiness. While some moments of stability are necessary - we need to step ashore from time to time to catch our breath, re-cover, and re-provision -- happiness is elsewhere!

This means, I think, regardless of whether transitions are chosen or thrust upon us, we might as well go willingly -- be willing to suffer instability and it's discomfort, in order to have a chance at being happily engaged in seeking our heart's desire. Happiness, it seems, happens along the way - on passage.

It is perverse and cruel: Most of the time it seems, to be happy, we must be willing to leave stability and comfort behind. At least that is how it seems to go in our experience.

Cress and Irena

It is perhaps too perfect a morning.

Horta, Island of Faial, Azores

Behind, to the west, sets a jolly fat moon, in her great orange jacket, shouting to us "Good day, good day" after her brilliant company all the night long. Before us, the days sun rays streak yellow from behind the earth's rim, promising a new glorious day by setting the clouds ringing the horizon red with fire. And overhead, the main, staysail and genoa, pull in silent earnest to Horta, now only 20miles away below the horizon to the N.
Irena steps to the companion way, hands me a Café latte, heated to just the right temperature, and gives me a kiss, " I am off to sleep for a few hours, have a great watch babe". She steps back down the companionway and into the cabin's shadows, leaving me alone to wake with my coffee and contemplate our passage. I am very groggy this morning and more than happy to luxuriate in the freedom to simply sit and await my coffee's to bring sensibility and excitement to the day. I see the setting moon and rising sun and wonder is "Is this perhaps too perfect a morning?" But what could that mean? How could any morning at sea be too perfect?
Mornings can certainly be less than perfect! Stuck in traffic. And yes at sea too. We have had less than perfect mornings, like the last few mornings, after a night of howling winds, hissing seas and a boat bouncing wildly underfoot like a bucking horse, trying to pitch us across the cabin or out of our berths. "It's the sound of the wind in the rigging that is the most draining" I once read, about a storm at sea in a small boat, and found it to be true.
But not this morning. Harbour is just a few hours away and it's a perfect day coming on after a pretty tough upwind sail of the last 18 days. Sailing the whole span of the NE trades from just north of the equator to 32 degrees north latitude was a lot of work, but nowhere near the work of the last four days, trying to sail the last 300 miles to the Azores against a stubborn Low holding a wall of N winds in our face at 25 to 35 knots. We spent about a ¼ of our time hove to, waiting for the wind to ease just enough to allow us to resume sail and bash away, chiselling out the windward distance, one bumpy mile at a time. But that is behind us for now, for this morning, it's a perfect morning. Think I'll go make myself another cup of coffee and watch for the Azores to show up in the dawn light.
Post Note;
We did arrive in the Azores after a pretty good 28 day passage all the way from Saint Helena. We see that none of blogs from at sea have made it online for reasons we cannot determine. Rats!
We have spent the last 6 days drying out and sleeping the sleep of the weary traveller. After a day of touring the island yesterday in a rental car, we are provisioned and watered and ready for sea again tomorrow morning. We are headed for Lagos, Portugal, a mere 1000 miles away.

How things change, how they stay the same…..

A change  – again!

Irena and I are sad to say that, after 6 weeks of digging – emails, phone calls, lunch and coffee meetings -- even a try out work project with some prospective associate partners – we are going to pass on getting established here in Cape Town. It’s a lot like Vancouver here, just as beautiful and everybody wants to live here, but work is thin on the ground. (What work there is in South Africa is in Johannesburg, and who wants to live there!) But the killer is the wage rate. If we persevered, say 6 months to a year, we are sure we would find traction here, but the market rate for our services is way below international standard, making it tough to put money aside. So next week, we will sail on.

We have had fun here. We have made a lot of friends and are very sad to be leaving them. Sunday, we are having a going away pot-luck party on board, young and old, SA and expats alike. And we are selling BensonL.

Our destination is the Azores, 5200 nautical miles away. (The Azores are about 1000 miles due West of the Straights of Gibraltar). This will be our longest passage yet, if we go nonstop and not take a break at Saint Helena. Along the way, we will sail north about 2000 miles in the SE trades, 100 to 300 miles in the doldrums crossing the equator, another 2000 miles up through the NE trades, and finally into the variable winds of the North Atlantic where we will find the Azores. It’s a big run, a drift and a big beat to windward respectively, but in generally warm waters, and in moderate wind and waves. Our guess is we will take less than 45 days, maximum. Our passage planner software says 36 days, but I think we will not be so fortunate with the wind. We will not sail in any tropical storm zones, so no cyclones. At worst we might have to dodge an early spring storm in the North Atlantic as we approach the Azores.

But that is a long way off! For now we are doing the usual preparations – fuel, food, water and hull, rigging and sail checks. We replaced two lower shrouds that had died of old age (broken strands), but otherwise, we are in good shape. Irena has been cooking and freezing meals. The only thing missing is our Ritchie compass. After 6 weeks, the warrantee repair agent still has yet to get the replacement seals……… so I guess we will reinstall the old compass leave without it. 

Many hours I have spent on passage thinking about how to make our Hydrovane self-steering perform as it might. We have had pretty good service from it since installing the stronger shaft, the third mid shaft bearing, and a thicker water rudder. However, light airs downwind, and even moderate airs on the quarter remain a challenge for Natasha, as we know her. In light apparent winds like those we anticipate on this passage, there is not enough control authority in the wind vane to steer fully. So finally, here in Cape Town, I have had some time and materials to design and build a vane with a true air foil. It’s a NACA foil 0018 with a 22% chord depth. It’s about 46 inches tall and 18 inches deep, so it’s big, but light as I built it from model aircraft supplies – Foam, balsa and .6mm a/c ply, on the original frame, covered with a heat shrink film. It’s not nearly resilient enough for the offshore environment, but it should do as a test bed for the concept of using a true foil section for the wind vane instead of the manufacturer’s flat panel vane. John at Hydrovane is as excited as I am by the experiment! I hope it doesn’t blow to smithereens the first time I put it up!

Once we set sail, we will be largely out of email/radio contact for the firsts few weeks at least as the nearest shore based station is in the North Atlantic. (The Pretoria station seems off line). But as soon as we can we will post to the blog on our progress. Stay tuned!

Reflections

The poor in Cape Town, don't live in Cape Town, they live beside it....

Last week, we spent a morning in conversation with a South African whose career is devoted to the cause of bringing the country out of apartheid and creating a society of greater equality and political stability. He is now consulting with NGOs of modernizing economies all over the world seeking to address issues of poverty and creating responsive, effective, government.

Alas, he is not optimistic about South Africa’s future. In the simplest terms, he says South Africa, is prey to the same global economic forces that are a exacerbating the gulf between the rich and the poor. The firmly entrenched ANC government, having co-opted many of the anti- apartheid revolutionaries, is now seen as corrupt and ineffectual. Whether for lack of will or ability, the income inequality, perhaps the greatest in the world, is worsening. Official unemployment is 40% and increasing. The consensus is that the majority blacks and coloured people of the country are worse off now than under apartheid. Many mobile, educated (mostly) white South Africans have left, or are leaving the country. 

As we are doing.

And that’s the point about structural unemployment. As jobs for thinly educated people move around the globe seeking different countries to minimize costs, those left behind have few options. Few are wealthy enough to follow the jobs, if indeed governments at either end will permit them to do so. At home, without work, they languish into social dysfunction, with enormous cost in suffering and wasted humanity. The mobile – those with education and money like us - follow the wealth.

This is deeply unjust, and to my mind, unconscionable in a modern, self-aware society. To argue “a rising tide lifts all boats” is to conceal the truth. The advantaged and wealthy minority do way better with their well-heeled boats of a birth right education and starting wealth. They have fast passages and fair landings in stout boats. The majority, especially the poor, have leaky boats, through no circumstances of their making, and they are sinking in the storm of globalization. No way can the flimsy craft of hand, stand up to the juggernaut of global corporate iron. And where is government? As governments privilege some with super powers of incorporation and banking charters, they must be re- distributing the wealth that otherwise follows the tilting table. Greed and the will to power must not be allowed to runaway with this truth.

Farewell good South Africa, I hope someday to return to join the fight!

Welcome Benson!

Join us in welcoming a new ‘crew’ to the family, “Benson”. Benson comes to us from Germany. Born of Mercedes Benz in 1994, he’s got quite a few miles on him (325,000 km!) but he shows signs of being up for doing a few more. On the outside, he’s got a few bangs and bondo on him, and on the inside he’s a bit frayed and worn, but we are so pleased to have him as wheels, we think he is the most beautiful thing in the world. I mean to have a car again, how good is that?!

This weekend we are off in Benson to wine country for our second trip. The photos are from our first foray when Breanna, Mark and Eitann were still with us. Gosh that was fun. Sunday we are visiting our new friends, Mashupa and Khabiso out there too. They are South Africans from Lesotho. We met Mashupa, when he picked us up hitchhiking in Richards Bay in November and have stayed in touch since then.

If it sounds like it’s all play and games, it’s not. Irena and I have spent the last two weeks digging for work. Just this week, I have thrown my lot in with a coaching firm in Cape Town, developing the corporate side of the business. Now I am working every day, partly from the boat and partly at the office! Irena is busy networking with various prospective clients and other consultants, and we expect she too will be finding something to do besides make me lunch. (Just kidding Honey!) Soon Coaching Works Pte. Ltd. of Singapore will have two contributing consultants.

We can see the end of our time in beautiful Simon’s Town is coming. It’s an hour’s drive to my office in Cape Town and Irena will be busy probably soon in the city too.  I expect we will choose to move the boat to Royal Cape Marina, right in the centre of the City. Not very pretty, but very practical. My immediate goal is to make enough money to allow me to do some ‘no guilt’ soaring at the Cape Soaring Club, Irene’s goal is to make enough money to go see her grandchildren!

Reflections

It seems fitting we should be so close to a place called the Cape of Good Hope. This is the way I am feeling these days. Amidst the busy-ness that is my life, I feel a returning glimmer of calm satisfaction. I am meditating again more regularly, reconciling myself to dealing with the boat waving back and forth while I sit cross legged early mornings in our berth. I am also tapping the inevitable fears and insecurities (EFT, definitely my favourite tool for releasing emotional energy) that arise in the course of this transition. And, Irena and I are exercising pretty regularly, very gradually, working our way back into some resemblance of fitness.

These are all modest efforts, but remarkably helpful, nevertheless, in their cumulative effect. At sea, and during the tumult of transition from harbour to harbour over the last six months, I have failed to maintain this regime, and lost touch with this other ocean of calm as a result. Today, I am reminded again of the deep value to the quality of mind, and hence quality of life, these activities engender. Today, my sense of calm satisfaction is the immediate reward for my ablutions of self-care. Tomorrow, the longer term reward will be the quality of life past experience has demonstrated I create out of this state of being. It is amazing and humbling to see how much arises out of so little.

This is the ‘C’ for Capacity of which I speak in the 7Cs. Capacity is about the practices of care and strengthening of body, mind, emotion and spirit. The practices are so basic, so simple, yet so hard to discipline. They are so rewarding, yet so easily sloughed off. Join me in a newfound commitment to stay with the program, and compassion for ourselves when we do not!

Open Letter to Mr. Ritchie

It is the cruiser’s lot to be in a constant struggle with the elements to keep our gear working. Fair enough, it’s a tough environment. But sadly, like everywhere else in the modern world, we see the gradual deterioration in quality of virtually all marine products, more and more built as cheaply as possible, hoping to snare the unwary with cheap, fall-apart stuff. Raymarine sold me a heavy duty, offshore drive for my self steering arm made of plastic gears. West Marine recently shipped me two Ronstan snap shackles (the volkswagon of marine hardware manufactures) in Harken (the BMW) bags at Harken prices. And on it goes with line (rope) without UV protection, galvanized shackles that rust within days, Stainless steel fittings that aren’t “stainless” because they are made of such low grade steel they rust happily, blocks that blow up… and now a compass that failed within months.

I am a little embarrassed by my invective in the open letter to Ritchie Compass below, but I want to vent. I don’t know if I’ll ever send this to them directly, mostly because I doubt anybody at Ritchie would care one way or another, or that it would make one small bit of difference. But, at least, sailors contemplating a new compass need to hear this. And I’m mad as heck and not going to take it anymore!

Open Letter to Ritchie Compasses

Dear Mr. Ritchie,

Your Compass sucks.

Can you imagine my disappointment, after spending $800 on a brand new Ritchie “GlobeMaster SP 5c, to find, just months after it came aboard, a pool of oil on the teak cockpit sole and an air bubble the size of a tennis ball in the liquid filled compass? 

But the whole product had a cheap feel to it, from the moment I first saw it. When I unwrapped our mail order, to my vast disappointment I found the compass light is ‘engineered’ from two LED lights, mounted on an unprotected circuit board, just waiting to soaked by the next wave to come aboard. (Getting that replaced will mean a lot more than finding a light bulb!)  And everything else is made of plastic of doubtful dimension and the modest materials. Just days into our first passage, I was not impressed to see splotches of rust showing up all over the “stainless steel” mount.  But the last straw was the bubble!

Now you and I are faced with the hassle and expense of a warrantee repair. I lose time. You lose money. I mean really, what are you guys doing? You know this product is used in a marine environment of salt water spray and constant motion on ocean passages of thousands of miles. You know we will expect it to last more than a few months, one boating season, or even, heaven forbid, a few years. Why then are you using 304 stainless on the mount? Why would you design a compass light around an unprotected circuit board? Why would you build it so poorly that it leaks in the first three months?

Yup, your compass sucks. Shame on you!

I am telling my cruising friends about my experience with Ritchie compasses, because as your website says, "navigation really does begin with the right compass", and its sure not a Ritchie!

Reflection

There is more at play here than consumer rage. There is a much more serious issue. It is not just about “fucknowlogy”, fumbling high tech stuff released into the market place, nor is it about businesses maximizing profit by squeezing quality, or our mute acceptance of ever more false advertising claims, though all of these are issues too rankle and highlight civilization’s failing social consciousness and values. 

Rather, the more serious issue is the question of our very survival – we are wasting our planet’s resources. And I mean ‘wasting’ as in depleting, diminishing, exhausting, stripping, denuding, wrecking, etc.. because almost everything we produce is designed to fall apart quickly. And we are doing so exactly when we need so desperately to be doing the opposite. When we should be doing our modern best to build stuff that lasts a long, long time (repairable) – things that make the most prudent use of the planet’s resources -- we are, instead, building C.R.A.P.(Carelessly Resource Assailing Products).

And so we all ask, "What can ‘I’ do?"

This is the important question. I hope you will join me in a personal quest to stop buying CRAP. Join me in rewarding manufactures who produce quality repairable products and punish manufactures who build cheap fall apart stuff.  Save the planet - DON'T BUY C.R.A.P.

Hurray, after 40 sea days from Jakarta, we are safe in Cape Town! Well, actually we are in Simon's Town, one of Cape Town's suburbs. Our last passage down the coast from Nnysna to arrive the day before New Years Eve was perhaps the most pleasant of all our short passages around the cape. Sunshine and light and moderate following winds.
There is much to reflect upon, and it sounds silly, but it was important to us to sail the South Indian Ocean in bare feet. We wanted so much not to stretch out at least the illusion of warm water sailing even as we sailed all the way south to 35 South Latitude. Yes, there were nights in the cockpit in toques, foul weather gear, and safety harness, but never did we succumb to putting on our sea booties!
Now we are in transition as we seek now to discover where we can make a contribution here in South Africa. Our crew Eitan and Mark are leaving us one by one, and Breanna is set to fly home tomorrow. We are scouting out the most suitable place to moor Conversations as we plan to continue living  aboard.
In the meantime, we are enjoying quaint Simon's Town and  doing lots of hiking and sightseeing, including a trek to the Top of Table mountains, alas, in cloud.

Snug In Knysna for Christmas

It may not have seemed like Christmas as a Canadian would know it, but by golly, we had Christmas lights up so it must be Christmas. No snow, no Christmas tree, no eggnog even, but Irena, at long last, had Christmas boat lights. Yes, two strings of classy white lights ran up the backstay, over the top and down the forstay to decorate Conversations where she lay alongside the town’s quayside village. She looked pretty nifty that night untill the rain started. Tragically, the lights only lasted a couple of hours before they all failed So much for outdoor lights! We took them back for a refund next day. The hunt continues for real outdoor lights…..

Since coming to Knysna, it’s been a whirlwind. The day of our arrival, Irena and I left the boat in the capable hands of Eitan and Mark to drive 1000 km round trip to Cape Town to pick up Breanna at the airport. Now we have five aboard.  Two days later, all of us piled in a rental car for a two day road trip up the coast to Addo Elephant Park, where we drove around the reserve dodging, you guessed it, great mounds of steaming elephant pooh. 486 elephants churn out a heck of a lot of it, which they seem to prefer to drop on the road. This however, only adds to the viewing experience: Armies of dung beetles carve out great balls of the stuff, and race it off into the undergrowth where they lay their eggs and bed down in comfort. And, oh yes, and we also saw lots of elephants too!

Next day we stopped at a research centre to pet a Cheeta and pair of lion cubs. Real cool, but tame. So off we went to the world’s tallest bridge bungey jump where Breanna, Mark and Eitan put down a $100 each, and jumped! Very courageous. I must say they made it look like a walk in the park. Irena and I caught the action on closed circuit TV in the bar and bought the beers for our returning heroes. Also fun.

Back in Knysna, we moved Conversations  in from the hook and tied her up in the only vacant place in town - smack dab in the middle of the town quay.  We are sort of on display here, right under the nose of the waterfront restaurants, shops and charter operators. Lots of curious vacationers stumble up to the dock with questions, people from all over world. This too is fun. Yesterday, a gentleman of 87 came up told me of his 6 year ordeal as a German prisoner-of-war in a Russian concentration camp. On a lighter note, within 10 feet of the boat is the Gelato stand, much to Breanna’s delight.

Christmas eve, we had a great Polish dinner of Borscht, Pierogi and Nalesniki prepared up by Irena, with Mark and Breanna's learned assistance. Christmas day was, of course, turkey day. Mark took over with Gertrude (what else would you name a turkey?) to see she was properly dressed for the occasion and stuffed into our pint sized oven. Yesterday, boxing day, we had a “left over party” aboard s.v, Papillion with Jim and Julia and Mike and Cathleen from s.v. Content.

A very nice weather window is shaping up tomorrow for our departure for the Cape Town suburb of Simon’s Town. Thanks to Irena we have a long term berth booked in the False Bay Yacht Club. It’s a 250 NM passage, the last passage on our voyage to Cape Town from Singapore and Indonesia. It’s hard to believe how fast the time has gone by: We left Singapore early June with Dennis and Rita, and we left Jakarta, Indonesia in early August with Eitan. By New Year’s we will have arrived and it will be over. We are glad to be here and glad to be moving into the next phase - working in South Africa!

Reflections:

At this time of year, many of  us reflect on our good fortune, a time for review if you like. Here in Africa, where most have so little, I think of my own life and I wonder more generally, where does good fortune come from? Is it purely about the circumstances of our birth, does it show up one day in a lottery draw, or is it something we work for. Is it chance or design or both?

Suppose good fortune does live at the intersection of circumstance and luck, design and choice. If that is so, then there is some chance to our fortunes about which we can do nothing. So be it. But where can we influence our good fortune beyond our good luck and bad? How do we 'get in the game' and do things to help along our good fortune?

Do the 7Cs apply here? I think so. Together they can  be a framework for pro-activity. 

There is another big question in our experience of people in Asia and now Africa - what is the link between good fortune and happiness? When I see how happy so many are who have so much less, I wonder, is happiness not much about good fortune, but more about something else, and if that is so, what?

I think a partial answer to happiness is opportunity to be pro-actively engaged in creating good fortune! To be self responsible (Captaincy), to have a Course, to have Companions, live a life of Curiosity, be building Courage and overall Capacity, and to be doing so in self Compassion is to be in the game, which itself contributes to both happiness and good fortune.

Enough! Irena and I both reflect on what  enormous good fortune we have had to live the lifestyle we wish these last 7 years since leaving Canada and look forward to whatever fortunes appear as we seek to find work in South Africa.