The Great Wander

When we first made the decision to sell everything and buy a boat for travel, my grandmother said, “Don’t do it.  Your grandfather was always fixing something on his boat.  Everything was always breaking.  You’ll always be working on it.”  I thought to myself, well, I’m always fixing something in the house, how can it be different?

Only it is different.  We did more home projects than a lot of people I know. We enjoyed doing  it.  We remodeled every single house we owned.  We moved plumbing, electrical, built a garage, converted a garage into a living room, tore down walls.  We did a lot.  We lived in it too.  We lived in the mess of the remodel. With the exception of the two kitchen remodels, there was always a place to get away from it.

Last fall when we were hit by lightning, we were thrust back into the living in the remodel.  Only this time there was no place to escape.  It was all right there.  Boxes were stacked in the salon because there was no other place for it to go.  Our cabin was never made up because we always needed access to the engine compartment.  Even the cabin we slept in frequently had to be torn up so we could access the storage underneath.

Once that was done and we took One Life out for our first sail, a jumper strut broke.  It was just corroded and old, so while it was a surprise, when we looked at it, it wasn’t a surprise.  When we first tried to really leave, an exhaust hose clamp broke, which flooded the bilge.  Then during Helene, the bimini started to tear.

In between Helene and Milton we spent some time at anchor.  We knew that we were going back to the dock.  With several days of clouds ahead of Milton, we decided to go back to the dock, because charging the batteries was becoming an issue.  

As we got things together to head back to the dock, we fired up the engines, I had Sandy pull forward a little to create some slack on the chain, and I clicked on the windlass controller.  Click.  Then nothing.  Click.   Nothing. So, I had to pull up the anchor by hand.  I would pull five feet of chain up, Sandy would hand crank the windlass, then run back to the helm, move us forward, and we’d repeat the process.  

Later we found out it was just the connections that weren’t that clean. To find that out, we had to remove the windlass from the chain locker.  That was a two day job.  Once we had it out, we found the corrosion, and boom, easy peasy.  Windlass runs like a charm again. 

Of course in the process of getting the windlass out, because it was caulked in as well as being bolted, I tore the weather stripping for the chain locker.  So now that has to get fixed as well.  

Fixing a boat is kind of like the line of dominos.  One domino falls, and your goal is to get the dominos back up while trying to find a place to pull a domino out to keep anything else from falling. 

I feel, sometimes, like I have ADD.  I will start one task, see something that needs to get fixed, start working on that, then see something else that needs to be fixed, start working on that, then go back to the first thing I started on/ Then I  see three other things that need to get done.  Everything gets started, but nothing gets finished.  

I have a much greater appreciation for what my grandmother was saying about my grandfather always fixing things.  It’s an aspect of boatlife that everyone who owns a boat warns you about, but you can’t really ‘appreciate’ it until you live it.  You’re never done fixing the boat.  Because even when you have ‘everything’ fixed, you still have maintenance to do.  Lifelines need to be cleaned.  Standing rigging needs to be adjusted.  Running rigging needs to be checked and potentially replaced.

There’s always something that needs to be done.  And something is always breaking…and it will be when you need it most!