So How are the cats doing? Cats on Board a skippers perspective

Cats on Board

If you are reading this blog, in preparation of your own cruising experience, and you wonder whether to bring your cat, I can only answer with an heart felt : "YES!". 

Life on board brings its own set of challenges, and we get many questions about how we do this or that on board. But the most asked question, is without a doubt: “So, how are the cats doing?” Quite good actually. Both cats have lived up to their role as pest controller, and have caught and disposed of bugs.

This brings us to the second most asked question: “Do cats get seasick?” This is an easy one, myth confirmed. Cats do get seasick. We have found, that they especially do not like it when the waves are on the bow and over about a meter and a half. But they are also adjusting. The worst bout of seasickness was experienced when we just left La Rochelle, and the cats experienced living on a rocky boat for the first time in their life. After that, they only became seasick twice, both times we where motoring against some nasty waves. However, even this they are adjusting to. Yesterday, both cats had their dinner when we motored against waves of about a meter.

Tuxington is getting used to life on board fastest, which is not surprising since:

1. He is the youngest cat, with only a year and a half and
2. he grew up up as a street cat, geared for survival, next to an ICA supermarket in Norway. He is always hungry, and will eat what is served.

Our biggest concerns around the cats are: The cats falling overboard, running away, the cats not eating or drinking. The first concern is addressed by keeping them inside when we are under way (unless posing for pictures or movies) and only letting them outside when we are on anchor or moored and on the deck, ready to scoop them up when they fall overboard/ catch them when they try to explore the outside world. Because SaltyPaws had quite a high free board, they can only get off at the swimming step, and this area is easy to monitor. The drinking water concern is addressed, by making sure there is a bowl of fresh water in all areas, and by adding some water to their dry food. At this point Luna's star like qualities become apparent. We have been feeding her wet food, as she did not like to eat dry food on the initial sailing legs. However, true to a Hollywood star, she has now become quite pretentious about the food she is being served. When served dry food (the very same dry food she was happily eating in Norway) she will test a bit, chew a couple of times, and then spits it out again, while making a face saying: “This is NOT the food that I ordered!”. So she is on a diet of wet-food now. We are now slowly trying to get her back on dry food.

Our preparation had clearly paid off. We have been taking the cats for a drive in the car in Norway many times, and we also brought them on the winter sport holiday (3x a 5 hour drive). I think this is a good test, to see how adaptable your cat is for the adventurous lifestyle. I haven't had the heart to throw them overboard, to teach them how to get back in the boat, but as the water is getting warmer, this is more and more likely to happen.

We created some cat-napping stations, by putting blankets and other soft items of clothing in several occasions. They also very much enjoy the cat scratchers, kindly donated by my Norwegian colleges. We keep their nails clipped, and they only scratch the placed where they are allowed to scratch. NB for those of you who are considering declawing the cat, so the boat remains intact: DONT. Not only is declawing inhumane, and illegal in many countries, it also prevents your cat from being able to climb back on board after it has fallen over.

If you are not interested in the cat's toilet situation, the post ends here...

Ok so you are interested in this subject after all. As for the cat head, back in Norway we have tried to get them used to a doormat, instead of kitty litter, with the idea that we could just tow the doormat on a line, to get it clean again. While for some cats this can clearly be a successful approach, our cats did not get used to this new way, and started to get creative with where they thought the cat head was. Also, we have tried to make them use the toilet, which can be successful, as clearly shown by a number of you tube videos. Also, our cats did not like this option either. In hindsight, this would not be a very good idea on a boat, since the toilet seat is quite slippery, and the boat is usually rocking in some kind of motion. In the end we just settled for a traditional litter tray, which is completely covered, and has got a door. This has worked quite well, both in transporting the cats in the car, and on the boat. We have put a towel in front of the cat head, to prevent kitty litter to spread throughout the boat.

How to make your first love fall in love again.... this time with sailing!

There are many great relationships, where the man loves sailing, and the woman loves staying ashore. People have therefore asked me the question: "How did you get that woman to love sailing as well?". What I should have done, is use "Would you like to sail around the world with me?" as a standard pick-up line. The second question would then not be: "What is your favourite dish" or "What sports do you do" or even  "What music do you like?" no the second question would be: "Do you ever get sea sick?". But no... when I met Elizabeth, on the glacier, she made me quickly forget about the questions I should have asked, and instead we looked at the stars on the glacier, we looked in each others eyes and we fell in love. Only too late did I realise, that the woman I was now madly in love with had never sailed before in her life... However, sailingwise she did have a few things going for her, she was a surfer, and into kayaking, and I even managed to get her to like snow and water kite surfing. Stay tuned for how I got the love of my life into sailing.

The Plan: Happy couple sailing in fantastic weather

The North Sea in Spring is perhaps not the best place to take the Love of your Life sailing for the first time. That is, if you want her to go sailing with you ever again, and especially if you would like to sail halfway around the globe with her. The cunning plan, was to introduce Elizabeth gently into sailing, stacking all possible positive factors to my benefit that I could think off: Starting with a spacious 40 foot catamaran, filled with some of our best friends. Sailing Easter time in Greece - good weather guaranteed, and topped off with rounding Santorini, the most romantic island.

A spacious 40 foot Nautitech catamaran

Some of our best friends were joining on the trip - Thank you Amira for taking the picture

Easter in Greece - good weather guaranteed

I should have known better, and Lady Luck ended up teaching me a lesson or two. While back in  Norway is was the best Easter ever (30 degrees, blue sky, hardly any wind), in Greece it wast the worst Easter since the past 15 years. We experienced 12 degrees throughout the week, lots of rain, and multiple days with 35 knots of wind. (we decided not to sail on the day it was blowing a staggering 45 knots). Easter is to early for the Meltemi, so this was a "Normal" storm being thrown at us.

This was my worst scenario being realised. And, off course it could have been the end of the line, for a Relationship that included sailing. Even worse, this could have been the end of the line for A Small Boy with a Big Dream.  On Andy's birthday, we rounded Santorini in miserable weather. However, this made Andy's birthday cake taste all the better that evening.

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Santorini on Andy's birthday. A whole lot less romantic, in the rain and 12 C.

Making Andy's birthday cake taste all the better.

Sailing back to Athens in 35 knots

With the sun and a good friend, 35 knots does not look so bad

Mono hull passing by at 35 knots of true wind speed

Sharing the fun: helming in 35 knots on a wet, outlying helm station. We are still smiling :)

This radar reflector (btw it does NOT work as radar reflector) came down in Elizabeths face. The only reason this was a happy ending were the protective sunglasses.

To make matters worse, we did not have enough warm clothing (we were actually very well prepared for "typical" Greek weather, not for the Straight of Siberia), the Nautitech catamaran has an outlying, and very wet steering stand, we did not thrust the autopilot to steer us through these waves, so we had a very wet steering experience, and to top it all off, Elizabeth got a radar reflector hurled at her!!!

After this episode, Lady Luck had her way, and Elizabeth was put off sailing for the rest of her life. I am now working to get a professional crew to sail the boat to Australia with me. No! This is how it could have gone but it didn't. Elizabeth loves sailing, especially in bad weather. And even better, she did not get sea sick even once. Rather than Lady Luck stacking the odds against me, perhaps she knew that the only way to get Elizabeth into sailing, was to make it challenging enough.

This was later confirmed, by Elizabeth taking a sailing course in February in the Solent. Again it was blowing 35 knots. She came back, all smiles, and very confident with her sailing skills.  Now she says that sailing in light wind days is boring, and sailing only gets intersesting at 35 knots!

Thank you Lady Luck!

And thank you to our friends, who where there with us in Greece!!

 And most of all thank you Elizabeth, for falling in love again, this time with sailing!!!

Inspiring the next generation

Today I saw some young children in optimists sailing past SaltyPaws here in La Rochelle. I hope SaltyPaws got to inspire the next generation of small boys (and girls) with big dreams.

View from SaltyPaws in la Rochelle

Salty Paws boat cards

It is always nice to stay in touch with those nice folks we met over sunset. Now what was their email again? Enter: SaltyPaws boat cards:

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