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 did the ancients do it? Skippers perspective of the 370 NM crossing from Fromentera to Sardinia

How did the ancients do it?

Sailing for days on end, days without land in sight, sailing through the dark nights. How did the ancients do it? We all know that Colubus cheated, and actually knew the route to the New World. The Vikings were the first to make it to Amerika. They needed to rely on the position of the stars, sun and the moon for navigation. This offcourse, could only give them the lattitude, as the Longitude problem would be solved a couple of centuries later in Greenwich. They had primitive compasses, and a sun stone, a stone that would allow them to locate the sun, even when covered by clouds. Their ships where sturdy, but open, and the man and supplies were exposed to the elements. For days, weeks, months even they would have to endure, not knowing how long to wait for the next landfall. They could not have seen any rocks at night (especially if the moon is not up, there is cloud cover, or the moon is simply shining from the wrong direction).

The crossing from Fromentera to Sardinia is some 370 Nautical miles, and we expect this crossing to take 3 days. Our tank is fueled up, weather forecast downlowded and checked, the course set, and we are off. We know that even if there is no wind, our diesel tank will last the whole stretch, and our larder will provide for far longer than 3 days. We haven't quite learned how to economize on the water consumption, and we go through a quarter tank roughly every two days. Fortunately, the water maker and solar panels can easily keep up with this rate. More importantly, our music and book collection will last much much longer than that.

Back to the vikings, staying motivated, without the luxury of hot showers, music and books to read, chilled drinks, and fresh food, and unlimited amount of drinking water, exposed to the elements for weeks on end. Our crossing went smooth, with the least amount of waves we have had thus far had in any crossing. For several days we only saw one or two ships visually. Since the radar and AIS can look much further, these devices could pick up quite a few more ships. Sometimes you can see the land when it is as close as a few Nautical miles, and other times you can see land from around 50 nautical miles. If the land is mountainous, this will improve the visibility significantly, and at night, we can see the lighthouses from about 40 nautical miles on a good night. Our radar can pick up targets from as far as 48 Nautical miles, if they are big enough. The vikings, of course did not even have lighthouses to go on. The Egyptians started the lighthouse practice, but this technology had not been transferred to the New World when the ancients landed.

This means that you need to either know that the location where you are planning to make your landfall is quite large and hard to miss, or alternatively you need to keep the cross track error in your navigation less than 5 nautical miles on a low visibility conditions, or 50 nautical miles on high visibility conditions. Fortunately, for the vikings this is true for America, which stretches across both hemispheres. It actually becomes quite a lot trickyier when navigating to small islands, such as the pacific islands, Svalbard, Madeira, and so on. Can you imagine, to miss the one island in the pacific you where planning to hit some islands are less than 5 km in diameter, and than having to go on to Australia? Or Happening on the next possibly uninhabited and uncharted island? Back in the day, this is the method how quite a few islands where discovered. And even worse, lost! If the navigational notes were off, it could become impossible to find back the place where you spent such a sweet time and planted your flag...

On our 3 day crossing, I had plenty of time to think about all this. As I write this, we are less than 30 Nautical Miles away from Sardinia, and we picked up the first land at about 50 Nautical Miles distance. As I type this, I am having a chilled fruit juice, and our boat speed is above 7 knots. When we left, our water tank was at one quarter, right now it is at 3 quarters full. How Times have changed. My respect for the vikings has deepened by an infinitive amount. Going out there, without knowing what is out there, and whether it is possible at all is in my mind the ultimate proof of courage. And we all know, the vikings had no shortage of courage!

SaltyPaws serves freshly made pasta on its crossings

The owner of the SaltyPaws taking a nap

The one vessel we see, and we need to take evasive action!

Tuxington overseeing the evasive nautical manouvres

Another sunset seen from Salty
Paws