SaltyPaws getting ready for some anti-fouling

The Crew

Click the links below to learn more about our crew :

 Skipper - A Small Boy with a Big Dream

Elizabeth -Anchors aweigh! (a perspective from the first mate)

Luna















Tux

Some inspirational passages by T.S. Elliot shared by friends

From Little Gidding:

“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time”.

From The Dry Salvages

“Fare forward, travelers! Not escaping from the past 

Into indifferent lives, or into any future;
You are not the same people who left that station
Or who will arrive at any terminus,
While the narrowing rails slide together behind you;
And on the deck of the drumming liner
Watching the furrow that widens behind you,
You shall not think 'the past is finished'
Or 'the future is before us'.
At nightfall, in the rigging and the aerial,
Is a voice descanting (though not to the ear,
The murmuring shell of time, and not in any language)

Fare forward, you who think that you are voyaging;
You are not those who saw the harbor
Receding, or those who will disembark.
Here between the hither and the farther shore
While time is withdrawn, consider the future
And the past with an equal mind.
At the moment which is not of action or inaction
You can receive this: "on whatever sphere of being
The mind of man may be intent
At the time of death" - that is the one action
(And the time of death is every moment)
Which will fructify in the lives of others:
And do not think of the fruit of action.
Fare Forward.”

Anchors aweigh! (a perspective from the first mate)

First mate log entry number 1:  8-March-2014

First mate?!!??  But my business card says I am a senior engineer working for an oil and gas company in Norway!  So why am I writing this message now with job title "first mate"?  Perhaps I should start from the beginning.

I hail from the US, a quaint little harbor town on the St. Claire shores of Michigan, perhaps you've heard of it...Detroit?   Well more like the inner suburbs on the corner of "plain lane" and "nothing to do avenue".  The sort of comfortable place where the idea of sailing is spoken like taking a cold shower and ripping up 100 dollar bills as fast as possible.  Fast forward a few years to 2008 when I came to Norway for work.  I thought to myself, I'll just be here for a couple years then find my way back to the land of convenience.  Back then I would have never told you that while on this assignment I would meet the love of my life and in 3 weeks time quit my steady job to sail around the world in a 44 ft catamaran....with our 2 cats.  Up until now my life has been fairly linear.  You know, school, job, brush my teeth 3 times a day, lather, rinse, repeat!  On April 1st, that will suddenly change as we start our journey sailing for 18 months from Europe to Australia on a path that is as predictable as the wind itself.

Being from the US, I've never sailed.  A country known for its land lubbers (and blubbers), a sea faring nation we are not.  The first time I ever stepped foot on a sail boat was just recently.  Just a couple weeks ago I took my FIRST sailing course so I could learn to rescue my partner if he falls overboard.  I am one of the most clumsy and uncoordinated people I know and here I am having to command a half million dollar vessel when its my turn on watch and my husband is asleep?!? While I am a whiz at my particular flavor of engineering, I haven't the first clue how to fix a boat when the engine fails, or how to operate a dinghy, or even the navigation system.  My language skills are perfect so long as everyone speaks English!  The worst part is that I am a total control freak in normal life.  But what happens now when the world of "normal" doesn't apply?  How does a person control total chaos?

Don't be fooled, getting over these challenges and fears is the reward I'm looking forward to!  If all I learn on this trip is how to sail, a bit of Spanish, a bit of culture, repair a diesel engine, how to not have a panic attack in stressful situations, and learn to be a bit more practical, it will have been well worth the missing paycheck! I'm not talking out of stupidity here, being able to stay calm in emergencies and solve problems under pressure is a rare skill, one that you don't earn working behind a computer screen your entire life.   Moving around to different places and starting new jobs always has a difficult beginnings, but, fortunately they don't stay that way forever....and that's when the fun begins.  Luckily my darling companion is an expert sailor and so we have at least all the skills on board the ship we need to make headway while I get caught up.  And our two cats are always on cue to provide comic relief.

And so here it is only 3 weeks away, the day I never thought would come when I would put Norway in the "rear view mirror" just as I have many of the places I have lived.  But this move, unlike the others, has no clear schedule or destination on the manifest.  The new 2 year plan is much simpler really, discover a simpler life on a sailboat and find out what happens later.  Perhaps this time the destination is not something I can find on a map.

Anchors aweigh!

Elizabeth

First real picures of "SaltyPaws"

Movie Review: All is Lost

A colleague at work mentioned that I should watch "All is Lost" as preparation for our sailing trip, as I might learn a few things. I though I was well prepared with my sailing skills, offshore survival training, emergency preparedness training, medical course and risk reviews, but you never know if you can learn a trick or two from an old dog i.e. Robert Redford.

*** Spoiler Alert ***

Clearly Captain Rob is not the most safety conscious sailor and he did not follow the RYA schooling. Here are some observations:
When he detects the leak, the first thing captain Rob does is not calling a mayday on VHF, setting of the EPIRB satellite beacon, stuffing the hole with anything that is at hand, or pulling a sail over the leak, or getting the life raft and ditch bag ready or even starting the bailers. No, the first thing he does, is getting the mainsail down, an action that does not help him whatsoever. Then he manages to collide into the container a second time.

Finally, after some agonizing minutes, where all the good advice I shouted out at captain Rob was ignored, he manages to tack the other way and the hole is safe and clear above the water line. At this point captain Rob is safe, and he could use the time to pull a sail on the outside of the hull, and start stuffing things on the inside.

What is Captain Rob doing, when he is going down into the boat to have a nap when the boat is still half full of water? Captain Rob's safety thinking is highlighted by the fact that:

• He needs to cut a handle for the bailing pump, and does not have one to hand
• He has to connect up his VHF antenna, it was not even connected before the collision.
• What is that about when he call a S.O.S.? Mayday Mayday Mayday is how you start an emergency call?
• Why does captain Rob not keep his sat phone in a waterproof bag?
• Why is he not wearing a life jacket?
• Where are the storm tactics? Captain Rob  does not use his sea, anchor that he earlier used to connect to the container, streaming warps, taking the seas from the behind, running the engine to keep up with the waves, and worst of all, he is still not wearing a life jacket.
• He is finally deploying the life raft, when the boat is floating high up on the water. Man up Captain Rob, and instead of sissily deploying the raft, deploy the bailer!
• Really! Getting into the life raft, when the boat is still high up in the water! Not only are did you just earn the title of coward the size of a blue whale, you just took a very unnecessary risk. BTW, where is the ditch bag? At least stock up with water and supplies before you make the jump.
• Filling up the fresh water canister with the sea water pump from the sink?
• In clear weather, with a boat that is not sinking, you leave the boat again? Man up and start pumping the water out you sissy!
• In the life raft, for the first 24 hours, do not eat or drink, get your body in energy preservation mode
• Where is your hand water maker our solar still?
• Where are you keeping that knife Captain Rob? The correct place in in a bag at the end of the painter line in the water. No wonder you managed to sink your life raft.
• Way to go: Setting of the flare without safety glasses or gloves. This is really the time to use the parachute flares.
• Shooting flares when there are no vessels in sight?
• Setting your only life raft on FIRE!

Katadyn Survivor 35, a hand operated water maker.

Some miscellaneous observations:

• who is steering when he is down below, he clearly does not have an auto pilot...
• It is beyond me, how with so little wind the boat even generated enough speed to create a hole like the one that was created.
• How did the boat turn over? the waves where not even that high....
• Man Over Board by yourself is Game Over..... to get back to the boat is extreme luck! 
• How did he let go of the mast, without even cutting the shrouds or the faulty VHF connection
• Where did the swell go after the big storm?
• How did you manage to sink the life raft!
• The hacked together water maker has little chance of actually working in wave motion.
• Captain Rob can suddenly read the map and writing without his glasses.
• There is land in the background! where is that on the map.
• Where did the glass bottle come from?

Final rating: Too agonizing to watch without writing a blog post with what Captain Rob does wrong and Hollywood gets wrong. No expert sailors consulted in the making of the movie. It turns out that actual courses are a much better preparation than Hollywood...

This would have been on the movie screen, if I was there for the life screening.

Tuxington asks: "Wherrrrrre is the ships cat?" Lunington says: "To be purrrrfectly honest, Captain Rrrrrrrob cannot likely keep his cat alive in even the best of conditions. Miauw!"

Setting the Course