Two weeks before our intended departure date, and I can’t sleep.  After all the years of preparation, I’m anxious that I won’t have time or the space to stuff our boat with all the things I think we may need, or really want to have on board.

Intellectually I appreciate that no one leaves with everything good to go, satisfied that everything is ready.  That’s why we signed up with the Baja Ha-ha; to have a hard date for departing.  At the same time, the most dangerous thing for a ocean-going cruiser is a schedule.  Weather should be the primary factor in deciding when to go, not a group who decided this departure date a year ago.  Hurricane Odile recently hit Cabo very hard.  The marina may not be ready for 125 boats.  Then again, maybe this is the excuse I need to take a couple more weeks to get things settled up for the longer journey, the five year plan.  Maybe we’ll leave Ventura as stated, but stay in San Diego for a bit longer, skip the Ha-ha.  But maybe, if I continue to work 12 hour days, with Leslie’s and my uncle’s help, I can get the boat ready enough to leave with the Ha-ha group.

Yesterday was the first time in six months that I cut my hair.  I didn’t have the desire to take time away from working on the boat, but my cousin offered to cut it for me Sunday evening, so I took her up on the offer.  Here we made all this sacrifice to be with the kids, and I have had less free time with the boys than when I was working my career.  It’s crazy.  I’ve postponed so much of my life over the past decade, and now, I feel as if I’m postponing life more than ever, that I’m missing important moments with Bryce and Trent.  Crazy, isn’t it?   I should be excited to be leaving in two weeks, but instead I find that my focus is even more intense.  I got to get this boat ready and our land life boxed up.

The Ha-ha is also to be on opportunity for us to meet other kid boats.  So far, although we’ve elected to share our contact info with other kid boats, no one has reached out.  Last year, we saw maybe one or two other kid boats at the send off party.  Maybe there aren’t so many to make much of a difference.

I know the sailing and the traveling and the adventure will be great for the family and for me in the end.  I have to know it.  We’ve put so much of our family’s resources of time and money into this venture, I have to believe it.  Boy, am I anxious.  I keep reaching out to have faith that this will be as great as I’ve envisioned.  I have not experienced full relief, or the feeling of satisfaction derived from a sense of completion for so long.  I hope I feel it within a couple months. I can’t remember when I have felt it.  This is not fun.

Now I have to try and sleep so can be effective today.  I have a lot to do, as usual.

Preparing Kandu over the past several years, vendors and boat owners have shared many negative (or “realistic,” if you’re a pessimist) expressions. Most common: “The best two days of boat ownership are the day you buy it and the day you sell it.” Second most common: “A boat is a hole in the water in which you throw money.” Third most common: “The definition of cruising—instead of everyday working on your boat in your home port, you work on it everyday in exotic ports.” Common: “Cruising is 99% boredom, 1% shear terror” and “No matter the perceived difficulty of a given task prior to its commencement, it will always turn out to be much more difficult in the end.” Not so common: “The skills required to maintain a boat are simple. The challenge is having to know all 10,000 of them.” Most painful: “BOAT is an acronym for ‘Break Out Another Thousand [$].’”

Truth lies in all these expressions. Worst is when they hit together like a shower of daggers attempting to assassinate your attitude, to weaken your will to press on with your goal to sail to foreign ports and adventures beyond. When preparing an older boat for long distance, long-term cruising, many disappointments strike each day, anything from “they don’t make these anymore,” to “you have to replace the whole thing/all of them”, to “but a professional installed it just last month,” and “how does hoisting my brand new $5000 sails break my professionally rebuilt $3000 furling systems and damage my sails?” (That was a bad day.)

In the morning, when a marine surveyor (a professional you pay to tell you what’s wrong with your boat) inspecting your boat tells you that you need to replace your manual bilge exhaust hose and your boat’s steering cable, he says it in a way that sounds like a boat owner can be done with it by day’s end. So when he leaves, you’re smiling and thanking him for finding the problems. After lunch, you call to order the parts. But it’s not easy. It winds up taking two days to research what is needed, another day to find and order the parts, two days to remove the dying unit, a half day to install what turns out to be the wrong part, a half day to order the right part, two days to receive it (that is if you paid the extra money to expedite shipping), and a day to install (note: it’s markedly faster the second time) and test/adjust/calibrate it. Don’t forget about the two new tools bought to do the job. And also don’t forget that the timeframe-equation is twice multiplied: firstly for the bilge hose and secondly for the steering cable. So two weeks and three thousand dollars later, you call the surveyor to tell him the things are done.

Were I to end the account here, the bleak comments about boat ownership hold true. Why then would anyone own a cruising boat? Well, hoses are important. Should one fail, your boat could sink. I knew this before I owned a boat, but after replacing them, I now have confidence in my bilge pump hose, and the other three hoses I replaced that the surveyor didn’t flag. I replaced the other hoses when, in removing the bilge hose, I saw that they were of similar type and poor condition. All the below-the-waterline hoses have now been replaced and tested with superior hose, new fittings, and the best hose clamps. Additionally, while fussing around to find the lay of the hoses’, I had the pleasure of peering into corners and recesses of my boat that I might never have otherwise (I ain’t scared).

Steering is also important (no, duh . . .). After removing the old and installing the new, I now know how my steering system works, every nook and cranny of it. I know how to find the part numbers and where to get parts (Edson). I installed and (4 times) adjusted the assembly myself. I improved the system by adding in-line grease points to the cable conduit to help better maintain the cable within, a feature absent from its previous installation. I learned, after some debate, which grease to use, for not only the steering cable, but for most of the boat’s moving mechanical parts (SuperLube Synthetic Grease). With all that I learned, I elected to create emergency spares. For bilge pump, I re-plumbed and re-wired a portable bilge pump (the fifth bilge pump on our boat). For the steering assembly, I put together a comprehensive kit. In the event that any of the steering components should fail, between the parts I set aside and the newly acquired knowledge on how to replace the parts, I feel confident that I could repair the steering, should the need arise.

So I come out of the ordeal with greater knowledge, greater skill (only 9,998 to go!), and greater confidence. Yeah, sure, I paid for it in money, time, sweat, and frustration. But there are worse ways to spend your time and money than on preparing your “space” ship for an extended world tour with your family. And in the end, I made several new relationships with really smart people. For me, BOAT now stands for, “Buying Our Adventure Time.”