With multiple demands, all important to our trip, priorities have been categorized into three ranked groups: 1) Kandu preparations, 2) skipper and crew skills training, and 3) multimedia production.

Kandu Preparations:  Getting Kandu ready, is divided further into three ranked categories: a) below deck necessities, b) above deck necessities, and c) nice-to-haves, things to work on as we have time between now and October.  The only other aspect of Kandu’s prep is an August haul out when we’ll replace the through-hulls (bronze ball valves that let seawater in or exhaust waters out) that are freezing up due to age and corrosion, and we’ll add a couple more coats of bottom paint to help inhibit marine growth on the hull.  Anything floating in the ocean becomes host to a myriad of sea life, all of which negatively impact Kandu’s ability to glide through the water, slowing her down and making ocean passages longer.

Skipper and Crew Skills Training: Sailing Kandu’s various sails, navigation, anchoring and docking, safety drills and first aid, marine weather, radio and satellite communications, port departure and arrival documentation (vessel documentation, liability insurance, crew list and doc’s, ship’s inventory list; all in English, Spanish, and French) and creating a boat maintenance calendar.  Safety drills include; fire, water entry, medical emergency, crew overboard recovery, and abandon ship.  First aid training includes learning how to stitch an open wound, administer an IV, and administering a catheter.  Communications includes email via high frequency radio and single sideband radio, and text via satellite messenger.

Multimedia Production: Producing and maintaining a YouTube channel, Facebook page, Twitter and Instagram feeds, trip blog, and educational partnerships with various middle school classrooms as well as youth chapters within the American Numismatic Association.  As part of producing our YouTube channel, we’ll have to learn how to use our quad-copter (drone) to capture compelling establishing shots.

We hope to have Kandu ready by the end of June, have our skills ready six weeks after that, and use the remaining time to get our production channels up before our October 28th San Diego departure with the Baja Ha-ha Rally.  One step at a time, day by day, first things first, everything is going to be okay . . . .

For three and a half years, with the help of Uncle Bill, we’ve been refurbishing and preparing Kandu for our trip.  As the departure date approaches, pressure to finish multiple projects increases.  The family is tired of hearing me say, “I need to work on the boat.” Actually, until recently, Uncle Bill and Nick, our excellent youthful laborer, have been doing the bulk of hands-on work.  I provided the direction, did research, made purchases, guided the process: in short, managed.  Since my time at Sony came to a close 6 weeks ago, I’m very hands on now.  Nick comes and goes engaged with other work outside Kandu, but Uncle Bill continues to support the effort in large ways, almost daily.  He wants us to get Kandu sailing in a couple weeks so we can work during the week and sail the weekends, locally. I hope to have Kandu mostly ready for offshore sailing before Bryce and Trent finish school, June 12.  We’ll still need the months up to October to finish moving on board and organizing the boat, as well as training (first aid, weather, email, navigation, videography, etc.).  There’s a lot still to do and a lot to learn, but getting her moving again, after 18 months of hibernation, will feel good.

An interesting awareness is developing.  Living on the boat, I’m literally living in my job; thus little time “away” from work.  I’m usually only a step away from a project that beckons attention, and each step draws attention to a different task.  It’s easy to get side tracked from one task to another.  Uncle Bill has learned to finish tasks as soon as possible before starting another, offering a sense of accomplishment and relieving the burden rather than piling up the to-do list and adding stress.  My challenge is that it often takes much effort to unbury a problem, preparing it for resolution.  Once arrived, other problems are inevitably discovered, usually significant once that, taking advantage of their opportune exposure, are more easily addressed while accessible. This adds to the list and the cost of completion, but I think the proactive nature of such an approach is an investment in relief, in future problem prevention, while at the same time gaining greater awareness and knowledge of (and confidence in) the boat’s systems.  I’m not expecting complete satisfaction, that is, I’m not expecting to have every inch of Kandu perfect before leaving.  I strive to minimize potentially labor intensive or discouraging repairs that not only take time away from visiting the countries where we make port, but that also minimize incidences that might demoralize crew spirit. I want to see the countries we visit, not just Kandu’s engine room and local hardware stores.  And I don’t want Leslie or the boys to think that cruising aboard a 42-foot sailboat is a big mistake.  Of course there will always be issues that arise that need our attention, but I want to minimize issues related to the age of Kandu’s infrastructure.  We are making significant progress toward completion.  The list of what’s needed to be completed is dwindling.

Here are a couple examples from last week how tasks crop up.  On Tuesday, while replacing the inverter (the $1200 device that converts 12 volt battery electricity (direct current) that’s in your car into the 110 volt outlet electricity that you plug things into at your house (alternating current)), the normally inaccessible water heater was nearly exposed.  Even though it was not yet a problem, its age put into question whether or not to take advantage of its current access.  Leslie and I decided to spend the $700 to replace the 6-gallon unit with an all-stainless steal 10.5-gallon model.  Wednesday, after removing the current water heater, we found the plywood floor supporting it was soft and delaminating, indicating rot.  So we added repairing or replacing it to our to-do list, pushing back by at least a week our original intention, a 2hr. inverter installation.   And then Friday, while installing a folding step to allow us to exit the boat’s interior when the ship’s steps are temporarily relocated, I inadvertently drilled through the large portside cockpit drain hose in the engine room.  On closer inspection of the hose, its wall seemed deteriorated enough to preemptively suggest its replace as well, an arduous job, that while we’re doing that suggests we might as well replace any other similar type hoses, like the one under the deteriorating water heater floor.  So that’s how it goes. That’s why a completion date can be elusive.

Circumstances, not excuses; that’s what I’m facing—at least that’s my perception. Now add to these “circumstances” the stressful element that all this is occurs within the small space within which we actively live.  The water heater described above resides under Leslie’s and my bed.  Every evening, the home has to be put together (mostly), and every morning, it gets pulled back apart.  It’s like converting your garage into your bedroom/kitchen/living room at night and back into a garage during the day.  Although the conversion takes only about 20 minutes, it’s very disruptive and adds to the pressure of wanting to get the boat closer to completion while making living aboard as comfortable, or more accurately, not so uncomfortable as possible.  Consequently, with living where I work, there’s little time off.  If I have any energy, I find I want to employ it toward preparing or finishing the boat.  Leslie questions whether I’ll ever be satisfied.  I know I will.  I see the end.  I have the components I want, I just need to get what we’ve purchased installed or stowed on board, and then learn how to use them and teach the family how to use them.

The pressure to finish is 24/7, which provides few mental days off, which creates another problem: all work and no play makes daddy a grouch.  Bryce, taking a line from a YouTube video, says I suffer from “relaxed a_ _hole face,” the expression my face takes when I’m thinking about things. So it’s apparent to my kids that I need to add balancing life’s priorities to my to-do list.  A couple of weeks ago, while Leslie drove to LA to take care of some business and meet up with some colleagues, I made it a play day with Bryce and Trent and chose not to feel guilty.  It was great.  Trent remarked to me, “Dad, you’re smiling,” letting me know I was succeeding in my effort to change my “relaxed” facial expression.  I guess the real work is in effectively balancing multiple priorities.

Waking up yesterday in the aft belly of Kandu, the boat is calm.  Wondering what to wear this fine day, I check Ventura weather on my iPhone.  The icon indicates wind, but the marina water is placid.  I’ve learned that when it comes to wind, I can trust the iPhone.  (I’m in the processes of installing the hardware and software necessary to receive NOAA weather forecasts.  I’m just not there yet, so for now, iPhone is fine.)  I look up the NOAA forecast for Ventura: winds 15-25, gusts to 30, increasing in the evening with possible gusts to 40.  I check Kandu’s dock lines and cinch them up for the blow.  Leslie and I are leaving to LA to fetch our 8’ Sabot sailboat, lent to a friend.  As we walk away from the dock, ripples of wind erase away the mirror of what was the marina’s placid surface.

The wind performs as scripted.  We get the boat safely back, atop our Toyota minivan, over Los Angeles County’s Sepulveda Pass on the 405 freeway and over Ventura County’s Conejo Pass on the 101, the gusts attempting to rip her off the minivan’s roof rack.  We decide to leave the Sabot on the minivan’s roof, parked in the marina’s parking lot.  Tomorrow it will be calmer and easier to maneuver.

Kandu is snug in her slip, as expected.  While dinner is prepared, the boat rocks side to side.  The wind howls through her rigging.  I turn on the wind speed indicator.  It’s blowing up to 25 mph.  The cabin is warm.  The boys are in shorts and T-shirts watching a video on our portable Sony Blu-Ray player, their filthy bare feet just above my sleeping pillow.  New rule: Wash bare feet before entering cabin.  After dinner, the boys finish their movie and go to their berths in the fo’c’s’l (short for ‘forecastle’).  As Leslie and I climb into our shared aft berth, the wind builds.  We are both very happy to be safely docked in our own slip, double tied; appreciating this won’t always be the case.  We both know we will experience these types of winds while sailing and while at anchor, and thus thankful for not having to have to deal with it for the moment.  For now, the big bad wolf can huff and puff all he wants.  We’re safe, warm little piggies, being rocked gently to sleep in Kandu’s belly.

Friday demonstrates the range and depth of what we live, of how we drive ourselves to prepare for our voyage, while attempting to extract as much from our current culture and deal with the adverse.

In the morning, having not bathed in a couple days after working on the boat under warmer than usual weather, blasted three days by dry Santa Ana winds of the east, I wished to shower, but there was no time.  Instead of driving Bryce to 7:30 choir practice, Leslie and Bryce wanted me to bicycle to the high school musical hall where they rehearse, a six-mile round trip.  On the return ride to the marina, I swung by Trent’s elementary school to meet up with Leslie so we could bicycle back together.  But she recalled she was to bring treats to the choir, so she took off back to the boat without me.  When I arrived, she was rushing off.  I pulled the aft cabin apart and prepared for the days work.

Work took its rhythm.  My uncle and I prepared and feed work to Nick, a young man who’s been working on Kandu with my uncle for a couple years.  I explain what I want done, my uncle figures out how we should do it, and then he and I go about getting the materials into Nick’s hands so that he’s constantly working.  It’s seems efficient.  A lot gets done.  Before lunch, burritos I picked up from a local Mexican restaurant, the hot water heater I ordered a week before arrived.  After lunch, we worked out the details of its installation, quite a puzzle.  Satisfied with the plan, we moved as far along as possible before a lack of adaptive parts halted further progress.

In the meantime, Leslie helped escort Trent’s 5th grade class to the beach for a little fun before class ended at 2:20 p.m.  Bryce gets out early on Friday’s which I forgot.  I was hoping to bicycle back with him. But he knew Trent’s class would be at the beach and text me that he’d bicycle there to meet them there.  Leslie, Bryce, and Trent bicycled back to the marina.  Shortly after three, Leslie took off with Bryce and Trent.  Bryce had another choir rehearsal and Trent had soccer practice. Both practices would end after 6.  Work on the boat ended for Nick and my uncle around 3:30.  I then worked to put the boat together before Leslie briefly returned before heading out again.  She boarded Kandu before I could finish.  She asked me to pick Bryce up so she could get the minivan SMOG checked before she would pick up Trent.  She also asked me to start the rice for dinner, after I returned from picking Bryce up.  Dinner was going to be squeezed between Trent’s AYSO soccer practice and Bryce and Trent’s YMCA basketball game, which started at 8.  I finished putting the boat away, made a run to the storage unit to clear out the boat a bit more, picked up Bryce, and put the rice on just before Leslie arrived with Trent.  While Leslie cooked dinner, I took a long hot shower and splashed on some cologne. I felt clean and crisp like a freshly laundered sheet pulled from a warm dryer.  We ate a wonderful fish dinner, smothered in green olives, steamed broccoli spears, all on a bed of brown rice.  I had seconds.  Under the urging of Bryce and Trent, we threw the dishes in the sink and took off for for the basketball game.  The boys team didn’t win, but they had fun playing.  These days, they enjoy playing basketball a lot, even practice.  When we got home, it was time for bed, although the boys weren’t tired.  By 10, it was lights out.

Around 11 p.m, I started to feel some pain in my lower back. I hoped it was from moving the empty 10 gallon water heater in and out so many times, trying to find the best arrangement.  By 11:30, I realized it was probably a kidney stone.  I climbed out of bed, powered down a slice of wheat bread and some water to insulate my stomach before swallowing 800mg of Ibuprofen.  At 12:30, with the pain increasing, I hunted for and found my Percocet, a stash set aside just for such an occasion.  I took the one pill as prescribed and counted the minutes.  By 1:15, the pain was intensifying, so I popped another Percocet, 5 hours earlier than prescribed, trying to get in front of the pain.  At 1:45, I woke Leslie and told her we need to go to the local emergency room–now. This being my ninth stone, she knew what this meant and how crucial each minute was.  I dressed for the hospital, my Adidas running suit and slippers, and then vomited in the sink after hastily pulling the dirty dishes out from it.  Leslie got me to the hospital quickly.  She drives fast even when she’s not taking me to the ER.  She checked me in after the young pregnant lady in front of me wished me well as she stepped away from the ER window and around me where I laid curled in a ball on the floor behind Leslie’s chair.  Oddly I felt a kindred spirit, albeit my labor wouldn’t produce a child.  I climbing up on a gurney within 10 minutes (remember minutes count!).  The nurse introduced herself and asked for my data while measuring my vitals.  As she set me up with an IV in my right forearm, I order from her like a regular at a bar: “I’d like an injection of Toradol backed by a full bag of saline, . . . as soon as possible . . . please.”  She asked the doctor and the doctor approved.  With in minutes, the first of what would be three injections (the other two were a narcotic), vanquished my pain in a flushing wave of comfort.

By 7 a.m., Leslie and I were home again.  The boys hadn’t even noticed we had been gone.  At the basketball game the night before, a friend had text an offer to grab the boys for a play date for the whole day with her son, starting early in the morning at 8 a.m.  Leslie text an offer to bring them to her and off went Leslie and the boys as I slipped soundly into a narcotic slumber.

Just another dense day in paradise. At least it’s not boring . . . .

Last week, over Passover, for the first time and forever, two hummingbirds left the nest so painstakingly and exactingly constructed for their care, comfort, and development.  It took several weeks for momma bird to build and decorate the nest before laying her eggs.   Soon after, her babies broke their shells and grew as she faithfully fed them.  At some point, the two chicks barely fit in the nest, and there was no longer room for momma.  Thus, the goal toward which they had all endeavored arrived.  It was time to go, and go they did to see the world as so many birds do in the spring.  The nest is now empty and in our possession aboard our boat. As did the hummingbirds, we too left a comfortable nest, beautifully decorated.  Until recently, our two young boys had known only one house as their home, growing there since days after birth.  Yet for as long as they could remember, they’d been aware that someday we’d leave our home, board a boat, and sail around the world.  Three months ago, we moved aboard Kandu.   In a few months, instead of spreading our wings, we’ll unfurl our sails.  In the meantime, we’ll practice sailing and navigating.  And in October, we’ll begin our adventure south, toward the southern hemisphere’s spring and the great big world, similar to our hummingbird neighbors.