Tag Archives: Sailing around the world

Itinerary Update: 2015.02.13

Plan to leave Marina Del Rey tomorrow for Alamitos Bay, Long Beach; then off to Dana Point, Oceanside, and San Diego. Once we’ve completed our last requirements of paperwork, we head off to Mexico, Galapagos, Easter Island, Pitcairn, and then enter into French Polynesia via Gambier.

Plop, Plop, Fizz, Fizz . . . .

“Now that the trip has started you must be ecstatic?” a phrase heard a lot once we arrived in Marina Del Rey. That’s not the feeling I have. Relief is the greatest feeling, followed by pressure to remember what needs to be done between now and leaving the U.S. for Mexico. But not far from the surface creeps anticipation of wonderful adventures to come.

During these past few years of preparation, I couldn’t allow myself the ‘distraction’ of imagining the future fun. It would have pulled limited time away from preparation, for knowing me, I would have started researching the possibilities and basking in glorious anticipation of experiences to come. With too much to do to prepare the boat and learn about social media and video production, I couldn’t afford any diversion—vegetables before dessert. It’s only in the past couple of days that I have begun to allow myself the pleasure of envisioning some future experiences: seeing calving grey whales close up, catching pelagic fish during passages, snorkeling in the bountiful aquarium that is the Galapagos, hiking the ridge of an equatorial volcanic crater, collecting water samples and Secchi disc reports, watching and recording the boys surfing, touching the Moai of Easter Island, enveloping the people we meet and immersing in their culture, meeting the descendants of the HMS Bounty Mutineers, seeing long-time Marquesan friends, and placing the boys in a French school. For two years I’ve been in a chrysalis of preparation, shielded from exposure to future joy and excitement. That makes for a grumpy dad, but it was what I felt I needed to do in order to stay on task, getting the boat ready for lengthy open-ocean voyaging and extensive stays at some of the planet’s most remote islands. Self-sufficiency and safety were at the top of the list. With just a few loose ends to tie, I allow joy to get a little closer, but not quite enter my psyche: still much to do during this period of transition from boat preparation to international travel. But Tuesday night, Leslie’s birthday, for the first time in 18 months, having safely and comfortably motor-sailed 8 hours from Ventura, lounging in Kandu’s cockpit with a glass of nigori sake while securely moored at the guest dock of a yacht club that is not located in Ventura, I felt I could afford to feel some sensation of the satisfaction that begged to be experienced. Significant relief, the absence of stress, was truly the only sensation that I felt I could reasonably allow. Not complete relief, but great relief, about 75% less. We had made the first tangible step toward the benefit side of what, until now, had been the exceedingly high financial and emotional weight of our journey’s scale. Leslie and Bryce had big smiles. Trent was immensely pleased he had not gotten the least bit seasick. Seeing their happy faces was my greatest reward.

Thrive or Survive?

 

Bryce expresses in image the crew's feeling of leaving Ventura Harbor after a year and half of delay, Santa Cruz Island in the foreground, the autopilot set for Marina Del Rey.
Bryce expresses in image the crew’s feeling of leaving Ventura Harbor after a year and half of delay, Santa Cruz Island in the foreground, the autopilot set for Marina Del Rey.

In 1990, a different crew of mine and I had planned to sail out of Ventura Harbor aboard Getel, my uncle’s 32-foot sailboat, for the Marquesas in French Polynesia, where I was to conduct research for my thesis study. The date we chose was February 9th. Having waved good-bye to family and friends, we motored out of the marina with the intention of “swinging our compass” (calibrating it). The seas proved too rough to perform the operation so we returned to execute the maneuver inside the marina. Once complete, we felt it too late to head back out so we spent one more night in Ventura, aboard Getel. We left pre-dawn, after I made a pay phone call (remember those?) to wish Leslie a happy birthday. With calmer seas, we successfully departed and 25 and half days later, arrived in Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas.

Flash forward 25 years, my mate and I planned to leave Ventura Harbor for Marina Del Rey on the 9th of February, initiating our “slow start” to our world cruise. The morning of our planned departure, with better technology available, we could read that the seas were high, 10-15 feet, and that a Small Craft Advisory was posted, warning smaller boats like ours of the challenging conditions. Taking advantage of the forecast, seeing a window of benign weather for the next day, we postponed our departure one day, leaving again on Leslie’s birthday.

My cousin-in-law, Scott Landry, not one for coincidences, believes we contrived this circumstance in order to create an interesting blog post. He would not be convinced otherwise. That’s one of the take-aways I find so interesting about the cruising lifestyle: it provides an abundance of unbelievable stories, events that are difficult for non-cruising families to fathom. Delaying our trip the one day, having just delayed it two days because of a forecasted rainstorm (which came as predicted), brought great disappointment to the crew. Bryce and Trent moaned when they heard the news. Leslie was incredulous when before dawn I told her we’re not leaving. I had to prove my case, offering NOAA weather forecasts, real-time weather buoy data, and the red-lettered small craft advisory atop the NOAA Marine Weather Forecast page. Then there were the sneers from yacht club members who felt that if we couldn’t handle uncomfortable conditions for a brief, 10-hour trip to Los Angeles, how could we expect to handle the rigors of the open sea, across much longer passages? There was significant peer pressure to leave that drizzly morning, with the sound of waves breaking over the detached breakwater, the barrier of stout guano-covered boulders that protects Ventura Harbor’s entrance. But I held my guns, which leads me to the other take-away I get from the blue-water cruising lifestyle: philosophical perspective development.

This past year, one lesson keeps popping up time and time again: whether to live a life of avoidance or a life of purpose. A cruising sailor can plan routes to avoid hurricanes, or he/she can plan to arrive during the region’s prime weather windows. It’s a subtle but significantly different approach. The first means a sailor is willing to skirt the bounds of the worst weather, knowing they can survive what’s in between. The second means a sailor is aimed at enjoying the experience, knowing full well that difficult, unforeseen circumstances can occur. The difference is that the former, in avoiding disaster, is willing to survive the experience of cruising, whereas the later, seeks benignity, accepting the unforeseen hardships that inevitably arise with any venture. Sailors know that even though regions close to a hurricane belt may not experience the full force of 70+ mph winds with enormous surge and seas, they will experience stormy weather with winds of 50 mph, heavy rains, and thunderstorms (lightning): an unpleasant experience at best. I can’t afford that. If I want to sail around the world, I have to manage two things: 1) our costs; we spent well over our preparation budget, pulling from our cruising kitty, potentially shortening our trip, and 2) our enjoyment; if Leslie, Bryce, and Trent aren’t having great experiences, they’re not going to want to continue. So, if I want to sail around the world with my family, I must find inexpensive ways to create positive experiences. One simple principle is to allow weather to dictate your schedule. It is often said among cruising sailors that the single most dangerous threat to the wellbeing of a vessel and her crew is a schedule. Keeping a schedule, trying to depart from or arrive at a particular location at a specific time is what gets most cruisers into trouble.

On the first day of our voyage, I didn’t want to knowingly create an uncomfortable experience for my novice crew, sailing against a small craft warning. Let the negative come unforeseeably. I choose instead to take the peer pressure and depart under a favorable weather forecast. I’m glad I did. Our first of hopefully many more sojourns to come was a benign one. Leslie awoke the next morning, happy and excited for the cruising life we’ve begun—my birthday present to her, but even more so, to myself. I can’t control the weather, I can control when we leave. When possible, I prefer leaving within a good weather forecast window to a questionable one, choosing thriving o’er surviving.

Kandu tucked between Del Rey Yacht Club's mega-yachts.
Our first stop, the Del Rey Yacht Club Guest Dock.  Note how Kandu is tucked between DRYC mega-yachts and the Ritz-Carlton to the background on the right.  This isn’t Ventura any more.

So, if postponing departure for but one more embarrassing day makes for not only a ‘thriving’ experience, but also an historic coincidence, then so much the richer the event, so much the sweeter the story, so much more important it is to follow one’s truer purpose.

Eric Rigney

Departure, the First One . . . . Finally

This dawn, after 4 decades of dreaming, 25 years of planning, 4 years of preparing, and 1 year of living aboard, we leave Ventura from the guest dock of the venerable Ventura Yacht Club.  With many well wishes and a bit of press, we release the cords that bind us to this wonderfully loving place, the birthplace of our departures with many more departures to come.  Ventura and the friends and family that occupy her, will be greatly missed.  We love you.

With love, the crew of Kandu bids adieu
With love, the crew of Kandu bids adieu (photo by Pascale Landry)

Giving Berth to Departure

Kandu's Ventura Docklines
Kandu’s Ventura Docklines

Leslie’s Thoughts About Leaving…

Now we’re ready to leave. It’s a little like having a baby; the mother is uncomfortable enough that she forgets to be afraid to go through with the birth, she just wants the baby out. In a similar fashion, I am no longer worried about missing my family and friends, not being quite enough prepared, or feeling trepidation for the unknowable future at sea. I’m psychologically ready to leave behind life as I’ve known it and face what is ahead just to get going on this long-awaited adventure.

Lately, in the dark early evenings walking down the dock to our boat, I’ve been looking up at the sky to see the constellation Orion clear as a bell shining down on me. Growing up, I remember only searching for the Big Dipper and Little Dipper, constellations of Earth’s northern hemisphere. But now I only have eyes for Orion, the warrior hunter constellation located on the celestial equator – thus visible throughout both hemispheres. Somehow he feels like a familiar friend that, during our travels, will become much more close. I wonder which other constellations I will stare at during night watches, what friends await me in the southern hemisphere. I have a fantastic app on my mobile phone that shows the constellations from every angle. I’m looking forward to studying them on calm nights. Maybe I should download information about them now while I still have access to the Internet.

I’m also looking forward to researching about the countries and sights we will soon be exploring…learning opportunities for the boys, as well as for Eric and me. I’m looking forward to learning and practicing more Spanish. I’m looking forward to sharing my love for language with Bryce and Trent, especially French. I’m looking forward to practicing my sailing skills, building upon the skills that I learned through last racing season’s Wet Wednesdays. I’m looking forward to living the dream that we have talked about and planned for during these last 25 years. It was 25 years ago this February 10th when Eric departed Ventura for the Marquesas Islands with brothers Nick, Curtis and Uncle Bill – 6 months after that when I joined the crew in Hawaii. Somehow this last year’s ups and downs led us here to this momentous turning point – departing again 25 years later – a year after we moved on the boat.

I’m looking forward to reading great literature, to treasure hunts, to meeting new people, to hiking, to fishing, and actually sailing too. I’m looking forward to living with even less, as crazy as that sounds.

Kandu and sunrise at Ventura Yacht Club
Kandu and sunrise at Ventura Yacht Club

So in a few days, after the rain passes, instead of severing the umbilical chord, we’re casting off our Ventura dock-lines…like true Vagabonds, carrying everything we could imaginably need…including 2 kitchen sinks!

Leslie Dennis Rigney

I Loved My GoPro!

January 22, 2015

I Loved My GoPro by Trent

Trent, Charlie, and Bryce at Faria Beach before soaking his GoPro
Trent, Charlie, and Bryce at Faria Beach

A couple weeks ago a photographer named Marc Brown came over to talk about my dad’s cameras and recording equipment. He got me really exited about GoPro cameras. The difference between other video cameras and GoPro cameras is that GoPros can go in the water. They’re small and can attach to everything with a mount. After Mr. Brown left, I thought that we could use my dad’s GoPro 3+ and GoPro 2, but my dad didn’t want us to use his GoPro 3+ because he was afraid we might damage it or lose it. So my brother Bryce and I had to share the GoPro 2. I was really mad when he said that, so I decided to buy my own GoPro. My dad did research on GoPros and showed me GoPros I could buy for a price of $200 or less. There was the GoPro Hero for $130 and GoPro 3 white for $200. I wanted to get the $200 one because it’s better than the $130 one. The white is better because it makes it so you can see what the GoPro sees. At this point I’m keeping it a secret from my brother, Bryce, because he would want to get the same thing as me, or better. A couple days later my dad and I were going to go to Cosco to buy my GoPro. When my dad said he would make a deal with me. He said if I give him my $200 he would give me the GoPro 3+ black that he already had. The GoPro3+ black is better than GoPro 3 white. I wasn’t sure if I should accept the deal and, my dad said I didn’t have to take the deal. My dad offered the deal because mom wouldn’t let him buy the GoPro 4 black because it costs $500. After that we went to Costco and the only GoPro there was the GoPro 3+ black and Hero. They cost $350 and $130. Dad said the GoPro 3+ is basically the same as GoPro 4, not the black. But the GoPro 4 can take videos in the dark and faster 4k frame rates. We returned home empty handed. When I went to bed I told dad that I would take his deal. The next day we left Ventura to drive up to Northern California to see Nani and Papa, my grandparents. When we were half way there, I told my brother the deal I had made with dad. He was mad because if he bought a new GoPro, I would still have the better one.

After spending 3 great days at Nani and Papa’s house in Oakland, we went to the Lima’s ranch in Watsonville. Philip, a professional quad-copter video guy that my dad knows, was there to show us how to use our quad-copter drone, the Phantom 1. He put his GoPro on the drone. After a couple hours of flying lessons, Bryce and I started skateboarding down the hill of their driveway. I went to get my GoPro 3+Black, and that was the first time I used my GoPro.

When I got home I really wanted to go to my friend Charlie’s house at Faria Beach. I really was exited to see what kind of GoPro he had. Guess what? I had a better one than him. He had the GoPro Hero only. A couple days later, Charlie and I went into the water with our GoPros and were videotaping all the nice wave barrels at his house. After a little while Charlie went back to his house but I waited for the sunset. A couple minutes later, I was walking back to his house on the beach when the sunset happened. It was beautiful. I took a couple pictures of the sunset and went back to his house.

The next day, Bryce and I were so pumped up with our GoPros we wanted dad to install a plastic mount on our surfboards so we could take really good videos with our GoPros while surfing. One day my dad arrived with a whole bunch of additional equipment for our GoPros. I asked him if I could buy some GoPro accessories. Dad bought me a GoPro storage box so he could have his box back. I said, cool dad, thanks for the box”. The next day he was working on the computer, and he said” Trent do you want to order anything? Bryce asked, “Hey, do I get to order items too?” Dad said, ”Yes”. We got a whole bunch of equipment like Bryce got a bobber, a box Dad’s original GoPro HD (he has the first GoPro too, a standard def one.), and plastic latches. I got aluminum latches, a chest mount, and a helmet.

The worst thing ever happened. I was so excited to try out my new stuff, that when I switched my floaty-back with a regular back cover, I didn’t see that it was a back with holes. I didn’t even know they made them that way. When I took it surfing, I checked it and couldn’t get it to work. When I brought it back to the house, it was full of water. My mom washed it off with freshwater and alcohol, like my dad told her to do. He wasn’t there. He was working on the boat. My dad said I had to wait two days to let it dry. I waited. Two days are long. When I turned it on, it didn’t work. I learned on a YouTube video how to test the batteries with a meter my dad has. Only one battery was charged. The camera came on, but it said, “No SD,” which means it wasn’t seeing the SD card. My dad told me to check the SD card in our computer. It worked, so that meant the GoPro was broken. I was very sad. My dad told me to find a video that shows us how to open it up, and that he’d try to fix it. So I did, but we didn’t have screwdrivers small enough so my dad said, “Get in the car,” and we went to Fry’s. I picked out the mini screwdrivers and we went back to the boat to try and fix the GoPro that night. When my dad opened the back, he showed me the salt that the ocean water made. He said mom didn’t rinse it enough, but now we know how much we have to rinse electronics if they get dunked in saltwater. Dad had a spray called Corrosion X. It’s supposed to eat rust and make electronic stuff work again. The Army uses it. So he put some on a toothbrush and cleaned all the salty parts. It looked new again. We got to see inside the camera. Dad showed me the imager and said nothing can touch it, no dirt, dust, fingerprints, or spray. After three times of taking it apart and cleaning it, we still couldn’t get the SD card reader to work. Everything else worked, but the SD card reader. It was late, so I went to bed. Dad said he would try one last thing, to get the card reader off so he could clean it better. I prayed that he would fix it. I spent all my money on it and I couldn’t buy another one for a long time because we’re leaving the country really soon. The next morning, I asked dad if he fixed it. When he said “No,” I cried. I really loved my GoPro. Now I’ll have to share with Bryce dad’s old GoPro.

Trent Rigney 

The Harris Brothers

Breakfasting at the Ventura Yacht Club the weekend following New Year’s, Trent and Bryce met the Harris brothers, Ryan and Wesley, twins that sailed several years with their parents aboard their catamaran, Gone Native.  Meeting young guys who did what they are about to do gave them an opportunity to hear about experiences they could look forward to.  Here’s what Bryce and Trent wrote about their experience, meeting Ryan and Wesley Harris:

Ryan and Wesley Harris (photo Dina Pielaet)
Ryan and Wesley Harris (photo Dina Pielaet)

Harris Brothers 

This past Sunday, January 4th, we happened to meet a family who had a similar experience of what we were about to partake. In the Harris family were two nineteen year-old young men named Wesley and Ryan. My brother and I both had a conversation about their travels, thoughts, and experiences!

The most exciting for me were the surfing stories. On their trip, they started to learn how to surf. Their first day surfing was rough. In the beginning, the waves were moderate size, about 3 ft. Then later the waves picked up to about 10 ft and barreling. The father got a huge chunk of skin cut clean-off by the surfboard fine. He tried putting an antidote on (called second skin). Almost an hour later, he got back in the water and the second skin immediately came off and it started to bleed again. They were worried about attracting sharks.

The second experience that caught my attention was lobster diving. To pick-up a lobster, they were taught to push on the lobster’s back and then pick it up. Wesley and Ryan said that the first few times they tried lobster diving, it was freaky because they would touch the lobster and it would move crazily and it scared them back to the surface. But now after years of practice catching lobsters bare-handed, they love catching lobsters as big as 17” long as if it were no big deal.

Another story was their journey home. They visited schools, gave speeches and shared power-point presentations of what they did during their travels. This sounded really fun to talk in front of students about journeys and places they went to and what they were like

Overall, talking to these young men, boosted my positive energy toward my family’s trip around the world. Also, it was a small heads-up of what could happen during our travels. I thought it was really cool and an extremely interesting and beneficial conversation with the Harris Brothers!

Bryce Rigney

Talking to the Sailor Boys 

Last Sunday I met Wesley and Ryan Harris, nineteen-year-old sailors who sailed with their mom and dad. They sailed around the Mediterranean Sea and across the Atlantic Ocean for a total of about five years between the ages of 9 and 14. I asked them what was the longest time they had been at sea without seeing land. They said it took 24 days to cross the Atlantic Ocean. During that crossing one morning while they were sleeping, a huge wave came. They thought it was just another wave, but no, it was a 30-foot wave. This wave crashed over the boat and woke them up. If the catamaran had flipped over they might have died.

During our conversation, Wesley and Ryan also talked about diving and catching lobster. When they were close to land they would free dive 10 feet and catch lobsters freehanded. They said all you have to do is push down on the lobster, then pick it up. They said they did it a lot because they love to eat lobster. They also mentioned that every day they would write in their journal. Now five years later, they sometimes read through their journal entries, which helps them remember everything they did during those five years. The last thing that impressed me about what they said was that when you get back to school after your trip, everybody will think you’re really cool to have sailed around the world. Of course, I haven’t experienced that yet.

Trent Rigney

The Cabrillo Middle School emblem we plan to pictures of in exotic locations and share with the school.
Bryce and Trent Rigney


Happy Birthday to Me

We just got news that our one-year extended-stay visa for French Polynesia was approved. And a French Polynesian yacht agent, a niece of a friend, will offer her services gratis to arrange in Papeete our immigration and customs affairs. Happy Birthday to me.

We initiated the process to get a 90-day, three-island cruising permit. We don’t plan to be in the Galapagos much longer than 20 days, which, were we to stay on only one island, entry fees would cost about $1350. But Leslie feels that since we’re there, and that it’s not likely we’d get another chance, might as well try to see more of the islands and make the experience as extraordinary as we can. All in, permits and fees for all three islands will probably come in south of $2000. This will perhaps be the most expensive stop in our multi-year journey. Because of the high cost, most cruisers skip it, so Happy Birthday to me.

After some technical reading and some help from Sailmail tech support via email, I figured out how to get our HAM/SSB radio working well. We can now drive the radio remotely through an email/weather fax application. Leslie and I also attended a webinar on marine SSB radios, giving an overview of the equipment and how to take full benefit of having a radio on board. Joseph from Horizon helped me navigate the software on our laptop to drive the radio. He also showed how to use a couple other handy navigational applications, extremely helpful. The radio, Pactor modem, USB GPS, and laptop are all working well together. I was so happy about it that I couldn’t sleep. Happy Birthday to me.

Leslie received all the medical supplies from our list. Germs don’t stand a chance on our boat. Happy Birthday to me.

After a couple of weeks of price adjustments, Leslie sold our 13-year old Toyota minivan. We did a lot of living through that van. Sad and glad to see it go. Now, only the Prius remains. Happy Birthday to me.

Talking with Dr. Dave and the Maritime Institute of San Diego, I’m thinking of taking the two weeks and spending the $1000-$1200 to get my Federal captain’s license before we leave for Mexico next month. Online courses, in-person teaching support, a physical, drug test, background check, a couple of photos, an exam and an application, and I’d have it.   We’ll see, but Happy Birthday to me anyway.

Dan and Lydia on Amadora invited us over for a wonderful dinner, while offering us advice on places to moor Kandu and how to get around Puerto Vallarta, a place with which they are very familiar. They even told us which busses, shuttles, and taxis to take to get to Costco and Walmart, our last stops for provisioning before sailing to the Galapagos. Happy Birthday to me.

After having lived aboard Kandu for exactly one year, we leave Ventura West Marina for the Ventura Yacht Club tomorrow. Although we’re not leaving Ventura Harbor for a few days, psychologically it’s feeling like the preparation phase is transitioning into the departure. Of course, our departure is the grandest birthday gift of all (apart from a healthy and happy family of course). Our stay at VWM has been wonderful. The office found us a slip closer to like-minded live-aboards, allowing us to stay as long as we needed. VWM is a clean and well-run facility. If you’re looking for a place to live aboard your boat in Ventura Harbor, we highly recommend you consider it. Best of all, you’ll meet the families, couples, and persons who we’ll forever carry in our hearts, people who have been emotionally and physically constructive in the preparation of our departure. Their advice and encouragement helped our family through many challenges. We leave, sad to know it will be a while, if ever, before we meet them again; a phenomenon that will play out for the next several years as we make and leave friends all around the world. Happy Birthday to them all . . . .

Eric Rigney

Bryce’s Last Day of School

Bryce Rigney outside Cabrillo Middle School
Bryce Rigney outside Cabrillo Middle School

Yesterday, Tuesday, December 16 2014, was my last day of school for a very long time. It was really emotional for my brother, Trent and me. We both attended Cabrillo Middle School in Ventura, California. My main feeling leaving Cabrillo was about not being able to hang out with the kids I enjoy hanging out with at school and knowing that there was a good chance I might not see them ever again. The other predominant concern was about leaving behind a normal school life for five years; because I think education is one of the most important things in life if you want to thrive instead of survive. When I grow up, I hope to go to a good college like UCLA and then become a builder. Saying good-bye yesterday, it was a very hard day for both of us, for many reasons.

Before yesterday, my final day, I hadn’t realized how hard it was actually going to be to say good-bye. Telling the teachers and staff at school that the day was my last, I felt freed and relieved from all the major coursework and homework of six periods a day.

School's Out Forever . . . Bryce and Trent get their walking papers.
School’s Out Forever . . . Bryce and Trent get their walking papers.

Some of the teachers were hard to say good-bye to and some were a piece of cake. My woodshop teacher, Mr. Lehman, was the hardest above all the teachers to bid my farewell. Woodshop was my favorite class. I loved making projects out of wood and shaping wood into many things. Because of my woodshop experience, when I grow up I think I would like to build houses. The saddest feeling was leaving my friends and the many other great relationships that I’d made these past eighteen months at Cabrillo. As a result of our sailing trip, I am going to miss the experience of going to a school dance or participating in school spirit days, things I will now never get a chance to do. But most of all, I’ll miss creaming my adversaries in daily matches of Kendama!

There are also things that I’m happy about. For instance, I’m glad I won’t have to be so confused, forced to sit in an uncomfortable chair for six hours, excluding the time when I got to hang out with my friends for lunch. One thing I don’t like about the kids in Ventura is that they are a lot more judgmental than my classmates in Los Angeles were. They judge what you wear, act like, how you look, talk, walk, what you do for sports, and almost anything you can think of, including how you do your hair. Back in my hometown of Westchester, the kids didn’t care what you did, what you wore, or how you acted. They just cared about how you flirt with girls and how popular you are. (Just for your information, I was really popular in my LA school.)

My most favorite and least favorite day in Ventura will be the day I left school, the day that I left classrooms behind but the day that my classmates said good-bye. They made me feel appreciated, looked up to, and that I will forever be well remembered. This was a very different experience than that of my last day at El Segundo Middle School, where I left many great friends too. On that day, everyone acted mellow, like my leaving for five years was no big deal. They weren’t as openly selfless as my classmates in Ventura. For this and many other reasons, Cabrillo will always hold a warm place in my heart!!!

Bryce monitors surf conditions in front of the Ventura Yacht Club.
Bryce monitors surf conditions in front of the Ventura Yacht Club.

Bryce Rigney

Hang in There, Baby!

Radio installation mess.
Radio installation mess.

Yesterday, wiring up for our new SSB/HF radio, I was frustrated.  I’m tired of working on Kandu.  Sick of it.  Mixing metaphors, it’s like sand collapsing around the tunnel I’m trying to dig, covering the light at the tunnel’s end.  More money, more mess, more solving a couple potential problems en route to knocking out the current one, and more delays on our departure date.  While Leslie and the boys are enjoying a little extra leisure time with the grandparents in Palm Springs, I’m all “asses and elbows” trying to get the wires in for the new radio.  Nothing goes as quickly as I think because, like a pregnant lady forgetting how painful the previous delivery was, I forget how long other tasks took.  I only recall the high-level overview of the tasks and the feelings of accomplishment that follow it.  The forgotten nitty-gritty takes time, more than my memory seems capable of retaining.  Instead of three or four days, it takes seven or eight; a very deflating feeling.  I sometimes wonder if I’ve enough air left in my ‘optimist’ balloon.  Unlike some sailors, I can’t just drill holes and pull the wires through the ceiling, or through two hanging lockers (closets) and several compartments to get them to their intended destination and call it a day.  Noooo, . . . instead I have to complicate things and label all the wires in case I have to solve a problem in the future, so as not to forget where each wire goes.  I have to make sure the cables are all dressed neatly, even though only I or the next technician or person who owns this boat will ever see it.  When selecting and installing a solution, I’m compelled to consider ergonomics, about future expansion, about servicing the units.  This all takes time, adding to the installation time and delaying our departure, and yet I won’t do it differently.  I believe that the extra effort I’m making now will help me in the future, adding evermore to the “delayed gratification” side of the fun scale equation. I should win a prize for delayed-gratification.  But even if I did, it wouldn’t make me happy or less frustrated.  I want to play.  I want to have untempered fun.  But it’s not like I can quit.  After all this, could you imagine?  I can’t. Not possible.  So I keep going.  Keep making progress, one small step at a time.  Annoyed.  Looking for a better day.

And then it happens . . . .

This cold Sunday morning, while finishing up my eggs Benedict and orange juice at the Ventura Yacht Club (my favorite breakfast), a club member introduces himself, says he can’t make my talk on Friday (I offered to give a presentation, describing some of Kandu’s systems.  Yacht clubs appreciate this kind of thing, listening to how someone preparing for a circumnavigation solved some of the problems associated with such an undertaking. It’s a way to give back to the sailing community that is so helpful towards its vagabond ilk), but wanted to know about our planned route.  Turns out, Dave and his wife, Desiree, are physicians who’d sailed Gone Native with their two young sons around the Med for several years before sailing across the Atlantic to the Caribbean, and eventually transiting the Panama Canal before returning back to Ventura: four and half years. They had a wealth of information about cruising and getting visas, and, as practicing physicians, offered to help us set up our medical kit tomorrow evening, review our medical books, and recommend some apps for our smart phones and tablets.  As he spoke, I could actually feel a weight lift from my shoulders, my upper-body tingled with the release of long-held pressure.  He said that they would now be our first call (or satellite text) should we ever have a medical issue, and to know that they will pick up.  I couldn’t stop smiling.  As much as yesterday was a turd of a day, today was turning into a gem.  While David spoke to me, Desiree spoke to Leslie and their two sons, Ryan and Wesley, now 18+, spoke to Trent and Bryce.  The boys heard first-hand of the young men’s adventures, how they attended a French school, caught lobsters and all kinds of fish, and learned to surf.  Trent said, after hearing them speak with such enthusiasm, he thought that this trip might actually be a lot of fun.  What a great way to start the day!

Then when I got back to Kandu, I met up with Joe, who was patching up the gelcoat (a thick, paint-like material for fiberglass) on Kandu’s dodger (the windshield enclosure that surrounds the front half of the cockpit).  Asking how he patches and paints gelcoat, he kindly gave me a lesson and showed me how, listing all the supplies I’d need and where to buy them.  I learned so much, and he was such a great teacher that I feel confident that I will be able to patch up Kandu’s gelcoat when the time arrives, provided of course I buy and stow the supplies before we leave.

Both of these experiences happened before noon today.  I am rejuvenated and happy again, so much so that I took the rest of the day off, not wanting to return to the challenge of the wiring job just yet, but choosing instead to savor the feeling of satisfaction and gratitude that filled me.  Later this evening, my aunt, Annie, threw us a “Non-Voyage” party, celebrating our eventual departure–just not yet.  What a difference a day made, from a ‘two’ to a ‘ten’ in the matter of a few hours.  As the early 1970’s kitten poster proclaimed, when at the end of your rope, just “Hang In There, Baby!”

Hang In There Baby
Iconic 1970’s inspirational poster.

Educational Alert; some background about the radio:  Among the cruising community, the high-frequency (HF)/single-side band (SSB) radios are often called “HAM” radios after the land-based amateur radio community that supports their use.  To use the radio in the HF radio frequency bands, an operator must pass an FCC test to get a license.  To use the SSB frequencies, a ship must purchase a license that then resides with the ship–no test.  Internationally, this license is required for the commonly used very high frequency (VHF) radios that sailors employ to communicate with port authorities, safety personnel, and other boats within the line of sight. It’s signals don’t travel as far as the HF and SSB frequencies can.  I passed the test and also purchased a license for Kandu.

The radio that came with Kandu was a great radio in 1987, the best model available. I thought that it would be fine, until I tried hooking it up to our other modern equipment and learned that this radio would not be supported by the email provider if there was a communication failure. Today’s radios marry with computers; the two talk to each other.  For email, the computer can automatically drive the radio to search the various frequencies provided by the software and find the station with the clearest and strongest signal for our given location at that time, and then automatically send and receive the ship’s email.  There’s even an “Email” button on the face of the radio.  For weather, various weather services broadcast a variety of free weather faxes, each providing a specific type of view, forecast, or analysis for a given region.  With newer radios, crew can schedule their laptop to automatically drive the radio, capturing the preferred faxes onto the laptop. With the older radio, the operator must manually tune the radio and antenna to the scheduled frequency.  One miss-pushed button or forgotten step, and there are many on the older radio, the signal is rendered inaudible or unusable and the window for capturing that day’s information is lost. The new ones automatically tune the radio and tuner, with better filters and noise reduction, thus increasing the likelihood of receiving the day’s information.  And it’s easy to set up the night watch to capture it, just turn on the radio and the computer.  The rest is automated.  Email and weather data were not available to cruising boats when I last sailed across the Pacific 25 years ago.  Today’s blue-water sailors have grown accustomed to these services, which during a long passage are the highlight of the day.  I want our adventure to be as pleasant and enjoyable as possible so that the crew (especially mama) will enjoy the experience.  Email and weather reports will help this cause.  And so, I go through the trouble of upgrading our SSB/HF radio.

Eric Rigney