Water – to make or not to make, that is the question. Whether ’tis nobler to collect water from local sources or to suffer the cost and noise of making your own is a debate among cruisers today on par with what I heard surrounding interior kerosene lights in the 70’s. When considering water acquisition solutions for long-distance cruising, you are really left with two options; passive water collection or active water making.
Passive, Water Collection: Collecting water from a municipal tap, a communal or private well or cistern, or from a natural spring, brings with it its own adventure, exercise, and local interaction. When plentiful and accessible at desired locations, that is to say, places you actually want to visit, it’s the simplest option and the most economical. Once a source of potable water has been identified and permission granted or purchased, the cruiser either fills her jugs or, if close enough to shore, connects his water hose and fills directly his tanks. Cruisers concerned about sediments, externally strain cloudy water through one or two sediment filters (discussed in more detail below) before it enters the boat’s water tanks. Sediment filters aren’t fine enough to block bacteria, so for every 10 gallons of water, it’s recommended to pour about a teaspoon of household bleach into the water tank (or other safe to consume antiseptic), and internally pull that solution through a combination carbon (chlorine) and KDF* (heavy metals and bacteria killing) filter as it is pumped electrically or manually (foot pumps typically) to and through the freshwater spigots. There are also on-demand ultra-violet light therapies available as well, which require electricity and spare bulbs. In either case, voila – good tasting, safe drinking water.
Cruisers following this practice are often prepared with long lengths of garden hose, several 5-gal. plastic jerry jugs (with arms stretched a little longer from the weight of carrying two +40 lbs. jugs at a time), and with a willingness to tie their vessels up briefly to docks, piers, and wharves if need be.
Rainwater collection is another passive water collecting technique. Most cruisers are in some way equipped to capture rainwater from their sails, canopies, and/or decks. Boats have been known to chase squalls in the middle of the ocean, sometimes even engaging their diesel engines in an effort to capture the freshest of water supplies, “liquid money” as farmers call it.
Passive water collection (not so passive, really) tends to make for a more conservative use of the ship’s water. Washing, rinsing, cleaning, bathing, and even cooking rely on fresh seawater (as opposed to seawater extracted from a cove or harbor). When sailing aboard Getel in 1976 with my uncle and his family of three from Ventura, California to Nuku Hiva, Marquesas, over the 30-day passage, the five of us collectively consumed less than 50 gallons. For the 18 months we were in French Polynesia, I personally carried and rowed nearly every gallon brought aboard, Papeete and Uturoa excluded as these ports offered access to taps and water hoses when we were Med-tied to their wharves. Being Med-tied is when one end of the boat is tied to the quay; the other end, anchored away from the quay, pulling the boat off far enough so as to not hit the top edge of the concrete wharf or wood-decked pier when a wake bobs the boat up and down, but close enough to support the use of a wooden plank between your boat and the quay’s edge.
Active, Water Creation: Another option available to cruisers is to make water with a desalinator, employing ever-popular reverse osmosis (RO) technology. (Read the blog post titled: RO 101 and see the video for a more detailed description of the process)
Owning a desalinator is a bit like caring for a pet: it needs to be tended to regularly. Because of marine life build-up on the membrane, even if it were rinsed with freshwater, desalinators must be run every 3-7 days to flush the membrane’s surface. If a cruiser isn’t making water every three to seven days, he or she must instead push freshwater through the system at the same interval of 3-7 days. A freshwater rinse takes from 3-5 minutes. Left un-rinsed, a membrane will build up hydrogen sulfide gas, a by-product of sulfur eating bacteria consuming remnant sea life. This reaction produces water tasting like rotten-eggs. “Yum, yum . . . sign me up!” If this happens, there is a cure: soak the membrane in a food-grade antiseptic, a process otherwise known as “pickling.” This is also what you do if you plan to leave your desalinator dormant for a while, preventing the issue in the first place. You can leave a system pickled for 6 months or more before you’ll need to re-pickle it again. So for those sailors with desalinators without an automatic flush feature must enlist the assistance of a fellow yachty (cruiser) to “feed” his or her “pet.”
Even though the RO process doesn’t pass bacteria, a cruiser still needs to add a little bleach to the water supply to keep algae from growing in the tank, and carbon filters to lose the bleach taste and to protect the watermaker’s membrane when flushing with freshwater (chlorine kills the membrane). It doesn’t hurt to pass the drinking water through a KDF filter as well.
Having a watermaker is a commitment of scheduling, money, and space (the unit + supplies + possible generator and gasoline). But cruisers accepting this commitment afford themselves the luxury of freshwater for cleaning and showers, the freedom to go and stay in areas less available to those who can’t make water, and most importantly, a supply of safe drinking water. In some cases, yachties have been known to supply remote families or villages with much needed water. As desalinator supporters say, “No one ever complained about having too much water.” For these reasons, we decided to install a desalinator, anticipating that the advantages of safety and freedom will be far greater than the cost and inconvenience of having an expensive “pet”. We chose to go with the dual membrane AC model offered by Cruise RO Water and Power. (The blog post Aquarian Rite describes the commissioning experience)
Footnote:
* “Kinetic Degradation Fluxion (KDF) is a high-purity copper-zinc formulation that uses a basic chemical process known as redox (oxidation/reduction) to remove chlorine, lead, mercury, iron, and hydrogen sulfide from water supplies. The process also has a mild anti-bacterial, algaecidic, and fungicidic effect and may reduce the accumulation of lime scale.” –-Home Plus Water
My best itinerary guess as of the morning of this writing
Borrowing from the Serenity Prayer and Alfredo Calimlim’s eulogy message yesterday at Kim’s memorial service, as we attempt to set off on our journey, may we begin to have the wisdom to recognize the things we can change from those we cannot. With that disclaimer, I present our latest stab at Kandu’s starting itinerary.
2014 Nov. 30: Leave Ventura West Marina, a week from today. The Ventura Yacht Club across the way is ready to take us for a week to 10 days. During this coming two week period, my focus will be to continue loading and to finish purchasing spare parts and maintenance supplies from our West Marine store in Ventura, managed by Jen, a formidable ally in our search for boat parts and solutions. And prepare our anchor rodes.
Items in storage to stow aboard Kandu
2014 Dec. 9: Appointments (each crew member is required to have his or her own) with the French Consulate’s office in Los Angeles. Between now and then, Leslie, among other tasks, will focus on compiling and translating the multiple documents necessary to properly submit a request for an extended stay visa in French Polynesia (FP). The visa will provide us the option to stay for up to one year within its five archipelagos instead of the automatic 90 day visitor visa granted to us as North Americans, 30 days of which would simply be travel time between island groups. One of the required documents is a police report/criminal history, supposedly insuring we’re not fleeing or a threat. Once we’ve successfully submitted our requests, the visa process takes 6-8 weeks to complete. Our application gets sent to Papeete for review and then their government’s response is sent back to the French Consulate’s office. We’re hoping the timing of this occurring over the holiday period won’t delay the process. Presumably, we have to land in French Polynesia within 120 days of our extended stay visa submission.
Dec. 10+: After four years of Kandu’s being worked on in her marina, the first good weather day following our appointments with the Consulate’s office, we’ll sail Kandu from Ventura, potentially not returning until after the completion of our circumnavigation (if ever).
As of this writing, we plan to spend several days unplugged and off the grid in the Santa Barbara Channel Islands, perhaps just Santa Cruz Island, but maybe we’ll venture further to San Miguel Island with her breeding elephant seals, or Santa Rosa with her new State park facilities, or all of them. We’ll check with our live aboard neighbors, Leilani and Mike of Lanikai, a surfing couple with extensive cruising experience in Channel Islands, Mexico, and Central America, about potential surfing spots for Bryce and Trent to try. We hope this remote experience at the islands will help us break-in further our systems and crew, and provide us feedback as to what other tweaks we will feel necessary to make at our next big stop. From the islands, we plan to head over to Malibu’s Paradise Cove and spend a day or two, weather permitting. There are supposedly some good surf spots there, and for various reasons, difficult to reach by land. Bryce wants to add Malibu to his surfing history. This just gave me an idea—have Bryce and Trent make a surfing passport, noting the various places they will have surfed around the world, gluing a sprinkle of commemorative sand next to each entry . . . “totally sick, dude!”
From Malibu, it’s off to Marina Del Rey (MDR), or depending on weather and preference, we may wish to spend a day on Catalina Island before pulling into MDR, Kandu’s documented homeport, where we’ve pre-arranged a live-aboard slip for 2-3 weeks. MDR, with a West Marine store managed by our good friend, Jose Barocio, is where we plan to finish up any remaining projects for Kandu’s preparations and get our “production” equipment and processes finalized (webpage architecture, social media foundation, video and audio production software and equipment, and amateur radio email). We’ll visit with our Angelino friends and neighbors, showing them Kandu and spend Christmas with Leslie’s parents in Palm Springs.
When we’re ready, we’ll leave MDR and sail down the Southern California coast, visiting whichever marinas we fancy, hopefully spending some reciprocal time at other yacht clubs (yacht clubs will often host members of other yacht clubs, allowing a boat stay 2-3 days free of charge at their guest dock or a vacant slip). Eventually we’ll find our way to San Diego where we’ll tie up any loose ends–boat, production, or visa–before selling our last car and untying Kandu’s dock lines from her last U.S. port for a while, entering into international waters. The long, arduous, sometimes torturous, phase of transitioning from land to boat life, of planning and preparing for a five-year voyage, will be replaced by the much anticipated processes surrounding cruising: course plotting and navigation, weather, maintenance, boat life, and foreign bureaucracies; seeking safe harbor, food, fuel, and adventure. In short, the fun part of the process begins.
2015 Mid to late January: If time remaining on the FP visa allows, we plan to first clear into Mexico in Ensenada, Baja California; a day sail from San Diego. Then sail down the rugged Baja coast to whatever surf spots and bays we think may be of interest to us, weather permitting.
At some point, we’ll wind up in Cabo San Lucas, with its marine chandlery, Home Depot, and Costco stores. We’ll pick up any last minute items, provision for two months of travel, and take our last hot North American shower.
Cabo San Lucas Marina (photo by commons.wikimedia.org)
Then it’s off to the Galapagos Islands (~18-day sail) where I think we get 10 days to visit.
Galapagos (photo by Burrard-Lucas.com)
Then off to Rapa Nui aka “Easter Island” (~18-day sail) where we hope weather will allow us to visit for a week or more.
Rapa Nui “Easter Island” (photo by visualphotos.com)
Then off to Pitcairn Island (~9-day sail) the last of our long sails for awhile and where anchoring and visiting shore can only be supported if weather is ideal.
Pitcairn (photo by travellerspoint.com)
Then off to the Gambier Islands (~3-day sail) where we enter the crystal clear lagoon waters of FP and our visa clock (assuming we get it) starts running.
Gambier (photo by wn.com)
Four days before Thanksgiving, while moored in Ventura, our transitional home for the past 18 months, this is the current outline of our intended itinerary. May that ‘serenity’ wisdom come soon.
When painting the bottom outside portion of the hull, the part that lives submerged underwater gets covered with a special paint designed to inhibit marine growth. Copper is toxic to marine life, especially as it oxidizes (rusts). The sailors of old covered the ship’s bottom with copper sheeting and copper nails.
HMS Bounty arrives in Tahiti 1788 (Painting by Jon Clayton)
In Tahiti, HMS Bounty had a problem with her crew and the islanders pulling the nails from the ship’s bottom for their personal purposes of trade. Not good for a ship needing to sail back to the other side of the world, or even just to Pitcairn Island.
The green rust that forms on the surface of copper is called cuprous oxide. In solution, cuprous oxide is used to clean algae from pools and ponds of water or the insides of water beds. If you staple bare copper wire around a flower bed, snails won’t cross it. Today, boat owners paint copper on the bottom. The price of the paint follows the price of copper. Currently, copper is expensive. A gallon of high copper concentrated paint sells for about $200. Alternatives exists, some more environmentally friendly than others, and each U.S. state has its own environmental laws identifying which active ingredients they permit for use in marine bottom paint.
Painting the bottom of a boat, the boat owner must decide how far from the bottom of the boat’s keel to paint the bottom paint; where to draw the boot stripe, the strip of paint that separates the upper hull from the lower hull, usually a different color from the two. For example, Kandu’s hull is white, her bottom is regatta red, and her boot stripe is forest green, matching her trim, the stripe along the upper hull that stretches just below her deck. So where does the boat owner draw the line? If it’s too high, exposed expensive bottom paint does little to protect the boat; if too low, marine life (algae, worms, barnacles, etc.) will form and have to be scrubbed off regularly, wearing down the shiny white expensive gelcoated surface (everything on a boat is expensive). In determining the waterline, boat owners must take into account how much equipment and stores they plan to stow aboard their boat. The more stuff you put in a boat, the lower the boat sits in the water, the higher the waterline must be. We bought Kandu from a couple that had sailed to Australia and back. When we purchased her, their waterline lay about 8 inches above sea surface, indicating that when they had Kandu fully loaded for their trip, she sat 8 inches lower. So we went with the previous owners’ line, maintaining the bottom paint at their previous level. For the four years we’ve owned Kandu, 6″-8″ of bottom paint has been exposed, but that’s now changing.
The darker part of the red bottom paint is the portion previously exposed.Close up, you can better see the cuprous oxide within the air-exposed portion of bottom paint.
Over the past three weeks, we’ve been loading Kandu. To state that not everything is loaded is an understatement. Additionally, because of the heavier equipment loaded into our shower (our “rec room” storage), we’re currently listing (as in leaning) to starboard. On the starboard side, we’ve about an inch of bottom paint exposed. To balance her out, we have to find objects to stow on the port side, heavy ones.
Kandu’s starboard waterline today.
Will we bury Kandu’s waterline or will we have her at the perfect level? It’s too soon to tell. By the end of next week, we’ll know. Keep your fingers crossed.
Many types live aboard their boats, of varying sailing ability and experience. An odd thing about boat owners: live-aboards or otherwise, most infrequently, and some never, take their boats out for a sail or a motor. Rare is the sailor who leaves the dock monthly. This includes Kandu. We went nearly 2 years without leaving the dock. Too few untie their dock lines. Live-aboards with extensive cruising are rare in a marina because they are typically sailing the blue yonder, or they’ve moved land-bound. Far more boats capable of cruising the world sit tied to a dock than sail the seas. As live-aboards in a marina, households (or perhaps more appropriately, “boat holds”) live nearly side-by-side, closer than mobile homes in a mobile home park. With many live-aboards being retirees, marinas in some measure take on the feel of an adult community. As such, we appreciate that many prefer children be “seen and not heard.” Non-liveaboards still working, having worked all week, like to spend a weekend sleeping in on their boats, bathed in seaside sounds while gently rocking. They don’t want to awake to kids playing near, and certainly not on, their boats. For this reason, some marina’s don’t allow live-aboards with children or large pets. Kids wake up early, either for school or for play. Fortunately, Ventura West Marina (VWM), where we’ve lived for nearly a year, allows both.
To offer a little more privacy, VWM staggers non-live-aboard boats between live-aboards. When in September we gave our required 30-day notice of departure based on our intention to leave with the Baja Ha-ha Cruiser’s Rally in late October, we gave up access to the live-aboard slip we’d occupied until then. In an effort to help us find a temporary home, the marina management asked and received permission to place us in-between two live-aboard boats.
Something of which some sailors may not be fully aware. A crew in final preparation for a multi-year long-distance voyage, as compared against a typical marina-bound boat, is significantly more active. From morning and into the evening, we are in and out of our boat, bringing on equipment, testing it, modifying it, and testing it again–add to the mix two active boys–et voila, ruckus aplenty. As compared to a more mature, perhaps sedentary neighbor, we are considerably more animated and thus relatively “loud.”
After only two weeks of this temporary arrangement, marina management informed us that one boat left the marina because of our higher noise generation and the boys’ handling of their boats, with even more boat owners threatening to give notice. “Noisy children” was the main reason given for the complaints. Ironically, none of them spoke to us directly about their issues, chosing instead to have others speak for them. Now, we’re not up too late. We’re in bed by 9:30 p.m. and up around 6:30 a.m. (I’ve been waking up around 4:30 and working on the computer). To abate the exodus, management moved us to another location, a slip with only one adjacent live-aboard, someone younger than me. When asked by other live-aboards why it was that we were moving so much, we’d tell them, “‘Cause we’ve been told we’re too loud.” They laugh and say we’re not. Some say they’re louder than us. But none of these people live directly adjacent to us or others for that matter. We hoped that management’s plan would work. After the first weekend, two days spent working with the boys, doing such things as filling water tanks, sorting sandpaper by grade, and showing them how to repair a polyethylene kayak (welding a narrow plastic rod to close small holes), hacksawing bolts of a Secchi disk (a device to measure phyto-plankton density), management notified us that they had received yet another noise complaint; this time from our new and only neighbor. Previously it took two weeks to have someone complain. This time it curiously only took two days. Although only feet away from each others “doors,” and having seen our new neighbor several times enter and exit his boat, he like the others, preferred to make his concerns known to “the office.”
Although for some über sailors it may be easy to prepare a twenty-eight year-old, 42-foot sailboat for a five-year circumnavigation with one’s family; and during the final two weeks of preparation have no one walk in and out of the boat, or talk or use tools, . . . for me, with or without a teenager and a pre-teen as crew, it is not. Understanding the unusual nature of our circumstances, we appreciate how the more typical, less-active of our live-aboard neighbors could be easily annoyed by our higher than normal activity. We are saddened that our neighbors find it difficult to appreciate our circumstances, that they feel uneasy discussing their concerns with us, electing instead to approach us through management. Management says we must leave their marina by November 30, the Sunday following Thanksgiving. Fortunately the Ventura Yacht Club is ready to receive us then, and another marina in Marina Del Rey after that. Some adventures start with a whimper, others with a shout. I suppose ours is starting with the preverbial door hitting us on the way out. It’s all good, for Leslie and I are making terrific progress, while Trent and Bryce find great ways to enjoy their time in pictoresque Ventura.
Post Script:
Several days before the required Nov. 30 departure, Ventura West Marina management offered and we accepted to stay in a newly vacated live-aboard slip, through the date of our choosing–Dec. 20th. On this, our national day of Thanksgiving, we are grateful for their thoughtfulness and the convenience it provides our family and effort.
Trent, Sunday evening, enjoying a little twilight bodyboarding after working on Kandu. Bryce catching waves in the distance.
The nine-year-old boy who made model planes and, from his living room floor, flipped through pages of images of America’s fastest planes came back to life as the crew of Kandu visited NASA’s Air Research Center yesterday. Previously called the “Dryden Flight Research Center,” in March the center was renamed “Neil A. Armstrong Flight Research Center,” after the first person to walk the moon’s surface. My brother, Tom, a NASA project manager at the center, offered last weekend when he and his family visited aboard Kandu, to give us a private tour of the facility, as its not open to the public. Located on the Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert lives this iconic ‘Disneyland’ of American flight engineering.
Nasa’s Armstrong Air Research Center from above (photo from Wikipedia)Crew of Kandu registered with the Visitor’s Center.
We were able to see and touch many of the favorite flight craft of my childhood fantasies: the sleek and mysterious “Blackbird” SR-71, the aggressively simple F-104A, a piece of the crashed X-15, and, most emotionally satisfying, the historic Lunar Landing Research Vehicle (LLRV), one of only two remaining in existance. The other three trainers were destroyed in flight tests. The LLRV and the Lunar Landing Training Vehicle (LLTV) were required flight training for all of the U.S. space program’s moon-landing astronauts. Knowing that every astronaut that ever walked the moon had flown the very craft I was touching somehow connected me in a small way to their greatness. At that moment, I hoped that some of the mojo of their courage and dedication might rub off on me, helping me guide our family’s exploratory watercraft safely around earth’s oceanic surface.
“Blackbird”“Starfighter”
Tom arranged for us to examine his team’s latest project: a Gulfstream III jet modified with their Adaptive Compliant Trailing Edge (ACTE) flaps. A week earlier, they had successfully completed their first full flight test. His press quote summarizes the project goals: “’The first flight went as planned — we validated many key elements of the experimental trailing edges,’ said Thomas Rigney, ACTE Project Manager at Armstrong. ‘We expect this technology to make future aircraft lighter, more efficient, and quieter. It also has the potential to save hundreds of millions of dollars annually in fuel costs.’” What happened next would be Leslie’s favorite part of the day, for Tom gave us a rare inside look of the test jet. The flight engineer allowed Bryce and Trent to sit in the pilot seats, panel lights on, sporting headphones with mics. Scrat, the acorn-obsessed saber-toothed squirrel from the the animated film series Ice Age, is the engineering team’s unofficial mascot. A mid-sized stuffed plushy of Scrat hangs from the aircraft’s ceiling, above racks of test equipment. The equipment measures something like 20,000 parameters.
The modified Gulfstream III outside its hanger. (photo NASA)View of the ACTE flap modification. (photo NASA)Drawing emphasizing the ACTE modification. (NASA)Ready to board the GSIIILanding alongside chase plane. Note the difference in wing shape between the experimental Gulfstream and the traditional chase plane. (Photo by NASA)Brother, Tom, boarding his team’s project test jet.“Ikhana,” a modified Predator drone, Tom’s previous NASA research project.
After lunch, Tom accompanied us to the Center’s fight simulator area. Walking through its second floor corridor, we passed sets of steel double-doors with each’s ceiling placards hanging above, identifying the craft that is simulated inside. We entered the one marked “Gulfstream III,” the actual jet that Bryce and Trent sat in earlier. We all got a turn at taking off, flying, and landing the plane that Tom’s team so deftly modified. Then it was off to the F-18, the fighter jet that chased the Gulfstream during its test flight.
Co-piloting the Gulfstream III simulatorSeated in the F-18 simulator cockpit.Piloting an F-18 over the Mojave Dessert at mach speed.
From the simulator center, we were off to the gift store where we said good-bye to Tom, and thanked him for the greatest of days. When Tom was 8, he drew rockets on pieces of lined paper and then dropped them into neighbors’ front door mail slots, ringing their door bells to alert them of the gift’s arrival before running off. To know what has become of that eight-year-old boy is a source of great happiness for me. Trent asked how old I was before I knew what I wanted to do. The experience of seeing Tom in his element may have triggered Trent to wonder when he might discover his career passion, or in my case–passions.
Bryce’s favorite experience was seeing the M-2/F2 drop plane, the predecessor to the futuristic Dream Catcher spacecraft whose simulator he briefly sat in. Trent liked seeing the Cessna Dragonfly trainer jet. Fortunately for Leslie and me, they both like the smaller crafts!
Bryce’s favorite aircraft, the M-2/F2, predecessor to the “Dream Catcher.” One of these crafts crashed landed here at Edwards. The footage was later used in the introduction of the 1970’s television series, “The Six Million Dollar Man.”Trent’s favorite, Cessna’s “Dragonfly” trainer jet.
Leaving the base, its Air Research Center and museums, the nine-year-old boy in me smiled with satisfaction, having been briefly brought back to life, making real as an adult what had previously been a childhood dream. The Center has a saying, “To create what others only dream.” We got a chance to touch dreams, making them real for me. With what rudder we have in the water, we hope to create a little of the same as we prepare to lead our own planetary adventure.
Installing, testing, and loading equipment takes up a large part of our weeks at this phase. One question was how well would our folding aluminum bikes tow our dock cart/bike trailer. On Sunday, we pulled the bikes out of their bags and attached the cart with a special towing arm converting our folding aluminum dock cart into a bike trailer. The arm attached to the bike post of one of our bikes using a bracket designed and fabricated by a professional car re-conditioner.
Trent tested folding bike cart on folding bike.
Taking advantage of yesterday’s day off from school for Veteran’s Day and the flat windless seas, Kandu and crew plus Uncle Bill motored 2 ½ hours through Monday evening’s heavily overcast sky over to Smuggler’s Cove on Santa Cruz Island. We chose Smuggler’s for its proximity to Ventura, easy grabbing sea floor, and large area; making it easy to ‘swing’ on one anchor without hitting other boats.
Nearly pitch black, we tested again our Simrad autopilot, and B&G navigation and RADAR equipment; learning how to dim the panels so as not to rob our night vision. Stationed halfway between Ventura and Santa Cruz Island, we motored safely past the oil platform and its large steel can buoys.
Passing platform Gail at night
Oil derricks in the Santa Barbara Channel are lit up like Christmas trees, so oil platform Gail is quite visible at night, but her buoys are not. The broadband RADAR work well to point them out to us before we saw the shadow of one of them against the glow of Gail.
Cautiously entering the dark cove, to confirm our location, we tried out our new LED spotlight. It worked like a champ, lighting up the shoreline and the Coast Guard’s mooring buoy. At a depth of 30 ft, we dropped hook (anchored) using our new 65 lbs Mantus anchor and snubbed it with our new Mantus bridle. The anchor impressively grabbed the muddy sand bottom. The thick nylon ropes and the innovative chain hook that comprise the bridle worked well to keep our motion gentle and quiet through the night. The crossing and anchoring were a success.
When anchored, wind blows a boat downwind. With the anchor chain fixed to the bow, the boat is held head first into the wind. Wind and swell usually come the same direction. In normal circumstances, a boat will rock in the more comfortable fore and aft motion, not side to side, which is uncomfortable. When rocking side to side, the boat rattles and rolls, making it difficult to sleep or work. That night, Smuggler’s Cove had a small, short frequency sea roll. Without wind to point Kandu’s bow, we often came sideways to the swell. At 3 a.m., I decided to deploy one of our two new, never-before-used stabilizers, or “flopper stoppers” as they are commonly referred. I quietly moved through Kandu’s interior, pulling from the main hanging locker (closet) the two stoppers in their separate bags and climbed one of them up the companionway ladder and into the cockpit. It took about 10 minutes to rig the unit off the mainsail’s boom, something I had previously configured at dock a few weeks prior. I locked the boom in place over the starboard quarter and dropped the shiny stainless-steel folding wing into the water. Leslie said the benefit was immediate: the boat rocked less. Later that morning, on the opposite side of the boat, I deployed the second stabilizer from the spinnaker pole. Roll was very slight after that.
Still awake at nearly 4 a.m., I decided to try and download a weather fax off the HAM radio and into our HP laptop. Excitedly I was able to receive several weather fax transmissions, sent by the Coast Guard at Point Reyes near San Francisco. Now I need to learn how to clean up the images. They came white on black instead of black on white, they split alignment halfway through the image, and are slightly fuzzy in sections.
Weather successfully received and downloaded fax onto laptop
After a hearty breakfast by Leslie, I worked to commission the watermaker. I cleared out all the tools and lubricants to gain access to the plumbing that supports the watermaking process.
Tools cleared to access water maker plumbing
The first step in the commissioning processes was to turn on the saltwater feed to the boost pump. When I opened the valve, seawater poured out from around the fitting that feeds the system, so we didn’t get any further in the commissioning process. I put everything back in its place, realizing this was an issue that will have to be addressed at dock where I’d have easier access to parts.
One of the main reasons for heading out to Santa Cruz the night before was to take advantage of the forecasted light winds that would allow us to sail for the first time our newly re-cut gennaker, our large colorful light wind sail. After lunch, while the boys kayaked to the beach through small waves, I rigged up the windvane self-steering, in hopes of testing it along with the gennaker. We pulled out from under Trent’s berth the newly re-cut gennaker sail, no easy task as the sail is large and the living space we walked it through, small. We prepared it on the foredeck. The netting I laced days earlier kept the sail from falling off the deck and into the water.
Foredeck netting
With the boys and kayak safely back aboard, we started the engine and weighed anchor. It came up fine, except, darn it, the sharp point of the anchor poked through the green gelcoat line of Kandu’s bow. I’ll need to take greater care when pulling up the anchor those last two feet. With anchor away and stowed, we motored past the Coast Guard buoy and unfurled the mainsail. Once set, we tied the mainsail’s boom preventer line to protect us from accidentally jibing, which means holding the heavy boom in place so it doesn’t dangerously swing over (or into!) our heads without warning. We proceeded to hoist the gennaker, Leslie on the foredeck, me in the cockpit. The light-wind sail easily slipped from its sock and gloriously made its colorful presence felt. We were impressed and pleased with the effort.
Gennaker off Santa Cruz Island.
Too soon the wind died and we re-snubbed the gennaker, pulling its enclosing sock down from its head (top) to its tack (bottom). With no wind, we were unable to test the self-steering wind vane, another thing for another day. Just as we had done the night before, we engaged the hydraulically operated autopilot to steer us home. We again motored past Platform Gail, this time noticing the sea lions basking atop her buoys.
Platform Gail in the daytime.
Before long, we entered Ventura Marina, successfully docking without any of the incidents or fanfare that occurred the last time we pulled from our slip. All in all, it was a productive 24 hour period, filled with good test runs, yet with still more to come . . . several more.
To improve her sailing skills and nautical vocabulary, Leslie volunteered as crew during this past summer’s season of “Wet Wednesdays” sailboat races, a series organized by the Ventura Yacht Club. Every Wednesday evening, around 5, the fleet of a little more than a dozen boats met just outside the Ventura marina to race around a course of buoys. The course was determined by the race committee aboard the committee boat minutes before each start. Where the committee boat anchored was where the race began. In these races, when sailing downwind, the sailboats typically deployed a spinnaker, the great-big colorful cloud-like sails you see billowing in those overly-saturated photographs of sailboats sailing in a cluster. Spinnaker sailing is something we won’t likely do aboard Kandu, but it’s great sailing experience.
Claudia, a new skipper with a new/used sailboat, a J-24, adopted Leslie. Claudia was very tenacious and eager to win. To expedite her learning, she sought and received guidance from more experienced J-24 skippers, who joined her on several of her races. By proximity, Leslie received an excellent education. As it would happen, within the first month, Claudia collided with another boat at the start of the race, an expensive error. From the other boat, Leslie heard from the skipper’s mouth words uttered only by drill sergeants and prison guards. He had just dropped (not a literal term) his boat back into the water after having it professionally painted, an expensive process.
A couple weeks later, during a Saturday practice trying new trimming skills, Leslie fell overboard. Her expensive hydrostatic inflator technology malfunctioned, so her lifejacket didn’t inflate. Fortunately, she held on to the genoa sheet she was trimming before she fell overboard thus not drifting far. Claudia immediately stopped the boat, and she and the remaining crew helped Leslie back on board. The life vest, which doubles as a harness, came in handy as a harness because the crew was able to hold onto her by grabbing the back of it. Leslie returned the vest to learn that it had been recalled earlier. The notice hadn’t reached us, but West Marine, the chandlery store from which we purchased the units, gave us a new vest to replace hers and one other to replace the one we had in stock that was also part of the recall.
About six weeks later, Leslie got the chance to try out her new lifejacket. Before the start of the last ‘Wet Wednesday’ race, Claudia arranged to practice jibing the spinnaker with Leslie as trimmer and added a very novice third crew member (fourth time to race on a boat) to perform as foredeck person (the one who stands on the deck in front of the mast and rigs and unrigs all of the headsails). When a jibe goes awry, a spinnaker often tangles around the headstay (the front cable that holds the mast up in place), and that’s what happened . . . but this time, a bit closer than usual to the beach. Claudia’s radio pleas for assistance went unheeded until it was too late; Within Reach drifted into the surf and onto the beach. Leslie jumped ship as the boat’s keel made contact with the sandy bottom, a wave knocking her off the hull side for good measure. This time the vest worked well (but this time it would cost $70 to re-arm it), and from where she fell from the side of the boat, Leslie’s feet touched bottom. Leslie was able to bob-walk safely to shore. After agreeing to the terms offered, Vessel Assist later worked successfully to pull the boat from the beach ($250/foot, so $6000!). The incident made the local paper, the Ventura Count Star.
‘Within Reach’ Beached Off Ventura Marina. Photo by Eric Rigney
That was Leslie’s last day aboard Within Reach, but not her last opportunity to fall overboard and auto-inflate her vest. Yesterday, while leaving for the first time the slip from where Kandu is currently berthed, as she jumped aboard Kandu’s forward port quarter (closer to the bow on the left side of the boat) Leslie noticed the bow was dangerously approaching the concrete pylon. In an effort to correct the boat’s trajectory, Leslie decided to jump back off Kandu back onto the dock to push the bow away. Leslie didn’t realize that in that brief moment, Kandu had backed far enough away to where Leslie was no longer above the dock. As she proceeded to jump back down, she fell directly into the cold grey seawater, weighed down by her clothing and equipment. She instantly sank several feet before her life vest auto-inflated, as designed, and popped her up to the surface, face first. Byce too had fallen in, but, with his light-weight life-vest, was able to readily get himself up on the dock. Leslie doggie-paddled to the other side, where the dock was lower to the surface and Bryce could help her up. The only injury sustained was a deep bruise to her right elbow and a little bruising to her ego. Fortunately, Leslie was not otherwise harmed and we continued with our sailing plans for the day.
As Bryce and Trent watch on, Leslie doggie-paddles to the lower dock where Bryce will walk around and assist her. Photo by Tom Rigney
Leslie’s boot camp has done much to build her confidence. Within Reach won two races and earned second place overall in the first session. Leslie’s practical experiences have taught her that she can survive very challenging circumstances. And I’ve learned as well. From now on, while near land, we’ll wear our standard static life-vests until we’re on longer passages. For now, we’ll put the pricey life jackets away. At $70 a pop (pun intended), Leslie’s boot camp was getting to be expensive.
Post Script: It just dawned on me that our policy of requiring everyone aboard Kandu to wear a life jacket paid off enormously Saturday. Wearing all her gear, without a life-jacket, Saturday’s circumstance may not have been so casually dramatic. Leslie sank so quickly, she didn’t have time to react before she fully understood that she was underwater, sinking. She said she didn’t know whether she would have had the presence of mind to have manually pulled the rip cord as quickly is it inflated on its own, or what she would have done had the vest not performed as engineered. With the auto-inflate feature built into the vest she was wearing, Leslie was at the surface before she had completely realized what had happened. Leslie’s dip could have been a tragic one were it not for our strict policy of wearing life jackets; either static or self-inflating. Were Leslie wearing a static life jacket, as we will in the future when near shore, she probably would not have bounced up through the surface as quickly, but she would have been swimming okay, instead of sinking like a rock. Bryce was dressed for swimming, so he easily swam to the dock and got himself out. But Leslie was not. To swim, a person either needs the resistance of bare skin against the water (try swimming with water socks and gloves on, you get no grab on the water) or be sporting a pair of swim fins. Leslie had neither. I was at the helm of a 15-ton sailboat, with 6 novice passengers aboard, backing toward many other boats. Had Leslie not worn the life vest and sank to the bottom (it was a very high tide that morning, so 20 feet), what could I have done and would I have thought to do it? I was fully dressed too. I would have had to strip down, grab our Spare Air mini SCUBA tank from under our top companion way step, and dive after her, leaving the boat adrift, hoping the others would steer her out of harms way from docks and other boats. As I write this, I now know I need to leave a set of flippers with our Spare Air, along with the mask and snorkel and dive knife we currently have strapped to it. I’m thankful that we are so stubborn about wearing life jackets aboard Kandu. It was a fundamental lesson taught to us as part of our Coast Guard Auxilary Safe Boating training. This experience strengthens our resolve. Thanks to the Coast Guard Auxiliary, to Mustang life-vest engineers and manufacturing, to Leslie’s experience aboard Within Reach and for West Marine’s swapping the faulty jacket, and to Leslie for wearing it (she had re-adjusted her vest’s straps less than an hour before her plunge, insuring her vest was snug to her chest); our family took the unplanned event in stride and enjoyed a lovely sail on what transformed to a beautifully clear day, sailing over calm seas in a light breeze along the picturesque Ventura coastline.
My 80 yr-old dad sailing with us after Leslie’s plunge, his vest a little too loosely fitted. Photo by Tom Rigney
To prevent galvanic corrosion, boat owners strategically install “zincs” between proximate metals, objects that share the same saltwater (electrolyte) space. Zinc metal is used because it more readily gives up its electrons (anode) than most other, more stable metals (cathode) such as bronze and stainless steel, metals which are prevalent underwater on boats. Zincs thus protect bronze from being depleted by stainless, and one type of stainless from another type. In this arrangement, zinc is what is commonly referred to as a sacrificial metal. Over the past two years, the notion of “sacrifice” has often come up in conversations. More recently, my mother-in-law suggested I ask too much of Leslie and the boys: the hardship, the lack of convenience, and time away from family and friends.
Exclusionary Sacrifice: Last week, Dina Pielaet, our media partner, interviewing me for our future YouTube channel, asked me to describe the sacrifices we’ve endured in preparation for our adventure. As I spoke, my words seemed hollow, almost winey. “Well, to save for the trip we didn’t travel as much, we didn’t visit our friends in Europe or my brother in Australia. I didn’t join Leslie and the boys on their extended visits with friends and family. We didn’t purchase fancy new cars, or RV’s, or vacation homes, . . . .” On reflection, I rarely, if ever, missed a family event, and did pretty much what I wanted. We had everything we needed and most of what we desired: nice house in a nice neighborhood close to work, great job with great benefits, good public schools and multiple after-school activities (sports, music, scouting), dependable transportation, scheduled professional house maintenance, frequent entertainment (dinners, movies, plays, operas, concerts, museums), and we vacationed in Hawaii, Tahoe, Palm Springs, and the San Francisco Bay Area. What, then, did we really give up? This type of sacrifice is more about choice than about living without. We experienced the stresses and strains that come with living dense and full lives.
Choice being one of two truly owned ‘possessions’ (attitude being the other), when making a choice, the options not selected become the sacrifice. Picking rocky-road over any other flavor sacrifices the other 30 ice cream flavors. In short, the sacrifices I’ve experience before moving from Los Angeles have been that of exclusion, the things I didn’t experience as a result of the choices I made, a result of my preferences. Selecting one experience minimizes or excludes my ability to experience other compelling options. After career, family, health, and working toward the goal of our trip; there was little time left to develop friendships or volunteer as I would have wanted, had I the time. But I made choices, and in the big picture, I liked what I picked. The demands surrounding our adventure minimized my time with friends and my ability to volunteer with the boys’ activities. These were my sacrifices up until the time we moved from Los Angeles. Now moved aboard Kandu, we are giving up everyday comfort and conveniences in exchange for a constant state of disrepair in a cramped space with few conveniences.
Transformational Sacrifice: Leaving our home of 16 years, parting with possessions long-owned, and packing the more sentimental ones was a monumental effort, both physical and emotional. Uprooting Bryce and Trent from their routines and dropping them into new circumstances of school, nomadic housing situations (not knowing where we could live or for how long), and relationships was dramatic; more so for Leslie than for the boys. Parting from her hard-earned dream career having performed 12 years with Los Angeles Opera, including a coveted role in an upcoming regional opera, was heart-breaking for Leslie. Seeing the toll it was taking on Leslie was difficult for me. I tried to find the silver lining. Leslie and the boys made terrific new friends and she enrolled the boys in wonderful activities in Ventura. Bryce had his picture in the paper within the first month and earned a lead in a professional Christmas Spectacular. Trent loved his new teacher and school, and made several friends, the best friends he ever had. Acclimating helped a lot, but did not solve the problem. Leslie wanted to be “going.” Every month we were delayed upset her. She gave up a lot to go, and go she wanted. But as she also states, the moving, the letting go, the adjustment to boat life are all part of the journey. “Although we haven’t left Ventura, our adventure has truly started.”
The sacrifice associated with the transition phase, leaving land life and preparing our boat for a five-year nomadic life at sea and aboard, is likely the hardest part of the entire journey–super-strength sacrifice. We’re gambling that once the boat is ready and we’re sailing, the intended benefits will infuse our lives, making all the work and frustration worth it. Still, along the way of transition, we’ve been blessed. The boys have been active in surfing, Ripstick and skateboarding, basketball, Kendama play, choir, wood shop, clarinet lessons, and performing on stage. We’ve been blessed to spend time with friends in Ventura we’ve known previously and with the friends recently made. We’ve been blessed by the generous help and advice offered by well-traveled live-aboard neighbors (other people who live on their boats in the marina), several who have sailed long distances for many years, including one couple who has sailed around the world a couple times. The many problems I’ve been forced to solve has taught me much about our boat, and what is needed to maintain our lifestyle. It has built a foundation of knowledge that brings with it a greater confidence. In eighth-grade metal shop I learned that when steel is heated to a near melting red-hot temperature, then dipped into carbon powder before being plunged into a cool water bath that sizzles and crackles with the dramatic temperature change, the process creates hardened steel, capable of doing more than it could have prior to exposure to extremes–the metal was transformed into something greater than its origins. In large part, I feel the same is occurring for us.
Sacrifice of Proximity: Postponing our trip has allowed us to experience some important family events. These past two weeks afforded multiple opportunities to participate in important family events: a rare reunion with my three brothers and our families with our dad; a cousin’s wedding with friends and family from around the world; the engagement announcement by my youngest and closest brother; and the loss of a friend to cancer. Had we left on the Baja Ha-ha rally as planned, we would have missed these events. Appreciating our circumstance, we relished more intensely the experiences. The culmination of these family events makes clear all that will be missed when we leave. I’ll miss several weddings of people important to me. I’ll miss annual holiday gatherings with family, birthday celebrations and graduations. I’ll miss hearing the details about the joys and sorrows of friends and family. Their triumphs and tragedies will be bullet points in an email or text. I won’t be there to share remembrances of those close to me who will pass on. Absence will be our sacrifice each week we’re away, the flavors we will not savor. But what of the flavors we will enjoy; the weddings and birthdays and holidays we will celebrate with new life long friends, remarkable people from around the world; building an intense family bond with our sons, imparting confidence and skills and memories to last a lifetime. We’re temporarily trading experiences with those who have been geographically close to us for many years for those persons and families who will be close to us as we travel–relationships of proximity. The shared adventure, the daily delving into foreign realms, the bond with nature, and so much more; these are the flavors we will taste as we sacrifice our ability to share experiences with our California family and friends . . . absent not forever, just for now.
Mettle: Will the experiences we will have gained by trip’s end have been worth all the various forms of sacrifice paid? Leslie and I wouldn’t accept these sacrifices if we thought it would not. It’s a reasoned choice, we argue. I have deep faith that the adventure on which we are about to embark, and truthfully have already started, will be the single greatest gift we give ourselves as a family, that it will establish how we interact the rest of our years together, giving the boys the confidence and the know-how to determine their dreams and achieve them, building an intense strength of spirit that should enable us to forge ahead despite difficulties, like hardened steel. Just as I appreciate the sacrifice of electrons which occurs beneath our boat, I whole-heartedly and fully welcome the strengthening effects of our ‘sacrificial mettle.’
Leslie’s Kitchen
Leslie’s Galley
Post Script: Last week, we attended our young cousin’s wedding. I spoke there because I wanted to share some marital advice with those who might marry in my absence. Although I didn’t say everything I wanted that evening, I’d like to include as a post script an outline I’d said there:
Key Traits to Successful Marriage
Communication
Regularly throughout the day
Listen
Two ears, two eyes, one mouth
If a communication is crucial, repeat the other’s communiqué in your own words to the other’s satisfaction
No individual owns the truth
First seek clarity and understanding, over acceptance
It’s not a competition
Seek humor, laughter, and humility over winning/being right
The tone of communication is remembered more than the words.
If angry, wait 24 hrs. before responding; never insult or use derogatory language toward each other.
The written word carries more weight than the spoken.
Shared Values
Money, differences have marriage killer potential
Family, friends, and children
Free Time
Compassion and forgiveness; especially yourself
Romance > Sex
Weekly date night, flowers, scented candles, soap notes on the mirror, picnics, wine and chocolate.
Recall the best, “I’d rather be me looking at her than her looking at me.”
Foster a comfortable relationship, a sharing friendship with each other. A reclining chair in a living room may not be as exciting as a stool in a singles’ bar, but it’s a heck of a lot more satisfying.
Humor
Pursuit of Happiness
Declaration of Independence
U.S. forefathers, ahead of their time, chose to tout the “pursuit of happiness” over Locke’s “property.”
It’s one’s civic duty!
Supporting each others purpose
Twain, “The two most important days of a person’s life are the day they are born and the day they discover why.”
Quickest way to happiness is helping another achieve theirs, service to others
Having an advocate for your happiness is powerful
Gratitude
Happiness requires effort. Misery comes automatically.
Make many purposeful “happiness” deposits to help offset the unintentional, but inevitable, “misery” withdrawals.
Everyone has a good excuse. Excuses are like rectums, we all have them and they all stink.
Half full or half empty matters less than if there’s any water in the glass. If so, then game on!
Live each day with intention.
Maintain good friendships in addition to your spouse
Sacrifice
Choice and attitude are the only things we truly own.
Possessions possess us. Memories are our only true treasure. Build beautiful memories.
Today, as secure and comfortable as most Americans are, sacrifice is more about choice, not about the loss of life essentials.
Even a trip to Disneyland requires sacrifice, examples: money, time, physical effort, and crowds.
Late one afternoon in Ventura, Bryce called to me, upset. I was below deck. He was on the dock. He had dropped Trent’s Penny Board, an old-school skateboard into the water adjacent to our neighbor’s boat. Trent recently bought it from a friend and really liked it. Bryce knew the cost to replace the board would be about $100, money he didn’t want to spend. Head in hands, fighting back tears, Bryce was lamenting his circumstance. I suggested he dive for it. I made up a weighted line to sound the depth; fifteen feet we determined and Bryce rushed to get his wetsuit. Together we deployed Kandu’s stern anchor and chain over the spot he remembered splashing the board. The sun was low on the horizon. It was warm above surface and below wasn’t terribly cold. We knew he wouldn’t see much and would have to rely on touch. Passer-bys encouraged Bryce to give it try, warning how difficult the task would be. It took a couple of dives before Bryce got his rhythm and technique down. Soon after, Bryce pulled up his brother’s skateboard. Many of the other live-aboards were amazed at Bryce’s success. He was very pleased with himself. I told him to wash the board off in fresh water and spray it with WD-40, which did immediately. The board survived with little damage until a couple of weeks when one of the wheel’s bearings froze. Trent’s Uncle Nick bought and replaced all of Trent’s bearings. Trent was satisfied with the repair.
A week after the salvaged skateboard episode, Uncle Nick bought for Bryce’s birthday a new Penny Board with a stars and stipes motif, just as Bryce had dreamed.
As mentioned in Part 1, initial efforts to retrieve the prescription sunglass my father-in-law, Ron, dropped from his shirt pocket and into the drink over our neighboring mooring slip failed. The mishap provided an excellent opportunity to try out some cool gear; 1) our Spare Air (mini-SCUBA tank) device, and 2) Jim’s, a neighbor’s, pony tank (small SCUBA tank). I learned about how long each allowed me to stay underwater at around 15′ below the surface and to not panic as I cautiously ascended without air in my lungs, to meet head-first the barnacled underside of the floating dock. I experienced what it is to dive in near zero visibility as my movements stirred the silty marina bottom, clouding my view like thick smoke from a slow motion house fire. And I received instruction from Jim on how to proceed in the manner taught to search and rescue divers.
Ron’s glasses fell in the water on a Saturday afternoon. Later that day, Bryce and I made our first attempts to retrieve them, as described Part 1. It wouldn’t be until Tuesday afternoon before I would be able to make another attempt, this time with our tethered compressed-air solution. Some call it SNUBA, a cross between snorkeling and SCUBA diving. Others call it a hookah system (if you try looking it up on the Internet, be sure to include “diving” in the search perimeters to avoid getting pages of links to marijuana devices) because of how it provides compressed air via a long hose tethered to your waist. It took days before I dove again because I wanted to find time to read the instructions and make sure I properly commissioned the unit into service. It’s an expensive piece of machinery that if improperly used, could kill a diver–no exaggeration.
SCUBA 101 (skip the next two paragraphs if you’re not interested in learning how compressed air can kill or maim one of us): Breathing compressed air is serious business. As a diver descends, the combined weight of of the air and the water above put into play physical forces that require serious consideration and respect. Ignorance is no shield against improper practice. Having had SCUBA instruction, I knew some basic practices: 1) at fifteen feet of depth, I could safely stay underwater for a long time, more than an hour, 2) to always be in a state of breathing, either exhaling or inhaling, slowly and deliberately–never hold your breath, especially ascending, 3) if you lose your regulator (the mouth piece from which your air is drawn), blow small bubbles, 4) do not ascend faster than your bubbles; 5) make a safety stop 10 feet below the surface for a few minutes before finishing the ascent (unless you’re out of air, then ascend blowing bubbles), allowing your body to release excess air stored in the recesses of your body and giving your ears an opportunity to acclimate to the lower pressure (I get dizzy the last 8 ft.). If a diver fails to adhere to safe practices, the physical laws of gas and fluids can work against the diver, releasing gases stored within their body tissues and blood stream (Henry’s law), creating painful air pockets between their lungs and chest, or sending air bubbles to the brain, like bubbles released from a freshly opened soft drink (Boyle’s law), killing or paralyzing them. Why does this happen? At depth, a diver needs higher air pressure to counter act the increased atmospheric pressures of the water surrounding the diver. At 33 feet below the water’s surface, the atmospheric pressure is double that of the surface which is about 15 pounds per square inch (psi), so 30 psi at 33 feet. At that depth, an air-filled basketball would be half its size. If you wanted the basketball expanded to full size at that depth, you’d need to fill it with twice as much air as with what it was filled at surface, which is the same thing as filling it with air that was compressed to twice its surface pressure. That’s why you can’t just take a long piece of hose and breath from it from the surface like a long snorkel. The air at surface is not pressurized (heavy) enough to expand a diver’s lungs at depth. With a long snorkel, you might be able to dive 2 feet underwater, but not much more. At the same time, if you don’t release the air from the basketball that’s now filled with twice the air at 33 feet, as it approaches the surface, the heavier air inside will expand to match the lower air pressure of the approaching surface, causing the ball to ascend faster and eventually explode. Okay for a basketball, not okay for lungs. By the way, without a lot of weight strapped to his or her body, it would be nearly impossible for a diver to swim a basketball down a few feet. A dolphin might be able to (basketballs underwater), but not many humans. Although, the deeper you get the ball, the smaller it gets, the easier it will be to push it down.
Another key factor surrounding diving with compressed air is the quality of the air compressed. When compressing air, the air compressor siphons air from around its intake, the very air we breath at the surface, and squeezes it into higher pressures. If the air it captures is polluted, the diver will breath concentrated pollution. This can easily happen if the compressor breathes the exhaust of a gasoline or diesel engine, which puts out carbon monoxide, a toxic gas. In our case, our compressor works off AC electricity. To create AC electricity, the kind of electricity that comes from the outlet of your walls, we use a gas-powered generator. If the generator’s exhaust is sucked into the air-compressor, the diver could be poisoned. When we want to dive at a location other than directly under Kandu, we may take our dinghy out to a better diving location. The interior space of the dinghy is small, so the generator and the compressor will be near each other. We will need to be extra cautious, separating the two as much as possible and making sure the compressor only breathes fresh air. We must place it up wind from the generator with its own snorkel and carbon air filter. So avoiding engine exhaust and other pollutants is crucial. And there’s one more thing that breathing in will kill you: oil, any oil, even food grade oil. In the harsh marine environment, metals rust. To help prevent rusting, we coat our metals with a light oil spray (CorrosionX or Boeshields T9) to minimize contact from the oxygen and salts that cause corrosion. The air compressor is no exception, so we must be extra careful to spray only its metal parts and not the air filter. We must spray the compressor after each use, allowing time for the solvents in the oil to evaporate and for the oil to “dry” on the metal surfaces. In this way, we insure the diver doesn’t breath compressed oil. If a diver breaths compressed oil, his or her lung walls will be coated with the oil, preventing the lungs from absorbing air, causing the diver’s lungs to fill with fluid. Even surfacing won’t save the diver. So you can see how important it was for me to read the instructions describing the proper use of our new air compressor, and why it took awhile before I was able to dive for Ron’s expensive sunglasses.
End of lesson. Back to the story.
With the knowledge of the air compressor’s proper use firmly saturating my brain, I gather up a few more items previously not incorporated in my earlier recovery attempts: a multi-colored spring wetsuit (short sleeves and legs) à la early nineties to keep me a little warmer in the cooler water for an extended period, a weight belt to make it easier for me to remain at depth underwater, a large underwater light lent by Jim, and an 8-foot tether tied to the top of the anchor shank that will help me create my search-zone. We deploy the aluminum anchor just as we had the previous attempt, directly over the recalled drop zone. Once suited up, I start the compressor. The manual clearly states that to prevent deadly electrical shock, a wet diver should not turn on or off the compressor. Someone who is dry, wearing rubber soled shoes, and not standing in water should. I am dry for the start, but Ron, in his smart and dry street clothes, will turn it off and on from this point forward.
The new weight belt provided with the air compressor system has six little pockets within which to place weights of various size. The pocket technology allows the diver to easily adjust weights, readily adding or removing as necessary. It also allows a diver in trouble and needing to surface quickly the ability to loose a portion of the weights, making for a more controlled emergency ascent than were they to release the entire weight belt, which is the standard protocol. So, with marker anchor deployed, marking the focal point of my intended search area, I slip into the water; face mask covering my eyes and nose, regulator in mouth, fins on feet, anchor chain in hand.
First order of business, determine the proper amount of weights needed to attain neutral buoyancy (Archimedes’ principle): having the top of my head float at surface, breaking the surface as I inhale, and sinking as I exhale. Wet suits float, so I find I need 12 lbs of lead weights (2 x 5-pounder and 1 x 2-pounder) placed evenly around my weight belt to properly float (and sink) me.
Adjusting Weight BeltFinding Neutral Buoyancy
Jim’s large light strapped to my right wrist, I slowly begin my descent in to darkness. The regulator underwater amplifies each tin-can sound inhale, like that of Darth Vader’s. Each time the compressor’s ridged yellow hose touches my mask, I hear the rapid-fire thump of the compressor’s motor in my head, as if the compressor were on my shoulder. I push it away as I can. Although it is a sunny Tuesday afternoon, I can’t see much past arms lengths–just a dim light from the large lamp. I can see the anchor chain, but little more. The murky dark cotton-textured bottom behaves like the top of a cloud, the closer I get to it, the more it envelops me. Jim’s idea of using the light to visually inspect the bottom before resorting to touch is proving fruitless. At bottom, I can’t see the light beam through the water, let alone anything resembling the sea floor. If I’m unable to use it, then I don’t want to lug it around, stirring up the silty bottom. I consider ascending so that I may remove the cumbersome light from my wrist and leave it on the small concrete dock that separates Kandu from the neighboring boat. Just before I direct myself up, I feel an inanimate flat object under my righthand. It’s the 18″x30″ outdoor carpet mat that Trent had dropped many months ago, that I discovered during my previous attempt to find the glasses. I decide to take it with me. As I ascend, the light fades up and I can see what’s in my hand. Black silt streams off the small carpet like coal exhaust from the stack of an old fashioned steam-powered locomotive.
Ron, hoping I had been lucky, is disappointed I hadn’t found the glasses so quickly. To better feel the bottom and better plant myself in one spot, I remove my flippers and leave them on the dock too. Now I will be able to feel the bottom with both hands and feet. I dive again, my left hand sliding down the anchor chain, guiding me to my starting point. No longer encumbered by the spotlight, I am ready to feel my way over the silky bottom, determined not to quit until I recover the lost sunglasses.
Arriving at the upright anchor, its squarish crown sides are planted straight down in the silt, its erect shank pointing skyward. I untwist from the top of the shank the small white nylon lanyard that I tied earlier that day. I can barely make it out, but somehow I’m able to see it. It takes me awhile to get oriented. I’m a little lost at first, but calm down and begin implementing the plan: while holding the end of the lanyard in my left hand as far from the anchor as possible, I extend the reach of my right hand and both feet. In a leg-spread push-up position, I first move my right leg as far to the right as possible and gently poke my toes into the silt, moving my leg up and down, side to side. The bottom is soft. My toes easily sink into the fine, saturated silt. I cannot see but the dark grey-brown cloud that encircles my head. Were there somewhere else near me, I could not know. Just as in life, I know the immediate circumstance that surrounds my senses. The focus of my task is here, not elsewhere. If conditions are better someplace else, I don’t know, and don’t care to know. Once the right leg is done, I stretch the left leg as far left and away from the anchor as I can and begin carefully examining the bottom, first moving my foot up a couple inches at a time until my knee is to my chest, then a little to the right and back down again, a couple inches at a time, hoping to feel something rigid, not super soft mud. The water temperature is cool, probably in the upper 60’s. With my wetsuit, I know I can stay for about an hour before I begin to get hypothermic (cold enough where I’d have to consider surfacing), and that with the compressor supplying me with air, I can easily stay an hour or much more if needed. At a depth of fifteen feet, one hour of compressed air will not cause any physiological problems. So long as I ascend slowly and take a minute break at 10 feet, I’ll be fine. At the same time that my feet are working, my hands are performing a similar, but opposite pattern. It’s a bit like rubbing your head and patting your tummy. With an eight foot lanyard wrapped around my left hand and my body outstretched, I figure my toes are about fourteen feet from the anchor, creating a search diameter of about 32-ft., plenty large enough to capture my prize. Once one piece of the pie has been carefully felt up and down, maintaining my push-up position, I crab walk to the right a couple steps, past the area I think I’ve examined, and start exploring another piece of the dark black-brown cotton-ball pie, looking for the cherry pit in the pie. In New Orleans, they bake a pie with a little baby Jesus figurine mixed inside the almond paste filling. No one knows which slice will contain the prize, so you very carefully bite into your slice until you or someone else discovers it. Well, that’s a bit like what I’m doing. I’m carefully feeling my way through each piece of pie, first from the outer edge, then I’ll move closer to center and feel my way around the inner circle, looking for my prize.
I find and collect objects as I sift through the muck, clothes pins and a roll of tape. Each time, a little disappointed it isn’t the “little baby Jesus.” So I continue my pattern, hopeful that this systematic slice-of-the-pie approach will bear the intended fruit. I am determined to find it. Before descending, the dockside pundits, other live-aboard sailors, mocked my determination, sighting how they were not able to find objects ten times larger than the one I was seeking, figuring that the current had taken it far away. It’s taken me about 30 minutes, as best I can sense time, to complete the outer circle. Knowing my air hose and lanyard are now wrapped around counter-clockwise around the anchor chain, after moving up close to the anchor, I begin my search routine again but this time I move left, clockwise around the anchor, to slowly unwind my tethers. Fifteen minutes later, about halfway around the anchor, I am a little discouraged. I’m starting to get cold. Being careful not to stir up the bottom, I’m not moving around enough to elevate my body heat. I don’t want to start doing underwater burpee exercises for fear it will stir up the contents of the sea floor, possibly dislodging the sunglasses to drift away in the mild current. I tell myself I’ll stay down as long as it takes. Police search and rescue divers don’t give up, and neither will I. Maybe the anchor set on top of the glasses. I check, but they are not there. I continue with my search pattern.
At first I hesitate to believe it. The object that brushes against the outside of my right hand doesn’t feel like a clothespin and it doesn’t swim away. My numb hand feels something a little larger. I carefully examined what I’ve touched. They are the glasses, my “little baby Jesus.” I found them! Yippie for me. Kenny from New Jersey isn’t going to believe it! With the anchor chain in my left hand, and the sunglasses in my right, I carefully stand up from the bottom, gently moving the glasses through the water to wash away the silt. Standing there, I exhaust some of the compressed air from my body, not really a necessary step for the shallow depth I’ve been working, but it’s my practice. Still unable to see, I take time to swish the glasses underwater before placing them on my head, above my black mask. As I slowly ascend so as not to disturb the glasses from my head (I really don’t want to loose them now!), I begin to see what’s around me and I can see the air hose above me. I move around the anchor chain to complete my circle and unwind the hose from around the chain. The whole time I was down there, about 50 minutes, Ron had been monitoring the compressor and the air hose, taking up the slack and letting it out as I needed. As I break the surface and remove the regulator from my mouth, I declare that looking any further for the glasses is fruitless. Not seeing the dark glasses above my dark mask, Ron agrees and thanks me for the effort. He said he’d just have to drive to Mexico and get another pair. Unable to hold back any longer, I lift the glasses from my head and ask, “Like these?” He bursts out with a laugh of disbelief, and says, “If nothing else, you’re one persistent guy.”
While I rush up to take a hot shower, Ron works to rinse off the equipment with fresh water from the dock hose. Although some may say sunglasses didn’t warrant such an effort, I am pleased that I got the opportunity to try out our Spare Air and our hookah diving systems. I appreciated the education Jim gave me regarding search techniques. The overall experience was valuable and will help me in the future. And, the glasses provided me the excuse I needed to take a break from working on the boat, time away that was greatly appreciated. Plus I saved my father-in-law a drive to Mexico and back, and he got to experience first hand just how stubborn I can be when I’m determined to achieve an outcome. Although there was no guarantee of success, the value of persistance paid off . . . this time.
Another underwater salvaging event just occurred. Look forward to “A Tale of Two Skateboards.”
Anchor Used to Locate “Baby Jesus”Ron at Home with Sunglasses
