Recently, we ran into a cruising couple from Portland, Oregon who are slowly sailing there way home. We discussed with them the merits of the Hawaii extension (sailing 4000nm instead of 900nm) from San Diego to Vancouver versus sailing up the coast.
The coastal route involves more abuse on your boat/body and making small rapid jumps in periods of good weather, while the Hawaii route is longer but has great consistent sailing – a la the proverbial turtle and hare race (We are going to Hawaii both for the better sailing and to explore the Great Pacific Garbage Patch). They were adamant that they were going to beat up the coast and not do the ocean crossing since “they would then be too far from marine stores to get parts and assistance” – interesting.
Many people ask us what are the unexpected pleasures/joys/learning experiences of crossing major oceans and cruising around the world. I believe the issue which most troubled our Portland-based counterparts is the most valuable lesson/trait that ocean crossings have forcibly instilled in us. One of the guarantees when sailing a small boat around the world is that you will break things. Lots of things.
Things you never thought would or could break. You will not have the necessary spare parts and you will not be able to just replace it at the next port. So what do you do ? You have to fix it. While every available nook and cranny of Khulula is stuffed with boxes of stainless steels screws and bolts, piles of old bits of wood, tubing and tape, bags of spare parts and manuals, none of these hold a candle to the most necessary ingredient: Ingenuity (The ability jury-rig all objects under the sun)
To be weeks away from solid land and realize that when something breaks, you have no external avenues to exploit can be extremely daunting prospect. Enough to keep me up at night prior to long ocean crossings ! You are and have to be comfortably reliant on boat stores and your own ingenuity. These situations have created scenarios with people shooting flares like it was the 4th of July and hollering into the radio for IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE. While, you may try this out at sea, your efforts will likely only result in an additionally thick sheen of sweat and lower battery voltage. You can’t call the mechanic to fix the engine, the rigger to bring you a new stay, the electrician to figure out why the batteries are dead or the sailmaker to tell you why the sail will not go up the forestay. You are the mechanic, the electrician, the sailmaker, and the rigger. Breath deeply, relax and start thinking… look around. Think outside the box… what can you use ?
On Khulula, almost every mechanical and electrical device has been disassembled, investigated and reassembled, despite manufacturer warnings of “Service only by Certified Specialists”. Our battery charger, inverter, autopilot, water pumps, windlass, winches, stove, SSB radio, computer have all been completely disassembled in an effort to solve some problem – big and small. We cannot call a “certified specialist” so we take a deep breath and start unscrewing things. Very infrequently do we have any idea of what we are going to run into, but with a little confidence, some ingenuity and ample supplies of stubbornness we generally find a solution… The isolation from “certified specialists” and the bracing thought that we have to solve our own problems, with only what we have on board, is one of the many incredible lessons or life skills I have drawn from this rather ridiculous idea of sailing around the world.