You Can't Play at This

Starting to think about the boat learnings and boat projects for next year,
and one thing that comes to mind is you can't play at this. If we were
sailing up the coast of America with all its easily accessible products and
services, we could afford to be less rigourous about some things, we could
play at it a bit, but not out here. If there was a problem in the US, we'd
simply call Tow Boat US and they would promptly come out and bring us in to
some place where we could fix it. West Marines are on every corner, stuffed
to the rafters with the things you need to fix virtually any problem. If
you need parts, go online and, poof!, they appear on your doorstep the next
day.

Things are very different once you venture off the shores of American and
into the Bahamian islands. Haven't seen a West Marine since we left the US.
Many of the islands have just one or no houses on them. You're lucky to
find a food store, water or a fuel dock. They don't have Fedex (at least
not for sending out, it may be available for sending in). So you have to be
a lot more prepared than you would be if you had immediate access to
resources.

Take our starter motor that blew, for example. If Steve hadn't had a spare,
that means the engine wouldn't start. Now in the US that wouldn't be a huge
problem, but it's a rather larger issue here. There is no place to get a
starter motor here so you would have to order one and have it shipped over
here, where someone would put it on a little puddle jumper plane and fly it
to an island which has an airport. But what if there's no airport at the
island that you're at? Well, you have to get to an island with an airport.
But, wait a minute, I don't have a starter motor! See the problem?

Now you could argue that we have a sailboat and we could simply sail
wherever we need to and there is some merit in that, provided that the winds
are right and that there is no tricky narrow passage around some big rocks
or coral. There would be some other things going on, however. Without a
starter motor, the engine cannot run. And the engine powers EVERYTHING
else. No engine - no freezer and no refridgeration so if we're waiting days
for a starter motor, there goes all of the frozen and fridge food (and we
have no ice for drinks). No water pressure for water for the showers and no
pump to empty the showers afterwards. No power for the laptops (oh,
nnnooooo!!!). With a huge supply of canned goods, we wouldn't starve and we
could probably work around some of the others, but this does fall into
slightly more than a minor inconvenience.

Even something as simple as heading back home is fairly serious. Now you
could think, heck, it's only three days so let's use up all the food and use
up all the water, right? I don't think so. There's an awful lot of ocean
between here and there, it makes a lot of sense to have a month's worth of
both food and water standing by. Knock on wood, it should only take 3 days
(after we finally get going again), but what if it doesn't?

This year was about getting used to the boat and seeing if we liked living
on it, and if we could live on it for an extended length of time. There
have been many discussions assessing whether this was the right boat for us
or would something different suit us better. After those discussions and
sitting down to make up an 'ideal boat' list, we've found that with some
modifications this boat suits us just fine. With that decision made, now
Steve's putting together a long list of things that he wants to do to bring
the boat further up to snuff. We want reliable systems and redundancy in
those systems, just in case!

Unlike sailing the coast of America, out here, you can't play at this.