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HomepageI had thought that I wouldn't buy a boat again so quickly. The selling of my old Snowgoose 35 DHARMA BUM had been just about a year before and again I began dreaming about a boat, preferably a catamaran, to sail the open seas once more.
I was well aware of all the troubles associated with the exercise: the cost, the work, the frustration - and I had sworn to myself that I wouldn't own a boat again. Sail yes, charter alright, but own - no.It had taken me more than a year to sell DHARMA BUM in French Guiana and when I had finally sold it for a pittance, I was determined not to repeat the procedure.
However... As soon as I was back at work in Taipei, Taiwan, my mind began to wander. This couldn't be "IT", surely? All very nice and everything, but not "IT". Definitely not. Perhaps a little boat? A tiny one? Sooner or later it became evident that I was hopelessly addicted. Even my wife, Gloria, saw that it was a pointless task to try and dissuade me. So we got on a plane, flew to San Diego and bought a beautiful Tristar 38 trimaran.
It was then named TRITON DEL MAR, and I was debating whether I should call it DHARMA BUM II after the book by Jack Kerouac, or PHAEDRUS after the protagonist in "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". It was lucky that I decided on DHARMA BUM II, because we soon met another tri called PHAEDRUS. Small world.
I was getting really impatient. Sitting on the dock of the bay... after a while I simply get too restless to enjoy myself. And I had new toys, this time, too. A tiny GPS, a stainless steel self steering gear, a HAM radio, and a home-made weatherfax. Originally we had planned on sailing straight from San Diego to the Marquesas Islands, but then we decided against it. We had only taken out the boat for one little sea trial and thought it would be wise to extend the trial period. So, just before Christmas, we left for Cabo San Lucas in Baja California. We intended to go offshore for about a 100 miles, sail all the way down, and then head back in. I don't really enjoy hugging the coast, because of the proximity of land at all times, and because of the heavy traffic right next to it. Later we found out that we were the only boat going down this way.
We left very early in the morning and sailed with very light winds out of San Diego Bay. That is as far as we got, because once out there, the wind died. However, that suited my Chinese wife Gloria and me just fine, as we were in no way anxious to get seasick right away. So when it was my time for the first night watch of this journey, I took two of our garden chairs, and put them on the foredeck. With my feet propped up, warm clothes and a hot drink I just sat there and looked at the lights on land and at the stars above me. It was very quiet and so was I. What an extremely nice feeling to sit out there in peace and quiet with the whole Pacific Ocean ahead of us.
The next day saw only a very little wind. It took quite a while to loose sight of land. I finally could try out my brand-new HAM radio and talked to some people on the "Baja Net". This little piece of equipment became my favourite toy for the next few months. But not only that. When later Gloria had to inform the university that she wouldn't be in time for her yearly exam because of lack of wind it proved it's value. And the weather-talk and communication with other sailors was quite useful, too. In the afternoon about 10 dolphins came by and as it was the first time my wife had ever seen them, she was absolutely delighted. For me it was one of the things that I had always wanted to show her. I'd envisioned the scene many times and imagined her joy at the beauty and grace of my sea friends. Still not very much wind on the third and fourth day. Gloria woke me up very early in the morning since we were drifting near a very big net. Red balls were all over the place and we couldn't move much, since the wind had died almost completely. I saw some working lights on a fishing boat in the distance and tried to raise them on the VHF, just to let them know that we were around. No success. In the morning they came by and asked whether we needed anything. They also told us that they had been asleep during the night.
Finally the wind picked up. Soon we had more than enough, so that we had to reef down twice and were really zooming along. This was not to the liking of our big black cat "Daheimao". It got seasick again and looked really miserable. The other one, "Mumian", small and usually afraid of everything had no trouble at all. It jumped around and sometimes climbed around when the movements of the boat were too abrupt. Gloria got slightly seasick as well. Still, we were going in the right direction and we were going fast. I couldn't get out of the cold weather and into Mexico quickly enough.
On day 6 something new happened. A jet plane circled us 3 times and when I switched on the VHF I heard him calling me on channel 16. It was a USCG plane and what it was doing over Mexican waters I don't know. But then we saw US coast guard ships in Cabo San Lucas, too. He asked where we had come from, where we intended to go, name of vessel, how many people on board and so on. I thought it was all very exciting. Talking to a plane on the VHF! I am a communications buff and I decided to try the HF radio to call my parents on Christmas Eve, since that is the most important day of Christmas in Germany. The first time I got connected I only got my father's voice on an answering machine. But the second time I got lucky and talked to my 3 brothers and father and said "Merry Christmas" to my mother. She was so touched that she was speechless. At only US$43,- I think it was a terrific Christmas surprise for them all. And I ? I got a little bit homesick which hasn't happened very often in the 15 years since I left Flensburg, that little German town on the Danish border.
We enjoyed a big Christmas meal out in our enormous cockpit with wine and everything. What a nice life! We were both very content. Unfortunately this state of affairs didn't last very long. A nasty cold front came through and it lasted for days! First we surfed along under the windvane steering - me wondering all the time whether that was very wise. Then I got a little scared, and I turned the boat around and dropped a 9 foot sea anchor. That didn't do much good, since it was apparently not big enough. I could see it clearly several hundred feet away, it wasn't entangled or anything, but it still didn't manage to keep our nose into the wind and waves. What now? Couldn't get it back in either. The waves hit us regularly now and water was cascading down the companionway. Not dangerous yet, but very very wet and extremely uncomfortable. That problem was taken care of for us since I hadn't noticed a place where the line was chafing and after a very short time it parted and our new sea anchor was gone. Well... I guess I had deserved this lesson. As I looked into the engine compartment under the cockpit I noticed at least a foot of water in there and got to work right away to get rid of the stuff. Not exactly fun, when you have to breathe in diesel fumes, get soaked all over the place and are worried about the water damaging the engine. But we managed ok. Had to make a new vane for the self-steering, since the old one flew away.
After 3 days the nonsense was over and life got more normal again. Now we saw that it had been a wise idea to sail to Cabo first, since we found out that our water and fuel scheme didn't work according to plan. We knew now that we had to close the cocks at the tanks or water would seep out and we had already lost quite a bit. And because of our giant freezer and fridge we had to run the engine more often than we had thought, although we had a Rutland wind generator and a very big solar panel for our 8 deep cycle batteries. Not quite enough. So we'd need additional storage facilities at least for the fuel. I thought that Cabo was a kind of city and I imagined what I would do and buy at the local marine chandleries. What a joke....
Another thing we found out was that the whole wind vane business is very tricky. We had a copy of a Fleming, home-made in San Diego, and it steered us all the way to Tonga - no problem there. But if the single elements of the gear are not exactly balanced and adjusted according to wind and waves you go zig-zagging all over the place and lose a lot of speed that way. I couldn't figure it out to my total satisfaction, but I got reasonably close with different sizes of vanes and lead wrapped around the counter weight. Past Rocas Alijos we came across ships all the time and talked to them on the VHF. They wished us a "Happy New Year" and we were really glad to chat with them for a little while. All this trip I had taken sights with the sextant, because I had never used a GPS before. But that little pocket thing I bought in San Diego was like real magic. So suddenly I found myself with more time than on any of my previous trips. I got out a little pocket computer, hooked up my self-made weatherfax adapter and even that worked right away. The packet-radio had worked in SD, and the only thing that I never got to work was the HF packet radio. But that apparently was because of the current position in the sun spot cycle. So amazing! I used to distrust all these electronic gadgets and I well remember how many times I'd had to dismantle my echosounder in South America, and all the other equipment that simply died on me. I came to the conclusion that things have changed and that now you can buy equipment that can deal with salty air and a high percentage of humidity. However, that would not induce me to leave my sextant and tables at home. And they are fun to use, too.
The cats got very excited because they found squid and flying fish on deck. "Daheimao" took the flying fish sideways, but I was never fast enough to make a picture of this. It looked really great like that. We were excited too because there was a black whale that showed up sometimes on port and sometimes on the starboard side of DHARMA BUM II. Or was it two whales? We couldn't tell. Finally we were in the tropics again. At night it was 23 centigrade and when we dropped the hook in Cabo, I ran around with the biggest smile on my face saying again and again," I LIKE Mexico!" That's what a little warmth and sunshine do to me. (1997 words)