Preparing Sonrisa For The Bahamas

We spend our first two weeks back aboard tied to the dock. Whenever we return to the boat after a hurricane season layover, there is much to do. First, just to clean all that green stuff off Sonrisa’s top decks! Also, a demented woodpecker has spent the last six months pecking at the mast and pooping seeds out in vast quantities on deck. That, too, has to be cleaned. All our hurricane warps and ropes were swapped from the bottom of Sonrisa’s cockpit lockers to the top, just in case they had to be accessed quickly. To get them back into normal sailing position, the cockpit lockers had to be fully emptied of their contents - which is no easy task! Those lockers are six feet deep with sailing gear!

I make Andrew do that job.

Meanwhile, I cleaned the cupboards to make space for provisions.

Systems checks.

Rig checks.

Fluid changes.

Clean Sonrisa’s bottom from all the little animals who take up residence when she is in the same place for too long...

Several rounds of grocery shopping, some to the bigger city an hour or so away to be able to get enough food to carry us through the Bahamas.

We discover two chain plates have been exposed to salt water and are a bit damaged, so Andrew swaps those out for new ones. Andrew repairs the cockpit handheld radio that hasn’t been working...

...we discover some pirate has stolen our backup anchor.

This is irksome. We can’t possibly go to the Bahamas without a back up anchor to kedge us off a sandbar if we accidentally find ourselves high and dry. (The Bahamas are notorious for shallows, shifting sand, and inaccurate charts.)

Speaking of charts…we update the Open CPN, test the Navionics chart plotter and update the Google Earth collection.

We hunt around Luperon for a replacement anchor, but none are to be found. This probably explains why the pirate helped him or herself to our anchor. Another sailor (and an owner of one of Sonrisa’s sister ships) volunteeres to find an alternative anchor for us in Florida and sail it down on his way South. How nice is that!

We make applications for visas and pet imports.

And in the meantime, we begin teaching Poppet all the things there is to love about the cruising life.

Managing Calico-Kitten Energy Shipboard

It was never like this with Katherine Hepburn.

First of all, Katherine was a fully grown adult cat when she joined our crew. She had lived on a roof in Malaysia for long enough that someone had scooped her up, fixed her, clipped her ear and returned her as a Trap-Neuter-Release cat. At 2 or 3 years old, she was more like one of our younger colleagues at work. We might be able to mentor her a little bit, but she was a fully independent being and we were friends. I never called myself her “cat-mom”. It just didn't fit. I was far more likely to greet her with “Hey, Girlfriend!”

My relationship with Poppet is entirely different. She was 6 months old when she came home with us. She was a dopey, klutzy, high energy kitten, and it became apparent early on that she had both the capacity and need for more training and supervision. With Katherine’s roof-living, ledge-jumping experience before she became a boat cat, she immediately understood the danger of the ship’s edge. Poppet, on the other hand...

...has fallen off my lap while I was petting her.

While on land, we worked to get her comfy wearing a harness and leash, responding to sit-stay commands, and getting her to return to her name. She has gone camping in the van and got familiar with the outdoors while always restrained: either inside a catio tent, a backpack, or on the harness and leash. So, we are returning to Sonrisa with two very important projects to figure out.

How do we prevent her from going outside without restraint & supervision while living on boat with no air conditioning and wide open hatches?

and

How do we off-gas kitten energy in 400 square feet of space?

Luckily, the harness and leash training has been a solid pre-qualifier and it is allowing us to safely get back to all the things we loved about Luperon before we left for hurricane season. Instead of trapping her indoors in our absence, we take Poppet along for the ride.

Trips to the Beach

We love walking over to one of three beaches in a 15 minute walking-distance. The first Satruday back aboard, we woke up early and donned our swimsuits. Poppet could tell we were heading out somewhere.

“I want to come, too!” she said.

“You want to come, too?” I said with some surprise as it was high sun hour and not the usual cat-adventuring time.

“Yes, definitely.’ She said, jumping off her perch and weaving through my ankles.

“Okay, if Poppet wants to go outside, you must put on your jacket. Jacket? Jacket?” I raise her harness and jingle its bell.

Within two trips to the beach, she walks most of the way on her own, she enjoys digging in the sand, climbing trees, and even gets her feet wet in the ocean. She also has learned that if she is nevous, I can scoop her up, put her on my shoulders, and she can hide in her backpack. This is great. Now she can choose whether to ride in the backpack, walk along side me, or ride on my shoulders.

Paddleboarding

Andrew had been looking forward to teaching Poppet to paddleboard for a while. I had my doubts, and as “cat-mom” I’ve been in charge (put myself in charge) of enforcing training protocols.

One thing I learned from Katherine Hepburn is if you give a cat freedom just once, you can’t claw it back or they will claw YOU back. So, when training something challenging like walks, or voluntary entry into a backpack, or paddleboarding you should take it one small step at a time and make sure to plan out the rules that you want to enforce in advance.

T.hink through the task, R.ecognize the hazards, A.ssess the risk, C. ontrol the hazards, Andrew!, then maintain K.nowledge of the whereabouts of your cat.

After losing Katherine Hepburn, my heart has been too broken to go through that again. I trusted her to use her freedom well, but in the back of my mind, I always knew she is a partially wild animal. With the amount of freedom she demanded, the risk of loss was probably inevitable. I accepted it for Katherine. Now, I regret accepting it.

I do not accept it with Poppet.

She’s been subject to strictly controlled conditional skill progression. E.g. “You cannot go on outside walkies until you are competely manageable and trustworthy on a harness and leash indoors.”

And so, the protocol was supposed to be that Poppet had to learn to enjoy being in her lifejacket before she could try the paddleboard! But what happens? Andrew puts her on the paddleboard wearing just her harness and leash the very first day he’d pumped the damn thing up!

Lifejacket training became a hot priority.

The next day she was in her lifejacket on the paddleboard.

I have no doubt that soon, she will be riding on the nose with me as I work through my new 30 minute SUP workout that has become my go-to staple for a bit of cardio and leg training when land-walks aren’t on my schedule.

Hunting Crabs In the Mangroves & On The Dock

Every night, regardless of the day’s prior activities, Poppet needs some hunting time. She likes to sit on the edge of the boat and watch the crabs winding their way through the slats of the dock. In the alternative, she demands that I take her for walkies to the mangroves where she sits and stares at critters moving through the mangrove roots, while I am eaten alive by noseeums and mosquitos. I try to be a good sport about it.

Training Time

Her training schedule also remains rigorous. Every day, we work on clicker training with various commands: sit, stay, go to mat, go to backpack, go around, come through, jump over, stand tall, high five and “knuckles” are all in her current repertoire. They help a lot with leash handling because you can help her avoid or undo tangles. Also, it gives her brain something to work on rather than mischief! She loves to watch people cook, and without the sit/stay training, she struggles to stay off counters. But, we have given her her own perch where she can stay and watch us cook but stay far enough away that I’m not totally grossed out by the whole thing.

She is also learning to make a solid gin and tonic.

Nightly Mast Climbing Play Time

Poppet cuddles from 7 p.m. to 10:48 p.m. If you miss that cuddle window, no cuddles for you. At 10:48 p.m. she wakes up for her nightly play time. We chase the feather up the mast, romp after hair ties that I fling from one end of Sonrisa to the other. We chitter at the laser pointer because it looks like a bug, and sometimes we play soccer together.

Remote Work At-Dock

In the middle of these more ship related activities, I still pull my laptop out each day and construct my ship-office. I fold down the table, build an ergonomic screen-height with a wooden trivit stacked on the boat maintenance text book. Unfolding my second screen, I praise Elon Musk for sorting out Starlink.

I hold conference calls with an expert, prepare discovery requests, and continue my work on another piece of our project management system in development. I chomp at the bit to work on these projects. Against all odds and against my own expectations, I’ve been able to carry this job with me across two different oceans, through the Carribean sea, across land travels in the Oddgodfrey Land-Pod, and now back to sea.

Sonrisa’s happy. The cat is happy. I am happy.

And Andrew is doing boat maintenance. So, while he’s probably not happy, he at least has something to do.