“I had my doubts we would ever leave," I said to Andrew as we hoofed several bags of groceries back from the Pick n’ Pay to Sonrisa.
“I know,” he said.
I had never before seen my Captain loathe to go to sea. For months now, anytime the discussion of sea-time would come up, he would groan a little. Recently, though, he had returned to his usual self. His feet seemed to itch just a bit more, he started talking about the animals he might see in Namibia, he started wondering over Pete and Jen's photos of a bone-dry desert and red sand dunes. We could also feel the barometric pressure of wintertime chasing us away. Cape Town nights started to get cold, the days didn't warm up as much as usual. And, we started to be pulled by the cruiser’s hustle to capture “one last bit” of this country’s magic before we say goodbye.
The passage was scheduled to be a gentle reintroduction to the sea. it's only four or five days to sail to Namibia, and while was going to be cold, our forecast looked sunny. The wind was scheduled to be either be gentle or come from behind us - always the more comfortable option. I hauled Andrew up the mast to take one last peek at the rig, we tidied the deck, lashed Grin down, lashed down jugs, and feeling “ahead of schedule” even installed Sonrisa’s steering wheel before dinner.
“Should we warn Katherine Hepburn or just lock her in?” I asked Andrew.
Katherine Hepburn had indeed taken over her apartment complex. Each night at sun fall, she would bound away to cat about for the evening. She would return at 4:00 a.m. to check in (and demand a batch of kibble), then be gone again until well after sun up. Andrew and I would be suffering our Coffee-WithOUT-Kitty when she would finally “do the walk of shame” past Anchorage Dad (Mark on Erie Spirit) who was “waiting up” for her while smoking his morning cigarette and keeping watch over the neighborhood.
Over the course of the last month, she had lost (or intentionally stripped) no less than four collars, including the one we installed with a GPS tracker to see where she might be going. That one stayed on for approximately two hours, and then ended up in the ocean never to be seen again. It was while we hunted for that $70/two-hour investment that we met Kaya, an Alaskan Husky who also lives in the apartment complex. His mom informed me that Katherine Hepburn had been taking her mid-morning naps on the patio previously owned by the orange and white cat.
Kitty’s latest orange and white Frenemy.
I carried the report to Andrew. “She has been eating the orange and white cat’s supply of food, doubling up on her own rations!”
Tide was high that afternoon and the marina docks were almost even with the apartment complex promenade. Kitty emerged from the bushes to say hello across the razor wire meant to kept marina creatures in the marina and apartment complex creatures in the apartment complex. She rubbed her face on my hand. I wondered: if we warn her prior to setting off, will she choose us or the apartment complex?
“Kitty!” I said, “You should be ashamed of yourself. You have plenty of food. The least you could do is invite your friend over to your house for a snack.” She shrugged and walked away from me to flop onto her back on the promenade, just out of arms reach…at least until she noticed Kaya. She leapt to her feet and momentarily considered letting Kaya know who is boss. Then, thought better of it and leapt across the razor wire into Andrew’s arms.
“Kitty! Do you know nothing about razor wire?” I chided her. The last thing we needed was for our cat to be sliced into pizza slices the day before we cast off to sea.
That evening, when she joined us aboard Sonrisa for dinner, we closed the companionway doors and locked all the hatches. She turned to glare at me. “Let. Meeyowt!” I slowly shook my head. She glared deeper, and sat atop the companion way stair howling to “Let MEEEYOOOWT!” for the next five hours until she got desperate and started going bananas. She limbed Andrew’s nicely varnished walls, traversed her sleeping shelf, jumped straight across to the kitchen counter (that she knows is off limits), and against all odds, leapt the four+ foot gap out the kitchen hatch! I’d left it open thinking there was no way she could ever jump straight out from that height and it gets stuffy without something open for a breeze.
I sighed. “I’m sure she’ll be back at 4 a.m.” I said to Andrew. The Captain definitely would have preferred his crew be all aboard, not galivanting the town for one last row with the white and orange cat. “Okay, but be back by 4:00 a.m., sharp!” I called out after her.
We slept our usual night-before-passage sleep, dreaming through lists of things we know we must do to exit safely and with all crew on board.
At 4:00 a.m., I cracked an eye open to scan Sonrisa’s cabin in the darkness. No cat.
5:00 a.m., no cat.
6:00 a.m., no cat!
For whole month prior, I swear to you, she returned at 4:00 a.m. on the dot. I know this because that is when she pesters me to give her first breakfast. This day, it was 06:30 a.m. before she finally came rolling in.
“Mow. Mow. Mow. Mow. Meeyooww!"
Hands on my hips I said, “You are late for your first breakfast!” I scooped her some kibble and she dived nose first into the bowl. I took the opportunity (while she was distracted) to seal off all modes of catting ingress and egress. At first, she did not notice, relaxing instead into her post-breakfast catbath.
I put on a pot of hot water for tea and we enjoyed a quick oatmeal breakfast. It's around this time that Katherine Hepburn realized her fate. She climbed to the top of the stairs and looked longingly through her now-sealed porthole to the apartment complex in the distance. We have a small discussion about what happens next.
She was definitely not committed to staying aboard so I coaxed her into her crate and locked her in like a furry prisoner. This resulted in even more enraged scratching and clawing at our bed blankets beneath her crate. She gnawed on the wires of her cage door and yowled her displeasure.
Prisoner #54309.
Cold hearted, I ignored her suffering. Having witnessed other sailor’s pitfalls as they tried to exit Cape Town, I already knew that a cat attempting a great escape while we time our exit through the drawing bridges could only add to the helmswoman’s anxiety. We’ve watched two boats hit the draw bridges in our short time here, one fully dismasted.
A different set of sailors having a horrible day with that bridge.
We tossed Neptune his ceremonial nip of rum, and by 7:30 a.m., I was standing my helmswoman. Andrew darted about the dock untying our lines. Kitty was yowling away down below. I respond to tell her. “You’re okay, we’ll let you out as soon as we are off the dock!”
“That’s exactly what I’m worried about,” she screamed at me from her crate. “Let. Meeyyyowwwwwt! I want to go back to my apartment complex!”
"Okay, go ahead!" Andrew called to me. I pop Sonrisa into reverse and throttle up, only to have her stern skitter sideways rather than backwards - not at all as expected. Austin walked by and asks if we would like him to let loose on one last line still tying us to the dock.
“Oh, yes, please!" We say. There’s a good start to a passage…
With Sonrisa now free, we backed away from the dock. I guided her to the open space between slips and circled, waiting for the draw bridge to open. Far away from other boats and docks now, with little concern for Kitty making a dash for it, Andrew springs the Furry Kraken. Kitty bounded outside despite the engine noise and headed forward to take her last glance at the apartment complex.
I waited until the bridge is wide open, then we slid through into a warm morning sun. We cut a glassy sea in half as we motored along and several fur seals wave to us as they twirl through their morning calisthenics. “Bye guys! Thanks for the hospitality!” I tell them. We popped out from the second draw bridge and we were officially at sea.
We relaxed into Sonrisa's cockpit to enjoy the sun and a completely calm ocean. Kitty remained on deck until her last sign of the apartment complex disappeared beyond the horizon, then she went down below to sulk in her engine cubby. I thought that would be the end of her protest.
We motored Westward until we caught the wind further offshore. We reeled out the big headsail and installed the pole to keep it from flogging. By 10 p.m. that night, we switched to our smaller headsail to manage the wind howling from behind us. The sky was dry and clear, with a crisp, silver moon suspended in space. The air was frigid, and I was huddled in my cold weather gear under the dodger when Kitty climbs the companionway and faunches* past me, placing her two front paws on the cockpit combing as if she is considering swimming back to her apartment complex.
“Kitty? What are you doing?” I asked.
She looked overboard to port, then stalked to the other side of the cockpit and looked overboard starboard. She sulked back on her haunches, then climbed over my legs to tuck into her sailing shelf just inside the door.
We have sailed tens of thousands of miles with this cat. When we are at sea, Kitty will stay on her shelf inside the companion way, down below, or in her bravest moments under the dodger - all safe places for her to be. I usually trust her not to be an idiot. This night, however, she had a point to make.
Around 23:00h, the Furry Crew Member departed her sleeping shelf and set forth with intention to conduct a deck inspection, just to spite me.
“Kitty, NO! It's dangerous." I told her, grabbing her in my clutches and pulling her back. This only made her more resolved. She writhed and squirmed, melting her cat-skeleton into a soup of fur and blood that I simply could not hold. She ran through my hands like sand, and then escaped forward.
“KITTY!"
Look at that sassy face.
I’m sure the terror in my voice was very satisfying to her rebellious nature. She marched forward, stopping occasionally to turn, sit down, and glare back at me. Her eyes glowed, reflecting the light from my red headlamp, and I could read her mind. “You shall not control me.”
She climbed up on the cabin top, sat next to the life raft for a while, circled the mast, then went even further forward to sit next to the anchor windlass. The whole time I hoped against hope that she wouldn’t fall overboard because if she does, its dark, we are moving fast, and there is no way we could ever find her again. But, I also know that if I were to go forward myself to retrieve her, she’d only take further insane risks. We glare at each other, each making our own points.
“You are not in control of me.”
“But I love you, and the sea is dangerous, come back!”
“You took me away from my apartment complex.”
“That isn’t the Shanghai Paperwork you signed.”
“You can’t cat nap me to sea at your whim.”
“We are voyagers, Kitty, and it’s time to go. Would you want to stay at the apartment complex without us?'“
She considered this, then her face softened. She trotted back down the port side deck, and climbed into the cockpit to curl up on my lap. I felt her sigh as she settled her claws into my foul weather gear. “I expect a flying fish in bowl at your earliest convenience.”
I scratched her chin and neck while my heart fell back from its race. We really need to leash-train this wild beast.
Soon, she decided she was cold and went down below to snuggle the off-watch crew. I followed her down to find the hurricane lamp glowing a soft flame. It took the edge off the cold.
Our third day, the wind died back and we were wrestling with Sonrisa to keep moving. We set the spinnaker, doused the spinnaker, set the Code Zero, doused the Code Zero, then bobbed for a few hours. It was a warm sunny day, though, and pleasant to be at sea. We listened to music, the mood was cheerful, and Kitty sat with us on her beanbag under the dodger. All was well in the cat’s world until…
She sat up, green eyes wide, her ears radaring in all directions. “What is it, Kitty?” I asked, noticing her agitation. I followed her gaze across the glassy surface of the sea and heard a sound like egg-beaters frothing liquid. "What is that?" I ask. Climbing out on deck, I looked across the horizon "What IS that! Look!" About a half mile away, something boiled on the surface of the sea, it stretched far into the distance, several football fields in width.
“Wow! Oh Wow!" Soon, hundreds of dolphins overtook us, skeetering under Sonrisa's hull. With the water so still and clear, we had prime view of the dolphin swarm.
Kitty unimpressed and annoyed with the hubub, disappears down below. I am on the bow, however, talking to my friends. They squeak squeak squeak at us, probably saying “So long, and thanks for all the fish!”
Then, as fast as they arrived, they swim off into the distance and we are left alone to finish our sail into Luderitz, Namibia. Thankfully, with our cat still on board.
*FAUNCH - [ fawnch, fahnch ]
Not actually a word, at least not yet. (If Shakespeare can make up a solid portion of the English language, I can add just one word, can’t I?) Everyone in my immediate family already knows the meaning of this word.
verb (used with object)
to stomp haughtily while expressing deep seething rage, for the purpose of impressing upon those observing the stomp said deep seething rage.
noun
the act of faunching.