“Is it safe to tell everyone we are NOT getting a divorce?" I ask Andrew.
Speculation about the state of our marital bliss recently caught sea currents and ocean breeze to reach us like a message in a bottle here in the Seychelles. One of our friends suggested we write a post that is “exceedingly lovey” to counteract this imbalance in the universe.
Andrew: *resets his Facebook relationship status to “Its Complicated.”*
He waggles his eyebrows at me.
I suspect this rumor is borne out of a long blog silence and a suspiciously lengthy absence of the 1st Mate aboard Sonrisa. It is true, I just returned to the Seychelles from a dash through the United States to attend a circuit of weddings, graduations, and wedding-graduation related parties. Seychelles --> Dubai → Seattle, Cle Elum, Yakima, and Spokane Washington --> Utah → back to Yakima, then Spokane --> back to Utah --> Boseman, Montana → Seattle → Dubai → Seychelles.
I am very good at Airplane-Suduku and parsing out a Caramello bar over the course of a 16 hour flight.
Through all my family-related revelry, I fielded the question over and over again: "Where is Andrew?"
“Oh, well, he's still in the Seychelles. He didn't feel like he could leave Sonrisa alone to come home right now,” I would say, this explanation being met mostly with scowls.
“I can't understand the decision-making,” one person commented, “It’s a boat and a cat.”
I get it; its hard to understand while standing firm aground. But he and I analyzed this question over and over again. We both wanted him to come home. But each time, we arrived at the same conclusion: It isn't a good time for the Captain to leave his ship for long.
The Weight on a Cruising Captain's Shoulders
The Captain of any ship that sails open ocean always carries a heavy responsibility. As soon as I understood what it required, I abdicated my claim to the throne.
Prior to leaving, we hadn’t settled on who would be Sonrisa’s Captain. We’d read there can only be one Captain aboard, the last call for decision-making. I thought “Why couldn't I be a captain? I sail as well as Andrew does. I'm a good leader.” So, we cast off with a plan to share that role, maybe swap places for various passages.
Until...
About 1000 miles offshore from Central America, we were battling what felt like our “first storm at sea.” A fair blow from the Papagayo winds piped up as they tend to do, just days after Andrew jerry-rigged a broken part that was hopefully holding our smaller sail (the one we rely on in rough weather) in place. Wringing my hands and grinding my teeth, I wondered "Are we going to be okay?"
And, I didn't know the answer.
“Nope! I’m not the captain!” I declared aloud. If I had a tri-corner hat and epilates on my shoulder, I’d have peeled them off and tossed them in Andrew’s lap.
A good ship’s captain must know the condition of his ship as well as the immediate and long term ability to make repairs, find parts, and schedule skilled labor. Then, he or she must make life and death decisions based on that knowledge. I didn't have the technical expertise back then, but Andrew did. So, he became Sonrisa’s Captain, by attrition!
You also have to keep in mind exactly who and what a Cruising Captain is taking to sea. Every time we cast off to sea, Andrew is carrying the love of his life (the Cat) and his wife out to sea. Our family is only marginally enthusiastic about the whole notion; mostly concerned we’ll never come back again. Andrew feels a responsibility to bring my mother's daughter and his own mother’s son safely home, too.
This is the case with most cruising sailors. The people who crew these boats are not hired crew, but significant others, children, and beloved pets. The boats we sail are our homes, sometimes our only home, and often one of our largest assets. The stakes are quite high for a Cruising Sailor-Captain. There is pressure beyond profit and insurance policy to get it right.
Boat Maintenance In Far Flung Outposts
Part of the data needed to answer the question “are we going to be safe at sea” has to do with the boat's current repair status, the extent of her spare parts and tools she carries, and the location of the next port where you can realistically make major repairs.
Sailors chuckle and/or moan that cruising life is nothing but "fixing boats in exotic places." This is absolutely, 100%, not a joke. Salt water and sun is a dangerous elixir, irresistible for sailors and their ships alike, but they reap havoc on fresh-faced skin and boat parts.
It is quite impossible to understand the challenge of obtaining parts and pieces in remote outposts of the world with the glow of an Amazon order screen in your eye, your finger poised to click “Next Day Delivery.” It's not like that out here. There is no “Home Depot," "West Marine,” or "Auto Zone”. If you aren’t carrying the spare parts and tools with you, you have to peck through shops that carry the strangest mix items, usually piled on darkly lit shelves in a mix and jumble confusing to the eye. In the Seychelles for example, we found a shop that sold SCUBA gear and bacon. Why not? The shop had no specific name, but all the sailors called it the “Red Bull Store” because it had an inflatable Red Bull drink arch marking its parking lot. Yet, it did NOT sell any Red Bull.
Even with the Red Bull Shop, there are some parts you cannot get. For these, you must navigate the complexity and expense of international shipping (a quagmire!) and import procedures in countries with governments we rarely understand. Customs procedures and delivery delays have waylaid sailors for entire sailing seasons because they miss their good weather window.
There are also some repair procedures that require haul out facilities and a yard with cranes, forklifts, and skilled labor. A cruising captain overlays his or her route chart and seasonal weather maps atop a mental image of places in the world with adequate boat yards, spare parts, and easy customs/duty procedures.
This is the “haul out facility” in Zanzibar, Tanzania. It’s called “careening,” and it involves parking your ship on the beach at high-tide, working while the tide remains low, then refloating your ship when the tide comes in again.
Covid Is The Pickle
While it has always been a challenge, Covid changed the game entirely. The Ocean is fairly hospitable as long as you stay in the right place at the right time. For example, the Oddgodfreys (and their boat insurance policies) do not like the risk of sailing in or through locations subject to hurricanes while those hurricanes are in season. Hurricane season hits for six months at a time, and swaps which hemisphere it's in. Northern Hemisphere: June - November. Southern Hemisphere: November - May.
So, imagine sailing routes having gates that swing open and shut based on upon fairly predictable weather considerations. Covid added more gates. And, they swing open and shut with almost no rhyme or reason. We ended up in the Seychelles last year because all the gates swung closed at once. We were mid-way across the Indian Ocean when Covid hit and every country in the Indian Ocean basin closed their borders - except the Seychelles who (eventually) let us in.
From a boat repair perspective, we left Malaysia in January 2020 planning Sonrisa's next opportunity to fall apart being in South Africa. “Can you hold it together for the year, old girl?” Andrew asked. He’d just finished a marathon of major refits in Langkawi.
“No problem!" She said.
Then, we were halted.
At first, we were waylaid in the Maldives where there are NO boat parts and only one dodgy haul out yard that had no space available anyway, even if you wanted to try. Boats all around us panicked and started breaking their parts and pieces! All the Captains and their crew battled some failing part: autopilots, engines, rigging, refrigeration systems… Sonrisa lost a key hose on her water maker. We all knew it was a dangerous situation, and indeed, we lost one cruising couple at sea. Speculation out here is that they had problems with their hull while in a far flung outpost, tried to sail the boat somewhere to fix it, and did not make it.
Leaving a boat alone in a far flung outposts ups the risk even more. A great example of this is YouTube Vloggers’ @GoneWithTheWynns. They were visiting the US in early 2020 and were aboard flights back to Tonga when Covid hit. Their flights got cancelled and they were stranded in Fiji. When they finally reached their boat again about a year later, it was stained and covered with mildew, the windows were cracking and losing their seals, the generator was dead, and who knows how many other hidden problems were lurking. The next repair port? New Zealand.
NZ is great for repairs, but requires a sailor in Tonga to cross 1500 miles of ocean known to slam you with at least one storm enroute. The Wynns applied for visas and New Zealand said, “If you can spend $50,000 NZD on the repairs you can come." The Wynns replied, “We are on our way,” knowing the boat needed at least that. On the way there, a wave tore a hole in their hull and flung their life raft into the sea. For the rest of the passage, they had a gaping hole in their cockpit with water flooding in and out on the crest of waves. They made it to New Zealand, but they were lucky. The longer your boat is stuck in a remote outpost - especially alone without a watchful eye - the more dangerous these “get to repair station” passages become.
For us, the Seychelles is somewhere in the middle. It has a substantial charter catamaran industry, so some repair is possible. But, it's very expensive and acquisition of parts and skilled labor remains unpredictable. South Africa, like New Zealand, is about 2000 miles away through some of the most challenging water we will we ever sail on this trip.
Andrew's fear about travel to the US was: what happens if we get stuck/delayed there for some reason (positive covid test, cancelled flights, closed borders) and Sonrisa has to sit alone without maintenance attention? If that happens, what are the chances he can carry all of us safely to South Africa whenever we do get back? He felt uneasy. Add to this, our visa and Sonrisa's import permit (permission to legally be in the Seychelles) were set to expire on August 13, 2021. If we missed that date, the Seychelles can impound Sonrisa and require us to pay a tax of 15% the value to get her out. That may be “just money”, but are you brave enough to leave your primary/only residence (and beloved cat) alone in a far flung locale with a government and legal system you know very little about?
It's Covid! They’ll Help You Out, Right?
You might be saying “Well Leslie, with Covid, don't you think they'd give you that extension if you needed it?"
The Seychelles has been the absolute perfect host this entire time. If past behavior predicts the future, yes, maybe. But, possibly not. Just a few weeks before our scheduled trip home Malaysia, which had been caring for and housing its plentitude of sailors, decided to cancel all visa extensions. Everyone was told they had thirty days to leave, no exceptions, without the involvement of your embassy begging for mercy. At this point, embassies were in no mood to help. The Malaysian sailing contingent had to look around at the usual sailing destinations and wonder "where can I go?” Indonesia: closed. Thailand: demanding thousands of dollars in quarantine, health insurances, and special approvals. Singapore: closed, Sri Lanka: closed. Seychelles...over 4,000 sailing miles away. Some boats and their sailors simply were not ready. One man committed suicide instead.
Another of our friends left his boat and returned to land life early in the Covid days. He recently tried to apply to return to his boat, the government told him with no hesitation: "don’t bother.”
My Gracious Captain
So, Andrew decided to stay, and he sent me home without complaint.
The generosity of this act doesn’t escape me. I was there when my Littlest-Little Sister received her masters diploma; I caught up with our two gorgeous nieces; I watched my Middle-Little Sister's new home be built; I hugged both sets of our parents. I gave a toast at my longest-running friend's wedding, watched my little cousin graduate high school and was there to tell her “Great job!” on the speech she gave. I held my Littlest-Little sister's bouquet as she said her vows and bustled her dress. I drank beer with flavor, cavorted among pine trees, and I floated a river with my extended family the day before my attending cousin’s nuptials. I attended birthday parties, bachelorette extravaganzas, and wedding showers. I saw so many people I love. Most importantly, I experienced the new-to-me American phenomena of canned cocktails and White Claw.
Andrew smiled and enjoyed the pictures I sent while I cavorted without him doing things he'd love to be doing.
In return, he sent me pictures of his boat repair projects and the cat.
For me, this last year+ has taken some of the shine out of cruising, and not the least factor of which is the time I've spent away from Andrew. I wanted him with me as much as he wanted to be with me. I wore one of my Sri Lankan Saris to my cousin’s wedding, and without my travel-buddy at my arm I simply don't make as much sense. But, sailing is nothing if it's not an exercise in problem-solving. And so, together, we figured out how to break the space-time continuum.
Andrew attended my sister's wedding AND stayed in the Seychelles with Sonrisa in one form or another.
Meet “Flat” Andrew.
We are back together, now, and ready to navigate the swinging gates of “Year 6” of our 5 Year Sailing Circumnavigation.