New horizons

Doña Catherina hauled out on the travel lift ready to go on "the hard", I.e. Not in the water.

 

Slow travel has reached a new level. I have traveled a lot in the last few years and have taken far too many aeroplanes. I've grown to truly detest planes. I needed something to get me across large bodies of water that did not induce extreme guilt for the carbon emissions I was contributing to by trying to accomplish my heartfelt traveling goals. It's not uncommon these days to become familiar with various methods of slow travel. Cycle touring has become popular and once you get a taste for slow travel on land, your mind often wanders to the possibilities of traveling slowly on water. You start to do your research and realize there's a whole other world of slow travel out there with just as much passion, determination, information and online networks (maybe more?!) as cycle touring. It's called sailing. Heard of it? Thought it was out of your league, if nothing else, financially? Well, it's not. Hitch-sailing. It's a thing and people are doing it. There's a lot more to it than cycle touring if you want to make it to the other side, but the Internet has made this ever more possible and, in my opinion, ever more safe than it has been. Most certainly technology has come a long way to make the physical experience of being on the boat, such as navigation and communication, more successful. The internet though, similar to the impact it's had on everything else, has revolutionized the possibility of someone who has absolutely not a tiny clue of what to do with a dingy let alone a sail boat to find someone who will take them aboard. Take them aboard, teach them how to sail and live to tell the tale. Dig a little deeper and you will find out that there's more to it than sitting on the end of a pier with your travel-friendly instrument and a positive attitude that will find you a skipper who is willing to take you on. This past month we have been staying with a German couple who owns an 18m steel ketch that has needed a lot of work to get her ready for a long voyage. We offered to help them with preparing her for a passage from New Zealand to New Caledonia. We will be setting sail with them on August 10th.

One of many types of marine invertebrates that thrive on hulls when a boat is left in the water for months on end.

Sea squirts, some of the oldest marine invertebrates in the history of the planet. They clung to most hard things for millions of years. Why stop at boats?

Doña Catherina on the hard looking like she needs some cleaning.

I appreciate the perspective we are gaining while slaving here and there on the boat. Without this experience we would remain under the illusion that sailing is hardly more than sitting in the passive gaze of the wind. Of course we knew materials were involved in the initial boat building and indeed maintenance. The extent of the resources that are required to have a sea worthy ship are rather astonishing and facilitates a step back from idyllic into reality, which I can always appreciate and have room for. This does not stop a slight feeling of disappointment from seeping through.

My initial impression of sailing was that it is a respectably green mode of transportation, I.e. Getting around the world. A noble alternative to aeroplanes. After having worked on a boat for almost a month now I've seen the flip side. The construction that takes place on the inside of the boat requires an accumulation of garbage and sludge, chemicals and lubricants. Working on the outside of the boat consists of horrendously poisonous paint, both the almost haphazard removal and the industrious application. The process is called "anti-fouling". It's used on most boats to keep organisms, marine invertebrates, from attaching to the hull, invading foreign ecosystems and slowing the vessel down in the water. Anti-fouling is a highly toxic paint designed to slough off -the mechanism behind keeping sea creatures from living on the bottom of the boat. This paint is typically reapplied annually and the thicker the coat the better. To sum up: we put toxins on the boat that are specifically designed to come away from the boat and be placed in the ocean, the more the better and repeat annually. If you sit back and think about how many boats there are in the water right now and that most all of them are anti-fouling their boat in the standard way you realize that we are poisoning the ocean at an alarming rate with this one sailing ritual alone. I've heard there are greener ways to anti-foul your boat, but they are rare likely due to cost. Anti-fouling is indeed foul. Foul for the applier and even more foul for the very habitat the boat intends on sharing.

Our skipper working in the engine room.

Keegan got the short end of the stick and had to soak up all the oil and muck from the engine room bilges. Lucky guy!

This is what we did for days, scraped the hull of the old anti-fouling to make way for the new anti-fouling.

 

Doña Catherina after she's been rid of the old and painted with the new anti-fouling.

Other sailing rituals that do not comply with my morals and the idyllic mode of travel/life I have in my head: An hour-long commute from the permanent land residence to the floating home, one way. We've made this trip every day for over a month. Does this add up to the same carbon foot print I would have made if I simply flew to New Caledonia? I'm not sure, but it's far from green or anything sustainable.This particular circumstance involving long commutes may not translate to our future sail boat escapades, but it does not bode well for the psyche nonetheless. The leniency behind what is acceptable to throw overboard, that is most anything that doesn't float, falls well outside what I would label green, environmentally friendly or sustainable. Out of sight, out of mind is a real policy in the boat world. Crew. Often crew members FLY from one part of the world to another in order to SAIL from another part of the world to another, only to fly back home again. Sometimes this is to experience the art of sailing itself, other times it's a job, the crew is a certified professional and is hired to help the skipper move his boat from one place to another. The world of sailing defeats my initial green impression yet again.

Our daily view of the Opua harbour in the Bay of Islands.

I've learned first hand what it means to "scrub the deck" and "polish brass" -terms that make me think of Pirates of the Caribbean that I never truly understood. While sometimes the work is fun and almost nostalgic, often times the work on the boat has not been the most rewarding I've done. This experience has opened my eyes to what goes on behind-the-scenes to make a sail boat float. I once was under the impression that sail boats were a green mode of transportation, that little more than wind was required to go from point A to point B. I am happy to say that I have a new perspective going into my first real sailing experience. I remain convinced that sailing is better for the environment than taking an aeroplane. I'm curious to see how my perspective might change as I continue to look for sail boats out of New Caledonia and beyond.

One of several brass windows in desperate need of polishing.

After polishing, which was actually just sanding with regular sand paper.

 

All this being said, I absolutely, positively, most definitely CANNOT WAIT TO SAIL! Excitement is burning in my core.

View from the hills where our German hosts live.

Pretty nice commute though.

 

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