did a sail-by of every boat anchored in Bahia La Paz. It became the subject of numerous magazine articles, including one I wrote for 48° North entitled “Fairytale of La Paz”, published in Sept. 2007. (Read the amazing story in the archives at
www.48north.com ) I continued sailing, putting 1,800
miles under the keel of Phoenix, but my world had been turned upside-down. Where once I had the prettiest boat in the anchorage, now this vessel felt like a stranger to me. Thinking back I have to laugh—it was like I had somehow traded in a beautiful wife for her ugly stepsister. I was engineless, repairing and improvising gear as I went with no time or money to think about paint for her haggard topsides. I drifted a lot under a hot Mexican sun. By the time I arrived in Guaymas, the mast was ready to come down because the rigging was so corroded. In the world of sailing, it was the school of hard knocks. Sink or swim they say, and I found
a way to keep my head above water. I fished Alaska the next summer and returned the following season, replacing as much gear as I could afford. Phoenix and I continued navigating the Mexican coast but the going was never easy. I replaced parts on the heavily-corroded Monitor windvane as they failed, eventually fabricating an entirely new oar of wood and epoxy when the original tore away at night in the middle of the Sea of Cortez. That vane is now a real Frankenstein. When I ran into a former Monitor rep in Bahia Los Muertos, she just shook her head. However, the vane steered us down the sea through three days of crap weather to Puerto Vallarta. My wallet was real thin, so I spent the last of my money on a Mexican style hookah rig and began diving boat bottoms to make money. It seems to me that for many
sailors it is a struggle to balance the dream of sailing with the reality of boat maintenance. With Phoenix this struggle was omni-present. It changed the way I look at sailing. Shelly B had been a well-groomed, shiny sailboat. I used to do the brightwork and wax the hull. I laugh about that now. Some part of me died with that boat, but I now know that for the long distance sailor, that part was mostly illusion and pride. Now, maintenance doesn’t carry on much beyond the capacity to reach the
Oscar has a good idea… he can clean up the boat… and get her working as a charter boat… I am amazed. “Phoenix” may yet have another life. She has survived hurricanes, rat infestation and now a tsunami. She is the boat that refuses to die.
next port. What Phoenix taught me was how to find a way to continue with the negligible means. It taught me a sailor’s skills of survival. These skills have been essential
to this journey with my latest boat, Kayak. Our departure had been hasty. Only two weeks earlier Kayak had been splashed after a bottom job and new engine. I had owned the boat only a month and had little familiarity with her systems. It was a race against time to go this season, but I knew that her hull was solid, the rigging sound and the sails good. The rest were details. Also, I knew she was tough and well traveled. Kayak had crossed the Atlantic, seen the Caribbean, and circumnavigated the Pacific. My buddy, Zeke had found her on the hard in Port Townsend, Washington
a few years ago and snapped her up. We sailed to the west coast of Vancouver Island together and it was on this trip that I learned of Kayak’s amazing sailing qualities. She was heavy and comfortable in big seas but fast. I knew then that this was the kind of boat that would travel far, and I told Zeke I would buy her from him anytime he was ready to sell. I received that phone call from California late last winter. It was then that I had to choose: quit my job and leave now or have a boat sitting through the cyclone season in another state.
On the anchorage here in Barra is a
Tanyana 52 owned by a French couple, Maurice and Emelia. I am amused to find Maurice admiring my boat. “This is a Galapagos,” he tells me. I listen keenly because I have few clues about her construction. “In France, in the 70’s, we were building these boats in our backyards. Bernard Moitessier opened the gate to our imagination. With the hard chines, they were cheap to build, and they could go anywhere. We didn’t have any money, we were hippies!” They are making final preparations for departure soon to the Marquesas so
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48° NORTH, JUNE 2011 PAGE 35
Ships FREE Ground UPS!
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