Sunday, August 22, 2010

End of Sabbatical

Before leaving our boat in Nanaimo for the winter, we needed to make a number of repairs. Some of the caulking in our teak deck was beginning to fail, so we removed the bad sections, cleaned the joints, and installed new caulk.

We also rebedded a couple of deck prisms, which had developed leaks, and installed a new mast boot, again to cure leaks. It is very important, in rainy British Columbia, that the boat be water-tight.

We hired a company called Nanaimo Yacht Services to check up on the boat in our absence. At their suggestion, we removed all of the canvas, including the sails and dodger, which required also removing the solar panels. We took various other steps to "winterize" the boat, which seemed odd in the heat of August, but will be essential to getting the boat through a cold, wet winter without damage.
It wasn't all work, of course. I was able to catch fish, including a big, tasty Dogfish, right from the dock in Nanaimo. We also caught more crabs by lowering our crab pot (and the remains of the Dogfish) off the back of the moored boat.
Claudia was able to collect ripe blackberries by the bucketful from berry bushes near the marina. So we were well fed on local products. There are also two pubs near the marina that we had to try.
Here is Sabbatical as she looked when we left her on August 16th, stripped and covered and (I hope) ready for winter.
The marina is next to a float plane terminal, where we caught a plane to Vancouver airport, from which we flew back to California.
We've now moved back into our house in Irvine, and we are still getting used to having so much space. After our spare lifestyle on the boat, where we had to think carefully about whether any item was worth having aboard, we are uncomfortably aware of the sheer amount of stuff we own. We pulled boxes and boxes of clothing and household items out of storage--an impressive array of items that we somehow managed to get along just fine without during the past year while living aboard Sabbatical. The experience has us talking seriously about ways to simplify our lives and reduce the number of possessions.
I have also been thinking carefully about ways I have used (and misused) time. For me, happiness and productivity seem to go together. Looking back over the past year I see that I got a surprising amount of academic work done, and that I was most productive in the places that were beautiful and fun. It will take a while to absorb all the lessons from a year of cruising, but these tentative thoughts are much on my mind.
I feel I should also post some thoughts about the practical aspects of cruising--about what we have learned about equipment and supplies, what to take and what not to take. I'll get to that a bit later.

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