Today I am in a foul mood. I do not want to wallow in the emotional muck . I am not going to allow myself to whine for more than a millisecond. So here it is, my momentary bit of muck wallowing.
There are times when being nomadic and sailing fulltime is a massive pain in the ass. Times such as when you are waiting for a piece of equipment to ship, that if you were land based you would just jump in your car and go get it. As you are literally in the middle of nowhere with no transportation options, you have to suck it up and be at the mercy of various entities. Entities who claim to have completed and shipped your order but your bank statements prove otherwise. And that launch date is quickly approaching….
Then there are times when you are distracted and fall for a Postal Service scam (news flash- post office never sends shipping confirmation by text) and compromise your credit cards. Normally, you’d just cancel the cards and have new ones sent out. Normally, you would not be 1500 miles away from your dear friend in your hometown who handles your mail, with a launch date in a few days that will leave you with no shipping address and you’ve no idea when you will next be back. So you lock your cards knowing that every time you need to use them you will have to endure the the customer service phone labyrinth to enable your cards, then double back through the same said phone maze to once again lock it and all you wanted to do was buy a coffee at the local shop.
Then there are times when the stress of trying to get the last few items ticked off your prelaunch checklist sends your partner into a foul mood of their own. They unwisely decide to take their frustration and heat exhaustion out on you but today is NOT the day and I am not equipped to be the bigger person at this moment.
A bit of first world problems but these are the proverbial straws and I am the proverbial camel.
Just in case you thought it was all sunsets and beaches, let me disavow you of that notion. Sailing life is at times, really freaking hard.
Wallowing done. Clean cup, move on.
Time for positivity…
We launch in a week. After being on the hard far, far longer than we ever intended we are preparing to splash Ceol Mor and after a bit of sailing locally to check all of the systems, we plan to head North in search of cooler temperatures. This should help improve my mood immensely. Its very hard to be Merry Sunshine when complexities arrive AND you are a sweltering sweaty Betty.
What have we done during the almost 11 months on the hard? Well for starters- replaced windlass motor, replaced engine, added new sails, repaired hull, cleaned, polished and coated prop added battery monitoring system, added Starlink, converted Starlink to 12 v, inspect and repair rigging, repaired furler, added shelves to lockers, repaired bow roller, sewed insect screen hatch covers, ordered a new dinghy ( we will see if it gets here !) sewed Solar screens, replaced zincs, prepped and painted bottom among many other little tasks that I am just now forgetting, Trust and believe it is a lot.
We had a 4 month respite with family in Scotland over the winter but essentially we have been living in a tiny work site for just shy of a year. It seems like a very long time until I realize it could be worse. We have yard friends who are trying to finish the work on their boat that has been in this yard for 6 years. 6 years is a very long time. I think I shall stop thinking 11 months is in any way a long time.
Stop your wallowing Cid…
The old adage is true- Sailing is fixing your boat in exotic locations. Essentially what we do is take off for some blue water, sail until we break some stuff, then go to land to fix the broken stuff. Rinse, repeat.
Fingers crossed and spitting for a little more sailing and a little less fixing for a while…
