Monthly Archives: October 2014

We’d had the usual string of excuses leading up to today, notable only in that usually we wouldn’t even get an excuse. Normal procedure down here is to just not show up. At least our shipper cared enough to call and if it weren’t for dueling contradictory excuses like, “with the weekend coming the police are out in force and they like to inspect large boxes, it’ll have to be mañana,” or “your crate is oversize so we have to run at night because the police don’t inspect at night,” or the ever popular “the driver diverted to someplace else” and “we don’t want to drive through the mountains at night.” I wouldn’t want to drive over those mountains at night either, but we showed up at the marina gate at eight a.m. Tuesday as promised, hoping for the best but expecting the usual. About 08:30 the phone rang and, you won’t believe this, but our agent said that the truck had to stop to put a tarp over the crate because of the rain. That’s thoughtful. Maybe by 10:00. I told the yard manager to stand down, he just smiled. I think the next call was a traffic delay, maybe 11:00. I don’t want to belabor the point but at approximately twenty minutes after two in the afternoon a nice, new white Volvo flatbed truck pulled into the yard with a heavy green tarp covering, let’s say part of a large plywood crate with YIT and Escape Velocity spray painted like graffiti all over the sides. Marce burst into tears.

I don’t know what I expected but while the crate was certainly large it didn’t seem big enough to contain all our hopes and dreams.

Well, enough dreaming, what’s inside? Screws squealed as the screw guns backed them out of the damp plywood lid. Hundreds of screws. Finally four of us slid the lid to one side. I was suddenly a kid of five still in my jams with the feet in them and it’s Christmas morning of the best Christmas imaginable.

Eyes wide open, Marce and I slowly went over each box touching every one in turn and occasionally murmuring oh that’s the what-have-you.

Slowly the realization dawned on me that many of those boxes had my name on them and represent countless hours of kneeling, awkwardly reaching, smashing gashing fingers and of course writing the Big Book of Swear Words…it seems to help.

Once a boatyard neighbor and I were having particularly bad days on our boats and I’d felt the need for a timeout. Climbing out into the cockpit I looked up and saw that he was looking over at me and I just smiled and said, “ghosts in the machine.”

Marce and I filled up a dock cart with projects and as the screws squealed going back in, we headed back to Escape Velocity.

It’s been a beehive of activity ever since and today I finished installing our new suite of instruments. They lit up on the first try. Maybe I’ve learned something over the years but there’s still plenty to do before the big boys fly down next week to install the rig.

Stay tuned, this joint is really jumpin’

My dad died the day I learned I made Phi Beta Kappa, two weeks before college graduation. I drove to New Jersey, stunned and confused. His heart had just stopped; he ate lunch, got up from the table and went to the living room to read while my mom cleared the dishes. She heard a funny noise and looked around the corner to his favorite chair and he was gone. Just like that.

Everyone says that’s the way to go but he was only 66. My sister and I feel like we’re living with a time bomb. Do we have our mother’s genes and look forward to another 30 years of relatively healthy life? Or do we have Dad’s, with a heart that’s about to hit its expiration date?

I want to feel that I live each day with no regrets, that I spend each hour as if it’s my last but truth be told I spend these days annoyed, anxious, worried and stressed. And I can feel how bad it is for my heart.

Today is my dad’s birthday. He would have been 101. He died 34 years ago and I miss him every day. Still.

I’m going to crack open a beer and sit outside and make this day count. Wherever you are, whatever you’re up to, do the same. Life is short.

I don’t know about you but we’re not much for repeating ourselves so when our friends on Georgia J, still in Golfito, got the call we all dread, you know the trouble back at home call, it became a game changer…a paradigm shift for them and our long anticipated visit with Sharon and Kim. Georgia J is no longer sailing up here to play in Quepos; in fact Georgia J is hitching a ride piggy back on the deck of a yacht transporter. They’ll be renting a car and driving up from Golfito to say, well, goodbye so at least we can show them Quepos and they can share our air conditioning for a few days.

Fun in Quepos means Manuel Antonio, the mountaintop town and the National Parque of the same name. They can do the full Monty tour with guide and spotter scope and we’ll explore some of the new trails that are just opening up. I think I may have already mentioned that without a guide we’ve been kind of hopeless at spotting all that bio-diversity Manuel Antonio is famous for so we’re looking at this as a nice walk in the jungle maybe with perks.

So we worked our way back to the beach where we were all to meet but it was not surprising that they weren’t there yet, that’s when I noticed several guides quietly heading out on a sandy path that runs near the beach. I hadn’t noticed before but around a bend we could see several spotter scopes on tripods, a sure sign that a point of interest might be on offer. We didn’t need the help. All the trees around us were shaking. A large troop of Capuchin monkeys was moving towards us in a kind of feeding behavior, completely unconcerned about us. In a line across the whole sandy peninsula a wave of white faced monkeys were resolutely leaping from branch to branch only stopping to examine a tasty morsel. Some were running across the ground, most were about head height. Pure magic.

So dear Escapees, I can just hear you wondering, sure you’re in Manuel Antonio but where’s Ronnie Reagan’s favorite airplane? We had to introduce the Georgia Js to Eugene’s last ride.

We’ve been getting a lot of emails suggesting that perhaps we need to grease some Tico palms to get things done. But to clarify, we are dealing almost exclusively with Americans. The yard manager and the marina manager are Americans. As far as we can tell the Ticos working here don’t do any more than detailing of the huge sport fisherman boats which are almost all owned by Americans, none of whom are in evidence. We are, as far as we can tell, the only people occupying any boat in the marina. We’re realizing that there is no staff skilled labor at this yard and we’re looking for an outside fiberglass person to come do our repair.

Yesterday Jack dropped the headliner and spent the day removing the bolts on the damaged lifeline stanchions, something we were repeatedly told the marina would take care of and it’s now clear they don’t have the manpower or skill to do. It was a long and nasty job because the bolts had all been bent from the force of the boom hitting the stanchions. The good news is that there’s no underlying deck damage. The bad news is that the bolt holes on the new stanchion bases don’t exactly line up with the old ones, so the holes will have to be filled with epoxy and then re-drilled. It’s not a big job, but a messy one, especially since these holes are right above our bed.

And, after a happy couple of dry years, with the bolts holes open we got a few drips in the rain, even after careful taping on deck. We don’t want to put any caulk in the holes because they have to be epoxied, so we’ll double up on the taping to stay dry until the new stanchions are bedded and tightened down.

We did not want to be doing this, but we must if we’re every going to get out of here.

I am fuming. We’ve been in this marina since August 29th. We had our replacement lifeline stanchions shipped down ahead of time at extra expense so the marina could do the fiberglass and gelcoat repair and get the new stanchions installed well before our rigging arrives. When the crate gets here we could simply hook up the perfectly measured and swaged lifelines and the deckwork would be done and out of the way of the rigger. Despite nearly daily reminders to the marina management, not one minute of work has been done on this boat in five weeks. The crate had to be packed and shipped from Florida without accurate measurements for the portside lifelines, and there is no swager available anywhere nearby to cut the lines to fit. Today when we spoke with the marina manager and again begged him to get the fiberglass work done, he shrugged and said we could just use spectra line instead of stainless steel lifelines. “YOU’RE MISSING THE POINT!!!!” I said, and it all went downhill from there. We’re replacing the damaged lifelines, and to do that his yard is supposed to repair the fiberglass. Which they aren’t doing. We want to make a trip back to the states for the holidays and we don’t even know when these idiots will get off their asses and do the work! And of course our permit extension expires again in less than three weeks.

We asked where our rigging and other replacement parts will be stored until the rigger gets down here to install it.

“Can we talk about that when it gets here?” he said.

“Do you have a secure place to keep our stuff?”

“I don’t know what we’re talking about until I see it.”

“A mast, a boom, rigging, sails, all the other parts.” As if he doesn’t already know exactly what’s coming.

“Can we postpone this discussion until the stuff gets here?”

“Do you have a secure place to put our stuff?”

“Can we postpone this discussion until the stuff gets here?”

“Do you have a secure place to put our stuff?” Why can’t I get a straight answer?

“I can’t promise you that. It’s a big yard and people are in and out of here all the time.”

WHY ARE WE HERE???? They won’t do any work, he can’t guarantee our stuff won’t disappear, and on top of all that, he’s being obstinate as hell! He’s become Sergeant Don’t Bother Me It’s Not My Problem And Stop Being A Bitch. I can’t believe this approach ever works for him. It’s no wonder the marina is half empty.

We’ve been very patient waiting for our mast to be built and shipped but this situation at the marina is inexcusable and infuriating and if it causes us any more delays my head might explode. I admit it, I had a bit of a cry this afternoon. Please send virtual hugs.