April 10th (2009) – Mazatlan – Jim’s Blog #87

Current Location – Mazatlan – Lat: 23°16.12’ N / Long: 106°27.85’ W

A Tribute to the 'Best Crewperson' ever

We’ve been relaxing for the past week, as we prepare to end our cruising lifestyle. We’ll be flying up to southern California on Monday, the 13th, and that will be the end of Sheilagh’s cruising on a regular basis. Then I’ll be flying back down to Mazatlan at the end of April and sailing the boat north with two friends of mine, Jim and Craig, in June. I’m not sure about my cruising future, but I intend to look into crewing for other boats or getting crew for my boat to sail to the South Pacific and beyond. Sheilagh says she’ll be glad to visit me when I arrive someplace, but it had better be a location with commercial jet runways that can handle the larger jets – no small planes for her either.

On the bow

Since we started this experiment in October of 2007, Sheilagh has given it a good 18 months of effort to get over her fear of the ocean and of the weather as experienced from the deck of a small sailboat, but that’s not something that may be curable. She has also been the best crew someone could have for any number of reasons, not the least of which is her total command of the galley and the gourmet output from that location. She’s also a bit of a “neat freak” and has spent a lot of time keeping the boat not only clean but in very good order. I have been happy to have her keep things neat except when she puts something away that I had planned to use or wear in the next few days. Frankly I have to confess I’ve been more of a slob than I usually am during this cruising lifestyle, knowing that Sheilagh will clean up after me.

In the engine room

And I also have to confess that I’ve taken advantage of her desire for orderliness by having her keep the inventory of not only food, but boat parts, supplies – in fact whatever is not visible to the naked eye when the cabinets and drawers are closed. She keeps track of the zincs needed to keep our metal boat parts from deteriorating, as well as the schedule of when they need replacement. She tracks when the engine needs an oil change and does a lot of the work related to changing the oil, the oil filters and the fuel filters. She never has trusted the sails or her sailing ability; so the engine has become very high on her list of items to keep in tip top shape. She changes the hard-to-get-at impeller blade that insures the engine stays cooled by delicately inserting herself into the engine room and asking only for tools from me.. She calls this exercise “boat yoga,” and it’s the only “exercise” she will admit to practicing.

Holding her first tuna

In the cruising community there are generally recognized “blue” jobs for the guys and “pink” jobs for the ladies. Sheilagh never has followed that criteria, and I think she’s been considered a threat to the status quo for a lot of the cruising wives. There isn’t a male cruiser we’ve met who wouldn’t love to have her skills and talents wear off on their own crew. What she’s doing is making sure that “her” engine is going to get her back to land when the sails fail. She’s never felt that I really cared about the engine, because I would prefer to sail even if it takes a lot longer to get there. So she’s taken it upon herself to make sure the engine is in perfect shape. Her hearing immediately detects the slightest change in the sound of the engine, and she will not rest until she finds out what’s causing the problem. At times she has been quite upset to find that my knee-bouncing on the deck to a tune on my IPod has caused her to go all over the engine looking for the “engine knock.”

Relaxing for once

I can’t count the number of times Sheilagh has stopped me as I was calling for a sail change to point out that there were lines or line-stoppers that needed to be set before starting the procedure. I’ll never forget the time when we were sailing our Cal 20 in Hawaii some 30 years ago and were laid over by a freak squall. I shouted at Sheilagh to let the “rope” go. I had been lecturing her on the need to learn the proper names of items on the boat, but at that critical time, as the boat was lying on its side, I couldn’t remember the name for the jib sheet. As frightened as she must have been in the situation, she stood fully erect on the side of the boat that was being held under water and yelled “I’ll let it go when you tell me the name of the line you want me to release.” It won’t be easy to replace that kind of quality crew.

At the top of the mast

In the next few days Sheilagh will be taking me around the boat to show me where everything is located that I used to be able to ask her for. I will also have to start keeping the boat log and the maintenance log. The worst part is my having to learn to cook for myself, but even here Sheilagh is preparing me to survive. She has made a list of easy-to-cook dishes with the ingredients necessary to feed me and two crew members. Hopefully they’ll have a few dishes they can cook to offset my “cooking skills.”

Sightseeing

She has already typed out instructions for making water and emptying the holding tank and posted them where they will be easy to access for each procedure. Lately she has been reminding me to turn on the shower drain pump before getting into the shower – something she has been doing for me when I am up to my ankles in shower water and don’t want to track water through the boat to hit the switch.

Taking a cockpit shower

Although Sheilagh has had a history of being geographically challenged every place except in a mall, she has learned to navigate along the coast of Mexico, including planning trips, recording fixes, using radar, and generally questioning every navigational decision I make. She will not agree that we are anchored until she has personally determined that the anchor is well set. She also gets up in the middle of the night to check our position and make sure we’re still anchored securely.

In an internet cafe on Skype

She keeps track of all of our financial dealings and has set up automated payments where possible. When we get into an internet environment, it is Sheilagh who tracks the bills and payments, checks the declining balance of our nest egg, and insures that we have sufficient funds in our account to be able to use the ATM’s in the various localities. She runs down the best buys in health, car, and boat insurance, and makes sure we upgrade at key dates. When her business dealings are complete, she uses Skype to get in touch with each of our four daughters, where she is often called upon for personal advice and parental advice in the raising our four grandchildren and our dog, Rascalita, that she had to leave behind with our daughter, Kim, to do the cruising we wanted to do – Rascalita was not a happy cruiser.

Eating breakfast on a stern seat

When we entertain, it is Sheilagh who decides on the components of the feast, buys and prepares all the food, straightens things up in case guests may come below to look at the inside of the boat (usually we entertain in the cockpit), lays out the table, approves the music, and looks like a million dollars when the guests arrive. She prompts me to make drinks and notifies me when someone needs another drink. She monitors the discussions the guests are having and cuts off those that start to talk of politics. It may be difficult to find crew who can do all these things for future trips, and I am not holding out much hope of being able to do so.

One of her favorite positions in the cockpit

After the foregoing tribute to my lovely crew, some of you may be asking yourselves what it is that I do around the boat. In addition to taking orders from Sheilagh and making sure she is happy with my “decisions,” I’m responsible for a few things such as going topside in the middle of the night to run down any noise that Sheilagh can’t explain. My other duties are to scratch her back when it itches (nearly every morning), lift heavy loads, compliment her on all the work she does, and attempt to get her to slow down and relax. Beyond that I do very little in comparison to what Sheilagh does; so I’d rather not go into those items.

Crewpersons don't come better looking than this

This is a tribute to my gorgeous and wonderful wife of 39+ years, who has gone beyond the marriage vows to support me throughout my life and particularly with regard to this cruising experiment. It is amazing to me that she has been able to put up with me on a 24/7 basis, after years of marriage where my traveling job kept us apart during a large part of each week. She has coped remarkably with her own fears, my hard-to-handle personality on a constant basis, and the gaps of time and distance from her children and grandchildren. They don’t make crew better than Sheilagh.

Eight reasons for returning to the CLOD life (Cruisers Living On Dirt)






More later . . .