Another Way To Provision By Michael

SAIL magazine Associate Editor Charles Doane keeps an interesting blog called Wavetrain. His dry humor and perspective are a pleasure and he covers "cruising sailboats and other aquatic miracles." True to his subtitle, he posted recently the fascinating video below of Haitians loading a truck onto a sailboat. I figured it must be a one-off, an incredible attempt to do something that is probably not a good idea.

But clearly my Western thinking blinded me to what is possible because once on YouTube, I found several such videos , featuring increasingly larger trucks (first a Mack dump truck, then a large box truck). It is now clear that our first order of business when we get aboard Del Viento will be to strengthen her toe rails.


--MR

Pirates Aboard Quest By Michael

http://www.svquest.com/

News broke today that pirates captured the cruising boat Quest yesterday while she was underway a few hundred miles offshore of Oman. News reports indicate that four U.S. citizens are aboard.

I checked out Quest's blog and found the following on their home page:

I thought we should have a contest and see if you can figure out where this guy on the left came from!! The winner gets to join Scott & myself for our trip across the Indian Ocean, up the Red Sea to the Med. Hurry up before this offer expires!

"The guy on the left" they refer to is a picture of a guy who appears to be a Pacific Islander. I'm not trying to win their contest, but wondering if the winners are the two other Americans with them now...

There is not yet a lot of news available about this incident. Reports do not indicate that s/v Quest (hailing from Drummond Island, MI) was travelling in a convoy of crusiers, a practice that seems to be common in the area over the past few years.

The Quest crew took delivery of their Laurie Davidson-designed sloop in New Zealand in 2001 and sailed her to California. Since that time they have cruised extensively, apparently with the goal of circumnavigating (and she was in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico in 2003). Their site is rich with information about their travels. We extend our best wishes for a quick, safe resolution to this incident to the Quest owners and their crew.

--MR

Boat Cards! By Michael

Two big steps this week: boat cards and a mailing address.

Hoping to get carded

I didn't get the whole boat card thing before we left on our first trip. We had cards on board the first Del Viento only because someone gave them to us as a goodbye gift (thank you Larry). We were soon glad we had them. Cruising is a very socially transient lifestyle. Boat cards were a way for us to remember the folks we ran into. I can thumb through our collection from 15 years ago and recall people and events I may have well forgotten.

Rather than a photo on our cards this time, I commisioned a nautical artist in Washington state to sketch our boat. I heard  about Jeff Orlando from a post by Andiamo III, about how he drew the picture of their boat on their cards. When I got to Jeff's site, I liked his gallery of drawings and boat cards he's done for others. Using just a few pictures of our boat and a description of the scene I wanted, he did an outstanding job. He was generous with his time and just a nice guy.

Of course, before we could get our cards, we needed a mailing address to put on them. We ended up using St.Brendan's Isle. While I like the folksy, mom-and-pop quality of their competitor, Voyagers Mail Forwarding Service, SBI's reputation is stellar and they offer a mail scanning service that may alleviate the need for most physical mail forwarding. Though, given that all of our banking and billing has been paperless and online for years, we don't get a lot of mail that will have to be forwarded. But they also offer a service whereby they will acquire a boat part for you at their discounted rate and ship it out right away.

In either case, it is going to cost us about a quarter-boat-buck per year, and both companies will take care of renewing our USCG documentation each year (why isn't that online yet?!). We considered asking family to handle our mail, but the knowledge these cruiser-oriented companies have in getting shipments to far flung places in the least time, with the least hassle, and at the least expense, is worth the expense, I hope. I've heard countless stories of cruisers waiting months for a package, never getting a package, extorted by customs officials, or all of the above.

It's pretty exciting to have a new address (though Florida doesn't feel like us, neither of us has any association with the place--and I meant to put our boat's Washington, D.C. hailing port on the cards and forgot). It is one more bit of tangible evidence that this huge thing is actually coming to pass.

--MR

Go Small (sort of), Go Now (5-year plan) By Michael

When I planned my first trip aboard the Newport 27 Del Viento, I knew I needed crew aboard to manage that tender vessel. The Autohelm 1000 tiller pilot was not reliable. Even when working, it was often not quick enough to overcome the intrinsic weatherhelm of the Newport. Long days at the helm, and especially overnighters, wouldn't be practical. Yet, while doing my due diligence to find crew, a part of me retained hope that I wouldn't be successful, clinging to the romantic notion that I'd be forced to sail off alone, to join the fraternity of singlehanders.

Alas, I found my crew in the 11th hour and we sailed off together December 7, 1996. Less than three years later, we married. And now, 14 years later, we are on the verge of heading out again, with two little crew.

I no longer retain any desire to singlehand. Every future trip I imagine involves at least Windy. Yet, what a part of me now pines for is what we left behind when we sold the first Del Viento: minimalism. As we plan and outfit the Fuji 40 Del Viento, I miss the cruising aesthetics of the minimalists, the cruisers out there today on relatively small vessels making do with just what they need. This is a subset of the cruising community who are living the life purely, not cluttered by the trappings of a land-based life that turn the average cruising boat into something Slocum would not recognize.

The tub in the "spectacular master stateroom" of the Hunter 50
http://huntermarine.com/Models/50CC/50CCIndex.html



Minimalist cruisers eschew these things not because they are traditionalists or luddites: Lin and Larry Pardey don't have an engine aboard, but carry a GPS and use a solar panel; James Baldwin has never carried an EPIRB, but sings the praises of AIS. No, these successful cruisers are just plain practical. None has (or at least did not start out with) the resources to fill their boat with every boat show gadget and electronic device billed as a necessary safety item or comfort imperative. Accordingly, they launched their journeys afloat with the bare minimum aboard and allowed--paraphrasing Robin Lee Graham--the sea to teach them not how much they needed, but how little.

Over time every voyager comes to understand exactly what they need aboard. What is necessary for some seems superfluous to others. The distinction between the minimalist cruiser and the rest of us is how they determine what gear or system earns a place aboard.

Space, power consumption, and failure criticality are overriding considerations for every cruiser deciding what to bring or install aboard. Every purchase decision, for every cruiser--minimalist or not--means weighing these factors in a risk-benefit calculation. While nobody [in their right mind] questions the value of a cold beer or hot shower, that value is relative. A minimalist cruiser is likely to argue that refrigeration is a power-hungry system prone to failure, that a water heater adds undue complexity and risk of leaking a precious commodity, that neither earns a place aboard. Another cruiser may decide that either or both systems deliver a benefit that offsets the risk of failure and risk of being stranded in an undesirable location waiting for parts...and then sending them back for the correct parts.

In the same way that the overall size of a boat increases geometrically as the length increases linearly, the cost--measured in risk--of hosting systems aboard a boat increases geometrically with each system added. The hot water heater requires additional water lines, additional electrical generation capacity, a larger battery bank to store that power, and a pump/pressure tank to make a shower worthwhile. Of course, all of that means a bigger boat to hold it all. All of that means a likely increase in water consumption and stokes the need for a watermaker, which of course begets more of all the same. And how often then will you run the axillary for the sake of warming up that heat exchanger or generating power, thereby putting undue wear and tear on that system?

Of course, nothing is wrong with any of this. Even minimalists express contrary opinions about what belongs aboard their particular vessel. The danger lies for the cruiser who is not aware, or does not acknowledge this calculus.

The cruising minimalists I've read are the ones who endure, the ones for whom cruising is not just a phase or experience, but a life. Accordingly, they have earned our attention and consideration. As we prepare to head out there again, and with a relative paucity of experience, we plan to take a lesson from the minimalists--and from our former selves: to deliberately assess everything we bring or install aboard. Is it worth it? Are we prepared for its failure? Might we be happier without it? I aim to be able to present a very compelling, reasoned defense of every single piece of gear aboard our ship--and why we use it the way we do.

While my minimalist heroes have a lot to offer in terms of perspective, none are sailing and living with small crew aboard. (Yes, Fatty and Carolyn Goodlander raised Roma Orion aboard as minimalists. Yes, Dave and Jaja Martin sailed with two children aboard 25-foot Direction and with three children aboard 36-foot Driver, in relatively minimalist fashion. Yet neither the Goodlanders nor Martins transitioned as families from a land-based lifestyle to the cruising lifestyle.) We will have our own unique considerations.

If our girls are eager to end "this stupid boat trip" after a couple years, it will be over. We will not be successful afloat unless everyone is aboard (pun intended). Rationally, I suspect we will all look back ten years from now at my characterization above and laugh. But we will hedge our bets by cruising aboard a boat that is comfortable, homey, and kid-friendly. Beyond the obvious consideration we're giving to the increased energy and physical space demands of four people (so much for "go small, go now"), we are keenly interested in helping the girls to embrace and identify with the cruising life. Like at home today, I imagine kid art adorning the bulkheads. Like at home today, there will be no TV, but movies will play on the laptop and books-on-tape will boom from cabin speakers. Like at home today, cold milk for cereal will be at the ready each morning. Like at home today, hot water will be available for bathing before bedtime, when necessary. Like at home, Eleanor and Frances will share a cabin, but be afforded individual bunks and private space for their stuff.

Granted, this lifestyle will be radically different; that's why we're going. And we are not trying to reproduce aboard all of the creature comforts of home--we can't and we don't want to. There will be a lot of changes to which they'll have to adapt, changes that are significant and inherent to the lifestyle. But we aren't going minimalist, we just aren't. We are in a different class, as separate from the childless minimalists as the cruising couple is from the singlehander.

Like in all areas of life, about the best we Robertsons can do is to benefit from the experience of those we are following. At this point that means--as best we can--eschewing the hyper-consumerist mindset common to the preparing-to-cast-off cruiser. We've both pledged to see first what we can get by without, so long as we don't compromise our notion of what we need to ensure the safety of our girls (and so long as it means we can bring an iPad).

If Atom ever finds herself floundering offshore, James Baldwin can admirably walk his talk, testing for the first time the water-tight bulkheads he's prudently engineered on his 47-year-old Pearson Triton. In that instance, he won't have an EPIRB with which to hail assistance. But he will have enjoyed weeks of freedom afforded by the savings realized by not purchasing an EPIRB. He will be comforted by the fact that he is truly self-sufficient as he effects repairs and gets back under way. He may indeed be better off. Of course, he isn't planning to manage that situation while also managing the safety and well-being of two children. Accordingly, his reasons for going without an EPIRB are not relevant to us as we prepare to head off with our children aboard, and an EPIRB for each.

--MR

Violence Happens

Police aboard a panga, enroute to s/v Adena, anchored in Laguna
Diamante, near the mouth of Honduras's Rio Tinto.
La Prensa.hn, Tela, Honduras, December 4, 2010

This week, Latitude 38 reported online that Milan Egrmajer, a 58-year-old Canadian cruiser of the vessel Adena, was murdered over the weekend by armed thieves. Adena, an Ericson 35, was anchored peacefully in a remote Honduran anchorage called Laguna Diamante. Little else is known at this time, but his adult daughter was aboard and survived, so we will soon learn more.

News such as this is broadcast quickly throughout the cruising community, via a real communication grapevine. Because friendships are made quickly before boats sail in opposite directions, the grapevine exists to shorten the seeming distance between geographically dispersed members of the community. In the couple years Adena has been out cruising, boats and crew she crossed paths with have scattered about the world. Some will hear about the tragedy via SSB radio nets, and will spread the news on morning VHF nets. Some will share recollections of their encounters with Adena and her crew in cockpit gatherings.

Cruisers will mourn the loss and be eager to learn where and how this happened, hoping to gain or reinforce knowledge they can use to safeguard themselves.

This tragic event is not isolated, but neither are attacks on cruisers common. In fact, these types of senseless, predatory crimes happen so infrequently, and their circumstances so peculiar, that their likelihood doesn’t merit much worry. What these crimes do is to:

• open the big—yet quiet—debate among folks heading off cruising about whether or not to carry firearms aboard.
• remind everyone to carefully consider whether or not you will fight intruders to protect your property, or cooperate fully to expedite the removal of your valuables and minimize the risk of conflict.
• cause cruisers to evaluate the measures they can take to make their boat a bit less attractive to boarders, such as a very bright spotlight as a powerful deterrent to approaching vessels/people at night, such as alarms that are set to be tripped by boarders, and which can potentially scare off bad folks who aim to be stealthy.
• encourage people to adopt best practices wherever they go, such as not flashing your relative wealth nor engaging in criminal commerce, such as buying drugs.

We don’t consider the risk of a run-in like this to be high. But should those odds fail us, we will do, and will have done, all we can to lessen the potential for a tragic outcome.

I am very sorry for Mr. Egrmajer, his daughter, his family, and his friends. I cannot imagine.

--MR

Hurricane Hugo, 1989

Aboard the Casey J II in Tortola, BVI
1988, the year before Hugo 

Like most, I'm loosely familiar with the devastation wrought by the biggest hurricanes to hit North America in my lifetime: 2005's Katrina and 1992's Andrew.

What's harder to come by is information about the impact of these events on the cruising community. Sure, I read the Katrina-related articles by cruisers in the sailing magazines. Years ago, I watched an intimate yacht club presentation by a cruiser who buckled down in Hawaii and survived Hurricane Iniki as it passed over. I read Toast's harrowing posts about weathering 2009's Hurricane Jimena in Santa Rosalia, Mexico. I've read the Pardey's account of December 1982's rare winter storm that put 29 cruising boats on the beach.

For all of that, I've never seen anything like the compelling video below. I've never seen anything that better describes the impact of a major hurricane on the cruising community.  It is an hour-long collage of interviews of a small number of sailors who survived 1989's Hurricane Hugo in the Virgin Islands. The video was made shortly after the storm hit and it ain't the cleanest, but the grainy, unpolished quality--and the fact that the impressions were recorded so soon after the fact--brings the thing to life.

Winds of Hugo were recorded at 200 miles per hour; 190 boats were wrecked ashore.

I found the link to the video on Fatty Goodlander's site, and he and his family are featured prominently. Fatty tells of trees blowing into his rigging and of stanchions pushed down vertically, straight through his deck and into the cabin--all the while with his wife and child taking cover on the cabin sole.

More amazing than the superlatives used by everyone in this video to try and describe their experiences (with a goat aboard!?!), are the descriptions of camaraderie, of cruisers helping cruisers before, during, and after this astounding meteorological event. Camaraderie is an ironic attribute of a community comprised of determined individualists, a community to which we will soon return.


Video by Virgin Islands Search and Rescue (VISAR)
and hosted by OnlineBVI.net, a site providing video
hosting for the people of the British Virgin Islands.

--MR

A Dream Transferred

For most, the dream catches them later in life. I was born into the dream, but that's not to say that I've always wanted to go cruising. In the beginning, the dream wasn't mine.

For most of my life, sailboats were the vessels of my father's difficult life. That I carry my deceased, troubled father's unfulfilled dream with me would make any psychoanalyst giddy.

1970
As soon as my father could liberate me from the Costa Rican hospital, he did. The train ride was long and rough back to Punta Arenas and to the boat my parents were building on the beach. It was too long and rough for my mother who had given birth just hours before, but how eager he must have been to see his dream of his family afloat coming together.

1973
We are sailing a friend's leaky vessel up the Pacific coast of Central America. My father's drinking and recklessness surface repeatedly. Fearing for my safety, my mother permanently disembarks.

1970-something
My father finishes the Mariposa, but he sells her to cover debts.

1980-something
My father moves onto a boat in a Sausalito, California slip. Sometimes, when jobs are scarce, he anchors in the adjacent Richardson Bay. I live nearby and occasionally work for him, painting or sanding boats. He pays me for my company; I am a lousy apprentice. Helping him deliver a large sailboat, its mast strapped precariously to the deck, no lifelines, I fall overboard. Tapping the superhuman strength of lore, he reaches past miles of freeboard and pulls me onto the deck.

1996
A crossroads moment in my life at 26. I'm sitting with my father in the cramped cabin of his boat eating hard boiled eggs in brown rice. He points to a notice in Latitude 38, "We should put our names on the crew list." I brought the magazine home and sent my information to the publisher. My father did not follow through.

Mike from Ventura hires me as crew on his boat, Del Viento. We leave the Bay Area to cruise Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. Marriage follows. Kids follow. More cruising plans follow. My father remains in Sausalito.

2008
My father passes away in the spring. We scatter his ashes on the water beneath the Golden Gate Bridge.

The trajectory of a life is guided by innumerable and varied forces, forces that cannot be ordained or anticipated: the weather at a particular moment, a phone call missed or answered. But sometimes, a life's trajectory is serendipitously guided by the dreams of another. My father’s cruising dream is his legacy, his lasting gift to me.

--WR

Accepting Risk, Mitigating Risk

We did not purchase hull insurance for Del Viento. Our boat will remain uninsured.
Photo by Adam Turinas
www.messingaboutinboats.typepad.com

We are fairly risk averse people. For example, while we have never owned a car worth enough to justify carrying collision insurance, we always carry a much higher level of liability insurance than legally mandated. We carry life insurance, we carry long-term disability insurance, and we have wills drafted and filed with an attorney.

So what the heck? Why are we leaving our second largest asset (after our home) sitting uninsured in Mexico...during hurricane season?! This object upon which all of our plans rest?

We often and increasingly resist making decisions on the basis of assumptions or expectations. Three examples: our decision to home birth, our decision to abandon the standard life raft model (more in a future post), our decision to ignore conventional wisdom with respect to investing.

While we never intended to carry hull insurance while living and cruising Del Viento, we did intend to carry hull insurance for this year, until we could get down there and move aboard. Without thinking it through, we assumed the risk warranted the expense. So I looked into purchasing insurance, eventually receiving three solid quotes (each roughly $1,400 for the year). But I never committed. Instead, I set about further considering whether it was money well spent.

First, it was important to remember that no insurance company in the world can do anything to affect the likelihood of catastrophe befalling Del Viento. Neither hurricanes nor failed thru-hull valves bother to check whether a vessel is insured before sending her to the bottom. While just the thought of Del Viento sinking forces me to catch my breath, this anxiety should have no bearing on our decision whether to purchase insurance. Rather, we are considering only our strong desire not to bear the financial burden of her loss.

So how much risk are we assuming?

I think that the threat posed by adverse weather is very low. I learned all about the history of hurricanes and Puerto Vallarta. The last hurricane to come near the city was Hurricane Kenna in 2002. According to online historical references by cruisers, no boats were damaged and the top wind speed was 64 knots. There was a tidal surge in the marninas, but it was not disruptive. Category 1 Hurricane Lily came ashore near PV in 1971. Again, no damage to boats. Apparently, the city is regarded as a "hurricane hole" because it is geographically protected by Bandaras Bay and the mountains that form Cabo Corrientes to the north.

Additionally, our slip is way in the back of Marina Vallarta and behind a long stretch of two-story villas on Isla Iguana. It doesn't get any more protected from onshore winds than our spot.

I think the greater risk is a systems failure on board. A ruptured hose. A failed stainless steel clamp. A failed siphon preventer. Things degrade quickly in the marine environment, especially if neglected. Fortunately, systems redundancy decreases the likelihood that any single failure will be catastrophic. For example, hose clamps and bilge pumps are each backed up. Nonetheless, we are taking steps to decrease the risk that calamity strikes Del Viento:

• We hired a diver to maintain the bottom. Based on my conversations with our diver, he will report any indication that our bilge pump is running (indicating the boat is slowly sinking). Having worked as a diver for a few years, I know that this is something a diver notices.
• We hired the former owners of our boat as minders. They live nearby and are visiting and checking on Del Viento (still with the Dream Catcher name) at least once per month. Having lived and cruised aboard, these folks know the boat and her indiosyncracies better than anyone. Contrasted with any other boat minder we could have hired, they are less likely to introduce some human error that could increase the likelihood of fire or sinking. Among other things, they are operating her valves and checking her drains.
• Two separate liveaboards in nearby slips are aware we are absentee owners and are keeping their eyes open. One has our minders' contact information, and the other has ours. 
• We are confident that our surveyor was knowledgeable and thorough and mindful of the fact that we will be away from the boat. He suggested one preventative measure: install a clamp directly behind the PSS shaft seal to prevent the stainless steel rotor from moving. Done.

The old girl has been floating since 1978. All of our plans would be upset if she stopped floating in the next 11 months. But we think the likelihood of this is so small that it does not warrant spending 2.2% of the vessel purchase price to pass the risk on to someone else. We are keeping that premium and self-insuring.

-- MR

The Cruiser’s Car

As our cruising kitty will be very small, we don’t plan to spend more than a few days a year tied up to land…be it a slip, dock, or quay. Instead, we’ll pass our days and nights swinging on the hook. While this arrangement limits our access to shore side services, it affords privacy, offers better water to swim in, and keeps our bow pointed into the wind for better ventilation down below. We prefer this.

However, when anchored out, we’ll need a safe and dependable, non-swimming option for getting ashore.

Windy and the old Avon, Maria la Gorda, Cuba, 1997
www.sailboat-cruising-with-kids.comEnter, the dinghy.

Everyone’s got one. The dinghy is like the cruiser’s car. As on our first trip, we’ll use our dinghy to shuttle ourselves, our groceries, our computers—everything—ashore, and back again. Like a car, it must be reliable. Like a car, flashy ones are prone to theft. Like a car, it must be big enough to serve our needs. Like a car, there are hundreds of configurations to choose from.

The primary distinction among dinghies is the material they are constructed from: hard dinghy or soft dinghy. As the names imply, hard dinghies are made from hard materials (fiberglass, wood, aluminum, plastic) and soft dinghies are made from either hypalon or PVC. While soft dinghies are all inflatables and share a similar tube-based structure, hard dinghies come in all different shapes, sizes, and configurations.

On our last cruise, we used a 1970s-era inflatable I bought well-used at a marine swap meet for about $50. It was an Avon Redcrest and more akin to something you’d use in a swimming pool than the dinghies in service today. The floor was unsupported rubber and the motor mount was a rusted bracket that wrapped around the aft tube. It didn’t row well, it didn’t sail, and could accept nothing larger than my 2-hp Evinrude.

But, inflatables have come a long way, baby. Today’s inflatable dinghies are incredibly stable wonders that carry massive loads and plane with a 4-hp motor. They feature rigid bottoms, inflated bottoms, or slatted bottoms. They are built with a sturdy transom to which a motor may be attached. In a calm anchorage, it is not uncommon to see cruisers using their dinghies to tow wake boarders. I’ll bet 98% of folks cruising today use the standard inflatable dinghy.

Inflatables lined up at the dinghy dock Marina la Paz, Mexico
www.sailboat-cruising-with-kids.com

In fact, the new Del Viento is equipped with an 11-foot Mercury inflatable and two outboards, one 2 horsepower, one 9.9 horsepower. Assuming this set up is serviceable when we arrive (neither the surveyor nor I checked the dinghy and motors out as they were not included in the original listing, but thrown in during the price negotiation), we’ll use this dinghy and her motors until shortly after we arrive in California.

What then? Once back in the States, we plan to purchase a new hard dinghy and new motor…a very specific hard dinghy and motor. More on our dinghy plans and rationale in a future post…

--MR

A Joint Venture Aboard

Our next cruising life will be different than our first by orders of magnitude.

• The first time we cast off in our 20s on a 27-foot boat, this time we leave in our 40s on a 40-foot boat.
• The first time we were alone and our romantic relationship was just beginning, this time we have two kids and we are married.
• The first time our cruising adventure was a trip limited to 7 months, this time cruising is a lifestyle with an open time horizon.
• The first time Internet cafes did not exist, this time we will likely carry a satellite phone.
• The first time we left with no income and very little money, this time we...oh, no change there.

Michael and Windy on Isla Providencia, Columbia, 1997
www.sailboat-cruising-with-kids.com

For me, the biggest difference will be our joint relationship to the boat and the life. When I "hired" Windy as my crew on the first trip, I'd spent the previous four years living aboard and preparing the boat and myself for the adventure. When Windy joined me, she'd only previously been aboard Del Viento for a day sail and it was not her home. She was competent, but deferred to me for every decision, there was no question which of us was both the owner and captain.

This time, I am eager for the new dynamic. I am eager to experience this next phase of our lives as equally vested partners and decision makers. (We've already agreed that in the case of decision making, where there are differences in opinion, the most conservative decision will stand. This is to say that Windy will be the final arbiter for all decisions.)

While we will each in this new life gravitate towards our own areas of expertise when it comes to allocating the workload, it is important to both of us that neither of us be incapable of managing the boat single handed. This will be a big distinction from the first cruising life and will require a determined effort by Windy to reach her own level of comfort in this regard. What will make it easier, and pleasurable, is that I will be learning alongside her.

Our Dickenson solid fuel heater
www.sailboat-cruising-with-kids.comI have very limited experience sailing such a comparatively large vessel, and I have never been in command of a boat over 30 feet (the difference between 30 and 40 feet is not factored linearly, but geometrically--much like how a 4.0-magnitude earthquake may not be felt by many, yet a 7.0-magnitude quake is likely to devastate a city). She and I will step aboard the next Del Viento on near-equal footing, and for that I am grateful.

While our shared ownership interest in the boat is a legal fact, the other day Windy moved one step ahead in her emotional ownership. She bought the heater we will need aboard when we venture north. It is a Dickinson Newport solid fuel fireplace that she bought used and that we will leave with her folks in San Francisco and install aboard Del Viento when we are there.

$200 poorer, and another step closer to our new life.

--MR