13 Feb 2010 La Paz
La Paz Picassa Pictures

So I stretched the truth on the word sound in my last entry. We did have some new excitement, not the good kind. Turns out the tooth trouble was a major abscess, which the stoic captain had hidden from his trusty crew for a few too many days. I’d wondered why Frank had gone all quiet, I usually can’t shut him up, and my own idle chatter normally receives some cursory grunt or nod, if not always full idle chatter back. You’d think I would have noticed the swollen cheek, but a month’s worth of whisker growth served as camouflage. So finally yesterday we got him in to see a dentist. Frank is now officially one tooth closer to dentures. He has to have a shot of Penicillin a day for the next 3 days – I was feeling squeamish, and Logan was feeling game, so Logan got to do administer the shot. Later in the evening:

Frank to Logan: Good night Doc. Logan: Hey, what about my bill? Kennan: You don’t get paid for stabbing your dad in the butt.

Add to that excitement some high winds keeping us mostly boat bound, when we would have liked to be getting stuff done ashore (confirming dentist appointments, buying some fresh food (we only had carrots onions and potatoes, and catch of the day left on the fresh list, and had shifted to mostly canned a few days before arriving in La Paz). Visions of cheeseburgers in paradise were dancing in our heads, but we might as well have been 200 miles offshore (more in the last paragraph after my wide tangent coming in the next paragraph).

Apologies in advance to the sailors in the crowd, but I think for the benefit of those unfamiliar with life at sea, I’d like to do some more detailed translation of the finer points. The experts out there will keep me honest, since despite my many years of sailing, I’ve always been “spotted” by folks with way more knowledge than I. I may get some of the more technical points wrong in attempting to educate my favorite landlovers (landlubber sounds derogatory to my ear). If push came to shove and the captain fell overboard (heh, heh), I could manage the sails, start the engine and retrieve him, provided I was witness to his entry point. If the captain jumped ship for a dockside barmaid, I could, on my own, pull up the anchor, stow it, ram the dock, drag the captain back on board, tie him to the mast and navigate to the nearest island without a dockside bar (there are lots of suitable deserted isles in the South Pacific). But since both of these eventualities are highly unlikely I slip into 1st mate role easily. First mate is similar to passenger seat driving on long road trips: reading books to the kids, pulling together snacks, pointing out every potential danger in our path, questioning Frank’s decisions (I try to do it nicely) , studying the maps, and in a pinch yes I can drive. First mate actually takes more skill than you’d think. Ideally, I would find all the questions that would challenge the captain’s assumptions, thus assisting him in making better decisions. Instead, as I commit the language of sailing to memory, my questions tend towards the repetitive (which is a necessary part of full immersion learning). The questions I ask most have to do with right of way, “Do I have to turn or will he???” It’s always been a tough one for me. It’s similar to not being able to tell my left from my right. The good news is that I have an easy time with Port and Starboard, North and South. Somehow my brain’s point of reference is just not myself. I love on a boat that port is port and starboard is starboard, and they don’t switch places just because I turn around. My hands on the other hand, are never in the same place, one minute they’re on a right side, I turn around and voila, they’re on a left side, but it’s still my right hand, it just makes no sense. The complication with port and starboard comes when another boat enters the picture, then I have to mentally turn myself around, and place myself on that boat to find out if he’s on a starboard tack (generally starboard has right of way). To top it off, when you’re on a “port” tack, the wind is coming across your starboard bow (the experts will say, UNLESS you’re going straight downwind, and your main is pulled to wind ward, and well then it get’s complicated. The boom of the main is really what determines a port or starboard tack, but even that is extra complicated on a staysail schooner like SL where the “main” sail is the staysail (not the back sail with a boom, which is a “spanker” – our staysail is the big sail in the middle of our two masts) So experts, if I am going straight downwind, and the staysail is on the starboard side, but the wind is also coming ever so slightly from the starboard quarter, and all my other sails are to port (including the spanker which has our boom)…am I on a port or starboard tack? So I just asked Frank and he says, that’s why schooners don’t race, and that I’m sounding like Vencini (the guy who masterminded the kidnapping of the Princess Bride). Still, I’m stoked, I came up with a question that challenged the captain (he does not know the answer)! Anyway, the parts of right of way that I do understand are: make your intentions clear, and do everything you can to avoid collision. So our plan is to boldly sail to remote places where other boats are rare – the easiest path I can see to complying with these key points of right of way.

Talk about tangents! What I’d intended to describe for my landlover friends when I started that last paragraph, was the complexity of anchoring in La Paz in big winds, added to it’s already complex tidal currents which switch direction about 4 times every 24 hours. At some point during the day this means the strength of the tide is pitted against the strength of the wind, putting Poseidon at odds with Aeol, and wreaking catty-wompus havoc on an otherwise sensible anchoring job. When the tide turns, and both are working together it doubles the force on your recently twisted tackle. We witnessed such a battle of the gods yesterday when a 45’ sailboat dragged anchor at a good clip heading for two 200 foot mega-yachts at dock. Apparently the owner was not on board (having recently rescued a fellow boater who’s hand got caught in the anchor windlass…OUCH). No less than 4 dinghy hero’s jumped to save the day, pushing the floundering vessel to a safer area, untangling it’s anchor from a mass of old line and fenders that had wrapped around his anchor and chain rendering it useless. After most of the excitement passed, the vessel’s owner raced to the scene, took back the helm and headed for a dock, done with anchoring for the day. I think they call it the La Paz Waltz, on a windy day it looked more like the Boogie Woogie, or the Rock Lobster. SL, ever eager to join the dance, did a number of dizzying pirouettes around our chain when she was supposed to be laying nicely downwind of the anchor (yes turning the helm to windward stopped the spinning). Needless to say the temptation of internet and carnivale in town, did not lure us away from the boat for awhile, (that and the fact that the captain was feeling under the weather – big weather at that). A pair of binoculars, a cold beer, and the VHF play by play provided entertainment enough. My own preference is to be a be a spectator at such events. And later the fireworks looked just fine from the bay.

Sorry Land lovers if I gave too much of the wrong kind of detail, so much for attempting to put it in layman’s terms.

Happy Valentines Day! xoxomo