People – Page 6 – Caro Babbo

Babbo, My Father, Dies

16 Shamrock Rd, Rocky Point, NY, 1-JAN-2020 – This past Sunday, December 29th, 2019 at approximately 3:30 am, eastern time, my father, Babbo, died of coronary arrest after suffering a major stroke four weeks earlier.

There was no DNR (do not resuscitate) in place. He was on the Neurology ICU floor at Stony Brook Medical. All attempts to resuscitate him failed.

I had wanted to name our boat the Vincent A, after my dad, but Jennifer didn’t like all the pointy letters. I turned to a dear friend in Milan, Franz Rossi for a name. He suggested Caro Babbo, which is Dear Daddy in Italian. It was a name that fit and one in which he took great pride.

Zingaro makes it to Kona on Hawai’i, damaged. James and Kimi safe.

[Updated] Stony Brook Hospital†, Stony Brook, NY, 27-DEC-2019 – My friends, if I may call them that, James and Kimi on the sailing catamaran Zingaro made it safely to Kona after basically having their boat break up.

I’ve written about their Youtube channel and struck up a long distance friendship with James.

Youtube channels are generally disjointed from the actual goings-on on the vessel. Most channels, including Kimi and James’, are months behind where the boat actually is. On the Zingaro channel, they are still in Central America, while they have been in French Polynesia for a while.

In the last bunch of weeks, they sailed to the Line Islands anchoring at Fanning Island with our friends Merv and Sharon aboard Southern Cross IV.

Two days ago this email arrived:

What broke when, 2019

Stony Brook Medical Center, Stony Brook, Long Island, NY, 15-DEC-2019 – I’m sitting in my Dad’s hospital room.

We’re in the belly of his recovery. The immediate recoveries have slowed. He is able to move is his right thumb and right index finger. If his right arm is supported, he can flex and extend that arm. He can inconsistently move both his legs a bit. Nothing in left arm. He is beginning to swallow a bit, but can still not move his tongue, nor move his eyes right to left.

More devastatingly, he has dropped into depression becoming difficult to engage. When asked if he thinks he will improve, he says No. He can show his emotions in his face and he cries. This morning during rounds when he started to cry his nurse started to cry, as did his doctor. When his doctor recovered she said to me quietly, he can show emotion, that is a good sign.

Locked In

Rocky Point, NY, 5-DEC-2019 – On a nondescript day in March, 1977, my mother drove towards McCarrick’s Dairy, the local convenience store, three blocks away. As she crossed Prince Road a car on her right ran the stop sign pushing her car into a LILCO light pole that was so far into the road way that the paving crew paved on both sides of the pole.

The impact of the car hitting the pole, together with the twisting force of the car on her right, caused her head to hit the “A” pillar between the windshield and the car door. She severed her spinal cord at ‘‘C4’’, the fourth cervical vertebrae. She was a quadriplegic for thirty-one years.

An Unexpected, Unwanted Flight Home

UA334 HNL-LGA, 1-DEC-2019 – It isn’t often I let down my guard. I have an elderly father, Jennifer has children. We travel with satellite communications so that we can always be reached.

But yesterday, because we had spoken to the kids and my dad, who is the Babbo of Caro Babbo, when everything that was in imminent danger of failing on Caro Babbo was repaired, when both VRBO properties had paying guests and all the airline holiday-season tickets had been booked and paid for, we did relax. Continue reading “An Unexpected, Unwanted Flight Home”

Repair stories, #1

Iridium GO, won’t. Yoda saves us.

Ala Wai Small Boat Harbor, Honolulu, Hi, 22-Nov-2019 — For every story of breaking something, there is a story of fixing it. Most repairs on Caro Babbo are solitary endeavors, hopefully carried out on a dock with a reasonably priced chandlery near by. Many are carried out underway, and under pressure. All successful repairs are points of pride.

Landfall Hilo, Hi

We’ve been in radio Bay, Hilo, for a week now. The amount of time it takes to get repairs done and recover from sailing surprises us. Posts, as important as they are to me, and define being productive, cannot be considered critical path, and so they wait.

I also find that I am still, somehow, on Seattle time, so by 7:30 or 8 pm, I am completely beat.

The posts about our journey from Seattle to Hilo will probably not be in chronological order, but instead will be about various topics and jump around in the timeline.

As always, thank you for sticking with us.

Hilo, Hawaii, 25-Oct-2019 – As we dropped the anchor in the middle of Radio Bay, a voice from the shore shouted, ‘‘Caro Babbo, Caro Babbo! ’’

Natalie, Unintended consequences, Law? and someplace everyone has heard of.

Catalina, CA, 26-SEP-2019 — ”I met these two Swedish men on the island who said to me, ‘We’re looking for a woman named Natalie who runs these adventure races,’ ” said the woman that Jennifer and I first saw walking up the winding dirt road from Two Harbors to the cliff overlook where we all stood.

We said to her, ”And that would be you?”

Where we are now and some perspective.

Two weeks ago:

29-AUG-2019 – Today is the first day Jennifer and I are not sea sick and scared. Overcoming being frightened is just a matter of realizing that we can do this. We have trained, practiced and prepared. It is very little different than coastal sailing other than there is no heading in when we’re tired of this.

Other differences of note are a single point of sail (leaving the sails untouched) for more than 24 hours at a time. We’ve gotten used to large rollers with waves atop them, and found that on starless, moonless lights the only orientation one has are the instruments.

So why aren’t we out in the pacific?

Off Point Flattery, 27-AUG-2019 08.11 PT– We set out this morning to lumpy waves in the Strait and are just rounding Cape Flattery via Tatoosh Island.

We may also have realtime tracking at: https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/CaroBabbo

Sorry about the unfinished blog post below. I was working from a tablet keyboard that didn’t like me.

The next 24-hours should be breezy and bumpy and then a predicted nice ride to San Fran.

I’ll spend some time later putting together real post. For the moment, wish us well.

Neah Bay, 23-AUG-2019 — Leaving Monday morning was a bit more rush than planned. I spoke with Frank at 11pm Sunday evening arranging a 6:30 am bridge opening. Jennifer and I got to sleep before midnight. I was up at 5:15 to get coffee started. Jennifer would get up about 5:45, which is plenty of time to leave slip at 6:20 and be ready for the opening.

At 5:30, Frank called to tell me we needed to make a six am opening. Could we make it? The question was rhetorical and disingenuous. If we didn’t take his offer we would need to wait until after rush hour traffic; the bridges don’t operate from 7 until 9 am each work day.

Island Chief, the very large tug that moves gravel barges to and from Lake Washington had a 6 am opening. We should fall in behind her.

I woke Jennifer to tell her the news, and walked over to Harrison’s boatm, Berkley to wake him and tell him the news. Harrison was already awake and on deck.

We had originally planned to leave on the 14th, but Harrison asks us to wait until the 19th to sail with him up to Port Townsend. We never would have made the 14th. We didn’t strap Hilary Hoffmann, our Portland Pudgy, rigged as a life raft, upside down on the foredeck until just before I called Frank.

Before Jennifer and I on Caro Babbo and Harrison and two friends, one asleep, and two dogs aboard Berkeley waiting outside of Lee’s Landing for Island Chief and her barge, we had listened on VHF 13 to the captain of Island Chief speak with Frank at the University Bridge.