Blogging – Page 6 – Caro Babbo

Summer 2022 prep starts NOW.

30-MAR-2022, Phoenix Arizona, USA – The preparation and crush to prepare for this summer sailing starts. It is no different than last year. The amount of work I expect that will need to be done before Caro Babbo can go in the water is much less than last year. But the number of non-boating tasks and leisure things that we are trying to get done before I fly to Alaska is an order of magnitude larger.

I get voted off the island, twice

This is the last post of my time with James Everson on Zingaro. The series starts here.

Port Townsend Washington, 10 February 2020 – “I’m flying out tomorrow. You can stay on if you’d like…” There were a number of sentences that followed, but that’s the only one that really matters.

The Greeks, or someone like that, said start a story in the middle and then work out to the edges. Instead, let me start with where we left off, and work to the end.

Stuck in Aruba with the busted boat blues again

Paardenbaai, Aruba, 4-FEB-2022 – Yes, I’m still here.

There is a frustration with blogging in a world that is changing. If I can get the words down in a specific moment in time, then I can edit them at my leisure. I didn’t get this written last night when the world was at a momentary stasis.

That moment passed and by this morning things changed.

Congress Pressures Social Media Companies, James suffers; I feel like we’re stapled to the dock.

Renaissance Marina, Aruba, 28-JAN-2022 – There is an invasion of thoughts and observations as I’ve sat here on a dock for two weeks. The cross-cultural jump feels tectonic, like the two plates of the earth that are my life and experience shearing against each other and moving me to this Neverland.
If you stay with me for this, I’ll try to build the three-dimensional terrain that I find myself parachuted into.

Waiting for parts in Exotic Locations

Renaissance Marina, Aruba, 20-Jan-2022 – The parts were in Miami last we heard. From there they should have gone onto a ship and then come to Aruba. Directly? We don’t know. How many stops along the way? We don’t know. How long might the parts sit in customs? We don’t know.

I’m on an Oyster 485-03: a 48.5 ft British-made boat, built in 1993 in Wroxham, Norwich, Norfolk, UK.*

Some background: The owner of the boat is James Evenson who I have known virtually for five years and in person the last two years. After the literal breakup of the catamaran Zingaro, James with the help of his Patreons and through a Kickstarter campaign purchased this boat in Curaçao.

Other people’s boats

SEATAC, 17-JAN-2022 – I was speaking to John Riley not too many weeks ago. I was telling John that being away from my boat meant that I don’t have much to write about. John said, write about other people’s boats.

And so I shall.

Communing with the dead: reflections from a landlocked sailor

Port Townsend, Washington, 14 December 2021 – It’s only been three months since we left Caro Babbo at Northern Enterprises in Homer, Alaska. They have been a long three months.

In those months, Jennifer and I flew from Homer directly to Berlin, Germany; I sailed a boat from Port Angeles to Oakland; I worked on my house in Atlanta and hosted a dinner for six; I made a new friend or two and collated and scanned the first of the dozen or two boxes of papers and photographs from my parents’ house.

The first box contained more than 1000 photographs, the majority from the 1920s through the 1940s. Until we get into the 1950s, everyone in any of those photographs has passed; I knew almost every one of those people. By the time we get to the 1950s and 60s my cousins and I are being born. For the most part, we are now older than that aged population whose lives I see progress through the decades of photographs as the pictures enter the 60s.

Dancing with somebody new…

Port Townsend, WA, 30-OCT-2021 – Should I be careful about what I wish for? Should we all?

Bluewater sailing: having the expertise and being known for it. That’s what I wanted, and perhaps, possibly, because I write about it, I am becoming known for it. Do I have that expertise? Well, that’s a different question.

Caro Babbo Sleeps

Mitte, Berlin, German, 13-SEP-2021 – The return to Homer was smooth and uneventful. We sailed when we could, three times, perhaps. Each time Caro Babbo coming into her own, sailing faster than I remember, reaching hull speed easily. This may be because we were in fairly protected waters each time, but most likely we had current helping us.

For the entire trip, we saw only three other sailboats. The first was a marina-mate from Ko’Olina marina on Oahu. Yes, it is a small world.

The reason we anchored here was to escape the wind

Home Cove, AK, 28-Aug-2021 — There was no wind blasting with fury last night. There were gusts into the high teens, I would guess. The anchor swing traced on the tablet was smooth and might have indicated that we dragged some, but perhaps that was just straightening out the chain or the 10% stretch of the nylon rode tracing a lengthening and shortening arc.

Continue reading “The reason we anchored here was to escape the wind”