So excited I finally get to see the boat, even though it’s on the hard. Hey beggars can’t be choosers, right.
We flew out of Sac on a red eye and arrived in Jacksonville early morning. The plane sucked because the seats wouldn’t recline back very much. The era of sardine can travel at its best. Go American Airlines! Anyhow we’re getting off track. We then stood in an excruciating slow rental car line. Can we just get to the boat, I can hardly stand the wait.
And we’re off, just another hour and I can see what I have committed to live on for who knows how long. The reality is setting in. We get to the boat yard and meander through the boats. So many catamarans, wow, but where’s mine? We walk and walk and get almost to the end of the yard where I can see what I suspect is my home peaking out to say hello. I just look at her and how big she is and how pretty she is and realize she’s mine, well ours to be exact. But you know what I mean.
A thousand things go through my mind. How are we getting on her? Will Asrai like it? Asrai is our soon to be sailing cat. Boy it’s hot and I’m sweating to death. Did I make the right decision? Can I handle the heat? The couple who had the boat before couldn’t handle the heat. We finally get to the stern of the boat (that’s sailor speak for the rear or back of the boat) and find the swim ladder is down. Aha, a way to get on our boat has been provided. Apparently the bungee cord holding the ladder up had snapped. While Brian doesn’t like the idea of using the swim ladder, and putting that much force on it out of water, well, it’s hot and the yard is huge, and if we don’t use the swim ladder it means going hunting for a ladder. Alas the swim ladder is it!
Finally aboard. I’m so excited I can hardly contain myself. I want to rip open every cupboard, look under every cushion, inspect every nook and cranny I can. Boy is it hot. I am drenched in sweat. What have I done? Brian of course wants to show me everything that he has seen. After he shows me the outside area it’s finally time to go in. The door opens and so far so good, it’s not a moldy mess. It’s HOT. Did I say HOT? Close the door he says, because the wasps are trying to get in and we need to keep the humidity down. HOT, no ventilation, no breeze, I’m dying. But I need to get to the bilge and see that it’s not filled with water from the rain. I kept worrying that our boat was going to be under water because Brian sealed her up to keep the wasps and bugs out. Wahoo, dry bilges, I can sleep again.
I let Brian show me around, the owners suite, what’s under the floor boards. I don’t get very far before I have to go back outside because I am overheating. I open the slider step out into the cool 90 degree humid air and rest. What have I got myself into? I didn’t even last 10 minutes. Off I go inside for another look around. I pull open drawers, peek into the floor boards, check out the bathrooms, look through anything I can. By that time I’m hungry, hot, and tired from the red eye. We decide to call it a day and start early tomorrow to start cleaning and polishing the stainless and anything else we can take care of this trip. Yes, car A/C, what have I done??
Fast forward, it’s maintenance day. Back to the yard and the heat. I’m wondering how long I will last. We grab a bucket and head to the dock for some water. Haul it back to the boat. Climb aboard and start poking around. Oh what to do first. I find some polish wax stuff and decide to start attacking the rust spots. It’s around bolts and edges of things everywhere. I start at the helm, it’s a good place as any and it’s not inside where it’s 500 degrees.
Hum, the sky is getting cloudy and I think it’s about to rain. Yes, my first sailor shower. And does it rain. We had about 15min torrential downpour where I grabbed the brush and was able to scrub most of the deck off. Not to mention being soaking wet felt so good! Then as quick as it appeared the rain was gone, back to blue sky and back to polishing stuff.
I went around the cockpit area and then decided it had dried enough on deck that I could start on the hardware out there. I needed to do all the lifelines and stanchions but there was so much I decided to do this little line guide. I squatted down, proceeded to wet my rag with polish, and started polishing the inner stainless when all of a sudden the lifelines crackled and flapped wildly as electricity flowed past at the same time as a loud crack sounded. I fell backwards with a violent shake. I was stunned. I was less than a foot away from the lines. I jumped up and ran into the saloon. Wide eyed I yelled to Brian we’ve been hit, we’ve been hit. Brian ran up from the hull and sees me all freaked out. I relayed my near death experience to him. He just listened calmly and didn’t really believe that we had been hit. He wasn’t there, he didn’t see, I did.
At that moment I felt very afraid. I didn’t want to go outside. I didn’t want to touch the metal. How can this be happening? My carefree sailor shower experience from earlier all of a sudden shedded the danger that was lurking. I hadn’t even given it a thought. It wasn’t raining. The strike came before the rain. Now all I could think was how close I was to death. If I had decided to polish the lifelines first, would I be writing this? I felt deflated, all the joy I felt had been replaced with fear and uncertainty. What about the electronics? Did they get fried? The batteries were disconnected. Nothing had power. But still who knows. I don’t know much about electronics or electricity. Brian seemed to think nothing happened, that we would have smelled fried electronics or seen some evidence. I’m not so sure.
The rain then started and I just stayed inside. I decided to poke around inside until the rain passed. After contemplating back and forth I finally opened the saloon door and stepped outside. Do I dare clean any metal? The rain is gone, I can see blue sky and scattered clouds. Is it safe now? I don’t know. Slowly I started polishing little bits here and there eventually ended with the lifelines later when the sky was blue. What a day, I’m still pissed that it jaded my experience with the boat. It really made me realize that this isn’t Disneyland and you have to really think about what you’re doing and when you’re doing it.
[Fast forward to July 2019, when Brian went to pick it up and bring it down to Ft Lauderdale where we were now living: all of the navigation electronics were dead, including chart plotter, AIS, VHF and auto pilot. Lightning it was. Our first of many trips to Just Catamarans!]
