Reflections on our Pacific Adventure
“How was it?” and “How did school go?” are the two questions I’m asked most often about our time away. I’ll tell you: “It” was great. School was fine, and the easier of the two questions to answer. I wondered about school too when we first started planning our trip but soon realized that it was just another thing to plan for. Once we established a routine and expectations it just was something that happened whenever we weren’t on passage or off on some other adventure that day. School was a task similar to keeping the water maker going. Some days it needed more attention than others but it worked well our entire trip with a few expected hiccups.
I can expand on the “it” of our trip, I’ll turn it into three categories all that may help others planning to leave or our future selves should we ever be so lucky. Before we left I was messaging with our friends on s/v Impossible who had been through French Polynesia recently and at the time were still headed west. They’ve been officially home in Bellingham for almost a month now. I sent Sheena a list of questions that ranged from what kind of shoes they wore, how the coffee was, what sort of snacks were most craved, and what the most used resources were. She gave me lots of good ideas and tips, maybe the most valuable was to bring all the coffee! Below is my version of what I had asked them for, some of their tips included. Most of this will be irrelevant to non-cruising sailors, y’all can just skip to the very bottom.
Things that die faster than you can imagine in the tropics:
Anything in that encounters sun or reflections of the sun.
Foods that came from cooler climates that might hold weevils. Most dry goods we brought with us lived in the freezer for at least 3 days before vacuum bagging but a few things missed that step and hatched weevils. A bag of cornmeal that had been in use at home for a while was full of weevils a few months in, ewww.
Bottom paint. Topsides paint. Deck paint. Just all paint…
Nubbins on tools-those things that hold the socket onto the driver or adaptor, know what I mean? They need to pop out to hold the socket in place, when they rust they don’t work and anything you connect may depart for unknown places when you least expect it.
Anchor chain and any associated distance markers. Most of our colored webbing lasted except the 50’ and 75’ markers but it all looked like the same color by 6 months in.
Sails, especially laminated types.
Anything steel that’s not the highest grade stainless or diligently kept rust free- tools, kitchen utensils, boat parts galore. I polished the rust off our stanchion bases 4 times while down there.In the Pacific NW it barely needs it every two years.
Charging cords of all kinds.
Phones, especially when bounced into deep or shark infested water. I’m grateful for through-case charging as the charging ports also can be problematic.
Shoes. Some of our shoes did not handle the heat well. Soles separated, toes wore through in the heat, and everything gets wet.
Cushions that get smeared with sunscreen and more.
Caulking around windows. The constant 90-100 degree heat was too much for the Sikaflex installed in the upper 60s and a few of our larger windows developed small leaks.
Things we wish we brought with us:
Bottom cleaning scrapers- the wider the metal blade the better.
A way to breathe while cleaning the bottom- scuba or maybe better is a tankless dive system like Hookah.
More strainer baskets for pre filters- the stainless mesh baskets that last for years in the Pacific NW lasted a few months in the tropics.
Enough beverages to share with friends.
More easy lunches and snacks that don’t need heat to prepare.
Even more canned or frozen protein… or maybe even protein powder?
The easiest way to do laundry possible- I would have given up a hanging locker for the simplest washing machine.
More wood plug fishing lures.
Spare parts for everything imaginable. We didn’t have to use all that many but also were missing some key replacements.
Better eyeglasses- my nearsightedness degraded more than I expected and my one pair of cheap progressive lenses became my default. I wished I had a better pair! Contacts still worked for swimming as long as I didn’t need to see anything too close to me.
Things we’re glad we had:
Washable rags of all sorts. We didn’t use paper towels because garbage is hard to get rid of and stinky.
The paella pan was great for beach meals and festivities with fellow cruisers. Easy to add whatever everyone else brought to the meal and a fun event.
Paddle boards and kayak paddles- standing up in less protected anchorages is tough, especially with sea legs! Good to have more than one dinghy and way off or back to the boat.
Dehydrated veggies and fruits.
Extra laundry bags/buckets.
Additional portable solar panels to maximize energy gathered on those short days.
Our awesome water maker and most of it’s spare parts.
Sprout growing lids for mason jars and a variety of sprouts for greens.
Yogurt starter packets and lots of powdered milk.
A fruit drying rack passed off from fellow cruiser we met on our way out of town in Port Townsend.
No Foreign Land app for learning about people, their boats, resources available, and places.
WhatsApp cruising groups for meeting other families and kid boats.
Lots of reading materials- books can be traded!
Adequate ventilation- big hatches facing forward and aft. CLIP ON FANS that charge w/ USB that you can have with you anywhere at all times.
320 feet of chain- even a boat with a shallower draft would benefit.
Snap on shade panels for dodger windows and shading in the cockpit.
Wildlife ID books- mammals, birds, invertebrates, and fish. Griffin studied a shark book for hours and hours.
The solar oven, because one would NEVER choose to turn on a device that would add to the heat. I should have gotten the larger one.
Things that broke or failed:
Bilge pump for the sail locker- we missed that it lacked a vented loop and likely siphoned in a hot tub’s worth of water twice on our way down to the Marquesas. When water in the cockpit is running forward instead of aft, there’s a problem.
Dent/hole in the boom- didn’t ease the mainsheet enough when reefing and strop on the tack crushed a corner of the boom
Clutch for jib halyard was replaced in San Francisco.
Alternator wasn’t doing what it was supposed to (Greg’s department, ask him for more details)
Victron power supply- our first starlink stopped working because it wasn’t getting constant 12v power supply it was supposed to. (also Greg’s department)
Windlass motor- after it got submerged a few times it decided to only do what it wanted when it wanted and that didn’t usually line up with what I wanted.
Fridge and freezer temperature probes.
Propane stove integrated lighter was finicky then stopped but started working again after the replacement also didn’t work.
Water maker filter housing- we had all sorts of spare parts for the water maker but not a big old filter housing so of course one developed a crack that leaked. A friend gave us a spare until guests brought another.
Seal around sail locker deck hatch leaked too much at sea, replaced with spare on board.
Water maker pumps and heads both replaced, might not have been necessary.
Lip seal for shifting arm on the transmission- failed and let all the oil out.
Shaft seal vent threads overheating caused a small leak and needed gentile handling and lots of good luck. Adequate water flow and venting in the shaft tube was challenged due to bountiful wildlife growth and a tough location to clean.
Our tired jib had delaminated spots that became bigger and bigger.
The also very tired main ripped below the third reef on the leech when it wasn’t eased enough while making adjustments.
The masthead wind instrument stopped communicating and we couldn’t use the autopilot to steer to wind.
Window caulking leaked on two windows.
A solar panel on the dodger roof achieved lift off followed by a water landing then sinking.
The line that the swim platform hangs on was replaced twice, both times before it actually broke.
Key in the ignition was bent and cracked from either the bench lid hitting it or us leaning on it.
The jib furling line was replaced 2 or 3 times.
Bearings in the steering pedestals are on their last legs.
Build up of scale in the black water lines after a year made the joker valves nearly ineffective and flushing barely worked despite doing muriatic acid soaks regularly. I understand using fresh water to flush now, that’s not a project I want to do as often as it needs to be done.
The remote switch failed for one water maker pump and was always on, better than off! We just turned it off at the breaker.
I’m sure there are more things to put on each of those lists but this post has been sitting around long enough, time to get it off the to-do list because soon we’re finally hauling out the boat, hooray! I can’t wait to be laboring and messy in the boatyard. We’re not planning on being out too long, the to-do list is just bottom paint, pulling the shaft, replacing the shaft seal and other Greg’s department parts, installing the new damper plate (so also pulling the tranny), and cleaning and buffing the hull. New sails will be ordered soon, just need to work a bit longer to be able to pay for them then we’ll get to go out sailing and I’ll be content again.
Meanwhile, in between getting used to city life, work, and school, we’ve taken the boat out a few times. The best trip was a freshwater and waiting for the locks adventure with lots of family on board that was quite different. How odd to be on board Rocket Science in the fresh water canals and bays in the city instead of the wide open ocean! We managed not to run over any paddle boarders and only got a little milfoil wrapped around our rudders and keel.
Rocky gets at least a weekly visit to run the water maker and check on things, it’s fun to be there and see our wall of art, boat cards, and memories from our time on board. We stay in touch with many friends we met during our travels, some are West of Australia now, lots are in New Zealand or on their way there, others are back home in the Netherlands, and some as close as Sydney, BC. All of them are the best parts of our trip and what I miss the most.
To end this post, a reminder to our future selves and any readers that need it: as Al Hughes told us many times when he saw us coming and going from the boat that there’s not much you can do at home that you can’t do out there adventuring. “What, you’re not gone yet? Leave already, you’re late!”
