29
29ON WATCHmay 2018cruisingworld.combringing a new set of 18-volt portable
power tools for this circ. These are useful
aboard our vessel and our friends’ boats,
plus we can use them ashore helping the
locals. (A major reason that we cruise
internationally is to become part of the
fabric of the society in countries often
disparaged by the fearful and ignorant.)
Is it possible to separate philosophy
from sailing? Perhaps. Desirable? I think
not. On the eve of our fourth circum-
navigation, I realize more than ever that
my incessant chasing of the horizon is
steeped in my deep-seated desire to con-
tinuously self-educate. World cruising
has opened my eyes to many realities I
didn’t even know existed, and now my
eyes can’t be shut. Sailing has ruined me.
I can never return to my Midwestern
roots; never put the red, white and blue
blinders back on. My culture, the moral
world I grew up in, is just one of many.
After a lifetime of travel, I am only sure
of this: Every culture in the world has
something to teach me if I am but will-
ing to learn.
One marine industry advance that I’m
extremely positive about is sailmaking.
Properly built Dacron sails are amaz-
ingly robust. We’re careful about chafe
with ours. We purchased a new full-bat-
ten mizzen in Cape Town, South Africa,
and just took it off in the Caribbean to
sew patches on all the dirty spots where it
touches the spreaders and shrouds while
sailing off the wind in the trades.
And speaking of sails, perhaps my
wife, Carolyn, and I, at 66, know a tad
more about ourselves than we did as
18-year-olds aboard our 22-foot Corina.
We carry two spinnakers, but merely
as trophies from our youth. On our last
circumnavigation, we hoisted one once in
the middle of a 38-day passage, looked at
it for a couple of minutes, took it down,
huffed and puffed re-stowing it and then
both took extra long naps. Our racing
days are over. All we want to do now is
race into each other’s arms.
One electronic bit that Carolyn loves
is her iPad, loaded with offl ine Wikipedia
text. This has allowed her to win our
past 20,000 arguments. Damn, it is ego-
bruising to marry a smart woman!
Counterfeiting — not money, but
high-end products — is an increasing
problem for the cruising sailor. For
example, the diesel lube oil in India is
delightfully cheap but not terribly ef-
fective. So, I paid more than twice the
stateside price for high-quality 15-40
Shell-branded lubricant and was carefulto inspect the seals on each container.
Imagine my disgust in the Maldives when
I went to change my oil and discovered
sand, rocks and thin oil in the perfect
but fake plastic jugs! Duracell batteries
are also widely counterfeited. The prob-
lem isn’t merely that the fakes don’t hold
a charge for long; they leak acid all over
the electronics. (To its credit, Duracell is
extremely proactive about getting these
defective products off the market.)
And lastly, I’ve made sure our four
debit cards, issued in four countries, to
four different addresses, are all up to
date. And I’ve made certain they can be
accessed from foreign shores without a
mobile code from a cellphone number we
no longer have access to. Cyber two-step
verifi cation is a total bummer offshore.
The good news is that the wind is still
free. And my Monitor windvane has
50,000 ocean miles on it and is in perfect
shape despite the fact my only preven-
t ive maintenance has been to allow it to
be rained on with fresh water. If that isn’t
good value, I have no idea what is.Fatty and Carolyn should be midway across
the Pacifi c by the time this issue of CW is
delivered, and continuously practicing what
they preach.The Stowable SUP
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