The Half a Fish That Got Away

Or, Actually I've Seen This Before ...

My friend Samantha Ring, whom I sailed with last Saturday, loves to fish. I think she may love to fish more than she loves to sail. The Sea Scout with us also loves to fish. So as soon as we were out in the Gulf of Mexico, Sam put a line over the transom. She rigged a reel to the frame of the Bimini.

I saw the hook. It was huge, and it had no bait. No bait? "It's OK. We have a spoon on it," said the Sea Scout.

Huh? Fish prefer to eat with spoons? Who knew?

I was lying down in the cockpit by the time they got their first hit. The fish got away. The second one did also.

Not the third, however. I was, frankly, too sick to lift my head and look by then, but I heard them whoopin' and hollerin' as they pulled that fish in. "Look at the size! He's HUGE! YAHOOOO!" they yelled.

Just as they were pulling the fish up to the boat, something -- either a small shark or a big barracuda, they're not sure -- jumped up, cut off the bottom two thirds of the fish, and swam away with it. Here's what was left.

As you can see, that was a fairly good-sized fish. The theory among some is that this fish was stolen by a shark because barracuda cuts aren't so jagged. I seem to remember a pretty clean cut when a barracuda stole my fish ...

I was ten. We had just moved to Fort Lauderdale, and my parents, inveterate fishers, were making yet another desperate attempt to turn me, my sister and my brother into fishers also (it never worked). This particular beautiful night, we were on a commercial boat with about 30 people, "drift fishing." They took us out to the Gulf Stream and drifted in it while the kingfish were running. All around me people were pulling fish in just about as fast as the crew could help them. I really didn't care that I hadn't caught any fish. I wasn't wild about kingfish. I was satisfied to be on a boat, so quiet with the engine off, drifting along under that stupendous starlit sky.

The captain, however, was determined that I should catch a fish. He even kept the boat out an extra half an hour hoping I would at least catch one. Just as we were about to give up, I got a strong hit! The crew all ran to me, coached, me, and helped me pull this huge kingfish up to the boat. They got out their gaffe and hooked it (something I thought was absolutely barbaric). Just as they pulled it up, a huge barracuda jumped out of nowhere and sliced that fish off just below the gaffe. The crew sadly pulled the head and gills in, and said, "Well, at least you caught something."

I could have gone the rest of my life without seeing them drive that huge hook into a living animal so casually. I haven't fished since and I frankly cheered for the barracuda, who put the poor beast out of his misery quickly while cleverly getting an easy meal for himself as well.

So I didn't have to look at the fish stolen from Samantha. I'd seen this marine stunt before.

Samantha and the Sea Scout continued the weekend sail after I was taken off the boat, and Sunday night they cooked what was left of their fish on a grill. Everyone there says it was quite delicious, but I'm still rooting for the clever fellow who got the rest of it.

Cleaning Your Boat

     Or, I Didn’t Even Know It Was That Dirty!

Boats get dirtier than houses and apartments do, and faster than other homes do. I’m sorry to tell you this, but it’s true. You don’t climb around on the roof of your house and then walk into your living room with bird poop on the soles of your shoes. I don’t even know where all the dirt comes from, but it particularly gathers right inside the companionway entrance. Boats have many odd cracks and crevices inside, and they seem to come embedded with some kind of dirt magnet.

To reduce your interior cleaning, keep the outside of your boat clean. You might as well have the best cleaner you can for the job, because gelcoat stains easily, and around here, birds seem to find that entertaining. We are soon entering blackbird season here, and that means boat-cleaning season, because blackbirds love to eat some kind of dark berry that does not change color between entering and exiting said blackbird.

And, they love to flock at marinas. I have no idea why, but when I had my first boat at Gulfport Municipal Marina, I was so excited. I was going to scrub it, and then wax it, a two-day job. So I scrubbed that boat and got every bit of bird poop off. I came back the next day with the wax – but went back to scrubbing. There wasn’t any time to do any waxing by the time I was done. The same thing happened the third and fourth day.

The fifth day, I came back with a couple of tarps from Wal-Mart, and I tarped that boat. Bird poop comes off the aluminum side of a tarp with a hose, much much more easily than it comes off a boat’s surface. Within a week, five boats in the marina were similarly tarped.

Where I am now, we aren’t mobbed by blackbirds – thank goodness! But the boat still needs to be cleaned often. A friend recommended Barkeeper’s Friend, a non-abrasive powder that does an excellent job of getting stains, including rust, off the surface of a boat. Sometimes you have to use it several times, but if you keep coming back to it, you’re going to get all the stains out. It will also clean anything else on the boat. Barkeeper’s Friend is very cheap and a little goes a long way.

Barkeeper’s Friend has now come out with a new product, in a spray bottle. The liquid is very thick, and as with the powder, a little goes a long way. I found the old liquid Barkeeper’s Friend unsatisfactory, but this new spray, with a spray nozzle and the word “MORE” across its front, is outstanding.

 I used it on the PfiferTex netting around my cockpit, scrubbing both sides with a stiff brush and rinsing thoroughly with a hose, and it came out looking brand-new. It also gets green algae out of fabric (it was appearing on the zippers and in the Sunbrella Bimini). Always test in an inconspicuous place first, but I’ve never found it to fade or stain anything.

Get yourself some Barkeeper’s Friend, both the powder (which is not in a waterproof can) and the spray. You’ll find that you use it for many tasks.

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Living On Your Boat Part Time

Living on one's boat isn't going to be most people's cup of tea. Limited space for clothes, no space for an ironing board, and no washer/dryer make simple tasks like dressing for work complicated. Mundane things have to be planned carefully, especially if your boat is on the hook.

And yet ... it can be so wonderful.

I got an 8 X 10 tarp (heavy duty) at Wal-Mart. I tied one end to the ends of my traveler, and I tie/bungee the other end to the Bimini frame. The sides hang down enough to keep all rain out of the great majority of the cockpit. It reminds me of tent-camping.

The night before last, my cat and I sat at the edge of the tarp, watching the rain fall, watching the storm clouds form and move on to be replaced by other storm clouds. The lightning displays were awe-inspiring. It was peaceful and cozy. I do have a fan under the tarp with us, so it doesn't get too stuffy.

It was a delightful experience, but only worth the trouble if you're going to spend the night on the boat. And to top it off, now I have another option for people to sleep on my boat on a trip, because I tried it -- I stayed dry. I folded up the edge of the tarp so the the fold went to the outside, and it channeled ALL the water ... to the scuppers. It's just a matter of having the right sized tarp for your boat.

If I hadn't moved aboard my boat, I never would have had seen the extended and phenomenal experience of bioluminescence in the water. Bioluminescence occurs when small algae that glow in the dark rapidly explode in numbers. I don't think marine scientists know why it happens, but it only happens occasionally in Boca Ciega Bay. In the little place I stayed, Pasadena Marina, the algae exploded into a fantastic bloom during the summer of 2102. When the water is disturbed, the algae get agitated and glow a beautiful, deep, neon aqua that can only seen to be believed.

This bloom started in early August and lasted well into October. At its peak, when you looked at little white caps on the water at noon, you could actually see the phenomenon. Water can sparkle in the sunlight, but this was like sparkling liquid diamonds. At night, you could jump into the water, and make "angels in the snow," only it was "angels in the algae." These algae have no harmful effects on humans, but don't jump into a marina to do this. Marina water isn't always the cleanest, and in addition, the most vicious shark on the planet, the bull shark, seems to like to hang around docks. So don't take foolish risks -- take your boat out of the marina, anchor, and give it a try.

ALWAYS leave one person on the boat, and make absolutely certain you have a good, long ladder so people will have no trouble getting back aboard.

Stay anchored out for the night. Spend a night or two on your boat.

At night it can be tricky to know whether your anchor is dragging or not, so here's an easy trick: use your MOB (Man Overboard) button to mark where you set the anchor. That will give you an easy reference for how far you might have dragged. Most chart plotters also have anchor alarms, but test it to make sure you can hear it.

I tried to photograph the bioluminescence and failed miserably, so here's a site where you can see this amazing sea event. Critters glowing below you; incredible displays of stars above you, not washed out by civilization's lights -- it just doesn't get much better than that.

Try this site to get some idea of what bioluminescence looks like:

http://biobay.com/

The bioluminescence isn't usually that intense in the St. Pete area, but it was in the southern end, at least, of Boca Ciega Bay, last summer. You'll never know the wonders you miss if you never spend the night on your boat.

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A (Different) Dolphin's Tail

 

May 6, 2013

      Dolphins sleep with one eye open.

I wish this had happened to me, but these people belong to my sailing club, and if I claim it as my story, I’m gonna be busted.

They lived aboard their sailboat in the same marina as me, two slips down. They report that one morning about 4AM they were awakened by a loud sound reverberating through the hull of their boat. For those of you who haven’t slept on a sailboat, if you flipped it upside down and took the keel off, it would be shaped somewhat like a bell. Things that bump into the hull make magnified sound. So when their hull rang like a bell, he grabbed a flashlight and got up to see what was going on.

What he found was a group of dolphins hunting sheepshead. Sheepshead are fish with hard beaks for mouths. They hang around in marinas and eat the barnacles that grow on the seawalls and the pilings. So what happened?

His boat was in a dolphin’s way, so when the dolphin needed the boat to out of his way, he just whapped the boat with his tail! Those dolphins are very strong, and the boat moved.

The dolphin hunted in the marina for several nights before moving on.

That is the biggest noise I’ve heard of animals making on boat hulls … but not the only one. The first marina I lived in was salt water. When I went to sleep in the v berth (the bow of the boat) in the summer, I could hear faint clicking sounds -- little shrimp eating the algae off the hull. Thanks, guys! Then I moved my boat to a marina in a river six miles from the Gulf. Now I frequently hear louder clicking, day and night. That sound is crabs – eating the algae off the hull. Thanks again, guys!

What is it Like to Live Aboard?

April 24, 2013

     "At sea, I learned how little a person needs, not how much."

Robin Lee Graham

I have imagined living in a small, moveable space most of my life. When I was eight I was fascinated by Flash Gordon’s rocket ship. With my dad’s help, I designed a rocket ship to be made out of wood. I wanted to build it in the back yard and live in it, in the back yard. In my heart of hearts I knew it couldn’t fly into outer space and land on the Moon, but a child’s imagination is a wonderful thing.

Then, when our children were 5 and 8 we rented an RV that wasn’t really all that big, and traveled throughout the Southeast for two weeks. It was the best vacation we ever had, and a completely minimalist life style: 4 forks, 4 spoons, 4 knives, 4 plates, etc., and 5 days of clothes for each of us. A two-burner stove, and I had no trouble producing good meals. In fact, we ate out only once. That RV experience showed me that I could live happily with minimal belongings and space. It won’t be right for everyone, but the simplicity appealed to me.

But now to the realities of choosing a sailboat. Your bathroom, the “head,” is so narrow that you can go in to use the toilet, or the “head within the head,”  and bruise both elbows on the two walls (pardon me – bulkheads – what – another ‘head?’) at the same time.

As it happens, I had a rough winter aboard this year. I had bacterial bronchitis, an inner ear infection that caused enough dizziness that I had to go to a motel for a couple of days, smoke inhalation that caused various kinds of chaos, then viral bronchitis, and finally a badly sprained shoulder. I didn’t get much sailing in. But living on the boat, I always felt the promise of sailing. I still felt the boat sway in the slip in the wind (in fact, I deliberately tie my boat up so it will sway).

Living on a sailboat, the problem-solving is constant, but usually, fun -- not annoying.

I live immersed in nature. While docked in salt water, I heard tiny shrimp eating algae off the side of my boat at night. Now in slightly brackish water, I hear little crabs eating the algae off day and night. When the very reliable bottom cleaner comes and cleans my hull, I miss sound of the crabs. I spent one summer in a marina that was swarming with bioluminescent algae. It was breathtakingly beautiful, and at one point, the algae were so prevalent that you could see them sparkling like diamonds at noontime on the tops of small waves. It was more intense than the normal “sparkle” you can see on water all the time.The manatee would come in six or eight at a time to drink from the fresh water spring at the end of the marina. Dolphin came in to corner fish and feast on them.

On the downside, I am constantly looking for things that have been stored in the wrong place. That’s because storage space is so precious that sometimes strange combinations of things have to be stored together. When I cruise with others on my boat, I put an empty plastic box in the middle of the cabin and tell people to just put things they use – everything they use – in that box. I need those things to go back where I keep them. Do you have labels on every cabinet and closet in your house (I mean on the outside)? I doubt it. But because of the storage problems mentioned above, it helps me tremendously. My P-Touch is one of my most-used gadgets. When I was researching this life change, I came across an article that said something like, “When living on a sailboat, you have to move two boxes and a body to get a cookie.” There’s truth in that.

I have to have a system for keeping things on the shelves that line the settees in case we should heel over strongly.  On one side I made panels that snap down and keep things from flying extremely well. On the other side I have a panel of netting I can stretch across the shelves that serves the same purpose.

I find living on a boat invigorating. The first time a storm was approaching, I went above decks and methodically secured everything, and had a great feeling of accomplishment knowing I had prepared the boat well.

But most of all, living on the boat makes the promise of adventure ever-present, concrete, and real. How many 67-year-old women can say that?

I doubt I’ll leave the marina I’m in now except to move back to land, which, I suppose, is inevitable some day. There are obvious potential risks to an older woman living alone on a boat, but this marina is a gated community. Only people who are on my dock have the code for the gate to my dock. I know someone who was murdered recently in his trailer park. A couple of days ago, a couple was murdered on their houseboat in an unsecured marina. Terrible things happen everywhere, but I feel safe here.

I thought there would be less housekeeping to do, since it was a smaller space, but a sailboat’s smaller space has many nooks and crannies that are awkward to get into and hard to clean.  For instance, suppose the task is to clean the head (and the head in the head and the bulkheads lining it). Cleaning the head can be a full body workout. You gather up your supplies: you’re going to need a tooth brush, and Q-tips to get into some spaces -- and get on to your hands and knees (get some knee pads). You squat down, contort yourself down onto your hands and knees in the VERY small space in front of the head ... and then you realize you left your favorite cleaner outside. So you back out into the 14” square space in front of the head, climb back off your knees, turn around, bend over and grab the cleaner. You reverse all that and get back to work. You've done five minutes of exercises and you haven't cleaned a square inch yet.

The cleaning supplies have to be stored in several places to use your storage as well as possible, and you’re careful to return them so you can find them when you have to do it all again. 

Then there’s the entire outside of the boat to maintain, plus all the mechanical elements. It’s complicated. You screw up while changing the oil, and you’re going to spray used engine oil all over your living room (I haven't done that yet -- just the image of it in my brain makes me very, very careful!)

But overriding all of the bothers is the promise of adventure. If I choose, I can just throw off the lines and take off, and I have done that. Or I can sail with friends, and I’ve done that too. On every single trip out, whether it was for an hour or for four days, I’ve learned something  that excited and energized me. I’m physically stronger than I was 20 years ago.

LESSON LEARNED: The things that kept me down this winter were not really related to age, nor to living on a boat. They were the same things that have followed me for years (well, except for the smoke inhalation -- that isn't about sailing, but I'll have to tell that story one day!) I never get through winter without a bout of bronchitis, for instance (and no, I don't smoke), and the shoulder injury was my own fault – and completely avoidable (see the blog entry about anchoring safely). That injury might have healed a little faster 30 years ago but it’s still just a bump in the road. I've made the right lifestyle choice for me, and I feel blessed.