November 2010 – Fetch the Horizon

Remember, slower pizza’s more luscious

The pizza took a long time.

This wasn’t unexpected – in fact, we had ordered appetizers to stave off our hunger, though they seemed to do more to whet our appetites than satiate them. I think we all agreed in the end that the results were worth putting up with the extended though minor physical discomfort . But it was more than just the experience of Chicago deep dish pizza(a truly epic creation) that made the wait worthwhile. It was the people I was waiting with that made the simple event one of the highlights of the whole trip.

We had been hanging out all weekend, seeing other old friends and making new ones. The night before we had partied hard at Justin and Danielle’s wedding, dancing with wild abandon and generally having a good time. The spirit of camaraderie, of mutual enjoyment of each others’ company, had been building up to the point when we sat down, hungry for pizza.

It wasn’t that we talked about anything deep and meaningful. We laughed at things on TV, threw stuff at each other, joked around. The conversation was as random and shifting as it was silly, funny, and clever. But that was the best part – that was what kept me grinning like an idiot and laughing until my eyes teared up.

As we did our best to finish off the last of the hearty slices, someone joked that if we didn’t eat it all, the pizza would not be self-actualized. We continued to joke about the term and ponder its proper definition as we struggled with our last filling bites. In the context, we really used it to mean “fulfilling the purpose which something was created for”. To that end, the pizza was generally victorious.

But among us, I felt a different sense of completion. There with my close friends, I experienced a wholeness, a feeling of being where I ought to be. It was Happiness – feeling thrilled just be around them, hardly able to wait to hear the next words to come out of their mouths. It was hard not to feel thankful for them, and for all the other friends and family with whom I’ve shared similar experiences.

Not to mention extra gratitude for the slow pizza that made it all possible : )

Finding Serenity

Meet Serenity, our new (to us) sailboat. She’s a 1984 Hans Christian 38 Traditional Cutter. While she’s 38 feet on deck she’s actually 46 feet overall thanks to the bowsprit and “pushpit” (a small platform at the stern surrounded by a rail). The fact that she’s a cutter means she has two headsails, an inner staysail and an outer jib. Finding her was an adventure in itself, and a bit less serene than one might hope.

First there was the figuring out what we wanted. Age, size, price range, amenities, displacement (weight), type of keel, sea kindliness vs. performance, etc. I read several sailboat cruising guide books for insight; I read numerous websites; and finally we looked at what seemed like a hundred sailboats in the bay area. Our boat viewings ranged from obvious head-smack waste of time, to excitement and near disastrous bad decision. But unequivocally time after time, there was something wrong, that made the boat not right for us. Some were too big, some too small. Some were missing key features, like a decent shower setup, or respectable fuel tank size. One was a old but beautiful wooden boat with rot lurking beneath the surface.

Pretty much every boat we looked at, with the exception, ironically, of the first one, had some major blemishes making it unattractive. Many hadn’t had basic upkeep maintenance, such as bottom paint, interior or exterior varnish, or updated running rigging. Few were what you would call clean, and some were so bad that lockers and refrigerators were downright filthy. Several had half finished installations, which the brokers often billed “it has a brand new XXX,” failing to mention that you’d have to install the new component yourself. There were almost always several obviously broken things, be they cabinet doors, navigation equipment, port lights, or settee seats; and I’m willing to bet that a thorough sea trial and survey would have outted a number of other non-working systems. We never ceased to be amazed at how careless people can be with their boats, or how brazen they can be in trying to sell them in such a decrepit state.



Some of the boats we almost bought.

Gradually our vision of the right boat came in to focus. It would be smaller than we originally thought. It would be slightly more expensive, in the hopes that a little more money would get us a boat in better condition. It would definitely not be wooden, although it would almost certainly have a substantial amount of teak exterior, if not teak decks (I like the classic look). It would have moderate to heavy displacement, favoring sea kindliness over performance. It would have an enclosed aft cabin and v-birth, and sleep 6 including the settees. It would have minimum tank capacity for 80 gallons of water and 60 gallons of fuel. It would have a windlass for raising anchor (manual or electric). It would either have a dodger or be capable of fitting one.

We were on the brink of giving up on the Bay Area, when I decided to go take a look at this Hans Christian over in Sausalito. It hadn’t been on my radar initially because of the slightly out of our range price. And even after we started looking higher I thought the cockpit setup was a bit odd. But aside from that it actually seemed, on paper at least, to meet all of our requirements. I had learned long ago that reality rarely reflects things on paper.

In the end, we fell in love with the boat pretty quickly, and for once, there was no heart dropping discovery that made the boat untenable. She’s the most spacious 38 foot boat we’ve been on. She has an unexpectedly nice interior arrangement, from the galley to the head, to the cabins. She’s exceedingly pretty. She’s decked out in terms of navigational equipment. She’s got new sails, and more than half of the things on board work. Things aren’t all wine and roses of course. I have a to-do list as long as my arm. It includes some major numbers, such as replacing the standing rigging and painting the mast. And there are some systems not working, namely the fresh water pump for the taps. But generally speaking she’s a very solid boat with a lot of years adventure left in her.

I tell you what. You buy this ship, treat her proper; she’ll be with you for the rest of your life.

-Salesman, Firefly, “Out of Gas”

Another thing we noticed along the way was the diversity of attitudes of the brokers. They ranged from used car salesman pushy, to ambivalently unhelpful, to sincerely helpful and honest. I will say that all the brokers seemed to be under attentive to the boats they were selling. I’m not sure if it’s the owner or the broker who’s responsible for this, but if one or the other would spend one day a month tidying up the boat, making sure various onboard systems were in working order, and scheduling routine maintenance on the boat, it would go a long way toward getting the boat sold. Several of the boats we looked at we might well have fallen for if the owner had spend a few thousand dollars fixing things up.

In the end we wound up buying a boat from my least favorite broker, Marotta Yachts of Sausalito. Luckily I had one of the most helpful brokers we interacted with, Bearmark Yachts, representing us as the buyer. Without John Saul of Bearmark Yachts, the deal definitely wouldn’t have gone as smoothly if it had happened at all. Marotta was the most hands off, un-personable establishment we dealt with. Their procedure for showing boats is to leave it open and give you the slip number. While I do appreciate having some time alone to poke around the boat, it’s also nice to have some one to talk to, ask questions of, and get advice from (Passage Yachts and Pacific Imports also scored high in this regard). So when John offered to set up the viewing and come along with us, I really appreciated it.

It was only after that that I discovered the buyer’s broker system, where by, if the buyer has their own broker, the two brokers simply split the commission at no extra cost to the buyer. This worked out perfectly, and John came through again on the sea trial, where the sales person Marotta sent out professed to “not know the first thing about sailboats.” And finally the entire Bearmark Yachts team, from the owner on down, did a great job getting the deal done even with me on a sailing trip to the Channel Islands with very limited connectivity. I think the moral of this is 1) if you want to sell your sailboat, choose your broker carefully, and 2) as a buyer, pick your favorite broker, and have them represent you with whomever you end up buying from.

Stay tuned for our next post where you’ll get to know Serenity a lot better…

Bali Ha’i May Call You

Things I did on Bali: ate at a secret organic restaurant, swam in hot springs-fed pools at a secluded spa, photographed a misty volcanic lake, rode ojek (motorbike) on windy mountain roads in the pouring rain, fell in a rice paddy, and bribed a police officer.

And that was just one day.

At the end of our stay in Indonesia, we managed to fit in six short but busy days on the island of Bali. Even just the name of the island conjures up a hectic barrage of images and expectations: a sublime tropical isle, relaxing on beautiful sunny beaches, world class surf, fancy resorts, and swinging bars and clubs. And from our own experiences so far in Indonesia, we expected cheap local food, limited western cuisine, touristy shopping areas, and the same hot, muggy weather. Additionally, there was an unknown factor – we were overlapping our stay to hang out with Mel, a friend of my stepmom, who was traveling with several friends we had never met before.

The combination of the novel and the expected that we found was just right. The resort in Seminyak was wonderfully luxurious, especially after weeks in homestays and other relatively humble accommodations. There was plenty of shopping to be done, with great finds everywhere, such as the beautiful batik, handmade by locals in the traditional style. Sometimes it a took a little effort to find, but there was good local food all around, with the usual cheap prices. And the music scene in Ubud was first rate, with a variety of genres played live every night by seriously talented bands in multiple cool bars.

Some of the best parts were completely unexpected. There was more western food at the resort’s expansive breakfast than we had seen in the past two months combined, including many things we had been sorely craving. Mel’s clan of Aussies were the best by far, from her partner, Jason, and her sister, Sue, to her friends Toni and Simone. They were up for anything, with plenty of fun plans and ideas, but also willing to be spontaneous and able to keep smiling no matter what craziness got thrown at us. We enjoyed finding good food together, chatted for hours, and danced the nights away as if we had been at it for years.

Of course, there were some not so pleasant surprises as well. The beaches were not much cleaner than others we had seen on Java, and the waves weren’t very impressive either, although we didn’t look very hard for the real surf spots. The expected hot muggy weather was broken up by rain, often ending an afternoon out. We didn’t let that dampen our spirits too much, but the hassling from locals selling things was downright aggravating. The Kuta shopping area and adjacent beach were the worst – in many areas you could barely go ten steps without being set upon by hawkers shoving cheap sunglasses or sarongs in your face. Many shop workers tried to harass you into buying something, often lying to your face and inventing ridiculous stories to go along with their outrageous prices.

Yet despite having a few of the worst experiences, our time on Bali included some of my all time favorite memories of the whole trip. One of the top experiences was our trip on ojek out of Ubud to the volcanic crater lake. The sun was warm overhead but the breeze was refreshingly cool. We cruised slowly along the straight, flat, smooth road past craft shops and terraced rice paddies, with increasingly more impressive views of old volcanic cones, raising their green tops amid a perfect blue sky. The leisurely pace set by our friendly and helpful tour guide allowed us all to enjoy the scenery and for Mel to take plenty of photos. It was the right kind of adventure, just like our time in Bali – a wonderful blend of the expected and unexpected. To put it simply, I was Happy.