Seems like everybody keeping a sail blog does a “numbers” post. You know, miles traveled, money spent, Islands conquered (We totally beat the Maraschky’s)…….
I’m not gonna do one, mainly due to the fact that our chart plotter took a slow shit on us and while it did get replaced under warranty, part of the process to try and fix it involved resetting it back to factory default settings. Unfortunately for me, I forgot to make a back up of my trip log, so I only have a rough guesstimate as to how many miles we have traveled. So doing a numbers post stings a little. I’m not gonna lie, I’m a little pissed about that.
So instead of a numbers post, I’m gonna do a what we have lost and found post.
Since the lost column is longer, I’ll start there.
1) The Plastic cover from our Auto Pilot control box. Lost in Poulsbo. Second day out. Huge gust of wind blew it right out of the cockpit.
2) A white fender. Lost in the Straight of Georgia. Swept overboard.
3) My favorite lock blade knife. Flipped overboard at anchor in Shallow bay on Thurlow Island just before we got to the Broughtons.
4) Fishing reel. Tawn was doing some stunt fishing and the thing popped off the rod and went overboard. Kevin loaned us a spare he had on Andante
5) Seat cushion/flotation device. Went overboard somewhere between San Francisco Bay and Monterey. We don’t really know. It’s just gone.
6) A 7/16 inch socket. Tawn dropped it off the dock here in San Diego. I’ll never forgive her for that.
7) One pair of rusty pliers. I dropped them off the same dock the next day. I now forgive Tawn for dropping the socket.
Now for the plus column. As sad as it is.
1) An odd/old foam spool. Found it on a beach (Shed #4) on the outside of Vancouver Island. I use it for a fishing handline.
2) A fishing reel. We found that we did not return this to Kev at the end of the summer. Thanks Kev!!
3) A sombrero. Found floating it in the water about 3 miles from the coast of Catalina Island.
Ole`
I’ve been told that showing up in Mexico with your own (free range) sombrero is a massive sign of respect and marks you as a seasoned traveler. Not just some sun burnt, gringo tourist. So we totally got that going for us.
Because we don’t have a chart plotter and often have our instruments off, we also have no idea how many miles we have sailed.
Also, now that we have clear warm water dropping something overboard becomes an excuse to swim (if it floats) or practice free diving (if it doesn’t). We lost a kitchen pot overboard in the storm in Rangiroa and after a lot of looking around we actually found it and retrieved it.
And you forgot “some newbie’s anchor” in your found category.
Wow, we never found any clothing accessories, unless you count the bajillions of mismatched flip flops and Crocks we’ve seen on every beach. We’d hoped to find a bag of drug money offshore, but no luck. Oh, and don’t count that fender out as lost yet!
We lost a fender that I was using to buoy the chain off a coral head in the lagoon at Tahanea Atoll. We couldn’t find it, and a few days later we left for a short passage to Fakarava – 50 miles away. We got in to the lagoon at Fakarava and the dinghy from a friend’s boat comes by to say hi after they’d been exploring the outside reef of the motu we anchored off of. And in their dinghy is our fender! They picked it up off the reef and I had to show them the other matching ones to convince them that it was ours. Kind of crazy that it traveled that far and ended up a few hundred feet away from us.
Your welcome for the reel.
Don’t lose the squirrel cup!
Miss you guys and was a tad jealous that you’re crossing the border.
That’s kind of a benchmark. Congrats.
This might be a little obvious, but since you have your Delorme track, you create a guestimate.
Liv: I did not count the Anchor, since we gave/traded it back. I guess I could have counted the beers and wine though.
Aaron: So many flip flops…….
Kev: You should be jealous.
Paul: It’s just not the same! :)