Croatia: Finally on the boat!

We arrived in Split, Croatia, at 4am on July 20th and promptly went to sleep on a bench outside the bus depot, now that we are old hands at public sleeping. Once busses starting running, we headed for the marina at Kastela, only 20 minutes or so away. It is named after castles that are all along this part of the coast, built by the Turks when they controlled this part of the world.

We arrived at the boat, which is “on the dry” at the moment, to friendly hellos and hugs and finally getting to put faces to names. Celia, Dylan and Fanfaron DO exist! Their friends Ger and Nuria, from Argentina, have joined the crew for the trip to South America, as well.

Celia, getting the fridge working for the impending journey. I can't wait. I haven't had easy access to a fridge for almost a month, which definitely makes you more creative with your shopping and cooking but makes you dream about things like really cold oranges. And ice cubes.

Dylan playing Lego on the boat. Nelson helped him draw up the plans for this house he's making.

Ger and Nuria. It’s great because the languages of the boat are Spanish and English, so we are all improving our language skills.

Besides all translating between English and Spanish, we are also at times translating between British English (Celia is from the UK) and Canadian English. The boat is aluminium, which is pretty funny because it is one of those words that Brits and Canucks say differently, so all day it’s “you say alu-MIN-ium , we say al-OO-min-um”

Dylan and I, reading a book about polar bears. I do miss snow!

Nelson, reporting live for the CBC from the marina restaurant.

Nuria playing under the table.

The plan is to get back in the water as close to the end of the month as possible, so we got right to work on the underside of the boat. We got to play with power tools, which is always fun!

How Eurohot is that?
Two days, zinging arms and dozens of sanding disks later, the keel is bare and ready to be epoxied! I am learning a lot.

We are also getting things prepared inside the boat. Ger and I put some much-needed brighter paint in our bedrooms. The previous owners were big fans of grey and black which makes the boat a little dreary.

Here I am learning about the 'stern tube' and how to adjust its compression properly. This is one of 11 places where water can come into the boat, so it is important to be familiar with it.

Inside the keel box.

Inside the keel box.

It is hot, hot, HOT in Croatia! I know that many places in Canada and the UK are having really cold summers but there is a heatwave happening here. It is over 40Celsius most days so we have learned to work early in the morning. For those who know me well, you’d be very surprised at how willing I am to get up and work at 6am just to have a few hours of bearable temperature! But this means we have to take beach breaks for the hottest part of the day, so it's all okay.

An exciting decision was made to change the boat’s name to ‘Selkie’ after reading an excellent article on sailing across the Atlantic (thanks, Kari!) . It talks about how silly the superstition is that you shouldn't change a boat's name and about how the name of a boat becomes its personality which is intertwined with the personality of its owner. Fanfaron means ‘braggart’ in French which is quite the opposite of Celia’s personality, so Selkie it now is. It’s the name of a mythical sea creature from the Orkneys which changes from seal to human form and back again.

We are taking sailing lessons from Celia, learning how to plot our position on the chart, choose a course, and recognize and navigate obstacles. I am also reading a book on everything you need to know to become a 'yachtmaster' (Nelson refuses to call me "Yachtmaster" until I am finished it, however), and a French book on being a sea vagabond (thanks, Nick, for the loan) which is more the dreamy side of it all. It starts by suggesting you ask yourself one fundamental question: "Do I really want to live and travel on a sailboat?" My answer, for the next several months anyways, still feels like a resounding 'yes', so I guess I am in the right place at the right time. There is also another quote in it, from Jacques Brel, which I really like:

"The act of dreaming is important in itself. I wish you an endless flood of dreams and the intense desire to make some of them come true. I wish you love for what should be loved and forgetting for what should be forgotten. I wish you passions. I wish you silences. I wish you bird song on awakening and the laughter of children. I wish you resistance to being swallowed up, to indifference, to the negative virtues of our age. Above all, I wish you to be yourself."

This all definitely feels like a dream being enacted. Nelson and I regularly turn to each other and say "We're in Croatia! Living on a sailboat!" And this is just the beginning. I am really looking forward to being in the water, at the helm with the wind in my hair, making people swab the decks and walk the plank, and all other such romantic seafaring notions.

Selkie, prepare to be boarded! Aaarrh!! (you have to imagine this in my best pirate accent, which has been expertly analysed to be a mix of Swedish and Transylvanian accents)

LJ