For the first time since I’ve owned Splendid I’m starting to feel like my old self.
I don’t know if you remember my blog from Tahiti when I saw the blue steal boat and decided I needed a bigger boat and more complicated life, blah, blah, blah (July, 18, 07), but it all changed that day. From that day to this day I’ve been on a “more complicated” path. I sold and delivered Namaste across the Pacific. I finished my 2nd. film in Tokyo, I bought a new boat and pulled a 1973 ketch from her grave, fell in Love, lost love, and spent the better part of a year dealing with that loss. Well I guess I did exactly what I wanted to do, I complicate everything! It was all worth it! :) Well 4 years have passed since that day in Tahiti and I’ve learned a few things. I’m just better on my own, I am a solo sailor, its who I am.
I’ve realized in the past weeks, I’m centered, focused, and on my sailing path again. I feel enormously content. I’m wearing time like a loose fitting white linen shirt. For the first time since I saw that blue boat in Tahiti I walk through this world slower than the people around me. It feels really good. Time seems to pass like clouds viewed from a hammock on a beautiful spring day.
I feel confident Splendid will be ready to cross the Pacific again next March. Not because I will or wont have a water maker, refrigerator, Kubota or anything else, crossing an ocean isn’t about stuff. Its a personal relationship with your boat (sound) and the sea, and I want it! My goal is to continue my path towards the Pacific while maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
All I feel I truly “need” for my 2nd. journey across the Pacific is a drifter (sail), I just don’t like handling my spinnaker. I did promise myself last time I would have a wind vane for my next crossing and I do.
In the past few weeks I’ve stripped the aft cabin house and removed the headliner in the aft cabin. I’m taking off 4 layers of paint with a heat gun and stripping the surface down to either bare fiberglass or the original gel coat. I’ve removed all the hardware and I’m over drilling all the holes, filling them with epoxy, and re-drilling them to ensure I don’t get any water intrusion into the deck. I have taken my main sheet off of the mizzen and installed two standing blocks (one with a becket) on the cabin house. This was a critical modification I had to make before going anywhere. The old mainsheet system had the main trying to pull the mizzen mast off of the cabin house, not good!
At this pace I should have Splendid all re-beded, and painted up by November. Hopefully I’ll be in San Blas making and saving a few bucks for the Canal and my crossing. If I don’t have the money for the canal, provisioning, and a little cruising kitty for crossing the Pacific I’ll put my trip off one more year and charter/run backpackers from Colombia and back. There is good money to be made here. It’s not really what i want to do but the reality is i will need the money and will make the best of it. Life could be worse eah?
I don’t know if you remember but my camera died after the Marquesas on my last trip across the Pacific and i couldn’t shoot the film I wanted to. I spent over $1400 on a video camera before I left Panama last time that had “moisture” issues and SONY wouldn’t cover it (manufactures warrantee) , amazing, I never got a drop of water on that camera. I vowed never to buy another SONY product! This time I’ll be going with a digital SLR, no moving parts, not as susceptible to 
“moisture”, and better image quality.
Well, that’s it for today. I met a nice couple on a BEAUTIFUL 65ish foot steal schooner and I have dinner plans tonight.
More sanding, chipping, and fairing this Sunday.
The picture is of the first c oat of primer on Splendid’s stern.
Cheers
Sail far and live slowly.
– alex