Honolulu Star-Advertiser © Susan Scott
March 04, 2005
Today I was going to write about my voyage to Tahiti, but since Cyclone Percy is lurking out there, I decided to stay put for a while. Still, even anchored here in Palmyra’s lagoon, I’m having sailing adventures.
First, there’s my anchor named Bruce. Alex teases me about women giving cute names to everything (he prefers names like A-49 and Coenobita perlatus), but this time I’m innocent. The manufacturer named the anchor Bruce. It’s stamped right there on its side.
Anyway, when the time comes, Bruce will get hauled up by a machine called a windlass. Honu’s windlass has a hand crank and an electric motor, but my cabin boys (Alex has been demoted for making fun of girls) far prefer the motor.
Before I left Honolulu, my friend Gerard rebuilt and rewired my windlass not only to pull the anchor up, but to safely lower it, too. It’s a thing of beauty. “What do women want?” I said to Gerard when I saw what he’d done. “A windlass that goes up and down.”
Last week, however, the well-designed machine would do neither. Salt water had already wormed its way into the covered electrical plug inside the chain locker.
I received e-mail advice from Craig and Gerard about how to fix this problem. Each had a slightly different solution. Then Alex and Wren weighed in with their own ideas of how to fix the windlass.
Such conflicting advice from more experienced people — OK, men — is a common problem for me, and it often leaves me befuddled. This time, though, I considered all the suggestions and then did it my way. I glued a plastic container inside the chain locker and rewired the control inside it. I knew those Tupperware containers were good for more than crisping my lettuce.
Now we’re able to budge Bruce, but it’s too windy to go anywhere.
Earlier this week, as my campmates watched a movie and I painted a Honu plaque (cruisers here traditionally leave a calling card in the old hut known as the yacht club), the rain on the tin roof became deafening, and the wind began howling.
After bailing my rain-filled Zodiac, named the Indeflatigable (misspelling intended) after Horatio Hornblower’s trusty ship, the Indefatigable, I jumped in and started rowing. My outboard motor, Bette Davis, was on the Indie, but she refuses to run in the rain.
I couldn’t see Honu, but Alex appeared on the dock with a spotlight and I rowed back for it. (He regained his rank of first mate for that move.)
Still, I could barely see a thing.
Just when I thought I’d be out all night looking for my sailboat, I heard the faint trill of Tweety, my wind generator. I rowed toward that guiding sound, and there was Honu, right where I’d left her. Bruce had kept a grip.
The weather has delayed our Tahiti departure, but when the break comes, Alphie the autopilot is ready to go, and Oscar the prop generator is set to make electricity.
I’m ready, too. As soon as I think of a name for my windlass.