My "aha moment" is live now

I just received an email message letting me know that my Mutual of Omaha "aha moment" is live now at http://www.ahamoment.com/pg/moments/view/17011.

The final film clip actually turned out better than expected. They managed to distill about ten minutes of my interview down to a single minute and still have it retain the points I was trying to make about how my dream of sailing around the world got started and what I am doing to fulfill it.

Nan liked their photo of me smiling so much that I have made it my blog's new profile image.

If you have a chance to watch the film clip, please leave a comment to let me know what you think. Thank you.

A Hard Day on the Planet

Loudon Wainwright III is best known for being the father of singer Rufus Wainwright and for his early '70s hit, "Dead Skunk (in the Middle of the Road)". I was thinking today of another one of his novelty songs, "A Hard Day on the Planet", which has as its refrain:

It’s been a hard day on the planet,
How much is it all worth?
It’s getting harder to understand it,
Things are tough all over on earth.

Today was a bad day--not for me personally, but for the planet as a whole and mankind in particular. Everywhere I turned, there was bad news: jobless claims are at new highs; there's still much more oil in the gulf than BP is telling us; Pakistan is underwater but nobody is contributing any money for assistance; Russia is on fire; China's air is unbreathable; Indonesia's coral is dying from water temperatures seven degrees above normal; the stock market is swinging wildly up and down; the midterm election ads are all negative; people still believe that Obama is a Muslim; and Israel is on the verge of attacking Iran.

I am normally a fairly optimistic person, but it's all enough to make me give up hope. Since I have been old enough to think for myself, I have known that nobody really knows what is happening and that nobody is really in control of anything. The most we could hope for was that our better natures would predominate over our baser instincts to prevent utter chaos. Now it seems that chaos is winning. In my gut, I know that life will never, ever be as good as it was just two years ago, before the housing bubble burst. We have reached the point of diminishing returns. It's all downhill from here.

Do we take deep breaths, steel our resolve, and keep doing the best we can, knowing that it doesn't really make any difference, or do we take stock, re-evaluate our situations, and move in new directions, knowing that it is somewhat selfish but ultimately more rewarding to make the most of the time and opportunities we have left? Nobody ever gets to the end of their life and wishes they had worked harder, but as Loudon sings, "Things are looking kind of gray, like they’re going to black." Life is short. Make the most of it.

My aha moment

Late this afternoon, I drove over to the Mesa Mall parking lot, where Mutual of Omaha's Airstream mobile studio was parked. I had received an email invitation last week, as a result of a marketing person's discovery of my blog, inviting me to be filmed for their "aha moment" campaign. You have probably seen the commercials on TV featuring ordinary people talking about the moments that changed their lives. They couldn't guarantee that my spot would make it into a TV commercial, but it would definitely be posted to their website.

The invitation was specific that my aha moment should be about sailing and that I should plan to bring a prop to the filming. I didn't need to think too hard to come up with an idea: My aha moment happened in 1968, when I was ten years old. I read a National Geographic article about Robin Lee Graham, the first teen-ager to sail alone around the world. I knew right away that I wanted to do the same thing someday.

The studio people, Jessica and Dave, interviewed me for about ten minutes, starting with my dream and expanding on it to discuss my plans for actually sailing around the world. It was a nervous blur, but when it was over, Jessica said that it went really well, that my face was lit up with excitement. She told me that my aha moment would appear on the Mutual of Omaha website at http://www.mutualofomaha.com/aha within three weeks, and she handed me my clapboard as a souvenir. When it goes live, I'll be sure to post a direct link to it here.

Trip to the Boatyard

A little over two weeks ago, I took a trip out to Solomons, Maryland to check on Little Walk for a couple of days. A few days before I left, Don, the boatyard manager at Spring Cove Marina, called to tell me that the boat's mast had been unstepped. This was good news because it meant that he had found the time, after two months of the boat sitting in the boatyard, to begin the refit. As the marine survey had indicated, the corrosion at the mast's base needed to be addressed, and the standing and running rigging needed to be replaced. Removing the mast was the first step in the repair process.

When I arrived at Spring Cove, the boatyard was very quiet. It was a Sunday and most of the staff were off for the weekend. Little Walk's mast was resting on sawhorses outside the boatyard fence. The horizontal perspective allowed a close-up view of all the mast's workings. Ray, the previous owner, had told me that the boat had been hit by lightning in the last couple of years, but there was no evidence of any damage. The lights, wind instruments and VHF antenna at the top looked almost brand new, though, like they had been recently replaced.

The boat itself looked a little funny without its mast, more like a motorboat than a sailboat. I found a ladder and climbed aboard to see what had been done. On the deck, duct tape covered the hole where the mast had been, and the boom was lying between the hatches. I unlocked the companionway hatch and went below. It was unbearably hot in the cabin, so I opened every hatch and port to cool things down. There is a fan in the salon, but I couldn't figure out how to turn it on. I had originally planned to stay aboard, but the weather reports had been showing temperatures in the high 90s and humidity at 90 percent, so I had booked a cheap hotel instead. Now I was happy I did, because there wasn't enough breeze or cloud cover to help lower the cabin temperature to more tolerable levels. I took a quick look at the place in the bilge where the mast had been stepped against the keel and then fled to the air-conditioned marina office to inquire about some packages I had sent out ahead of my arrival and to use the guest computer to send Ray an email about the fan.

The vacuum cleaner, coffee press and box of dishes, towels and linens I had shipped were waiting for me. I had thought to use my time on the boat to clean, sort through all the stuff left behind by the previous owner, and unpack some of my own stuff. But with the heat, I knew I wouldn't be very productive with work inside the cabin, so I started with the deck, tidying up loose equipment and stowing the fenders and dock lines that were still in place from when the boat was hauled out. Thinking it might get cooler as the sun went lower in the afternoon, I went off to Jerry's Subs for a late lunch. When I returned, the cabin was still "instant sweat" hot. I checked my cell phone's email and saw that Ray had responded to my message. He said that the salon fan did not work, which explained why I couldn't turn it on, but that the ones in the forward and aft berths did. I fooled with the unmarked electrical panel switches until I got both fans working. As long as I was at it, I figured I would try to get the stove working as well, since I hadn't been able to when Kevin and I sailed the boat down from Baltimore. No such luck. I think there might be a blown fuse in the solenoid panel because flipping its switch does not cause the little red light next to it to light up. I spent the rest of the afternoon unpacking and stowing stuff, and cleaning in the area of the companionway since it was the coolest spot in the cabin. By dinnertime, I was dripping sweat and ready to call it a day.

The next day, a Monday, the marina was a noisy hive of activity. I met with Don in the morning and spent some time walking around the boat, inside and out, to confirm the work that needed to be done, and looking at the mast to determine what the rigging needs would be. Don told me that Collin from Chesapeake Rigging would be on-site in the early afternoon to evaluate the rigging, take measurements and talk options. As we parted company, Don said that he would catch up with me in the afternoon with a quote on what he thought it would cost to correct all the issues in the marine survey. I climbed up the ladder and went back to work in the cabin. It was still cool enough inside for me to unpack the vacuum cleaner and spend most of the morning lifting cushions and moving equipment in order to vacuum underneath. At lunchtime, it was back to Jerry's Subs and then over to West Marine. To open the hatches the day before, I had to first remove their screens, and I had managed to break one of the latches in the process, so I wanted to see if they had a spare. They did.

When I got back to the boatyard, Collin was already taking measurements on the mast. "Are you the rigging guy?" I asked. He smiled and replied, "Are you the owner guy?" I laughed. We shook hands and started talking rigging options. The boat's standing rigging was a combination of rod and cable. Collin said that while rod is stronger than cable, it's more prone to catastrophic failure. We agreed to go with cable throughout. The single existing jib furler was an old Hood one. Collin said I should send it to a sailing museum. I had been leaning toward Profurl furlers for both the jib replacement and the staysail, but Collin said that if they failed, I would need to order parts from France. He suggested American-made Harken furlers instead. I wanted a whisker pole added to the rig for poling out the jib in light winds, and Collin suggested a Forespar one on a track attached to the forward surface of the mast. Some of the halyard sheaves showed wear and needed to be replaced. Collin said he would include all that in his quote, which he expected to have ready in a few days. Don stopped by and the three of us went to look at the boat together. Collin looked closely at the chainplates, the mast step, and the sagging life lines, which also needed to be replaced. He offered excellent ideas for improving just about everything he saw, including the addition of an electric "bitch winch." Dollar signs were dancing in my head as we climbed down the ladder and said our good-byes.

I went back to work in the cabin, cleaning up the V-berth. I felt a little melancholy as I peeled off the hundreds of glow-in-the-dark stars, moons and planets that Ray's daughter had stuck to the ceiling when she was a little girl and they were living aboard Little Walk in Boston. I followed that with scrubbing and vacuuming, both in the V-berth and also in the port-side pilot berth. Late in the afternoon, I took a break and walked over to the marina office for the last of my many trips to the deeply appreciated, refrigerated drinking fountain. It was getting close to the time for me to close up the boat and get ready to go home. On my way back to the boat, I stuck my head into Don's office. He invited me in to discuss his quote. He had written out a detailed list of improvements and assigned a price to each one. It added up to about what he had told me it would when we first talked about it back in May, after the trip down from Baltimore. I stared at the list, trying to figure out how I was ever going to pay for it all. Don sensed my consternation and said that the work could be done in phases, spreading out the expense over a long period of time. "A very, very long period of time," I thought.

Little Walk sails to Solomons Island

Part 16 marked the end of the Boat Quest series. As of May 15, I am the proud owner of Little Walk, a 1980 Valiant 40. As one dream is made real, a new one is enabled. I now have the means to sail anywhere in the world. Where to go?

Well, the first stop is the boatyard, to make the necessary repairs and upgrades that will ensure safe travels. During our Central America sailing trip a few months ago, I spoke with John Kretschmer about my plans to sail the boat--if I ended up buying it--from Baltimore to Savannah, where my parents have a vacation home, to get the necessary work done. He had a better idea: his sister Liz and brother-in-law Trevor are partners in a marina and boatyard in Solomons Island, Maryland. Their people are experts at the kind of work I needed, and as an FOJ (Friend of John), they would take extra special care of me and my boat. What more could I ask for? John said he would contact them to make the necessary introductions.

That just left figuring out how to get the boat from the Riviera Beach area, southeast of Baltimore, to Solomons Island, a distance of about seventy-five miles. To be safe, I didn't want to sail alone, especially on an unfamiliar boat. I needed to find someone to go with me. The kicker was that the boat needed to be moved from its current location at Tony's dock within a week and a half, so I needed someone who would be available on short notice. Kevin Harrison, from our Odyssey sailing trip, came immediately to mind. He lives in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, only a hundred miles from where the boat was docked, and he would have just completed teaching the spring term at McDaniel College. I emailed him an invitation, and he emailed me back right away with an acceptance. We spoke over the phone a couple of days later to work out a strategy for meeting at the boat, driving two cars down to Solomons, and leaving one there for the return trip. Kevin agreed to bring his toolkit, just in case, and I agreed to provision for the short trip and cover his expenses.

Kevin and I met at the boat on Sunday morning, May 23. We hauled our stuff aboard, and I gave him a quick tour. He liked what he saw, except for all the bird poop on the deck. We took the time to wash down the deck so it would be clean and dry when we returned, and then we got into our respective cars for the drive down to Solomons.

A couple of hours later, we met up again at the Spring Cove Marina's parking lot. We wandered around to get a feel for the place and its facilities and then walked into the office and asked to see Trevor. He came down from his office, and we spent a few minutes getting acquainted through our mutual connection to John Kretschmer. I ended the conversation by telling him we were headed back up to Baltimore to sail my boat down to the marina and that we would be back by early the next afternoon. He wished us well, and we left in my rental car to drive back up to the boat.

Tony was home when we returned, asleep in the hammock that overlooks his dock. He roused as we were preparing to depart and came down to talk with us. It's a good thing that he did, or we might have left the boat's meager fenders and dock lines behind. He assured us that they went with the boat. We thanked him, fired up the engine, and shoved off. There was only one problem: no water was coming out with the exhaust. I tried frantically to remember what Ray had said about where the water coolant seacock was located, but I had no idea. There had just been too many details during the orientation. I also forgot the way out of Rock Creek, because we found ourselves going up a dead-end tributary. It was time to call Ray. Fortunately, he answered--maybe he was expecting my call. He calmly told me to turn off the engine before it overheated and then directed me to look under the seat in the aft cabin for the seacock. I sent Kevin below to find it so I wouldn't lose the call, and he reported that as soon as he turned it, he could see water flowing through the associated filter's clear top. We fired up the engine again and looked over the side to see water coming out with the exhaust. The engine's temperature fell to about 110 degrees and stayed there. One disaster was averted. But we still didn't know where we were going. I still had Ray on the phone, so I tried to explain the landmarks around us. He didn't recognize anything but told me to follow the starboard-side shore until I could see the White Rocks Marina, which I should recognize from our sea trial sail. From there, I should know where to go. I thanked him and told him I would call later to let him know how we were doing.

Kevin and I could have cheered when we reached the open water of Chesapeake Bay, but we noticed that the water was extremely shallow--no more than fifteen feet deep--even at White Rocks, a small formation of bird poop-covered rocks (thus the name), about a half-mile offshore, and we were concerned about running aground. After we passed the rocks, we rounded up into the wind, put up the sails, and bore off to the south for Annapolis, our destination for the day, all the while keeping an eye on the depth meter.

There was enough wind to just sail, and we were in no great hurry, so we cut the engine and trimmed the sails. The GPS showed us at six-plus knots, with occasional bursts over seven, not bad for the blustery, unsettled weather conditions. Kevin and I took turns at the helm since neither the windvane or electronic autopilots were working. Before long, we had passed under the William Preston Lane Jr. Memorial Bridge, which was our cue to turn west toward Annapolis. We started the engine and doused the sails as we passed the Naval Academy and sighted the public docks, where we picked up a mooring for the night. We settled up with the harbormaster who came out to greet us and then hailed a water taxi using the VHF radio. The taxi driver suggested the Middleton Tavern for dinner, so we gave it a try. Good steaks and atmosphere.

We were up by 5:00 the next morning to get an early start on the remaining sixty miles. I tried to boil water for instant coffee, but I couldn't figure out how to get the stove lit--guess I should have covered that in the orientation with Ray. We made due with juice and muffins as we motored out of Annapolis harbor and headed south for Solomons. Spring Cove Marina normally stops hauling boats out at about 2:00, so we motorsailed all the way to make good time in the hopes of meeting that deadline.

We arrived at a little after 1:00 and were directed to tie up at the end of a T-shaped dock. Kevin wasn't feeling well and went to find a bathroom. I went off to find Trevor, who informed me that the haul-out bay was busy and that they wouldn't be able to haul my boat out for a day or two. Oh, well. At least we were there safely, even if we hadn't needed to leave Annapolis quite so early. Trevor introduced me to his wife Liz, who is John Kretschmer's sister, and we chatted for a few minutes, mostly about John and his escapades. The family resemblance was easy to see. Liz excused herself, and Trevor and I walked over to the haul-out bay, where I met Trevor's brother Alan, who was stepping a mast. We walked up to the shop and met Don, the boatyard manager, who was painting a mast. Don would be the person coordinating the work on Little Walk, so we set up a meeting for the next morning. To give him an advance idea of what was involved, I told him I would leave a copy of the boat survey on his desk.

Kevin and I hauled our stuff off the boat, readjusted the dock lines, and drove to a nearby hotel. After showers, we went off in search of a cold beer, which we found at the famous Tiki Bar, and then dinner at a waterfront restaurant. It had been a long day. After dinner, we returned to the hotel and called it an early night.

Kevin and I had compiled a short list of items the boat needed, so after breakfast the next morning, we went to the local West Marine store to see if we could find it all. We did. Those places are amazing, like boating toy stores. We returned to the boat to drop off the new goodies before my meeting with Don. When he showed up, Kevin wandered off to look at boats and said he would meet me at his car when I was ready to go. Don and I walked around on the deck, looking at the mast and rigging, and then went below to look at the chainplates and engine. He was pretty matter-of-fact about things, saying that a thirty-year-old boat should be expected to need the types of repairs we were considering. I mentioned that I wanted to get the ratty cushions reupholstered. He said I should pitch them, that the foam was old and disintegrating, and get new ones, plus a real mattress for the aft berth. He also suggested replacing the manual windlass with an electric one. I hadn't thought of any of these things, but he was right. All it would take is money, of course. Don said I should probably expect to pay almost what I had paid for the boat to get it into top condition, more if it needed a new engine. I nodded knowingly, but I was thinking, "Whoa! That's a lot more than I was expecting!" The first order of business was to pull the mast. Don thought they would have that done within a couple of weeks. We agreed to stay in touch about the work as it progressed, and I went off to find Kevin for the drive back to Baltimore and the flight home.

Thank you for all your help, Kevin!

Boat Quest, Part 16

Nan and I returned home from our Central America sailing trip on Saturday, May 8. The following Monday, just two days later, I flew to Baltimore to take a second look at Little Walk. John Kretschmer flew up from Fort Lauderdale to meet me and take a look for himself. The two of us met Ray, the owner, and Bob, the broker, at the boat, which was docked at Ray's friend Tony's pier on Rock Creek, near Riviera Beach, southeast of Baltimore. John and I spent about an hour looking at the boat, inside and out, using copies of the marine survey as our guide. I took advantage of Ray's intimate knowledge of the boat and asked dozens of questions, which he answered patiently and proudly, providing me with an invaluable orientation on the boat's many systems. John checked the chainplates, mast and bilges, looked into every nook and cranny, and then started a conversation with Bob in the cockpit, while I continued the orientation with Ray and took photos until the camera batteries died.

The weather was threatening rain, but we all agreed that we should take the boat out for a quick sea trial. Ray showed me how to power up the diesel engine and turn on the water coolant seacock. We let the engine idle for a few minutes to hear how it sounded before casting off the lines and motoring up the creek to Chesapeake Bay. Once we had reached open water, Ray revved the engine's RPMs up to cruising speed and insisted that I take the wheel. The boat steered smoothly and responsively, and the engine sounded smooth and steady. We put up the mainsail and unfurled the jib, and they filled immediately with the wind blowing in from the west ahead of the imminent rain. There was enough wind to just sail, so Ray cut the engine and we enjoyed the relative silence that followed. We tried different points of sail, and the boat handled nicely at every angle.

We could have stayed out all afternoon, but the sky was getting dark, and John and I had flights home to catch. Ray took the wheel as we sighted Tony's pier and slipped the transmission into neutral while we were still over a hundred yards away. Momentum carried us to a smooth stop just as the first raindrops began to fall. We quickly secured the boat and exchanged parting words. I thanked Ray profusely and told Bob I would call him within a couple of days.

John and I drove to a seafood diner and ate lunch while discussing the boat. John said that it was in better shape than he expected given all the negative comments in the survey. He was pleasantly surprised by how "stock" it was, lacking much of the stuff that most owners pile into their boats. But he cautioned that the rigging and mast issues were serious and needed to be corrected before considering any bluewater sailing. He advised replacing the engine, to give the boat a fresh, reliable start in its new life. And he recommended replacing the furling gear, windlass and bimini with "beefier" gear that could stand up to bluewater conditions. Overall, though, he thought Little Walk was a sweet little boat and that if I could get her for a good price, I should go for it.

I called Bob a couple of days later to discuss a revised offer based on the marine survey and a ballpark estimate of the necessary repairs. He said that he doubted if Ray would accept the new offer but that he would run it past him. Bob called back a little later with a counter-offer from Ray. I wanted to accept it, but Nan insisted that I offer a thousand dollars less. Ray accepted it, Bob wrote it up, and we had ourselves a deal.

Chicago Basin

It is the most beautiful place in Colorado, a state that already boasts the most spectacular scenery in the continental United States. The Chicago Basin is an area of pristine wilderness in the middle of the San Juan Mountains in the southwestern part of the state. One of the reasons for its unspoiled condition is that it is only accessible by foot and then only after first taking a train ride from either Durango or Silverton. The closest road is many miles away.

The world-famous Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad stops to drop off climbers and backpackers in the ghost town of Needleton, near the intersection of the Animas River and Needle Creek, at an elevation of 8200 feet. After crossing the footbridge over the Animas River, it takes a six-mile hike along Needle Creek, with about a 2500-foot elevation gain, to get up into the basin.

The trail was originally built by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression, and it is well maintained to this day, but it is still a grueling grunt. Having hauled a heavy pack up it twice before, I packed as lightly as possible last weekend when I returned for the first time in fourteen years, along with my neighbor Rich, his stepsons Wes and Miles, and Wes's friend Rich. This was a second annual trip for Rich, Wes, Rich and me after our Rim-to-Rim Grand Canyon hike last June, with Miles filling in for Jake this year.

By mid-afternoon on Saturday, we had reached the upper part of the basin, where the good campsites are located. There is a recent restriction on camping within one hundred feet of any water, so the campsite I stayed at with Dave Beckwith back in 1996, which we checked out along the way, was not usable. This turned out to be a good thing, because as we walked further up the trail, we spotted the basin's renowned mountain goats on the hillside above the creek. The goats are not indigenous; they were transplanted from Glacier National Park in Wyoming at about the same time that the trail was built in the 1930s. They are thrilling to see in the wild and add incredible charm to this already magnificent area.

Instead of shying away from us, the goats came down to investigate. Some in our group were afraid they would be head-butted, but the goats were only curious and came right up to us as we stood on the trail taking numerous photos. They moved on after a while, and we continued up the trail to a good campsite with easy access to the creek. As we were setting up our tents, the goats returned and wandered around our camp until they located a place at the edge where Miles had urinated. They pawed the ground and ate the wet dirt! It was gross to think about, but they were obviously craving the salt in the urine. With a group of five men, it wasn't long before we had marked most of our perimeter, and the goats started to fill up our campsite, but the novelty of having them so close by never wore off.

We played sheepshead, ate dinner, and then played more sheepshead until it started to get dark and cold. The goats finally went to wherever it is that they sleep and we retired to our tents. The next morning, the sun didn't reach our campsite until almost 8:30, and no one was in a hurry to get back on the trail until things warmed up. The day's plan called for all of us to hike up to Twin Lakes, in the upper basin that separates the area's three Fourteeners, Sunlight Peak, Windom Peak and Mount Eolus, which I had climbed with Dave Beckwith during our two previous trips. After appreciating the moonscape-like vistas and figuring out their routes, the others would climb Sunlight and Windom while I returned to camp, packed up, hiked out, and caught the train back to Durango so I could be back at work on Monday morning. The others would go back to camp after their climbs, return to climb Eolus and its subpeak, North Eolus, the next day, and then hike out on Tuesday.

The climb from our campsite to Twin Lakes was as difficult as I remembered it, maybe more so, even though I was using trekking poles to help ease the strain on my knees. I must be getting old. A few times along the trail, I thought to myself that I was happy I wasn't climbing the peaks again. It was enough just to see them once more from the lakes. I wondered if Nan would want to join me on another trip to the area someday. Places this beautiful need to be shared.

Happy birthday, Dad!

Boat Quest, Part 15

The marine survey for Little Walk arrived by email while we were at the Barefoot Cay Marina on Roatan. I sat at the computer in the marina office and read all twenty pages of it immediately. There was an unexpectedly high level of detail about every aspect of the boat, and most of it was negative, like this paragraph from the introduction:

This model vessel is well-known for its bluewater sailing pedigree. However, this particular vessel is in need of a major refit prior to venturing beyond protected inland waters, including significant renewal of the electrical systems, rigging, safety equipment, etc.

The report didn't get much more positive in the pages that followed. It was broken down into seventeen sections, each with three columns: a title, like "Propulsion Engine"; a detailed description of the particular item or feature; and a statement about its condition. Unfortunately, the "SEE RECOMMENDATIONS" condition outnumbered the "Appeared Serviceable" and "Operational" conditions by a total of forty-four to thirty-seven. The recommendations were listed in a separate section near the end of the report. Under that section's title, it said: "Recommendations in BOLD are considered essential for the safety and proper function of the vessel." Almost all of the recommendations were in bold.

When I finished reading the report, I felt sick to my stomach. There was so much wrong with the boat. Would it be worth the time, effort and money to try to correct all of its problems? I walked down the dock to where Quetzal was slipped to talk with John Kretschmer. He could tell by the look on my face that the news wasn't good. He asked if I wanted him to read the report, and I told him I would appreciate it. We walked back to the marina office, I called it up on the computer, and then I left him alone.

When I caught up to him later, John was smiling. He said it sounded like the boat was in pretty good shape. This was coming from a man who has written hundreds of sailboat reviews for Sailing magazine and is the author of Used Boat Notebook. He knows boats, and he was saying that there was hope for Little Walk. "Really?" I said. "What about all those recommendations?" He said that most of them weren't all that critical and that he hadn't read anything that he considered to be a deal-breaker, like hull damage or deck delamination. And the best part, he said, was that the surveyor included a fair market value that was more than ten thousand dollars below my offer price. The broker and owner would need to adjust that price down accordingly, and I could probably negotiate an even lower price. If I was willing to spend the difference on improvements, I would come out of the deal with the boat in great condition for what I had expected to pay in the first place.

Photos and captions from the marine survey of Little Walk:

Photograph of Little Walk as seen from the starboard bow, taken at the time of survey on 4/26/2010.

Photograph of Little Walk as seen from the starboard quarter, taken at the time of survey haul-out on 4/26/2010.

Photograph of Little Walk as seen from the port bow, taken at the time of survey haul-out on 4/26/2010.

Photograph of a blister on the port aft hull bottom, taken at the time of survey on 4/26/2010. Blisters up to 3” diameter were found randomly throughout the hull finishes.

Photograph of a port cap shroud chainplate attachment to its plywood knee. The knee has deterioration along its bottom and there is likely crevice corrosion of the chainplate. All of the shroud chainplates need removal and inspection.

Photograph of engine exhaust as seen from the starboard side, taken at the time of survey on 4/26/2010. The insulated piping is deteriorated, and there is minimal vertical separation between the point of seawater injection and the waterlift muffler.

Boat Quest, Part 14

It has been well over a year since I last wrote a Boat Quest post. The most recent one, Part 13, was about Otter II, the Valiant 40 I looked at with Stan Dabney while I was in Miami in January 2009 helping the Caouettes prepare their Valiant 40, Wild Iris, for a transatlantic crossing. Otter II sold several months later, much to my disappointment, before I could get anywhere close to making an offer. I went back occasionally to YachtWorld.com to check the Valiant 40 listings, but there were no other affordable boats worth considering.

Late last fall, I was checking the listings and noticed a 1980 Valiant located in Baltimore. As I looked at the photos in the listing's slideshow, I had the feeling that I had seen the boat before. I dug through my computer's photo archive and found the set of photos I had taken of Little Walk (Boat Quest, Part 10 and Part 11) back in May 2008 when I was in the Washington, D.C. area for an Internet conference. There was no question about it. It was the same boat, just located in a new place and listed with a new broker. I had not been able to get adequate answers from the previous broker to my questions about the boat's condition, so I had given up on it and assumed when it disappeared out of the listings that it had been sold. Apparently not. It was still priced higher than I thought it should have been but not as high as the previous broker said it would be based on some improvements the owner was putting into place.

I studied the description and the photos in the listing, and I studied the many photos I had taken myself. In addition to the basic design of the Valiant 40, which I had decided several years ago was the perfect boat for us, there were many features to like about this particular boat. Some Valiants have been almost excessively customized to meet the needs and desires of their owners, but not this one. It was close to stock, looking very much like it must have when it left the Uniflite factory in Bellingham, Washington back in 1980. The distinctive wooden hatchcovers, the fold-down saloon table, the tapered mast, the port-side pilot berth, the original electrical panel--it was all there.

I watched the listing compulsively through the winter, hoping for the right combination of factors that would make my dream of owning a Valiant 40 come true. The first factor was, of course, my wife Nan. If she was not in agreement, then that would be the end of it. But then, during her charmed birthday weekend in Denver back in January, Nan proposed the idea of living in Isla Mujeres, Mexico for a year. We could rent an apartment at Color de Verano on Laguna Macax. And since there is a pier right out back, we could maybe have a sailboat there to sail on weekends in order to help build Nan's confidence for more ambitious trips. Since I can work from anywhere that I can get a high-speed Internet connection, as I did last fall when we spent a month in Isla Mujeres, I was thrilled with the idea.

The second factor fell into place at the beginning of April: the listed price came down by $10K. At the previous price, the boat might never have sold, but at the new price, I was afraid it would sell quickly, so I called the broker to find out what it would take to put in an offer. He emailed me a form that I completed and faxed back to him, and I mailed him a deposit check for ten percent of the listed price--I didn't want to lose the boat to a better offer. I had been saving money in a "boat fund" for just this day since giving up on Sea Hawk back in November 2007. The offer was contingent on the results of a marine survey, so there was no risk of losing my deposit if the boat proved to be unseaworthy. I was able to coordinate getting the survey conducted before Nan and I left for our Central America sailing trip, but I wasn't able to get the results until we arrived in Roatan.

"The Odd-yssey" in Latitudes & Attitudes

Of course, as soon as I had given up hope of Latitudes & Attitudes ever publishing my article about our 2008 Odyssey sailing trip, they finally did publish it in their May 2010 issue, along with fourteen of the eighteen photos I submitted. If you missed it at the newstand or at the seafaring.com website, you can still read it in its published format at Capt. John Kretschmer's website: "The Odd-yssey" by John Lichty.

Editor Sue took a few liberties that I wasn't overly happy about, and there are some misspellings in the photo captions, but the article finally made it to print and that's what matters. She even mailed me a check, which went immediately into the "boat fund."

If you would like to read the original article, in its original format, with all eighteen photos, which I posted here back in March when I was sure it would never get published, here's a link to it: "The Odd-yssey".