#7 Starship Kilauea

An offshore cruising boat is a bit like a spaceship. OK, go with me on this one. Just like a spaceship, it needs to be equipped with everything to sustain human life in relative comfort for weeks on end in a harsh environment without any support from outside if necessary.  The systems need to be robust, foolproof and simple enough to be maintained and fixed by the crew and before launch everything needs to be checked and rechecked and working properly to give the crew the best chance of a successful voyage.

And so it was for us in Florida.  22 days of the most intense purchasing, upgrading, maintaining, servicing, cleaning and, let’s face it, spending I have ever experienced (with 3 days in Disney World thrown in the middle as well of course).

I was completely overwhelmed when we got to Florida as I suddenly realized the delivery was actually the fun bit and the hard bit was just starting and the clock was ticking.  But where to begin?  Like a good Project Manager, I broke things down to work out what was the most important.  For me our hierarchy of needs was something like this:

• Shelter – boat needs to be a safe, comfortable home, keeping the water, wind and bugs out and the happiness in
• Water – we have a water maker which can produce limitless water but only if we have filters and electricity to run it
• Food – lots of storage for food, we can also catch fish but we need good refrigeration and freezing which requires electricity
• Cooking – can be achieved by stove, oven or BBQ all requiring gas
• Navigation – requires electricity for the chartplotter but can be backed up with sextant if necessary and ipads/ mobile phones
• Propulsion – two diesel engines (boat can operate with one so good redundancy there) and sails when there is wind
• Electricity – This comes either from solar power or engines which can act as a generator but the latter requires diesel

So the finite resources are diesel gas and food which means the ability to store and conserve these are the most important for off the grid living.  It became very clear that the best way to do this was to increase the ability to create electricity from solar as this would allow us to reduce the need to run the engines saving diesel and give us more options for cooking if we became low on gas by using things like a George Forman grill (which we’d also need to buy).

Fortunately we became acquainted with my favourite boat contractor to date, Steve Evans, who was just finishing upgrading the solar on a big catamaran in the marina.  Once he downed tools on that job at the end of the day he came on board to give his assessment of our setup.  Steve’s a gentle Jamaican born man with THE coolest accent in the world.  I know its a terrible generalisation, but at times you want him to put down his wire strippers, pick up a guitar and start singing “no woman, no cry”. No matter how stressed I was, his dulcet caramel tones and laid back way of talking always seemed to calm me.

Anyway, he worked his way around the boat multimeter in hand, raising an eyebrow here, a small shake of the head there and what might have been a couple of tuts as well before giving his assessment:

“You aint got enough pan-nals mon, you aint got regulators on your alternators (er haven’t I? I felt really inadequate now), I can’t believe they’re not already fried. Your water heater is cooked, you need a shore power connector for the US and 4 of your fuses are blown. Basically, you need my help mon, I’ll make some calls”.  And so started our major electrical upgrade which was finally completed one hour before we left the dock three weeks later at which point we had a working water heater, a beautiful set of 3 new slimline solar panels on the coach roof adding 50% more solar generation, a new shore power plug and, best of all, a new friend.

Next, gas.  The boat was equipped with 2 pathetic little European style camping gaz cylinders.  Tom and I had already burned through one in less than a month and we couldn’t get them filled in the US so we were cooking on borrowed time as it were.  There followed 3 weeks of ordering adaptors from various parts of the world, finding out they were the wrong ones and then eventually going on an all day wild goose chase across southern Florida ending up in a parking lot in rednecksville, queuing up with a bunch of thickset bikie types, Hugo and Jasmine in tow (don’t touch or look at anything or anyone!) where I met a guy who agreed to cut off my European adaptor and put on a US propane style one instead meaning we now had three big tanks of propane and the ability to fill them up giving us at least 3 months off the grid cooking between refills.

And so it went on, we got the water maker serviced and working properly again, serviced both diesel engines and bought $1000 of engine spares and lubricants. We had the freezer man remove the freezer to try to encourage it to start freezing again (partially successful) and other jobs I did myself, such as repairing the leak in the dingy and sewing the zip back on to the mainsail cover using my newly purchased sailmaker’s sewing kit, a job I enjoyed much more than I thought I would.  Maybe I’ll join a knitting circle when I get back to Melbourne. At one stage I went around the US equivalent of Bunnings or B&Q and bought myself a full tool kit and useful bits of kit such as multimeters, cable clamps and fuses. At one stage I was manically throwing screws in the trolley at random just in case on some remote island I needed that exact one.

Meanwhile Lottie had the enormous task of turning our empty shell of a boat into a family home.  Within days the amazon deliveries started. Each day we would go to the marina office to see a pile of boxes marked “SV Kilauea”, most of which had the amazon tick. It was like Christmas every day except with gas fittings and George Forman grills as presents rather than toys.  First came the cushions. The sad little grey one that came with the boat was soon joined by what seemed like dozens of big fluffy colourful ones with tassels and pictures of jungle foliage and toucans on them. Then came the Christmas decorations, cooking gear, bedding, towels, table settings, the list goes on. Each time a load of parcels came on board I could imagine the boat sitting a bit lower and going a little slower through the water.  No matter, the transformation into a warm, inviting and cosy home seemed almost miraculous and was vital to achieve a happy crew and enjoyable year afloat.

A key part of our preparation was a half day intense one on one (well two) training course with a lovely and very interesting paramedic called Erika who had experienced horrendous situations in Iraq and Kosovo and was now teaching people like us how to deal with medical emergencies in remote areas.  She went through all our massive offshore medical kit and taught us how to give injections, stitch wounds and apply tourniquets amongst other things. Poor Charlotte looked more and more unnerved as we discussed what we would do if a shark bit one of the kid’s limbs off or we punctured one of our lungs with a fish gaff or we received multiple fractures from falling from the mast.  The worst was a detailed description of how to clog an arterial bleed using celox as demonstrated by a youtube video involving a live pig and a very sharp knife.  Despite this, we both agreed this was vital training and we also agreed that we hoped never ever to use the skills we had just learned.

On top of this Lottie had started the boat-schooling programme.  The kids’ school, St Josephs, had very kindly offered us access to their teaching resources and the ability to download several weeks of lessons in a blocks at a time that suited us (in terms of having wifi coverage).  Charlotte and the kids took to this with gusto (6 months of home schooling during COVID finally paying off!) and the highlight was a live hook up with each of their classes and teachers to have a Q&A session with the whole class.  What have you been up?  Fixing the boat.  Can you still play X-Box?  Of course.  That sort of thing.

It wasn’t all work though.  About 100m away, just over the channel was Peanut island, a nature reserve with surprisingly good snorkeling.  Occasionally we would row over (the dingy engine was away being serviced) and have “snorkeling training camp” so that we would be well prepared for the Bahamas.  The first time we went in we came face to face with a barracuda which scared the bejesus out of the kids (and let’s be honest, me) but was something we were going to have to get used to.  We also saw beautiful parrot fish, angel fish and countless others in the shallow water.

Needing a break from all the hard work and having all the major work lined up, we took 3 days off and went to Disney World staying a hotel within walking distance of the Magical Kingdom.  Whilst this was a really lovely time for the family to reconnect again it was by no means relaxing. We were up early each day to get into the parks at opening and make the most of the insanely expensive tickets.  Much fun was had by all, the highlight for me being sampling the British ales in the Rose and Crown replica pub in Epcot and pooping my pants with Hugo on Space Mountain.  A family favourite was the Finding Nemo ride and viewing live manatees. Little did we know we were to see them in the wild a few weeks later. 

We were also visited by old friend and colleague David Panillio from my West Gate Tunnel days who drove 4 hours from his home to have a beer and meal with us, what a legend. Another welcome distraction was a spur of the moment visit by Charlotte’s brother, Howard, and his family from Seattle which gave the cousins who are normally separated by the Pacific Ocean a chance to hang out and play, a priceless time.

Our home at Riviera Beach City Marina was an oasis of genteel in an otherwise poor neighbourhood sandwiched between two very wealthy suburbs. I made the mistake of visiting the local liquor store where all booze and servers were behind bullet proof glass and the clientele was a mixed bag of drunks, bikers and a Vietnam veteran. Not for the first time I was grateful for my dual nationality.  When the Vietnam vet demanded in a drunken American drawl where I was from I immediately answered Australia.  “good for you sir, your boys helped us out there, not like those Brits.”  Phew. Dodged a bullet there. I escaped the store with a bottle of gin and no injuries and actually felt pretty good about my own drinking habits for a change.  The gulf between the mega rich with their dozens of mega yachts we observed all around us and the poor and homeless people we saw throughout our stay seemed bigger than any other country I could remember.  I guess the mega wealthy need to put their money into yachts because fancy cars would soon get wrecked on the potholed streets the Government can’t afford to fix.  Infrastructure seemed to be hugely underfunded and it was hard to see this changing quickly without major tax reform.  At one stage we saw a cavalcade of huge bullet proof jeeps and vans bouncing along the ragged streets at great speed, blue lights flashing, which we later learned was Trump, probably going between his many Golf Courses.

As the official end to the hurricane season and our planned date of departure, 1 December, approached, the activity and stress levels rose to fever pitch.  Freezers were returned, the last amazon panic buys were delivered, our fully rebuilt outboard engine was picked up and our 12^th and 13^th visit to the local chandleries were completed.  One of the last jobs was to provision the boat with as much food and drink as we could to last us to Panama in mid January given the high cost and scarcity of many food products in the Bahamas.  We did this in two stages, non perishables first and then perishables and booze.  For the last trip we filled 3 trolleys and spent more money that we ever had in a supermarket by far and then Charlotte completed the complex task of stowing everything away and remembering where it was. I converted one of the bilges into a wine cellar, it seemed appropriate to store wine under our feet just as you do in a house.

The last day was a whirlwind of final tasks, going to immigration and customs to check out, getting COVID test, saying goodbye to friends we had made in the marina and having the alternators reinstalled complete with their new regulators, a job Steve completed at 4:30 after driving the 2 hour return trip to Fort Lauderdale to pick them up, what a legend!  Our original plan to leave on 2 December had to be rapidly re-thought as the revised weather forecast had a safe Gulf Stream crossing overnight on the 1^st rather than during the day of the 2^nd as we originally were planning for.  Wanting to leave the marina before darkness, Charlotte cast off the stern line at sunset and I started motoring away when Hugo yelled “we’re still tied on!”  I had left the long bow rope attached to the dock and had Hugo not spotted it when he did, it would most likely have dragged our bow into the motorboat ahead of us possibly damaging one or both vessels.  Completely my fault and another lesson learned, never rush important manoeuvres and check everything before implementing them.  Also, it made me realise that despite their age and inexperience, Hugo and Jasmine are useful crew members and we need to tap into that. 

As we motored through the cut there was another panic, no autopilot! I sank into instant despair imagining us having to hand steer all through the night, maybe all the way to Australia or return to Florida with our tail between our legs for more repairs. I still was in mobile phone range so rang Steve in desperation, “What shall I do?”. “Relax mon, just turn it off and on again”.  I went to the switchboard and it was at this stage I realised that in my haste, I hadn’t even turned it on yet.

I just needed to relax.  After 18 months of planning, a month delivering the boat and a month preparing it, we had successfully made it to the start line.  This 140 nautical mile leg from West Palm Beach USA to Great Harbour Cay, Bahamas was the first of many that would, all things going well, form a series of dots and lines on a chart that would lead us all the way home to Australia.  Whilst charlotte knocked up a meal of nasi goreng and the kids had a bit of screen time to settle their nerves, I took a moment to watch the lights coming on along the Florida coast as the orange sky melted into blackness and indulged myself in a satisfied smile as I ticked off everything we had achieved already.  Surely after all that work, sailing the boat back to Australia would be the easy bit, wouldn’t it?

As I write this, we are now in Eleuthra having spent a lovely week in the Berry Islands with plenty of adventures involving manatees, sharks, running aground and snorkeling on the ocean side of the islands amongst other things.  Now that all the stresses of getting the boat ready are over, I will have more fun stuff to write about and get back up to speed with these blogs so they’re published more in real time.  We would like to thank everyone who has commented on this blog or its Facebook and Instagram links.  We really love getting these more than you probably realise and so please do keep them coming.  Bill Cox and Karly Georgiou have been particularly good commenters and it is very much appreciated and valued, thank you.

For those of you yacht or DIY nerds, here’s a full(ish) list of work done:

• Engines – full service including replacing oil, filters, impellors and belts
• Engines – purchase oil, coolant and spares to last 12 months
• Engines – installation of regulators to improve efficiency of alternators to improve battery charging
• Watermaker – Full service and filter change
• Freezer – new cooling plate and gas system
• Solar – increase solar capacity by 450W and add new control panel
• Shore power – add new US plug and purchase 2^nd shore power cable
• Water heater – replace heating element
• Deck shower – replace broken shower head
• Manual toilet – full service and purchase spare hoses and valves
• Electric toilets – clear pipes with hydrochloric acid
• Gas – convert to propane and purchase and fill 3 tanks
• BBQ – buy and mount BBQ and buy adaptors so it can run on large propane tanks or small camping style tanks (or which we have purchased 12
• Flag – buy new flag pole and mount on starboard aft pushpit
• Rigging – inspected all fittings at top of mast and purchased new spinnaker halyard and 1^st reef line to install later. Silicone spray all blocks and other moving parts
• Main sail – Remove temporary repair from Colombia, replace missing baton screw and glue in all screws, replace split pins
• Main sail bag – restitch zip onto bag where the stitching has rotted
• Code D / Gennaker – change furling system so that all lines run cleanly
• Tools – build full tool kit
• Purchase spares – electrical, plumbing, fixings, pipes, rope, running rigging
• Storage – purchase plastic storage boxes for bilge and rope bags to hang fruit and veg and buy 8 water jerry and 10 diesel jerry cans
• Navigation – purchase electronic charts for South Pacific
• Dinghy – repair slow leak (twice as first time didn’t work)
• Dinghy engine – full service including new carburetor
• Fishing – buy lures, tackle and net and install rod holder on stern
• Toys – buy 2 SUPs and 1 kite foil board and install carrier system above dingy davits
• Radar reflector – install above first spreaders
• Snorkeling – measure up and purchase full snorkel gear for family including speargun for me
• Outboard engine bracket – set up system to lift outboard from dingy and mount on pushpit for long passages (half complete)
• Medical – pick up medical kit and receive full training
• Merch – create Kilauea boat cards, beer holders, caps and crew shirts
• Galley – equip galley
• School – buy all school equipment needed including microplastic experiment equipment (more on that later)
• Mooring – replace mooring lines
• Transport – buy and pick up 2 new folding bikes
• Purchased an awning for the bow