{"id":245,"date":"2016-11-03T00:39:29","date_gmt":"2016-11-03T00:39:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nandu.world\/blog\/?p=245"},"modified":"2016-12-09T03:58:25","modified_gmt":"2016-12-09T03:58:25","slug":"cat-blues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nandu.world\/blog\/2016\/11\/cat-blues\/","title":{"rendered":"Cat blues"},"content":{"rendered":"

While waiting for another set of brackets to be manufactured for us by the Yanmar boys, we got the broken one repaired by a local welder. The friendly but lax way of doing business gave us a taste of a laid back Delaware that reminded us of some countries south of the border: “How much is it going to be?”. “I don’t know, 40 or 50 bucks, I guess”.<\/p>\n

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Kaput zwei!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When we came back to pick up the bracket the welder proudly presented the piece to us claiming that it was “as strong as before”. We had to reexplain that it broke because it wasn’t strong enough. “Can you make it stronger?”. “I guess, if you want”, he said.<\/p>\n

Lewes is a lovely town and Lewesians are very friendly. During our longer than anticipated stay we made new friends, and also shared several meals with old friends that moved to Delaware 12 years ago. They kindly lent us a car, and Bob supervised my first ever oil and filter change.<\/p>\n

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Lightship Overfalls in Lewes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Since the Yanmar people\u00a0were taking their time (waiting for the boss to come back from vacation), we took our chances and decided to sail through open seas to the Chesapeake Bay with the repaired and reinforced bracket in the port engine and the original one in the starboard engine. They didn’t fail on us, which was fortunate because we really made good use of both engines.<\/p>\n

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Cape Henlopen, Delaware<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Moderate winds? Yeah, right.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We departed early morning when the forecast called for moderate winds, even though the wind direction was not going to be ideal. Well… the forecast wasn’t quite right. What was supposed to be a 25-hour passage ended up being a 35-hour washing machine cycle. Instead of 15 knots we had sustained winds of 20 and sometimes 24 knots, always straight on the nose. Making progress in those conditions was painfully slow, under sail or engine, and life in the cockpit was brutal with all that beating against the waves.<\/p>\n

To make matters worse, Oliver made it very clear he wasn’t happy. He’d stagger down to the port head (i.e., bathroom) where we keep his litter box. He’d then stagger back through the companionway emitting a loud meow with the most annoying pitch he’s capable of, while looking at us with an expression that unmistakably meant “How in the world do you expect me to pee if I can barely keep my balance?” After a few repetitions of the same scene we moved the litter box to our head in the starboard hull. The starboard head, being aft, is more stable than the port head which is almost all the way forward. Judging from Oliver’s change of mood, that seemed to have made the trick. He then discovered that the captain’s seat was a great place to spend the rest of the night.<\/p>\n