Necessity and Invention

The weather finally calmed down and this place became just incredibly, impossibly beautiful again.

Now, we remember WHY we came back!

Suddenly, we were living the dream once again--a slightly battered version of it, perhaps--but with blue skies above and an ocean that resembles an aquamarine treasure chest... our spirits were in pretty good shape and we felt optimistic about fixing ourselves up.

We paid no attention, when some of the other boats in the anchorage looked down their noses at us and shook their heads as we scoured the beach and Gaston's junk pile for things to fix our broken boat with.

I think, perhaps, when you are used to everything being new, maybe it seems impossible that you can actually make something out of nothing.

This could not be further from the truth.

Legions of cruisers (not to mention Mexican fisherman, Tuamoto pearl farmers and anyone else who is used to subsistence living) can "MacGyver" their way out of almost anything... necessity and invention, indeed.

The hardest part, was not to just skip out and go diving and play when it all was so laid down and calm-especially after all the stress lately but with our anchor sitting on the bottom and our bow pulpit on the beach--it was all work and no play for Jon until we got ourselves sorted.

The good news is, things are now, slowly but surely, coming together in the repair department;

Jon glued the pulpit together with some foaming Gorilla glue and clamped it to dry before reinforcing it with the two plywood cutouts he made from some spare planks we had stored under the kids bunks in case of emergencies. We had been fearing holes in hulls or blown out hatches when we did this-so all things considered this was a benign operation compared to some!

The glue job on the teak looks mighty sufficient by itself but to be totally sure, Jon shaped the plywood cutouts with a jigsaw (then dremeled the edges, in a nod to my sense of aesthetic), painted it to seal it, then bolted it over the glued area --as an added measure of security.

It's not pretty (but pretty doesn't count much out here, anyway) and as long as Pura Vida can meet what's demanded of her, she's even more excellent in our eyes.

Besides, now she's got a radical, "Mad-Max" look to her after all the hard knocks she's taken out here on the edge of the world.

I can totally relate to our beloved, old boat in that department.

I haven't had a proper bath in two years, my hair is pinned up with boar tusks, I'm currently wearing a shredded, flour-encrusted, scrap of material that used be something attractive once... and yet, my husband gazes at me like I am the last woman on earth. Of course, where we are these days, I might as well be... but knowing we can weather storms together and count on one another till our last breath makes up for these "cracks in the gel-coat" and the knocked and dented bits and I feel all the more adored, for it.

Fixing that ruined bobstay was a bit of a puzzle--this vital bit carries the load of the entire bowsprit and anchor package, so it has to be done with no compromise to strength or integrity.

Waiting for a shiny new piece of solid stainless just the right size to fall off the orbiting space station seemed like it might take awhile, so in the meantime, we had a look around the motu and the bilges of our boat to see what could be found instead.

We did have a small chunk of stainless tubing on board but it wasn't large enough to replace the whole bobstay.

While other cruisers from boats with 50 gallon an hour watermakers muttered amongst themselves that we should sail back to Tahiti to get ourselves fixed professionally, we scoured the beach, the palm forest and disassembled every broken old generator or cast off piece of junk we could find.

Jon hit the jackpot and discovered a defunct old outboard rotting in the sun and took it apart to get to the stainless steel shaft that led to its propeller.

He took the length of stainless tubing that we had, opened that up to make a sleeve, then heated our bent bobstay (as expected, it broke when he tried to straighten it), cut the bent section out of it, cut a replacement piece for the missing section, preset some cork inside the old bobstay tubing to make a well for epoxy, filled that with epoxy, slid the solid stainless output shaft inside the bobstay tubing so that the epoxy splooged out and filled all the voids.

All of this was done under the shade of a fish shack, on top of an old door, using our portable generator to plug in our power tools but compared to what other cruisers have gone though to rescue themselves and their boats while marooned in obscurity, we felt as blessed as if we had broken down in front of a West Marine--well, maybe not QUITE but... grateful, never-the-less.

Now, we have three sections of 1" tubing making up the bobstay but filled with the stainless shaft and the epoxy, AND straightened, sleeved and hose clamped.

The thing is so totally solid now, it will have to break somewhere ELSE next time!

The next trick for my Mr. Macgyver will be getting the whole damn rig re-attached to the boat. This we will need some help for.

Gaston (who is my age and skinny as a whippet but has the strength of five men) and our other friend John, (from SV NAKIA) will help us wrangle it all when we are ready.  The other skipper, John has been a great help to my Jon, with thinking problems out as they come up and lending tools and being an all around wonderful guy. His super-sweet, wife, Linda also makes the most excellent brownies and blueberry crumbles and they fed us and helped us and have done much to boost the morale of the Pura Vida and crew when we needed it most!

So there you have it--we are on the mend.

The kids and I, meanwhile, have been doing some snorkeling. I have named the two hundred pound, Bumphead Wrasse that lives under our boat, "Oliver" and he is so used to me I can almost feed him by hand, now.
The kids have been home schooling by writing dive journals and continuing to help with projects around the compound here. There is always something to do, repair fishing nets, gather coconuts for food, collect logs from another Motu to rebuild things destroyed by the blow..

As reports started to come in from other boats, we learned of the many terrible things that happened during the storm.

Ten fishing boats lost in Fakarava, another cruiser there suffered damage very like ours but instead of losing the bowsprit they actually put cracks in their fiberglass bow!

Another fancy Cat came in here that had taken a direct hit by lightning and lost all of their electronics.
They did not stay here more than a few hours, to catch some sleep then headed straight to Tahiti, totally fed up with cruising.

It's not always easy. Its not always a picnic, that's true.

There is something monumentally satisfying about getting though it, though.
When the clouds finally do pass, and "It" unfolds in all its glory...

We are so blown away that this is what we are getting to do with our lives.

Jon and I sat on deck, the other night, drinking a grog;
rum, water, sugar, squeeze of lime--no ice baby, that's for sissies!
and it was, truly, EVEN better than it has ever been.
All of it...

This place was more beautiful, the stars peeking out looked even prettier, we missed our friends and family more than ever,
were overwhelmed by what awesome creations our children are and what truly lovely people they are growing up to be...
and sitting there, together, looking out (over where our bowsprit USED to be) we watched one of our planet's great sunsets...
and were even more in love than ever.

Old boat, bad storm, ups and downs, kids, marriage, money, no money...

Looking at the stars, when nothing else matters but the fact that you can see them, again,
this is what makes all the hard stuff worth it.

That...and tomorrow we go scuba diving again!