We Own A Boat!

An old, beat down, somewhat neglected boat...but still, she was ours. The next two months, we spent several weekends driving down to the boat for inventorying, cleaning, and evaluating. Once our new slip was ready, we enlisted a friend to help Nathan make the 30 minute motor or sail, while I removed all our old docklines and drove to the new marina to get them set up in the new slip. What a moment to see Nathan come motoring down the marina entrance channel! And then our real fun began.

We knew nothing about owning a boat. And we may have had one of the oldest and smallest boats in our marina, but not once did any of the other sailors make fun of us or give us anything other than support and advice. We had a great introduction to the sailing community. We quickly found that most systems on the boat needed at least some work. Because this was a weekend project, and I was still a Nervous Nellie, we spent most of that first summer doing work and staying at the dock. We'd go out for day sails, but come nightfall, we were back in the marina. The biggest reason for this was the toilet. Or more specifically, the holding tank. We didn't have one. We'd had a bag, that was full of waste from years past, and no way to pump it out. With the Chesapeake Bay as a No Dumping zone, and rightly so (side note, that beautiful, unique, gorgeous area of the United States is currently under environmental crisis), my option for trips longer than a few hours was a bucket with a lid. Since we were paying $3500 a year for fancy, schmancy slip with clean, working toilets at the end of the dock, no thank you to the bucket option. Had I only known how much I'd come to love anchoring in a quiet cove, then that first season would have gone much differently.

Regardless, we forged ahead with installing a new holding tank and all new plumbing...and then the toilet didn't work. Nathan took it apart, cleaned everything, and nothing. Lots of research and thinking and staring...at summer's end, we bought a new toilet. And learned a great lesson in following Kenny Rogers' advice of knowing when to fold. We cleaned...and cleaned...and cleaned. How a 27' boat could get that dirty, I don't know. We examined sails, had a new roller furler edge sewed on, re-ran electrical, sanded and varnished, worked on the solar panels, took off the outboard motor for a service, made fabric covers for all exposed woodwork, repaired gelcoat, and the list goes on. Most important, we purchased a parachute fabric hammock to swing between the mast and headstay - the single best $30 we ever spent on boat improvements. We spent the summer sweating in the 90+ degree temps and running for cover into our cabin during frequent rain sqalls (which led to our biggest projects for the second season being a huge piece of Sunbrella to drape over the boom for sun/rain cover and fitting a window A/C unit into our companionway opening), some light sailing just to get out on the water, and enjoying what I came to call our "beach house." We may not have been sailing as much as we wanted, but 7pm on Friday nights had us making the 45 minute drive to the Bay, where we spent two glorious days by the water, returning home on Sunday nights refreshed and ready for another week of work.

Next Step

Despite that disastrous sailing adventure, I agreed to go sailing again, this time with my husband as the Captain. I had gotten beginning sailing lessons at our previous duty station, Newport, RI, mainly because Nathan asked me to. Then in San Diego, I took more sailing classes, attaining certification to take out the Navy's recreational, rental fleet boats on an overnight trip. But I never reached a point where I felt comfortable enough to go out by myself or as Captain. We did rent a boat from the Navy Rec center a couple of times and sail about the San Diego Bay. After leaving San Diego in 2002, there followed five years of moving around, four duty stations in the five years. Even with one of them being Key West, we did not sail again (other than Nathan crewing on a race boat a couple of times). Finally, in 2007, we landed in Washington D.C., a short 45 minutes to the gorgeous, Chesapeake Bay. Despite Nathan's busy work schedule, we decided to buy a sailboat and find out if this whole sailing thing was something for us to pursue.

We browsed craigslist, drove out to the Bay a few times to look at boats, and found the boat for us by a complete accident. We'd gone out to a fancy marina to take a look at a former Annapolis Sailing School boat. That boat was definitely not the boat for us, and as we walked dejectedly back down the dock, staring at all the boats in the marina, our beauty came into view. A 27' Catalina, old (1976), neglected, with a very faded, almost illegible, "For Sale" sign hanging in a corner of the hatchboards. The owner was extremely surprised to hear from us as he'd moved to Canada. I suppose he thought the boat would never sell, and it seemed like he might have even forgotten he owned it. One visit for a look at the interior led us to schedule a sea trial, and in short order, we were the excited and proud owners of Mafalda. Named after an Argentinian cartoon by a prior owner (who actually then owned Mafalda II in the same marina to which we moved the original Mafalda), we found the name cute and unique, so we decided to keep it for awhile. We weren't sure just how much sailing vs. work we'd have, so we moved Mafalda to Herrington Harbour South, one of the fanciest marinas on the Chesapeake Bay. With a swimming pool, restaurant and bar, beach, lush grounds, and proximity to a nice, little beach town, I had lots of amenities...just in case I still wasn't keen on sailing.

The Beginning, by Stephanie

Nathan sailed as a child aboard a friend's Laser. I "sailed" once on a friend's beach Hobie Cat. Fast forward about 20 years. We married and moved to San Diego, where we lived for several years. While there, Nathan had the opportunity to join a racing team aboard a Mumm 30, and his dreaming really took off. Every Wednesday, he headed to the San Diego Yacht Club, practiced with the team, and then headed out for the fun, but pretty competitive, Beer Can Races. Sometimes I joined in the fun back at the yacht club, post-race, but mostly, I just listened to the stories. Then one day I was invited to a party aboard a sailboat. I was the friend of a friend of a friend invitee and had no idea what to expect. It was disastrous. As 30 of us or so sailed around the San Diego Bay, we ran aground, the Captain ripped off his toenail and then dropped his eyeglasses overboard while trying to get us off, and to cap it off, as TowBoat neared and a Coast Guard vessel cruised nearby, the Captain ordered 25 of us to hide down below as he didn't have the appropriate number of life vests. We were packed into this small, stifling, hot saloon, feeling like refugees headed to Florida. While that day gave me a greater appreciation for the lengths people will go to in order to reach the shores of a free country, I was locked into the belief that sailing was not for me. This hobby contained all the elements of my worst nightmare - no way to reach safe land, potential for physical injury is high, potential to run afoul of authorities also high, and sheer volume of complete idiots on the waterways seemed enormous on that day, magnifying the danger factor. I do not like risks. I like to go for gentle hikes, settle with a quiet book, stand on the shores and think of Creation. A hobby with all this work and danger and worry involved is not a hobby for me.

And that's how it all started...