Welp, it happened again. I truly thought I had shaken the day one chaos that has accompanied every single one of my long-term trips. My flight was on time, I made it through customs without them questioning that I’m living on a boat, Kristoffer and Jurgen picked me up from the airport, and we made it back to the boat yard avoiding the gangs of road dogs who play chicken on the pitch black highway between Port o Spain and the shipyard. Needless to say after previous trips where I’ve been endlessly delayed, blown week 1 budget on a cab in Iceland, and been deported back across the Atlantic, I was smugly pleased at how well it went. I got in pretty late so we went to bed fairly early to wake up the next day and continue prepping the boat to be ship shape by our planned Friday departure.
The big task for day two was to re-thread all the lines that go up through the mast. These lines are crucial for a sailboat as they hoist and lower the sails along with many other uses. This process involved a one person up in a harness at the top of the mast while the other tries to feed ropes in and out of the base mast using fishing line and weights…All is going surprisingly well until Jonas (Danish guy helping us with the mast fixing) notices on his way down that a critical piece of the mast is broken. Turns out it is a 24hr curse…
I was in Trinidad for the beginning of a month long journey in the Caribbean. The boat we are on is a Najad Aphrodite 42ft Ketch style boat. Good news, it is built in Norway and is a sexy sailing vessel with a lot of TLC at the ripe age of 29. Bad news, we are in Trinidad, which doesn’t generally stock critical mast pieces for thirty year old Norwegian sailing vessels. How long does it take to ship from Norway to Trinidad you ask? Two weeks…facepalm.
Over the past few months I had been setting up my entire schedule to make this trip, which gives me the sailing experience and miles I need to take the Yachtmaster certification, which I need to be able to work on sailing vessels in the Mediterranean this summer and beyond. Long story short to put it bluntly, a two week delay would take my six-month trip start outline and screw it sideways.
My initial thought was dismay that my plans we’re probably shredded and then anger at myself for setting things up without much leeway for error. Then I took a few breaths and reminded myself that shit happens in life and especially when you travel! Worrying is about as helpful as slippery yoga mat in a heated flow class and serves no purpose except to pull your thoughts and mental energy in unproductive directions.
Instead, we finished up threading the mast for the day, took the rental car up to an abandoned English Weather observatory that looked like a mix of Severnaya in James Bond Goldeneye and Carcosa from True Detective. The hour hike up to the top, awesome views, and exploring took my mind off the shitty speedbump we hit. Later a local friend Ehfa took us for Trinidad street food: Doubles (fried flour quasi tortillas and chickpeas), some Gyros, and a few drinks at a local bar.
The next day after a few calls we figure out that Kristoffer had his friend Philip, who will be flying to Grenada on Saturday from Sweden so he can pick up the part and fly it over for us and then hop to Trinidad and sail back to Grenada with us once it is fixed!
Well Philip arrives and turns out they sent us the left side of piece instead of the right side! Time to despair over another inevitable bump in the road?Nah. We switch to plan F and decide it is nothing a 10 dollar weld job from a friendly Trinidadian can’t fix. We install the bootleg piece, set sails, and run into a thousand more problems along the way! But those adventures can wait till next time…
Can you control the inevitable setbacks that you will face in travel and life? Nope. Can you control your state of reaction afterwards and whether you go down or up from there? Yep.
-Michael
Adventuriquity 