FCC approved!

Chris Tanner

Paperwork for the ship’s radio licence arrived today, which means I now have an MMSI number which is needed for DSC calling, and most importantly it means that I can send instant mayday calls with the DSC distress button on the VHF radio. I’ve not yet got a GPS connected up to the radio, so we’re not quite there yet, but this is first base. It cost $160 to register with the FCC here, whereas in the UK (if I recall correctly) it’s free to get listed on the Small Ships Register. The boat is registered in California however, so I can’t use the SSR – and it’s going to be a lot easier in foreign ports if the boat papers and licences are all US rather than a mix.

Exhausted

Chris Tanner

It’s now a whole week that we’ve been in San Francisco, well technically Sausalito, which is nicely north of the city and generally sunny when the town is in fog (we’re told). We don’t quite feel like locals yet, but we’re getting there. We’ve met a bunch of people with nice American names; Chuck, Joe, Terry, Cesar, Delores, Brett. We’ve got phone numbers that start with 415. We know the difference between Mollie Stone’s and Trader Joe’s, we know what you can buy at Best Buy and Dollar Tree. We’ve had breakfast at a Mexican-American diner just around the corner. We’ve not yet had a burger though…

It’s been a hectic week, getting everything sorted out. A stack of things have been knocked off the todo list, the boat is all ship shape and running just fine on the domestic side of things, and I’m starting back at work tomorrow.

We’ve moved the boat to slip 1000, which is right next to the main walkway (inside the gated marina) – handy but not so private. It’s a good spot to meet people though, catching folk as they go by. We catch the wind, too – it’s the westernmost slip in the marina, which means the wind whistling off the Marin headlands hits us first. The other night we put our new cooker to the test on it’s gimbals; the boat was over ten degrees on the dock! They say it gets windier sometimes too. Whoopee. We might look to move to another slip at some point.

The marina showers are hot and powerful (I’ve fixed the one on board but it doesn’t really compare), and the toilet block is clean – though the heads on board works great and we get the holding tank pumped out every other week, so no drama there. It gets a little chilly at night when the sky is clear, so we’ve ordered a new electric heater which we’ll stick on a timer to warm the boat up before we get up in the morning. The on board fridge is running just fine, if a little noisy at night, and the water heater gets a nice lot of washing water ready in a few minutes when we need it. The new cooker (thanks mum and dad!) is amazing; we’ve not yet used the oven in anger but I can see it’s going to do the trick. After wondering what to do with the old one for a few days, I left it outside the marina gate and when I got back from the shower it had gone! Job done. Hope it went to a good cause and not the land fill.

We put our bikes together and had a short pedal up the way to the coffee place next to Proof Lab surf shop. We made an epic, traffic heavy, late night trip to Ikea and Home Depot, and bought a load of stuff including a set of DeWALT power tools – Man Toys. Grr. We’ve put pictures up and taken a door down between the main cabin and the front cabin. It was just getting in the way. We’ll get a curtain up there instead. I fixed the shower pump that wasn’t working, removed all the old 1980s Decca navigation equipment, and applied for an MMSI number for the VHF radio (it’s like a boat signature, so that if, god forbid, we have to hit the emergency DSC mayday button, the coastguard know everything about the boat immediately). We sat in the Social Security office for me to get a number so I’m on the books. We opened a bank account this morning with the Bank of America – not something we’d planned to do, but I needed to cash a load of travellers cheques and they’d only do $500 at once for non account holders. Now I have one for work to pay my wages into which will be handy.

Both of us are exhausted, with everything around us being a new experience, there’s a lot to take on board every minute of the day. We just got back from a drive south to Half Moon Bay to pick up a new van (more about that later) – which left us both shattered. It’s not hard driving, just new. Eyes out on stalks all the time. Bring it on.

Time to get dirty

Chris Tanner

One thing I’ve not really had to do much of over the past few years is build things. Somehow I’ve managed to get by with a basic set of tools, borrowing where I didn’t have what I needed, and I guess a fair bit of luck with things not breaking. And a bit of planning – buying stuff that didn’t need much fixing up.

Now, however, I have a whole new list of projects reaching out ahead of me for at least a year; working on the boat, converting a van… which needs tools! Like an excited kid at Christmas I spent an hour at Home Depot in the power tools section, figuring out the best combo. It all had to be battery powered, too – so that I can repair stuff and build things offshore. I ended up with a nice new set of DeWALT 20v tools. Just the fact that I’ve devoted an entire post to this shows how much I’m looking forward to getting my hands dirty and building / fixing stuff again. It’s been a while!

Goodbye Bristol

Chris Tanner

Bristol. What an awesome city. But it’s time to say goodbye. I’ve been here long enough. I’ve ridden enough of your trails, drunk in enough of your watering holes, visited enough of your surroundings, met enough of your people … and while there is probably a LOAD more awesomeness I could get from staying, I have a greater urge to move on than I have to stay.

Deciding to make a big move to a different country means resetting a load of dials of life. The dial that shows “amount of new experiences” is going from medium to max. The dial that shows how many of the layers of the onion we’ve peeled back on understanding our the depths and nuances of our surroundings is going from somewhere near medium, back to zero. The dial that says “sociable times with long standing buddies” is going from high to zero. On one side of the coin, that’s why we’re doing this. To shake things up a little. On the flipside, we’re going to be missing a load of good stuff. We’re going to be back at base one for a lot of things, and we’re going to be navigating our way through a lot of superficiality as we meet new people, try new things, and get under the skin of a new country and new society. But the compromises we make I think are going to be worth it. Onwards and upwards!

All packed away

Chris Tanner

Today we loaded a whole stack of boxes into storage. Everything that we’re not taking with us is now in this small wooden crate, tucked in the back of a warehouse on an industrial unit near Bristol.  In fact it’s only half a crate – since we haven’t kept any furniture at all, our possessions are limited mainly to books, paintings and a few personal things. One VW Transporter load of boxes, to be exact:

We’ve managed to either sell or give away pretty much everything else. Hardly anything into landfill or the dump. Result.

Big questions

Chris Tanner

Most people go through periods of questioning their purpose and goals. It can be quite tough. “What am I here to do?”. Some people have found their purpose in research, teaching, learning, business, family or religion. I’m just coming to the end of a period where I’ve had an unwavering sense of purpose to grow a business, but that phase is passing and I don’t truly feel that I know what’s next. I want to feel like I am achieving something. I want to have fun. I want to share and inspire. I want to be inspired. I want to contribute to a greater good, whether that’s social, economic, environmental or something else – I’m not yet sure. Probably a mix of all the above.

My “sense of purpose” whiskers are twitching, looking for the next goal … I have a feeling I know what it is, but in the meantime I’m doing some inner exploring to figure out a few things. I’m super excited to be moving to a new country, with new experiences, new people, new everything… but I know that there will be some tough times that will need strength of spirit to get through. “Why am I doing this?” …  “Am I getting closer to my goals?” … “What are my goals?”

While I figure those bug ‘uns out – and it may take a looong time – there are a few foundational building blocks that need to be cemented down first. A few ground rules on which everything else is built. Here are a few quotes that capture the spirit of some of these building blocks – l’essence de vie – and how I interpret them.

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” – Howard Thurman

Live to buzz. Live to make others buzz. Enthusiasm is infectious. Positive thinking is motivating for me and others around me. Banish negative thoughts to the realms of self reflection and conversations with those close to me. Making other people happy gives me a kick. Do more of it.

“Unless you have tried to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.” – Ronald E Osborn

Do new things every day. I won’t let fear stop me from taking a step into the unknown. I love learning. I won’t be afraid to move on when I feel that the pace of learning has slowed, or routine is setting in. Maybe when I’m older I will give routine a place to stay, but right now it’s not welcome at the door.

“He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still.” – Lao Tzu

Hmmn – not quite so sure about this one. It comes across with an air of superiority – life’s not about being better than other people, or controlling others – but I can see what Lao is getting at. It’s about being introspective and understanding oneself. I will question everything. But not to the point where I’m just thrashing around in an internal mess of cross examination. That would be silly.

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” – Henry David Thoreau

The woods are great. Wild open spaces are great. I love getting out into the great outdoors – the back country, the ocean, the wilderness. Why? Partly because of the physical activity – to get to the top of a hill you have to climb it – and partly because there are fewer people, and partly because I’m always amazed by nature. There are no crass consumers out in the wilderness, wanting bigger TVs and flashier phones. The folks you meet are generally like minded and down to earth. You are forced to simplify. To eat, to walk, to sleep, to talk, to look, to listen.

“What is money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.” – Bob Dylan

Right on. Whilst a certain amount of money is certainly needed to get by, there really no need to keep working purely for money’s sake. Ideally, money would be a by product of doing what I love doing, so that I can spend on the things that keep my spirit nourished with everything from good, healthy food to time away from it all.

“As is a tale, so is life; not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.” – Seneca

Well, I think old Seneca here is getting at the fact that it’s all about the quality. I’d be just fine if life was long as well as good, but if you have to place your chips on one or the other, I’d definitely punt for quality.

“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside of us while we live.” – Norman Cousins

If nothing else, I think this is just a sharp reminder to keep checking back against what I strive for. Keep a tight hold on the good things and don’t let them die away – they can often be very hard to get back once cynicism and disillusionment has set in.

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is to not stop questioning.” – Albert Einstein

“Why?” is a great question. My favourite question of all time. So often we skip over the real true essence of a feeling or shared experience, assuming that the person we are talking to already understands. But when you dig into the detail you discover so much more. Explore the inner depths of a conversation. Explore the workings of a machine. Question your motives so that when you achieve, you really feel it.

“Live simply”

Simple living is something I believe strongly in. We don’t need to cram our lives with possessions. We don’t have to live like hermits, but we do need to make use of what we own, and we need to consider experiences more valuable than stuff. It’s not just about things though, it’s also about the impact we have on the people and the world around us. I want to buy products that aren’t wrapped in a gazillion layers of plastic – easier said than done, these days. I want to be a giver, not a taker, when it comes to society at large. I’m thinking about how we can go “off the grid” when we move aboard Rafiki in a couple of weeks’ time.

So, yeah, a load of stuff there to think about. Intimidating, exciting, motivating. It’s time to get out there. To explore. To discover. To learn.

Getting ready to jump

Chris Tanner

People talk about moving house being an opportunity to clear out some old stuff. Getting rid of stuff is great, but easier said than done. We’ve moved a few times in the last few years and haven’t really managed to make it work. Somehow we still have a load of things we never use, even though we live in a teeny weeny small terraced house. This time, however, we’re doing it properly. Not only are we moving countries, but we’re also moving ourselves and our entourage of possessions onto a small sailboat which probably has about the same total floorspace as our kitchen. We’re having to think long, hard and deep about what we take with us – not only the space factor but also the fact that we’re going to be taking everything with us on the plane as excess baggage. To be honest though I think Rose is finding it a lot harder than I am; I’m not so sentimental about “stuff”, and I’m taking most of what I own – sports equipment and a few clothes. And the stuff we’re not taking? We’ve got a small storage container that we’ll stick some things into, and we’re trying to give the rest away.

But this move isn’t just about the unloading of stuff. It’s the start of a whole new adventure. Whilst we’re not yet “casting off the bow lines” and “sailing away from the safe harbor” in the real sense, to quote a clichéd Mark Twain piece, we certainly are in the metaphorical sense. We’re selling the car and the van. We’re renting out our house. We’re packing only what we know we’re going to need for the next few months. We’re saying goodbye to family and friends.

It’s a really strange time. We’ve both felt now, for quite a while, that our time is up in Bristol. Life has reached a point where we’re on a plateau. Slipping into a routine. Work, home, work, home, work, home, weekend. And for Rose, the same with the studio. The record’s not quite broken, and we’ve done pretty well to pack a whole load of stuff into an amazing British summer, but something needs a reset. I want to fill life with new experiences. Not just new remixes of the same, familiar tunes, but a whole new repertoire, a whole new set of instruments, and new ways to play them.

We’re stepping out across the Atlantic – not just the Atlantic but all the way out across the USA – to San Francisco. That should do the trick. Everything is going to be new. Well, most things. I’m keeping the same job, the Americans speak English (yes, I know, debatable) and it’s somewhere we’re fairly familiar with, but still, it’s going to be a whole lot of new stuff to learn. Bring it on! Right now I’m trying to figure out the US income tax laws for resident aliens (we’ll get some alien costumes at some point I’m sure). Then comes buying a vehicle, getting a driving licence, going to the dentist … all the stuff that here at home in the UK is so familiar is going to be new.

But all this is just a stepping stone. We’ll be on the road (or ocean) before long. We’re moving one step closer to really sailing away from the safe harbor. I can’t wait.

Live to ride another ride

Chris Tanner

My bike is on its last legs [wheels?]. The two of us had a tough morning. As happens to all full suss bikes as they reach old age, the back end had started to go a little kooky and creaky. I figured it was just old joints; nothing that bearing transplant couldn’t fix. What started out as a quick job nearly ended up as the bike’s final day. It lay there in pieces on the surgery floor as a fine drizzle settled in, completely dismembered and disembowelled. For a while I thought it wouldn’t make it through – fatally wounded, the cost of repair being more than a new frame. One of the bearings had completely destroyed itself, leaving just the outer race firmly pressed into one of the pivot arms. This made it impossible to get off with the tools I have lying around. We’re talking bricks, hammer, pliers, spanner here. Nothing high tech like a vice, which would have come in handy. I even started looking on eBay for a new bike (sorry bike, I know I shouldn’t have been so fickle).

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Then I had a brainwave – I’d rebuild the bearing using internals from one of the new ones I’d got from the lads at Lush Longboards. This proved pretty straightforward (with a little help from a friendly pack of butter to keep the balls in place). Once the bearing was rebuilt, it was easy to pop out and drop in a new one. We’re back in the game!

Lurpack Speed Bearing (c)