The Rideau Debrief

It seems like a good idea to do this with myself, and because so many people have already become part of this, it feels right to share it with you.

Yes, I was pushing things to try to head south this fall. However, it WAS possible. So I had to try.

Saving myself, saving anyone else, saving some form of life on Earth — it’s all the same. Not trying isn’t an option.

Nor is giving up. I’m not. I’m using this time wisely. This is the beginning — being honest about what needs changing, and what needs doing. It’s almost as long as the Rideau, but I would really appreciate your thoughts (and there’s photos at the end!).

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1 MOTOR/CREW

I need to rewrite my crewfinding posts to call for someone who likes outboard motors… because I really, really, really don’t.

There’s multiple reasons. I spent the whole trip until Edmonds Lock and the ‘Sirens Intervention’ being on high anxiety because of the ongoing outboard problems. I think things just snowballed with the poor Nissan, it wasn’t its fault… once Tony, who knew it, was out of range (and he came to help anyways, ohmygoodness), there was nobody who knew it well enough, and nobody services those ones any more. So snowball things did, and always at particularly crummy moments. Things always worked out somehow, thanks to many good people, including Sarah, who is far better at managing an outboard than I.

That’s important. It wasn’t just the motor. Sarah could often get it going again, until it really croaked. That means the problem is partly me — I’m sure some is physical, not being able to pull the pullstart cord as it wanted, etc, but it’s more than that, too.

I love everything else, and I’m loathing leaving Skoro for winter… but it’s going to be a while before I’m comfortable driving my boat as if she were a car on the highway — that’s what it feels like, and I hate driving. I hate highways. I hate traffic, and there is a lot of traffic on the water, and a lot of them drive like they’re on a highway. I hate cars, trucks, all of them. Don’t even get me started on airplanes. Even trains — big heavy things zooming way too fast on superskinny rails, ack, and the tunnels are too much. That’s all yet another part of why I always wanted a sailboat.

The sound of the motor does something to me. It’s got something to do with revs, and pitch… someone explained it to me recently, wondering about that, and I realized he’s right. There are sounds I can’t deal with. Washing machines, cars and trucks, jets… I nearly had a panic attack on a hovercraft when I was twelve because of the sound… nail files… quick repetitive noises that continue… etc. It may have something to do with being on the autism spectrum, and/or an auditory processing disorder. Neither is officially confirmed, but only because doctors didn’t see much point because of my age (though I want more information). Anyways, as soon as I’m right there with the motor, all my nerves want to run away screaming and I swear the auditory parts of my brain actually hurt inside; it sounds like slimy coarse sandpaper on skin and it feels like hearing nettles sting.

The smell of gas has always unnerved me, and it makes me kind of sick. You’d think being outdoors and on the water, it wouldn’t be as noticeable, but maybe I’m being hypersensitive because of being so on edge. Now that I think about that here, it didn’t bother me nearly as much earlier in the trip. Hm.

The whole idea of using combustion engines sits so very wrongly with me. For Pete’s sake, why on earth, in this day and age, have effective non-gas-based boat propulsion systems not been developed? We can keep a space station powered by the sun but can’t make a boat bigger than a dinghy go through water without gas?! Pardon me very much, but that’s just ridiculous. So I get upset about using the motor… and I know it’s going to be used a lot.

The long and short if it — high anxiety is not an appropriate state in which to operate a vehicle.

It’s gotten to the point where I worry about everything. A fish jumped, but I hear the gurgle of my boat sinking. Ridiculous.

Besides, I’m really good at navigating.

So I need a crewperson who likes outboards, because for a while, they’re going to do a lot of driving.

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2 CREW/SOLAR

Skoro’s solar system powers the running lights and cabin lights and can charge a phone. Sometimes that’s fine. Sometimes there’s not enough power. Charging power packs means no running lights — fine when docked, not any other time.

It hasn’t got enough juice to run a laptop or recharge one.

I do have a two burner non-pressurized alcohol stove, and my awesome tiny rocket stove for boiling water over a few sticks… but both are more time consuming than early boating-day mornings accommodate. It would be very useful to be able to plug a kettle in and run it from the solar. Occasionally, boiling water at the other end of the day would be beyond appreciated, for tea or soup or (healthy gf) ramen noodles.

More importantly, though, better solar will enable crew. Sarah, or someone with similarly rearrangable online work, will not be able to come without appropriate power. Even just the daily tech needs of the boat, plus two humans and a project with required online presence, really means needing more solar power. It will be extremely difficult to find crew willing to forego power. Most gypsies keep in touch with people. It matters.

It’s not just about adding a couple panels. That will call for a new solar controller, and more battery storage.

I’ve been trying to make time to write to every supplier I can to ask for a donation or discount. I absolutely have to do that… there’s never time. And there’s a boatload of other needs requiring a similar boatload of emails and calls. Yes, I will work on it.

But the best time for deals, and the best time to look and ask, is NOW. It’ll all cost more as soon as the boats are all hibernating, and more again in spring.

I would greatly appreciate help with this — specifically, first, with acquiring a solar system, and then with the rest of the ‘needs’ list.

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3 THE REST OF THE ‘NEEDS’ LIST

There’s more, but for now…

Marine communication radio

Second anchor (plus chain and rode)

Charts… needed in advance for planning

Ropes, lines, fenders

Safety gear (harness etc (for humans), flares, etc)

Dinghy… a small hard bottom dinghy, towed, would be perfect… but not yet, because it has to be stowed on deck for locks, and that’d mean not being able to see at all. Therefore — what about a folding two person kayak??? Easy to stow, or put a really good cover on and tow it when that’s alright. Lightweight and dog-toenail-proof. I’d put MMS in one spot and myself in the other, with those skirts around us, and still have space for supplies inside. Would that work? It ought to have a tiny motor, too, but that can be electric (and not for constant use).

‘Foulies’ — boat appropriate foul weather gear

Marine plywood and tools to repair vberth floor and bilge board, make dog-friendly hatchway steps, repair settees, build vberth insert

Organizational items (bins, waterproof bags, etc)

There’s more. I’m still trying to get to updating the seriously organized spreadsheet, and I will share that. Even considering the needs, Skoro is a very good boat, and still a very good deal. She and this project are worth it.

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4 CHARTS AND PLANNING

There was a good plan but we’ve been through that. Boating by the seat of your pants doesn’t work, not sure for voyages and expeditions. You can go fishing or gunkholing (the boat equivalent of stealth camping) or do parts of the Rideau that way, but for an actual journey — you’ve got to know where you’re going next (and next and next and next and next and a very good long way ahead). Otherwise, you’ll be stuck scrambling in the dark for a place to anchor, or stuck in a bad situation, or something like that.

Especially for a long voyage, planning is essential. When it goes out the window, everything goes with it.

Planning requires using nautical charts to work out where you will reach each day, and how, with consideration for what-ifs. You need to know the channels, the depths, what’s along the way (locks, bridges, caution zones, etc), the landmarks, the plan B possibilities… you need to know. Then you take the general expectations for weather, and fix dates. I’ll have to book marina space to quarantine immediately after crossing the border, and probably others as well. There will be passes and permissions to acquire. Fees must be budgeted., at least part paid ahead of time.

Charts, guides, information digging, and time… lots of time.

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5 PLANNING AND REALITY

I do frazzle, but I manage to find solutions, or to find help.

The universe has blessed me with a growing world of people who come together around the need to something epic and outrageous and outrageously simple, for all our different reasons and for the sake of the planet and future we all share. I will continue to do right by such a blessing, and by all of you.

But the true value isn’t about me, or solving the immediate problems. The true value of this beautiful network is how it encourages belief in the innate goodness and caring of human beings. It’s how it connects people who’d otherwise be on their own figurative islands. It’s a way of being part of the larger movement to change what being human actively IS and how we live. It’s a way of seeing possibilities and believing in them and enacting the changes necessary to make them real.

It’s a way of sharing stories, through experience and writing and photography, and later, more… because of all the varied and valuable learning styles, storytelling is perhaps the only universal one.

I will continue to put everything I have and am into this, for myself, for everyone who is part of it, and for the planet. I will continue to believe in this.

And to keep working on the anxiety.

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6 BELIEVING

I don’t remember ever not wanting to wander around the world in a sailboat, tidying up and talking with people about how to take better care of the planet. I hid the dream in a box sometimes but never stopped believing it. It’s still sooooo surreal to be living on a sailboat and really doing this.

I love it (except yeah the outboard).

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7 BUT PRACTICALLY…?

Yes. It works. I feel healthier. I feel more myself. It’s my own space, I can minimize stuff I react to, I sleep well, and am managing nutrition well. I can be a gypsyhermit relatively safely (with planning).

I didn’t really maintain good enough selfcare though. My regular meditating got sporadic. Too much tech time. Not enough green time or time with Mr Myrtle Sir. I forgot to wear my back brace — much of the movement and work I can do in ways that work for me, but sometimes I forget and do things in really stupid ways (like the Jones Lock incident). I get busy with the immediate problems around me and put off self care, and that is just plain backwards. But what else do you do when you’ve got people swamping your boat, or whatever else? Well, actually, said me to myself… you take better care of yourself.

I made too many nutritional compromises — sometimes by mistake, sometimes on purpose, like a piece of roast corn on the cob, such a mistake but so delicious and with such good company… and I’ve recently discovered that neither Clif bars nor Marmite are gluten free after all (there’s other bars but they’re harder to find, and I will miss the Marmite terribly). The inadvertent gluten consumption accounts for some of the increased anxiety, and why I was having trouble managing it — I hadn’t identified all the sources, and was attributing some incorrectly (consciously and subconsciously). That will have been affecting mood and mind, as well as pain, sleep. It’ll have been part of why I’ve been having trouble thinking. Duh… yes, I am kicking myself. I know I need to be more careful.

I’ve also been smoking. It’s an on and off thing, but it needs to be off. It does help stress and attention and thinking in the short term, but in the long term, it makes the same things worse. Besides, it’s ridiculously unhealthy and hideously unecological. And smelly. It gets me through rough patches, but it has to go again.

Speaking of stress, I have to admit some of the baloney at Eccolands dock did sort of trigger some of the stuff that happened during the Climate Emergency Camp days (and nights)… and that in turn related to previous things, so it’s a messy web. Recognizing that and understanding it is part of untangling it, and I am. It does have actual effects, though, and I’m also working on those.

I’ve been too busy putting out fires to plant trees. I’ve talked about that before but it needs to be included here. There were plans, and backup plans, and they all went overboard. Things happened, some unforeseeable and not in the realm of things I could have planned for, but it emphasizes the need for REALLY THOROUGH PLANNING. Measure and plot everything. Time everything. Book stops. Yes, also don’t book sleazy boat movers or dock in a flock of opposition, but if stuff happens, fix it right. That applies to time, motors, humans, everything. Many will confirm my predisposition and aptitude for occasionally flying by the seat of my pants (or skirts or longjohns, as the case may be), but any success in that is due to how flipping blessed Mr Myrtle and I, and now Skoro, are. However, it is NOT how you do boats. That is how you get up the creek without a paddle, or run aground, or lose your boat. Kind of like humans and technology, if you run off all willy nilly, it’ll bite you in the butt pretty quick.

In the nonhuman (though he might argue that) department, Mr Myrtle Sir has taken to the boat like a puppyfish to water. He loves it. He sleeps well, eats well, manages boat living well. He does good boating, whether in the cockpit when that’s alright, or in the cabin for the locks and all that skinny skinny channel navigation… and then he loves exploring new places, and chilling on docks, and just hanging out watching the water from his boat.. He’s happy.

There’s a lot of practical needs, though, as per above, and they’re non-negotiable.

Sirens is so helpful. New friends who know far more about boats than I are letting me benefit from their experience and accumulated wisdom. This pause will be constructive.

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8 FUNDRAISING

This is a really stupid and tactless time to be fundraising, in a lot of ways. I don’t expect anything and I’m beyond grateful for what has been given.

I would like help fundraising better and in other ways. There’s all sorts of possibilities out there and I don’t have the foggiest idea how to do that.

This, and the email writing mentioned already, are pretty much crucial. Is anyone who is good at this able to help? A lot?

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9 STAYING IN TOUCH

This is also crucial. Online, personally when possible, all of it. That’s half what this is about.

Posting and reposting elsewhere and sharing and answering (becatakes a lot of time, especially with sometimes iffy internet. That’s a problem itself, but it also means using a lot of power… so besides wanting help with doing that, this goes back to the solar upgrade need.

Also… being online a lot hurts. It hurts my head and my eyeballs and it makes me itchy (and I don’t care what anyone thinks of that any more) and it makes my brain not work. I’m using tech for boating and planning and troubleshooting and problem solving… and a lot of social media, though that’s a time measurement, because it’s always a frustrating and slow production.

If someone could pick up the blog posts and post and share them, and do the social media stuff, that would make a big difference.

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10 TIME AND ORGANIZATION

I need to keep working on getting better at both.

Boats are independent floating abnormalities in the time/space continuum, and stuff happens, but still… planning matters.

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11 LAST BUT NOT LEAST

I need to relearn sailing.

I need to learn anchoring.

I need to get better at docking, and locking.

I need to get to know my boat.

And my boat wants more water (so do we)!

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CONCLUSIONS

This has most likely, according to several lock staff, been the slowest Rideau transit ever by people who were actually in a hurry. It’s been a whole new level of Lemony Snickett. However, it’s all either fixed or fixable.

I do need help managing the boat. If I’d had the extra time aboard at a marina at the beginning as planned, and a piece of proper settled time in Ottawa, things would be different, but if wishes were boats, dreamers would sail — oh wait, they do!

Skoro is built to be managed singlehandedly. I will. But not yet.

I also valued the good company when Sarah, Michel, and John came aboard. I treasure my aloneness, but sharing a sailboat with the right people is pretty special too.

And I’ve learned that doing things like this matters more now than ever.

Another IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Control) report has been released. It’s not surprising and it’s not even remotely encouraging except in that the possibility of still making some kind of difference has not quite completely and utterly disappeared just yet. The likelihood of that happening depends on enough of us refusing to give up.

Like I need to learn that I can do this, we all need to learn to believe in ourselves.

As long as we still exist, possibilities still exist in some form. Trying to find them, and trying to make them real, is the only right thing to do.

With hope and determination,

Ann

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Please help the Climate Emergency Sailboat keep creating connections and change…

Sporadic and one-time support through Chuffed, at

https://chuffed.org/project/climate-emergency-sailboat

Ongoing support via Patreon (I’m still having trouble posting there, my apologies), at

https://patreon.com/climateemergencysailboat

Thank you… your help means the world to me… and as soon as I find a good little time loop, I really will update the budget/maintenance log/needs file

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Photos from the past few days!

… it’s actually tied up in the canal on the other side of a narrow spit of land!

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