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Getting Simpatica Ready June 29, 2005 Español

Posted by Belle in : New Zeland To Indonesia

A few months before Theo was born, we decided the best way to manage continuing our trip without getting too late in the season, as we had started off in Miami, would be if Wence left with the boat at the end of June and Liz, Dio, Theo, and I would catch up a couple of weeks later. We were concerned with the reputation Indonesia has of attracting pirates so Wence found a rally that goes from Darwin Australia to Bali once a year that seemed to be in the right time frame for us. The only difficult part would be getting to Darwin. Unless Wence left right after the baby was born, there would be no way to do it leisurely. And there was no guarantee the boat would be ready then, either. Wence decided to sail straight to Darwin to save time. Most people thought either Wence was crazy or that he would change his mind after he had started sailing and stop off at New Caledonia or something. They don’t know Wence.

The weeks following Theo’s birth, Wence, Liz and David put most of their energy into getting Simpatica ready to sail. Since Liz was staying behind with me, we had asked a friend of ours from Miami, Ricardo, to come sail the long passage with Wence and David. Ricardo is a true sailor. He has two boats in Miami, lives on a boat, does deliveries all the time, and has been sailing for years. There are not too many people that you can imagine being trapped on a boat for weeks with and not thinking you might want to smack them at least once or twice. Ricardo is an exception. He has such a gentle, kind way about him. I could not imagine a better third crew member.

As soon as Ricardo arrived, Wence put him to work. Wence had been very diligent about getting Simpatica prepared. For months he had been fixing and adding things. A new generator, water maker, the air conditioner, some carpentry, navigation instruments. So much work went into Simpatica. A few days before they were scheduled to leave the generator stopped working. They tried everything to get it working again, but nothing worked. They postponed their departure a few days in the hopes that they would have better luck with the generator as well we the weather. Four days later the generator still didn’t work. They could not wait any longer. After 6pm Wence, David, and Ricardo left for Darwin on Simpatica. Dio, Liz and I went back to the apartment. We knew we had a long month without our men ahead of us.