After six weeks of intensive preparations, the boat is somewhat ready for a test drive, on Coralville Reservoir--or so we hope. We have added a mast antenna, a Tacktick weathervane that broadcasts wind speed and wind direction from the top of the mast, an Edgestar extra fridge, a circuit for a laptop loaded with WXWORKS (Satellite weather service) and SeaClear (an additional GPS), desalinators, and many other things that I must have forgotten already The weather has been unpredictable, forcing us to work in spurts, either outside (scrubbing the boat clean, stretching out soggy cushions and drenched pieces of equipment in the sporadic sunshine, and hoping to get the ever-present moldy smell out of the fabric) or inside, finishing the spearguns. I took care of the humiliating chores, while Mihai worked on the loftier ends of speargunning, Hawaiian style. The Bahamians allow no triggered guns in their waters, so Mihai designed two slings with heavy wooden handles that shoot two-foot spears by way of bungee cords. The rest of the equipment includes underwater cameras, marine radios, snorkeling equipment, maps and charts, and other impressive odds and ends that litter the living-room floor at home, making us hopscotch across the temporary warehouse. And we haven't even started packing up yet.
The initial plan was to launch on Thursday, but the weather had been so drizzly that we decided to postpone. On Friday, we loaded up the boat with some of the equipment (judiciously chosen, but insufficiently so, as we would soon find out) which took us the better part of the day. We found ourselves at the Bobbers' Marina around 5 in the afternoon, surrounded by screaming crowds of vacationers, beer cans in hand and bemused expressions on their blanched, pre-seasoned faces. Arming the boat took us more than an hour. Mihai mounted the weathervane which goes on the top of the mast by unhitching the trailer and driving the Nissan to the back of the precariously balanced boat. He then scrambled atop of the car, looking very much as a victor, only to find out that the weathervane interferes with the solar panels, when the mast is in the down position. No matter. Everything is mobilis in mobili, as capt'n Nemo used to say--and much good it did to him in the end. We straightened the panels by brute force, realizing that we forgot to bring along the proper hex key. We raised the mast under the stares of an awed and mildly inebriated crowd and called Rod on the cell to come and pick up the Nissan and shove us away.
The engine purred to life at the first touch. I dropped one of my sneakers into the water as I boarded at the prow (a bad omen, as everybody who has done it at some point will hasten to acknowledge) and, with some gentle rocking from side to side, the boat separated from the trailer and we were finally off. The water had an unbecoming cocoa-brown hue (a far cry from what we expected to sail on in the Bahamas), with bits of blackened driftwood bobbing ominously in the powerboats' wake of which there were but a few; the forecast called for occasional rainstorms on the morrow. The old cove where we used to anchor seemed shallower and smaller and the mud banks ever more conspicuous; we couldn't motor all the way to the Rodney's shore as we initially planned, so we dropped anchor in 5 feet of muddy water and breathed a sigh of relief. The ETEC engine sounded smooth and the boat still floated aright--what else may a sailor wish for?
As it turns out, plenty. After we straightened out below deck and mounted the grills in the cockpit, we had a hasty supper (traditional grilled sausages and ice-cold beer) and became aware of the long string of things that we forgot to pack: no mosquito net. No paper towels. No cleaning rags. No bread. No spare socks for Mihai (I had my thick woolen socks just by accident). But the sunset on the lonely lake was beautiful, and the stars soon started twinkling encouragingly; we might, just might have a good next day. We savored a pipe in the cockpit, noticing gleefully that the cushions were covered with dew which (at least in the old country) bespeaks of fair weather the following day.
Our sense of well-being was short-lived. When I opened the fridge to take out another set of beers, I noticed that it had stopped working. I pulled it out and Mihai checked the fuse--it was blown. No spare fuse either. We took the fuse from the GPS (thereby rendering the depthfinder inoperable) and rigged the fridge back to life; the dreaded red light came on, in three-blink cycles, which surely meant something--but there was no way to check what, since the bulky compilation of various manuals was left safely at Rodney's. Both batteries already showed half-empty, even though we had run the fridge for only a short length of time and they were full when we stopped the engine. A dull sense of pointlessness seemed to pervade the cockpit; if we couldn't get the boat going for a measly lake escapade, how are we going to manage across the Gulf Stream? But we reminded ourselves that this test-ride was supposed to enable us debug the systems, so debugging them we will. We went to bed more hopeful and slept soundly, with the boat underneath barely swaying in a gentle, cool breeze. It was cold below deck and my sleeping bag zipper was broken.
