Day 25-26 of the 1st Voyage: In which on parle un peu Français and the Bosun gets demoted.

If idle hands are the devil’s workshop, then we’re remodeling a bathroom in heaven. With still no word on the elusive manifold and consequently no idea when we’re getting out of here, we decided that we would just have to make the most of the situation. So we held a crew meeting and asked ourselves, “What could we do that would keep us busy, keep us sane, and keep our mind off our current predicament?” The answer was obvious. Brightwork! For lubbers, brightwork is the wood (specifically the varnished wood) found on a boat. When the brightwork is “done” it glows golden honey in the sun and is enticingly smooth to the touch. It’s also a royal pain in the butt to do. The alternative to not having your brightwork “done” is to let it “go silver” which is where you let the elements do their thing and the teak turns naturally grey and a little rough. This is fine, too, and it’s not uncommon to have a combination (“done” on the rails and brow; “silver” on the decks). But if you come across someone who says they actually prefer “silver”, it really means they just couldn’t stomach the aforementioned pain-in-the-butt aspect of the whole process. And what a process it is: sand, varnish, dry, sand, varnish, dry, sand, varnish, dry, lather, rinse, repeat, until you have at least eight coats. It’s time intensive and requires at least a week of clear, warm days—and right now we are lousy with time and hot weather. So, yes! We shall do brightwork to stay busy. That…and learn French.

For those that are confused (hands?), when you first begin to contemplate a voyage of this magnitude, the question inevitably arises, “how am I going to fill my days?” A sailboat—especially one of this size and with this many systems—requires constant maintenance. So there’s that. There is provisioning as well as exploring to do in every port. That takes some time as well. There is taking Otter out on his morning, noon, and evening constitutionals when in port and extensive Tinkle Turf cajoling when at anchor. More hours shot to sh*t (pun intended). But one of the best parts of living and travelling aboard a boat is that you suddenly have the time to do all those “things I’ve always wanted to do but could never find the time aka hey, it’s a 24-hour marathon of Happy Days reruns well now my dance card is punched so sit on it, Potsy. Ayyyyy.” (Or as they say in Canada, “Ehhhhh.”) At any rate, learning a new language was on just about everyone’s list so what better time to start than when you’re holed up in Campbell River waiting on a manifold?

So why French? Spanish would be the most logical choice, especially since we’ll be heading south at some point and will no doubt be spending time in Mexico. But we opted to go with French for two reasons. The first being that we’ve set our sights on crossing the Pacific to French Polynesia, and from what I understand, it’s full of French people. And by that I mean that whether they’re wearing haute couture or a loud hibiscus-print shirt, they are disinclined to converse in any other language but their own and when called upon to speak l’anglais will do so with deep resentment. I have also heard that if you at least attempt to converse en français, they will warm to you instantly and the cost of goods and services will only be twice the going rate as opposed to the normal 400 percent “Yankee Doodle Yahoo” markup. The second reason we are going with French is because the Deck Boss minored in French, the Captain took two years in high school, and the Bosun can throw you some attitude in French plus 15 other languages. I, on the other hand, took Norwegian. So I need all the help I can get.

The first two sessions (via Pimsleur) went great…for the Captain and the Deck Boss. They had each retained enough from their educations to remember basic words and proper pronunciation. I got confused and kept saying, “Do I understand English?” instead of “Do you understand English?” (although after a half hour, I was inclined to answer “no”.) It didn’t help my concentration when the Captain decided to start punctuating all his sentences with the Maurice Chevalier “hoh, hoh, hoh.” Ah well, c’est la vie. Guess I’ll have to wait till we get to the advanced courses to learn to say, “Put a sock in it, Pepe le Pew. Hoh, hoh, hoh.”

The other order of business that came up during the crew meeting was the incessant insubordination of one Edgrrr T. Cat, Bosun. It was no secret that he and the Deck Boss had a contentious relationship even before the voyage began. Back in our land-locked days, the Captain and I had placed Edgrrr with the Deck Boss so as to facilitate a remodel of our bathroom and he reciprocated her kindness by being generally ugly and plying his poop deck with matter of the most heinous odor that it necessitated the opening of doors and windows (which was probably part of his escape plan.) Once aboard, he took to lying in wait each morning for the Deck Boss to come into the galley to make coffee at which time he would hiss and spit. Yet the rest of the day, he could always be found near her—lying right next to her, perched close by, sitting on her books, lurking in her shower (at which point he was banned from her cabin so of course it became the one place he always HAD to be.) It was agreed upon by the rest of the crew that he was a brownnoser—sucking up while secretly vying for her title (and cabin)—and to combat his morning offensive, it was decided that Edgrrr would not be allowed to leave the aft stateroom in the early morning. Thus, he has been demoted to Cabin Boy. That, and he drinks.

Pictured: Cabin Boy