Wordsearch warning, dear reader. Somewhere in the paragraphs ahead lurks my calendar’s weekly new words… the word SAVVY, an old sailor’s friend meaning know-how and good sense. And hiding nearby is BABBLATIVE, a delightful little nuisance that loves the sound of its own chatter. Find them both and award yourself a smug grin. No prize except the warm glow of detection.

There is a particular kind of misery reserved for the sailor who cannot sail. We had been removed from our element not by the sea’s refusal to have us but by a fish’s final act of vengeance. Ciguatera is a sly opponent, silent and invisible, delivered through a perfectly innocent-looking reef fish. Not so funny fact: ciguatera poisoning affects over 50,000 people annually worldwide, yet there is still no reliable test for it before you take a bite. Chew at your own peril. The fatigue sank into our bones like wet sand. Our joints ached with the dull persistence of a bad memory. And somewhere in the labyrinth of my nervous system, hot and cold swapped places turning a sip of water into a metallic tasting betrayal. So there we sat, two seasoned adventurers reduced to motionless blobs on a 40-degree Celsius boat in a dusty boatyard in Trinidad.

Trinidad by the way is home to the largest natural asphalt deposit on earth, the Pitch Lake, which supposedly contains enough tarmac to pave a road three times around the planet. I would have preferred a swimming pool.

Yet even flat on our backsides, the mind refuses to stop. Mine turned to Sawasdeekat like a worried parent checking on a sleeping child. She had carried us faithfully across an ocean, through the Mediterranean’s glittering playground, past the Rock of Gibraltar and the African coast. She deserved better than to sit neglected while her crew nursed their wounded bodies. Our beloved catamaran was looking tired. So we made a decision. If we could not move our bodies, we would move our plans.

The solar panels were first on the list. A sad collection of ten rectangles that had once drunk the Caribbean sun with youthful enthusiasm but now merely sipped at it like reluctant tea drinkers. They were not charging our batteries properly, and living aboard a boat with underperforming power generation is like living in a house where the lights flicker every time someone opens the fridge. I ordered eight MPPT controllers, clever little boxes that would finally tell me exactly which panels were working and which had simply given up on life. The remaining two would be repurposed from our spares because I am nothing if not frugal with a dash of stubborn.

Then came the Vevor wind turbine. Oh, dear Vevor. You promised us free energy from the invisible breath of the gods. You delivered exactly nothing. Not a single amp in all the months since we bolted you to the stern. After what can only be described as a spirited correspondence with the company, they eventually returned my money. But I am a man who hates to be defeated by an inanimate object. I was certain the thing could work. It had to work. The wind does not lie. The turbine, however, might simply be lying. A wise sailor once told me that true savvy is knowing when to let go. I have not yet reached that level of enlightenment.

The maintenance list grew like ivy. Engine servicing, sail-drive servicing to ensure we never repeated the mechanical nightmares of Monfalcone, and generator servicing. Monfalcone in Italy may be one of the world’s biggest shipbuilding centres, but it also turned out to be an expensive lesson in sail-drive failures (see our blog https://www.sawasdeekat.com/post/blog-031-fog-feasts-and-financial-cat-astrophes )

Anodes for the propellers arrived in a box, unassuming little blocks of metal that would sacrificially dissolve so our expensive running gear would not. That is devotion, is it not? Willingly turning to nothing so something else can survive.

And the sails. Our poor code zero had endured three rips already. A stitch in time saves nine, as my mother used to say. Perhaps a stitch in time could also save a very expensive piece of laminate fabric. If we found what we hoped would be a good sail repair man, the kind of craftsman who treats thread with the reverence of a surgeon. We hoped we could also ask him to make cockpit cushions and a new dinghy cover as well. The dyneema rope holding our forward trampolines in place was a job even I could handle. A few careful knots, a little tension, and those plastic grilles would live to bounce another day.

But then something shifted. We got carried away. It happens when you sit still for too long. The mind strays from necessity into the dangerous territory of desire.

People kept asking to clean our boat. Well intentioned souls horrified by the layer of anchorage grime that had bonded itself to our hulls a week earlier. But a couple of wiser voices mentioned something more concerning. Years of polishing had meant the gelcoat was getting dangerously thin. The protective outer layer that had been sprayed on in some South African factory twenty years ago was wearing through. We asked how much to fix it. The price did not send me running for the hills. So we went for it.

A full repaint in AWL Grip, the kind of coating that laughs at salt and sun. And while we were at it, why not choose a more modern colour? Why not paint on the black signature stripe that was currently just a decal threatening to peel away at the corners? I felt like a child in a sweet shop with my father's wallet, spinning slowly to take in all the possibilities.

The seating had always bothered me. Our cockpit seats curved in a way that seemed designed by someone who had never tried to lie down on them. A gentle crescent shape that looked beautiful but actively rejected the human spine. We decided to cut out the curve and replace it with squared-off sections. It would not be easy. It would not be cheap. But now was the time. Now or never, as the saying goes, and I have always found that particular saying to be remarkably persuasive.

Inside the boat, new cabinetry doors appeared. A small upgrade but a satisfying one, finally keeping our belongings where they belonged instead of launching themselves across the saloon every time we hit a beam wave. And then there was the bowsprit, our poor twisted bowsprit that had been bent out of shape by forces I still did not fully understand. It would have to be removed, taken to a workshop, heated until it glowed, and welded straight again. A minor procedure in the grand scheme of things but one that required someone who knew what they were doing. Which ruled me out entirely.

With our energy still depleted by the fish that had poisoned us, we decided on a purge. Anything we had not used in six months went into a pile for disposal. An electric bike that had seemed like a brilliant idea in Cartagena but had not moved since Italy. Cups we had given to our Atlantic crew, which they had politely declined to keep. Miscellaneous items whose original purpose had been lost to the fog of boat life. Out they all went, like bad memories or expired spices.

And through all this planning, negotiating, and decision making, we remained in a 40-degree metal box in a dusty yard with nothing but a contractor's toilet for company. The air conditioning ran twenty four hours a day, a noisy and expensive tribute to our discomfort. The dust coated everything, finding its way into cupboards and crevices and lungs. I looked at Pookie, my wife, my Tripitaka, my partner in this ridiculous and wonderful adventure. She was fanning herself with a chart of the Caribbean, her face a study in gentle suffering. She was born in the year of the rabbit, a creature of comfort and calm, not a creature of dust and heat and endless contractor toilets. She made a noise that was somewhere between a sigh and a whimper. I believe the technical term is babblative, though no single word can truly capture the range of sounds a Thai television chef can produce when denied a proper breeze.

A plan began to form. Something secret. Something special.

I hatched another scheme.

I somehow managed to have separate conversations with every single contractor working on our boat. Each conversation required careful timing, diplomatic language, and a plausible excuse. I asked each of them how long the work would really take, not how long they hoped it would take. I learned the difference between a promise and a guarantee, a lesson every boat owner learns eventually at considerable expense.

Then I presented my idea to Pookie. We were both ill. The place was filthy and hot. What we needed was somewhere cooler and cleaner, somewhere we could recover and recuperate while the men worked. My elder sister Hazel has an apartment in Gibraltar - the only place in Europe with wild monkeys, specifically Barbary macaques. Legend says that as long as they remain on the Rock, British rule will continue. My sister had a lovely apartment, I told Pookie, with proper walls and floors that did not tilt. We could fly there, rest and return to a freshly painted, newly repaired Sawasdeekat. She thought it was a wonderful idea. She started packing.

The men started working. We started packing. Everything was going exactly according to plan.

Except it was not the plan at all.

You see, dear reader, Gibraltar was the ruse. The excuse. The beautifully constructed lie designed to do nothing more than get us off that boat and into the air. The real destination was something else entirely. Something I had been planning for a month, in secret, with the kind of subterfuge usually reserved for intelligence agencies or unfaithful spouses. Pookie was turning fifty. Not the Gibraltar kind of fifty. The real kind. The milestone kind. And I had every intention of making sure this was a birthday she would never forget.

But that story will have to wait. For now, know this. We left Sawasdeekat in the capable hands of strangers who would cut, weld, paint, and stitch her into something even more beautiful than before. We climbed into a taxi with cases filled to within an inch of their lives, our bodies still heavy with the aftermath of ciguatera but our spirits suddenly light. Pookie believed we were flying to Gibraltar. I knew we were flying to magic.

That is all I can tell you for now. This is how secrets work. They grow in the dark, fed by silence and patience, until the moment arrives when the sun touches them and they burst into colour. Next week I will share the full story of that intercontinental birthday surprise. There will be flights and cities and moments I still cannot believe actually happened. There will be Pookie's face when she finally understood. There will be the kind of joy that makes every dusty day, every contractor's toilet, every moment of fish-induced misery worth it.

Until then, I remain your humble narrator, Heath, the monkey in this zodiac zoo, recounting adventures whilst dealing with life’s challenges. The dye is cast. The needle is threaded. The stripe is painted.

And somewhere out there, a very confused wind turbine is about to learn who is boss.