Ship of Fools

Today we arrived in The Balearic Islands. After a nearly 22 hour sail from Cartagena, our last port, I am pretty sure we can say we are getting better at this non-stop sailing through day and night thing. I am certain that I am more of a night person because the daytime sunlight hours are simply too hard for me to survive, I don't have the hypothalamus for it! I would never have clocked myself for a night person, because when I worked the restaurant, early rising was the only thing that allowed me to get everything done, and going to bed on time, most times prior to 10pm, was the only thing that kept me sane. I still go to bed around 10pm, but I allow myself an hours grace period in which to truly make a concerted effort to fall asleep. Sleep is important, especially as you age and your hormones fluctuate. You don't want to be on the bad side of sleep because, as I have learned quite recently, every kind of hormonal imbalance gets worse and every kind of inflammation flares up. The only reason I know is because for the most part, I have been sticking to a clean, whole foods, plant based diet while intermittent fasting and so my inflammation has gone down to zero. And just one shoddy, misplanned night of sleep brought back everything from severe burning and itching in my arms and legs, night sweats, insomnia and knee pain! 

 

Yeah, my hypothalamus doesn't cooperate with me if I am underslept, if I have had even one glass of alcohol or if I am eating snacky food laden with processed ingredients and sugar. This much I have come to understand, and I would have thought it would make me upset, but I am kind of ok with it. Its a thing about myself I can now appreciate, that I am genuinely in tune with my body, present to its complaints if it has any, and I am attentively listening vs actively complaining and doing bugger all. So this is why I am not brilliant with the day shift, my hypothalamus, I basically feel like I am burning up if I sit in the sun too long. Its why I prefer to choose night shifts, which have the capacity to screw up my sleep patterns, but I have come up with the perfect plan to ensure that my circadian rhythm is reset in a day. 

 

Night time sailing has its own set of challenges, the sea can be quite rough at times, the boat rocking from side to side can feel scary in the dark, and trying to stay awake can be quite tough if you haven't taken time to rest during the day. Rest during the day, at any given chance, this is something I have been able to perfect because I now ensure to nap a lot during the day when my husband and the boys are all up in the cockpit, both boys insistent that staying out there in the glaring sun is their solution to not getting sea sick, so I can nap knowing they have got it covered without feeling excessive guilt. By nightfall, I am able to take my ADD (Attention deficit disorder) medication, which essentially is a time release stimulant, and I comfortably stay alert all the way from midnight to sunrise. I then take a short nap of 90 mins between 6am and 8am before staying awake the rest of the day and falling asleep at my usual time, 120 mg of CBD, and voila, I sleep through the night and wake refreshed.

 

Since I have been sailing I haven't had to take my ADD medication much because I don't feel the need for them. So I am saving them purely for long crossings when I know I will need to be alert. Reality is, I am on my final prescription bottle, and once this one is done, I don't think I will have the need for any more because I simply don't live a life that requires me to be paying attention at all times. Sure, I forget stuff, I have a slightly harder time retaining new information that hasn't been drummed into me, I misplace stuff and I sometimes simply don't remember my ass from my elbows, but its not a critical issue as there aren't too many things we own worth losing, there aren't too many places to store something so safely you now don't remember where they are (you know what I am talking about, we've all been there as we creep towards our fifties!)...and well...who cares if I don't know who I am from time to time, I blame perimenopause! I have the perfect alibi for all of it, my brain and my hormones, it was them, they did it!

 

The last time I wrote, we had just made it to Gibraltar. Wow...that feels like a lifetime ago! Every passing week feels like life lived. We see so much, we share meals together, we commune about the things that matter personally to each of us, and we explore something new almost daily. I know I said I would write every weekend, but its been a hellish two weeks of trying to survive insomnia after a long passage, several day sails, cleaning & defrosting fridges, juggling homeschooling and failing badly. So much as I sometimes think I have nothing to do when it turns out that whatever little I am doing gets in the way of writing! I see that the most successful YouTube sailing legends who likely make all their money exclusively from their content about sailing life, they have a proper schedule for when shit gets done. Yeah, I don't think we are there yet. We are still in the early stages where everything isn't run like a well oiled machine, we are still in the "constantly having to fix that machine" or the "add oil" stage. We are still in the stage where everything feels just that inch on the lighter side of overwhelming that asking for one more thing to be done on that revolving list of things to do...will be the straw that breaks the proverbial camels back!

While in Gibraltar we took the cable car up The Rock of Gibraltar, a good idea being as the weather was a scorching 30 degrees centigrade and almost no wind, walking up that monstrosity would have been a chance to explore tunnels and caves from the war, a bit of history, no doubt, but it would have also exposed us to a tonne of monkey shit strewn along the stairs and of course, monkeys! I believe its the first time in years that I have sweat so much that I felt the salty sting in my eyes from perspiration pouring in, flooding them. Salty sweat mixed with sunblock, feel the burn!

While walking from where the cable car ended to where the Cave of Saint Michael stood, Micah had an unfortunate accident that had him trip down a slope and cut his knee pretty deep thanks to the tarred road that was full of small granite stones! It was one of those serious "WTF!" moments as we all looked at the flesh that was clearly visible, the grime under the fold of skin wedged into itself and the dread set in as we looked around us knowing full well that monkeys had been trotting about in the same damn space. I had just been attacked by a monkey barely 10 minutes before him falling, so it did feel like the day was going from bad to worse. My monkey attack sounds worse than it was, in reality it was more of a pick pocketing, which also sounds awful...but picture this...you are walking at a leisurely pace when suddenly, this monkey you caught in your peripheral vision has jumped deftly onto your sun hat protected head! Odd, you think, he's not as heavy as he looks! You stay still because your husband is yelling not to make any sudden moves, the monkey is not standing on your shoulders and your head, I mean, they do have 4 limbs! Like some little ninja, he begins to swiftly unzip all your pockets on the backpack you are carrying on your person! Out flies the change, the cash, the two way tickets for the cable car, damn, that monkey had skills! He was looking for food, of course. Preferably Walkers potato crisps...salt & vinegar! We saw these cheeky monkeys stealing crisps from some other hapless tourist just moments after I got jumped, and we saw much the same affinity for crisps from monkeys shoplifting from a nearby gift store outside the Cave of Saint Michael. With much loud noise making and even an attempt at a shove, my husband managed to get the monkey off my back. 

All my concerns for ticks, fleas and rabies, that run around electro-charged in my imagination prior to even seeing a monkey, were nowhere to be seen when this monkey was on my back! You want to know what was the weirdest thing? My heart rate stayed completely calm! I didn't panic, I didn't even have a physical, cortisol or adrenalin based response to the pick pocketing incident! Unlike what I had expected, the monkey didn't claw at me, in fact, he had the softest hands ever, like a human who hadn't done a day of work in his life! My husband was also surprised because when he tried to push the monkey aside, he touched the monkeys hands too, "so soft!" he had to agree. Anyway, that was about 30 seconds where I can truly say I was in need of "get this monkey off my back!"

Oh, but we are now a sailing family! We are adventurers! We can handle anything! Sigh. 

After Micah''s fall, after Sasha trying not to gag upon seeing the open wound, and after me trying to poker face my response, we carried him into The Cave of Saint Michael where we asked the security staff for their first aid kit. They immediately gave us the kit and we rinsed out that triangular wound with saline water before applying a clean gauze and tape. Micah was a good sport though, he agreed to make it through the cave, watching the light show and looking up at the beautiful rock formations in awe. I think he knew he was in the presence of something pretty special, and even he wasn't going to let something as painful as a big, bleeding gash in his knee stop him from experiencing a once in a lifetime geological wonder. Later the same day we made the decision to take him to the local hospital, by this point it was past 7pm and we were bracing ourselves for a hefty bill. I was more concerned about him getting an infection or worse, tetanus! We've all heard the horror stories about lock jaw and seizures, and if we haven't, we didn't grow up with my sister who was a master story teller. We ended up getting pretty lucky because although it could have cost us 225 Pounds if Micah had been seen by a doctor, the hospital A&E visit ended up being free because he was seen by a nurse. The nursing staff had seen no need for a doctor, good on her!

Turned out his most recent Tetanus booster was back in 2018, apparently they are good for 10 years! So that was one thing he didn't need. He ended up getting four stitches in his knee from a wonderful nurse who was a former Marine who had been stationed in Afghanistan back in the day. She was the one who stitched him up while he played Call of Duty on my husbands smartphone so he wouldn't have to watch a needle going in and out of his knee. All in all, he did well, and I think it has to do with the fact that we kept our heads about us, worked together as a team and helped make him feel at ease.

I think for a while there he was enjoying the extra attention, but now, nearly 13 days after his stitches were put in and about 3 days after we have removed the stitches, they remain a concern as its been tough for him to keep from bending the knee as they had prescribed and now the wound still seems to weep occasionally and we are going to have to keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't get infected. Its nerve wracking because as a parent you feel 100% responsible for your kid and you feel helpless because your greatest fear is always waiting in the dark recesses of your consciousness, ready to make you feel worthless once more. Kids just look at your face to see if they need to be worried, so you do your best, "don't worry, you'll be fine" face while deep down you are crapping your pants just praying that this damn thing heals and also feeling slightly angry at your kid for having gotten hurt in the first place, angry they made you feel this powerless because you love them so damn much and you don't know how to deal with this inability to see the future. 

He milked his injury for everything it was worth. So much so that Sasha began to feel a tiny bit jealous. Kids are just so strange, aren't they? I remember being that strange. I remember wishing I had chickenpox when that was going around when I was in military boarding school in India. I wanted to have chickenpox so bad!

I remember, I must have been in 5th grade when one after the other, kids in my dorm began getting little blisters on their bodies and faces, and this meant they were sent off to the school hospital to be interned in a bed, without visitors, eating rice gruel daily and not having to attend school! Everything shitty about that didn't matter because the "no school" part was enough to make any kid rejoice through their scabby scratching and new blisters! I so desperately wanted to get chickenpox! I hugged every single newly infected kid goodbye as they went, smilingly, to the school hospital. 

I never got chickenpox. 

Damn it. 

I have never had any childhood disease. Never managed to get that week or month off school. No measles, no mumps, no chickenpox...I don't even know what any of the other ones are but I know my kids have all had chickenpox...and hand, foot & mouth disease...that one is a common one in Hong Kong. I was the one to take care of all of them when their time came, and I never got any of it. I guess for me, childhood vaccination actually worked! My dad is the same, he's never had any childhood diseases. Its a miraculous life to live, but its also one where you aren't always the most empathetic when someone is gravely ill because you can't quite understand what it must feel like. 

Micah and his knee...I can empathize with him. I have been there. I have lived through weeping open wounds while in boarding school, hiding them for fear I would need a tetanus jab...apparently fear of the jab was worse than common sense of possible septic shock and an amputation! So yeah, I think I am just talking myself into feeling a bit less fearful and a bit more self assured that I can care for my son. As soon as we make it to Ibiza I will make it to a pharmacy and see if they have something similar to sulphur powder, or wound powder...my Mum used that on my weeping wounds and that stuff dried up in a matter of two days, healed! 

Nowadays the first aid advise they give you is so different to the advise your parents were given. Back then they put an antibacterial cream and they cleaned your wounds with alcohol or Betadine, they wrapped that shit up to keep it safe from exposure to germs! Nope, nowadays its all about saline solutions and letting that wound dry while the body takes care of itself. That is all wonderful in theory, but in reality, when you are living on a boat, miles away from medical attention, a slow healing wound is the last damn thing you need!

 

Anyway, it is what it is. Today after looking at his oozy knee, not really loving the hint of yellow, I showered the little man, used some wound cleaning foam before I rinsed it off, then dried him before I used Betadine on the wound. I put him outside in the sun, making sure he sat there trying to dry the wound to a scab...but you know what? When he goes to sleep, once again, he will unconsciously bend that knee while he sleeps, and it will open again! 

 

When Sasha was three years old, he needed stitches after jumping up and down on a bed, falling and splitting his brow open on the headboard. It wasn't the first time he'd jumped up and down on a bed and split his brow open, he'd done it once before in India, and I was with him, I cleaned it and took care of it myself, no stitches, and it healed just fine with only a pale scar to show for it. The second time he jumped on the bed and split his brow, my husband was by my side. At the time I remember saying "It'll be fine!" and my husband insisting he needed stitches. So off I took him to some doctor in Ithaca, Greece, a lovely old gent whose suturing skills were more reminiscent of a vet than a plastic surgeon. Poor Sasha, he was so brave, with no anaesthetic he endured three stitches in his brow. Me on the other hand, I was ready to reach over the metal surgical table and strangle the doctor giving him the stitches, I felt like I was witnessing a turkey being trussed up! It was not something a mother has to see on her clumsy little three year old son!

 

When the time came to remove the stitches, we removed them only to see the skin part and show a healed but gaping scar! Like, WTF, dude! What the hell were those stitches for if not to seal the cut? Why did I have to suffer watching my son try and be brave for me? And my husband admitted plainly, he would never have survived being there to hold my sons hand because he would have cried if he had to see my son suffer the pain without being able to do anything to ease it.

 

I was expecting the same issue to happen with Micah, and I hate to say it, the stitches really didn't end up sealing the cut, it just made it less open to the elements, but honestly, it looks like it will be a little while yet before the damn thing heals for good. I am gonna make sure it does! I also made sure this time it was my husband that took Micah for stitches. I was not going to bare witness to one more trussing up of meat, not if I had a choice. I have done all the pre stitches care, washing out the wound, removing dirt, watching that big old flap of skin and the bits of flesh hanging in there...gag, yeah, I totally did my part, I promise.

 

Today was tough. We took the tender to the beach close to where we anchored, hoping that Micah would be content to just dig holes in the sand...but once he realized that he had zero room for getting his knee wet, he began to sulk, and before we knew it, he was crying, feeling awful for having this damn weeping knee and being unable to swim in the beautiful water. My husband had asked if we ought to wrap his knee in plastic before we headed to the beach, but I insisted against it, any bit of false protective expectations would lead to carelessness. Kids are kids, they do dumb shit all the time. Micah being upset was a welcome distraction from the number of naked bodies we saw milling about the beach all around us. Initially the kids were unsure where to look, you know, not everyone was naked, just some sunbathers, men with all their glory just grabbing some rays, and women of all shapes and sizes, naked as the day they were born. Hey, we, as a family, have all been in Japanese onsens, hotspring baths, but you go in there with an itty bitty towel that gives you a little bit of modesty to cover the bits you don't want to show off. Its modesty for the sake of the other bathers as much as it is for yourself.

 

Heck, while at the beach I had a hard time trying to figure where to look because I didn't want to feel like some dodgy pervert! Not much you can do when some dude is playing cards while sitting legs splayed and getting some sun where the sun don't usually shine! Not used to it, that is all. I think today may actually have been the first time I have stumbled into a beach with naked people! I think we handled that well, all things considered! No signs anywhere saying, "Watch out for the naked people!' Or more like, stop staring, you creep! I don't know, but by the time we left the beach, a weepy Micah feeling quite sorry for himself, we were all just "whatever" about the naked surroundings. You can get over the initial shock pretty quickly. That or the constant sight of nakedness starts to get very normal after a while.

The beach we pulled our dingy up on is on the southern cape of Formentera. I am curious if Ibiza will be more of the same. At least I think I am prepared for it, told the kids its no big deal, talked about Adam & Eve and how prior to all that original sin nonsense everyone rocked their birthday suit...or maybe only them two, coz I can't even remember if there were others players involved in that myth. Doesn't matter, at least now the kids will not be phased at the next beach we rock up to, unaware that nudists run amok.

Between Gibraltar and Formentera, we stopped in Benalmadena first, which was just a short journey away from Malaga. The reason for the stop was so that I could catch up with a friend from nearly two decades prior. My friend Nicky had been the one token female friend I had in my 20's and when she left Hong Kong to move to Malaga, I recall being pretty devastated, so it was important I made the effort to make a stop close to Malaga while we traversed the coast of Spain. We had both aged, but at heart, we were still very much the same as when we last shared our lives as friends. I was fortunate enough to get not one but two occasions to visit with her. It was the first time she had met my husband of nearly 14 years, and of course, the first time she was meeting my two younger sons. When we last shared a friendship in Hong Kong, my eldest son was a young boy, and now he's a 22 year old man. So I think there was a lot to share with joy, and you know how it goes, you always talk about where everyone else you knew is at in their lives. Revisiting a long lost friendship is always a beautiful experience. The older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young*, ain't that the truth! (*Wear Sunscreen - was a song that was more spoken word, on the Romeo & Juliet  soundtrack)

The second time we met up with Nicky we took a hire car into the city of Malaga. What a beautiful city! I think with each successive stop in Spain we have been amazed at how much history is in each city, but also the beauty of the architecture, the streets and the parks. Spain is pretty attractive as a place to visit, even if they don't have much in the way of social welfare as Nicky has pointed out. Doesn't matter to me because I don't have to live here, but I suppose its tough for those that do. 

 

The boys have been good about travelling as we have since Gibraltar. Its been short stays in places, swift hops over from one port to the next, and often, we end up skipping ahead in order to get ahead of bad weather. They are swiftly becoming each others best friend, well, mainly because they are each others only friend. I think we, as parents, focus too much on the fights they have, because they intrude on our peace and quiet or they require refereeing. In truth, they likely get along 80 percent of the time, if not more, and they hate each other only about 10-20% of the time. The spend a lot of time trying to prove they hate each other, but they do everything together. As they grow older, as their prefrontal cortex develops, as their ability to vocalize their big feelings get better, their relationship will be given a greater chance to develop in a positive direction. I myself am not as close to my siblings as I wish I were, geography and personality aside, I just know I want more for my sons. My mother doesn't even communicate with her siblings anymore, too much water under the bridge and the bridge has long since been demolished. I hope, by bringing our kids up the way we are, by home schooling them, by instilling the value of family with them, that they will realize that together they will never be alone and that by their powers combined, they can do anything they set their minds to, even save the world.

Something to think about, sailing when the last days of summer have gone, as Autumn weather comes into play is that the weather becomes less predictable. Oh sure, they still have predictions, but they can be completely opposite to what you experience. This is what happened to us when we sailed from Benalmadena to Motril, we got stuck in 11 or 12 hours of hellish seas, tossed about like a little teacup on the water, we were fortunate that none of us got sick, but the fatigue that comes with feeling like a ragdoll in a washing machine quick rinse cycle, its not pleasant. Motril another small port with service staff so helpful and friendly that you almost worried that they were part of some happy cult! I guess that marina was new and them seeing people arriving under a Dutch flag was a novelty. From Motril we headed another day sail over to Aguadulce, a surprisingly beautiful marina with pristine water and stunning views. Its a toughie to recall every little detail of every single stop because after a while it all melts into one marina or shower or laundry facility. We left Aguadulce and sailed an afternoon and a night before we made it to Cartagena and after a few short days there, we made the 24 hour crossing to The Balearics where we are anchored now. 

 

We haven't got too many weeks of sailing ahead of us before we have to stop for the winter. We have chosen to winter in Sicily, not Croatia. I guess the fact we started off from Amsterdam later than we had planned, and the fact we had many critical problems that we needed to fix throughout the initial stages of our voyage, all of these issues slowed us down to where we were behind schedule & our eventual decision to take the journey as it comes, not to race towards some imagined finish line, is also why we have chosen to winter in Sicily vs Croatia. 

We may or may not make it to Croatia at all. Its all this EU vs Visa bound country commitments that we have to consider in the long run. I can't complain. The journey so far has been more than satisfying. The history lessons we have been able to share with the kids, in person, visiting Roman Amphitheatres, Underwater Archeology Museums, Spanish Civil War Museums...being as we haven't signed them up for a school based History course, its been our goal to teach them history according to relevance, in each country we visit. We are doing much the same with Geography. They are learning about where they are visiting on a map as well as in the real world. They know the topography just by seeing it with their own eyes. Childhood is a rough time for most kids, I know it wasn't easy for me and it certainly wasn't easy for my husband either, but there was a lot of good memories somewhere in there, and most of them involved travelling to new places with family and friends. My fondest memories from my childhood involve a family holiday to Kovalam, Kerala, with my parents and another Japanese family, a military man, his wife and then only two kids. The same man went on to be someone I admired greatly and whom I maintained a close and familial relationship well into my 30's, the man I call Uncle Yasu. Uncle Yasu is the person who taught me how to swim. Uncle Yasu took me paragliding for the first time. And it was with this same Uncle Yasu that I learned how to slurp soba noodles to truly appreciate the aroma of the dipping sauces and the noodles! He was a former Army General, former head of the Japanese Red Cross, and just an all around badass who could do finger pushups well into his 70's. He's probably still able to do that! Badass Uncle Yasu. When I was an ungrateful kid, I actually wished that Uncle Yasu was my dad! He went on to become a father to 4 kids, his oldest is a fighter pilot in the Japanese self-defense force, then he has one daughter who is into nail art...and the other two might be in college, not sure, or they are already working, damn, time does fly. 

Anyway, here's a photo from the last visit I had with Uncle Yasu when I went to Japan just before I opened the restaurant. I was there to pick up some artwork I had commissioned for the restaurant from a Japanese artist I had commissioned more traditional work from in the past. I managed to go for beers and sushi with Uncle Yasu, he was coughing a lot, COPD from the years of smoking, despite him having quit nearly a decade prior. Hey, it is what it is. Jeroen's Dad still has this same issue, COPD from the years of smoking. So if you smoke, people, quit now before you have to do finger pushups while coughing so hard you can't do that final tenth one!

 

Yeah, I hope my kids get to appreciate the memories we are helping create with them. Its not all going to be skinned knees or tears shed over an overdue assignment for home school. I hope they remember how much we tried to do our best to brighten their horizons and teach them life skills. 

As I type this, the kids are nuzzled up to my husband as they watch an episode of Band of Brothers. Sasha is a huge WWII fan, so his grandfather, Erik, made a memory bank of WWII movies and shows, enough to last a lifetime, and since my husband loves the very same movies and shows, he's getting to revisit those cinematic classics from Saving Private Ryan to some other historical movies about Dutch sailing frigates and the likes. I am not a fan of that much death and bloodshed. I can watch a crappy action movie without feeling bad about the waste of precious life minutes, but war, blood and guts aren't really for me...but I am happy the kids and him get to share that interest together. 

Sometimes I do feel like the only womb in a boat full of testosterone talk about balls. It is what it is. Its never been something that bothered me before, all the way back to when Nicky was my only token female friend in a stable full of platonic male friendship...but now, with no friends to call on, it feels more obvious...the kids ask me why I am dressing for a party if I wear eyeliner or use a spray of perfume! When the most common thing I put on my face is sunscreen, I don't want to have to explain eyeliner to the nosy little minions! Never have I felt the urge to be more girlie than I do now!

For now, we will likely spend the next week or so homeschooling and inching our way up the coast of Ibiza before we cross over to Majorca...and from there we make the 2 day journey to Sardinia...hop along the coast and then finally down to Sicily where we will explore some, weather permitting, before we settle in for the winter in Marina di Ragusa. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to just stopping for a while, staying put for a few months in one place. I am looking forward to wintering in Sicily. I think we all are. 

I am looking forward to training for the Camino, whenever I can set that up, be it April or May 2022. I am just looking forward to some predictability for a while, until hedonic adaptation kicks in and I yearn for the unpredictable life of a nomad once more. 

So until a week from now...fare thee well!