8. Malaysia to Sumatra

In Malaysia

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Two days of airplanes to get from Boston to Penang, Malaysia, traveling with a spinnaker and various boat gear — 100 pounds of baggage. The airline’s maximum weight per bag was 23 kilos; the spinnaker was 22. The AirAsia hop from Singapore to Penang had a maximum total weight of 40 kilos; my total must have exceeded that slightly. But they accepted my payment for the 40 kilo maximum ($50 for a flight that only cost $68 for myself), no problem.

Chris joined me at the hotel/condo that I had booked at the marina in Penang. It was nice to start to get to know him; also nice to be in a condo with separate rooms and separate baths. The drawback was that the boat wasn’t there. Tim and crew had sailed on to Langkawi, a 3 hour ferry ride away. But we spent two days in Penang, as did Tim, getting our Indonesian visas. One plus was that I got to briefly meet Tim’s friend Randy. And even better I got to cross paths with Bob and Barb as they were about to head back home to Canada. Bob will be coming back to sail aboard Maggie to Mauritius. And then he will either go home to help care for his newborn granddaughter or he will join me from Mauritius to Brazil. He/I should know within a week.

We finally arrived at the boat in the evening. She looked a little sad. Lots of dirt on the outside, and in some areas inside. Stains on the deck and top sides. She has a crack in one of the pilothouse windows. She’s low on fuel (not a small task, carrying jerry cans and siphoning through a filter into our tanks). The port side cabin sole/floor has cracked, making for a spongy surface and the risk that it might give was completely. The person involved would only sink 5 or 6 inches, but might easily be injured. We need propane. Food stores are very low. One of the fuel transfer pumps isn’t working (again). The forward fuel gauge has broken irreparably.

But no worries. It’s been fun, despite withering heat, tackling some of these problems over the past two days. It brings to mind the cruiser’s definition of cruising: fixing your boat in exotic places! I’ve mostly been working on the cabin sole, epoxying in four supports to brace the damaged floor. It is satisfying that I get to use the skills I’ve learned in the building of my own boat (even though that boat isn’t finished after 23 years). It’s a very challenging task, however, due to inaccessibility. Fingers are crossed that it will work.

Having Chris aboard has been inspiring long/deep philosophical conversations. Last night over dinner (and beers) at a delightful Indian restaurant, we talked at great length about how privileged we are, and what responsibilities come with that. I don’t mean privileged to be living on a boat in Malaysia, but privileged to be white males growing up with means in North America, having opportunities open to only a very small percentage of human beings. We don’t have to struggle to feed ourselves or to keep our families safe. We have the luxury of time and comfort, from which we can choose the actions we take. Chris asserted that everyone has choices about how they want to live; whether they want to live within the norms of our society or live in some other way and/or place. Tim vehemently disagreed, asserting that most people have no such choice, because they are so exploited by our capitalist culture that their reality doesn’t extend past their next paycheck and car payment; forget dropping into some other place and culture. So Tim seems to believe we have a responsibility to take direct action to right wrongs (he’s quick to admit he isn’t now), while Chris seems to believe his responsibility lies in learning more about realms beyond what our brains readily perceive, and then look again at the question.

I found another difference of opinion between the two very interesting. Chris asserted that most people act like robots, being reactive to incoming stimuli, rather than making choices from a more aware state. He sees his current “job” to be to expand his awareness and grow personally beyond the robotic condition. Tim believes that if people act like robots it is because they have been treated like robots by our exploitative capitalist corporations, and he sees focusing on personal awareness as a narcissistic excuse for not doing something to improve the lot of the oppressed. Beyond this being a very entertaining conversation, it makes me wonder…do people have to grow in some spiritual sense to live a fulfilling life? Or do they only need an environment where they are valued and not worked to exhaustion?

From there we worked our way to the topic of denialism… How can people still watch professional football, Tim asks, when they know that a third of the players will suffer serious brain injury? Whatever the mechanism is that allows people to enjoy the football game, it is the same mechanism that has us ignore the oppression of the working class people of the world…

Tonight we had cocktails aboard Tahawus, and I expected some fireworks from Tim and Norm being in the same space. To my great surprise there was no fireworks when the subject of Bernie Sanders came up. While Norm doesn’t have the passion for Bernie that Tim has, he does think Bernie is the best of the available candidates. But since politics didn’t generate much heat, the conversation moved on to Islam, and the subjugation of women in Muslim culture. Here Chris asserted in essence that we Westerners should mostly keep our noses out of a culture that we don’t fully understand. That Western interventions, thinking we know what other cultures should do, have lead to terrible things (such as the destruction of most of the American Indian cultures, for example). So we should at least tread lightly, and not assume we have the answers. This led to the never-before-seen bonding of Tim and Norm jointly standing against a common enemy…uh…that is…fellow BPO rally member, citing examples of women being stoned, and being treated as whores if they don’t wear the required uniform, and having to walk four steps behind their men, and not being allowed to drive, and not being given access to education. Should we take some action about all this? Maybe we show off our Western culture as an example of what’s possible, and let others move toward it if they think it is an improvement? How do we reconcile the extreme examples of subjugation of Muslim women with the many happy and well educated women we met in Indonesia?

Oddly, perhaps, this conversation makes me think of the South Pacific Islanders, whether Marquesans or Tongans or Tuvaluans, where most of the people seem to be very happy, content with their lives. But now comes TV and the Internet, and young people longing to travel to Los Angeles so they can do some serious shopping! Sewing seeds of discontent, it seems. Is there a similar impact of Western society seeping into the Muslim world? Leading women to want equality and education sounds like a good thing. But are we also increasing the level of unhappiness? Maybe sewing seeds of discontent is a good thing, when big change is what’s needed…

Whether it is societal responsibilities or politics or religion, one member of our crew seems to go to the need for class revolution; the other goes to personal awareness. One says expand consciousness of the evils of the exploitation of the many by the few; the other says expand your personal consciousness to experience things beyond our limited/limiting minds. This is going to be a fun four months!

(My apologies to Tim and Chris for my inevitable inaccuracies in trying to describe their statements in my own words.)

8. Malaysia to Sumatra

My Midterm Break

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For 74 days I’ve been home; 10 more until I rejoin the boat in Malaysia. Absence makes one more appreciative of the comforts. A well-stocked supermarket a mile away. Hallie has always called the supermarket my “happy place,” and now more than ever. After all, I lost 25 pounds while living aboard. I’ve been trying to gain some of this back.

Television is so seductive! I’ve enjoyed snuggling in on the sofa to watch a favorite show. But then the next show is interesting, too. And the next. Whole days can drift by without actually doing much of anything. I’m looking forward to taking another long break from TV.

The cold has not been difficult. The mild winter has helped. But it is the lack of sunshine that was a dramatic change, and which still bothers me. At noon I feel like the morning must be about to start. And just when it seems like brightness might happen, the sun is on its way back down. I don’t like it.

Other observations: houses here are crazy big and mostly far apart. There are almost no people on the streets. (What did I expect? It’s winter!) We seem to spend a huge amount of time “dealing with things” on the phone or online — reconciling the COBRA payments on our health insurance, researching new health insurance, dealing with fraudulent charges on a credit card, making and changing appointments, unfreezing/refreezing credit reports, stopping service on a lost cell phone, getting a replacement through the insurance we’ve been paying for every month, weighing whether it’s worth paying $48 to reserve a seat in advance for each return flight versus taking what’s available at checkin, discovering that you can’t access info you need online without first updating the app, and the update fails. And the thing that pushes me over the edge — the automated phone systems that give you a limited set of choices, none of which match the reason you have to call in the first place. I’ve been avoiding most of this michegas while on the boat, but of course I should be thanking Hallie for keeping our household operational in the “real” world.

I’ve thought a lot about the non-functioning solar powered desalination system in Komodo. Could I learn enough to fix it? (I read some general articles online, but I don’t know how one learns the practicalities of manufactured systems; I’m not even sure who the manufacturer is.) Could I find someone to fix it? (I posted a notice on a sailor’s site about Indonesia, but have had no replies as yet.) I contacted Nina, who was trying to get an NGO to take on the project. She reports that she is still waiting for their answer… I contacted my cousin whose career is teaching and practicing “appropriate technology.” As expected, she replied that this situation is classic — bringing a high tech solution to a community that doesn’t have the infrastructure to maintain it. Yes, no question about that. And yet, it seems like such a good solution — to use the things the village has in abundance, sea water and sunlight, to produce the fresh water that they desperately need! Maybe this technology could be made more reliable, and be replicated in village after village. Or maybe the desalination (by reverse osmosis, like the watermaker we have on the boat) is too high tech, and a better approach would be an efficient solar still, with no moving parts except a simple pump or two. How big would a solar still have to be to make as much water as the reverse osmosis system powered (when it is working) by sunlight? Would it be unreasonably huge?

Maybe down the road I will continue that line of inquiry, and see if I can help out. If not in Komodo, then at least drawing inspiration from my experience of that village. But in the short term I found a way that I can “act locally.” Community solar farms (CSF). In Maine the electric utilities are required to support “net metering.” If you put a PV solar array on your roof, your electric bill is offset by the electricity you generate into the grid. And when you generate more than you use in a month, you get a credit to use against your bill in future months. So you might have a surplus in the summer, come up short in the winter, but pay zero for electricity for the year.

Maine has additional legislation that allows up to nine utility customers to share a larger solar array, and do net metering even though the installation is separate from the nine homes. This is a CSF. You can have the benefits of a rooftop solar array even if your roof is unsuitable for it. The company that does most of the solar installations in this area will help individuals form a CSF. One just came online in the next town west, and another is forming in the next town east. I could join that one, since the CSF doesn’t have to be located near your home.

But I thought it would be fun to start one in my own town, in partnership with my own neighbors. I spoke to a friend who has some south-facing fields, and he said YES, he would love to have a CSF located on his property! But I’ve learned that it isn’t that simple… The bank holding his mortgage has to sign off on the use of the land; the engineer has to confirm that the limited land will support the size of the array; we may need a variance regarding setbacks from the property lines; and the town planners have to approve the project. I met with one of the planners, and was surprised to find that the CSF concept was still new to them. Maybe one way I could be useful would be to walk this project through the somewhat daunting process, to pave the way for many more (I hope and expect) to follow. But the pace is too slow for my short time home. Still, I hope I have started a ball rolling… I think the CSF idea is fabulous — a way that many of us can take meaningful action in the area of climate change, climate justice. But the utility lobbyists are now trying to change the legislation to support large centralized (commercial) solar installations at the expense of individual and CSF installations. Guys, can’t we do both???

In other developments, I learned two weeks ago that Tim is planning to jump ship in Mauritius, and return to the boat in Brazil. Chris, who is joining us in two weeks, is also going only as far as Mauritius. So currently I have no crew from late August departing Mauritius through mid-December in Brazil. Know any sailors who might be interested? Seriously. Candidates must be willing to pay their own airfare, and share day-to-day expenses such as food and fuel.

Our schedule has us staying in Mauritius for nearly two months, waiting for the seasons to change. So I’m now planning to come home once again, for about 6 weeks in July/August.

And a final news item, Blue Wind has withdrawn from the BPO. They are planning to ship their boat (on a freighter) to the Mediterranean. So the BPO fleet is now but three.

7. Indonesia

What a Year!

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Jesse and I made it home, of course. We were sight-seers in Singapore for three days…walked around the spectacular downtown…took in some of the ASEAN Para Games…ate some interesting food. Food was a big part of getting home. I ate pretty much constantly for the first week. I weighed myself for the first time in a year — I’ve lost 25 pounds!

It has been a year to remember for me! A year ago we were uncertain when (if?) we would be able to depart Key West. We started late, but caught the other Blue Planet Odyssey boats in the San Blas Islands…huts on stilts…dugout canoes…dinner at Nestor’s house. The multitude of ships as we approached the Panama Canal…touring the new canal under construction…transiting the Canal. The Galápagos…Kicker Rock…sea lions…tortoises…iguanas…penguins. Three thousand miles at sea to the Marquesas…awesome terrain…awesome culture…dances and drumming…my tattoo…manta rays. The Tuamotus…atolls…treacherous currents and passes…fabulous snorkeling. Tahiti and the Society Islands…with Hallie…anchoring between the coral and the mountains…enjoying the company of other boats, and learning that several would not be continuing. Niue…Tonga…Wallis…Tuvalu…joining Doina…meeting the Prime Minister…seeking climate justice and bananas. Our encounter with the tropical depression en route to Vanuatu…near naked men dancing…chiefs going for the next higher rank…kava. Australia…the Northern Territories…with Hallie and Jesse…rock art…crocodiles…many boat repairs. And then the amazing two months through Indonesia…welcoming people…wonderful guides…great food…dragons and orangutans…the volcano and the pirates (not)…Bali…dinner at Abdullah’s house…the solar powered desalination system that wasn’t working, that still irks me!

Thanks for joining me on the adventure, through this blog. Thanks for your many comments, whether posted here or passed to me directly. More to come in 2016 — Happy New Year!

Photo by Bill Worthington
Photo by Bill Worthington