Monday 6th: The older I get the worse jetlag hits me. East to west is no problem, but west to east is a bitch. So it was no surprise that I awoke at 4am after barely three hours sleep, having walked around old Vasteras for an hour or two after my visit to the boatyard. By 5am I was blowing on cold fingers in the early morning chill while trying to peel back the cover on Arcturus. I then disassembled her custom aluminum frame, located the keys in their hiding place, took a deep breath, and pulled back the companionway board. Both inside and out she looked a little less glamorous than her pictures (no change from LA then). She was also smaller in the flesh (quite unlike LA). At 10am Andy and Mia pulled up and after quick introductions we got to work. Shortly after 1pm Arcturus was in the water. Her engine started first time (thank you Beta Marine) and we motored across to the neighboring marina where her masts where stored for two days of prep before heading east towards Enkoping and thence to Stockholm.
It won’t surprise anyone who has listened to the 59 north sailing podcast that Andy is a whirlwind of activity onboard. The list of tasks, big and small that he crossed off his to-do list over the next 48 hours to make the boat ready for setting sail left my head spinning.
By Monday afternoon the main mast was rigged and set up. It sounds simple but in reality it involved plenty of very exact instructions from Andy and the learning of a whole new vocabulary for me. Starboard lowers, port uppers. Starboard intermediates. Cotter pins, clevis pins. Mast tangs. My head was spinning in the setup phase alone, which was way before I watched Andy and Mia work seamlessly in tandem to get the beastly mast aloft and stepped into place on the cabin top. Mia handcranked the dockside crane while Andy secured the mast to the crane hook, maneuvered it into place, secured the fittings and tightened all the standing rigging. And Tuesday brought more of the same, albeit on a smaller scale with the mizzen aft of the tiller.
But while the boat was taking shape gloriously, my own mood was darkening. With Mia and Andy leaving for the night the activity ceased and I was left alone with my thoughts. Surveying the huge pile of stuff on the cabin sole – clothes, foul weather gear, electrical equipment, soft shackles, a portable shower, headlamps, how-to-books, charts, sunscreen, lip balm, a marlin spike, a cutting board, you name it, I was left with an overwhelming sense of despair. I had embarked on a huge adventure I was woefully ill-equipped to face. I had spent a large sum of money. I was away from my family for ten weeks in a foreign country. How in God’s name could I make this work?
