Wildflower Archives - Page 2 of 6 - Which way is starboard again?

Cyclones, whirlpools and a new-found allergy

(Now that the book excitement has settled a bit I can finally get around to finishing the blog about our Tasman Bay trip)

Sometimes you can scare the pants off yourself over things. They build up as big bogies in your mind and you freak yourself out over them, regardless of how much logic tells you they aren’t an issue.

Other times you don’t bat an eyelid at something and it comes to bite you on the bum.

Both those things happened on the way to Nelson.

Scary thing number 1 was Cyclone Pam, which was due to pass near New Zealand. Despite the fact that I was repeatedly assured it would come nowhere near where we were I managed to wind myself up about it.

I call it ‘getting the flutteries’ – not to belittle the anxiety, but to give it a little less power. “I’m having a fluttery” sounds a lot friendlier than “My heart is trying to eat its way out through my throat” – and making it that little bit smaller, makes it a little easier to cope.

Sure enough, despite the flutteries, the worst thing that happened was we were held up for a few days in the Sounds – and that is something I am not going to complain about given what happened in Vanuatu.

The Ni-vans were some of the loveliest, most welcoming people we met in the islands and it was heartbreaking to see their homes and livelihoods destroyed. There are a lot of relief efforts and fundraising going on and I sincerely hope the support is getting to the people who need it most.

Waiting for Pam to blow over - Bay of Many Coves — Waiting for Pam to blow over – Bay of Many Coves

Scary thing number 2 was travelling through French Pass. French Pass (or Te Aumiti) is a narrow stretch of water with the dubious distinction of having the fastest tidal flows in New Zealand (up to 8 knots). Apparently when the tide changes the current can be strong enough to stun fish. Paddy tells a story about people dropping 44 gallon drums into the pass from D’Urville Island, just to watch them get sucked down and spat back out like sky rockets. If that’s not scary enough, it also has whirlpools. Yes, whirlpools.

This is why when travelling through the pass you have to get your timing absolutely perfect. You need to make sure you enter at slack tide when the current is at its weakest and that way you only get pushed about a little bit.

We’d done it before successfully, but that didn’t stop me freaking myself out over it. And, as with the cyclone, nothing happened. It was a little unnerving feeling 18 odd tonnes of steel being pushed about like a feather in the wind, but we crossed without incident.

The second part of this blog is brought to you (once again) by the Weather Forecasters Are Lying Bastards channel.

One thing I didn’t even think about freaking out over was the trip into Nelson. It would be a simple day sail and the weather forecast was for pretty much no wind at all.

At first that was exactly what happened. We got a bit of a headwind but it was still on an angle we could sail on. After a while the wind built up and we actually found ourselves sailing quite fast.

We were hooning about with our headsail until the headwind got a little too strong and eyeballing the water was making me a bit nervous.

We took the sail down only to get a mad case of the wobblies. What we hadn’t factored in before we left was that Nelson was a lot more tidal than Wellington. Tides can get up to four meters, so it was quite a bit of water we were pushing against.

Wildflower was rolling from side to side and I started to feel a little bit scared. Deep down I knew that we were safe and that we would get there eventually but it certainly wasn’t very much fun.

I tried to tell myself that people paid good money for this kind of experience at amusement parks, but it really wasn’t helping.

Paddy reminded me that we went through much worse on the way to Tonga and handled it – and that went on for days, not hours. That actually helped. I tried to remind myself I was a big brave lion and could handle this.

I did everything I needed to helping put the sails away and then – once we sussed out steering was going to be a one man job – braced myself at the bottom off the cockpit and tried not to spew.

It was a good chance to give my anxiety coping skills an airing. The problem with having any kind of disorder that flares up from time to time rather than being constant is that when you aren’t feeling awful, the last thing you want to do is think about feeling awful and so you tend to be a bit slack about practicing how to cope if the awful arises.

Before we went away on our trip I knew there was a chance of an attack of the flutteries so I sat down with the Anxiety and Phobia Workbook (one of the best anxiety books I have come across) and gave myself a crash refresher on breathing exercises, self-talk and visualisation.

One of the tricks is to visualise a calm, safe scene. I have two – one for summer and one for winter. In the summer one I am swimming in a calm bay. The water is tropical temperature and I have gills, so I can dive under the water and mooch around with tropical fishies without having to worry about running out of breath. In the winter one I am sitting by a fireplace, it is warm and toasty, I am safe and sheltered, I have a good book and a cat snuggled up with me. At that stage I went with the fireplace one.

It sounds a bit silly, but it does actually work.

My calm scene was broken repeatedly however by things crashing and smashing.

Because we’re a bit out of practice and weren’t expecting weather, we hadn’t really stowed everything away properly – which meant books, plates and cooking products went flying across the boat.

It made a lot of scary noises but the only real casualty was a full bottle of sesame oil which emptied itself all through the boat.

We managed to put the culprit – and other condiments – in the sink but the smelly genie was out of the bottle at that point, and I spent the rest of the rolly trip trying not to vomit while inhaling very strong sesame fumes.

I think I may have developed a temporary allergy – I didn’t end up losing my lunch but even the thought of sesame makes me feel a little delicate now.

All’s well that ends well though – we got into Nelson marina, my fabulous knot tying skills secured the fenders (buoys that act as boat bumpers) and we managed to berth the boat with just the two of us.

Rather apt sign on the door at Nelson Marina

We spend a few days in Nelson as enforced rest for my sprained ankle. In Paddy’s words we were “waiting for Big Foot to have two regular sized feet”.

We moved from there to Torrent Bay in the Abel Tasman which was absolutely lovely. Even Gus the SpokesMuppet got a day at the beach. He discovered Fraggle Rock and irritated Paddy. Here are some photos.

We were very jealous of this dinghy - you can drive it right up onto the beach! — We were very jealous of this dinghy – you can drive it right up onto the beach!

Gus: Paddy, Hey Paddy! Whatcha doing Paddy? Paddy: Sigh — Gus: Paddy, Hey Paddy! Whatcha doing Paddy?
Paddy: Sigh…

I’m an author – it says so on the box! (book launch details)

Whenever I think about being an author I feel like a giant fraud. Like any minute now someone is going to come tap me on the shoulder ask for my credentials and force me to admit I’m just pretending.

The packages that I arrived home to this afternoon however are forcing me to accept that this might not actually be the truth.

Two boxes with ‘Which Way is Starboard’ printed on the side and ‘author – Anna Kirtlan’ on the address label have made everything seem very, very real.

I have a partly written blog on the sailing trip which I will put up, but just quickly in the meantime – here are the details of the book launch(es):

Firstly there’s a ‘lunchtime event’ at Unity Books. The word ‘event’ makes me a bit nervous. I hope they don’t expect me to sing and dance! What I will do is blah a bit, read a bit and sign stuff. If that sounds like your sort of thing, I would love to see you there!

For those of you who can’t make that, or would prefer something where there is booze, I am also having a shindig upstairs at the Evans Bay Yacht Club

There is also a trip down South planned with a launch at Oamaru’s Adventure Books during Anzac weekend – details and confirmed date to come in another blog.

So, it’s all on folks! I’m quietly terrified but very excited, will keep you posted.

Driving Miss Daisy

So, on the day we were finally ready to cast off for the South Island, just minutes before we were due to motor out to the diesel dock, this happened.

I am absolutely disgusted with myself. I make it all the way around the South Pacific with only a few bruises, and I manage to sprain my ankle filling up the water tank (which I am beginning to think has it in for me) while we are still in the marina.

I had just filled one tank and was trying to stretch the hose across the boat to the other when I slipped on a metal railing and splat – I’m on my arse with water spraying everywhere.

Paddy knew it was a proper injury, rather than one of my usual trips or stubs, because I went quiet. My usual bumps and bruises tend to be accompanied by loud and creative cursing.

“A you alright?” he asked.

“No.”

(The other thing I am when I’m hurt is honest, no time for niceties.)

“Ankle,” I managed to splutter, before lapsing into angry silence – and perhaps a little shock.

Angry because we were so close to getting away and this time it was my clumsiness holding us up.

It didn’t help that there was an audience either. One of our marina neighbours had popped over for a chat about where we were going. I was gossiping with him and not really paying attention when it happened.

When you are at sea you carefully measure each step you take and line up each hand hold, but when you are in familiar surroundings in the marina you tend to get cocky, which is exactly what I did.

Our neighbour was great. Once he and Paddy ascertained there was nothing broken and helped me hobble back to the cockpit to secure a pack of frozen mixed veggies, he finished filling the water tanks for me and gave us a hand at the diesel dock.

I wasn’t going to let an ankle sprain stop me from going on this trip, not after two weeks of boat maintenance. So I sat up on deck with my Watties’ stirfry and tried to work out what I could still do with both arms and one foot (quite a bit actually it turns out.)

To add insult to injury there was, of course, an audience at the diesel dock. It’s located right outside a couple of waterfront cafes and provides an excellent yachtie wildlife show for the latte sippers.

Other than the pitying looks the thing that annoyed me the most was that after my weeks of rope throwing practise, Paddy ended up lassoing the bollard at the dock.

I’d had this vision of myself in my sailing gear executing the move like a pro, drawing admiring gazes from the coffee crowd. Instead I was parked up on the back of the boat with my ankle in the air and the Skipper doing everything.

Once we got underway the trip was actually pretty uneventful. There was no wind at all and Cook Strait was flat and still as glass. I managed to do everything I needed to rope-pulling wise from the cockpit and even managed a few hopping missions below deck.

Paddy was incredibly supportive, calling me Big Foot and Sasquatch and repeatedly offering to suture my ankle (which I repeatedly declined).

Between the rapidly melting veggies and pain killers my ankle wasn’t hurting that much and the swelling started to go down so I figured it wasn’t a really bad sprain. What I was really looking forward to was getting to our spot in Erie Bay and soaking my foot in the water.

Straight after anchoring up that’s exactly what I did and it was marvelous. Like sticking your foot in a giant liquid icepack.

The longer my foot was in the water the warmer it felt so I decided to carefully lower myself in (“you have to be cognizant of the fact you are bung” was Paddy’s helpful advice) and just swim with my arms.

It was a bit fresh at first but after a while it was lovely. I invented the double-armed, one-legged bumble-stroke and managed to flail my way to shore.

Lying back on the beach looking over at Wildflower sitting peacefully in the bay’s evening light made it all worthwhile. Just me, the crickets and some yobbo playing Hello Sailor on the boat’s stereo. It was utterly perfect.

Erie Bay being perfet — Erie Bay being perfect

Spot where the Double Armed One Legged Bumble Stroke was invented

The bumble-swim had an amazing effect on my ankle too, being in the cool water for so long seemed to work wonders and a bit of enforced rest and some Voltaren later I am now able to put weight on it. The swelling has gone down now and it’s just a bit itchy bruise, which is a good sign it’s healing.

Also, the stew Paddy made with the defrosted veggies was lovely!

When will I learn?

One of the things I have learned from sailing is that you can’t do it to a deadline.

Yet every time we try to get ready for a trip, I find myself getting pissed off at that very fact.

Back when I was blissfully ignorant of the ways of sailing, I assumed that if you had a boat, and you wanted to take it somewhere all you needed to was untie it and go.

I am afraid I am here to report that it’s just not that damned simple.

Paddy and I have both taken this month off to take Wildflower for a trip across Tasman Bay to Nelson.

Preparation for this started last month, on Valentines Day to precise, when I spent an incredible romantic weekend cleaning the boat’s bum.

This necessitated hauling her out of the water and putting her up on blocks.

Making sure we're secure — Making sure we’re secure

I was quite taken with the colour of the mallet used to hammer in the cradle legs!

Securing the 'stairs' — Securing the ‘stairs’

Once properly secured I got to spend the day with my beloved covered in barnacles and stale seaweed. Being smaller and bendier than Paddy I get all the fun jobs like lying under the boat scraping goop off its rear and painting antifoul on the bottom.

As usual I ended up getting more paint on myself than the boat. I also learned a valuable lesson. If you accidentally drop one of your headphones in a puddle of antifoul without realising then get back on with listening to your music you end up looking like you are bleeding from the ear. This necessitates a good scrubbing with solvent and gets you funny looks in the supermarket.

Nothing says 'romantic valentines day' like scraping slime off a propellor — Nothing says ‘romantic valentines day’ like scraping slime off a propeller

One of the main reasons for this trip is practice for the next Big One (Fiji next year). We have a lot of new systems on the boat designed to make life on Wildflower easier, safer, cheaper and potentially a little bit faster and the plan is to test them out.

This has meant the week from hell hanging, wiring, hauling and installing all the things we haven’t had the chance to while we’ve both been working full-time.

To make things a bit cheaper – Paddy is installing a couple of alternative power sources. Solar panels and wind generators (yes, plural. Paddy’s logic is if some is good more must be better. This is the logic that has also led to my aching arms after helping winch up our massive new sails). Wiring up the wind generators has been a massive, fiddly and time consuming job for Paddy, but hopefully it will be worth it. Our last wind generator blew itself to bits in Tonga so a test run is definitely in order!

The next step is hauling all the stuff we don’t need off the boat and putting on the things we we do (dinghy, life raft supplies etc) which can be a bit of a frustrating process.I am definitely looking forward to not tripping over drills and toolboxes every time I need to go to the loo.

There's a boat under all this somewhere! — There’s a boat under all this somewhere!

And then there is the weather. One of the most important things when you want to go sailing is for the wind to blow from the right direction – in this case we are after a nice gentle Southerly. So of course, pretty much as soon as we took leave from work the weather turned 50 shades of crap. That was fine while we had lots of prep work to do, but lately (if you believe the weather forecasters) we are being faced with either too much wind or none at all. Case in point today we were supposed to be hit with a 30 knot Southerly. I didn’t see it, did you?

I could start getting despondent but what would be the point? We will get away eventually and in the meantime we will be able to get a bit of practice with the new toys out on the harbour. One of those new toys is a much longer boom. Added to give us extra sail area in the hope that we will move a bit faster in lighter conditions. Wildflower is great in Wellington conditions because she is solid and stable and build for strong winds. Give her anything less than 15 knots however and she just sits there going ‘nope, not gonna move.’ We munched through a lot of diesel in the islands.

The new boom scares me. There’s more of it to knock you on the head with and it’s too damned high. The old boom used to knock on the roof of the pilot house occasionally, so Paddy, in his wisdom, decided to raise the new one a couple of inches. This wouldn’t be a problem for most people, but I’m a sea ‘Munchkin’ dammit. I didn’t even make it to five foot (and have now accepted that 34 is too late for a growth spurt). Paddy’s ‘couple of extra inches’ mean I need a kiddie stool to help pull the sail down. In short (see what I did there?) I’m going to need the practice!

And then there's the weather — Was quite taken with the striking contrast in water colour here. The grungy, churned up water is the shallow stuff and the dark blue the deeper.

The main frustration I am finding with all of this is actually me. It’s been a while and the terminology has completely gone. I’m finding myself still at the level where ‘genoa halyard’ and ‘main sheet’ are just ‘that red rope’ or ‘the blue and white one’. Who am I kidding pretending I know anything about sailing?

‘But wait. Didn’t you just write a book about sailing?’, you might ask.

Well, yes and no. It’s more of a book about not knowing how to sail and making it up as I go along. I’m still making it up.

At the same time though, there is stuff that’s coming back. Silly things like the fierce surge of pride you get when you tie off a rope (sheet, whatever..) with a figure eight and a half hitch without thinking about it. That you can still tie a bowline or a stopper not without really trying (though my clove hitches still needed a bit of practice!)

I have also been practicing throwing a rope down my hallway and lassooing the exercycle – to avoid some of the embarrassment caused by my crap throwing skills in the past.

Those of you who actually sail will be rolling your eyes, but you honestly don’t realise quite how bumbly I am . Those of you who do know how bumbly I am are probably quietly terrified right now. In fact, just this morning a friend of mine said ‘If there was a high school award for Least Likely to Become a Sailor, I think you would have won it.’

Hopefully we will be on our way soon and in the least bumbly way possible.

And when we get back it will be straight into book stuff. Which Way is Starboard Again? The book hits the stores on April 1. There will be a launch/signing at Unity Books at midday April 15 and a party/signing at the Evans Bay Yacht Club on the evening of the 17th (details to be confirmed)

I think I’m more nervous about that than the upcoming sail!

Either way -wish me luck!

My first review - thanks Boating NZ! — My first review – thanks Boating NZ! (Not sure about the whole ‘set off with her man’ bit, but Paddy’s pleased to be introduced as ‘an experienced sailor’!

The perils of doing the dishes

Paddy is in Australia.

He flew out on the red-eye and had to get up at 4am to check in at the airport.

I took pity on him and offered to pop by the boat this afternoon and do the pile of dishes I knew was sitting there.

I turn on the tap ‘splutter, splurt, splat’ – no water.

No problem, time to fill the water tanks – I hop off the boat, grab the hose, chuck it in the tank and get on with the job.

Am washing away when suddenly ‘woosh, gush, splash!’- water is bursting in through the pantry and pouring into the boat.

Top tip – water usually belongs on the outside of a boat, not blasting in through the kitchen.

I drop everything, leap off the boat and turn the hose off. Rush back in and mercifully there’s no more water coming in to the boat. The bilge alarm – which goes off when there’s water draining out of the boat – is however going bananas, so we might not be out of the woods yet.

Paddy is in Australia.

I take a deep breath, hands shaking a bit – but can’t lose it now.

I figure there’s no immediate danger as the boat isn’t listing and there’s no more water coming in. The alarm is screeching because it is doing what it is meant to, draining the excess water out to sea, but I can’t honestly say I know everything is actually okay.

Paddy is in Australia.

Frazzled brain remembers he left an Aussie celphone number. I call it. A nice young woman answers. She is most definitely not Paddy.

Must have put the number in wrong. I go through my contacts, call Paddy’s sister, babble a million miles a minute.

She calmly details a number of ways she will try to get hold of Paddy.

Alarm is still screeching. Time to get the cavalry in. I leave Rachel to go on a Paddy hunt while I look for someone to help.

Hands shaking a bit. Can’t find my keys to unlock the pier gate. Another deep breath. No time for this – chill out woman!

It’s getting darker now and there are no obvious lights on any of the boats on our pier. I run down the dock until I see a boat with lights on and bang on the side.

Yes I was doing the damsel in distress thing, but I honestly didn’t know if the boat was okay. I would rather make a bit of a dick of myself than not have done everything possible and have our house sink.

I was reasonably confident this would not be the case because there didn’t seem to be any more water coming in the boat, but I wanted all my bases covered.

At this point I feared we had a split in our water tank. Not life threatening, but a big, messy job to fix – just as we had taken leave and were planning to actually take the boat away on a trip.

The cavalry came in the form of a lovely chap called John, from a launch with the serendipitous name of Friendship. A professional skipper, he was calm and relaxed with me – everything I needed right then.

Deducing no immediate danger, John set about looking for the leak while I tried to get hold of Paddy again.

Turned out I had dyslexiced the number when I put it into the phone. A quick fix up and I manage to get through. At this point Rachel has reached him as well. It was good to know I had a team backing me.

I tell Paddy “there’s no need to panic but…” I hear my own voice and nearly fall over. Me telling someone else not to panic? What topsy-turvy world is this!

Paddy of course is calm and zen and we agree I will call him back once we have found the root of the problem.

Mercifully it was not a split water tank.

It turned out the seal on the screw top that closes the tank had stretched to buggery and the water pressure just popped it off, spewing a bunch of water into the bilge. It will be as simple as going into a shop and buying a new one.

The alarm cheerfully honking away in the background was doing exactly what it was meant to as the water drained out (it’s still piping up on occasion). All is as well as it can be.

John kept to the yachtie code – politely leaving me to lick my wounds in the knowledge that next time he could be the one needing help. I owe that man a beer.

I am overnighting on the boat just in case, but other than the odd honk from the alarm all seems fine.

Yes I probably could have found the source of the leak myself eventually, but I would rather have someone on board who could have helped if the situation was worse than we thought.

Also, I did all this without having a screaming panic attack.

That is no small thing.

I live with the kind of anxiety disorder that, on a bad day, can have me leaping out of my skin if someone beeps their car horn.

Yes, my heart rate got up and I talked really fast, but I made myself understood and got the job done.

I am not curled up in a foetal ball gasping for air.

I haven’t kicked this thing yet – but I am feeling calm and the boat seems to be fine.

This is something to celebrate.

It’s ALIVE!!!

For those of you who haven’t been following my excited Twitter and Facebook squawking – the author’s copy of Which Way is Starboard Again? has finally arrived.

It’s gorgeous! It has chapters and pictures and pages and an ISBN number and, and, it’s an actual book! I can’t stop staring at it and I am carting about in my handbag everywhere I go like some kind of tragic proud book mummy.

It’s publication date isn’t actually until April 1 (April Fools!) so this copy is just a part of a small run to go out to journalists and the like.

The April Fools publication date is actually kind of apt (though I can assure it won’t turn into a whoopee cushion if you buy it!)

You see it still feels like a bit of a trick. I’m holding this thing in my hands, flicking through the pages and I still can’t quite believe it’s there.

When my publisher sent me the author’s copy she said “So do you feel like a real author now?” and the honest answer is actually, “no, I don’t”.

I feel like a fake author. Like somehow this whole process of getting a book deal and getting published was actually some kind of fluke and that any day now people will realise I Don’t Actually Know What I’m Doing.

Deep down I know that’s a load of rubbish but I still feel like an utter fraud. Like someone playing pretend at being a writer.

Despite the fact I’m loud and bolshy and not exactly shy, I’m really nervous about promoting this thing. Most probably wouldn’t believe it, but I am much better at writing about myself than talking about myself. Essentially this is a book about me and my experiences, but I would much rather someone else do the talking.

I’m used to being the person behind the notepad and camera or the person advising others how to work with those people. Now I have a publicist writing press releases for me.

I struggled with that for a bit since I do that for a living and I did have to nix the line “an inspirational tale of love, travel and overcoming the odds” (after Paddy and I spent a good while laughing). But at the end of the day I figure I’m never going to like something someone else writes about me so I might as well just go with it.

To help get over my self promotion fears I have also employed an unofficial ‘spokesMuppet’ (though I haven’t quite told the publicist about him yet…)

Paddy got me the best Christmas present ever last year (with a little bit of suggestion from myself) – a Muppet Whatnot (basically a design-your-own Muppet) a proper Jim Henson number.

Gus Transom Muppet (Gus as a nod to my asparaGus farming roots and Transom being the arse end of a boat, as well as sounding kind of fancy) is a devilishly handsome orange tropical Muppet. He has a stylish Hawaiian shirt, fabulous fuchsia hair and makes everyone around him smile.

I love the fact that even people who profess to hate puppets will answer him rather than me when he speaks, looking straight into his big googly eyes. With that kind of people power I figure he’d be a great spokesMuppet for the book so I have helped him set up his own Twitter account.

So if you are on Twitter then feel free to follow @GusTheMuppet (or if Muppets aren’t your thing you can follow me on @SeaMunchkin). I have also set up a bit of a Facebook promo page for those on there https://www.facebook.com/whichwayisstarboardagain?

So from Gus and Me and our brand new book – happy 2015, we’ve got a feeling it’s going to be a good one!

Cover story

I know they say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover – but look at this cover!!!!

It took an awful lot of to-ing and fro-ing but we are finally there. The cartoon on the front was drawn by the very talented Joshua Drummond – famed for his Horrible Picture of Michael Laws and Relaxed Painting of John Key (a version of which features on the cover of the hilarious Steve Braunias’ book Madmen – pretty illustrious company I reckon!)

I must admit I am quite relieved to have gotten off more lightly than either politician in terms of artistic representation – though I now have until the book’s launch in April next year to get a waistline that matches my cartoon (or buy a corset!) .

Paddy took one look at the cover and felt the need to inform me that the Starboard marker was on the wrong side and my cartoon thighs were rather large. I, somewhat huffily, informed him that yes, that was the whole point (with me having no sense of direction) and that it was obvious I was wearing pirate trousers.

The lovely blue wash colour scheme and funky font were courtesy of Shelley Watson from Sublime Design and the inside of the book looks just as lovely.

There was a tiny point in time where the cartoon’s future was in doubt though, which was the reason behind the to-ing and fro-ing. While the publishers were pre-selling the book into stores one of the potential buyers opined that it might sell better if there was a photograph of me on the front instead (why on earth anyone would want that is beyond me!). In the end a compromise was reached where I would be allowed to keep my lovely cartoon in exchange for a more ’emotive’ tagline after the title than ‘Sailing the South Pacific’ and two photos of me on the back

The book talks a bit about mental illness and the, what could be seen by some as, bizarro decision to go sailing with anxiety disorder, so I figured by ’emotive’ they meant ‘ham up the crazy’. I’m actually okay with that, provided it isn’t too tacky, because the more we get these things out there as something that can happen to anyone and something that can be conquered the better.

So the skipper and I gleefully started throwing ideas about, including such gems from Paddy as ‘Sailing, it’s harder when you’re nuts’, ‘Losing the plot on a yacht’ and ‘Pirates, panic and Prozac’ (okay the only pirates were in fancy dress, but what’s wrong with a bit of creative license?) For some reason none of our suggestions made the grade, but the suggestions from the publishers weren’t cutting it either. It’s a fine line between fun self-deprecation and sounding tacky and twee and too many of them made me sound like some ninny having a cry on a boat, which is not the image I want to portray of people living with anxiety disorders. So in the end we settled for something more prosaic – Which Way is Starboard Again? Facing fears and overcoming challenges – Sailing the South Pacific. Not exactly sexy, but a reasonable compromise I reckon.

I’ve found it quite funny that, with all the editing and different eyes on the manuscript, the only real compromises were the cover (you can probably tell the blurb on the back wasn’t written by me!). The editing process was a fascinating one, picking up things I would never have thought of – but that’s the subject of another blog because I am too distracted by the pretty cover right now!

So the upshot is, the book has gone to print and there’s no going back now. I have been instructed by my editor not to look at it anymore until it is a physical book because every time I do I decide that it’s twee, pretentious crap and I really don’t like it. Apparently this is quite normal and happens to most authors.

I’ll be promoting it next year and it will be in bookstores in April/May as well as available as an e-book. As soon as there is a way to buy or pre-order it I will let you all know.

Thanks so much to Josh, Shelley, Caroline and the rest of the team at Bateman for making my baby look so beautiful and thanks so much to all of you for coming on this journey with me so far – I guess we’ll all see what comes out of it soon – fingers crossed!

It’s a book! (nearly)

Ladies and gentlemen I present to you a rare and elusive book update…. (Best said in a dramatic whisper – extra points if you can do a David Attenborough impression).

My house looks like a bomb has hit it, I’ve been living off microwave meals and my garden is full of weeds, but Which Way is Starboard Again? the book is several steps closer to existence.

After deathly silence for what felt like forever the edited version of my manuscript suddenly turned up in my inbox. To my surprise it hadn’t been cut to pieces, instead the editors wanted extra information…. in approximately 10 days.

Cue late nights, messy house and mountains of paper with scribbles on them.

Ollie did his best to help, acting as a paperweight and laptop warmer though.

I’m really pleased with what they’ve done with it. They’ve tightened it up so it flows much better and picked up on a few things I wouldn’t have thought of. The whole process has been really quite fascinating.

It’s been a bit of a process for me too. The re-read brought out all sorts of neuroses. I utterly convinced myself that the book was shallow, full of clichés, wasn’t that funny and just tried too hard. Then I got worried about the content. We only dipped our toes in the various cultures and various places before we moved on to the next, what if it was too once-over-lightly? What if I got the wrong end of the stick. I admired the people we met in the islands so very much the last thing I wanted to do was write something that might upset them. There were several times when I was sorely tempted to screw the whole thing up and bury it in the garden.

The other thing I’m a bit nervous about is that some of the extra material they were after was about living with mental illness. I agonised about whether to mention it in the book at all but then realised that sailing offshore with an anxiety disorder is actually something to be pretty proud of and that letting other people living with same condition know stuff like that is possible is actually pretty important.

It’s a hard balance when you are trying to write a sailing yarn that makes people laugh – I hope I’ve managed it alright.

So poor old Paddy has had to put up with me second-guessing myself – What if it’s self-indulgent? What if people hate it? He’s been a trooper though and a real help. I know I’d be much more of a mess without him.

The publishers have been great, answering all my silly questions straight away and letting me know what’s going to happen next. I have even seen a mock-up of the cover and, while its far too early to share, I can assure you it’s going to be AWESOME!

Now the only thing I have left to do is write the acknowledgements, then the eds add my changes and it goes to a type-setter. If all goes well I may even be seeing a physical copy sometime in December. The plan is to have everything printed by February and in the shops in March or April.

Holy crap. I’m an author!

It’s a book! (nearly)

Ladies and gentlemen I present to you a rare and elusive book update…. (Best said in a dramatic whisper – extra points if you can do a David Attenborough impression).

My house looks like a bomb has hit it, I’ve been living off microwave meals and my garden is full of weeds, but Which Way is Starboard Again? the book is several steps closer to existence.

Cue late nights, messy house and mountains of paper with scribbles on them.

Ollie did his best to help, acting as a paperweight and laptop warmer though.

It’s a hard balance when you are trying to write a sailing yarn that makes people laugh – I hope I’ve managed it alright.

Holy crap. I’m an author!

A nautical moggy book themed week

Ollie – aka the handsomest cat in the world – (he made me write that) is a bit of a literary snob. He has told me I am not to review any books on this blog without running them past him first. Luckily two books arrived last week – Bailey Boat Cat – adventures of a feline afloat and Olly and Black Build a Boat – that received the paw of approval.

While both books star nautical moggies, Ollie himself is not a boat cat. When Ollie and I met Paddy and Wildflower Ollie was already somewhat of an Older Gentleman in cat terms and, while he is happy in the boat while it’s in the marina, going out to sea isn’t really his thing.

If you start a cat young on a boat they can adapt quite quickly – moggies have extremely sensitive inner-ears (which is why they have such great balance) and if exposed early can get to grips with the motion of a boat at sea. Though even the most seasoned purrate can get a bit sick from time to time so shade and hydration is really important.

Bailey certainly has his sea paws! (source: http://baileyboatcat.com/about-me/)

Older cats though (with the odd exception) who have always lived on land and don’t have natural sea-legs can get very ill very quickly. We could perhaps get Ollie used to the motion by taking him on trips around the harbour but at nearly 13 years old we figure it wouldn’t be safe or fair to take him offshore.

Like any good armchair sailor though Ollie enjoys sharing the adventures of others (provided they are cats). Paddy and I have shared plenty of our stories with him but as far as he is concerned there are not nearly enough moggies involved.

Story time - Paddy and Ollie check out Bailey Boat Cat — Story time – Paddy and Ollie check out Bailey Boat Cat

The arrival of both books came as a pleasant surprise, though Bailey Boat Cat a little less so – Ollie and I pre-ordered it a while ago but I had completely forgotten about it (Ollie says he hadn’t).

Bailey is a seal point Siamese who travels with his humans on a yacht (a Tayana 37) called Nocturne. Ollie and I have been following his adventures on his blog for quite some time and were very excited when the found out he had a book on the way. He even has a pretty awesome book trailer:

Bailey didn’t disappoint – with the aid of one his humans, Louise Kennedy, he has produced a gorgeous hardback gift book entirely from his own point of view (which Ollie of course thoroughly approved of).

I was particularly impressed with his navigation tips – which would have made studying for Boatmasters so much easier for me. I’ve previously blogged about Ollie’s own interest in navigation, which at the time I found rather irritating. Now I realise he was actually trying to point out the blindingly obvious to me and have apologised profusely for shoveling him off the charts instead of stopping to listen to him.

You don't need those Mum, my bowl's this way... — You don’t need those Mum, my bowl’s this way…

While I was struggling with latitudes, longitudes and two different Norths, Bailey had chart-work boiled down to five easy points;

Look at the chart.
Sail on the white bit.
Anchor in the blue bit.
Keep clear of the green bit.
Buy treats in the brown and yellow areas

If only I had known it was that simple!

For me the book wasn’t just about the novelty of a cat on a boat though. For me it was also a reminder of the joy of being at sea. All the simple pleasures this salty sea-cat took in an environment so similar to Wildflower made me remember all the things I loved about our trip – not just the things that scared the pants off me. Sunshine, salty air, the wind on your face, star-gazing, visits from sea critters and making new friends. It helped me remember the magic.

Bailey also has some very sage advice for humans on work-life balance and what we could learn from cats that I think all of us should read.

So thanks Bailey. You’re adventures have got me inspired again and looking forward to more of my own.

Book number 2 – Olly and Black Build a Boat, came as a complete surprise. I was checking our PO Box, expecting nothing more than bills and voting papers when I picked up a surprise package.

One of my lovely Christchurch friends Jamie had sent me a Nick Cave mix tape (okay it’s a ‘mix CD’ but mix tape makes me feel like a teenager again!) because we’re heading to his concert in Wellington in December. He also added a couple of books he had picked up at the Riccarton Market – the Bowie Black Book (with some seriously drool-worthy photos) and an absolutely fabulous kids’ book staring a boat and a very handsome black cat.

It wasn’t exactly right because the human was called Olly and the cat Black – but it was so close to perfect we’ll let that one slide.

Ollie and Black Build a Boat is by Kiwi author Dick Oliver . Gorgeously illustrated it’s the classic man (and cat) alone, looking out to sea and dreaming of a boat of their own tale. Olly just happens to be a draughtsman however and in his lunch-breaks is actually able to design and, with the help of his furry friend, build one.

I noted that the cat in the book appeared to be particularly handy with boat polish (one of the chores usually delegated to me) but Ollie didn’t appear to be paying attention during that bit.

Ollie and Black Build a Boat also has great characters – I am particularly fond of Happy Jack “a happy man, with only two fingers on each hand and no teeth” who worked a portable sawmill deep in the forest.

Not only to Olly and Black build their boat but they get to use it to help their friends out when the town finds itself in trouble (but I won’t say any more because nobody likes spoilers!)

Ollie and I thoroughly recommend it for kids, cats and adults who refuse to grow up.

Looks interesting... — Looks interesting…

Well he is quite a handsome chap... — Well he is quite a handsome chap…

PS – for those waiting on an update on our own book (which Ollie says does not have enough cats in it but is okay because it includes him) I’m afraid I’ve only got a small one at this stage. It is being edited as we speak and I should have some pages to look at by the end of the month. Of course I know publishers are busy people and ours isn’t their only book so I’m not holding my breath too hard. I think I’m getting a little bit better at this waiting game – but it’s still tricky!

Category: Wildflower

Cyclones, whirlpools and a new-found allergy

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I’m an author – it says so on the box! (book launch details)

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Driving Miss Daisy

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When will I learn?

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The perils of doing the dishes

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It’s ALIVE!!!

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Cover story

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It’s a book! (nearly)

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It’s a book! (nearly)

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A nautical moggy book themed week

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