15-52-2014: Change your mind (nothing ever stays the same)

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April 12, 2014 – If you spent your teens and early twenties in the 1980’s you might recognize that title. It’s part of the chorus from Gary Numan’s classic hit “Change Your Mind”.

Loved that song! The eighties just had the best music, and I was very much into the club scene then, and really not much for really mainstream tunes. But I still love that song.

Today’s shot isn’t a good shot. But at the same time, it’s a great shot.

Because this shot is about a change of heart.

Sometimes you can get your mind wrapped around an idea, but sometimes you should be willing to back up and untie that knot and reconsider things. Sometimes you might change your mind, and sometimes changing your mind can be a good thing.

Maybe.

We’ll see….

What the heck does that have to do with a photo of a cleated boat line?

Well, I’ll tell you, in my normally convoluted manner, of course.

Today’s story actually starts in 1998.

Kirk and I were in a fairly significant accident sometime in late 1996. We survived, but Kirk injured his back fairly badly, I was fine, a little bit of a sore neck, but nothing to really complain about. I hadn’t seen it coming so I wasn’t tensed up. Kirk did, and he was, so he took the brunt. Our truck was pretty bashed up – major repairs. The driver who hit us, rear ended us while we were stopped at a red light. It was late in the evening, we were coming home from a karate class, the other driver was drunk. He was also driving under a suspended drivers licence…oh, and he was a lawyer.

We settled out of court with ICBC, not a huge settlement. They fixed the truck, and we walked away with a little bit of money in our pocket for Kirk’s pain and suffering. We put the money in the bank and thought about what we wanted to do with it.

We had been thinking about selling our condo and moving out to Port Coquitlam to be closer to Kirk’s (then) work. In the end I couldn’t get past the horrible drive to UBC, and we both agreed that we didn’t want to leave the North Shore. So we walked away from the fabulous townhouse we’d found and rethought things. Our condo was great, and we loved the North Shore. So why leave just to have something bigger, that we didn’t really “need”.

I asked Kirk what he thought about a recreational purchase. He asked “A cabin?” I’d grown up with a cabin, and while they are great, the view is always (sort of) the same. So I said “I was thinking about a …umm…’floating’ cabin. He said “A boat? Cool!”

And so we took out a line of credit for the same value as the settlement, pooled the two pots of money, and started boat shopping. It took us over a year to fall in love with something, and we got a truly amazing deal on it. And we loved that boat. She is a 1975 30′ Trojan Express Cruiser. She has a fibreglass hull, and twin Chrysler 318 motors running two shaft driven props.

Essentially we decided to NOT buy a new home, so that we could instead buy a boat. This boat to be exact.

Some people would call that stupid. My parents did.

When Dad came to visit and we took him out, he thought it was awesome. Probably a colossal waste of money, but awesome.

When Mom came to visit and we took her out on it, she was still highly skeptical. We anchored and she asked if she could take the dinghy out on her own. We handed her a lifejacket, the oars, and set her adrift. Eventually she rowed back, got back on, looked out over the quiet bay, and simply said “I understand.”

It always had a gremlin though, one we could never fully resolve. When it would get into rough water, it seemed to have a snit fit and one engine would stall. We tried everything. Nothing ever seemed to fix it, and we had at least one very frightening crossing of the Georgia Strait where we lost an engine halfway across and the ocean blew up on us and beat the hell out of us.

After that we lost some confidence and didn’t take it away from the shore too terribly far. We became fair-weather boaters for a fairly good reason.

Two trips to the Greek Islands where we bareboat chartered on our own, and during one of those trips we had some harrowing experiences that would have put our boat at the bottom of the ocean. But the sailboat was so stable, so solid. I was sold. I was ready to make the switch from power to sail. Eventually Kirk agreed, and when we came back from the second trip in 2009 we agreed to start the ball rolling in that direction. But we knew it would take some time. First we would have to get our existing boat into a slip at the Yacht Club we had joined a year and a half earlier. Then we would have to get an appropriate slip to hold the size boat we wanted. Then we would have to sell our existing boat. And finally, we would have to find the new boat. None of those hurdles would be quick. We knew the hardest would be selling our existing boat.

Eventually we got a slip, but it was in a shed. Good for the current boat, not so useful for a sailboat. And all of a sudden the outside slips had become prime real estate as more members were buying bigger boats that didn’t fit in the sheds. So we waited, and bid on slips, and kept losing them. Eventually, in 2012, we got an outside slip. Hurrah! Now we could start looking.

Last summer we took the boat out for a day, and didn’t get very far before that gremlin reared its head again. And not in a good location or at a good moment in time. We limped back to the club, docked it, and decided that it was time to get rid of it finally. We decided that we were done with putting money into it. And so we put it up for sale.

And not entirely unexpectedly, nothing happened.

Old boats are hard to sell. Like everything these days, all people want are new, shiny, bigger than average things. Our old boat didn’t have much hope of finding a new home, not at a rock bottom price even. No matter that it is incredibly well constructed, bulletproof, except for two things that needed attention: that fuel issue gremlin, and the hydraulic steering that needed some TLC.

We weren’t asking much, it didn’t owe us anything and we’d had 14 years of enjoyment from it. Some years more than others to be sure. But it had mostly been well used and we’d upgraded a lot. But we are realistic about unloading things, let go of the emotional attachment and don’t overestimate the value of something you would like to get rid of.

Kirk had a lot of interest, but nothing ever went anywhere. Then we had a solid bite a few weeks ago. The fellow came and looked at it, and gave Kirk a deposit. We were ecstatic! It was going!

And then it fell through.

The fellow is young, and out guess is that he fell in love with the idea of a boat, and then found out the costs associated with it. Moorage is not inexpensive. He was probably shocked back into reality. Boats aren’t cheap. Within our group of friends we often joke (though it really isn’t a joke) that the cost of repairs etc measured in “Boat Bucks”.

A “Boat Buck” is a thousand dollars.

He never did ask us how much it cost to fill the fuel tanks. He probably would have passed out if we told him.

And so yesterday we gave back his deposit, and resigned ourselves to go back to trying to sell it, or donate it to charity for a tax receipt. It also meant that we would have to deal with Safety Weekend at our Yacht Club.

Safety Weekend involves a safety inspection that checks the boat over, ensures all safety equipment is up to date, checks flares, fire extinguishers, checks the electrical grounding to ensure the boat is not causing electrolysis to other vessels nearby, etc. Without the inspection vessels may be evicted from the Club, are not allowed at outstations, and owners may be fined.

We had no fear that we would fail the inspection, our zincs are always fine, our electrical is great, our safety equipment up to date. But it was a hassle we thought we wouldn’t have to deal with.

But here’s where the story takes an unexpected change in direction.

Today we got down to the Club. We had a few things to do before inspection. Kirk had to strap down a battery, I had to go through all the equipment and dig out the insurance papers. I hadn’t been on the boat for a long time. When we’d made the decision to get rid of it, I’d basically washed my hands of it. I basically cut it out of my life.

When I walked down the dock with Kirk we were stopped repeatedly.

That’s the thing about boating, I’m pretty sure there aren’t many hobbies that are so social as boating. The upside is that the wealth of friendship and community in boating is overwhelming.

The downside is that it means that it can take hours to get from shore to your boat, even though it may only be a few hundred feet down the dock.

When we finally made it to the boat, Kirk unsnapped the cover and we climbed aboard. I thought I would be indifferent to it. But it was like meeting an old friend again. I turned the knob to the cabin door, slid back the cover, and stepped down into the cabin.

That old familiar smell washed over me, and my feelings caught me off guard.

I could see the stains from winter condensation, from those little leaks it had been protected from while in the shed. It was in need of a good cleaning, and I couldn’t help but pick up a cloth and some Vim and start. As I cleaned many things ran through my mind.

I miss being out on the water on a gorgeous day like today.

I miss boating.

I miss this boat.

We just bought a new home and took on a mortgage again.

We are renovating a kitchen that is going to eat up the funds we kept back to get that new home up to snuff.

We aren’t in a Strata anymore and anything that goes wrong in the new home (roof, pipes leaking, whatever) is now our responsibility alone. There is no contingency fund, no assistance from other owners for common property.

It will be a fair few years before we clear out this new mortgage and get back to being completely debt free again.

We won’t have the money to buy that sailboat for a number of years yet.

And then I realized….we shouldn’t sell this boat.

After the inspection was over I asked Kirk how much he thought it would take to have someone fix the hydraulic steering, pull out and replace the fuel tanks, and rebuild the back deck since it would have to be lifted to get the tanks out. He didn’t know.

I asked what he thought about setting a limit, and if these things cost under that limit, then we might consider keeping the boat. Because it is those two things that have caused us to lose confidence in it. Other than the fuel gremlin and the steering, she is rock solid. Oh sure, she needs other bits of TLC, like some new cleats, like finally getting the hot water tank hooked up, like a new galley faucet, and new headliner, and she needs to be taken out and have her bottom cleaned and painted, and she probably needs new zincs, and if I remember, she probably needs one of the props turned…. I seem to recall that we dinged it on a chunk of wood a while back but never got around to pulling it. But we can do all of those things ourselves (except turn the prop of course0.

And so, we have agreed to have it looked at, and get an assessment on fixing those two major issues, and if it comes in under budget, we will keep this friendly boat of ours, and we will enjoy her again.

It seems funny, in 1997 we decided to not buy a new home and instead bought a boat. In 2014 we have decided to not buy a boat because we bought a new home.

Sometimes it takes a long time to make a decision. And when you come to a decision, that’s great, but it’s worthwhile realizing that it’s foolish to be stubborn in it, and that sometimes circumstances may make you reassess your decision. It’s good to be able to recognize when the parameters change, and to be ready to take stock of new conditions. Maybe those new conditions will mean that the original choice is no longer valid or appropriate.

And sometimes you can change your mind in an instant.

Change your mind
Nothing ever stays the same
Change your mind
No-one ever plays the game game game
Change your mind
Give up what you can’t defend
Change your mind
Think it up and start again gain gain (Change Your Mind by Gary Numan)