You roll out of the bunk, start a pot of coffee, and give your mate a Good Morning kiss and a squeeze- in THAT order day after day. As busy or as retired as we are, so many human activities sadly tend to fall into mundane rituals that fill our schedules. These things happen without much thought and we live life on autopilot.
The Captain and I have known each other for nearly fifty years and have been married for the last forty-five. Our relationship has taken us in many directions, requiring our emotional autopilot to be “updated” as needed. Thank God, we both are and will forever be willing to invest in whatever it takes because we take that “until death do you part” thing very seriously.
When you’ve been in a long term relationship, you also develop a sort of ESP that often enables you to communicate without words. You easily recognize what those certain looks your partner gives you mean. To illustrate this phenomenon: just the other morning, I was about to lower Dan in the bosun chair from his perch up on the mast. I playfully yelled up, “Do you want the express ride down?” His lips didn’t move, nor did he gesture with a hand signal. His eyes simply peered a hole down into my very soul that firmly whispered, “NO.” For another example: last month while diving, I noticed Dan using his dive compass and I made a mental note that I would ask him to get me one for our anniversary. Readers- you are NOT going to believe this, but within the next couple of minutes Dan retrieved a compass from the reef and handed it to me!
In Bonaire, one of the “updates” for our relationship was my request to “Get the boat OFF the moorings once in a while.” The Captain was willing to comply, however, one day on the way out to a remote dive site, he noted a problem with the boat’s autopilot. IT WASN’T WORKING! No matter what he did, the autopilot only held the course for about twenty seconds. Then the screen flashed “OFF COURSE”, soon followed by “CURRENT LIMIT”, then “DRIVE STOPPED”, and finally it clicked into “STANDBY” mode. All boat issues are frustrating to the crew, but a malfunctioning autopilot is extremely stressful when a 400 nautical mile passage to St. Croix is looming in the very near future. Needless to say, neither of us wanted to share the duty of sitting at the helm to steer for three days straight.
Bonaire is a beautiful place to be during hurricane season, but it has very little boat repair services or good technicians on island. The Captain researched the problem online and tried a few fixes, but none solved the problem. Then we had a fellow cruiser experienced in electronics come aboard and test the autopilot components. His diagnosis was inconclusive, so Dan continued his online search for an answer. Day after day, he crawled underneath the stern for hours at a time to adjust and try things, while I sat on the cockpit sole and keyed in whatever Dan ordered. Finally, the autopilot held the course as long as it wasn’t shut off.
Exit Strategy and her crew safely sailed up to St. Croix in late November and experienced no issues with the autopilot. BUT- just to be on the safe side for our upcoming adventures in cruising, while in St. Croix, the Captain spent beaucoup bucks to replace the whole autopilot system… a VERY nice (PRACTICAL) anniversary present indeed!
