No Bad Days - Kyle

By Frayne Williams

I made all of the travel arrangements myself through Nancy Hansen, a lady I home teach, who is a travel agent. A neighbor, Vernon Parent, took me to the Baugh Motel here in Logan to catch the shuttle to the airport at 7:00 am on November 13th. I checked in and got the boarding pass. Some one had arranged for me to get a wheel chair and an attendant helped me through security and to the boarding area quite rapidly.

I arrived at the John Wayne Airport near Newport Beach CA at 3:00 pm and Kyle met me. We had a slight miscommunication so it took a while to hook up. His car was parked close by so I jumped in and we headed towards Dana Point along the coast road. We stopped at a Shake Shack that is famous for delicious sandwiches and milkshakes, but were disappointed because their shake machine was broken down so we had to settle for something pretty common. We drove through some very classy homes and businesses on the way to his boat, named No Bad Days.

The Boat:

It is a sailboat, 27 feet long and about nine feet wide at it's widest point. It has two sails, a main sail and a jib. It has a ten hp outboard motor and a beautiful wooden tiller to steer with, a sophisticated GPS that tells where he is and how fast he's going and a two way radio to communicate with the Coast Guard. Also two compasses to tell which direction you're going and four anchors with a long chain and lots of rope to hold them and pull them out.

The cockpit is about six feet long and an average of about 5 feet wide. It has about 14 inch benches on each side and small bottled gas barbecue on a pole on the back. He stores the life jackets in a bin under the left side. The cockpit is where the driving is done.

The cabin is about eight feet long and about seven feet wide with about two feet wide cloth covered benches on each side. It has a removable ladder to and from the cockpit and a removable desk on the front wall.

It's bathroom is about four feet square with a clothes hanger pole on the right side and a very small mirrored medicine cabinet over the toilet and no wash basin. There is a multipurpose storage cabinet on the opposite side of the bathroom. There is a six inch high and three feet square sewage tank under the toilet. The toilet is manual and you have to pump about a liter of water into the bowl and use a special type of toilet paper for solids. You push down a lever that opens a large ball valve to flush the toilet. He goes to a pump station to empty it, as needed. He brushes his teeth once a day and swallows the paste.

The kitchen is on the left side of the cabin and has a drainboard that extends back under the bottom of the cockpit It has a small stainless sink and a bottled gas burner with a hinged lid and a drop down table extension which he built that goes out over the bench. There are a couple of good sized drawers and some shelves under the drainboard and small storage racks full length of both side walls.

He has a fresh water tank that he pumps water from for the kitchen sink.

Storage is very tight so he has to store his stuff in a lot of different places. He has no refrigeration so he has to store things that need to be cool, in a space below the water line. He stores some of the food in a large covered tub under his bed and some in a bin under the right bench and the condiments on the back part of the drainboard and in the side wall racks.

Eating:

He eats quite large servings of basic foods such as beans, rice, pasta, ramen noodles, eggs, high fiber cereal and dark bread, cheese and fruits such as grapes, oranges and apples. He drinks water, coffee, tea, wine and beer and not much sweet stuff. He uses a very large fire-colored mug for his beverages and large margarine tubs for bowls. He has a small sized pressure cooker for heating water for his coffee and for cooking stuff such as beans and rice and a pan for frying. If he has any food left over from supper, he eats it for breakfast.

Housekeeping:

He does very well at this. He has a small plastic dishpan and he uses soap and water and washes and dries the dishes and utensils after each meal, because he has so few of them. He has a small battery operated vacuum cleaner to keep the floors clean. He even

puts a towel on the top step when needed, to clean your feet before going down into the cabin.

To make his bed, he has to remove the desk from the front wall and put two pieces of plywood side by side between the benches, then lay two triangle shaped pieces of foam mattresses from the front storage area, on the top and the necessary bedding. He keeps the bedding in large plastic bags under the right side of the cockpit.

Maintenance:

He keeps his tools under the right bench in the cabin. He has a good supply and uses them well.

Electrical:

He has two large 12 volt batteries that he keeps charged with two solar panels for lights, GPS, radio and recharging small items. He also can plug in to the 120 volt grid when on shore and a 120 volt gasoline generator and seldom uses either.

He also has a cell phone and a new laptop computer and the internet

that he uses to blog to keep us all informed back home.

Parking and Facilities:

He keeps his SUV parked in the marina parking lot. When he moved down there, he took way more stuff than he could keep in his van so he rented a a storage unit. As he got things used up or didn't need any more he took in back to Utah or sold it and gave up the storage unit. He has access to carts to move stuff back and forth and use of the toilet and shower facilities on land.

His Sailing Skill:

He reads and studies a lot and picks other sailor brains so he is always learning. He sails almost every day when conditions are safe and has become an excellent sailor for the time he's been at it. He is very safety conscious and has stringent rules for passengers to follow, no standing in the cockpit and always wear a life jacket when on the ocean.

His Visitors:

He had a male visitor from Portland OR, formerly from Utah, visit and four lady friends (one at a time, not all at once!)from various places, most from the Mountain Club in Salt Lake, visit him down there. They were good company but the boat is pretty small and simple and some of them had a few complaints and were picky about the food and living arrangements but were good sports anyway. I jokingly ask him that if he married again, which one of these gals would he chose. He quickly said, “hmm. I don’t see myself ever marrying again”

The Actual Sailing Trip:

The first night I was there we just motored out to an area in the bay and anchored, ate supper and went to sleep. He did this to see if I could sleep in the boat. The next morning, we motored back to the slip, ate breakfast and went for a walk on the north end of the bay where the two tall ships were tied up and called Jeanette to tell her all was okay.

The next morning before we left the slip, Kyle offered me some sun screen and I declined because I was wearing the same clothes I had worn all summer and hadn't burned, but I lived to regret that decision. We motored along the jetty, through the opening to the ocean and went about three miles out and headed north prepared to put up the sails.

There wasn't any wind so we started motoring hoping for the predicted wind. We went and went and it didn't come so we stopped and bobbed for while ate lunch and still no wind so we motored the rest of the way to the Newport Beach Harbor. It is a long bay so it took quite a while to get to the anchorage area. This bay is hard to anchor in so it took us quite a bit of time to get it anchored well. By then it was dark, so we ate supper and went to bed.

When we awakened, there was a nice wind so we hurried breakfast and headed out to the ocean and put up the sails. The wind was coming from the south and we were headed that direction so we had to tack. Tacking is quite exacting because you are going one way then you have to quickly change directions. The jib is fastened to the top of the mast and you have to rapidly move it to the other side of the boat so the wind will hit the other side of both sails and make you go the other direction.

We had to tack five times and when we got about seven eights of the way back, the wind almost stopped. We set the automatic tiller and quickly ate lunch then powered back to the Dana Point Harbor.

During our trip back to Dana, we saw a huge school of Dolphins. We estimated that there were about fifty we saw break water. Kyle said they usually travel in pairs so there could have been nearly a hundred.

On the way up to Newport we saw quite a few groups of Pelicans that were flying in lines close to the water. They would fly a ways then glide a while. It look like they were playing follow the leader 'cause when the leader changed the rest would follow in succession.

They fly close to the water so if one sees a fish it can quickly dive down and grab it, but we didn't see any of them dive.

When we got back into the slip, we tied up, went and took a shower, put on clean clothes and Kyle treated me to a fine meal at Jolly Rogers. I had a half serving of Baby Back Ribs and a large serving of mixed sherbet to make up for abstaining from ice cream on the boat. The ribs had excellent flavor but were very messy eating.

The next morning we quickly ate breakfast, explored the exterior of some of the very expensive yachts in the area by his slip, WOW, went across the bridge to the big man-made island in the bay and had a nice long walk, then headed for the airport.

When we got there, the parking lot he usually uses was full so we had to go to another lot and ride the shuttle to the airport. I used a wheel chair again and a nice young lady got me through security and to my boarding area. We had a good

flight back and arrived in Salt Lake about 2:00 pm. I caught the shuttle and was back in Logan by 4:00 pm. Another neighbor, Lynn Stoker, picked me up at the motel and I was back home safely by 4:30.

The only after effects I had was a bad sunburn on my face and between my pants and shoes, that caused my nose to peel and get four nice big cold sores.

It was a very pleasant and interesting trip. Thanks Kyle.