Last week I had to make water.

This isn’t a new thing onboard, but it is the first time in a while that I’ve had to deal with our engine-driven reverse osmosis system by myself. I spent a couple days looking over the notes I took when we ran it just before Steve left. The longer I looked at my step-by-step instructions I had written for myself, the more anxious I felt. It wasn’t so much turning on the water maker that made me nervous, it was turning the ignition key that had me on edge.

You see, I am kind of afraid of the engine.

This is not something that I find easy to admit. In fact, it took me about 10 minutes to just write that sentence. (And, I still have to go through the task of actually posting for the whole world to read! {It took three days incase anyone is interested}) I can point the exact moment that this fear started but I haven’t ever been able to overcome it.

Waaaaay back in Costa Rica, I was trying to be proactive and be the one at the helm more. On a particularly lovely morning, when it was calm and clear and we were anchored in a beautiful, small, heart-shaped bay, I said that instead of our usual routine of me being up on the deck raising the anchor I wanted to drive. Steve was happy as he had been encouraging me to do this for a while. So, I turned the key, gave Steve the thumbs up signal, and he started raising the anchor. When he had everything secured he turned to give me the thumbs up and I knocked the engine into gear.

Then I heard a horrible ‘ca THUNK‘ noise.

Even if you’re not a motor mechanic you know when a sound is a really bad sound. And that ‘ca-THUNK’ was a really, really bad sound. I immediately knocked the engine out of gear and Steve dropped the anchor again to keep us out of danger in the very small bay. Then Steve went below to have a look at the engine. Nothing seemed out of place on the surface of things, which meant a deeper, bigger problem. That was confirmed when he couldn’t manually turn the engine over. It was jammed.

I won’t regale you with the rest of the tale about sailing onto anchor flying a spinnaker (It was only when Steve declared, Holy Shit that was cool! Did I clue in that anchoring under spinnaker while in a busy anchorage wasn’t something one does everyday…or ever.) Or how we lifted the engine out while on anchor with a rust A-frame and chain fall that we borrowed from a random guy ashore but that somehow perfectly fit inside Kate. Or how the repair failed a few weeks later and we spent over a month sailing in Costa Rica without propulsion. (This was actually one of the most transformative decisions we’ve made, both on a personal level for me and to our sailing lives.)

What I will say is that since that fateful morning I have had irrational thoughts that it was me, my hand, my fault. I know this cannot be true. I rationally understand that it was just the day that I randomly chose to drive and the engine randomly chose to blow up. But that doesn’t make me any less anxious when turning the key.   

I haven’t given up.

Over the years I have faced my discomfort and tried to get more time driving under power. But, to be honest, I don’t like. Need someone to crawl out onto the boat during a storm to adjust the anchor? I am one to volunteer. A boat is adrift and coming towards us, I’ll fend off with every ounce of brut strength I have. Someone has to take the midnight watch? I’ll do, even when I am seasick. Could I drive myself out a bad situation? Yes, I could. I am happy to leave the driving to Steve? Yes, he’s really good at it.

Last Friday morning, as I poured the last liter of drinking water into the kettle I knew there was no more avoiding it. I had to make water and I had to turn on the engine to do it.

Steve has done some upgrades and changes over the past two years so I wanted to make sure I knew where all the switches and valves were now located and which sequence to turn them all. Hence the page of notes I had taken. Then I warned Kitten of the Big Noise (she’s kind of afraid of the engine too). The I turned the key.

The engine roared to life.

I went through my check list, setting up the watermaker and proceeded to fill every jerry can, bottle, container, and tank that we had. For the full 90 minutes everything went as planned. No hiccups, no problems.

As I sat there, watching cool, clear, clean water spitting out of the hose, I wondered if this fear and anxiety makes me a wimp or a failure? Or of understanding your weaknesses is a sort of strength? If admitting it and facing it is really more important, more valuable than the skill itself?

What I do know is that I don’t talk about this much….like ever if I can help it. Mostly because I am kind of ashamed that I am nearly 48 and have been living on this boat for 18 years and I kind of have the same reaction to the engine as Kitten – I would prefer to run and hide than confront it.

It’s also got me wondering why a woman not being able to do one thing – drive confidently – is viewed as weak, when a man’s ability is never questioned when he falls short. I know many men that cannot cook, or build a website, or scuba dive, or change a battery in a watch, or develop a perfect black and white photo, or brew beer, or reupholster a sofa, or replace a bilge pump, or clean a carburetor, or design and sew a garment. All things that I can do But, I doubt any of them would feel ashamed to admit it.

You often hear people say that they learned things by osmosis – just naturally absorbed the information.

And these divisions between skills that are considered weak and strong, between feeling pride and shame, and lets get to the point, between those skills that are on the ‘pink list’ and the ‘blue list’ seem to be in that category. I think it’s time to reframe things…again.

So, this week I decided to take some inspiration from our watermaker – to reverse that osmosis and rid myself of those quietly learned divisions, to stand confident in my abilities, even in the ones that don’t measure up to someone else’s standards….or the outdated ones I have absorbed.

I can do a lot things, but I can’t do everything, and that’s ok. It’s even ok to say it out loud.

Love,
H…&S