| I second Rhonda's referral...
...to the Bumfuzzle logs, tho' perhaps not for the reasons she gives. Here are SOME of the benefits of reading them IMO...
1. Youth (or is it ignorance?) can truly be wasted on the young. To watch this twenty-something couple wade across the Pacific with neither much knowledge or interest in the cultures or histories of the island nations they are visiting is actually painful. (Talk about the ugly American and his/her tendency to see the world thru the USA's provincial lens...). It's also like listening to fingernails on the chalkboard to hear them (almost always, Patrick) whine about their boat's performance (they don't know how to sail to windward, or how to strike their Screecher) or the lack of knowledge islanders have at splicing double-braid line (that's THEIR line on THEIR boat that THEY are clueless to splice...).
2. P&A should be congratulated (and I have done so via email) for the effort they've put into capturing their monthly expenses and reporting them regularly. This is always a hot topic among would-be cruising sailors. Of course, P&A's tallies are at least as unique (and therefore unrepresentative) as the next crew's will be, because they have so little seamanship, knowledge or skill to apply to their circumstances. Still...'A' for effort.
3. Probably mostly due to extreme ignorance, they bought a boat based on it being represented as a 'go anywhere' choice, but also at a really good price. This is surely a recipe for disappointment. And it was a multihull, of all things - where the quality of the engineering and the build quality are especially important due to the lighter weight structures vs. increased stresses - yet it was sold at a cheaper than normal price. Uh-huh... Now the builder refuses to stand behind the work he allegedly did poorly (in the view of an experienced Kiwi builder who is doing the repairs). Oh, I believe the boat was built in a substandard fashion...but is it a surprise that a small boat builder in South Africa, with limited resources and an escalating Rand, is going to offer tens of thousands of U.S. dollars to help fix second owners half a world away? Virtue and The Golden Rule notwithstanding, we as buyers just have to be more savvy than that.
4. For a culinary guide to burgers and pizza, thru-out the South Pacific, bumfuzzle.com is the place. To learn something about the people and their culture, go almost anywhere else...
Jack
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