It was May. Roger came over with his trusty multi meter. He asked how we knew for sure that we had been struck by lightning. I handed him the remnants of our VHF antenna which had been blown off the mast onto our deck and recovered by Jaime. He said “oh”.

View at Picasa 04-May-2011 03:38, Canon Canon PowerShot SX20 IS, 4.0, 5.0mm, 0.001 sec, ISO 160

We began tearing things apart, testing them individually and hoping to find blown fuses and other easy fixes. In this manner we methodically confirmed what we had already suspected, our electronics were effed.

View at Picasa 03-May-2011 03:40, Canon Canon PowerShot SX20 IS, 3.2, 6.194mm, 0.033 sec, ISO 400

View at Picasa 03-May-2011 03:33, Canon Canon PowerShot SX20 IS, 2.8, 5.0mm, 0.001 sec, ISO 160

View at Picasa 01-May-2011 21:42, OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP. u1030SW,S1030SW , 3.5, 5.0mm, 0.033 sec, ISO 100

This may sound depressing, but actually getting a handle on things in this manner enabled us to quantify what we had labelled an unmitigated disaster into several expensive, but entirely fixable components. He also mentioned that a friend of his would be visiting soon from the US so anything we weren’t able to replace or repair locally could be sourced out in the States and brought out in a suitcase thereby avoiding unreasonable and totally prohibitive Turkish Customs tariffs. It’s a gesture that we remain grateful for to this day.

We generated lists, and I scoured the towns marine shops. I developed a first name rapport with most of the merchants. There’s scarcely a foreign sailor that can say they know the area better than I do, and in fact over the coming weeks I would share some of what I had learned (where to fix this, where to buy that) with several European sailors that had been visiting Marmaris for years. I learned who would work for cash, I learned who was a shyster, and I learned who was sympathetic to our cause.

As with all challenges we’ve encountered on the trip there was an upside. These were without a doubt trying circumstances, but instead of feeling the weight of some really bad luck we were starting to feel more like contestants in a really challenging game show. If there were any other participants we would have all had to meet at the end of a prescribed amount of time to find out who had the most work done, the best work done, and for the least amount of Euros, Turkish Lira, Dollars or Pounds. Having good friends around helped us to keep perspective and sanity, sometimes they were just there to drink beer and listen to us whine after a particularly bad day. Sometimes support came from friends that weren’t even there.

On one memorable night I was bleating on about the cost of this or the problem with that on a Skype call to my friend Chris. The amount of ocean miles under Chris’s belt is the equivalent of about 6 laps around the world, he’s crossed the Atlantic alone 11 times. I said “Chris, I swear if it wasn’t for bad luck we’d have none at all” to which Chris patiently replied “Really? I thought I was talking to a guy who owned his own boat that happens to be sitting in the Mediterranean”. Some nerve eh? Talk about a low blow. I was just frothing up some good self pity and with one little remark like that he takes the wind out of my sails. Suddenly it was tough to feel sorry for myself, I’ll always hate him for that.

Sometimes it wasn’t just friends that took our minds off things. Sometimes it was just the opposite, enemies. Blood enemies:

The next day Jaime screams and drops a drawer on the floor. We had suspected an unwanted presence, and in fact Jaime had actually caught the occasional glimpses of said presence on the boat from the day we offloaded in Marmaris. It seems that one giant mother of a cockroach had stowed away on Slapdash sometime during her stay on the BBC Everest. I had prudently scaled down Jaime’s claims of the giant winged flesh eating spiked monster but since she has made it clear from the very start that she is game for storms, seasickness, pirate threats, lightning strikes and whatever else might come our way on this adventure but vehemently draws the line at giant winged flesh eating spiked monsters (and somewhat inexplicably, flying fish) I nevertheless took the intrusion seriously. I had been stalking the beast since her first report.

While Jaime took up her defensive position backed into the corner of our cabin with a spatula, I surveyed the scene with flashlight and mirror. The beast was real. This was no pesky little sailboat cockroach. This was not even a typical Sri Lankan diner cockroach. This was one tough as nails bad assed commercial cargo ship sized beast. It was in fact a giant winged flesh eating spiked monster. Of course I didn’t let on, and instead said something like “what? This little thing”.

Fighting basic instinct to take up a defensive position armed with a kitchen tool I fashioned a more suitable and decidedly manly weapon. Spearing or crushing of the beast was out of the question, since as a vile disgusting act of defiance cockroaches are known to leave piles of eggs in their guts to propagate their filthy race. Instead, taking a page from my childhood heroes off the A-Team and McGyver I cleverly employed left over lightning strike shrapnel (the now celebrated VHF antenna) with a giant ball of duct tape fastened to the end and in this fashion would take him alive.

I took up a strike position while coaxing Jaime out of the cabin (this took some time) to slide the remaining drawer from its place in order to get a clear shot. Adrenaline had our senses honed to a knifes edge. We both held our breath as the drawer was slowly extracted. The world around us disappeared, time slowed down, you could have heard a pin drop. Inch by painfully suspenseful inch she slid the drawer back, each second exposing more of the den now occupied by a desperate and angry beast.

Before long the drawer was completely removed. Jaime stood there holding it above my head as I crouched even lower and followed my weapon deeper into the hole. There was still no sign of our prey. I said as much and continued the investigation, now with the aid of flashlight and mirror being careful not leaving any nook or cranny unchecked. After the tension of the past few moments we both loosened up and started discussing how something so big could have possibly escaped undetected. My face was deep into the hole now. I shifted my weight to increase circulation and ease up pain from the pins and needles from my now completely asleep left leg. Above me, still holding the weight of this drawer and its contents straight armed and as far away from her vital organs as possible, Jaime shifted around me to move the drawer into a more comfortable position. We were entwined in an uncomfortable game of life and death Twister. Me, crouched in a ball on the floor with my head stuck in a hole.  Jaime still holding the drawer over my head. One of her legs was still on the cabin side, the other in the air half step over my back trying to find a place to put it down, and all of this in the 18 inches of hallway space in our Starboard hull. This was the moment that she discovered the beast, in true Hitchcock fashion it had clung to the back side of the drawer, invisible to us both waiting for an unsuspecting and seemingly innocuous moment to spring its shocking death trap.

Jaime screamed and dropped the drawer. I jumped up and bashed my head. In a rain of measuring cups, wooden spoons, vegetable peelers and bottle openers we spastically scrambled, slipped and slid around the galley floor. Recovering my weapon I began stabbing at anything that moved. Soon my duct tape ball had recovered cutlery, a pot holder, ripped out a patch of my leg hair and amazingly, improbably, astoundingly (despite our best efforts to screw it up) one certified and vilified giant winged flesh eating spiked monster.

View at Picasa 04-May-2011 04:36, Canon Canon PowerShot SX20 IS, 2.8, 5.155mm, 0.002 sec, ISO 80

We happy danced our way outside, took a commemorative photo (this only because Jaime decided that even a stuffed and mounted cockroach would not be allowed on the boat) pulled the tape ball off the end of my antenna spear using an old rag and hurled it as far as possible out to sea. We returned to the cabin, poured drinks and drank to the death of all giant winged flesh eating spiked monsters.

We finished our drinks in the cockpit and happily watched the tape ball slowly drift out to sea. He was a worthy foe, but we were smug in our demonstrated dominion over unwelcomed winged exoskeleton bastards. Then something incredible happened, and I’m sure you are going to think that I’m making this part up. We noticed little ripples emanating out from the tape ball. The rag had long since drifted off, so when the ball surprisingly righted itself our nemesis was clearly visible, right there wriggling away on his back. Even at this distance we could tell that he was pissed. Somehow the bug pulled itself off the tape ball (losing a wing in the process) rolled off the side, took a quick bead and then began swimming directly back towards the Slapdash! He was swimming hard too; there was even a little wake behind him.  We were in shock. Fortunately he was far enough away that we had time to arm ourselves, Jaime took a dinghy paddle and passed me the boathook. At the last moment I abandoned the boathook and grabbed another rag instead. Once he was close enough I used it like a net and scooped him up out of the water quickly crunching it into a ball. I squished it as hard as I could before putting 4 wraps of duct tape around it then threw it again. We sat there, no drinks this time, it was all business. We watched until the improvised cockroach tomb sank, and only then did we put down the paddle and boathook.

True story. And you know what? That whole afternoon that lightning strike was about the furthest thing from our minds.

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