Mulligans

Among golfers, there’s a thing called a mulligan.  In essence, it’s a do-over of a bad shot, without penalty.  To some, they are a reasonable accommodation to the inevitability of a bad swing or an errant shot.  To others, they are an abomination to the game of golf, which has prided itself on its integrity:  each shot counts.  The famous Texas golf teacher Harvey Penick tells of joining a foursome one morning; when the first player shanked his drive out of bounds and declared his intention to take a mulligan, Penick walked away, saying “When you boys decide to play golf, let me know.”  Most weekend golfers are not so persnickety, and many will tolerate, if not embrace, a mulligan on the first hole of the match.

To take another tack, at most charity golf tournaments, you can actually “buy” mulligans, and trade cash for the chance for a re-do.  Some teams take advantage of this money-raising scheme to excess, and buy dozens of mulligans, and shoot final scores that boggle the imagination.  All for a good cause I suppose. 

Finally, there’s an old saw about the golfer who brings his playing partner to the emergency room with two large lumps on the back of the partner’s head.  When asked how it happened, the golfer said he drove the ball and inadvertently hit his partner walking away from him.  

“What about the second lump?,” the doctor asked. 

“Oh – that was my mulligan.”

Joking aside, we’ve had more than a few errant shots on our trip to date, times and events where we’d like to call for a mulligan.  We’re doing a lot of on-the-job training, and as Jennifer puts it, “When we’re finished with this trip, we should know enough to start it.” 

Bob Dylan captured our prevailing sentiment when he wrote:  “Here I sit so patiently/Waiting to find out what price/ You have to pay to get out of/Going through all these things twice.”  Thus, in the interest of full disclosure to those faithful readers who may think us charmed as we waltz across the Pacific, here are our “wanna-be mulligans.”  

--  We lost a genaker sheet overboard when both Jennifer and I thought the other person had secured the line as we readied the sail.  Luckily we had a spare line, but a loss nonetheless.  Readers may recall this event spawned a poem.  All lines now get tied off before we bring them to the foredeck.

--  We bought a new battery for our dinghy, which allowed us to raise the engine so it wouldn’t get stuck in the mud at low tide.  That night, having proudly raised the engine with our new battery, the dinghy drifted on top of a barnacle-encrusted log, which proceeded to slice a 4” gash in the pontoon.  Our dinghy repair kit had a jar of sealed but solidified glue, and not nearly enough patching material.  A trip into town, and 4 days of work, and voila, a patched and ready-to-use dinghy.  No more tying up near barnacles.

--  Somehow the concept of checking the water level in our wet-cell batteries eluded us, and we woke up to discover that our entire bank of batteries was bone-dry, and, keeping with basic principles of physics, unable to hold a charge and permanently ruined.  We had to replace our entire battery bank.  We now check them weekly.
 

--  On one occasion, we came back to our dinghy to find one of the emergency oars missing from the oarlocks; luckily, we found it floating nearby, and determined that a loose cap on the oarlock was responsible.  A month later, the same cap came loose and this time, the oar floated out with the tide into the southern Pacific.  We now stow the remaining oar inside the dinghy, and not hanging from its oarlock.  A new oar is on its way.

--  Before sea water enters our watermaker to be turned into fresh water through osmosis, it passes through a 5 micron filter to remove algae, etc.  This filter is cleaned every 3-4 days by dragging it behind the boat, and then it is reused.  One day, I inserted the clean filter and heard a grinding sound when I re-started the high-pressure watermaker.  Upon inspection, a flying fish had lodged itself in the center core of the filter.  The high pressure pump chewed up the hapless fish and shot it downstream to the highly-sensitive osmotic membrane.  We had to replace the (expensive) membrane.  I now check for fish.

--  We’ve anchored a few times into situations that created real stress and tension for us and our surrounding boats.  In the Marquesas, I moved our stern anchor only to have our boat come far too close to another as we re-positioned.  More significantly, in the Tuomotus, I took the advice of a local fisherman and tried to let out our anchor manually (without using the windlass which is designed to keep hands and fingers intact).  As the chain slammed against the windlass, about 3/8” of my left ring finger was clipped off.  Luckily, we were within 5 minutes of a small clinic, and 6 weeks later, the flesh and skin have re-grown, leaving just a faint mark.  No more manual anchoring.

It’s not a complete list, but it reflects our learning curve.  We’ve been blessed with the advice and help of many fellow cruisers, who share with us their stories of mishaps and breakdowns.  It’s nice to know we’re not alone, but on the whole, I’d like to buy a few mulligans from whoever is running this tournament we’ve entered.  Lacking that, I guess I have to wait until my guitar finger heals completely and I can once again play Bob Dylan’s classic “Stuck Inside of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again.”  

Fore!