The morning dawned bright, with the promise of heat. At the marina, it stretched out before me, a blank slate begging for a plan, so as to not slip away without being defined by some sort of satisfaction of a job well done. The time had come to wash the teak and apply a few coats of Semco finish. Mike had gone on a few errands, I had a book loaded on my phone to listen to. I was ready to begin.

As I got out the teak wash and a bucket, Mike appeared, back surprisingly early from his errands. He looked, I don’t know, like he had something on his mind, maybe. There was definitely a ‘look’; an urgency he radiated. But I was not sure how to read that.

“I need to tell you something.”

These are the words that tumbled out of his mouth, apparently without his thinking about it. Let me just go on record here: if you are married to someone who is waiting patiently (like yourself)  for the next round of cruising, crossing her fingers that nothing in life will prevent that from happening, if you have adult children, or aging parents, or either of you has had to address health issues, or basically, let’s get real, if you are in any kind of relationship at all… do not begin a conversation with the words, “I need to tell you something.” That generally precedes a telling of some kind of thing that means: “Life as you have come to enjoy it, is about to change, and not necessarily for the better. That peaceful, calm existence you have had for maybe two days is about to end early. The day you have been dreading and didn’t even know it has arrived.”  ‘I need to tell you something’ is right up there with ‘We need to talk’ in terms of popular conversation starters.

The bottom dropped out of my stomach and I cried, “What?? What happened? What’s going on?”

You may think I over reacted. and perhaps so, but there is precedent to that, as any parent knows. My mind immediately goes to something happening to one of our kids. If it’s not them then it’s one of the moms, a bad report from some doctor, or maybe someone has vandalized our car, our house… all of it crashes around jockeying for position in my head. I’ve lived long enough for any or all of those things to be true. Anyhow, now Mike is irritated that I have taken his warning incorrectly, but my stomach remains unmoved, on the ground, waiting.

Then he lays it on me:

“I’ve decided I have to give you a birthday present a day early. I don’t want to leave it in the car, and I don’t want to store it in the basement at the house. So I’m just giving it to you today….and then you can decide what you want to do with the rest of your day”.

I did not throttle him.

This? This is what “I’ve got to tell you something…” means? This is what was causing ‘the look’? Dear sweet Lord in his small fleece diaper. I am giddy with relief. I shift gears as I pick my  shaken stomach off of the bench seat and replace it in my body, the cascade of stress hormones making my hands only a little bit shaky. The ground is suddenly solidly there under my feet again. I can definitely get on board with early presents! Whew.

‘OOOH, a present? A day early? Is it a PONY?’

I have always thought getting a pony for my birthday would be right up there with scuba diving with manta rays. Plus we have a running family joke about getting ponies for special occasions. I’m not exactly sure what I would do with a real pony, but my daughter in law would probably take that off my hands.

“I’ll give you hint’, he says, eyes all a-twinkle.  “It’s about 10 ponies.”

“An engine! You got the engine! and it’s here and now we can get out on the water in the new dinghy! Is it in the car? Can we get it and go out today?”  All thoughts and plans of refinishing teak vanish with not even a whimper. I was practically jumping up and down.

It was, indeed, the engine, which is a Yamaha 9.9 HP 2 stroke he bought at the engine sales and repair place near the marina. We wanted a 2 stroke because of their simplicity.

And this is paired with our new dinghy! We bought a True Kit Inflatable Catamaran dinghy from New Zealand. And we couldn’t be more pleased with it!

If you have been a reader, you know that on our first cruise we sported a Portland Pudgy named Penguin.  It served us really well for a number of years and we found it to be almost the perfect dinghy for tooling around the Pacific Northwest. However, our needs changed as we traveled further afield. We found that it was too slow and plodding in the sometimes rough conditions of the Sea of Cortez and Pacific Mexico. It took too long to get places, like back to our boat in an emergency. It was also really dangerous landing that dinghy in any kind of surf. To be sure, I don’t enjoy surf landings in any way, but being sideways in a hard, plastic dinghy with a wave crashing over me, hanging on for dear life  is an experience I do not want to repeat. Not to mention how heavy the Pudgy is if it gets pooped; a story for another day.

Carrying the Pudgy was also a bit of a problem. Near to shore, we carried it on davits, but on our ocean crossings it had to live on the foredeck. It got in the way and also the boat motion would be such that we had to keep a close eye on it to be sure it wasn’t moving around. One of the reasons we bought the Pudgy was its rating as a lifeboat, but just the idea that we would be able to deploy it from the bow of our boat in probably heaving seas makes me want to laugh; a bit hysterically, to be sure.

It just was not optimal and I kept wishing we had bought this neat inflatable we had seen at a boat show long ago. That one fit in a bag when it was deflated, and you could stow it below deck. That one factor began to be deal breaker on finding a new dinghy as we began to research, looking for something that filled us with dinghy lust.  We just wanted that foredeck on Galapagos to be free and clear, and we wanted to be able to get places fast. We also needed something to carry snorkeling, and maybe even scuba, equipment. The Portland Pudgy got mega crowded on long day trips.

Enter the True Kit and its ALMOST twin, the Takacat.  Lightweight, stable, packable, they have an interesting bow design that would allow easy snorkeling or diving from the boat. After months of perseveration, we decided that we would buy one of these two models of boats. But which one? They looked almost the same.

The Takacat is available from suppliers here in the states, so that makes it a little easier to source. Luckily, there was a dealer at the boat show in Seattle this year and we were able to size one up in person. While we liked the general design features, we did not pull the trigger to buy one. Why? Somehow it just didn’t feel beefy enough for the conditions we were going to be in. It was PVC, which I didn’t think would be a deal breaker,  but there was something about the models we saw that just left us not feeling sure about them and part of that was the feel of the PVC. Also I was not crazy about the rope handles on the inside of the pontoons. They did not feel like they would offer enough purchase for me and I could see the rope hurting my hands. And the rub rail was not as solid as I felt like it should be. In addition we were not impressed with the design of the transom, which seemed like a weak spot. In fact the dealer was talking about how they were going to be changing that design.

We walked away feeling a little, well, deflated, if you’ll pardon the expression. It was just a gut feeling thing. And we have learned to listen to that. If we were just going to be in inland waters, the Takacat would have been just fine.  But we decided to pursue the True Kit and I emailed them to ask how their model differed from the Takacat.

Basically the difference is in the fabric, the beefier transom, a more pronounced upward curve to the open bow, and some details like the number of firm handholds (rather than rope handholds), the addition of an aluminum seat, and the heat welded seams on the True Kit. Overall, the general feel of the True Kit, even on line, looked sturdier to us, like it would stand up to harder use. The fabric, while not the usual traditional Hypalon, is a large step above regular PVC.

The fabric is called Valmex. While less well known in the US, it has been used more extensively in other parts of the world. Here is some information about this fabric to get you started if you are interested. It  is produced in Germany by Mehler Technologies and can be heat welded rather than glued. On Hypalon inflatables, it’s generally the glue that gives out before the fabric, as we discovered with the old Avon inflatable we were given by other cruisers in La Cruz.

We ordered our True Kit and it was quickly delivered from New Zealand, with only a brief stop at customs so they could ask for a small fee to import the boat. The fee was less than 100$.

Out of the box, it’s really easy to set this boat up. You tube has a number of videos of the True Kit folks setting up the boat, taking it in rough seas, showing it off, etc. Yep, they do know how to make a sale.

So on a day that I was supposed to be cleaning teak, I found myself zipping around the bay in our new dinghy flying fast and free, and discovering that neither of us yet have the skills to get a boat up on a plane and feel safe. This boat planes beautifully, but wow. We are sailors. We aren’t used to going that fast!

I got to go first as the driver because it was my birthday. The engine started right up and soon we were off, skimming across the bay. As Mike took his turn at the engine, I lounged in the front end of the boat. Another benefit I will enjoy. I just layed right down and stared up at the water. There was plenty of room. “Sea Pony”. I said. Its name is “Sea Pony”.

I’ll be painting another octopus on the new engine cowling, just like we had for the smaller engine we used for several years. But I’ll be sure there is a place for a turquoise sea pony with flowing pink hair.