After a month in Mexico, I felt ready for some slow, quiet mornings on my boat… Reconnecting with my routines and taking advantage of the cold weather to learn and dream about the upcoming boating season.

I grew up on the California coast and then spent a handful of years in tropical places, so my experience with winter is limited, to say the least. This is my first winter in about 10 years.

I had planned for this time and space after my annual diving expeditions to be chill: lying low and resting, my own little hibernation… But it hasn’t quite gone that way.

The more I learn about this boat, the more projects I uncover, so little by little, I’m getting organized, attempting repairs, and making upgrades… Some days though… things go sideways…

On this day, I wanted to go up and work on the anemometer which is the spinny thing at the top of the mast that measures wind speed. I have a wind vane, which works fine, so I thought this could be a simple job of climbing the mast, removing the old anemometer, and replacing it with a similar one. 

However, I decided to swap out the standard bosun’s chair for a climbing harness and didn’t think twice about what could happen next.

Here you can see the final leg adjustment, which ended up causing this rookie mistake.

I always keep my phone in the leg pocket of my yoga pants and I literally never drop it, ever. But, I didn’t account for the climbing harness leg straps slowly pushing the phone out of that pocket. 

Now, disclaimer… I have gotten into this marina water without thinking much of it. I didn’t realize how dangerous this can be. I’ve never been around boats in marinas before – my boat in Indonesia just had a basic DC battery and solar system out in a mooring field, so the presence of electrical currents in the water at marinas simply wasn’t on my radar.

Let me be very clear, swimming in marinas is really dangerous. From contamination due to people not getting proper black water pumpouts to stray electrical currents, you can actually die while swimming in marinas… so don’t do what I’m doing… I have heard that you are safer from electrical shock drowning if you are in scuba. I’m assuming the rationale is that you could breathe while being electrocuted if you maintain your regulator in your mouth, but that is a big IF in my book.

Now that I know, I won’t be jumping in this water again and please be aware of this next time you’re at a marina and the water looks good for a swim.

It’s always a bummer to lose an important piece of work equipment and have to spend the money to replace it. I’m just grateful I could rescue the footage that wasn’t backed up before it took its first and last dive. 

See what trips are coming up. I always give my community first dibs on spots, so you can sign up for Patreon (and get trip discounts) or my email list to be the first to know about new expeditions in the future.