Every dog has his day

High Seas

Never work with animals or children, is the old movie-star maxim, for Mark Rasmussen maybe that applies to relaxing as well.

At last, it’s time for the post-Christmas family cruise. The annual ritual — our long anticipated escape from the Christmas frenzy. Several idyllic days spent relaxing in the bosom of one’s family. The sun shines constantly, quiet, uncrowded Southern Tasmanian anchorages beckon my wife, three kids and I. This is what gets me through the ever more frantic Christmas rush — I know that as soon as Santa has departed and we have watched the start of the Sydney to Hobart race, we turn our attention to our own nautical pleasures.

We sit happily at anchor aboard the family Catalina 27 Samos, after a four-hour journey from Hobart to our favourite hiding place — the sublime and amazingly sheltered North Symmonds Cove at beautiful Bruny Island. We are in the company of my wife’s sister and her husband aboard their Beneteau 36 Teos and my parents–in-law on their Mottle 33 Southerly. Rafted up together, we make a picture perfect family flotilla.

As the kids climb happily from one boat to the other, I wonder what could be better. This is, indeed, the life.

My wife Louise and I share a glass of red as we recline below for a few precious minutes, contemplating how lucky we are to be able to share one of family life’s golden moments.

The prospect of several days of such activity fills me with a warm inner glow. What could possibly go wrong??

My reverie is disturbed by my youngest, six-year-old Tom.

“Daaad, there’s a funny smell. It’s really bad.”

What smell?

What could he be talking about? I reluctantly ease my way up the companionway steps to be smacked in the face by a smell almost impossible to describe — fresh, steaming, runny dog excrement has little to match it as an olfactory assault!

“Oh lovely, Coco’s done another little woopsie” is what I should say, but silence is the best I can manage!

Coco arrived in our family courtesy of Santa (thanks so bloody much, Santa, what about my 36-footer with brand new everything??), she’s a six-week-old Labradoodle puppy. While the kids were ecstatic that Santa had finally granted their wish, I was swiftly beginning to wish that Santa had lost his way a few days earlier and dropped her off somewhere else.

Not only had Santa kindly delivered a little chocolate-brown ready-made family friend, he’d also delivered the necessary accoutrements that every boating family needs to extend the pleasure of dog ownership to boating expeditions.

My suggestion that we “leave little Coco with someone while we’re away” was swiftly vetoed (who says it’s a man’s world?).

Santa had delivered not only the puppy, but also a crate for her to sleep in whilst she travelled with us.

“Look, Daddy, Coco’s crate fits perfectly on the floor of the cockpit!”

No escape!

So, here we are, the cuddly, lovable little ball of fluff has just performed a minor miracle — how can a tiny puppy eat so little and produce such an incredible volume of foul-smelling excrement?

By my eye, there seems to be a deposit about five times the size of what has been ingested in the last 24 hours!

Of course, despite all the promises made prior to the big arrival, only one person gets the job of cleaning up after sweet little Coco.

Santa. You and I need to have a serious chat!

Issues

Cleaning up, of course, presents its own very unique set of issues. Having lived in a dog-free zone for all of my 51 years on the planet, I’m completely unused to the assault on my delicate constitution that the unique odour of ‘dog eggs’ can offer. I know for sure that those smarmy dog owners who calmly turn a plastic bag inside out and pick up the offending deposit are completely insane. Such a manoeuvre will move my highly sensitive nose far too close to the action, and I have no intention of experiencing the horrifying sensation of actually handling the fetid pile, even through the dubious protection of a plastic bag.

Resisting the strong urge to leave the pile where it is and simply throw the dog overboard, I begin to weigh up my options. The other adult members of our little expedition have by now been drawn to this happy scene in great numbers. The look of unmitigated horror on my face is only surpassed by the howls of mirth that the spectators are producing. Why is it that I can’t see the joke?

Initially, I contemplate the use of a few powerfully thrown buckets of water. I swiftly reject this idea as a bad one, because as far as I can see, this would only result in our cockpit drains taking on a frightening odour for the rest of our trip. I know that if I don’t do something soon, we may have an eternal reminder of sweet little Coco forever stained into our fibreglass. A stain that might be a little hard to explain to any future potential buyers.

Eventually, I see little choice but to resort to the plastic bag method. Amid howls of laughter from the now completely enraptured audience of adults, kids and, of course, gorgeous little Coco, I perform my duty, dry-retching powerfully as I do so. Amazingly, I’m the only one in our entire gathering who doesn’t find this event outrageously amusing.

Thus began day one of our cruise.

Sharp

Our boat, even when a little over-crowded with all of the family aboard, had always looked, to my eye, pretty sharp. A snappy dodger, navy-blue boom bag and a stylish Catalina hull had made for a pleasing package. The addition of Coco’s crate, securely strapped to the cabin top, just behind the mast, transformed it into the sort of thing that the Navy would stop and search when looking for illegal boat people. Looking like some deranged form of cray pot, several onlookers had asked upon spying the thing: “Have you caught any?”

Oh yes, we’d caught one alright! Apart from Coco’s unerring ability to produce excrement at the most inopportune moments, despite endless trips ashore to allow her to “do potty”, she also managed to unwittingly derail several other simple pleasures.

Conningham Beach is an idyllic summer anchorage. A favourite with our kids, it was suddenly off limits because of a local council ban on dogs. We spent an entire afternoon not going to several beaches because of similar problems, motoring around in a large circle as we moved from beach to beach — the joys of the dog/boat partnership were wearing thin. When the poor little thing managed to do some damage to her paw while Dad had her ashore again for ablutory duties, it seemed that somehow this was my fault. Not only was I the only one on the boat who found the whole dog thing an ordeal, I was now having to endure the ignominy of family ostracism.

By the time day three came around, I was ready to head home. If this was fun, I could live without it. However, as if by osmosis (I really shouldn’t mention that word in a boating mag), all of the parties involved seemed to declare some form of truce. Coco began to fall in to the routine of life aboard a boat and, as a result, stressful events ceased. I began to see the joy on the faces of my kids as they took more responsibility for the pup’s wellbeing.

The rest of the cruise continued — little ‘accidents’ still occurred, but in the end they’re all part of family life and, after all, that’s why we have a family boat.

Is she coming next time? I’ll think about it. Maybe if Santa could see his way clear to bringing me a nice, big, roomy boat with brand-new everything, I might be swayed.