Yanti Parazi

April 18, 2004 - The Meaning of "Yanti Parazi'

Yanti Parazi is a sentence scramble in Hebrew. The unscrambled sentence is 'Ziyanti Para', which means 'I fucked a cow'.

The historical reference to this word scramble is a childhood game. The basic idea is for one kid to ask another to say 'Yanti Parazi' 3 times in a row real fast. When the unsuspecting kid falls for the trap he's actually saying 'Ziyanti Para' embedded in "Yanti Parazi”… Hence the source of great amusement for all the other kids.

Why did I choose this name for my boat? Because I wanted something playful, extraordinary and youthful. I did not care for a star or constellation name or for some other life virtue. All these have their merits but they can be found on practically every other boat and are too boring for me.

The obligatory answer to the obligatory question is 'No'. I did not fuck a cow and have no intention of doing so in the near future.

Yanti Parazi slogan as adopted by the Yanti crew is: "We have great ambitions of doing nothing". Many, many thanks for Janis who shares the same ambitions but is going to law school. Go figure...

About Me:
In 1960, I as the first born to my two parents. After having me, my parents decided to try again. After having my sister, they decided maybe they shouldn't try any more.

As a kid I traveled a lot as my father's job took us from Italy to France, Israel and back to Italy and back again to Israel. Finally after completing the military service in Israel, just as the Lebanon war was warming up, I traveled to the UK to brush up my English in preparation for college in the US. From there was admitted to NYU for a BA in Computer Science. Where I eventually completed a Master in the same.

For years I worked as a programmer and a software engineer, until Intel, my last employer decided that my contributions to the falling stock price were no longer required. Having made a list of what I wanted to do when I grow up, I, surprisingly, discovered that finding another job in another cubicle was not on it. After a simple process of elimination of the alternative occupations I considered interesting, the remaining option on the list was to get a sailboat and go cruise around the world. Straddling the line between madness and insanity, I had no fear for what the future might hold. And of I went along with the purchase without even knowing if I get seasick in rough seas.

I ended up with a 44 ft boat. It's a true blue cruiser. And in spirit of my actions, I named the 1986 red hull Norseman 447, Yanti Parazi without going through the name-change ritual.

Interests that I miss: friends still in the USA who are suffering under mental torture of hearing president Bush speak and their job, bridge, volleyball, skiing, my Audi and motorcycle, NY City, yes NYC, movies, a good pizza.

Interests that I now can practice more regularly: SCUBA, fishing and my great ambition of doing nothing. New friends I made along the way include but are not limited too: Murphy and Ivan (from the movie the hunt for red October. I already had a chance to make a few Ivan maneuvers.)

I plan to circumnavigate the world in 2-3 years. Since I do not have a plan (yes Rich C., I have no plan) for the next few months beyond avoid hurricane and monsoon areas when the hurricanes and monsoons arrive, I surely do not have a plan for what I'll do when I am done.

And now, I must go back and focus my attention to my yoyo a fishing device.

Capt. Sam Mazza

44' Norseman 447

44' Norseman 447, before she became the Yanti Parazi

Marine Horizon, where I learnt to scuba-dive

At the marina

03.17.04
At 6 AM the condition still seem to be unfavorable for sailing. There are five other boats at the marina all waiting to head east toward East Caicos or Grand Turk. We have been here for five plus weeks. The others are pushing towards their second week. So we got to know Bill, Vince and Robert on a xxx, Jim and his wife on a xxx and Mathew and Rachel a British couple on a xxx. They all came in for repairs of various degree and got stuck.

We are to make final adjustment to the boat and clean it. Then we will be in top form for when the weather turns.

March 16, 2004

03.16.04
It’s still blowing out there. All the boat scheduled to leave today are still here. There are quite a few boats here headed to South Caicos and the Luperon. There are all waiting for the same thing – a weather window.

The passing front is the reason we did not go out today on a sea trial. We are schedule to go out tomorrow morning. The forecast calls for the winds to die out. But… it’s 6PM now and it’s still blowing pretty hard. I do not expect the forecast to be very accurate.

We went to dinner with Bill, Vine and Robert at the Banana Boat. It’s one of the local dive where they have half=price dinner entrees. There are few restaurants participating in on a rotation offering daily special. Even at that half-price, the food was over priced.

Paradise

March 15, 2004

Since we have been so delayed, I had to change my flight plans to Brazil. Instead of rushing to Jamaica, we will sail to Sand Cay in the Turks bank. From there we will head to Luperon, Dominican Republic (DR.) It would be safer to leave the boat there and Reiner might have time to enjoy the local hospitality. We heard from cruisers returning from Luperon that there are over 100 boats there. I hope this will keep Reiner interested while I am away.

My flight into Maimi from Luperon leaves me no time to go shopping in Miami. Also, I’ll have to take a bus the day before from Luperon to Santo Domingo to catch the flight. This will for sure be an interesting bus ride thru DR.

Mike Speer came to finish wiring the engine and to fire it up. Lo and behold, it fired almost immediately! What a relief. We are not very close to leaving this place. All we need is for the front to pass. It’s been blowing over 20 knots for the past few days with no end in sight. The marina is full of boats that came for “shelter from the storm”. Then we need for some spare parts to arrive, so that the final touches on the engine can be made. Finally we have to be able to head out for a sea trial to test the new engine.

02.28.04-03.14.04

Reiner and I started on long list of repairs. For the most part we are stranded here at the marina. We got to rent a car from the employees at the yard a couple of time for $20. But they soon slaughter their golden goose. They became greedy and started asking $50 for a few hours use of the car. On the island a rental cost about $60+ per day. Still, we had to refuse the use for a few hours at those inflated rates. One of the rentals was a beat up white payload truck. It’s so beat up that the platform is held together by patches of fiberglass. We did not think it had shocks. And surely it did not have breaks. We were lucky to make it back on time in one piece. The owner of the car, Fredo, has two flats a week. Actually everyone on the island rides with the spare at attention.

After we bought lunch a couple of times for Arnold, the mechanic that has been working on the engine, he said that he might get us his car, if he can finish repairing it in time for the weekend. Unfortunately, he dropped a pushrod into the oil pan. So that adventure is on hold. Hopefully, I had time over the weekend to retrieve the rod. So we might have a car for a day next week.
In the mean time, his girlfriend offered to chauffer us during lunch. We ran some errands and got to have lunch a couple of times outside the yard. Nice but expensive, like everything else on this island.

When we run errands I get to go to the post office to check for general delivery mail from Christina (Spanish Wells). It’s been over five weeks since she sent CD she had recorded by downloading music from the web. But the post office here still claims nothing has arrived. While, island time dictates that things move slowly, it’s quite unrealistic that it would take that long even if all mail were delivered on the back of conch.

Anyway the list of repairs is never ending. One thing gets fixed, two other thing break. We have been working on cleaning the membrane of the watermaker. By the time we were done, we still had too high pressure when both pumps were turned on and the water still measured 600ppm. It’s supposed to be in the 200-300 ppm range. What else could happen…the CD changer died. Reiner diagnosed the problem to a faulty diode on the circuit board. The end result remains the same. I need to get a new CD changer. This one is not repairable.

The list of repairs we worked on: install new running light after the pulpit had been straightened, replace the chain on the furlboom, dive under the boat replace the zincs on the shaft and prop and clean the bottom, reground the SSB antenna, repair the watermaker pumps, repair the dinghy bow, de-rust some of the stainless, move the radar reflector from the back stay to the port side stay, wipe all spare lines, install a new foot pump at the galley, replace the clam cleat for the traveler and probably a dozen other small tasks that I can’t remember. Overall, this boat has never been is in just a good shape…

We are waiting for spare parts and a rebuilt kit for the old water pump. That old pump can be located on ‘the other side’ of the engine where it’s easier to service. The new pump can only be located where it’s a pain in the arse to service.

02.24-27.04

I spent the week diving and getting certified on Nitrox, Advanced Nitrox and Close Circuit Rebreather (CCR). Days started with a 6AM wakeup. I had to be ready for pick up at 7AM up the road where Tom and his family live. Tom is one of four owners of Big Blue. Big Blue is the outfit that runs a dive operation of the east coast of Caicos. O2 Technical is the outfit that operates from the same facility and provides training for CCR.

The way things turned out, I was the only student in the class. So I had the devoted attention of Ariane, a French Canadian. She’s been on the island for over a year after quitting a hi-tech job up north. Having the luxury of a private instructor made the whole process quite bearable. Overall, it’s quite tiring. By the end of the day all you want is to go to bed.

Each day started with building the rebreather and making sure that it’s operational, loading the equipment on the boat. Then during the boat ride to the dive site, I would have some theory pumped into me. Then Ariane went over the dive plan and the exercises I’ll be doing underwater. The general approach is that the same exercises are repeated every day with varying degrees of independence. First day, I am fully supervised and I can receive cues from Ariane. Second day, I have to remember by myself what comes first. The next day, I am prompted with cards what emergency to practice. Until I am ready to graduate, I am basically on my own managing the various simulated emergency. There are four types of emergencies: too much oxygen, not enough oxygen, too much nitrogen and electronic failure. Well most f them are easy enough to simulate… but the not enough oxygen is simulated by closing your oxygen supply…and too much oxygen is solved by purposefully closing the oxygen supply, so that one has manual control on how much oxygen is introduced into the artificial lung. (More on this in a couple of paragraphs.)

On the ride back, I’d have some rest. But once ashore, I have to clean the rebreather and prepare it for the next day’s dive. It became clear very quickly why rebreather diving is called technical diving. Putting the thing together is a long series of steps. Since your life depends on the condition of the equipment, you surely do not want to miss any of the steps, perform them in the wrong order or misdiagnose any operational anomaly. Then more theory, exercises and yes, homework!

Anyway, I was very comfortable with the rebreather, had no problem clearing and got my buoyancy under control relatively fast. The first two dives was more of ‘get comfortable and know the equipment’ setup. We got to see some marine life. I did well on my exercises. The second day was quite a bit different. For one, we saw a reef shark swim towards us. Now these creatures do not feed on human, they are just curious, or so I’m told by Ariane and the rest of the dive crew. We’ll I don’t think any one of them is Dr. Dolittle. So, I doubt that the shark knows all that. By now the shark has come by to satisfy his curiosity a couple of time. We all know that the sharks are programmed to attack the third time around. After all if he hasn’t satisfied his curiosity with two swim-bys… All along, Ariane is asking me to concentrate on the exercises. But when she’s watching me, I am watching myself, there’s no one to watch for the shark. Eventually it came for his third swim-by. Now he’s swimming directly towards us. Nothing can stop him. Not event the sound of me furiously adding air to my lung…I can see the white in his eyes at about 10 feet away and he’s still heading our way. With 5 feet of clearance it turns away. Ariane and I exchange looks. She’s smiling and I give her the OK sign. But deep down inside, I said to myself that was a close one.

During another exercise, Ariane closed my oxygen supply without me knowing. The idea is to measure and make sure that you monitor your gauges on a regular basis (every 2 minutes.) I had noticed that something was wrong within three minutes. Fast enough to pass the test, unlike, two other divers on the advanced CCR class, given by John. For their last dive they asked John for a relaxing schedule. John agreed and sent them on their own to do just a few exercises and them dive leisurely. They had to join Ariane and me for their exercises. So we are all sitting on the bottom in a circle doing our drills one at a time. I went first. Them Arian is asking the guys to turn around and face me. I assumed that she wanted me to pay attention and see how things are supposed to be done. I quickly got bored watching them. And I was more concerned about the sharks coming to check us out. In the far distance I see someone diving and getting closer to us. I guess I was John. He was creeping on his students from behind to close their oxygen supply. I knew what he was doing because Ariane had just done that to me. I keep quite. John took his students away for more drill. I am sure they were surprised to see him. By the time they had realized that their oxygen supply had been cut off, over 15 minutes have gone by. Dave claimed that what he got was not a new asshole. I think it was a polite version of one given by an instructor to a paying student…

[The reason one does not notice a problem with the oxygen supply is that we only metabolize about 4% of the oxygen we breath in. In other words, we breathe out 96% of the oxygen we breath in. And therefore, in CCR we can re-breathe the same air over and over again. The CCR injects oxygen to satisfy a certain percent mix of oxygen but that’s beside the point.]

Overall I had four perfect days of diving, weather-wise. The diving got better and better with my improved skills. We say sharks on almost every dive, with some more close encounters. We saw spotted manta ray, turtles and many many other local creatures. The turtle and sharks took the prize.

02.19-23.04

Reiner arrived. I had to return the rental car two days before he landed. So I arranged over the VHF for a taxi to pick him up. However, the taxi drivers are not very reliable. So no one waited for him at the airport. He had received my email about me not being able to pick him up, so he took a cab to the marina on his own initiative. We spend the next few days getting acquainted. He’s a lot of experience with boats and systems so it was a no brainer for him to get familiar with YP.
I had told him that we are having engine problems. And he had resigned to staying here for a while until the engine would be repaired. We were hoping to make the best of our stay here. But given the high cost of living, we are limited, for the most part, to the marina. Excursions out of here are for the most part available when we get one of the guys at the marina to lend us a car for a fee.

02.22.04

I wanted to take the rebreather intro class. So, I arranged for a pickup from O2 Technical. Reiner decided to take advantage of this opportunity and when diving with Big Blue.

After a quick lesson on how to assemble and prep the rebreather for a dive, Ariane, my instructor, takes me for a short reco-dive in the marina. Visibility is about 4 feet. While I manage well with the rebreather buoyancy is a bit tricky with the extra air in the lungs and the shallow marina.
The dive goes well and Ariane is confident that I can move onto the next level. This is a dive to 30 feet on the reef not too far from Turtle Cove. There, I’ll be able to experience the rebreather more fully. That is, I’ll be around marine-lives without making bubble (exhaling air into the water). So I should be able to get closer to them. And so it was. I swam as close as I could to a large school of big Jacks. I did not faze them and they circled me. I was so close to them that I could almost see their inside when they gapped their mouths.

This was a beach dive. So we got sand allover the equipment. That means a longer cleaning session back at the shop. But I am hooked on diving like so. This is definitely how diving should be. The open circuit diving is just an evolutionary fluke that will become extinct as prices for rebreathers come down and the technology more available.

02.23.04
Restful day at the marina. I am anticipating Monday when I’ll be starting the full fledge rebreather class.