We took our first week long cruse in our Catalina 36 this summer and had the added bonus of kittens on board. Yes, that was the plural, meaning more than one kitten. I have never tried bringing critters on a trip, at least not on purpose. But these two little bundles of fur, Finn and Stella, kept my daughters busy and were actually quite fun to have along as passengers.
With the kittens in carriers we made our way, with some trepidation and a few interesting sounds from the cats, to our boat, Carnelian, which would serve as home and kitten playground for the next week. Our voyage was from Olympia to the San Juan Islands and back again. We left on an ebbing tide to get Mother Nature’s push through the Narrows, without which our Iron Genoa, a 25 hp Universal Diesel, would never make it, at least not in this century. Finn and Stella had the normal reaction of, “What are you doing to us?” Finn was terrified of the sound of the diesel and slept in various hiding places during the first day. We think he might have been seasick. Stella stumbled around the cabin not at all bothered that her world was now moving about, something it had never done before.
It is amazing the numbers of places a kitten can find to hide and sleep. They were able to find places that we didn’t even know existed. How can two small kittens find their way into a compartment, which leads to another compartment causing four humans no end of grief trying to extricate them from their new found hiding place? We knew there was trouble when the sound of two kittens wresting in the compartment was absent. Like children you know there’s trouble when there is silence. They had found their way into the recesses of the bilge through an open cupboard that also leads to the storage compartments in the cockpit. Without our two furry friends I doubt we would have ever known the connection to the outside existed. From the time they found the secret passage until the trip was over, they were trying to return to their secret hiding place. Without some well placed duct tape on the cupboard doors they would have surely succeeded.
I don’t know if we will ever convince Stella and Finn to join us on another trip, but it was fun to have them aboard this summer.
Julia, Laura and Norm Smit, Star 7094
