Cruising with a Cat onboard…the other side of the story…

I wrote this article a year or two ago but forgot to publish it. Now in South Africa…it’s easy to take for granted getting supplies for our cat, or other details. But back when I wrote this, it wasn’t quite as easy…I enjoyed reading back…about Lily..the cat we had up til last summer when she passed away. I hope you enjoy it too.

Here is that blog…

Cats are

GREAT, but…

For years, I wanted to have a cat on our boat. We both love cats, and we saw other cruising boats with cats, and they always told us what small problem, and great pleasure it was to have theirs.

Finally, after about 5 or 6 years, after visiting Animal rescue leagues across the world, just to have cuddles, Patrick announced one day, with a kitten on my lap, that we should bring it home. So we did. Long story short, it’s been both a pleasure and a pain every since.

Patrick is fairly conscientious about the weight we put in the boat. But a cat is just a few pounds right? Well, cat sand is no small matter. Not only is it often hard to find…it’s also heavy to carry back to the boat and if you want your boat to not smell, you need to change it fast and furiously. We have tried beach sand..it gets everywhere. We have tried crushed leaves…she won’t use it. We have tried many things, but nice fragranced, clumping sand is what works, and it’s heavy and has to be purchased where it’s available and stored. So much for saving weight. We rarely have less than 100 pounds of it stored in the bow locker because depending on where we are, we never know when we may find it again.

While on the subject of cat sand…well, it gets everywhere you don’t want it to get. Whether it be the cat flicking it somewhere or just on her paws as she leaps out of the box in disgust at her own droppings, or us spilling it cleaning it or adding more sand, or the bag it’s in springing a leak…sand gets everywhere including in the bilge and in every crack on the floorboards it can find. Now you need a vacuum cleaner. See previous paragraph about weight.

At least no one seem to mind when they see you dumping cat sand over the side. But in a marina…a shallow marina…do you want to contribute to it getting more shallow? So now you have (spilling) bags of sand to contend with.

Ok…so there is the 100 pounds of cat sand to find and carry back to the boat, in addition to your own supplies.

But there is cat food too… dry food is found in many places but not all. And unless you have a “cat boat” friend just up ahead, one that has the same tastes as your cat, you often have to stock up on cat food too. Both wet and dry if your cat likes both. Wet food is harder to find. So you have more cans to carry home and store. And more weight on the boat. And less room for your own things. And then if you have a finicky cat like ours…she doesn’t like half of what you have bought and you end up feeding that to cats on shore. And if you are really thick, you end up finding a kitten and doubling your problems aboard. So far We have managed to avoid that, but it’s a constant danger.

Not to mention a cat cage to carry the cat for visits to the veterinarian…and finding space for this…not to mention finding Frontline or similar pest protection for her. And not to mention brushing her on a semi regular basis to avoid cat hair being everywhere. And even with regular brushing…cat hair ends up everywhere anyways. Back to the vacuum cleaner. Back to paragraph one.

The one thing I thought would be a big issue with having a cat was quarantine when arriving to a new country. I do know some people with pets who arrive and ask if the pet is an issue. I guess you would have more issues with a dog, since you have to/want to walk dogs on shore and everyone knows this. But a cat…if I don’t ask, they don’t ask. If they do ask…we exclaim that we do NOT want the cat onshore…that this would be a dangerous place for her since she only knows the boat.  We don’t hide her or lie about her. We just don’t come right out and ask for as issue. Her bowls of food and water are left in plane view as is her cat litter. She often comes out to say hi to the officials though she sometimes just hides or sleeps through their visit. If we come to a dock for clearance I often lock in her in the bathroom simply because I don’t want her jumping ashore and instantly being welcomed by a bad dog. Lily has now been to 15 countries, some of them multiple times, including Singapore, and she has never presented a problem. But if you expect there to be an issue with your cat, there will be. And I am sure trouble for us is just around the corner…but I won’t go looking for it. We are always prepared for problems with this, by keeping her shots up to date, and having plenty of paperwork to baffle them with if needed. She has been microchipped, and has her own official looking folder with our boat papers. 

Lily gets seasick. She looks to me when the going gets tough and it have to be there to tell her that we will indeed live. She needs my calm voice to look at her and swear up and down that we are OK. I also have to hold her in her cat box sometimes because let’s face it…if you or I had to squat to pee, we would have a hard time balancing too. So many A Times I have steadied her while she does her thing. I’ve also had to clean up her barf when she just couldn’t keep it down. She is like me… a fairweather sailor! Every time we leave a nice anchorage or marina she looks at me and asks…”Mamma…why do we have to keep leaving perfectly good places!? It’s just gonna be the same thing in the next place!” And if we are leaving a marina, we even have to lock her in the bathroom, because she is naive enough to think if she jumped ship, she could actually survive on land by herself.

Ok, now for the worst part…

When we got Lily…we were in Palau. We had just crossed the Pacific. There isn’t much of anywhere in the Pacific that you leave your boat and do inland travel. The best places are visited by boat. But as we approached SE Asia, and left via SriLanka, and now in Africa, there are certainly places to visit inland that require some time away from the boat to visit properly. In SE Asia, we were able to join Facebook groups locally and find people who wanted to play mommy for a short stints with Lily in their home. One wonderful lady, Shareen, took Lily for 7 weeks while we flew home. She cried when it was time for Lily to come home. It took a lot of work to find these people, and show them how to do everything etc, but we made some good friends doing this too, that we remain in touch with now. There were also some high quality pet hotels that we used…but again it took time and worry. In SriLanka, we were told that under no circumstance could the cat come ashore. So Poor Lily was left for 5 days with heeping piles of food, water and cat boxes. We worried the whole time, and we rushed the entire trip trying to get back in time worried she would be upset. And she was quite upset by this. She peed on things, mostly because he sand became too dirty for her (spoiled), and he cat feeder dispensed too much at one time allowing it to get ever so slightly soft (spoiled).

So leaving your cat when would want to travel…the whole reason you came out in the first place), is a real problem. Always a concern.

In East Africa, we have a bonus though. It is recommended that when you leave your boat, that you get a recommended guard to stay on your boat while you gone, mostly at night. You lock up the boat and they brave the cockpit. You leave some water and snacks for them, and maybe a blanket and pillow. They are happy to feed the cat and give fresh water to them. And scoop out their littler box. We are even employing this one to polish stainless steel for us. The costs is extremely minimal…less than $5 per day for the guard work, less than $5 for the stainless polishing and cat sitting.

In every country, there is a new puzzle of what to do with the cat when you travel.

Don’t get me wrong…we LOVE her… she is a great companion on passage, sitting with each of us in the cockpit during watches, alerting us to approaching boats,mor fish on the line. She is a great alarm clock for when 5pm rolls around since she meows profusely for food at that time. She is a fun distraction and loves to help with boat projects too. She greets us by rolling over and meowing when we approach the boat in Dingy. She tests fish for us. If she won’t eat it…we won’t either… She makes us laugh every day.

But it’s a big commitment to get a cat, and it quickly becomes about the cat seeing the world, not as much about you seeing the world. Dogs have masters…cats have servants.

Sometimes that’s OK….much of the time, that’s OK. But right now, as we prepare to go away in 2 days, I’m kicking myself for getting her. I haven’t done anything to prepare myself for this trip…I have only prepared the cat 😉