I &ldquo;Heart&rdquo; EW

I “Heart” EW

08/14/2011

News about EW – my partner and captain.

Early EW. Before my time.

(The photo below is from our honeymoon.)

I always knew he had a magnetic personality. Now he positively glows. As you may remember, last week, I got caught in a storm while in the dinghy when EW was aboard FoxSea, helping them to take her to the travel lift. It was a fierce storm and lightning struck a couple of businesses in the area – and EW was jolted as well. He was standing on FoxSea, holding on to the handle of the bimini and the guard rail on the binnacle. (Both are metal). ”I felt a jolt and it went right through my arms - hand to hand – across my chest. Then I heard thunder. My hands were buzzing and I sat right down. It was quick.” I first heard the story from Vicky, who told me I’d better “watch him.” I have no idea what to watch for – twitching, hair loss, religious conversion.

When telling the story, he takes his hat off and exclaims that his hair turned white. Long pause and then he laughs. (NOTE: When we met over 27 years ago, he was so grey then that I wondered how old he was – I can assure you that lightning did not turn his hair white.) Two days after the strike he was approached at the mall by missionaries who want to introduce him to Jesus. He’s a lapsed Catholic and I think it’s going to take more than one lightning strike for him to convert. Just sayin’. So far he’s not twitching, either.

Color me green for envy. He is in great shape and he doesn’t seem to work at it. We both lost weight at the start of the trip, he continued to lose more weight after Hampton, Virginia. I did not. I’m happy for him, but a slimmer body has presented problems. Before we left he had purchased three sets of swimming trunks in Maine and he’s been complaining that they are now a little loose, but that hasn’t been a problem when we swim off the boat and snorkel. However, when he attempted a manly lunge out of the pool at Port Louis Marina, he placed his hands on the edge and launched himself up into the air. The trunks did not follow. EW felt a draft and immediately fell back into the pool but not before he had mooned everyone. I’ll probably have to tailor his trunks a bit.

Getting back to above his shoulders, some of you may have noticed that EW looks a bit scruffy in recent photos. Yes, he’s due for a haircut and finally, he’s going to go to a barber and get a professional cut – the first since Maine.

But it’s more than a shaggy head of badly cut hair.

EW is growing a beard.

We are past the “Oh my god that’s prickly!” stage and I quite like the feel of it now. It’s a good kind of tickle and very useful. ‘Nuf said.

Though I am clearly affected by this growth on EW’s face and neck, I wasn’t consulted. It took a few days to realize that he did not intend to shave for the foreseeable future. I didn’t have any power regarding this issue, and from chatting with other cruising wives I’ve found that this is a common occurrence – particularly by men of a “certain age”. They don’t want an earing or tattoo so they show their cruising freedom by ditching the razor.

Most of these men have nicely trimmed cruising beards. Once EW’s beard has enough hair to shape/style/trim he says he’s going to do all of those things to make it look good. In the meantime, I’m married to Captain Scruffy – and that’s OK. Of course, neither of us know how to shape/trim/style a beard. This should be interesting.

The currency of EW. Astute readers will have noticed that in the Carnival post I listed the price of the package as $70.00 EW. I’ve fixed the typo, but “King EW” was mentioned, and I think he’d like having his own currency. He may be a scruffy sailor with a magnetic personality, but he’s my scruffy sailor.

Bonus round. Why do I call him EW?

If you know this, you can stop now. For new readers ..when we lived aboard year-round in Maine, we were frequently interviewed by local reporters looking for a new human interest story. One of them spelled our last name incorrectly and I was not pleased. When a different paper approached us a week later I was insistent that the young reporter get it right. “He’s an EW Stewart”, I said – with some force. OK with a lot of force and insistence and I may have said it more than once … or twice.

When the article appeared my husband had become “E.W. Stewart Hart” and was referred that way through the entire article as in, “E.W. Stewart Hart is ..” and “E.W. Stewart Hart said ..” So, on Twitter and on my blog, he is EW.

Thank goodness my scruffy, svelte, kingly sailor is a good sport.

Posted at 04:32 PM in Relationships at Sea | Permalink | Comments (4)