Barbara's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Start to Her Birthday

*With a tip of the sailing hat to Judith Viorst and Alexander’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

The Set-Up

OK. Just let me be up front, our enforced stay in lovely (some people’s favorite stop) St. Augustine has made both EW and me a tad very testy at times. On the worst of days, both of us were testy and discouraged at the same time. Fortunately, usually one of us is upset and the other one has perspective so we recover fairly quickly.

I am thankful that Stew was indeed the larger person on the morning of my birthday.

I have a two-day-a-week office job, usually Sundays and Mondays, but this week I had to swap with the full-time person and worked Wednesday and Thursday. Now, I truly have no ownership of the 24 hours that is “my” birthday. After all, I share the day with about 19-million folks and some of us have to work. So, trust me when I say that actually going to the office didn’t bother me. In fact, I had a great day at work.

It was the getting ready that flummoxed me.

I had to get up by 6:15, had prepared the percolator the night before and planned a fairly relaxed 45 minutes before EW took me to shore for my shower and bike ride to work. I woke up at 5:00 and could not get back to sleep. I had also stayed up later than EW the night before. These facts are important as when in the states, we purchase 2 or 3 cards for the other and secret them in places to be found in the morning. EW had no opportunity to do that.

In the meantime, I discovered that the $30.00 I had gotten in “change” during a grocery transaction the day before was missing. I (quietly) began a search of every bag, all the pockets in my man-purse, and pretty much all spaces probable and improbable. That’s not an amount that will inhibit us, but it really made me mad—at myself—on a day when I had been taking stock of all the things I had not accomplished since my last birthday. So I was ready for a blow-up.

I started to prepare for my day, scooped up my favorite (and one of the most valuable) pair of earrings, stomped through the boat and heard one of them fly through my loosely clasped hand. The second frantic search of the day began at about 6:30. I needed a flashlight, and our go-to light was not where it is supposed to STAY and that necessary third search of the day set me off from pissed-off-bitch to possessed-woman-spewing-venom. I woke EW up, trying to contain my bile as he didn’t deserve it (though he had miss-placed the flashlight), used another light, found the earring and got ready to go. All the while I told him what had been going on with me, trying to keep my tone neutral and give his neurons time to wake up.

He prepared the dinghy. I prepared me and my gear (including lunch, a coffee, and my shower backpack) and off we went to shore at 7:10 in the morning. Just one mooring later I signaled him to turn back as I had forgotten my flipping SHOES! (At least I knew where they were.)

EW Earns His Wings (Again)

In the meantime, he maintained his cool, wished me a happy birthday, and tried to stay out of the line of fire. On the way in he casually mentioned he had “found some cards in your backpack”. I, in turn:

1. Didn’t even question what he was doing in my backpack

2. Immediately jumped to the conclusion that he was talking boat cards which I thought we were out of—because I hadn't ordered them as promised.

3. And started apologizing for not ordering any new ones. (Because, after all, I was a horrible person.)

He remained silent. When we got to the dock, he handed me my backpack and I asked him if he had taken the cards as he should have them (after all, I didn’t deserve them). He rolled his eyes and refrained from saying, “You idiot!” before explaining that he had placed all THREE (!) BIRTHDAY cards in one pouch in my pack, thinking I’d find them when I got ready.

Yeah. No. And Yeah. I felt about 6 inches tall. (And 1-foot wide, but that’s another post.)

So we paused at the stone bench and I opened my cards. One with a cute dog, one with the promise of wicked behavior and this one—which in the infinite wisdom of the universe, I opened last.

Yeah.

I stared at the card.

I looked at EW.

I said, “I’m not sure I should open this.”

And we laughed. We laughed and hugged and I did open it (despite wondering if I’d get immediately struck by lightning.)

Lesson Learned (Again)

But I didn’t get struck by lightning. And I kissed him and apologized and had a really great day. And he forgave me and came ashore after I got out of work and we went out to eat together, and listen to music together, and watch the Red Sox together for a while.

And they won. And I had wonderful awesome birthday messages, a super great card from Kathy, and a song from Judy and Stephen. And my Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Start to my birthday became another funny story about living together on a boat.

I am indeed a very fortunate person. I need to remember that.

I’m also a good person who just had a bad day. I need to remember that, too.

 

Oh, here’s the inside of “THE” Card.

Propane, Rolling Round My Brain

Oopsie.

Sixteen years of living aboard and we just got bitch-slapped by our boat.

La Luna, we love you.

We don’t totally agree about the timing, as in when she started dinging us. I feel it was only a two-day challenge, but EW thinks we may have been bombarded for a week. At right is our lovely queen berth in the master stateroom. We love our center queen in the stern. EW sleeps on the left side of the bed (your right as you look at this photo) and I on the right. Always. For over 30 years. I think that started when we … never mind, that would be a TMI moment.

EW felt a bit under the weather, intestinally, last week. He now thinks that was the first symptom and maybe he’s right. The propane locker is located near his head.  (That red bolster pillow is pointing to the locker.) Of course, there is a vent in the locker and we’ve had no issues for 16 years. We have carbon monoxide “bitches” in galley and master stateroom. They have been known to cry “Car-Bon Mo-NOX-ide! Car-Bon Mo-NOX-ide!” or “Fire! Fire!” depending on the moment. We have a hard-wired propane sensor under the stove in the galley. We thought we were covered.

Think again!

The other day, EW had to change propane tanks. (For you who don’t boat or camp, we have permanent tanks that get refilled. They have been inspected and have new valves and EW is meticulous about making sure they are safe when he changes them.) A day or so later, I smelled “something” in the master stateroom. It was a little something, more like a small dead animal than propane. Hey! I cook with propane daily. I know the smell. (One would think.)

When it persisted, I checked for the fictitious dead rodent, and then mentioned the smell to EW the next evening as we crawled into bed. “Hmmm. That may be propane. Don’t make coffee until I check it in the morning.”

Hmm? That blasé answer may have been sponsored by propane hazed minds. We hadn’t slept well the prior night (or 2) and I was feeling logy. EW, who sleeps closest to the propane locker was feeling worse but thought it was an intestinal thing.

The next morning, EW arose and immediately checked the propane locker and swore. There was a leak at the regulator. It was easily repaired, I made coffee and we went on with our day. Now, depending on which of us is right, we had slept next to the leak for 3-7 days.

Flipping big oops!

I’d been invited to take a trip on the Black Raven that day so I could take photos and videos of EW being a pirate, but I just felt too icky and sleepy. In fact, I took a two-hour nap instead and still slept for 8 hours that night. (I’m normally a 6-7 hour a night person with very few naps.)

At that point, “duh!” I looked up propane poisoning.

OMG!

Not good.

Here’s the thing, for over 30 years of boating, any discussion/article about propane safety that I’ve seen and heard has dealt with the possibility of propane leaking into the bilge and exploding. That’s a bad thing. That’s why we have a propane sensor below the stove. We’ve had issues (hey, things happen) and the sensor actually prevents propane from flowing if it detects a leak, making it difficult to blow up the boat.  We’re careful and always turn off the propane—not just the burner—when we aren’t using the stove. In fact, we have a rule of turning off the propane before turning off the burner so we bleed the line every single time.

We are safety conscious—but we blew it. (Pun intended.)

After it was fixed, Stew also had a great night’s sleep. In fact, he slept until 10:00 AM on the 3rd. Now, we’re both rested, lively, and back to normal. We are also lucky and not stupid. This week I’m buying a propane sensor for the master stateroom where the carbon-monoxide bitch is useless.

I’m looking for one that is battery operated and doesn’t talk. Two electronic bitches on the boat are plenty.

Post Irma Spam—Part Two

Boat Projects and the Cruisers Who Live Amongst Them.

EW was actually very upset that the boat was not finished when we moved back aboard. I never expected it would be and had already started contingency planning. Hey, we’ve been married for 32 years and we’ve lived on a boat for 15 of them. This is not my first rodeo.

The port settee is our living space. We have two ratcheted cushions for seating and there’s an American Gothic feel to our meals as we eat side by side, facing the same direction. I could go on, but just let that sink in.

Now, non-boaters might think that repairing the toe rails and stanchion bases, and removing the teak decks would have no impact down below. Non-boaters would be wrong. Ninety-nine percent of the things on deck are bolted through the deck to the living space below. EW has had to remove the genoa track from both sides of the deck (non-boaters, imagine a long, narrow piece of stainless steel with holes every inch or so.) Now imagine those bolts going through the deck and into many parts of the boat because it’s really long…from master stateroom to the galley (or pilot berth on the starboard) to the main salon. At a dam angle.

In fact, here’s a photo before it was removed. (To the left near the cabin.)  And yes, I know they aren’t exactly an inch apart, but there are still at least a thousand nuts and bolts to deal with here. (Do NOT shake your head at me. It will seem like a thousand when we put them all back.) 

Side note, these were removed with the volunteer (?) assistance of Matt from S/V Kook Cat and Tim from S/V Scout. I will be the volunteer when we put the tracks back on. Also, a small piece of duct tape was placed over each hole and every blessed one withstood the hurricane.

How the Deck Job Messes Up the Cabin

Removing it impacts the bookshelves next to our bed, both clothing lockers, the aforementioned pilot berth, every cupboard in the galley and the three cupboards along the port side that are also used for food and dishes. On the starboard side, we have a slightly different configuration so the cupboards are not impacted.

Add the stanchion bases and other random parts that had to be removed and you know why we are living in (somewhat) organized chaos. We didn’t even bring the main salon cushions back to the boat. Lest I make this sound sad and trying, note that EW is more bothered by this than I am. He feels he should have been farther along, and I am delighted he is fully back to normal and able to do so much. As for the mess, I am resigned and calm and having a “make it work” moment. Most of the time.

Barb at Sea Loses It

When I assured EW that I was OK with it. That I’d make it work. That we’d do just fine. (Cheesy grin.) I also said. “You can have the bed we aren’t sleeping in and you can have the entire dining space, table and seats and under the table. I (well we really) get the galley, chart table, and port settee for living.” Both of us were a bit surprised to find out how sincere I was. I have never once complained about the mess on the dinette side of the boat, but let him leave one box of screws out overnight on the living side...whoo-eee…I surprised myself with my vehemence.

Step away from the tools, Barb. Step away from the tools.

His tools and screws haven’t  trespassed on the port side since.

 

 

  Note the lack of cupboard doors in the galley because—genoa track. And you see pretty much all the dishes I have for the duration.

Post Irma Spam—Part One

NOTE: I’ve been going through the old posts lately (more about why later) and was reminded of my old “Spam” posts. The first was as we left the Bahamas in 2011 when I had a few juicy tidbits of stories that hadn’t made it in a post. The title of “Spam” certainly wasn’t because we eat it (Ick) but because the grocery store in Georgetown carried a plethora of varieties of Spam. I didn’t even know there were multiple varieties of Spam.

So, Post Irma Spam.

The Forward Cabin. We had to order a new mattress because the one we had put up with since St. Thomas in 2014 was a piece of crap and I threw it out when we moved off the boat in May. Irma messed with our schedule when we moved back aboard, so we moved into the forward cabin where there is a lovely firm foam mattress in a double-narrowing-to-smaller-than-twin bed. One person (that would be me) sleeps against the hull (wall to you landlubbers) and the other can somewhat more easily get in and out. On good nights, I would get up when EW did, trot to the head after him, and then he would wait and crawl into bed behind me. On other nights, or when I woke up earlier than he did (pretty much every damn day, lately) I had to crawl out.

Remember the Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones movie, “Entrapment”. This was kind of what I had to do to get out of the bed, only instead of going under laser beams, I had to go over EW.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KX2_LCUkhDs

I am not as agile, thin, or flexible as CZ-J but a video of my efforts would have been entertaining if you like slapstick. First I tried simply placing a leg over top of EW and lifting myself over. That rarely worked. So, channeling my inner Catherine Zeta-Jones, I stayed on my tiny portion of the bed and rose into a crouch, stepping over EW. I actually achieved success with this to the point that when he got up an hour or so later he’d say, “How did you get out of bed?” Wish I’d told him I went up through the hatch.

I’ve never actually noticed this before because – well—sleeping, but EW sometimes sleeps with one foot on the bed and his bent knee becomes an obstacle. I first realized this when I hit that obstacle in the night, startling both of us. (EW is funny when startled from a deep sleep, and my inevitable giggles do not amuse him.)

But the final indignity occurred during our last night in the forward cabin. I softly rose to my feet, hunched over so I could clear the cabin top (ceiling to landlubbers), and then slowly and artistically (again channeling CZ-J) I lifted my right leg and brought it to the edge of the bed outside of EW. I missed my handhold, bumped my left foot into EW, spun a quarter turn and ended up curled in the fetal position at his feet. He was concerned I had been injured, but I only damaged my dignity and she’s used to it by now. Sean Connery would have probably killed me.

So for those of you who agree to visit and sleep in the forward cabin, we know. We truly do know that two people staying up there so they can see us is an act of love. Also, if we hear strange noises we won’t automatically assume fun.

CLODS!

Nope, that’s not a new swear word. It’s what many of us call those who have moved off the boat and onto land: CLODS. Cruisers Living On Dirt.

Please note, we are only temporary CLODS and this has been part of the plan since we came to St. Augustine. EW was always going to varnish the interior which is nearly impossible while living aboard. With the deck job added, it became imperative that we move off the boat.

We are delighted and so very fortunate to have a space for June and July that is clean, air conditioned, and quite near the boat. On May 31st we moved off in 6 dinghy loads. Yep, that was a barrel of laughs.

Actually, EW had been out of town on a quick trip to Maine with Jerry and Betsy French (Hi, Jerry!) so I spent the holiday weekend packing. I vacuumed-bagged the cold weather stuff, boxed all dishes, books and – well everything in the main salon, galley, and master stateroom.

Everything.

Every damn thing.

Some boxes were labeled “STAY” while others were labeled “GO”.

“STAY means STAY!” I told him when EW blindly grabbed the first box he saw. Yeah. though he’d been out of town and missed the packing moment of three flipping days, he didn’t ask any questions, just started putting boxes in the dinghy.

“Oh,” he said. “Good plan.”

After that, things went very, very, very, very, very, very smoothly.

Let me count the verys (veries?)

1. Though rain and thunderstorms were predicted, we had none until that evening.

2. We had no wind and no chop.

3. We found a parking spot right in front of the marina (well it was 6:30 AM)

4. There was a small boat slip near the second ramp so it was a straight shot up the ramp and to the car.

5. Once the car was loaded (before 10:00 AM) with everything except the main salon cushions, Stew moved it to the rental and found a place right in front (We can’t use the driveway and since we don’t have a car, no big.)

6. We were done and eating a lovely lunch by 1:00.

I call that a win.

I have a desk here and have been working like mad.

Five days a week, EW packs his lunch and goes off to the mines. He’s making great progress and has removed all the teak from the stern and along the port side up to just past the gate. He’s also stripped 75% of the teak in the master stateroom.

Lordy, lordy I love that man.

I also love having a real refrigerator/freezer. The landlords may find nail marks on it as EW may have to pry it from my grasping hug.

I am very grateful for this space. But except for the fridge/freezer, I can’t wait to get back on board.

We are not ready to be CLODS. (And miss all this fun?)

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Optimism Keeps Us Going

We who live aboard and do our own boat projects have to be optimists.

No joke.

• You have to believe you will get a weather window.
• You have to believe you will be able to install a new muffler.
• You have to believe you can fix the wiring in Panama where they don’t sell much marine wire.

You HAVE TO BEEE-LIEVE brothers and sisters!

Since this is Day Two of the Deck Project, and since Day One (a few hours actually) went very well, I am super-optimistic.

I am supercalifragilisticexpialidocious optimistic.

On May 31st, we’ll be moving off the boat for 8 weeks, we’ll live in a small place nearby while I work to pay for this, and EW does most of the boat work. Poor EW. The good news is that my healthy, vibrant husband is back. The bad news is that I’m going to put him in a sweat house for 8 weeks. He is my hero.It’s going to bite me, isn’t it?

So, after only two hours of deck work yesterday, here’s what we know from the trial.

1. EW will unscrew the screws so that they don’t pull out and rough up the fiberglass.
2. The “glue” used to hold the teak to the decks is no longer working, so it’s pretty easy to pull up the teak.
3. That “glue” a black substance, comes up fairly easy after an application of paint thinner. “We’re going to need a lot of rags,” said EW.

Here’s what we knew before we started: Our core is 1-inch thick mahogany. We have had only one leak down below and that’s probably due to a deck fitting, which will be easier to locate once we pull the teak. In other words, we don’t expect to have any spongy deck spots or have to break through the fiberglass and repair wood. (Knocking wood as I say this.) (Really.) (If you want to knock wood on my behalf right now, I would not mind. Thank you.)

It may rain today, so EW filled the screw holes. Over the next two weeks, we’ll be packing up the boat so that we can access the nuts holding the tracks and other deck parts. One of the most tedious parts of this project will be removing everything from the side decks. We have done that once before. I do not look forward to it.

But I am optimistic.

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Achieving Joy and Black Holes

NO! This is not about the recent election. (Though someone may want to co-opt the title.)

For over a year now, we aboard La Luna have been working on what we “lovingly” call the “Joy Project”. (EW has no love for the “Joy Project”.) Way back in 2014 I stumbled across a little book written by a young, slight, seemingly OCD Japanese woman. “The KonMari Method, The Life Changing Habit of Tidying Up” resonated with me (and made me laugh). After some discussion EW agreed (He. Did. Agree.) to join me in working our way through the boat in the KonMari method in order to get rid of things, resettle  in a joyful way those things we kept,  and reassert control over our boat, our stuff, and every single drawer, cupboard, and storage area. I would keep careful records of our successes, the “Joy” achieved, and the challenges, to use in a future new book about our cruising life.

While we are joyful people, we suck at getting “Joy” by using the KonMari method.

A case in point.

Those who follow me on Facebook know that with all the moving from boat to friends’  home, to  another friend’s boat, and back aboard La Luna during and after Hurricane Matthew, I lost a bra. How does anyone lose a bra? Well, I have found said bra; it had fallen in the space behind our hamper. (Despite that one flaw, the hamper does bring us “Joy”.) When one brings “Joy” in the KonMari method, one works in categories and takes a number of months (or in our case, evidently, years) to go through one’s abode category by category. So far we’ve done clothing, cooking, and assorted other items.  We suck at this. In doing clothing, while we got rid of a lot,  we still  had to find places to store the winter stuff during the St. Augustine summer. Fall has arrived with 57 degree nights and I have not been able to find my jeans. I imagined that I had taken them to Goodwill during the “Joy Project”. This was not a Good Thing.

As the Net Controller for the St. Augustine VHF Net, I am responsible for the lovely burgees that we sell to raise money for …. whatever. One of our newer liveaboards asked where he could obtain said burgee and I jumped up and down and waved my hands on our Facebook page and told him that I had them for sale for $25.00. He gave me the money when he saw me on shore and I now owe him a burgee. (Trust me, this all ties together with—mostly—Joy.

So yesterday, I blithely went to the Master Stateroom where I had been storing the burgees for about 6 months. No Joy. I tore the area apart—five times—No Joy. I ultimate had a hissy fit (I can still attribute those to Hurricane Aftermath for about four more days, at which point we will have been back aboard for a month and I have to move on.) No Joy from the hissy fit either, so I proceeded to tear apart the quarter berth area, and somewhere in there the forward door to the shower … BREAK  If this boat were filled with “Joy” one could actually walk in a circle from Maine Salon to Quarter Berth to Shower, to Aft Head, to Master State Room, to Galley, and to Main Salon. That has NEVER happened on La Luna. It would bring me great “Joy”.

Anyway, the door to the shower popped open and a number of full plastic garbage bags tumbled into the Quarter Berth area. To my “Great Joy”, these contained......(no not the Burgees) my winter clothes! Yippee. Hip Hip Hooray. Warmth. Long pants. Fleece. Joy.

Now let me tell you about the shower. For 5 years in the Caribbean, this shower was my friend. I could take warm showers and cool showers. Naked. In the privacy of my boat. Often, we still showered on deck in our suits (we are not from France, after all), but I love our shower stall. Here in Florida, we shower on shore because we can and because we can take “Hollywood” showers, a luxury of leaving the water running for your entire shower. Now that brings me great joy.

Again this ties in.

When we worked together on the “Joy Project” those months ago, we came up with a lot of things we no longer needed and evidently we did not take anything to Goodwill. Instead, we stored them in the one place on the boat we aren’t currently using: The Shower. It is the Black Hole. There is a pile of things we intend to give away or sell, the brand new man overboard pole EW wants to keep out of the sun, and my few items of dress clothes hanging on hangers. (Hadn’t used hangers in 5 years. Using hangers does not bring me joy.) In addition, there is a dish tub of cleaning products I never put back under the head sink when I “Brought Joy” to that area of cleaning supplies. This is not an approved method of obtaining “Joy”. (Though I love the new sink organization and maybe don’t need that stuff in the tub at all.)

This morning, I took a new storage tub (another story in its own self), emptied a cupboard on my side of the bed in which I had put all my big sewing stuff,  lovingly folded my winter clothes in the approved “Joy” method, and gave them a home in the Master Stateroom. Said tub went into the Black Hole, along with the cleaning products, dress clothes, old and new man overboard poles, and numerous bags of stuff that are supposed to be OFF THE BOAT.

Whew.

Told you we suck at this “Joy Project”.

Now, some of you may wonder, “What about the burgees?”

I had an epiphany, about a half hour into during all of this fussing and hissying, and emptying cupboards. When we moved off the boat before the hurricane I had packed up a bag of precious things and taken them to Joe and Deb’s in Elkton. Since we were going to be refugees for a few weeks, Deb offered to keep the precious bag until I had time to take it back. The burgees are in the precious bag in Elkton.

So part of me resents the lost time yesterday. Part of me realizes that without the “lost” burgees I might not have found my clothes for weeks and finding my clothes brought me “Great Joy”. All of me realizes that we have to get cracking on the “Joy Project”. EW will not be really happy about this. Stay tuned.

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Harts At Sea

EW has been a fixing machine since we moved back aboard. He fixed the water muffler. He fixed the windlass. He fixed the propane. He re-installed the wind generator. He was a machine!

I cleaned.

You could even say I performed cleaning nearly on par with “Skewer Cleaning”. (Depending upon how one quantifies “nearly”.) My mom came from a long line of people who like to clean. (Shudders.) A number of my cousins have that gene, and some of my cousins received my portion of that gene as well. These are the cousins who keep a package of wooden skewers in their cleaning kit so that they can poke and prod every last piece of dust and dirt from whatever it is they are cleaning. I don’t have a cleaning kit, and if I did it wouldn’t have skewers.

Note that I am not making fun of these cousins. I am in awe of them. I set out with good intentions to do some skewer cleaning of my own (I have skewers. They are in the drawer one uses for cooking utensils. Where normal people store them!) Whoops. Where was I? Oh yeah. Not making fun of my cousins. Oh, and setting out with good intentions. Usually, when I set out on those good cleaning intentions something happens. Squirrel! or my efforts reach the stage of “Good Enough”.

Real skewer cleaners do not see squirrels and persevere well beyond “Good Enough”.

Last Saturday, I achieved cleaning “Perfection” in a (very) few areas of the vessel and “Beyond Good Enough” on the majority of areas. We call that a win here. A boat is much smaller than a home and there are few things under which one must dust, and even fewer things one can move. But a boat has all sorts of nooks and crannies, bins and baskets, and angles and handholds. A boat can fool you into thinking you’ve cleaned it, until in the morning light of the next day you realize you missed that one feature entirely.

It’s not easy loving someone who cruises. I’ve talked about it before. We miss important events. We can’t be reached when something happens. Our priorities are totally different, and it can seem like we have escaped from reality. We’ve certainly created our own reality, but our hearts still yearn for contact with loved ones back home, and when things happen to them we want to send ourselves north to help in any way possible. But usually, we can’t. We know that the feeling of love and helplessness can go  both ways, and felt that first-hand after La Luna  went walk-about.

So, a shout out to all of our family who sent hugs and love and offers of support, and to one of my cousins in particular. In her message of love, Fran said, “I wish I could come cook and clean for you.” And she meant it. And she’d bring her cleaning kit with extra skewers, and she would cook a Maine dinner that would taste divine and remind me of my folks and her folks. And with Fran’s wish, for that one moment amidst the chaos that was our life for ten days—for that one moment—I was transported back to Maine, to be enfolded by my family. I felt those hugs from a thousand miles away.

We were enfolded a lot during those ten days—and housed, fed, and cleaned up after. In that way, days before we moved back aboard, we were still “Home”. Because we were loved, and home is where you are loved.

Right now, La Luna  is home back on a mooring, (Number 55) in the marina. We are all delighted to be here. Let more cleaning commence!

CONFESSION: The photo here is from a prior skewer cleaning moment --- in 2014. This is the forward cabin the way it should look. Right now it is covered in plastic topped with tools, teak trim, one new halyard, and four notebooks. Someday it will again be a guest cabin. Someday I will use it as a reading space. Someday. A girl can dream.PS. While cleaning, I found our Bean Pot. It wasn't lost, I had just forgotten that I'd given it a new home. While we are near a source of propane, we will have to make Maine Baked Beans once or twice. That will give us a taste of Maine, too. And Fran's mom, my Aunt Charlotte gave us an antique bean pot for our wedding. That was too precious for the boat and is in storage. 

PS. While cleaning, I found our Bean Pot. It wasn't lost, I had just forgotten that I'd given it a new home.  Since we are near a source of propane, we'll have to make Maine Baked Beans once or twice this winter That will give us a taste of Maine, too.  And Fran's mom, my Aunt Charlotte gave us an antique bean pot for our wedding. That one was too precious for the boat and is in storage. The one on the boat looks just like the one in the photo. This photo came from a world foods site with a very good description of Maine Baked Beans. Here in the south, I've run into a whole bunch of folk who do not know of this delicacy, and the canned beans we find here are made with (gasp!) brown sugar. That is just wrong.

 

 

 

 

 

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Baked bean and casserole supper at North Sedgwick church

St. Thomas With Friends

EW has been a fixing machine since we moved back aboard. He fixed the water muffler. He fixed the windlass. He fixed the propane. He re-installed the wind generator. He was a machine!

I cleaned.

You could even say I performed cleaning nearly on par with “Skewer Cleaning”. (Depending upon how one quantifies “nearly”.) My mom came from a long line of people who like to clean. (Shudders.) A number of my cousins have that gene, and some of my cousins received my portion of that gene as well. These are the cousins who keep a package of wooden skewers in their cleaning kit so that they can poke and prod every last piece of dust and dirt from whatever it is they are cleaning. I don’t have a cleaning kit, and if I did it wouldn’t have skewers.

Note that I am not making fun of these cousins. I am in awe of them. I set out with good intentions to do some skewer cleaning of my own (I have skewers. They are in the drawer one uses for cooking utensils. Where normal people store them!) Whoops. Where was I? Oh yeah. Not making fun of my cousins. Oh, and setting out with good intentions. Usually, when I set out on those good cleaning intentions something happens. Squirrel! or my efforts reach the stage of “Good Enough”.

Real skewer cleaners do not see squirrels and persevere well beyond “Good Enough”.

Last Saturday, I achieved cleaning “Perfection” in a (very) few areas of the vessel and “Beyond Good Enough” on the majority of areas. We call that a win here. A boat is much smaller than a home and there are few things under which one must dust, and even fewer things one can move. But a boat has all sorts of nooks and crannies, bins and baskets, and angles and handholds. A boat can fool you into thinking you’ve cleaned it, until in the morning light of the next day you realize you missed that one feature entirely.

It’s not easy loving someone who cruises. I’ve talked about it before. We miss important events. We can’t be reached when something happens. Our priorities are totally different, and it can seem like we have escaped from reality. We’ve certainly created our own reality, but our hearts still yearn for contact with loved ones back home, and when things happen to them we want to send ourselves north to help in any way possible. But usually, we can’t. We know that the feeling of love and helplessness can go  both ways, and felt that first-hand after La Luna  went walk-about.

So, a shout out to all of our family who sent hugs and love and offers of support, and to one of my cousins in particular. In her message of love, Fran said, “I wish I could come cook and clean for you.” And she meant it. And she’d bring her cleaning kit with extra skewers, and she would cook a Maine dinner that would taste divine and remind me of my folks and her folks. And with Fran’s wish, for that one moment amidst the chaos that was our life for ten days—for that one moment—I was transported back to Maine, to be enfolded by my family. I felt those hugs from a thousand miles away.

We were enfolded a lot during those ten days—and housed, fed, and cleaned up after. In that way, days before we moved back aboard, we were still “Home”. Because we were loved, and home is where you are loved.

Right now, La Luna  is home back on a mooring, (Number 55) in the marina. We are all delighted to be here. Let more cleaning commence!

CONFESSION: The photo here is from a prior skewer cleaning moment --- in 2014. This is the forward cabin the way it should look. Right now it is covered in plastic topped with tools, teak trim, one new halyard, and four notebooks. Someday it will again be a guest cabin. Someday I will use it as a reading space. Someday. A girl can dream.PS. While cleaning, I found our Bean Pot. It wasn't lost, I had just forgotten that I'd given it a new home. While we are near a source of propane, we will have to make Maine Baked Beans once or twice. That will give us a taste of Maine, too. And Fran's mom, my Aunt Charlotte gave us an antique bean pot for our wedding. That was too precious for the boat and is in storage. 

PS. While cleaning, I found our Bean Pot. It wasn't lost, I had just forgotten that I'd given it a new home.  Since we are near a source of propane, we'll have to make Maine Baked Beans once or twice this winter That will give us a taste of Maine, too.  And Fran's mom, my Aunt Charlotte gave us an antique bean pot for our wedding. That one was too precious for the boat and is in storage. The one on the boat looks just like the one in the photo. This photo came from a world foods site with a very good description of Maine Baked Beans. Here in the south, I've run into a whole bunch of folk who do not know of this delicacy, and the canned beans we find here are made with (gasp!) brown sugar. That is just wrong.

 

 

 

EW has been a fixing machine since we moved back aboard. He fixed the water muffler. He fixed the windlass. He fixed the propane. He re-installed the wind generator. He was a machine!

I cleaned.

You could even say I performed cleaning nearly on par with “Skewer Cleaning”. (Depending upon how one quantifies “nearly”.) My mom came from a long line of people who like to clean. (Shudders.) A number of my cousins have that gene, and some of my cousins received my portion of that gene as well. These are the cousins who keep a package of wooden skewers in their cleaning kit so that they can poke and prod every last piece of dust and dirt from whatever it is they are cleaning. I don’t have a cleaning kit, and if I did it wouldn’t have skewers.

Note that I am not making fun of these cousins. I am in awe of them. I set out with good intentions to do some skewer cleaning of my own (I have skewers. They are in the drawer one uses for cooking utensils. Where normal people store them!) Whoops. Where was I? Oh yeah. Not making fun of my cousins. Oh, and setting out with good intentions. Usually, when I set out on those good cleaning intentions something happens. Squirrel! or my efforts reach the stage of “Good Enough”.

Real skewer cleaners do not see squirrels and persevere well beyond “Good Enough”.

Last Saturday, I achieved cleaning “Perfection” in a (very) few areas of the vessel and “Beyond Good Enough” on the majority of areas. We call that a win here. A boat is much smaller than a home and there are few things under which one must dust, and even fewer things one can move. But a boat has all sorts of nooks and crannies, bins and baskets, and angles and handholds. A boat can fool you into thinking you’ve cleaned it, until in the morning light of the next day you realize you missed that one feature entirely.

It’s not easy loving someone who cruises. I’ve talked about it before. We miss important events. We can’t be reached when something happens. Our priorities are totally different, and it can seem like we have escaped from reality. We’ve certainly created our own reality, but our hearts still yearn for contact with loved ones back home, and when things happen to them we want to send ourselves north to help in any way possible. But usually, we can’t. We know that the feeling of love and helplessness can go  both ways, and felt that first-hand after La Luna  went walk-about.

So, a shout out to all of our family who sent hugs and love and offers of support, and to one of my cousins in particular. In her message of love, Fran said, “I wish I could come cook and clean for you.” And she meant it. And she’d bring her cleaning kit with extra skewers, and she would cook a Maine dinner that would taste divine and remind me of my folks and her folks. And with Fran’s wish, for that one moment amidst the chaos that was our life for ten days—for that one moment—I was transported back to Maine, to be enfolded by my family. I felt those hugs from a thousand miles away.

We were enfolded a lot during those ten days—and housed, fed, and cleaned up after. In that way, days before we moved back aboard, we were still “Home”. Because we were loved, and home is where you are loved.

Right now, La Luna  is home back on a mooring, (Number 55) in the marina. We are all delighted to be here. Let more cleaning commence!

CONFESSION: The photo here is from a prior skewer cleaning moment --- in 2014. This is the forward cabin the way it should look. Right now it is covered in plastic topped with tools, teak trim, one new halyard, and four notebooks. Someday it will again be a guest cabin. Someday I will use it as a reading space. Someday. A girl can dream.PS. While cleaning, I found our Bean Pot. It wasn't lost, I had just forgotten that I'd given it a new home. While we are near a source of propane, we will have to make Maine Baked Beans once or twice. That will give us a taste of Maine, too. And Fran's mom, my Aunt Charlotte gave us an antique bean pot for our wedding. That was too precious for the boat and is in storage. 

PS. While cleaning, I found our Bean Pot. It wasn't lost, I had just forgotten that I'd given it a new home.  Since we are near a source of propane, we'll have to make Maine Baked Beans once or twice this winter That will give us a taste of Maine, too.  And Fran's mom, my Aunt Charlotte gave us an antique bean pot for our wedding. That one was too precious for the boat and is in storage. The one on the boat looks just like the one in the photo. This photo came from a world foods site with a very good description of Maine Baked Beans. Here in the south, I've run into a whole bunch of folk who do not know of this delicacy, and the canned beans we find here are made with (gasp!) brown sugar. That is just wrong.

 

 

 

Fish Gotta Swim, Birds Gotta Fly, Boats Gotta Float

Those of you who use Facebook know that we are back in the water and living aboard and very, very thankful. We also are grateful to the many who helped us, supported us, hugged us, housed us, fed us, loved us, made us smile, and provided excellent advice.

There are two parts in getting a relatively undamaged boat back into the water, 1. Paying for it; 2. Doing the Heavy Lifting.

Paying For It

We choose to have only liability insurance on La Luna. We believe in liability insurance for our own protection and it is required for entering marinas all over the world. Even after reading our policy, it was not clear to us that liability would help in our situation. After all, La Luna had successfully traveled on her own sometime during Hurricane Matthew and arrived in one of the best possible spots without coming into contact with anything other than mud, small trees, and mangroves. She didn’t damage anyone’s personal property, and that is all we thought liability would cover.

You who read (and understand) the fine print, you who grilled your insurance agents, you who are both boaters and lawyers or insurance agents—all of you may know that your liability insurance (in most cases) kicks in when your boat goes walk-about. We did not know that. For over a week post-Matthew we thought we had to pay to get La Luna floating again. It was not an easy week, yet we continued to be thankful, saying “Once she’s floating, she’s our home again.”

Many other boaters were not as fortunate. This tug left St. Augustine recently with Polaris, Mental Floss, Nyght-Bryte, Anticipation, and at least two other loved sailing vessels. We know Polaris was totaled. Certainly, the others on deck are secured like cargo rather than someone’s current or future dream.

Thanks to David Wiggins, marine surveyor and hurricane insurance expert sent by Boat U.S., we learned that having your big, heavy boat beached on someone else’s property is not something the landowner likes all that much, so our boat was a liability. Thanks to EW’s hours of phone calls (on a Sunday) and thanks to those agents and adjusters who reached out to us in our time of need (on a Sunday), we learned that $14,100 was a reasonable fee for a heavy boat in that predicament, (Whew!) and that our insurance would cover all but the deductible (Double Whew!).  Sunday was a very good day. Before we went cruising, we purchased insurance through Boat US, and recommend them. Once we left the country, we opted to purchase Markel Insurance through IMS Jackline Insurance and have found both the agent and the claims office to be excellent.

Doing the Heavy Lifting

We lost track of the days; moving, worrying, seeing to La Luna, and trying to figure out how to move her. There is a strong Facebook Group of local cruisers here and that became the go-to method of communication. Phosphorescence was lying right next to us, but her owner was on a Cruise Ship somewhere in Panama. We messaged with him and worked with his brother and with his insurance agent, David Wiggins. EW also began talking with any of the other boaters who wanted to communicate and whose boats were near ours, nine in all.

One was “up a creek” and able to winch his boat out to deep water over the course of days with help of the extreme high tide. Others opted to go with a crane and barge from Fernandina, which didn’t actually arrive in St. Augustine until after our boats had been hauled. EW talked with a highly recommended local barge and crane company, Yelton Marine Construction.  While he is impressed with the owner and crew, it was decided that their rig was too small to handle ours in the best possible way. EW also talked with DIVECOM Marine, a salvage company from Tampa. Their method would have included skidding La Luna over the mud using a big tug and trash pump and all sorts of stuff. Again, nice guys, but not our favorite method; I am sure they were able to help others in the area. In the meantime, McCulley Marine Services arrived with an 110-ton crane on a barge and a nifty tug operator who looked like Father Time. Owner, Boo McCulley drove up from Fort Peirce to seek out business and therefore help folks like EW and me.  David Wiggins, who has worked 26 previous hurricanes, had hired McCulley previously, recommended them, and chose them to haul out our temporary on-shore neighbor, Phosphorescence. Once we met with Boo, EW immediately decided that he wanted them to handle La Luna, as well.

Time note, all of this happened before we called our insurance company. EW nailed that down on Sunday, the day the crane moved into position for both La Luna and Phosphorescence. I love it when a plan comes together.

On Monday morning it was all about the tide as we gathered along the shore, joined by a surprising and heartwarming number of friends for support. Kirsten and Rocky rented a car and drove down from Georgia, Cathy made the trek again from Amelia Island, Joe dropped by from “Camp Elkton”, and Lisa and Matt came by from a few blocks away. The barge lifted Phosphorescence first. The crew was careful, skilled, and a delight. I called them engineering Bubbas and mean that in the best possible way. The barge operator called me “little lady” and assured me they’d have the boat on the water by noon. The others all “ma’amed” me and kept dismissing my praise as just a day in the life. EW says that they were careful y treated La Luna as if she were an eggshell.

By one, both vessels were off the mud and Phosphorescence was on her way to a safe dock. La Luna was (mostly) upright and (somewhat) in the water. Unfortunately taking care means taking time and we had lost the super high tide. No worries. She would stay in slings, held in the water by the crane until the next high tide when they would carry her out to deep water as tug and barge moved to a safe anchoring spot near the dolphins to the south. It was agreed that EW would join them and stay aboard that night, while I spent one last night with Jae-p on UB I.  EW has been singing the praises of the McCulley crew ever since. Not only did they take care of our home, they worked very hard to take care of EW the night he slept on board, even to the point of making him coffee the next morning.

On Tuesday, October 18, I loaded the dinghy with the incredible amount of items we’d taken ashore before and after the hurricane, and rendezvoused with EW aboard our brilliant and forgiving floating home. Once we had tossed everything down below, the crew prepared to lower her the final six inches into the water, and then removed the slings, and towed us to a very temporary anchorage. Once again, I found myself in tears as I thanked each of them for all they had done. One of them replied, “I love my job! I get to do this and I get to make you happy!”

And that was it. Friends from Ann O'Malley's (Irish Pub, Buffalo fans, and Air B n B apartment) had offered to tow us to our anchorage near the mooring field, but our boat was too heavy and the winds too strong. We hired Tow Boat US who ably placed us in a safe temporary spot. This week we are putting things back in place below decks, cleaning, and fixing. EW removed the burst muffler and we ordered the new one. By the end of the week, we will be on our new, inspected mooring once again, living the life in St. Augustine.

NOTE: We took photos from two cameras, but the smaller outdoor camera didn’t work. Trust me, the boat looked great hung next to the tug overnight, and the dinghy was full on Tuesday morning.

The Tug, Barge, and Crane on Monday morning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cathy, wiggling past a downed tree on a compromised dock to give me a hug.

Kirsten, chatting with EW.

Photos not taken: Rocky, Joe, Matt, Lisa, and my boss and owner of the Black Raven, Gunner Hedquist.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

 

 

 

 

They  took great care of her while we watched, shed a few tears, and took photos. And then she was safe.

 

Sometime in the afternoon, they (somehow) moved La Luna from the port side to the starboard side of the tug. Once in deep water, they adjusted her in the slings, dove on her again to check for damage, and helped EW make sure all was well.

He spent the night on board La Luna, where I joined him on Tuesday.

 

We are so happy and relieved, but this is one adventure we never want to repeat.

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A Silly Little Millimeter Longer

 

People are wonderful. People are funny. Cruisers are wonderful in funny ways. We like to think —because we are doing something so incredibly special and rare—that the cruisers we meet are also special and rare. Well, we are, and they are, but only because people are special and rare. This is a tale of people.

When we finally got back to the Guna Yala  in September (remember, those in the know spell it “Guna” but pronounce it “Kuna”) we anchored in the area known as “The Swimming Pool” to be near Jaime and Keith. They have since sailed east, but we remained, surrounded by pretty islands, great snorkeling, and new friends. Tate and Dani on S/V Sundowner are two of those friends. For similarities we can list: the cruising life, being social, love of food, love of music and card games, love of spousal unit, and a sense of humor. That’s it. We are far apart in age (20+ to 30+ years), education, and careers (they are scary smart, and I suspect Tate has a nearly photographic memory); and our Popular Culture meshes in strange ways.

As wonderful and funny cruisers, we are all willing to assist others, though EW and I are still far behind on the debits and credits list with S/V Sundowner. They loaned us their dongle so I could get online, Tate has given us many fillets from fish he has harvested, and Dani provided Tea Tree Oil that has been instrumental in helping heal EW’s shingles.

Also, Dani’s mom worked as a canvas maker for boats for a number of years, and helped Dani re-do all of the cushions and canvas on Sundowner. While EW was recuperating I began the interior cushion project, and Dani offered to help. I am not a fool and accepted with alacrity. We knew going into the project that the so-called professional’s patterning had been shoddy and that some of the cushions were not shaped correctly. I was determined to create new patterns and check them against the imperfect cushions. It’s a slow process, requiring patience, which is not one of my strengths. Enter Dani.

I had patterned the chart table seat, and the settee along the port side. (My “bible” for the project is Julie Gifford’s Canvas for Cruisers, the Complete Guide. I love this book and highly recommend it.) I made each pattern in the shape and size of the ideal finished cushion, and marked 1/2 inch around it for the cut line, just as Julie said to do. She also said that the edge pieces should be 1/2 inch wider than the depth of the cushion, and that the edge side with the zipper should be cut 1 1/2 inches wider than the cushion’s depth. Here we ran into….challenges.

The cushions were manufactured in Europe and are 8 and 10 centimeters in depth, not 3 and 4 inches. The wise cushion maker cuts the fabric the same size as the raw foam, with a 1/2 inch seam allowance on each side, creating a cushion exactly to fit the space and, packed into the fabric for a nice tight seat or back. While I have been uncharacteristically precise on this project, I was more characteristically  unconcerned about cutting the side panels and planned on “pretending” the foam was 3 and 4 inches, adding my half inch for the seam allowance to that.

Dani has an economics degree. Dani’s most recent position was as Budget Manager for the engineering firm that managed the construction on New Orleans's newest hospital. Can you say “Big Project”? Can you say “Detail Oriented?” Can you say “Number Cruncher?”

No kidding we had a 45 minute conversation about the silly little millimeters between 10 centimeters and 4 inches. We used conversion charts, one standard tape measure, and one metric tape measure. Dani computed and talked it through, “My mom said there’s always shrinkage in sewing, so if we go too small that could be a problem.” And later, “You know, if there’s too much fabric, the foam won’t compress to the right shape.”

It’s a puzzlement. (She probably has no idea where that quote’s from.)

In my new, patient, detail-oriented (“If I’m going to make the dang cushions myself, I am going to do it right”) persona I hung in there, assisted Dani in taking new measurements and cheerfully discussed the issues and millimeters involved. I was with her every step of the way. She was providing great insight and has become a friend; she’s helping me and I am grateful. I. Exuded. Patience. I was with her right up until she told me I’d have to cut the fabric at the 16th’s or 32nds. It just seemed to me that marking 3 and 9/16 is much more challenging that marking things 3 1/2. The lines on the tape are bigger at the 1/2 points. Furthermore, as the discussion continued, Dani showed me that she had computed we were talking about  0.07 and 0.055 inches in difference. This is not a chasm. This is a toothpick, admittedly the really good round toothpicks made in Maine, but still, we are talking the width of a toothpick, people.

We ended up agreeing that (1) I would cut the fabric for just a few cushions to start, and (2) I’d cut them on the half inch, and (3) if they were too loose I’d take that silly millimeter off, re-stitch that cushion and cut all others on the 16th of an inch.

Later that evening as all four of us got together in the cockpit, it came as no surprise to either of our spousal units that Dani is very numbers and detail oriented and that I am not. We are OK with that. Further discussions, ranging over a few days, reminded us that we are of different generations. My guess is that they won’t recognized the “Silly Millimeter Longer” phrase, either. We were surprised that they knew “Coneheads”. Tate reeled off at least six Conehead phrases, including “parental units”, “spousal units”, and “charred consumables”. We were stunned. Clearly they are too young to have stayed up for Saturday Night Live.  “The Coneheads were big in the 90’s,” said Tate. “No,” we wise older folk replied, “the Coneheads were definitely from the 70’s.

After some back and forth we learned that they had watched the Coneheadsmovie which came out in 1993, and they are too young to have seen the original sketches which aired from ‘77-‘79. 

The photo above is a perfectly “charred consumable” harvested and cooked by Tate. A couple of weeks prior Tate had made up a batch of Louisiana Red Beans and Rice, his version of Chicken Soup, for the ailing EW. I’m sure that helped his shingles heal more quickly. (See what I mean about the debits and credits? We cannot keep up with these people.)

Dani came over three times to help me pattern the cushions. On her last visit, we got brave and actually cut the foam to the correct size. She also, bless her darling heart, contacted her mom about sewing a curve into the back of the dinette cushions and her mom sent an email with detailed instructions.

We will sail back to Florida for a while, and Dani and Tate will go through the canal next spring to continue their circumnavigation. Like many other cruisers we’ve been privileged to meet, they are special and rare and wonderful and funny and we will miss them and look forward to seeing them again somewhere along the way.

Postscript. I almost forgot. When Dani worked with her mom, she used a software created for making flow charts in order to help her lay out the fabric. OK. First of all, the have a program just for making flow charts? Evidently they have more than one. While anchored in the San Blas, Dani found a free one on-line, downloaded it to a thumb drive and taught me to use it. It’s fun, and beats the heck out of using graph paper. Every cushion has a unique color so I can make sure that I have four pieces—top, bottom, and two side panels—for each cushion. I’m not going to finish this project until we get back to Florida, but I know I have at least 4 extra yards of fabric. Thanks to Dani and DIA Portable. (I have no idea how to make a flow chart, but I rock at creating colors.)

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