Blog 3, May 17, 2015

     Last week we were visited by Kieran on Friday.  Projects always seem to get finished rapidly  when Kieran’s enthusiasm and past experience on boats is shared with us. Kieran's presence means Mike has someone he knows and trusts with boat knowledge to bounce ideas off of.This often spurs them on to finding a creative solution to some technical problem needing to be solved on the boat. 

     On Saturday Mike and Kieran took a long look at the standing rigging for the mast. After some research and experimentation Kieran was able to find a rather simple solution to the problem. It seems the stern stay (the metal rope at the back of the boat that helps hold the mast up) must be attached to the boat before the bow stay. If not done in this way, on this particular boat, the tension is all wrong. Anyhow this “problem” had been one of those things one spends too much time worrying about, only to find that the solution is much simpler than one expected it to be. Sometimes I think we believe we have to worry about a problem before it can be solved. One of those illusions we go through life living out without ever examining it closely. Somehow I find myself believing the worry is essential to the process but it's just self generated anxiety. It's not necessary but I often believe it is.

     

     On Mother’s Day I didn’t cook or prepare any meals. We went out for breakfast at the Blue Moose Cafe. Serves you lots of good food without robbing you. Mike brought lunch from the grocery store deli, complete with a dozen red roses. For dinner we went to the local brewery for excellent beer and burgers. Kieran concocted a dessert for us consisting of warm brownies, fresh strawberries, and ice cream. I had calls from all my children interspersed with jokes and comments from Kieran and Mike while the conversations buzzed over the phone lines.

     Betsy joined us on Monday and we happily got all the new running rigging attached to the boat. This involved melting the ends of all the new lines and taping them. Then attaching the new lines onto the old lines by sewing the ends together. This way as you pull the old lines out, the new ones are threaded  into their proper place. Sometimes the lines pass through the mast, sometimes through the boom, out and around and througn different blocks and so on. It’s not rocket science, it just requires time, attention and patience.

     Another project was in progress when they arrived. It was abandoned so I could help with the rigging project. When we finished the rigging I returned to the other project. It involved hooking up a new hose to a footpump for getting fresh water to the sinks without having to use electricity. Kieran and Betsy helped me complete this project also. It’s so satisfying to cross these things off of our “to do list”.

     We had fun with with those two. We went out for tap room beer and pizza. They baked goodies in our newly overhauled propane stove/oven on the boat. They brought their dog, Lissie, and she is lots of fun too. She is black with a curly tail, small, and hot wired with energy. She is also super affectionate. When we weren’t on a group walk we would take turns taking her down to the beach at low tide and watch her run like a deer over fist size rocks, chasing seagulls joyfully into the salty water. I realized how much I miss “dog” walks. Lissie’s delight in everything was infectious.

May 20, 2015

     The weather is in a holding pattern this week. Clouds and fog in the morning, burning off by noon into a clear, cool day. It’s nice to experience both climates in one day. In the evenings in the last of the sunlight while we are out walking, there are huge New Mexico thunderclouds over the mainland. Last night they were a pale peachy color at dusk and we could see the Olympic Mountains. On super clear days without haze, cloud, or fog we can see Mount Baker and Mount Rainier in the Cascades on the mainland. Western Washington certainly has it’s share of majestic mountains.

     Work continues as usual. Not at the fast pace that happens with Kieran around but we keep chipping away at things. The project taking most of our time is definitely the electronics. It involves taking out and putting in small screws in tight, almost inaccessible places. All the wires then have to be labeled and attached using a heat gun. Then the wires have to be attached to the bulkhead or some solid part of the boat where they won’t chafe when the diesel engine is running. Whatever happened to simplicity? Our technology is so complex. It makes me nervous. Are we deluding ourselves maybe a little by being so dependent on it for so many things?

     Well it is time to post this. Until the next time, Tina

May 2, 2015

     I have not been attentive to my blog for some time now. I am back to keep you all up to date on the ins and outs of our life and work in the boatyard. We are now back to our old routines. A walk every day, either in the morning or evening depending on how we feel. For example today is Saturday. We got a fairly early start on the day. By 7:45 we had finished breakfast and listening to the morning news on the radio. It is sunny, not windy, still quite cool and so off we went for our walk down the beach to a pretty park full of blossoming trees and bushes. I now know some of those trees (in New Mexico we would call them trees) or very large bushes are rhododendrons. They have these huge voluptious blossoms just everywhere. Some are yellow, some are pink, some are pale purple. They are beginning to fade. There are azelyas still blooming everywhere too and lilacs and that is the extent of my plant vocabulary so far. Two weeks ago there were primroses blooming and giant, absolutely giant California poppies. There are some purple and white bells still happy, I think they’re called Lily of the Valley. Anyhow the air is very fragrant and the birds are still in their spring mode, i.e. at 5:30 am or so they start singing their hearts out. So through this little garden of Eden right by the sea, we walked through, taking more pictures of new blossoms we don’t know the names of. Then we came upon a garage sale with lots of nice stuff but we didn’t need anything so we just admired it and walked on. We came out onto one of the main drags, about four blocks away from a local grocery and bakery and remembered we needed bread. So up the hill we went to buy bread and mostly browse the local Farmers Market that is always there on Saturday mornings. There was a young kid about 12 years old selling cards with photos of wild birds that had been rescued by a local organization. He was helping to raise money for the bird sanctuary by selling his photos. I bought a couple of cards to send to my birder sister and her husband. They are neat close ups of two different kinds of owls.  One is of a Barn owl and the other is a Northern Saw-Whet owl. I was amazed by the unique look of the Barn owl with it’s recessed eyes. It’s almost so ugly it is beautiful. It just doesn’t look like the owl I was raised to expect. I imagine it is a common sight seen by people living in the countryside who have barns. I will never forget what it looks like.

     On our return to the boat we decide what the tasks are that we hope to complete that day and get started. Usually we stop for lunch around 12:30 or 1:00. One of us often jumps on their bike to ride over to the hardware store or a local marine supply store during the day for some tool or apparatus needed for the job we’re working on. I’ll also go to the post office to check our box for mail. Nothing is very far away. Until about a week ago I was going to the library two or three times a week to take an online boating course for the state of Washington. I finally finished it last Sunday. It’s a requirement by the state of Washington that every boater born after 1955 take this course. It’s good I had to do this because even though it’s information Mike and I learned when we took our boat course three years ago, I’ve forgotten so much. A lot of the course covered boating safety, rules of the “road” , laws, etc. It was tedious at times, but I’m glad I did it. At about 4:30 or 5:00 we begin to put tools away and make room so I can fix some dinner and we have a place to sit down at our table and eat. That takes at least a half hour. If we got a late start that day, we stretch the routine out and quit later. It’s easy to be flexible. Some days we go to this coffee shop first thing in the morning to check e-mails. We have a favorite restaurant that makes their own soups and pizzas and we usually go there at least once a week. We go there so regularily the owners know us.  Every three  weeks or so we will make a trip to Seattle to do some shopping for boat parts and to visit Trader Joe’s. We try to coordinate it with a visit with Kieran and Betsy (our son and his girlfriend) and our friend’s daughter and son-in-law, Lili and Vince. Kieran and Betsy are back working as mountain guides on Mount Rainier this summer. It looks like Kieran will be doing some guiding on Denali in Alaska too. Lili and Vince are friends with some of our children, and from Santa Fe originally. They have been living in Seattle for the last eleven years or so.We met Kieran and Lil for dinner on Friday after doing errands in Seattle all day. 

    There is always some event or circumstance that changes our routine in some way. A couple of Sundays ago an acquaintance of our’s here, invited us to go sailing with him in the afternoon. What a perfect day for it. The wind was just right, the sun was shining, and we laughed alot. It felt so good to be on the water again. It makes me want to finish up this boat work soon! 

     Another situation that changed our routine was a molar that’s been bothering me for the last couple of years. That tooth finally got the better of me. It started aching and aching. Then early last week a big hunk of it broke off. Time to see a dentist. I decided I would  go to the first who could see me as soon as possible. I found one who would see me the very next day. He took a good look at it, did some x-rays, and said if I wanted to save the tooth I would have to see two different specialists. I asked how much it would involve money wise. At least three grand! I asked him if he could pull it out for less. No problem, 1/6 of the price, including a bone transplant in case I ever wanted to get a false tooth in there, the next dentist  would have some bone to attach the implant to. I was in and out of there the next day in an hour and ten minutes! My recovery hasn’t been too bad. I was getting a cold the day I went in. The following day I seemed to have taken too much hydrocodon or I took the antibiotic right after eating when it should be taken on an empty stomach. Whatever it was I threw up and was nauseous the rest of the day. I just slept that day. The next day was much better. I took it easy and just read a book all day. On Wednesday I go for a check up and to get the stitches out. 

     Last week we finally signed up at a gym for the next two months. We decided we need to do more to get in shape than just our half hour walk every day. There is a great bonus to doing this. First of all, there are all kinds of classes one can take by joining and they have  free showers, a sauna, and a hot tub! It is much nicer than the showers that cost a quarter for every minute that we’ve been using in the marina. Why didn’t we do this sooner?

     Well that covers the main doings of the last couple of weeks or so. Not very adventurous but the simplicity of our days is very gratifying.