PMS in the Boatyard
Dave has just informed me that I should wear a ring that changes color when my
hormones are raging, just so he knows… On second thought, he says, a
flashing light around your neck would be even better. That’s what all this
has come to! I am sitting here stuffing pop-corn into my mouth, in between birthday
sponge cake that someone here brought by the boat tonight. Actually the
sponge cake is already in the garbage, and I keep going back to see if there are
any uncontaminated pieces left that I can salvage. It’s a cake that I
normally wouldn’t dream of eating, but let me put it this way – when
you have spent weeks living in yet another boat yard, and a certain time of month
comes around, anything goes. Compensation being number one on my list.
So this is what it is like. You wake up to the loud roar of machinery at an ungodly
hour of the morning (well actually not that early, just early to us!) and you
realize you are still here. You climb out of your bunk, put on some clothes, make
your way through the stuff laying around everywhere, and climb down the steep dirty
ladder to the loo. The one loo that is shared by everyone and their cousin. So
you may have to wait in line. The toilet seat is
decorated with black finger prints, as are the light switches and the door knob. Some of
us have already suffered from food poisoning - need I say more?
Next is breakfast, which is good. Sitting amidst our sails and other paraphernalia that still hasn't found its way back to its orderly place, we scoff down our tea or coffee with some bread and jam, maybe an egg or two. That is, if we have been lucky enough to catch a ride into town, which, being "car-less", and the nearest store being about five miles away, makes us completely dependant on the kindness of others. Which brings me to the next point. Kindness. We are surrounded by it by all our fellow "boat yarders". That means we can hitch a ride to the "all you can eat" Chinese buffet once in a while, or go and shop at – walmart - which to our surprise even has organic grapes. And we used to be such walmart snobs back in the days…
The next step is to make another list. If we don’t make a list we will forget
what we are supposed to be doing, because a) we are constantly distracted by all
the kind people around us or b) we find ourselves in a brain fog (is it the mold we
came back to or the toxic chemicals or just procrastination?). Whichever way you
look at it, we are trying, so desperately to make headway. You would think, as did
we once, it couldn’t possibly take so amazingly long to get the boat launched
and be underway, for crying out loud! But lo and behold, it’s a boat. Which
means every time you turn around the next item needs fixing. Let me fill you
in.Yesterday I really did feel like snapping everyone’s head off in my hormonal state, so I thought to myself, I will retreat from the world and nurture myself and make some bread (and some cake too…well, you know). I have to examine the flour for “thrips” first – these are the new pets we have aboard now, whose name Dave looked up on the internet. You could call them weavils if you wanted, but Dave assures me they are thrips. Unfortunately the internet does not tell you how to rid yourself of them, only that they love your grains and legumes. We discovered they love raisins too. That is after we had devoured them in our oatmeal. They crawled out by the dozens the next day. Okay, so back to the bread. After ascertaining that the flour was “thrips-free” I put the bread on to rise and made pumpkin bread batter, and am about to start the oven. Except the button that you hold down to get the pilot light lit no longer works. Not even with pliers, or should I have tried the hammer??? No big deal, you think, just get a new part. Well, after some inquiries we discover that the company that made our twenty five year old stove has been out of business for twenty one years, so sorry, but the parts no longer exist. A new stove might be the ticket, unless we want to continue on without an oven. Oven or fifteen hundred bucks – which do you choose? Back to the bread and the kindness of strangers – no sooner had I asked someone, I had an oven going in the boat yard managers house, and smelling his house up with our lovely bread and pumpkin loaf. So at least we scored there, in spite of the fact that my peaceful nurturing baking ended up with the galley full of tools and the stove disassembled, which also meant that we never got around to finishing the other jobs on our list that day...
So here are some lessons we have learned so far.NEVER leave your boat in a humid environment like Georgia in the summer without ventilation. We, smarty pants that we are, put a dehumidifier to work on our boat while we were gone for the summer, and didn’t think that perhaps the power would go out or the thing would turn itself off. Both happened! So upon our return we found Anam Cara growing fur in all the wrong places! Our refrigerator door was green with mold, the sheets likewise, and we threw away shoes that were beyond recognition. The first week we barely came to in our mold infested pit, and for the moments where I was lucid, I scrubbed and scrubbed like a fiend. Vinegar, I am told, is best. Luckily walmart sells it by the gallon.
Secondly, don’t think you can just clean up your boat and get back in the water. Another naïve thought that unfortunately had crossed our minds. There are other cruisers in boat yards who are working on their boats, and who also would rather be drinking cocktails or tea in a quiet anchorage. So they will come around and chat and share with you the horrors they are finding on their boats. Which gets you thinking about whether or not you might be sitting on a similar time bomb. Like our friend Reg on “Pea Soup” who found all his thru hulls breaking off in his hands as he tried to inspect them. Could our thru hulls be just as corroded? Would we risk sinking in the Atlantic if we didn’t inspect them? So back out comes all the stuff out of every locker and closet to get at the little buggers that are always in the most inopportune places. The boat looks like Armageddon within three nanoseconds, and we are finding that most of our thru hulls are frozen shut. Uh oh, we think the worst, and for days my job is to stand outside in the heat with a can of Mabel's “Deep Creep” in hand and one eyeball up a thru-hull, while Dave is on the other side trying to move the ball valve and swearing. Meanwhile I am hoping that the head thru hull won’t projectile vomit at me while I am peering up its hole to see if the damn thing is closed or open. Hah, and you thought we were having a romantic sailing adventure! To our great fortune, our thru hulls did not fall off in our hands, and they seem in quite good shape. Today Reg tells us his rudder shaft is just hanging by a thread. What is most disconcerting is that his boat is fifteen years younger than our own! So now I am eyeing that rudder with increasing suspicion, and wondering what else one could find!
On a more positive note, Dave has been up the mast on a crane (a luxury for him, as he doesn’t have to hang on to everything for dear life up there as he does from his bosuns chair!), and has fixed the lightning damage we had sustained in the Bahamas. On the way down he checked the spreader lights, which kept filling up with rain water. They are now lying on our deck – a heap of rust, that has only been up there since January, and will definitely be taken back to where they came from! But we are pleased, none the less, that the lightning damage (KNOCK ON WOOD!) seems to have now been repaired!
Reg’s wife, Sharon, assures us that we have been severely tested by Neptune because we didn’t rename our boat with the appropriate ceremonies. We should have broken champagne bottles on her bow while virgins dance around on deck. We plan to make up for all that soon – but aren’t so sure where we will find the virgins!
The last lesson we have learned from living in this boat yard is this: in spite of all the inconveniences, – wherever we go, we are treated with incredible kindness. Advice and help are everywhere, whether it is a trip to the store or a lesson on how to fix a gelcoat crack, all we have to do is ask. It is yet again, the unspoken rule amongst cruisers and boat people that makes even a trying time like living on your boat on the hard while working on it, a heartwarming adventure. We will surely leave here with a bunch of new friends we will miss down the line. So I count my blessings, and scoff some more pop-corn. Or should I try those peanut butter cups that Dave just dug out of the refrigerator?
Did I mention that I conducted my first acupuncture clinic in the boat yard? Weight loss, stop smoking, aches and pains -
I treat it all amongst the tractors and boats, just outside the laundry room! I also created Mabel's website here (Mabel being one of the most helpful
souls we have met!)- check it out
at www.northriverfiberglassrepair.com and let me know if you like it!
