Oddities
One day I was tearing down one of our Barient self-tailing winches in the cockpit, the winch had become multi-directional (it should only spin one direction…) So I am dismantling the thing, cleaning off the grease, and setting parts out in exactly the order in which they were dismantled. Heather was cleaning and shining the stainless parts of the winch, I was removing the drum and told her “Be careful to put the parts back in the same order because I’m putting them in the order…”
Clang…. I am interrupted by two of the ring-type bearings fall to the cockpit floor….
“the order that they fall apart in?” asks Heather
“Something like that” I say
We were cleaning out a box of miscellaneous unused “stuff” (yeah, stuff is exactly what we called it…) and found a boomerang, it was dated 9/30/89 by Chet Something who was a Professional Boomeranger (Boomerangist? Boomerangutan? I like that last one!!!I)
“I don’t think I’ve played with this since 9/31/89.” Oh jeez, am I really this stupid? There you go…
So I try to save face and tell Heather the story of going to some festival with my grandparents, my grandmother buying the boomerang for me and takes me out to the field behind the school to try it out. She let me run myself ragged chasing the thing…it flew across the field like a dream and landed in the grass so beautifully. Not once did it even attempt to come back. It must have been broken and I couldn’t return it. (Terrible joke but I just couldn’t resist.)
“There’s a ball field there on shore.” I point out. “Let’s take the boomerang out and try it out.”
“I bet it’ll take a lot less running to wear you out this time around.”
“Thanks, love. I bet it still won’t come back.”
Pat & Johnny on Windhsear invited us over for dinner and a visit not so long ago. We were “new” to each other, this was our first get-together. Heather and I have somehow gotten the reputation as practical jokers’ and we assume that mantle with pride as well as the occasional fit of originality. A little background will help…we have a friend who is afraid of grasshoppers (“you never know which way they’re gonna go” he says…) so at Dollar General we saw a pack of rubber bugs…one of them being, yes, a grasshopper. We also spy a fly gun…it has half-a-dozen plastic life-like flies that the gun shoots – the perfect cat toy. Being as the deal is 2/$1, this killing-time spent waiting for the bus became a bonanza. So back to Windshear…the pizza is served and looks fantastic. A moment arrives where everyone’s attention is diverted…a plastic fly hurls itself onto Johnny’s slice of pie. I had a 50/50 chance and blew it…fate was not with me on this one. The only person we know who folds their pizza in half now has a friend…it seems Johnny does this too. If you haven’t realized it by now, the fly is ensconced in cheese and crust and has no chance of being seen. Heather is giving me nervous looks and I can see her eyes asking me “When are you going to tell him?” One bite turns into two, then three…I am trying to find a way to graciously extricate myself from this joke-gone-bad. One last look at Heather and we both just start laughing…after an awkward explanation and a few awkward laughs, we all get on with a delicious dinner. Sometimes things just do not go the way you planned… we just looked at each other and laughed.
On the traumatic side, Brian had a visit to the local emergency room…we’ll keep the gory details contained but I will tell you that they kept morphine coming until mid-day. Of course, Heather’s memory of the event is much clearer and includes less time floating in the ether but release came after the last bus ran so we found an $8 cab back to HP. We decided ice was a necessity for the coming evening so we stopped off at the fuel dock to get a bag…a myopic geezer came barreling in, crashed into us, putting our dinghy into the oysters (low tide and low water in the river levels coincided…) and now our dink if flat. I don’t need anyone preaching the joys of a hard or fiberglass dinghy…this one came with the boat and survived 13 years and a circumnavigation, so it’s not up for debate…the issue is that our “car” has been totaled by an uninsured driver. We’re trying to patch her up but all of here at HP Industries have our doubts. For the time being we’ve been using the kayaks…and of course for the past 3 and next 2 days it is blowing 15-30 which makes kayaking an all-new experience, especially if you’re carrying groceries and taking spray to the face…
And to add to that last bit of fun…our friends on OZ found a dinghy labeled “free” and brought it by. Cool…thanks a lot! So we give it a little test and put the Yamaha on her to go into land for some much needed stretching of the legs. We hop in the dink and we’re up to our knees in water…it is barely afloat, one of us bails and one drives. Good grief, I see why it had ‘free’ signs all over it. It’s the thought that counts.
So here it is a few days later and we have acquired a Zodiac SB310, 10’2”, hard floorboards, rated for 4 people and 10hp engine. It is about 2’ smaller than our old one but otherwise very, very similar – with the flat floors we can haul 3-5gal (15gal total) water and the same amount of fuel and still have a little room leftover for us and some groceries. Day one we put it in the water and ran it around a bit…finally decided where we wanted the lift hardware (rescued from out old dink known as Kinja, read Don’t Stop the Carnival and you’ll understand.) So now we’ve decided that this is one of those things that seem tragic but are really for the better…the new dinghy is much lighter to lift, we can deflate and stow on deck on long passages without any hassle…we like the newdinghy (unnamed as of yet…the boat is Holding Pattern, the inflatable kayaks are Solo Flight and Puddle Jumper…we’re leaning towards Perfect Landing to keep with the current theme…) Any other creative suggestions?
Wednesday we begin our journey back to the Chesapeake…between death in the family, trauma with the dinghy, hari kari of the outboard, oh, and the freshwater leak that I don’t think I’ve mentioned that dumped most of an entire tank of freshwater and required a late-day emptying of multiple lockers and splicing of hose…oh, like I was saying between all of that and the hospital visit our Bahamas fund was depleted. So it’s back north to replenish the kitty.
I think Carnival is over…we’re all patched up and self-sufficient once again. The wind is (and has been) blowing 15-25 so we’re charged beautifully, fridge and freezer both ice cold, everything electronic is charged, and we’ve got the stereo up and bopping through our late-afternoon. We’re planning on leaving Wednesday after this front moves through and then on to new adventures, new friends, and some familiar anchorages and towns.
Last but not least…we were on the bus the other day heading out to Miracle Mile to run some errands and we’re both daydreaming somewhere in our own world…the driver asks “Anyone for West Marine?” We wanted out on that side of the road and so snapped out of ignorant bliss, Brian answers “Yes, please. I’m sitting back here daydreaming with my hand on the dinger.” The entire bus, from 18 to 80 cracked up…it took me a minute to get the innuendo as my hand was on the trip-wire for the buzzer… So with that we made a quick exit from the bus, no one sure if we were sunburned or blushing. Considering we’re both a pleasant shade of brown, I’ll let you figure it out.
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