Boat Projects – Page 10 – Have Wind Will Travel

February 14, 2014 – Sexual Chocolate

February 28, 2014anniedike

I’ll bet you opened that one right up, huh? Screw work, Have Wind Will Travel’s talking dirty to me! Okay, it wasn’t just a line – it really was Valentine’s Day and there really was some chocolate involved, but we’ll get there. First things first. A few boat chores, then some pours.

Rather than exchanging some flowers and cards on that fated fake commercial holiday-day, we each got each other some fun gifts for the boat. Phillip got a new flexible funnel for filling the engine coolant bin. Totally respectable gift. And I got a new main sail! Not near as cool as the funnel but I didn’t make Phillip feel bad about it. In all seriousness, our old main sail was in decent condition, but it did have a few tears, the stitching was starting to rub and breakdown in some areas and, sadly, she was discolored from age and wear, so we had decided a while back to get a new one before our trip to the Keys. We decided to shop local and went with Schurr Sails in Pensacola. She was installed the second week in February, and we couldn’t wait to hoist her up. Literally, we didn’t even take her to do it, just raised it right there in the marina so we could have a look at her.

Ain’t she a beaut?

We were definitely pleased. And, we love to see the bold, blue Niagara (checkerboard) logo at the top, which, on the old main, had just about worn off. She sure is stiff, though, which makes for a nice flake but a tough fit in the old sail cover. After some debate, we decided to get the stack pack, too, and it was scheduled for installation the following week.

With the new main sail installed and still a few sunny hours to work with, we decided to knock out one more pre-Key chore on the boat – the wind anemometer – the instrument that tells us wind speed and direction. Much like a receiver, the anemometer is an instrument that spins manually at the top of the mast to retrieve wind data, and then sends it down to the display panel in the cockpit. Ours had stopped working months ago. We were sure it was the doing of a big, staunchy hawk (lovingly referred to around our marina as the ‘Terd Bird’) who likes to plop his big, honking carcass on the tops of everyone’s masts, usually breaking wind vanes and other instruments in the process (not to mention the lovely parting gifts he leaves on the deck). I hate that guy. We were sure he had sat on our wind anemometer and wrecked it, so we lined up a guy down in Punta Gorda that we were going to send it to take it apart and fix it. But, we had to get it down first. Our broker-turned-boatbuddy Kevin was nice enough to let us borrow his one-man mast-climber for the job. I drew the short straw, and the boys strapped me in.

Houston, we are ready for takeoff. Up I went:

That thing was pretty awesome. There are two self-tightening rope cinches, one used to hoist the bosun’s chair, and one used to hoist your foot straps. So, you plant your feet in the straps, stand up, release the top cinch to move the bosun’s chair up, then sit in the chair and release the bottom cinch to pull your foot straps up, then lather, rinse, repeat all the way up the mast. It’s a bit of a workout but much less work on your main halyard, and a one-man operation. Pretty nifty. There are a couple of tricks you need to know about tying the bowline knots at the top to be sure you have enough height to stand in the foot straps and access the top of the mast, but Kevin steered us right, and I was able to get up there and get the anemometer off.

Got it!

When I brought it down, the boys did what any boy would do and started to take it apart and tinker with it.

And, the best part was, we discovered it was an easy fix. Kevin always says – the solution is usually easy – finding it usually the hard part. Well, we’d already done the hard part of getting that thing down the mast, and turns out the problem was just some fishing line. Still bent on blaming the Terd, we decided he must have brought a little strung-up fishy feast to the top of our mast to devour it and got some line caught around our anemometer in the process. More line was pulled in as the instrument continued to spin, ultimately jamming it up entirely. But, the boys were able to ‘fish’ it all out (man, I’m on fire today!),

we saved the costly fee of sending the instrument off for repairs, and I was sent back up the mast to put the anemometer back on.

This time with a handful of zipties to stick up there to make sure the Terd Bird never returns. Our mast top now looks like a spiky Midievel fortress – not anywhere a curmudgeony old bird would want to rest his tired bones. Or so we hope. I haven’t seen any droppings since, so I think we’ve sufficiently deterred him. After a little creative wiring, we were also able to get the display panel in the cockpit up and running.

Wind speed and direction. Suh-weet! And, just in time, too, as we were planning to take the boat out for the weekend on Valentine’s Day to anchor out at Little Sabine. A friend of ours was having her 50th birthday party there at the Hampton Inn on the beach on February 15th, so we wanted to be the ‘cool kids’ that came to the party by boat. I picked up a little something Phillip had been eyeing the last time we made our way to the free Friday wine tasting at Seville for the Valentine’s trip. I give you:

*NEW* SEXUAL CHOCOLATE

Bursting with intense red fruit on the nose. Massive entry with blackberry, black cherry, dark chocolate and spice with a delicate, smooth finish. Concentrated and complex with flavors that will continued to be teased out . Displays the high quality of the vintage.

Varietal: 50% Syrah, 40% Zinfandel, 8% Petit Sirah, 2% Petit Verdot
Alcohol: 13.9%
AVA: California (Napa, Sonoma, Santa Barbara County)
Released: December 16, 2013
Winemakers: Bo & Brandon
Enjoy Responsibly, just not conservatively…

That is some damn fine juice, let me tell you. Get your own bottle at SloDown Wines. You’ll definitely get a kick out of the label:

What? Not the kind of “sexual chocolate” you were hoping for? Sorry – it’s a public blog. I can get a little dirty for you, though You’ll be happy to know we were able to make the requisite jaunt out into the Gulf that weekend to test out the new Y valve and the macerator, which spouted out a perfectly lovely brown cloud.

Where once there was none …

Now there is some.

I guess you can say it’s kind of chocolate-colored too. Bonus for you. In any event, all systems are a go!

February 4, 2014 – Snow Day Means a(nother) Dirty Job

February 24, 2014anniedike

That’s right. We’re going to go down this road again. Another dirty job. And, I’ll warn you at the outset – this post is not for the squeamish. View at your own risk.

So, we come back from Crested Butte, having spent a week out in the snowy bluffs, highs in the upper forties, lows in the teens, and, the crazy thing was, it was colder in Pensacola than it ever was out West. The week after we got back, we endured record-setting freezing rain in the southeast that pretty much coated everything in an inch-thick layer of ice.

Our first thought was — of course — the boat! We went to check on her to make sure the engine and pipes were staying warm enough.

It was wild to see icicles hanging from the lifelines and railing on the boat.

With the ice that accumulated on top of the companionway hatch, we could barely crack it back enough to get the lee boards off so we could get in.

Or out!

Thankfully, though, the water was still semi-warm (low sixties) so the boat stayed nice and toasty. We hung a hot work light in the engine room just to be sure and kept checking for cracked pipes and leaking fluids, but she seemed to manage the cold weather just fine. Modern-day society, however, did not. The ice storm shut down all of the local school systems, the courts, the bridges and pretty much interstate commerce as we know it. So, with bad weather and a short reprieve from work, we did what any good boaters would do — got to work on some long-overdue boat projects.

We had recently made a list of things we wanted/needed to do the boat before shoving off for the Keys. One of those was replacing the “Y” valve in the head so we could pumpout at sea.

On our boat, there is a Y valve in a cabinet in the bathroom that we can manually turn to allow the holding tank to either be pumped out at the fuel dock or pumped out through the macerator to sea while we’re on passage. It works like this:

The two long prongs of the valve indicate the two pipes that are open, allowing flow, and the short prong indicates the pipe that is closed off. In the diagram above, the Y valve is turned to allow flow from the holding tank up to the dock, and the pipe leading to the macerator (for pumpout at sea) is closed off.

Our Y valve is located in a cubby under the bathroom counter.

Unfortunately, our valve was frozen and would not turn. Since we purchased the boat back in April of last year, it has been set, permanently, for pumpout at the dock.

We were not able to turn it, like this

to enable pumpout at sea, which is permitted 9 nautical miles in the Gulf — “waters approved for overboard discharge of marine waste” — legally speaking. Having our valve locked on pumpout at the dock has been fine for the local cruising and light passages we have been doing. But, now that we were setting our sights further, we knew we were going to need the option to pumpout at sea. While discharge is not permitted in the Keys, we wanted to have the option while making the long passages down there. So, it was time to roll up our sleeves and get dirty … again.

Now, most boaters are aware, but I’ll enlighten you newbies. Usually, the hardest part of any job involving the head is wrestling the old pipes off. Anywhere a pipe connects, it slides on over barbs which work much like a porcupine’s quill, it slides in nice and easy, but there’s going to be a lot of ripping and cursing when you pull it out. The barbs:

make the pipe easy to slip on, but incredibly hard to pull off. Particularly when the pipe’s been on there for years and has essentially melded and molded to the barbs. This was, of course, the situation in our case. The old pipes on the Y valve would barely even turn, much less pull off. And, it was so hard to get a good angle, good leverage, in that stupid little cubby in the bathroom. Phillip and I were both in there, shoulder deep, one foot up on the wall, yanking and cursing, trying to get the old pipes off.

We finally found the winning combination, consisting of a “cheater bar” (an old flathead screwdriver) and a fulcrum (a hammer), that did the trick.

The pipes were finally starting to budge. We got the top two pumpout hoses off and started on the bottom one that leads to the holding tank. Yeah … the one that holds the shizz. I’m sure you can see where this is going. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

As Phillip started to pry the holding tank pipe off, it became readily apparent (yes, then and only then) that the Y valve sits much lower in the boat than we realized — roughly in line with the holding tank, which we had not thought to pump out. It was a ‘snow’ day and we had time to kill. Let’s get to cracking on that head! We jumped right into the project, thinking nothing of it. Until we realized any slight tip of the holding tank pipe caused a nice spillage of you-know-what into the bathroom cubby. What did the folks at O’Lean call it?? Oh yeah … anal leakage.

Look if you dare – scroll past if you don’t.

Aren’t boats fun?

It’s hard to tell from the picture, but the shizz is sitting just a half-inch from the top of the holding tank pipe. One small dip of the pipe downward and the entire tank could dump into the cubby, and eventually the bilge. Not a pipe you want to tango with. We had to be careful, and we were. It was a bit of a gut-wrenching project, but we did it. We got the old pipes off and extracted the broken Y valve.

Then we actually stuck our heads and hands back in that rotting pit of hell to put the new Y valve on.

And, you thought the O’Lean incident was the real kicker – but wait, there’s more! I’m almost embarrassed to admit it, but (who am I kidding – our embarrassment is always trumped when it means an entertaining and educating blog!) Phillip and I were both very careful — at the time — to make sure we put the Y valve on right, allowing the holding tank to be either pumped out 1) at the dock or 2) at sea. He checked it, held it up and asked me to check it, I checked it, concurred, and we slapped it on there. But, here’s the two options our cracker-jack installation allowed:

Yep, we could pump as much sea water up and out at the dock as we wanted. All day long, baby! But, the holding tank would remain, sadly, full. Like I said, I’m a bit embarrassed to say we did that, but I’m going to blame it on the … fumes. We started to tug and pull just a bit on the pipes we had just slid onto the new Y valve to see if they would come off pretty easy, allowing for a quick fliperoo of the valve. But, you remember what I said about the barbs. Those things were on there! We were going to have to wrestle those pipes off with all the same muscle and force (and mess) as we had just done. Four hours we’d spent out there, shoulder-deep in that smelly pit, and it was as if we hadn’t done anything at all. We were disheartened, to say the least, and utterly defeated.

But, the good news is, before we started this project, I had done something I don’t normally do. It’s an old Lin-and-Larry Pardey tip I picked up when we were devouring cruising guides and handbooks before we bought the boat that has stuck with me. I read the directions that came with the Y valve. Not something you would think to do. I mean, it’s a Y valve. Not a nuclear reactor. But, the Pardeys swear by it, advising to do it every time and to keep the instructions and manuals for all the parts and systems on your boat. Sage advice as always, and in this case, the directions proved quite fruitful.

Y valves typically only allow for two positions. But, it turned out the Y valve we had purchased could be easily converted to allow three positions with the simple removal of a stopper ring inside the valve.

Thankfully, with just the removal of a few screws (and no removal of pipes filled with shizz), we were able to easily modify the valve to a three-way. Now, we could turn the valve one more time to the final, and most important, position – allowing flow from the holding tank to the macerator for pumpout at sea:

Whew!

And, this makes the handle easily removable so the discharge option is disabled when we’re in waters that are not approved for marine waste – namely, the Keys. Score one for Captain Planet!

With the new Y valve now in working order and enabling both pumpout at the dock and at sea, it was time to wrap up this shitty job and restore some order on the boat. We set to cleaning,

And cleaning,

And cleaning …

“Scrub those corners good there mate!”

It was quite the job, but with a little gumption, strong wills and even stronger stomachs, we were able to do it. Cross that one off the list.

And, while we are operating under the belief that the macerator works just fine and pumpout in the Gulf will be no issue, we’re looking forward to the next sunny weekend when we can make an offshore jaunt to test it out. I’m sure you are too! You can sleep soundly knowing we’ll fully document the brown cloud for you.

Until then, stay tuned for a new main sail, replacement of the iso glass on the dodger and a one-man (or one-woman, I should say) mast ascension.

January 18, 2014 – Apres Skis and Plans for the Keys

February 19, 2014anniedike

Is there anything better? You spend the day out on the slopes, wind-whipped, frigid-fingered and you stomp in, pop your boots loose and feel the blood finally flow back to your feet as you pick out a spot by the fire. You’re exhausted, but in the best kind of way – from pounding down powder-packed bulkheads, sculpted moguls and slick fairways. The sweat on your back starts to cool as you peel off a few layers, and you’re trying to decide between the irish coffee or the hot buttered rum. This is it, baby. Apres skis!

Even better when they’re served on a 12″ slab of ice at the famous Ice Bar at Uley’s Cabin.

We took off the end of January for our annual ski trip. This time to Crested Butte, and this time I was bound and determined – no injuries. Last year (my first year skiing) enlightened – and addicted – me to this stimulating, scintillating sport, but also sent me home with a wicked MCL injury. You may recall the removal of the spawn of Satan from my left knee. I had a healthy respect for the slopes after that, but I was excited to get back out there and build on last year’s progress. We had been training for weeks (“Work those quads!”) and we were ready for some snow.

It was wild, though, because the day before we were set to fly out, the wind was blowing at the beach and we hit it hard, tearing up some serious surf in the Gulf.

Okay, serious for me – it was only my second time to kite in the Gulf, and the waves were doing a number on me. Some fun videos here: a little bit of crash and burn, and a little bit of gas and go. Slowly but surely, I’m going to conquer that Gulf! But, the waves that crash me are like ripples to Phillip! Little speed bumps to hop over.

Video here.

We made a day of it out there in the sand and surf, thinking how crazy it was while we were watching the sun set during the drive home that, before it rose again, we would be hopping on a plane out West to go play in the snow.

Might as well. Life is short, right? Do it while you can. Crested Butte was certainly the place to. It had dumped the week before so there was a sufficient base and we came just in time for a week of beautiful blue skies and mild temps. We couldn’t have hand-picked better ski conditions.

Out of the five days we had to ski, Phillip and I each devoted one day to a group lesson and it was well worth it. As is with most awesome outdoor sports, Phillip is a natural and has been doing it longer. He was definitely in a skill level above me, but I lucked out. No one else signed up that day for an advanced lesson, so I got a private one for the price of a group ($130 for the day). Dirt cheap, particularly for the level of instruction I got. “His name was Joseph Norman Pierre Dumas,” she said dreamily, staring softly out at the setting sun. Seriously, that was his name, he was quite French (with plenty of wine and food knowledge to back it up – as a child, he worked in his parents’ restaurant in Quebec), he had been skiing 64 of the 68 years of his eventful life and had spent the last 38 as an instructor. Everyone on the mountain knew him. He was a total celebrity and was stopped everywhere we went with a “Hey Norman! Looking good man! Thanks again!” It seemed he had taught everyone on the mountain to ski, as well as their kids and their kids’ kids. It was probably one of my favorite days skiing – ever. Norman really polished me up, took me down tons of hidden, tucked-away trails and had me roaring down double blacks by the day’s end. It was an amazing day. For Phillip, too. He and a friend took the expert course and they, too, were the only ones in the class, meaning, essentially a private lesson for the cost of group. Their instructor took them up to the top of the mountain and they navigated their way down some seriously treacherous terrain.

The “Funnel,” in particular, was quite a knotch on their ski belts.

Their harrowing journey down that death-defying stretch was lived and relived – more bold and brazen with each re-telling – over bottle after bottle of wine that night at dinner. “Lesson Day” definitely went down as one for the books. But, the entire week was incredible. We had a beautiful condo at Crested Butte, where we kicked back each night and cooked up some serious feasts.

Our roommate’s rich, bacon-drenched cassoulet took the trophy for best home-cooked dish.

But, we also enjoyed the local eateries in Crested’s historic downtown villa. Fine French cuisine at Soupcon (recommended by Norman himself with bunched fingers and a purse of his lips: “Izz pricey, but divine”) and the best, melty, cheesy, greasy-finger pizza you ever put in your mouth at Secret Stash. In all, it was an awesome week on the snow, and we both came home with all ligaments, tendons and soft tissues in their rightful places, still connected and fully-intact — no small miracle considering some of the terrain we traversed.

Some more fun home videos for you (with the low-budget quality to prove it – I have GOT to get me a GoPro):

Annie says stupid things and “Phillip says Ouch!”

A fan favorite: “A little ugly, but I made it down.”

And, a little gem I like to call “Nope, not me. Not me either.” It was our first day out there, just warming up and easing back into it, and this was the first black bulkhead we encountered, so Phillip filmed me coming down it (probably because those first few days, he was always way ahead of me, miles down the slope, waiting for me to traverse my way down, nice big loops, even the old snow plow if necessary. Like I said, I was not coming home with an injury this year. When I watched this clip the first time, I was like “Gees, I look good. Look at me zipping down that hill.” And then … zoom, there he went right past Phillip. Nope not me. So, then the next guy comes down, a little slower, and I was like “Oh, there I am. I look pretty good.” And, there he went too, right past Phillip. Finally, I see me. Way up at the top, making the most ridiculous, slow traverses back and forth across the bulkhead. Skiing slower than Betty White. All I can say is … no injuries. And, I came a long way by week’s end:

Video here. (And yet, again, Phillip manages to film skiers right in front of me that zip by and make it all look so GD easy). But, this was a significant headwall from the top of the North Face, for me at least.

I mean, I don’t know if you know this, but …

With our fill of winter sports for the year, we started to talk during the flight home of sunny skies and sailing plans for the spring. We had initially planned to take two or so weeks back in November and travel to the Keys, but that’s the thing about plans. They often change. So, we headed West instead over Thanksgiving– and made a great trip of it. But, now — apres ski –we had our sights set South. We started looking at some real options for the Keys.

We talked initially about making a straight run for it. Go straight across the Gulf and get the long, tiresome passage behind us so we could spend the rest of the time relaxing and recuperating in the Keys before picking and plotting our way back up the West Coast. On the other hand, we also considered taking our time sailing down the West Coast, stopping in at some old and new haunts, like Appalachicola, perhaps, or Port St. Joe. Clearwater was also a lot of fun or we could trying stopping in at Tampa this time, before making the jump to the Keys. We started looking at anchorages and depths around the Keys as well, both on the Gulf side and along the Atlantic. There are ton of options and lot of different areas and spots we needed to research before making any final decisions. We decided to to plan to head out some time in late March or early April and make the trip there and back in approximately four weeks – give or take a bit (as always) for the weather. The only real requirement is that we be down in the Keys for a certain big day that is coming up for Phillip. I’ll give you a hint – it involves a landmark smaller than a mountain and his geographical juxtaposition to it. It’s in April and Phillip wants to be out in blue waters, on his 35′ Niagara, to celebrate it. Definitely a goal worth fulfilling in my opinion.

While the trip planning was fun, as is always the case when you own a sailboat, we knew we had several projects and repairs we wanted to accomplish on the boat to make sure she was ready for the passage. We started making a list:

Then, we started ordering parts, getting quotes, checking prices and – more importantly – checking the kitty.

January 4, 2014 – Wood Reveal and Hand Reel

February 11, 2014anniedike

So, we returned from NOLA to find our first five coats had set in nicely. As my Alabama kin would say — that wood was looking “right.”

With only “five coats to go!” we set to it. Usually putting a coat on the items in the guest bedroom (the grate, table, drink-holder and stairs) in the morning, and a coat on the boat (eyebrows, handrails, stern rail and companionway) in the afternoon. We had so many different items – each on a different ‘coat,’ I had to come up with a highly-technical check-off system to keep up with them.

Patent pending.

You may have noticed the dinghy on there, too. Since we had already turned the condo into a full-scale painting studio, we decided to go ahead and put a few coats on the dinghy transom and floorboards while we were at it. Not quite fifty, but a few shades of gray.

We were making good progress and were all set to put on the last coat on on New Years Day with grand plans of taking the ole’ Rest out that weekend to drop the hook. She’d been grounded too long! We had some friends over New Year’s Eve for a fun Pinot tasting (Letitia, 2009 and 10) and an exquisite middle-eastern meal of rosemary lamb chops, tabouleh, homemade bread and grape leaves with tzatziki sauce.

After such grand consumption, you’d think we would have trouble peeling ourselves out of bed the next morning to go work on the boat, but nothing could be further from the truth. This was it! Last coat day! The last time we would have to put on those stupid vinyl gloves, mix up a batch of varnish and get out in the cold to crawl on hands and knees and painstakingly stroking every nook and cranny of those damn handrails! We practically skipped to the boat! While the weather that day certainly wasn’t bright and sunny, it at least looked like it would stay dry long enough for us to get the last coat on. Just some tiny little flecks of green that were sure to pass us over.

Plus, we had the day off for the holiday and this was the last coat! I hate to say we got a little eager. We whipped up what we thought would be our last batch of varnish and set to it. And, wouldn’t you know, one of those menacing little green flecks (it had to be just one!) must have circled around like a hawk and decided to shit right on us. Not Pensacola, mind you, not even the whole downtown area, I swear it was just our marina, just our boat. At least that’s what it felt like anyway. And, it was just like ten minutes of rain – the whole day. But, it came right when we were finishing the “last” coat. We tried to blow the drops off, hover over the handrails to protect them with no luck, so we finally just started brushing the drops into the coat hoping it wouldn’t make too much of a difference. But, the clouds parted, the rain dried up and we could see the coat – our last coat! – drying a milky, swirly white. Bollucks! Phillip started to research it a bit, and some bloggers and boaters said we would probably have to sand down 3-4 coats and start over. 3-4 coats?!? Not to mention the fact that we were a little bit tired of this varnish project, that would put us well past the weekend and ruin our plans for a nice weekend outing. Needless to say, we were not pleased that day. Not pleased at all.

But, I’m happy to say, I went back to the boat the next day – determined! Apparently, the water in the last coat had dissipated because the milkiness was gone. There were some drops that had to be sanded, but it just took a light rubbing (certainly not enough to even shave the alleged “last” coat off) and she was ready to go. I slapped one more coat on (I’d count it as the eleventh) and she dried, slick and shiny, wet as glass. It was time for the big reveal!

We started to pull the tape back and I wish I could tell you it was a grand revealing, like snapping a crisp white sheet back with cameras flashing and resounding applause. But, it was not. It was cold, getting late in the day, we were shivering and wiping snotsicles, and the tape started tearing and flaking apart, leaving little slivers everywhere and adhesive residue (like when you’re trying to scrape a price tag off a picture frame). It was such a mess. And, the worst part was – the tape (I guess because it had been on there so long (about two weeks now)) started pulling off flecks of paint on the portlight frames.

And, some varnish had seeped through the tape at the base of each handrail, so there were little schooner gold puddles around each handrail post. Stupid tape! Like I said – not a grand reveal. But, it was done. The wood was fully-coated and the tape was (mostly) off.

The best part was, we were still on for a weekend sail. So, the hand reel. (And, I’ll have you know, I tried every way under the sun to name this post “Wad & Wheel,” thinking how clever!? What a great fishing analogy. But, what’s the wad? The wad of crappy blue tape we collected after the disappointing reveal? I certainly considered it … ) Since we were starting to formulate our plans for the big trip to the Keys this spring, one thing we had been wanting to do was put together a hand reel to throw over the back of the boat during passages to try and catch our own dinners. The more self-sustaining a cruiser is, the longer he stays out there, am I right? Teach a man to fish …

We had purchased this book back when we bought the boat, finding the little promo on the cover to be true – it seemed among cruisers this was “The definitive book!” on fishing.

http://www.amazon.com/Cruisers-Handbook-Fishing-Scott-Bannerot/dp/0071427880

Now it was time to put it in action. We looted the local bait & tackle shops and sporting good stores and put us together a fine tackle collection.

We put together a hand wheel, a yo-yo they call it, to fish off the boat at anchor, and a trolling hand reel to throw off the back of the boat during passage.

The book advised of using some kind of stretchy tubing as an indicator for when you have a fish on. Phillip got smart and bought some cheap exercise stretch bands from Wal-Mart that worked perfectly. Our broker/boat buddy, Kevin, had also told us one of the best ways to kill a fighting, flopping fish (to save the mess and potential damage of a bloody, beat-down in the cockpit) was with a spray bottle of alcohol. Apparently you spritz the fish’s gills with alcohol and rumor has it they go limp. While we have plenty of alcohol on the boat, I wasn’t about to see us waste the ‘good stuff’ on a stinking fish. So, I rigged us up a petite little spritzer of rubbing alcohol to do the trick – a fine concoction we like to call “Fish Kill.”

So, we had tackled the ‘tackle,’ but I’ll say the bait was baffling. Do you have any idea how many friggin’ aisles of bait, lures, hooks, doo-dads, ‘Gulps’ and whirley-gigs they’ve got at the sporting goods store?? I just can’t believe that if some of those work better than others, why are there thousands to choose from. I think it’s all a fugasi, fagazy, whatever. A total fake. No one knows what lure is going to work best. Like Skinny Matthew so eloquently put it in Wolf on Wallstreet — it’s fairy dust!

Mark Hanna:    Nobody knows if a stock is going to go up, down, sideways or in circles. You know what a fugasi is?
Jordan Belfort:   Fugazy, it’s a fake.
Mark Hanna:    Fugazy, fugasi, it’s a wazi it’s a woozy, it’s [makes a flittering sound] fairy dust.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WMx0BP31WM

But, we bought a few sparkly ones, some for mahi mahi, some for tuna, even a self-proclaimed “Red Fish Rouser!”, threw them in the tackle box and headed out for the weekend.

And, it was then, out in the sun, with the water glistening on it, that we really got to admire the wood.

It did look pretty effin’ awesome. Definitely worth all the work. I spent the day (again) crawling around on hands and knees on the deck scraping the last bits of tape, adhesive and varnish from around the handrail posts.

Quite a chore, but nice to do under sun and sail, and – again – definitely worth the work. The wood looked great!

We dropped anchor and immediately dropped the hand reel line to see if we could get any bites.

Nothing that night, but fishing was definitely fun at sunset, cocktails in hand. We decided the next day was going to be our day. We were going to get under sail early, stick our nose out in the Gulf and drop our trolling line. We were going to ‘rouse’ them red fish yet. Phillip would not shut up about it! “I’munna catch me a red fish damnit!”

We got up early, got everything rigged and headed out toward the Gulf. We threw the trolling line off the back and stared at it.

Both of us. In silence. Each of us grabbing it every few minutes and holding it in our hand to feel a ‘nibble.’ But, nothing. Nada, zip, zilch. We even sailed back and forth, several times, through churned-up, “fish frenzy” waters, dolphins circling and jumping everywhere, birds flying about and diving into the choppy waters. I mean, we were traveling right through huge pockets of fish. We were practically hitting them with our hull! Parting the red fish seas! But, nothing. We kept the line out and checked it a few times but we both finally kind of gave up on it, and just enjoyed the sail home.

We were both curled up reading, Phillip at the helm, me up on the foredeck, having forgotten almost entirely about the trolling line, just sailing across the bay, about 20 minutes from the marina, when Phillip looked back and saw the tubing stretched taut. He leapt up to the stern rail, grabbed the line in his hands and shouted up to me.

“We got something!”

December 22, 2013 – Five Coats Before Christmas!

January 30, 2014anniedike

That was our mantra. We kept saying it over and over, as we woke up early every day and headed out to the boat at 6:00 a.m. to coat the wood, or came back late and shut her down at sunset in those chilly winter days. “Five coats before Christmas.” We started coating the wood the week before Christmas, and we were planning to leave on the 22nd for New Orleans to spend the holiday in that glorious culinary heaven. “Five coats before Christmas.” We wanted to at least get five on before leaving so the wood would have a good varnish base to withstand any rain that may fall in our absence. I can tell you it was quite a chore. When people say their “blood, sweat and tears went into it,” I can safely say our snot went into ours. I mean, when it’s lows in the mid-teens with highs in the upper 30’s and your hands are clad in latex gloves and coated with sticky varnish, wiping the dribble isn’t really an option. Nope, it goes right in. Just smooth it out with another stroke. “Five coats before Christmas.”

And, I’m proud to say we did it. All it took was a little gumption, lots of long johns and tissues, and some ridiculously cheesy holiday songs to move us along:

On the first coat of varnish, my Captain said to me: “Make sure you get down and paint underneeeath.”

On the second coat of varnish, my Captain said to me: “Nice, lo-ong strokes,

and make sure you get down and paint underneeeath!”

On the third coat of varnish, my Captain said to me: “Easy around the rails,

nice, lo-ong strokes, and make sure you get down and paint underneeeath!”

On the fourth coat of varnish, my Captain said to me: “Don’t forget the hatch,

easy around the rails, nice, lo-ong strokes, and make sure you get down and paint underneeeath!”

On the fifth coat of varnish, my Captain said to me: “FIVE COATS TO GO!”

“So, don’t forget the hatch, easy around the rails, nice, lo-ong strokes, and make sure you get down and paint underneeeath!”

See? How easy it can be? When you throw your ego out the window and sing embarrassing songs along the way? “Five coats before Christmas!” You’re darn right. Go team. Now – who’s ready for some N’awlins?

December 20, 2013 – Thirsting For It

January 27, 2014anniedike

Well hello there. You’ll be thrilled to know I’m back. LASIK certainly was an adventure. One that I thought you might enjoy from m(eye) point of view. The funny thing is it took all of twenty minutes and it was done. Finished. Finito. My vision repaired instantly. The science fiction of it all kind of baffled me. Like I could stand in front of some laser wizardry machine and have all my ails cured, my imperfections fixed instantly, in a snap. I mean, I really did let them clamp my eye open and shoot a laser into it … But, thankfully, I did not become that one person that goes completely blind from it. I’m proud to say the surgery worked brilliantly. And, Phillip was nice enough to document it for your viewing pleasure. Why? Because I look great in a hairnet. That’s why.

See? Great, right? That’s the only word that can describe it.

The only real downer about the surgery was that I was grounded for a month. No water-sports, which meant – no kiting. Bollucks! But, the day before my surgery we were grateful to find the wind blowing so we got out and hit it hard.

I even caught Phillip in a nice jump series:

Nailed it!

Since I was benched and the weather was chilly, we decided to buck up and tackle a major project on the boat. One of the most fundamental, visually appealing items. The thing that gives the boat its breathtaking, classic look. I’m talking about the finest material of all, the tree of life, the great provider. THE WOOD.

We had been meaning to do it for quite some time and we had finally run out of excuses. While we will never tire of sailing, having just returned from our big Thanksgiving voyage, we at least had enough of a ‘fill’ to tide us over for a while. And, with no other trips on the agenda until NOLA for Christmas, we knew we would be in town for a few weeks, so we had a perfect window of opportunity. Window of opportunity … Ran out of excuses … To-MAY-to. To-MAH-to.

So, back to the wood. Thankfully, on our boat, we feel we have just enough wood to really accent the classic lines of the Niagara, but not too much to require excessive maintenance. The exterior wood items on our boat consist of the following:

1. Hand rails and eyebrows on the deck that run the length of the cabin:

2. A grate that sits beneath the helmsman’s feet in the cockpit, as well as the cockpit table and drink holder:

3. Teak steps on the swim ladder (six) and a strip beneath the stern rail.

4. And, the companionway passage:

Ahhh … the Dasani bottle transmission fluid catch. You remember those days.

After doing some research and talking with a few of our fellow boat buddies, we decided to go with varnish. Keep it au naturale. While there are some synthetic products out there (Ce tol and the like) that are easier to apply and – reportedly – require less maintenance (i.e., re-application), we wanted to keep the natural beauty and hue of the teak. So, varnish it was. Upon recommendation from friends (and because it was the varnish our previous owner had used on the boat), we went with the Interlux products, specifically Schooner gold.

And, upon recommendation, we also decided to really bite the bullet and apply ten coats. Yes, ten. Assuming good weather and the time (daily) to do it, that translates to roughly one coat a day, so we knew “the wood” was going to be a two-week project, at least. Hence, the delay, and the many excuses.

Some of the items, however (the steps, table, drink holder and grate) we could remove from the boat and bring them back to the condo to prep and varnish, which was nice because we could keep coating them regardless of the weather. But – it also meant our guest bedroom looked like an eighth grade shop class for a few weeks.

Although I think anyone who has owned a boat understands the necessity of a ‘project room.’ I do think we did a pretty nifty job, though, of rigging the steps on a string so we could do a complete coat every time. It was the season, so, instead of stockings, we had steps hanging ‘by the fire with care.’ Thankfully, the guest bedroom/wood shop made the ‘indoor’ items fairly easy to prep and paint on a daily basis.

It was also highly gratifying to put those first few coats on and immerse the soft, dry, sanded wood in a slick, wet coat of varnish.

Ahhhh … shiny, wet wood. Is there anything better?

The wood on the boat, the exterior wood, however, was not nearly as easy. You see, all of the wood had to be prepped first before we could even think of applying any varnish. That meant sanded down completely, every last speck of varnish off, grinded down to soft, bare wood. Every inch of it. The steps and grate and such were fairly easy because we could at least detach them from the boat and sand them by hand. The handrails, eyebrows and companionway on the boat, though, were an entirely different story. Our friend, Bottom-Job Brandon, recommended we use a heat gun to remove the old varnish. Blast the old varnish with a little heat (20 seconds or so) and then it scrapes off pretty easily. Video demonstration here. While the heat gun certainly made it easier, the handrails were a real chore. All those friggin’ nooks and crannies! Me and my bloody knuckles and sore fingers cursed them every step of the way.

And, the more crap you scrape off, the more crap you have to clean up! We broke out the ole’ shizz vac and finally came up with a pretty good routine. Phillip with the heat gun, I with the scraper, and stopping every ten or so minutes to suck up the mess.

We made a day of it, though, and finally got her all sanded and cleaned up. And, then we started coating her!

Psych! You thought it was that easy. Tssk, tssk. It’s never that easy. We spent the next day taping her up for the varnish job. Little blue strips around every stinking hump and pedastal of those handrails, all along the eyebrows, and the stern rail.

But, she was finally ready. Sanded, prepped and primed, dry as a bone, and thirsting for that first wet coat of varnish. All that work, and now we would get the gratifying rush of that first stroke. The wet, slick finish. The wood glistening and glimmering the sun. Can you just imagine it? Smell the varnish? Feel the glossy teak under your fingertips? Smooth as glass?

Good. That’s right where we want you. Just like the wood. Thirsting for it.

More to come!

October 22, 2013 – A Dirty Job

December 6, 2013December 30, 2013anniedike

Actually, I don’t think “dirty” covers it. I need another word. Stick with me and you’ll see what I mean. Delve into our head for a moment, will you?

Yes, that one. The throne. The John. The almighty porcelain God on our boat. Also the one that had decided to stop keeping the shizz in the holding tank where it belongs, but, rather, let it flow back up in the bowl. Some God!

Sad but true. And, unfortunately for us, it meant we were going to have to crack her open and replace her ailing parts. I decided to call in a specialist.

I got a job for you Mike!

With Rowe on board, we donned our special dirty-job apparel,

and set to work. Now, let me teach you a little something about the shizz system on our boat. Here’s a birds-eye view of the layout on our boat:

Here’s where the shizz goes:

Real fancy. And, let’s just appreciate, for a moment, the rockin’ 70’s Hinterhoeller ad where I got this fancy layout:

That is one fine-looking skipper ladies. I’ll bet if you rub his pot belly, it brings good luck.

“Hey Velma. It’s tough standing here at the helm. Why don’t you give my calf a good rub while I hold the wheel.”

That was fun, but back to the shizz. This is the suction tube:

So, let’s think about it. If the suction tube wasn’t holding the shizz back in the holding tank, then where do you think it was holding it? Anyone? Anyone? In the tube! We had a big black tube full of shizz that we had to take off to replace it. Someone had to clean out the tube before we could remove it.

Rowe said “NOOO!!!”

So guess who the job fell to? That’s right. The first mate. I said “How?”

And, Phillip handed me the shop vac.

I hope you’re putting two and two together by now. Yes, that’s it. We did what you’re thinking. We took the shop vac,

stuck it in the toilet,

and sucked the shizz out. And, I wish this was some kind of interactive blog, or a scratch-and-sniff, at least, because I don’t think words can express the glorious smell that emanated from our boat that day. And, as if this job could get any funner, after the sucking was done, then where do you think shizz was? Yep! In the shop vac! Someone then had to clean that out.

Rowe said:

Me?

Damn you Rowe!!

So … I cleaned out the shop vac. (And, do, please, try to imagine the gentle care with which I carried that sloshing thing through the galley, up the companionway stairs, out of the cockpit and up to the dock. I kept imagining the little plastic clamps that held the tank on were going to break and shizz would dump everywhere. Please, do try to vividly imagine!)

With the shop vac purged and the tube cleaned out, we set to work on wrestling that thing off the head, which actually turned out to be a monstrous chore. What did Phillip akin it to? Oh yeah. Like wrestling an anaconda in an airplane bathroom. Something like that. And, I’ll have you know despite the suction wonders of the shop vac, we weren’t able to get all of the shizz out, so some of it was still oozing out while we were twisting and grappling with that stupid hose.

And, I’ll have you further know that yanking and pulling on a ripped, wire-threaded hose is NOT a good way to keep your flimsy, paper-thin vinyl gloves intact. It was inevitable:

“Take that Rowe. You big Nancy!”

I told you it was a dirty job. But, while it seemed the dirty part was over, the hardest certainly was not. It took Phillip and I about two hours to maneuver, tug, pull and curse that damn hose out through the vberth. Phillip was stationed in the bathroom trying to push and shove it through the hole in the cabinet under the sink:

While I was wedged under the mattress in the vberth trying to pull it out on my end:

“Push harder!!”

It was quite the chore. But, we finally got her out!

And, there’s a reason we have a rag shoved in the end. You don’t want any spillage!

After that, it really was a piece of cake. We replaced all of the rubber parts,

gave her nice wipe-down, and

cleaned up the last of the shizz,

Eewww.

Then put her back together, and voila!

And, the new suction tube:

was super sucky in the best kind of way. Everything went right from the toilet to the tank. Sccchllooop! And stayed there!

And, to prove it, I filmed the dumbest video ever to memorialize our monumental feat.

View HERE.

Superstar is right! We had just accomplished the dirtiest job ever, and documented the whole thing for your viewing pleasure. What does Rowe know about entertainment? Despite his lackluster performance, I let Rowe stay, though. Well, because, let’s face it.

The man looks good clean. Am I right, ladies?

September 24, 2013 – A Story About Home Depot

November 22, 2013December 30, 2013anniedike

Friends:

I feel I must tell you a story. It is remotely related to sailing – as the whole purpose of the errand that developed into the story was a trip to the store to pick up boat supplies – you know, duct tape and super glue and other important things. But, more importantly, it is incredibly embarrassing and, therefore, exceptionally entertaining and, correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that is the whole point of this blog, no? To entertain you. So, without further adieu, I give you a story about a girl at Home Depot.

This story begins on an average Tuesday. As I’m sure most of you know, I am an attorney and I found myself on this particular Tuesday sitting happily in court in Bay Minnette on a debt collection matter, awaiting my turn to repo a boat from “some deadbeat” who had stopped paying on the note. Eighteen percent on an $18,000 loan for a used fishing boat? I probably would have stopped paying too. But, he had signed the papers, taken the money and bought the boat. He owed the debt, and I was all set to win. This guy, we shall call him Mr. Detter, was also pro se, meaning unrepresented by counsel, so I didn’t even expect him to show. As I’m sitting in the back of the courtroom with the rest of the good ‘ole boy attorneys telling them tall tales from sea and joking that I couldn’t wait to get back to my boat to make myself a hearty rum drink, the judge calls my case, and the man whom I thought to be just some other attorney sitting behind me stands and straightens his three-piece suit. But it’s not an attorney. It’s Mr. Detter. He’s been there all along, a sheep in wolf’s clothing.

I fumbled, tried to recover, gave him an out-stretched hand and a “Glad you could make it,” to which Mr. Detter responded with a “So you’ve got a boat too.” Nice dig. I swallowed audibly and proceeded with kid gloves. “Your Honor, if it’s not too much trouble, we’d like to take Mr. Detter here’s boat away from him … ” I got the writ of seizure to repo Mr. Detter’s boat, but it was not my finest hour. A great story, in and of itself, but tuck that away for later.

After the hearing, I headed to Home Depot to pick up a few things for the boat before heading back to Pensacola. And, remember, I just came from court, which means I’m wearing a slick back suit, my hair is twisted up in a Queen Elizabeth French twist and I’m clacking around in five-inch heels.

Yes, five. I always wear five-inch heels to court. I like to look my opponents in the eye. I click through the store ignoring every eager, doe-eyed, orange apron-clad employee that tries to help me. “No thank you. I know exactly what I need.” I move swiftly through the store picking up the five things I need: (1) a hose extender so we can shower on the deck; (2) a PVC plumbing fitting to connect the hose extender; (3) an outdoor rug for the dock; (4) a shop vac for obvious reasons; and (5) a look at the outdoor cushions for more material to convert into fun boat accessories. I make these rounds and grab what I need quickly, waving off all assistance from the buzzing orange bees that continue to swarm me at every turn. I get up to the cash register, all ready to check out, load my junk and get home. It’s around 1:00 o’clock.

I pay and fold up my receipt and hoist the shop vac up on my hip with the rest of my bags hanging off me while I continue to refuse help from the orange drones. “No, thank you, I’ve got everything under control here people.” But, I most certainly did not. As I started to head out the door, heaped up like a pack mule, I start fumbling around my pockets and wallet and realize I don’t have my keys. I do not have my keys. You can imagine the exaggerated sigh of exasperation that hissed out of me as I set all of my crap down and started looking around the register, the floor around the cashier, through my bags, etc. I ask the cashier to check around her area several times for a little bunch of keys. The minimalist that I am, I keep my keys on one little ring that clips to my wallet. It looks like this:

And I was looking for those in a store that looks like this:

Like a needle in a haystack. So, I start re-tracing my steps, and I say “start” because I re-traced that path probably ten, twelve, thirteen times before it was all said and done. I head back to the dishwasher accessory department where I got the hose extender. No keys. The plumbing aisle where I got the PVC fitting. No keys. The rug department. No keys. The aisle with the shop vacs. No keys. And, lastly, the outdoor furniture cushions. No keys. Everywhere I went, there were no keys. I re-traced the path three more times and, remember, in my suit and heels, I look about as “in place” as a beauty pageant contestant at a tractor pull. The orange drones, while initially reluctant to help me as I was so welcoming and grateful for their help initially, begin to feel sorry for me and started to swarm in. I tell them I can’t find my keys and soon the entire floor staff knows I’m the blonde that is looking for her keys. It is announced over the loud speaker several times for all employees and customers to keep a lookout for “a woman’s keys.” I’m not sure why the “woman” qualifier was needed there. Perhaps women’s keys look different than men’s keys? If not, and it was simply to emphasize the fact that a man wouldn’t lose his keys at the Home Depot, then it still wouldn’t be needed, am I right? While the “woman’s keys” reference puzzled me, it was repeated over the loud speaker several times over the course of the afternoon. I felt like they were going to accost every new customer that came through the door with a “limited offer” for 20% off their entire purchase if only they would help find this “woman’s keys.”

And, as I continued my repetitive trek through the store, going to the same five places 89.47 times, each time an orange-clad clerk approaches me, the first thing they ask me is:

“Do you remember where you went?” I was asked that question probably twelve times, and by the tenth, I would start to respond with “No … my goodness, no. I have no idea. I’ve just been wondering around the store aimlessly looking in all of the places I did NOT go!” I’ll admit. I was out of patience, irritated utterly with myself and taking it out entirely on the award-winning Home Depot crew. I was making a real scene, turning over boxes, lifting rugs, looking everywhere. No keys. I go out to my car several times thinking maybe I left them in the ignition. No dice. I head back in the store to continue roaming around like an idiot and guffawed with unnecessary exaggeration when the guy in the little booth who makes key copies asked me if there was anything he could help me with. As if he didn’t know me. The blonde, haughty woman who had lost her keys. I decided to humor him out of spite. “Sure, I seem to have lost my keys. Do you think you could help me with that?” To which he responded, completely un-phased, “Of course, ma’am. I can make you a copy. Do you have the original?” I let my face drop visibly before him and just walked away. He wasn’t worth the breath I would waste mocking him. And, don’t even get me started on the cashier who appeared to have the memory of a goldfish. Every time I came back to her, she would look puzzled at the fact that I wasn’t holding merchandise for her to ring up and say “Can I help you?”

Yes, my keys, the keys, a woman’s KEYS! Have you yet found a set of keys or had someone turn in some keys? Do you recall, in any manner, that I am the WOMAN WHO LOST HER KEYS!?!’”

Two hours had now passed with me traipsing through the store, my slick “up” hairdo now shaking out in clumps and my suit jacket reeking of sweat. I decide to get scrappy. I am going to leave here in my car dammnit. I ask the guy in the hardware department if I can borrow a crowbar just for a minute. “I want to break into my car to make sure my keys didn’t fall onto the floorboard as I was stepping out.” Oh, and it may help you to know that I drive an old 2001 Volvo that you have to actually stick the key in the door to UN-lock it and push the button as you’re getting out to lock it.

Meaning, unlike today’s “smart” cars, my car is easily dumb enough to allow me to lock the keys in. The hardware guy looks at me dead pan, not responding initially, and finally telling me he can’t allow me to “borrow” a tool for that purpose. “Okay, fine, I’ll buy it for that purpose. Which of these fine instruments would best serve me to break into my own car, sir?” Realizing I was going to do it regardless, he finally surrenders and hands me an old beat-up crow-bar from behind his counter.

I head out to my car and start pushing and wedging the crowbar between the door and the frame and eventually make a crack that I can slip perhaps a credit card into. I’m struggling and grunting and sweating, and getting nowhere. I throw off my suit jacket in a huff and push a blond clump of hair from my fair when I hear a voice from behind me. “Ms. Dike?” Oh Jesus, what imminently important person could this be witnessing me in the middle of this debacle? I can feel his eyes burning into my back. Whoever it is seems to be gaining a large amount of pleasure from my current state of affairs. I turn around to find the one and only Mr. Detter. Mr. Detter. Really? Yes, really. He is smiling from ear to ear. While I may have been the victor that morning, he was clearly the superior now. But, to his credit, after a few light and well-deserved jabs – “Look who’s in trouble now?” “Resorted to repo’ing them yourself now, huh?.” – Mr. Detter went dutifully to his truck and pulled out a little gismo that looked like a car antennae with a hook on the end. He said he’d used it several times to crack open his wife’s car when she’d locked the keys in. He slipped it through the crack I had wedged and tried mightily to pull the lock up. Mr. Detter and I are out there sweating and heaving (me, in my dress and heels mind you – Mr. Detter apparently had the wherewithal to change into work clothes before heading to the Home Depot) and pulling on my Volvo door when another voice beckons from behind us. “Excuse me ma’am? Sir? Can I ask you what you’re doing?” I close my eyes. Lord, what fresh new hell is this?

It’s the cops, that’s who it is. Yes. A Daphne P.D. Captain Something-or-Other trying to stop two master-mind criminals, Mr. Detter and I, from stealing some good, up-standing citizen’s Volvo. And, you might be thinking, “Okay, she has to be making every bit of this up. Like the cops would really just show up at that moment.” They did, and let me prove it to you – so you will never again doubt the integrity of my stories and the depths to which I will go to entertain you with my misfortunes. The cops came because the Home Depot in Daphne is located right next to the Daphne Police Department. I kid you not:

The whole force must have been sitting in their office, stale coffee and jelly donuts in hand, watching me come out to my car, throw my suit jacket off in protest, and begin breaking into my car with a Home Depot crowbar and, finally, when I solicited the everyday do-gooder, Mr. Detter, to assist me with my dirty deeds, that was it. They had to come investigate. And I’m sure things didn’t sit well initially with Captain Something-or-Other, when I struggled to explain why I was breaking into the car and who Mr. Detter was and why he was helping me. I believe I introduced him initially as “my colleague” which, I agree, sounds sinister. But, thankfully, I think the shear magnitude of my utter mortification began to sink in and the Captain believed I was, in fact, simply trying to break into my own car to find my own keys. Amused by my situation, he decided to pitch in. He broke out his official car breaker-into device and popped my door right open. He had me sign a waiver acknowledging it was, in fact, my own car we had broken into and that I was, thereby, releasing the Department of any liability in connection with his act. Not knowing my occupation and me looking nothing like a put-together lawyer at the time, Mr. Detter got a hearty laugh out of the cop’s explanation to me that “liability” was just a fancy “lawyer word” for fault. “Sign here.”

But, alas, having broken into the car, found no keys and signed my rights away to the Daphne PD, I headed back into the store to once again re-trace my steps through the various departments. The cashier gave me that “Can I help you?” look again as I walked in, and I just held up a hand to her and walked by. With the best of intentions, Mr. Detter asked me, “Do you remember where you went?” to which I responded, “Yes. Electrical. I spent the entire time in electrical. Will you please go check there?” just to shake free of him. And, just as I was about to give up, call Triple AAA or some of my seriously sinister colleagues to hotwire the thing, a dopey orange-clad employee came up to me and asked if I was the “woman looking for her keys.” I stood there dumbfounded for a minute, my hair sweaty and stringy on my neck, my dress smeared with grease and dirt from the crowbar and door jam and, still, the heels (I mean, I had no other shoes), and nodded fervently. “Here you go. Some customer found them in a box of fittings in the plumbing aisle.”

And, there in his meaty paw, were my keys. My keys! Thank the ever-loving stars in heaven! I squealed and gripped him tight in a bear hug that pulled him right off the floor. While I wanted to look in the plumbing aisle where he had found them and figure out how in the hell I had dropped them there, I honestly did not care. I had my keys! My thoughts went immediately to getting the heck out of there. By then, I was nauseous at the sight of the Home Depot and anyone wearing a color remotely resembling orange. I hoisted all of my crap at the register on my hip and jogged out to my car, hoping Mr. Detter wouldn’t see or hear me. Our exchange had already been awkward enough and I didn’t want to endure an equally uncomfortable farewell. I just wanted him off my back. Then, it hit me. My back. I reached back and, sure enough, my dress was unzipped all the way down to my waist. I am not known for owning impeccably-tailored clothes. Rather, I am the type that will squeeze into a dress two sizes two small and strap up the part that won’t zip with some string or ribbon or Velcro flap I’ve created. Or, in this case, I will throw a suit jacket over it because, surely, I won’t have any reason to take my jacket off, will I? Of course not. The entire time I had been man-handling my car, interacting with the doe-eyed Mr. Detter and talking with the cop, my dress had been unzipped all the way down my back with my criss-cross bra blaring out for all the world to see. Something along these lines:

I am just that classy.

But, the best part of this story was, when I came to Home Depot, I was irritated by my embarrassing display in court that morning, annoyed that I had to stop by Home Depot in my heels and work outfit and dreading the drive back to Pensacola after a long morning in court. Now, I was the happiest woman alive. I had my keys! I could crank my car! And, I could drive it and leave the effin’ Home Depot forever. Literally, I have yet to return to the Daphne Home Depot and I don’t think I ever will – the thought sickens me.

I was all smiles and sunshine as I pulled out of the parking lot, three hours after I had pulled in, leaving Mr. Detter behind to dutifully overturn boxes of electrical cords and fittings in search of a “woman’s keys.” I sang every song that came on the radio all the way home. Even sappy eighties love ballads got a peppy treatment – nothing could dampen my mood. It took a sweaty, mortifying afternoon at the Home Depot with Mr. Detter and the Daphne P.D. to teach me if you think your day is going badly, know that it can always get worse.

August 10, 2013 – All Work and (some) Play – Poolside!

November 14, 2013December 30, 2013anniedike

Boat projects were definitely abundant, now that we had the bottom job done on the boat and she was home, tucked safely away in a cozy slip at Palafox Pier:

We found a great slip at the very end, protected by a sea wall on one side with a floating finger dock on the other, and it’s just a short jump out into the Bay:

While tossing the lines and jumping out in the bay is definitely always a better alternative, we had a growing list of things we needed to do to the boat to ready her for some real cruising this winter. We started it the day of the Survey/Sea Trial many moons ago and it always seemed to be growing.

Full list HERE.

I could go into laborious detail (trust me, the projects were plentiful – I told you, owning a boat is a lot of work!) but let’s get a condensed version, shall we? Over the course of the summer, amidst anchorages, sunset sails and other fun outings, Phillip and I did the following to the boat:

Changed out the batteries:

If you recall, the batteries (which were already about 3-4 years old) ran completely down when the boat was unplugged in Carabelle. As our buddy Kevin had warned us and he ended up being right (hate when that happens!), the complete run-down did have a devastating effect on the batteries. They were never able to fully recover and truly hold a charge after that, so we had to slap four new ones in. Not cheap! But, thankfully, in exchange for exactly 3.5 beers, Bottom-Job Brandon helped us get them in and wired up.

We also cleaned up the wiring in the electronics panel and put in a new bus bar to reduce the number of connections on each terminal:

We fixed the leak at the base of the mast by injecting silicone in/around the bolt heads and re-taping the boot cover:

I got a little crafty again with some inexpensive fabrics from a place that rhymes with Schmal-Mart and made a cover for the power cord and fenders:

Now you see that hideous yellow cord …

Now you don’t … Cord-WOW!

That thing was a beast to wrestle though. I tangled with that 50-foot anaconda for three days:

The fender covers were much easier:

(And, yes, this was all crafted with my trusty hot glue gun and stapler. I love my Swingline!)

“Haa … have you seen my stapler?”

To up the “bling” factor, we polished all of the metal through-out:

And, last but not least, we replaced some gaskets in the coolant system on the engine:

Yes, some days on the boat look like this. It’s not all rainbows and sunshine. And, it’s not spacious either. To get this job done, I had to cram down into the engine room on the boat. A nice series of me crawling out of this dirty, grimy hole (through a tiny opening in the aft-berth) will help you truly appreciate the tightness of these quarters:

Where’s Annie?

There she is! Now c’mon out Annie!

Uggh …. Grunt …

I now know why they call it aft-berth! That’s about what it felt like – trust me.

But, thankfully, every time we spent a hot sweaty afternoon doing chores on the boat, we always ended it with a dip in the pool by our slip.

We can even see the top of our mast from the pool:

That way, we can sip pinot gris pool-side comfortably knowing she’s at least still up-right and floating. And, speaking of, I have to mention our Cup-WOW wine glasses that also sit up-right and float in the pool.

I mean, could there be a better invention? Wooowwww!!

And, the best part is, letting the glass float around in the pool helps warm up too-chilly white wines because the water is pretty warm. Not for that reason. I never do that in pools! I’m always afraid they’re going to have that secret blue dye that will show up and I’ll be feverishly swishing a cloud of blue water toward the old guy next to me with the rubber duckie floatie pointing at him with a face of total disgust. I never pee in pools! (At least not without conducting a little squirt dye test first!).

So, with our boat chores done (for the moment at least), our mast upright and our wine perfectly warmed, we enjoyed many-a-lazy afternoon by the pool, which usually progresses in this manner:

Read …

Relax …

ZZZZZZZ …….

Working on boats is hard!

July 25, 2013 – Chair WOW!

November 12, 2013December 30, 2013anniedike

Now you see it:

Now you don’t:

And, the Sham-WOW guy says:

“Incredible, right?”

“That IS incredible,” says his infomercial sidekick, the infamous Bob. “ I can’t believe it. Where did it go? Tell me more Shamson!”

Certainly Bob.

You see, while the Chair-Wow may look like a regular old, fold-up camping chair, once you start hacking away on it, you’ll find it’s actually an incredible resource for many handy boat accessories, such as:

A life sling cover for your stern rail:

Ooooohhh ….

A boot cover for your mast:

Ahhhhhhh ….

A pocket pouch for the solar panel of your cockpit lights:

Wooooowwwww!

That’s right, the Chair-Wow is an incredibly versatile resource for boat accessories. And, for only $6.95 (or four easy payments of $1.73!) you too can acquire the Chair-Wow at your local Home Depot or other outdoor furniture store and make all of these handy, colorful, home-made UV-protectant covers and pouches yourself.

Thanks Shamster!

Pretty nifty, right? That lady at the fabric store (who tried to sell me outdoor UV material for $45/yard – pssshhh!) just didn’t know how crafty I could get with a camping chair and a hot glue gun.

UV covers … done!

Next project please?