kevin cook – Have Wind Will Travel

Not much. What’s up with you?

Ha ha! Again, I write the blog. I get to include corny jokes (and laugh at them) if I want to. It’s my party. Be glad you were invited.

I got some very good guesses on the immigrant-smuggling, wine-toting, big, honkin’ backpack of a gift. Kudos to those of you who wagered a guess. The prize will have to go to my most faithful-of-followers, Casey, who fancied the backpack housed an inflatable dinghy. While it wasn’t a dinghy per se, as you all know, we had to hack our dinghy clean off the davits in the middle of the Gulf Crossing to save the boat (http://havewindwilltravel.com/2013/06/24/april-17-23-2013-the-crossing-chapter-five-a-harrowing-debacle/), so this gift did, actually, become our new “dinghy.” 500 points to you Casey.

It was an inflatable stand-up paddle board!

Yeah buddy! That’s what’s SUP!

Because you only live once, right? Phillip ordered it through Kevin Cook with Coastal Paddle Company (http://www.coastalpaddlecompany.com/), a good friend and our local, self-proclaimed “Ambassador of Adventure.”

Gotta love that.

Phillip picked me out a beautiful blue 10 footer that (conveniently) packs down into the stylish black backpack you saw me sporting. Complete with a break-apart paddle:

It’s super light and strong and snaps into action the minute I’m ready to hit it! Like nunchucks:

But WAY cooler!

The compactable board and paddle were perfect for storing on the boat, and, since we were dinghy-less at the moment, it was due to serve as our “makeshift” dinghy until we got a new one.

But, a new dinghy was mighty far down on the list of boat projects while she was up on jacks at the shipyard. We needed to get started on any and all projects that could only be done while she was out of the water. One of which was putting the new name on the back. While we were certainly fond of Foxfire, Phillip had apparently been dreaming of someday getting a sailboat and calling it Plaintiff’s Rest since he was in college. Seriously, one of Phillip’s old college buddies guessed that’s what we’d call her before I even told him, saying “Phillip’s been babbling about Plaintiff’s Rest since the good ole’ days.” Boys and their boats …

So, I set to work on it, sketching out some potential logos for the name:

I know. Kind of blows your mind how good they are. I got some mad skills. At least that’s what my teacher told me when I won the “arts & crafts” medal at the local Funfest back in 1988!

I was kind of a big deal.

Alright. I’m kidding. I certainly was more of a rough-and-tumble type kid than an arts-and-crafts one. That medal was for rocking it in the potato sack race. Uh-huh, that’s right!

So, graphics and doodles aside, we decided to just go with text, no images.

I think it was the right call. It just looks cleaner. Better. Not as busy. But, the next step was finding someone to print the design and apply it to the back of the boat. I started making calls. Most folks quoted me around $500 to print the logo and apply it. Ouch! Have I mentioned how expensive boats are? A time or two? Well, it bears repeating. But, thankfully, I finally got a gal on the phone from DigitalNow (http://www.digitalnow.net/) who said she could print the logo for around $75, then (with a wink a smile): “Darlin, you can stick it on yourself with a little soap and a credit card.”

You’re darn right I can!

It sounded like a Dasani-and-duct tape kind of job to me. My favorite! I was all over it. We put in the order and headed on down to the ship yard to check on our boat.

It was a bit of a disturbing sight to see her propped up on stilts, her bottom dry as a bone and and all scuffed up and sanded in patches.

She looked so uncomfortable. Like a dog on the vet’s table.

“This is not going to end well for me.”

But, we knew it was for the best. She was definitely in need of a bottom job. When we got there, Brandon had already started sanding her down and working on some of the blisters.