October 4, 2013 – The Heat is Hot!

For those of you who don’t know.  “The heat” is the cops, the po-po, the 5-Oh.  In our case, the Pensacola Police Department.

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And, they were on us.  It all happened during our trip to the Big City.  That’s right.  Chatahoochee, FL.  Jeepers, what a town!  I’m kidding.  The real big city.  NYC.

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I had never been and, yes, I imitated the Pace Picante commercial repeatedly in the weeks before the trip and actually exclaimed “Jeepers!” several times while I was there—at least three times after we saw The Book of Mormon.

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That show was super nifty.   Check it out.  An incredibly entertaining and insanely accurate ‘poke’ at religion.  I highly recommend it.  I also recommend, if you find yourself in that bubbling metropolis of humanity, that you buy a greasy foodcart product – a hotdog, some empanadas or any kind of poultry on a stick (it doesn’t matter which, as I believe they all originate from the same non-mammal meat product), sit on a bench and just watch the people.  An equally entertaining and insanely accurate ‘poke’ at people.  Here are some highlights:

Bar hag roaming through Times Square:

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Wanda was right, this sharp shooter belt buckle really does make me look skinny.

 Jersey Shore trainer at Bryant Park.

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“Ummm-huh.  Just like that Becky.  Hold that position for me.”

 Band of brothers at the bar:

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Dude, I’m serious.  It goes from this hand to the other. 

The real Toy Story:

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“You’re right Spidey, Buzz does smell like plastic.”

Oh, we seemed to come across this excitable blonde – at the Bull:

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I mean, really?  It’s just a bronze bull.  And that “grab life by the horns thing” had totally been overdone.

We also found her at the top of 30 Rock (beautiful view!)

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The city, not the blonde (although Phillip took a real liking to her):

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Oh, but we did come across a real-life excitable blond at the airport:

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Please tell me you recognize her immediately (as Phillip did not).  No?  Let me give you a hint:

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The one and only – Hayden Panetiere.  Her and Beyonce’s long-lost cousin rocked that flick!  I totally accosted her at the airport.  Super celeb sighting in my book.  But, enough about that great big city — back to the boat.

So, we had been planning this trip to NYC for a couple of months and, as it just so happens, that damn Tropical Storm Karen was set to roll in just as we were set to leave.  Seriously.  This was the predicted path:

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The one weekend we had planned to travel, not by boat, and the jilted wench set her sights directly on our slip it seemed.  The storm really put a damper on our pre-travel excitement.  The night before we left, we spent the entire evening tying and re-routing extra lines (we even latched her to city property!), fastening extra chafe guards, taking down the dodger (to reduce wind surface) and strapping and re-strapping the sail covers, so they wouldn’t blow off.

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We used pieces of firehose some sailing buddies have given us as chafe guards for the dock lines:

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With the boat as secure as we could get her, we refreshed the storm tracker every five minutes during the flight and kept checking with folks back in Pensacola to see how the storm was progressing on the home-front.   Bottom-Job Brandon and our broker-friend Kevin had offered to go by the dock on occasion to check on the old Rest.  Initially, we were getting good reports.  Winds of 25-30 mph only and no storm surge yet.  But the storm was predicted to hit on Saturday night, October 5th, and it was only Wednesday.

That Friday afternoon, Phillip and I were making our way to the FlatIron building—a wine, a beer and two incredibly succulent Shake Shack burgers under our belt:

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When Phillip checked his phone and noticed two messages from the office and one from a neighbor back home.  Odd.  He decided he better see what was going on, so we parked it on a bench near the infamous building while he returned the calls.

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His neighbor told him a Pensacola police officer had stopped by looking for him, but he would not “disclose his business.”  Odd-er.  At the office, Phillip’s receptionist reported that a cop (presumably the same—a distant cousin to the Captain Mulrooney who accosted me at the Home Depot in Daphne I’m sure) had come by the firm, asking to speak with “Mr. Warren” but again declining to reveal why he had such a pressing need to speak with the Captain.  Thankfully Phillip’s receptionist is inquisitive and scrappy and wouldn’t let the cop leave without coughing up a calling card.   Phillip joked that it was a good thing he’d left town, because apparently the “heat was hot” in Pensacola!  They were on his six!

Back in NYC, Phillip punched in the detective’s number and spoke with a raspy, chain-smoking bloke, Sergeant So-and-So, who told him the detective was out of pocket at the moment, but that he and the Detective had gone to his house and office that day trying to talk to him about his boat.

About his boat. 

And that was “all he could disclose.”  Disclose!  I was so sick of hearing that word.  As if when a cop has something to say, it no longer becomes “tell” it magically transforms into the utterly important “disclose.”  Ooohhh.  But, we did learn it was “about the boat.”  A sickening thought when we had a tropical storm rolling in we were half-a-continent away.  I imagined the boat had come undone, knocked half the dock out and had ended up speared through the million dollar catamaran in the next slip over.  A sickening thought let me assure you.  Phillip thought they were calling about the lines we had tied to the city rails, thinking they were going to—or worse, they already had—untied them to preserve city property during the storm, which meant the boat would be free to rock and sway violently and crash into the seawall most likely, which was no better than my vision.  We wandered around the park in New York listlessly, toes nudged in the ground, staring sternly at Phillip’s phone and thinking the worst while we were waiting for Detective Whazzisname to call us back.  I cannot disclose to you how worried we were.

May 28, 2013 – Happy Haul-Out!

So, in the early morning hours of May 28, 2013 (kind of a BIG day for me: http://havewindwilltravel.com/2013/08/29/may-23-2013-the-crossing-finale-oysters-and-beer/), I’d like to say I woke up, went down to the boat and spent all morning with her, steaming up of coffee in one hand, oily rub rag in the other, like a true old salt, feeling at one with the boat, the bay and the bitter-sweet ways of a life at sea.   Ahhhh ….. 

Old salt

http://elmuertoquehabla.blogspot.com/2011/06/el-viejo-y-el-mar.html

Minus the beard, of course.

But that’s not what happened.  We had been at sea for five days, which means?  You guessed it.  More time away from work.  I’ve already told you how expensive boats are.  We had to get back to the daily grind.  So, I went to work.  At an office, with unflattering florescent lighting and stale coffee and copiers …

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You’re right Javier.  You do make the best copies!

Boy was that a wake-up call.  After the best sail or our lives, work felt like a slap in the face with a cold, dead fish.  Smack!   But, I mustered through while Phillip and his Dad and the infamous Mitch (he really is a good friend) took the boat to the Pensacola Shipyard so she could be hauled out to have her bottom work done.

Roll that fabulous footage:

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“Watch that dock Paul!  We don’t want a scratch on her!”

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“Careful now boys!  She’s expensive!”

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You’ll notice she was still Foxfire at the time.  Having the new name put on was part of the bottom job that needed to be done.

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There she comes!

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I have to say, every time I see her come out of the water like this, her “bottom” all exposed for everyone to see, I feel like she’s showing her undergarments or something.  Like she should cross her legs and blush as if the wind blew her skirt up.

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“Oh my … what a terrible, terrible, yet highly profitable mistake for me to have stepped on this air vent like I did … ”  

But, you see, Marilyn just happened to have some little matching white hot pants on underneath her billowy white dress that fateful night.  Classy lady?  Or well-planned?  My guess is the latter.  Because I’ll tell you, not every woman would happen to be wearing such showy undergarments when the wind blows up her bottoms.  I’ll tell you what some of us got under there.

Spanx

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BV-Aw4L0B-M

That’s right.  Spanx.  I said it.  Some of us are afraid of what might come “popping out” (Melissa McCarthy is my hero!) if we don’t suck it all in with those magic stretchy wonders.  And, I’ll tell you, Bullock was lucky, because it’s the not-so-embarrassing nude-color ones that sell fast, leaving the rest of us left to scrounge through the plus-size, leprechaun green and neon blue leftovers.

I had to settle for the flaming pink pair:

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“Whoa Nelly!”

But I digress …

The boat was hauled out, her “bottom” exposed for all the world to see, and the boys (and hairy women) at the ship yard set to work, getting her propped up on jacks in the yard so they could get to painting and sanding her.

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Lord it scares me to see her being transported around in that thing.  I keep imagining one of those big fat straps snapping and the boat crashing to the pavement, her keel cracking clean off.  Uhhhh … like a parent watching their kid take off on a bike without training wheels for the first time, except WAY more important.  For the most part, kids heal for free, or at least just at the price of a Band-aid and a “kiss to make it all better.”  Although I don’t think that would work on the boat, I would certainly fall to the pavement and cover her in both all the same.

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But the boys at the shipyard did a great job getting her all secured.  Apparently, they’ve done it a time or two.

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Our broker-turned-friend, Kevin, had recommended we use Brandon Hall with Perdido Sailor to do the bottom work.  http://www.perdidosailor.com/.  Brandon is actually the one we called when our surveyor found the potential leak in the core when she was hauled out for the sea trial, and he was able to give us a rough estimate of the potential repair over the phone that we then used to negotiate the price down.  Certainly a good man to have in your corner.  And, like most boat people, he’s just a great guy, super knowledgeable about all things sailboat and willing to come help with any project, so long as we offer him a beer or three.  That’s pretty much standard “code” anyway.  “Hey man.  Want to come have a beer on the boat?” pretty much means I’ve got a project I could use your help with, and well, let’s just say, we’ve kept the boat fully-stocked with beer provisions since we parked her in Pensacola, and Brandon has helped out with many a-project.

So, with the boat propped up safely in the yard, we started making a fat list of all the things we wanted to do to her while she was out of the water: repair the suspected core leak, check and repair, if necessary, all the through holes and sea cocks, polish all the brightwork, have the name put on the back, etc.  As is always the case with boats – there’s always plenty to do.

But, it was still a special day for you-know-who.  That’s right, the big THREE-ONE (God, I’m old!) and Phillip the Magnificent had planned an exceptional dinner for us that evening: succulent filet topped with lobster tail along with lobster rissoto and (my favorite) sauteed spinach.  We, of course, started with a bread and olive oil course:

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Paired with an exquisite GSM blend.

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And then threw the steaks on the grill.

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I mean, really?  Is there anything this man can’t do?  I am one lucky girl.  Trust me, I know.

He even managed (amid all of our planning, packing and provisioning for the last leg of the Crossing) to surprise me with a gift.

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So, what say you?  A roll-up picnic in-a-bag?  A handy ruck-sack for us to backpack across Europe?  A durable bag to transport dead bodies?  Or smuggle illegal immigrants across the border for a little extra dough, perhaps?

I fancy your thoughts.  Give me your best guess.