Here There Be Mermaids!

I’ve gotten a few inquiries as to ‘what’s going on?’, and it has been awhile since I posted last.   To cut a long story very short,  we’ve been having to adjust our expectations about this venture,  and it’s a harder adjustment than we thought.

Things were not as simple as we originally thought.  Our plans were to be in the water by now,  and moored in Gloucester Harbor.  But there is much more work to be done to get Gabrielle ready for sailing,  and some of it has my frustration level boiling over.

Item (past):  We removed every bit of wiring from O Be Joyful in order to replace with proper materials and specs.  It took a long time (over a year, admittedly much of that time for planning and research) to install new batteries, circuit panels, wiring, etc.  We were fortunate to have land based living arrangements during that time.

Item (now):   Gabrielle needs a new circuit panel,  which means all the (un-labelled) wiring will need to be sorted out, disconnected,  and the new panel installed WHILE WE ARE LIVING ABOARD.  I’m still trying to figure out exactly how to do this.  In addition,  her battery bank is marginal-  we can make do, but it will be less than optimal.

Item (past):  While we were living aboard O Be Joyful,  we developed a leak in the original 100 gal. water tank (very poor quality steel and welding from the original construction).  We pulled the tank and installed two heavy duty polyethylene tanks, and all new fittings.

Item (now):  While trying to clean out the foul smell from our water tank on Gabrielle,  we discovered that she’d had a rubber compound patch painted over the leaks in her original water tank.  Those patches had failed,  and we had the nastiest (bilge) water you can imagine coming out of our taps.   So we’ve ordered the same poly tanks and fittings,  and we’re going to re-do THAT whole job again.

Item (past): O Be Joyful’s refrigeration was shot.  We took off the countertops, ripped out all the nasty old insulation, and rebuilt with new insulation, new refrigeration components, new countertops, etc.  That took a LONG time as well.

Item (now):  Gabrielle’s refrigeration is shot…

(pause for short break)

 

 

 

OK,  we’re back, and I only wept a little bit in the interim.

I want to be clear,  I’m not posting this as any sort of whiny, “Poor Us” sort of thing.  We knew there would be challenges when we got here,  and here they are.  And, we long ago chose this sort of life (DIY,  no debt, trust that Universe will provide for what we need), and we still believe that is our path to a happy, satisfactory life.

But I’d be less than honest with you all if I told you I was happy with what we have in front of us.  O Be Joyful was our training ground,  and so much of what we have to do now is things we have already done- that’s a big plus.  In many ways,  the research and learning is the steepest part of the curve, and really, my favorite part of the process.  But honestly,  I really don’t want to do these jobs all over again.  The fun has all run out.  And that is a big drag on our momentum.

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So, way back when I was in school in San Marcos, in the summer of ’74, my roommate and I had a job doing land clearing work for our neighbor, Mr. Waldron.  He was a pleasant older guy,  who would pull his truck up in front of our house at 6:45 am, and roust us out (we were generally  in some sort of disrepair,  usually hungover to some degree).  He would cheerfully knock on our front door, and holler, “C’mon boys,  it’s time to grab a root and growl!”

As much as I disliked that as a wake-up call,  the phrase made me smile, then and now.  And it puts me in mind of this song.   Just substitute “Gabrielle” for “Mary Ellen Carter”,  and you’ll know where I’m at.  Pay attention to the final verse.

“Turn to”, indeed…

 

So, after our initial joy at arriving,  and then an immediate “Holy fck, what have we done?!” reaction,  we are starting to settle in.  I won’t lie-  our first reaction when we moved aboard was… not positive.  I could write a book about why that was, but really,  it was about our expectations.

We arrived with the expectation of spending a week or two loading our stuff onboard the boat,  tweaking a few mechanical odds and ends, and then sailing off to a beautiful New England cruise.

Phtttt.  Stupid us.

There is much more to do than we expected.  And to be honest, it was heartbreaking at first when we realized what needs to be done.  Things that I already had rebuilt on O Be Joyful will be needed to be rebuilt on Gabrielle.

And for me,  I discovered a new form of sorrow in the “It’s Not The Same As I Was Used To!” category.  I’m smart enough to know that moving into a new space is going to present different challenges, but damned if I didn’t freak out because I didn’t have the same drawer to store my restaurant industry sized roll of plastic wrap. That was one of many mini freak-outs.

I want to acknowledge and thank my eldest son Brad for, when I was bending his ear with all these major issues, telling me, “Dad, Those are a bunch of White People Problems.”

He’s exactly right. When I look at where we are,  and what we are doing, and what we will be doing soon… yeah,  White People Problems.

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I just want to make a special note about something that we are experiencing here-  I don’t think I’ve ever experienced the same level of warmth, cheerfulness, helpfulness, and friendliness from a bunch of people than what we are seeing.  It is almost overwhelming.  The guys in the boatyard could not be more helpful,  and cheerful to boot.  On the street,  if you’re a pedestrian,  drivers will slam on their brakes and flash their lights to give you right of way.  We had a flat tire last week, and the guy at the tire shop apologized because it would be more than half an hour before he could change our tire.

Kate and I have exhausted the phrase, “Dang! They’re so FRIENDLY!”.

We’re really starting to like it here.

Poetry is the art of transcribing emotions into language. The Welsh people are known for having poetic souls.

Hiraeth is a word from their language …

This is our reality, for now.

As much as we’d like to be sightseeing tourists here in Gloucester/Salem, we’ve got way too much to do in a too short period of time.  Here’s the deal: Continue reading “Too Much Stuff!”

This is us- on our new home, “Gabrielle”!

Too excited to post more, we’ll fill you in in a day or two as our living situation details come into focus (although we already spoke to the boat yard manager and he said we could live aboard in the yard!).

Time to celebrate!

Livin’ on the road my friend, was supposed to make you free and clean,

But now you wear your skin like iron,

And your breath’s as hard as kerosene…  

Townes Van Zandt

“Pancho and Lefty”

I can’t really say our skin’s like iron,  nor our breath like kerosene,  but the road is taking it’s toll on us.   It’s ironic,  because we have really just now gotten into a rhythm of travelling-  starting, stopping, packing, unpacking, etc.

And if we were planning to continue this way for some undetermined time,  we could make it work.  But we’re getting antsy to make our way to our new home, and start settling in.  We want to begin our new routines for daily life.

To that end,  we are going to forego any major sightseeing we might have been considering,  and make a three day push for Salem.  (See the “Where We Are” page for routing details)

So this blog will most likely go dark for a little while,  unless some fantabulously cool thing comes across our path.   And once we get to the new boat,  we’ll shift from ‘travel commentary’ to ‘This is Our New Life’ commentary.

See you then!

*** I don’t want it to sound like we are miserable-  the seafood here in Maryland and Delaware is FANTASTIC.  We had the best crabcakes we’ve ever eaten last night,  and the oysters at lunch yesterday were unbelievably good.  And the black drum filet.  And the scallops.  Soft shell crab sandwich for lunch today!

Poor us!

Although I pride myself on writing a nice narrative of our goings-on,  there’s been too much going on to do it all justice- I’d be up till dawn writing,  and STILL it would not be enough.

So we’re going to have to make do with pictures,  and captions, and some commentary along the way.  See below… Continue reading “(North) Carolina on My Mind”

I’m going to get caught up here and now, and hopefully post “in real time”,  or at least, “in real time + a day or two” from now on.  To that end,  here is a quick summary of the last week.

We left Chicago and headed back west to Minnesota-  we had wisely left our trailer there,  and because of the blizzard, we had missed visiting with a lot of Kate’s family.  Since the whole purpose of this road trip is visiting family,  we had to go back.

Here’s a list of the family we got to visit:  You’ve already met Ma (Phyllis) Wodash;  then there’s Jane and Lon, Lisa, Trent, Maddie, Jackson, and new baby Lincoln;  John; Tom, Deb, and Olivia;  Chrissy, Dean, Amanda, Abby and Kenny;     <pause for breath>       Maggie and Andrew;  Steve and Jill…  ok, that takes care of Kate’s siblings, their spouses,  and most of their spawn.  There are a few missing spouses, nieces and nephews from that core group- we missed Sylvia, Jonica, Savannah and Mikayla;  LeighAnne, Arturo, and Emilia;  Laura and her fiance Justin;  Aaron, Stephanie, Landon, twins Daveny and Dominic and their new sister Nora.  That takes care of the nuclear family.   

And there are all the related nieces and nephews-  Todd and Christina and baby Bjorn,  Brad and Niki and Zack, Leo, and Hudson,  Alex and Zack and Eloise… probably more, but my memory is shot at this point.  Folks,  I am not making this up.  I told you Kate had a big clan.

We had a great time-  I feel very lucky to be an addition to this bunch.

But I have to say,  the highlight of the return to Minnesota was helping Dean unload and install his chickens.

 

I don’t know what he would have done without me.  If this boat thing doesn’t work out,  I might move back to Minnesota and become a chicken farmer.  With a mentor like Dean,  what could go wrong?

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So with Minnesota in the rear view mirror,  we have spent a couple of days crossing the plains to Asheville NC.  We didn’t make it there tonight as planned- we are crashing in Knoxville TN,  crossing the Smoky Mountains tomorrow in daylight- I don’t want to miss that.  My cousin Lacey has a weekend  camping trip planned for…somewhere in the Smoky Mtns.  Look for a photo heavy post later next week.

Cheers!

 

Yikes!  It’s been two weeks since I posted last-  being on the road seems to rearrange one’s priorities.   For those of you who have emailed wondering where we are,  we’ll try to post more regularly- we’ve still got another three weeks on the road before we get to the boat in Salem.

Much has happened since The Great April Blizzard Of 2018.   The roads were pretty clear the next day,  sun was out, snow was melting,  and we drove a short day (5 hrs) into… another blizzard.  We stopped in Trempeleau Wisconsin,  on the Minnesota/Wisconsin border- thick heavy wet snow that clung to tree branches (pretty!) and created icy slush on the road (terrifying!).

Trempeleau is a pretty little town right on the Mississippi River.  We stayed here two years ago during the summer,  and were surprised to find out that the “hill” behind the inn where we were staying is actually an ancient Native American mound,  built over 1000 years ago as a sun worship site.   There was too much snow to go up there this time,  but if you ever have a chance to visit here,  check it out-  there’s interpretive signage showing how they built this impressive mound, one basketful of dirt at a time.  It’s fascinating, and the view of “Ol’ Man River” below is incredible.

Here’s a view from the Inn:

Continue reading “Aaand We’re Back”