We’ve come home to Indian Harbour Beach FL; I’ve got doctors to see and medical tests to take. The heat of Fort Lauderdale got to me and I spent a night in Broward County Emergency getting back from dehydration and a low sodium condition. Since my hospitalization, I’ve been experiencing problems with my vision. My vision is about 30% of what it used to be. I cant see well enough to drive or to read all of the stuff you need to understand how to function. This could be a deal changer as My disabilities make me question whether I am fit enough for The future that I have chosen. It is frightening to consider my frailty and I feel very vulnerable. I have fought myself through, around, under and over so many obstacles to get this far, it seems silly to get defeated by heat. So, next week, doctors and tests.
One of the things that you experience when you decide to live aboard your boat is the intimacy of the experience. Bear makes water from the AC and this water flows to the bilge where it is pumped overboard by the automatic bilge pumps. When the bilge pump starts it’s always a what’s that sound moment. While it is comforting when the bilge pump cycles on, it is more comforting when it cycles off signaling that it has completed its task successfully. I have a friend who had a bilge pump reinstalled incorrectly so that to pumped the ocean into the boat rather than out of the boat. He lost his boat when the pump never didn’t stop pumping. I like to hear my bilge pump turn off. and I know that I am not sinking.
You also get intimate with your water supply and power systems but the system that that I resent intimacy with is my waste system.
When my ancestors settled Huron County in Ontario Canada, every farm had an out house which was little more than a bard with a hole in it over a deep pit to catch the waste. According to my Grandmother, the women of the day took pride in operating a sweet smelling out house. I think that was the application of lie to the waste that neutralized the smells. At any rate, the heads on BEAR all smell and there are three of them. We’ve had moderate success keeping the smells at bay with head cleaner and bactericides. All three heads are manual and require hand pumping to move your waste into the holding tanks. This pumping demands an intimacy that I find obnoxious. Coming home to flush toilets. pushed me over the edge and I have ordered electric heads to replace some of the manual heads on board.
120 miles East of me, (I’m in Indian Harbour Beach FL), a tropical storm is brewing; it’s supposed to develop into one of the first storms of this years hurricane season. Although BEAR is in a safe hurricane hole, way up the New River in Fort Lauderdale, she needs to be able to be moved and to that end, she needs a full service to her engines. We got new dock lines and fenders and we can now double up lines and fenders if things get dicy. Captain Bruce is on call if we can’t get back to Bear when a storm hits. I still worry and the burden of my boats safety returns. We have workers aboard who know about boats and who should notice if anything is aerie.