PHASE IX (THE CRUISE OF ’13)
February 8, 2013
Some folks consider sailors a bit weird and if having a dill pickle and strong coffee at 0430 whilst attempting to type in the dark is a bit off normal, then methinks I might be a candidate. After getting the good news that all of the tests Bear endured have indicated we are not in line, at least yet, for some knarley medical future, we are looking forward to climbing back aboard and resuming the cruise. At one point a few weeks ago, we (I)were actually working on contingency plans to find Why Knot a good home and quit the sea. We were saturated with medical tests with no results. That is behind us and the go box is in place for those walk by deposits leading up to the voyage.
Speaking of the go box, it has evolved over the past nearly four years. Initially, we loaded WK to the gunnels with so much stuff that the boot stripe separating bottom paint from the topside colors went under water about an inch or so. Even monkeys learn sooner or later and we now know that we do not need a year’s supply of anything if we stay with our present cruising ideas. The go box has gotten much smaller as a result. We both stop by it during the run up and add or remove stuff, sometime unannounced to the ship mate. Consequently, on the other end of that now 1,600 mile drive one or the other of us might find the favorite dooderflam did not make the trip. So, the go box is a dynamic, informal bit of luggage the contents of which is never known until unloaded. More than a few times I have left something ordered just for WK in the barn. The good news is that WK floats higher and now I am thinking about moving the boot stripe down during her spring quick haul.
Scurv had acquired a bad habit: bone chewing. I am talking about his enthusiastic habit of consuming large cow bones. That poses a bit of a dilemma since said bones cannot be good for the sole of the boat nor the feet at zero dark thirty. Besides that, he buries them time and again in the yard and there will be no place on the boat to do that except under cushions and bedding.
Although this next phase is IX, we will call it the cruise of 2013 due to the extended break we have taken. Maybe a new name will help keep the bad things away.