How cold is it? Well I"ll tell ya; the 1/4 mile hike to the head is a good example in sub zero weather! Upon arriving at the privy and gaining entry either to relieve ones self or to do the cleansing thing.

In the first scenario merely exposing the wing ding is tantamount to what some economists refer to as diminishing returns because that's exactly what happens to the noodle as it shrinks up to pre-puberty days or retreats to origins not seen since the womb after tuning a ghostly white.. Having shrunk to the size of a mustard seed one pinches what ever is left in hopes of the ensuring stream doesn't solidify before reaching the urinal due to arctic like conditions.

And heaven forbid one has to dump some ballast cause this is an experience of temporal shift. This is where having dropped the proverbial drawers exposing ones self to a sudden rush of frigid air; lowering the posterior end to the receptacle below is akin to planting a lip lock on a block of dry ice! Now that's Butt Cold! However I have it on good authority that this puckering experience is worse for the more genteel persuasion of the opposite sex. All because the stupid port is too cheap to heat the Privey. At this immediate juncture in time as the butt cheeks contact with essentially a block of dry ice the anus beats feet to make a hasty retreat and retracts up into the bowels for self preservation and refuses to cooperate. By now all the blood has left the lower extremities of the body and regaining ones posture in an upright position is next to impossible; generally involving grabbing the hand rail and the TP dispenser to lift your trunk up.

In the second past/present case is the questionable sanity of jumping into a liquid sauna just to step out into what is akin to a polar refrigerator with a wet head where the hair atop of it turns to icicles. This act of tom foolery brings to mind to famed Polar bear splash at Alki whose participants have nothing on the fool hearty pirates that perform this daunting feat on a regular basis or at least once a week! (one can only hope) Next comes the mad dash in your skivvies an 1/8 of a mile back to the confines of the boat on the equivalent of an ice skating rink called the dock.

On another fun note we had a complete power failure Sunday; permit me to elaborate. The day before captin' wifey exclaimed upon my return from walking salty dog that "the breaker tripped". Humm looking around all seemed to be well, mental note to self, mention this to the sparky dude I've been supporting lo these past few months next time I see him in the parking lot.

Sooo O'dark thirty (5:00 AM) Sunday morning I"m sleeping off a hang over as usual when I'm awakened by captin' wifey, holding above all things a flash light. Picture I'm being shaken and told all the power is out! I ask what did you do? I only turned on the coffee pot honest!she says. I roll out of bed naked as a jay bird and half asleep with said light source in hand and proceed to the nav station where the amp meters are. There I discover yep all is dark; flipping switches to no avail I get my slippers on and cover my body for a jaunt to the shore power box to check the connection. Up and down the dock looks like I'm the only one without power, not a good sign. Strike two. Try the inverter, no such luck. Strike three. Now the temps inside the boat were hovering around the 65* mark when I got up but were dropping fast.

Well better contact Mr Sparky tho I was inclined to forgo this as it would destroy my illusion, after the first week of the month that I wouldn't have to pour more $$ into the boat; as this call would likely cost me at least a boat buck! At 5:30 on a Sunday morning I'm thinking he won't be up for two hours yet and will probably go to church so it could be several hours before he sees the text I'm about to send. So I told captn wifey to come to bed so we could stay warm and bring salty dog for additional warmth. There we hunkered down after sending the text message and bang the phone rings! Techno sparky on the utter end says "Whats going on? I'll be there in 30 mics" and as we were nodding off there was a knock on the boat. It's the static electrician with his trusty diagnostic kit and it's still dark out and 18*!

After some rotational Q&A he scours the boat with some gauges and declares you must have exceeded your 30 amp supply by at least 2 amps! Probably an inverter problem he declares; which is located, you guessed it in the starboard lazerett in the farthermost reaches of the back corner. Now what lies in the lazerett is equivalent to what most land lubbers have in the garage. All of which has to be removed to enable my friend sparky to crawl back there. By now the sun is up but the temps are not rising as fast as the sun. So by the time the problem is solved and fixed the thermometer inside the boat has dropped to 48*.
Good news is the inverter is fine; only a thirty amp fuse that blew and full power has been restored. This also required a trip to Fisheries Supply where I made a deposit for new shore power cords and three fuses. There is still an outstanding matter of the bill for an emergency visit by sparky which I'm sure is in the mail some where.