Preparations
01 May 2024 | St. Marys, GA
Cap'n Chef Andy | Summer
After rowing the dinghy all over the river I thought the next day I would be sore. I was, sort of, but I felt OK. I want to do more rowing. That which does not kill you makes you stronger.
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I had to start organizing and securing things before leaving the boatyard to go up to Crisfield. Moving is a bitch. I am doing it twice a year. The best thing is to get both boats equipped equally so I just have to get myself up there or down here as needed.
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Geoff, the phd chemist showed up after a long while. He and his wife motored their Bayliner yacht to Fernandina, not that far, for the trawler fest. He was in the boatyard to work on an old pump that is expensive to replace and expensive to rebuild. Why don’t you just get a modern electric pump? Apparently he knows why.
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I was getting more industrial as far as getting things ready for me to leave to go up North. Eloisa called and expressed her exasperation for, “Old White Men”. She was upset about her wipers on her vehicle. Cool it. It’s probably bad contacts on the wiper motor connector, but it could be an old wire that snapped. I’m afraid she will come down and have me look at it. But, she doesn’t trust me to work on it now. Good. At least she has some new spark plugs. Got.
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The wood storks that Eloisa loves so much are getting a lot of air time, some at high altitudes, around this area. There is nesting right across the marsh from us. There are no wood storks up in Crisfield. There are other seabirds up there, plenty to see.
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The plastic reels I bought at Harbor Freight were too small to reel up my 3/8” double braided line. Maybe 70 fathoms. I returned the reels and took the original reel that the line came on and started to rebuild it. I fit the reel together with epoxy/glue hard mix and then glassed the flanges to the central axle. This is all part of the tying up of loose ends.
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The old windsurfer sails that have been strewn near the port bow were taken up and rolled up, bagged, but some were mildewed and wet. Put them out in the sun, roll them all up. I probably won’t get to prepare everything, the time to leave is only about a week away.
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I reserved a car just now for the 1st of May. This creates a deadline.
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I got busy coiling the 70+ fathoms of line onto the repaired rope reel. This took considerable time. A work table under the catamaran was cleared, stuff going up to Crisfield went onto a small table, stuff going to the trash went into a large bin that I could cart over to the dumpster. The windsurfer sails were rolled up and bagged and the bags were piled on the empty table. The plywood table that I used while building the dinghy got its items relocated to the Crisfield stash, the trash stash, and finally a stash was created with the plywood and more stuff that will remain will be located there. I loaned the pressure washer to Komputer Ken.
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The port hull had some rainwater in the bilge, so I bailed that into a 5 gallon bucket and poured that into the boatyard, several times.
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Jefferey, the free catamaran guy, went with me to Southern River Walk and we only consumed 3 bottles of wine. I was not allowed to drive. Work did not abate the next day, dammit. Shopping trips brought some items from the Post Office that was still receiving forwarded mail from Crisfield. Jefferey wanted to comp me a meal so we ended up at the Horse and Cow Pub and Grill. This is a restaurant location that has had 3 or 4 restaurants over the past few years, all failing, till now. I was shocked at the submarine theme inside, insignia, submarine warfare videos on display, and more importantly, local submariners at the bar and at tables with family. I don’t think this restaurant will fail. The quality of the food led me to think a retired Navy cook was in charge. My steak salad was quite more expensive than the similar from Long Horn Steak House and not as good, however Long Horn’s quality had dropped a bit also. All the Horse and Cow’s burgers are ½ lb. That would be more than I can handle at one meal.
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I had chicken parm sub at Southwest River Walk and it was not so great. I depends on who is cooking that night.
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The big news was the Trump trial in Manhattan and the NFL draft. I expect Trump to not have too much of a penalty from the trial, but his image has greatly suffered. The truth comes out. The NY Jets were given a B+ in the draft. Maybe their image will improve. We fans are skeptical after last year’s fiasco.
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The internet in the boatyard is down and won’t be fixed by the time I get up to Crisfield which has its own internet problems. I found my T-mobile Galaxy S23+ worked perfectly as a tether. My laptop hard drive had failed after I swapped it, apparently, before it had wound down. The data was still there but it couldn’t boot normally. After a long session of swapping files using the drive on a USB adapter, swapping onto a second bootable linux drive, I was able to reinstall linux on the bad drive, then swap all the files back. Whew.
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All went well. There were programs that needed reinstallation. Linux downloads from the archive, online. No internet. Wait, use the Galaxy phone as a tether. Bingo. I was able to reinstall the apps I needed. To get the Calibre ebook database installed and working I had to do two data intensive operations, update and upgrade. It might take forever. When I started I was mesmerized by screens of data code scrolling rapidly by. It took a while, but not much longer than the boatyard’s regular internet.
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One book I had been reading was Richard Evan’s “Third Reich at War”. I was able to resume. I was rereading a book that is academic and incomprehendable. The sheer numbers, the extent of the atrocities, needed to be read and read again. Some aspects apply to us today, but as bad as the war in Ukraine is, and as bad the animosity and conflict in Gaza are, they are tiny compared to the World War, the millions upon millions who died in combat, and worse, the innocent civilians that were put to death in the millions, the neighbors who turned others into the SS.
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The battle between the communist Russians and the extreme right Nazi Wehrmacht at Kursk remains the largest and most destructive battle in the history of warfare. I think the German death of 175,000 is hard to comprehend, but the Russians lost ten times as many.
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As the book goes on it gets into things like the guilt of Germany, statistical breakdown of very dry analysis, and it becomes hard for me to keep going. Like the war in the Pacific, the war in Europe demanded the war end as soon as possible. The Nazis were following their perverted obsessive annihilation of the Jews and Communists. It seemed like the lucky ones that made it almost all the way through the war would be put to death when just a month or two would have meant their survival. I kept hoping that the book would end with a large final section of bibliography, but I’m still not finished with it.
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The idea that Trump is a Nazi is not far fetched, but also not correct. Hitler died of his own hand at age 56. Trump is 77 or so and probably will resist anything that would end his life. Not so for the rest of us.
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After a couple days I finally finished 3rd Reich at War. Whew. The Nazis, although never having more than about 1/3 of the popular vote, maintained their control over Germany through intimidation and fear. They followed their flawed agenda blindly and destroyed most of Europe and its people.
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I sold my reel of 3/8” line to a fellow catamaraner. I wouldn’t have to worry about it being stolen while I was away. Someone had taken my tubs of M700 wet/dry epoxy. I think I know who.
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The image is of a sunset at the travel lift well in the boatyard.