Kaimusailing

I had started a big post about a nascent outrigger canoe design, which is continuing to haunt me. I had problems resurrecting some old files and applications, boat design programs, due to the impending trip up to Crisfield. I always do something other than what I should be doing when I get stressed.
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The packing and drive 700 miles up to Maryland presented me with stress, but the car, the Constant Repair Vehicle, was a soldier and I made the trip within the projected times and I arrived only about 15 minutes later than Google Maps predicted.
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I didn’t know if the Catalina would be habitable. I had some eggs and cheese with me and had to stop in the local grocery store, Food Lion, to get bread and some other things. First I visited the only local Chinese restaurant in Crisfield and tried to order Shrimp with Garlic Sauce. They don’t have it. They don’t have Pork with Garlic Sauce either. They had Spicy Shrimp and Chicken for ten dollars. I ordered that and made my way through the grocery store, returning expecting by that time the Chinese order would be ready. It was not. No worry. A couple ladies entered the store and one said, Hi Andy, haven’t seen you in a while. I said you can’t sneak into this town, everybody knows everybody else. They all nodded and laughed.
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I went to Big Willie’s and got a box of Black Box pinot noir. The marina entrance was gated, I had the code, a black pickup truck in front of me didn’t and I could watch them try and try, then call the security phone number, then get access. I followed them in before the gate closed. Some security.
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I passed the Red Shell Shanty, which is supposedly the Boater’s Lounge now, all boarded up, I mean really boarded up. At my dock I ran into Andy and Van, a perpetual couple on a boat, power boat, or really, power yacht, up at the end of the dock. The no-see-ums were swarming and I complained, they only bite me, and Andy said they’ve been bad the past couple of days.
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I loaded things that needed refrigeration and other items to bring to the boat right away, in a new dock cart, how about that, up the dock, what would the boat be like, after 6 months, it could be nasty inside. It turned out to be fine, I had a lamp to illuminate as the beautiful sunset left me starting the fridge, putting things inside, getting ready to exhaustively sleep after 11 hours of driving. But first I must digress, the Chinese food.
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When you cook things in oil, you have to have the oil up to a certain temperature. Otherwise, the cooked item becomes an item soaked in oil. We are looking for crispness, but I was starving and somewhere, someone on the face of the earth is starving to death and would fight me for that “crispy egg roll”, well, they didn’t make it. I ate most of it while I was driving to the wine store, making an oily mess. Maybe the Spicy dinner would be better.
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The next morning I had to hurry to get to the marina rest room. I was afraid I had soiled my shorts. The end result was an explosive visit, forgot the code to get in, no worry, muscle memory had me enter it and open the door. The sign inside said please flush, of course I did at the end. I am glad I didn’t use SUNSPLASH’s head.
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What a way to start the day. I was afraid to make coffee or cook anything. I checked the teapot for anything unusual, the little skillet needed attention. Just coffee, no cooking, for breakfast, and it was early enough for breakfast.
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I calmed down. Find your morning pills and supplements, break out the loaf of sourdough and the new package of medium sliced ham from the market. I had a ham and tomato sandwich with coffee with some black pepper and mayo, not a bad sandwich.
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Wes, my dock neighbor showed up and we talked politics, you don’t say that at the American Legion, do you? He asked. Yeah, I guess that explains a lot. He offered me a propane regulator and hose assembly that leaked and needed disassembly and replacement of some parts. I declined.
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I wanted to treat him and his wife to something at the American Legion, he looked after SUNSPLASH when the marina called me in the middle of winter and the winds were slamming the boat against the finger pier.
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I had to clean some things up. The end of the hose was in the marina water and covered with slime, algae, and I scrubbed it. I reconnected and flushed the hose out. All kinds of debris came out and I washed them down the cockpit. I put the hose into the galley sink which had some debris of its own. The sink seemed to fill up and I jammed the hose in the drain and worked it around, then gave up. In a few minutes it had drained, but the residue in the sink was awful. I scraped it out with the barbecue spatula and dumped it into the trash, one load at a time. Keep at it Cap’n.
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I ended up scrubbing and cleaning with more water from the marina and cleared out the hose from the spigot, got more vile stuff out of the boat, either down the drain or down the cockpit drains. A lot more to do. The camp grill which needed cleaning got cleaned with the Makita cordless drill and a fiber radial brush. Try it. Then I started the grill to burn off anything on it that might be organic.
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I had pork chops and put one on the grill. These might be tough or not tasty. The salad ingredients brought up from St Marys were still good, an avocado, part of a cucumber, some baby carrots, and slim tender hearts of romaine lettuce. I chopped them up. The pork chop on the grill seemed reluctant to cook, maybe the propane cylinder was spent. I replaced it. I grilled and grilled. The chop had searing marks at 90 degrees, grilled twice on both sides, and I sliced it and added to the salad. The old dressing that I had from 6 months ago was still good, and I had a Neanderthal dinner, meat and some veggies.
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All the while I had phone calls and texts. The volcano in Hawaii was spurting thousand foot fountains of molten rock, thanks Bro Phil. Some of my contacts are not available and I wonder what has happened. Jonathan and his Hungarian girlfriend. I don’t want to ask. I am by nature a person who worries.
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While I was driving up, after a fuel and pi(ss)t stop, I rejoined I-95 only to see Chris and Irena putting along with their generic minivan and recent mini camper in tow. I was probably doing only 78 and passed them by.
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The Honda CRV can be made into a mini camper pretty easily. I could drive across country with my VA “America the Beautiful” National Park pass and camp my way around. The Hippie Gypsy. I can write that, but I am not qualified to be that. The stream of consciousness requires a stream, not driving around on land, just do your thing on the water. Think water, endless water, it is endless, in sense, here, on the Earth, from China to here, everywhere.
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That is my view of the world, not so much the mountains and such, but the oceans and seashores where people want to live and gravitate, only to be flooded or subjected to hurricanes, in other lands, tropical storms. You want to be at the ocean and the ocean responds with tsunamis, and other things, like the orcas, red tides, and sand flies.
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The skillet looked like it was rusty, I wasn’t sure what it was. What did I cook in it 6 months ago. I left it.
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I put the sputtering garden hose to it. Inside the hose, the sun has organized and raised some organic algae or maybe, over 6 months, the algae have succumbed and now are hard nodules of some brown substance, so the output of the hose pastes everything with dark green and brown specks, spittle from the hose, then we can rinse them off, but is it done?
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The skillet needed a big cleaning, whatever was on it, rust or maybe leftover organic debris including finely diced garlic. I scrubbed it and then ran the Makita cordless drill with a fiber radial fiber brush over it. Cleaned it right up. Hose it off. Heat it up with some generic olive oil till it smoked. Rinse it off again. Heat it up again, smoking, shut it down. Probably no microbes on it anymore.
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I made a salad with grilled pork chop. The pork chop was inadequately cooked. The grill was running cold. I ate it anyway.
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I stayed up late listening to the NFL draft on ESPN’s NYC feed on the internet, on my phone, no interrupting ads except ESPN’s ads. I fell asleep.
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The next day I had to make my usual ham and egg and cheese omelet sandwich on sourdough bread. The grill seemed to die out and I exchanged the little propane bottle, no go. I disconnected it and blew on the end of the gas line spigot. It had a fine mesh filter. Now the grill flamed large and I made coffee and the omelet.
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I took a shower in the L dock facility and went out to Pokemoke to get some things from Walmart and Dollar Tree. Dollar Tree has the Awesome cleaner that cuts through mold like nothing else. I also picked up more things there so that my credit card purchase would make some sense.
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In Walmart I bought Angus sirloin mini steaks and salad ingredients, like poke bowl, avocados, seaweed salad, romaine lettuce, roma tomatoes. I drove around on the way back, got gas, 25.5 mph, I rolled into town and got stuff onto the boat.
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I repaired a vacuum hose with Gorilla tape, mounted a new power strip on the port side of the cabin, noting the pile of dead flies there and the spider conclave above it.
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The late lunch/early dinner was a salad with one of the sirloin steaks roasted on the now aggressive grill, avocado soft but just bought, put them all in the fridge, what did I buy, roma tomato sliced, the romaine piled up, the dressing mayo with soy sauce, 2:1, needs citrus.
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I get this pile of nutrition in front of me and start consuming it when the phone rings. It’s Cornelia Marie, her hot water heater is out and she’s replacing the elements, can I help? I hurry up finishing what would have been a nice meal, it was a nice meal, and get over to the house.
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When I get there she’s done, did it all herself, and I ask do you need to take a shower while she’s bleeding air out of the hot water tank with dark splats of something on her forehead. She says no. Nori the wonder dog has been tending guard and howling at the sirens from the town. Cuddily texts me that she is waiting for a friend and going to the Legion at 5:30, no problem, then I realize that Teri who has no idea about this will go to the Legion and none of us will be there, so I leave CM. I get to the Legion and Teri’s car is there but no Teri, inside or out. The place is busy
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I sit and wait. Saddle Bred pinot noir. Eventually Teri appears. She has spent time combing her hair, apparently, in the ladies room. She looks the same as 6 months ago and I start telling her one of my interminable stories. Then Cornelia Marie shows up and Cuddily, with her friend and we go outside. It is windy and we get a table and chairs assembled alee of a corner out on the deck. I find out the side door from the deck is now activated with an electronic lock and I need a fob to unlock it. I have to borrow Cuddily’s fob to go in and get more wine.
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The place got packed, Friday night, the night we had always said we don’t want to be there. I was able to drive reasonably well back to the marina and wondered if I remembered the access code. A big black pickup truck was stuck at the entrance trying to enter codes and not having any success. There is a phone number posted so that you can call security and maybe they will let you in. The gate opened and I quickly followed the truck in. I wisely walked the bike up the dock.
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The next morning was painful and I didn’t do much. Do some cleaning, throw out some stuff. Cuddily called and asked me to call Teri to let her know there would be a scampi dinner later in the day. I spent the rest of the day with some boat design software that never produced what I wanted in a design. I brought a nice new spray bottle of no-see-um spray for Cuddily. All the way from Pocomoke.
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She had a large store of red wine and was in the process of methodically cooking a shrimp scampi and salad dinner. No bread, we’re avoiding carbs. What about the linguine? She cooked to perfection and we had an excellent dinner and discussion. This is what you have to do in Crisfield, plan a dinner party and invite suitable entertainment to your home. Unfortunately I was still recovering from the wear and tear of my trip or maybe the hangover from the Legion.
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We had a gale warning and indeed the winds were steady 30 knots with higher gusts. I could not ride the bike safely on the dock again, partly for that reason. The next morning I wondered if I had caught COVID. I had a petit sirloin steak sandwich for breakfast. I continued cleaning and clearing out stuff from the boat’s cabin. I kept asking myself, why hadn’t I thrown that out before? as I filled the trash with stuff that needed to go.
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The image is of sunset over the marina the day I arrived.