Livin’ the Dream

February 9, 2018

The dream for me is perfecting Tardis as a cruising boat in a beautiful, warm place. And I’m livin’ it.

Well, enough of the sloppy stuff and on to the boat work, which is the primary reason for this blog.

Say you live in a big, normal house and a book is left unshelved in the living room, a towel unhung in the bathroom and a couple dishes are left in the sink. No big deal. The house is still a neat, beautiful house. On a 28-foot boat, the same few items turn it into a slum.

So I have spent a lot of time installing hooks, moving items hither and yon and making trip after trip to Home Depot, Target, Walmart, and Lowes to get the requisite hardware and supplies. It is all coming together, but I have yet to go to the beach!

The curtains were a big installation job, but they look great. Sue from Nautical Needles in Deep River, CT, is a magician, and they are a perfect fit. Molly was right, you need them. Me making coffee in the morning in my underwear is not a suitable sight from the $1 million houses surrounding Suntex Marina.

Commissioning the water system cost me two days. Cold water fine, hot water immediately clogged the faucets, necessitating a complete removal job and flush. The very helpful people at Home Depot got me some new aerators and explained that I really couldn’t run the hot water heater all the time, or the minerals in the water would turn to the paste that clogged everything up. Since the hot water heater works in about three minutes, this is working out fine.

The radio antenna somehow missed the bus coming south, so I made a trip to the nearest big West Marine in Ft. Pierce, got a really good sailboat racing antenna (starting the installation from scratch since it didn’t match the old bracket) and got the rig up and looking good.

Bought knives after I realized that Memsahib’s were so bad they were relegated to the shop. Got a mirror after realizing that with shaving soap on my face, I had no means of accurately taking it off. Bought a laundry bin that perfectly fits one of the deep caverns under the settee, after the Tardis became clogged with dirty clothes in plastic bags. Couldn’t afford a Yeti cooler ($299) to use a step into the boat and ice keeper, so I got a knockoff “Ozark Trails” at Walmart ($78).

The new cooler is “certified bear-proof,” but my Vero friend Pat Harris notes that nothing is said of manatees! Also, it really doesn’t keep ice very well, so in emergency situations when the cubes are dwindling, I sometimes have to move cocktail hour forward an hour or two.

Also, I am doing some volunteer work at the Youth Sailing Foundation, of which my friend Pat is chairman. It is an incredible place, wonderful fun, and I plan a post just on the YSF. We built the Opti storage system last week that came down on the Tardis after John and I drove up Rhode Island to fetch on the one day in January we had between blizzards. On Sundays I help Pat run the chase boat for the adult sailing program.

Great dinners with Pat and Julia (John’s former Middle School principal!), great people on the docks for our Super Bowl party (pictures of Suntex follow). Livin’ the dream!