Monthly Archives: January 2013

Song of My Magma 10 Piece Cookware

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Recently I promised Dani, of Sundowner Sails Again, that I intended to post a review of my [amazon_link id=”B002TV7QCS” target=”_blank” ]Magma 10 Piece[/amazon_link] cookware. The usual type of review is simply too prosaic to fully represent the quality of my affection for this cookware. And so, a poem. Be still, my heart!

Nesting, shiny steely slickness sitting smartly, waiting there,
Sturdy, everlasting Magma, darling of marine cookware.
What creates the marriage of your form and your efficiency?
Who were your creators, engineers with such facility?
Fast, delicious, even heating; repast cooking without sticking;
languid dining, cleanup waiting, Magma still too warm for licking.
One among your virtues, easy cleaning, never scrubbing,
gentle cleansing, paper toweling, only very lightly rubbing.
Nesting, steely shiny slickness, form and function to entwine,
Queen of marine cookware, Magma, I will ever make you mine.

A thing of beauty!

A thing of beauty!

The end. Buy it. You won’t regret it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Holding Down the Fort

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All is quiet on the home front around this cunning little household. We’re deep into the winter months here and that means dark and cold. At least it’s not wet. We’ve had a dry spell with sunny, cold days that are outstanding, even if too short.  Man, it’s really pretty around here when the sun is out. I wonder if other parts of the country focus on weather the way we do here. It’s always the topic of conversation and impacts the mood of the population as a whole. I’ll bet there is a research grant somewhere in that.

This would be a good boat to have right about now.

Unless you own a trawler or a pilothouse, winter is pretty miserable sailing weather around here, as referenced in my last post (oh, so long ago) about our trip to Blakely Harbor on New Year’s Eve. That little stunt cost me big time in that I’ve had bronchitis ever since then. Live and learn. I’m choosing ‘indoor’ activities just now to keep my delicate lungs from the cold air. Yes, I am nothing if not a high maintenance princess. Pass the tiara and bring me my blanket.

Since I’m only doing easy things, that includes a ton of reading (and playing on the Wii, but that’s another story). I bought Mike the usual selection of sailing adventure related books for Christmas and we’ve both been working our way through them.

One of the ones I’d like to recommend to readers is called [amazon_link id=”0985816201″ target=”_blank” ]Breaking Seas[/amazon_link], written by Glenn Damato. I bought this book because the subtitle grabbed me: “An overweight, middle-aged computer nerd buys his first boat, quits his job, and sails off to adventure.” What’s not to love?

[amazon_image id=”0985816201″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Breaking Seas: An overweight, middle-aged computer nerd buys his first boat, quits his job, and sails off to adventure[/amazon_image]

I will tell you right now that neither of us could put this book down.  Reading this book was like watching a train wreck. We knew what was coming, but couldn’t look away. I watched Mike’s expressions as he read it, listened to his gasps and exclamations, his groans of despair. When I read it we commiserated with each other that while the author did a great job of convincing us that he was almost totally unlikable,  we couldn’t stop reading. Something almost visceral compelled each of us to continue to the end of the book. I finished it in almost one sitting. And it’s 345 pages.

When I say ‘unlikable’, that’s basically an understatement. No one could possibly be as big a loser as this author makes himself out to be. Maybe he was using the time-honored writing technique of “exaggeration”.   Describing himself as unlucky in life, love, and looks, he is the quintessential man with a chip on his shoulder and this comes through over and over in his writing. Just ignore the whining because the story is worth it and he’s probably not as bad as he thinks. He has learned to be a ‘man’, so now he’s probably a pretty decent guy.

I guess you would call his story a classic archetype of the ‘hero’, who, against all odds, and not knowing one thing about what he is doing, discovers the real man within himself and comes home changed, probably for the better. He develops skills and learns that he can rely on himself, that he has fortitude and is resourceful. And this is a good thing to discover if you are someone who buys the second boat you’ve ever looked at, not knowing anything about sailing, and then take on crew who are complete strangers to you. I guess I’m assuming he would think there would be problems. He has enough stories for the rest of his life. He came home in one piece and for that alone he should consider his voyage a great success.

(Spoiler alert: Deck to hull joint that leaks like a sieve. Also, an ingenious fix to a terrifying and potentially life threatening engine problem. Toilet issues that never seem to end. Crazy-pants women.)

It’s good to read books by people who have challenging psychological experiences when out voyaging because I don’t think they get talked about enough. He makes no bones about the fact that he was mighty uncomfortable a lot of the time, and that he actually likes having the conveniences of a land based life. On the book’s back cover, he warns the reader that he will not ‘sugar-coat’ the truth. And he doesn’t. Frankly, I appreciate that. He thought he would like the ‘adventure’ part of voyaging more than he actually did. Reading his story made me think about some things that I had not given enough thought. Not enough to make me change my mind about wanting to voyage, but still, just saying… It’s good to know what things you might run into so you can think about how you will deal with them when the time comes.

Reading between the lines, this book will teach you a lot about certain aspects of the cruising community between here and Mexico, especially how people find extra crew for their boats (something I will be loathe to ever do after reading his book).

Definitely worth a read!

 

 

 

 

 

Seriousness

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It’s the last weekend of my much-needed three week break from work. The menfolk are up in Bellingham doing projects on Danger Kitten and getting Andrew settled in for the second quarter of the academic year, so I have the house all to myself. I know what you are thinking: “She is going to lay around in her pajamas all day, eating bonbons, playing games on the Wii,  maybe have a spa day, sleep in the middle of the bed, and in general, act like a sloth. She probably won’t even make the bed or shower.”  But you would be wrong. Oh, so very, very wrong.

Yes, that is what I would LIKE to be doing, but that’s not how things actually work when we’ve just re-listed our sailboat with the broker just down the waterway from us, and when we are now getting to understand what it is to experience ‘seriousness’ in the little matter of selling said beloved boat. When those things begin to happen, there is no rest for the wicked.

Thus I have spent this afternoon taking everything ‘personal’ off the boat. And except for the engine parts and sails that are staying, that means pretty much everything on the boat had to go. And I am the only one available to move it.

There is so much stuff on this boat!

There is so much stuff on this boat! We’re talking 8 trips to the car with a loaded cart.

As I began taking things out of storage spaces, cabinets, out from under bunks, I began to realize that until now, we really had made no serious effort to make this boat attractive to another person. Maybe even though we were serious about selling her, we weren’t serious about letting someone else have her, you know? Sure, we cleaned her up, finished some projects Mike wanted to complete, had taken a lot of things home already and all that, but even so, anyone looking at Moonrise must surely have felt like they were looking at a boat that still ‘belonged’ to someone else, not a boat that could be theirs. It’s a little hard to put into words, and I certainly know nothing about the psychology of selling anything, but I’m imagining that anyone looking at this boat would have had trouble seeing past the fact that we were still really actively using it! Maybe it felt like the boat wasn’t really ‘available’, like she was still going steady with us; we hadn’t quite broken it off with her.  I mean, we still had her outfitted where we could take off at a moment’s notice. How could potential buyers picture themselves in that boat when it was not a blank canvas waiting for them to fill in the details? 20130104_4

When we originally listed Moonrise with Lee, the broker we know up in Seattle, he had told us to take ‘everything personal’ off the boat, and we thought we understood him. But I don’t think we really did. It’s not that he didn’t say it right, it’s just that probably we weren’t ready to hear it, and at that point we were sailing her all the time because it was summer. This time, we’re listing with a broker in the same waterway as us, because she is local and can show the boat and work the selling of it actively. It makes sense, and we’re in a different place in our plan. If we don’t get this show on the road, we won’t have enough time to get the new boat paid for and outfitted before we want to leave. We’re not exactly trust fund babies, after all. So when Sue said, “You may as well get everything you want off the boat.”, we heard it differently. “Everything?”, I asked, a little stunned. She nodded. And this time, we understood.

So everything’s off the boat. It was more than a little bittersweet making all those trips from the boat to the car. But the process helped me clear my mind and helped me begin to let go of this boat we love, knowing we will love the next one just as much. Having all of our sailing gear on the boat only made us more involved with her, and it took 8 trips to the car with a loaded cart for me to come to terms with that.

I have another day to myself tomorrow. I’ll be spending that day cleaning the boat top to bottom, doing my best to create that blank canvas for someone else’s dream. Maybe they’ll be able to sense the excitement, the adventure, the joy that is surely part of the soul of this boat now. Those things, after all, can never be erased.

 

At the marina.

At the marina.