Tag Archives: Preparing to cruise

We’re Still Here! Happy Solstice to All!

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Apparently the world is still here, at least so far. The Winter Solstice, the day I look forward to starting on June 21, has arrived and, at least as of this writing, Earth is holding its own. No fanfare, no nothing. Oh, except all the ‘End of the World’ parties. I prefer to think of this time as ‘The End of the World as We Know It’, and based on the horrible news of this week, we can only hope that this is true. If we’re in the beginning of a new cycle, indeed, then let it be one filled with joy and hope and love for all creatures.

In the smallness of our own lives, I celebrate the return of the sun, as well as the birth of the Son, by reflecting on all that is good here at home. This includes the fact that we will be with both of our children on this winter day. Our plan is to spend this metaphorical end to the world, and beginning of the new world, by going to see the King Tut exhibit at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle. I plan to be in awe and inspired and to meditate on how we are all connected to this rich history in one way or another.

Here are some images from this special winter solstice day in 2012. May we all find our own peace on Earth.

I am not allergic to fake trees. I revel in the Dr. Seuss quality of this tree.

Love this Coral Bark maple.

Winter hydrangea

Anna’s Hummingbird. We have many of them and they fight over the feeders. They are hilarious!

Grevillea victoriae, a shrub from New Zealand that blooms almost the entire year here. I originally grew it for the hummingbirds, but now I love it for itself.

The entertaining and personable chickens. They now come running to me when I go out, clucking loudly.

A final note, in case you were wondering, this is where Santa’s elves live during the year. I took this with my phone, in pouring rain, in a moving car. Hence the hideous quality. Still, now you know.

It’s Our Anniversary!

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It’s the one year anniversary of our blog! Since our first blog post last October, we’ve posted 90 times, had almost 250,500 views, and increased our traffic to an average of 3000 hits per month. That might not sound like much to people who’ve lived in the blogsphere longer, but to us it represents what can happen if you just keep plugging away. In spite of the fact that I do most of the posting, Mike holds the record for the number of hits on a post in a single day. His post with the photos of Orcas in Commencement Bay got 646 hits. I have yet to forgive him for that (both the record number AND the fact that he was alone on the boat when those Orcas surfaced right by him).

This is still the goal.

As anniversaries are times of reflection, I thought I would do a sort of interview about our progress in the last year.

Question:  How happy are you overall with your blogging experience so far?  What is the easiest thing about blogging? What is the hardest thing? 

Melissa: Well, overall I am surprised at how much I like it and how many ideas I can come up with to write about. I think that’s the easiest thing; coming up with topics. Since not all of them are any good, choosing what to write about can be challenging.  I never thought of myself as a writer, so it’s a whole new world.

The hardest things are keeping the length of the posts down to a mild roar, and also sometimes keeping a light and upbeat tone. I can have some dark days in this process, but no one is going to want to read about that.

Mike: I’m at a 6 out of 10 in terms of happiness. The hardest thing is keeping up with the patches and fixing the bugs. The easiest is writing posts, but I haven’t written that many.

Question: What is the most enjoyable part of blogging?

Melissa: It’s the feedback from readers and making friends with other bloggers, hands down. I know we have a lot more readers than we do commentors. I wish more people would post comments because without them it’s like putting a part of yourself out into a black hole in the universe, never to know where it lands. It sort of like that philosophical question: It a tree falls in the forest and there is no one to hear it, does it make a sound? I think the answer to that question is, ‘Who cares?’. Same think with writing a blog. If no one reads it or comments on it, then who cares?  I also like the way blogging makes me organize my thoughts. That’s a benefit I would not have predicted.

Mike responds:  Getting nice comments from readers.

Question: What have you not liked about blogging?

Melisssa: Sometimes I can have a pretty twisted sense of humor. When I’m writing, I have a certain tone in my head that sometimes does not get translated well onto the page.  I always assume that people will know when I’m being humorous, but sometimes they don’t. I guess that’s part of the learning process for me. Believe it or not, my sense of humor is nothing compared to my kids’.

Mike: Trouble shooting the site.

Question: Reflect, if you will, on how satisfied you are about your progress in reaching the goal of voyaging. What feels solid to you? What frustrates you?

I’ve given away all of my yearbooks. I don’t miss them one bit since I photographed all the pages that had anything relevant to me. Here I am as a senior in high school, doing actual school work before the invention of the personal computer. Dinosaur days, to be sure.

Melissa: That is a complicated question. This year we have done a good job of paring down our possessions and simplifying how we live in our home and we are still in the process of doing this. We’ve been married for 30 years and raised two kids, so we have a lot of stuff. We’re pretty much normal Americans that way. So there is still much to do.

On the other hand, we will still be living in this house for a few more years and I’m finding myself unwilling to give up everything as though I’m going to live on a boat, when the ‘living on a boat’ part isn’t in sight. I don’t want to live in a house with no furniture or give up all my craft things before I have to. And we got rid of our truck too fast. With the property we own, we need a truck. So now we are going to have to buy another one. That pretty much sucks, if you ask me.

Mike: We are making progress but I am looking out five years and that still feels far away. It would be nice to have the right boat that we could start making ready for our cruising life so that we could be working on and putting money into that boat. Of course, if we decide to cruise on Moonrise, then the money is going to the right place already.  I think our experience and confidence for blue water voyaging is actually pretty good and while finances will always be a little vague, I know that we will be able to make this adventure happen.

Frustration comes from not having certainty about having the right boat and the need to continue working a few more years.

Question: What decisions remain to be made in putting your cunning plan into place? Why have you put these decisions off?

Melissa: The thorn in my side is setting the date for casting off. We know from more experienced people how important it is to set a date and just go, but so far we have been unable to agree on a date. The problem is that Mike wants to go when he retires, which is in 5 years. I will retire from my practice when Andrew graduates from college, but Mike’s is the ‘big’ retirement. Five years feels like an eternity to me, especially when I think about all of the life events that could easily happen in that amount of time that would inevitably delay our departure: things like family illnesses, grandchildren (however unlikely), or our own health (even though we are both quite healthy now). I feel a bit like a woman who has waited too long to have a baby and is now too old to easily conceive: every month that passes is another month I will never get back.

This time last year I was having fun looking at boats, anticipating selling Moonrise. Now it’s possible we’ll keep her. We aren’t sure anymore.

Believe it or not, I also worry that I will lose interest. It seems impossible now, but there are lots of things I’ve been really into for several years, only to be done with them at a certain point. I remember meeting some people at a local cruising club raft up who just sail around this area because they have lost interest in going  further. They said they don’t want to be hot, or be cold, or be challenged anymore. They just want to relax and have fun. They were in their 60’s. The tone in their comments and glances at each other was that they didn’t think Mike and I would ever go if we waited that long.
That tone fell on the fertile ground of my own fears.  People grow and change throughout their adult lives and interests grow and change along with that. What I do know is if I die before I do something this cool, I am going to be one really pissed off ghost roaming the seas.  I soothe these fears by planning to be reincarnated as a child of a wealthy family who sails around the world as a lifestyle. Maybe the Bumfuzzle children will grow up to be  sailing vagabonds and one of them can be my new parent. They seem to come from good genetic stock, and the Bumfuzzles would probably be fabulous grand parents.  Hey, whatever it takes to get me through the night. Probably the more we get out there and sail together, and I mean sail away from Commencement Bay, which is getting to be a little boring at this point, the more I will remain interested.

 

It’s hard to take care of this yard when we’re on the boat. But it’s harder to walk away from this property when values are so low.

The other decision we haven’t yet made is what to do with our house. Aside from being our family home, it’s the only property investment we have. Mike thinks we should sell it; I’m not so sure. Much will depend on property values when the time comes, I suppose. We are in a great area for rentals and we have a friend who manages rentals to military families. If we could turn the management over to him, we would have someone we trust to keep watch over this property, and maybe we could eventually derive an income from it. I hate to give that up. And yet the possibility of being able to leave with no financial liabilities is very seductive, and it is doubtful that we will come back to live in Lakewood. We can’t really make that decision until we see what the market is going to be like in a few years.

Mike: We will need to know which boat we are going to voyage in within the next two or three years. If we can make Moonrise bluewater-ready, then we will be in pretty good shape. If we decide that another  boat is needed, then we have to adjust our finances to pay it off and get it ready.  Then there is the house. Do we sell or rent? Income during our retirement has to be considered. Which pot do we draw from while we are cruising and still relatively young? These decisions are put off because I have more questions than answers. As usual.

Question: So what’s the next step for you?

Melissa: The next step is to continue honing down our belongings a bit at a time, keeping the goal of voyaging in mind as we do so and simplifying our lives the best we can while still living comfortably in our home. We’ve taken Moonrise off the market for awhile, although we’d sell her to the right buyer. Meanwhile, Mike has been doing a lot of projects on the boat and his skill level with wood working is really improving.

Mike: The next step is to find out if we can make Moonrise the boat we will take. If it is, then I can continue to work on improving her and preparing for the major upgrades (Sails, Windvane, Rigging, Tankage etc) .

 

Last Christmas I cut down on the crazy gift giving. We didn’t miss it. This year I plan to cut back even more. If I put it in writing, I have to do it.

 

Access Denied!

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This kind of traffic is reason enough to move.

We should have just turned the truck around and gone home. This is what I was thinking as we sat in gridlocked traffic on the entrance ramp to I-5. We were driving our friend’s big 1992 Ford 250 pick up truck down to the marina to pick up Puddler. Puddler needs a bottom job and our friends, Chere and Edwin, who leave their truck at our house in exchange for our occasional use of said truck, will be selling this truck at the end of July. We felt anxious to bring Puddler home before that happens and today was a ‘free’ day. We had nothing else planned.

As we approached the freeway we saw that traffic was stacked up in the right hand lane for a least a mile but was moving freely in the other two lanes. Apparently there was an air show at McChord AFB and hundreds of people thought they might actually drive to the show to see it, meaning that traffic would be impacted for miles. We were entering the freeway just before the exit to McChord, so everyone who wanted to go past that exit was in the left two lanes. Mike had to make a split second decision about whether to turn around and go back, or whether to brave the entrance ramp to the highway. He chose the latter. It occurred to us both that the Universe was trying to tell us something about how this day was going to go, but the siren call of Puddler’s need was simply too powerful. We soldiered on. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

After sitting at a dead stop, teeth grinding, for a full 10 minutes, slowly a couple of cars on the ramp bravely worked their way around the traffic, inching up to the front to cut over into the lanes that were moving. Smart people, I thought. They get where they are going, which is NOT, apparently, to the air show, and free up space on the ramp for other cars whose drivers want a place to sit and nap.

Me: “Look, honey. That car has made it past all of these suckers going to the airshow and is now merrily driving down the highway unencumbered! What a smart person!”

Mike: (as he is inching his way forward to do the same thing) “Oh, sure and everyone sitting in this line thinks he is a complete ass because he has cut in line like he is more important than they are.”

Me: “No, they don’t. He isn’t going the same place as everyone in this line. He is making room for others who want to go to the airshow. He’s getting out of everyone’s way.”

Mike: “Well, they don’t know that. They just think he is self-important and should wait his turn like everyone else.”

I wait silently while my spouse does the intelligent thing by colluding with another driver to cross the small grassy median between the ramp and the lane of stacked up traffic. They both make it just fine and the other guy is off and running, but there is now a disturbance in The Force around my husband, who apparently feels guilty because other people are still sitting on the ramp. This disturbance has attracted the attention of our local constabulary. Literally out of nowhere a very loud robotic voice shouts ‘MOVE OUT OF THE WAY! THE MEDIAN IS FOR EMERGENCIES ONLY AND IS NOT FOR YOU TO DRIVE ON!!’   Guiltily, Mike gets out of the way for one of  the Washington Highway Patrol’s finest, who drives by without even a nod in his direction, likely on his way to his favorite lunch spot. If that cop could see Puddler’s bottom, he’d agree that this IS an emergency and stop harassing reasonable people who are just trying to get out of everyone else’s way and move on down the road.

As we manage to reach the speed limit, we sigh with relief and say a prayer of thanks to the traffic Gods who took care of that little hurdle. We decide we’ll park down at the Thea Foss Park at the end of the waterway, walk to the marina, and row puddler down to the public ramp for dingies and kayaks.

We sail by this little park every time we leave the marina.

We are almost there when Mike gets off the wrong exit and we are stopped by road construction. I sigh heavily. Mike rolls his eyes and takes his foot off the brake to accelerate. We’ll have to turn around and go back. Then we hear the noise. It is coming from the engine compartment, I think. It’s sort of a grinding noise, with undertones of  ‘death rattle’ and light notes of burning rubber smell.  I glance at Mike, who I fear is on the verge of hysteria. He’s either going to laugh maniacally or begin cursing. His jaw is set. He pulls over, opens the hood and does some man  stuff. Then closes the hood and decides it was probably the brakes; that they need new pads, and that whatever was making that deathly rattle has gone away now. A veil of denial descends upon us and we both agree that all we want is to get safely to the marina, collect our little boat, and go home.  We carry on.

Down at the park the weather is fine and we enjoy a brisk walk to the marina, only having our way blocked a couple of times by a huge gang of Harley riders and more construction. We enjoy a pleasant row down to the park from Moonrise and arrive just as some kayakers are launching. As we pull Puddler out of the water, a man from their group offers to help pull the dingy up the considerable slope to the curb. Excellent! Things are looking up! Mike goes and gets the truck and we load Puddler into the back, ready to go! We love how easy it is to hoist her up into the bed of this behemoth and just shut the gate. She fits like a proverbial glove! Mike inserts the key into the ignition and turns the key. Click. We look at one another. He turns it again. Click. We are parked sideways in a loading zone.

In my mind I think ‘Great. The starter has gone out.’.  Now I know why we should have turned around and gone back home before we ever thought about getting on that highway. Shades of a 1964 Ford Fairlane begin a slow dance in my memory. It’s all coming back to me now. 1980. The Ford. The Starter. The trip from Hell. My frozen feet.   This must be what it’s like to have flashbacks. That’s a story for another day. At least that Ford was red.

Puddler fits so very nicely in the back of this truck! If you are going to be stuck with a non-starting truck, this is the view you want.

At Mike’s request I rummage around behind the seat and find some jumper cables. I know they are not going to help, but it’s worth a try. A couple drives up with a large aluminum canoe on top of their newer truck ( also a Ford, I might add). Roger and Erin Legg from Tacoma are bringing her family canoe down for a little paddling and Roger agrees to help Mike see if the car can be jump started. Of course, it cannot. So they do some other man type stuff under the hood, trying to find some kind of voodoo magic that will work, but finally agree that it’s something about the starter. I could have told them that, but men, after all, have their own ways of knowing.

Roger chants man voodoo words while Mike spits into the engine. Erin acts as their 'familiar'. The magic does not work. The Ford does not start.

The crescent wrench Mike found in the glove box failed to work its magic on this starter, no matter how many times Mike struck the thing with the wrench, and no matter what 'magic' words he shouted.

We chat for a bit and I find out that Erin is a student in the School Counseling program at University of Puget Sound and, since I used to have student interns from that program, that’s pretty cool. She used to teach English in Prague and since we have a daughter who longs to have a job where she can travel, that’s pretty cool, too. Mike and Roger have histories with the Air Force in common and they both look like they know something about cars. At least old cars.  We exchange contact info and help them launch their canoe. I think to myself that if we’re going to be stranded with a huge, broken truck in a loading zone with Puddler in the back, feeling like a couple of Okies,  at least it’s nice to meet friendly people with whom we have something in common. It’s always best to try to find something good in these situations.

After contacting our friends and their insurance company, we decide I would row Puddler back to her place by Moonrise. Her bottom, while foul, will have to wait for another day. Mike will stay with the truck visiting with passers-by until the tow company comes and our friend, Chere, picks us up and takes us to lunch. The tide is with me and I have another pleasant row back down the Foss Waterway, back to Moonrise and a little time to myself on the boat.

I'm supposed to be looking forlorn, but what I'm really thinking is 'Excellent! On the water at last!'

Lunch with Chere was delightful. It was great to visit with her as it’s been too long since we had coffee together. So what if I overindulged in carbohydrates? Just another nail in this day’s coffin.  We drove back to our place and Chere stayed to walk around the garden for a bit and finish our visit. Mike retired to the bedroom for his much-needed nap. When Chere left I made myself useful by loading up the car with a bunch of crap to take to Goodwill. After a day like this it’s nice to end on a positive note. I figured the day was done, nothing else could happen. I was well on my way to putting this day in perspective until Mike joined me in the garage and said one thing:

“I have food poisoning.”

And that is where we stand. At least I ordered the fish.