The sun came out this morning. Rainbows and sparkles. Ah, Much better now. Late last night I sat up reading and websurfing for several hours as the winds piped up to the “howling” stage and the boat shuddered and rocked with the power of it all against the hull and rig. In the early morning light, the wind died down and I slept until 10 am!
As I dragged David out of bed (his excuse for sleeping in was that I blocked the exit from the bed, asleep myself) and shooed him out the companionway door saying “fix Buttercup” he mumbled and grumbled but went outside. A few minutes later he returned, grabbing my bathroom hand-held mirror and a few wire leads and headed back out to Buttercup. Thirty minutes passed and I could stand the suspense no more. I put on my jacket and went looking for him–thinking he might need help. However, as soon as I walked up the gangway I heard David’s distinctive laughter and saw him standing talking with fellows who have boats at this military marina. As I reached him, I asked if he fixed the car. “Yep. It was no problem.” he said with a big grin. Relief. Whatever it was, it was no big deal.
After a few days of steady rain and then last night’s total deluge, several boats at the marina were in danger of sinking. The marina manager, dockmaster and crew spent the day pumping out dingies, making sure bilge pumps were working on the boats that belong to active duty military people deployed and bringing a couple boats in from the mooring field–boats that looked “low” in the water and in need of bilge pumping. I’m thankful that the marina manager has such a good attitude about keeping everyone’s boat afloat and making sure deployed military don’t have reason to worry about their vessels.
Later, as we were going out to run our various errands, David told me a wire had come undone from the starter motor–one that was hidden behind the header and not easy to see (thus the mirror) but all was well now. Buttercup, what a bad girl you’re been! Disconnecting wires! That’s a low shot. I’m so happy that David saw through your ruse!
We finished the day by stopping by our storage unit to retrieve a cable and video card for the Shuttle computer, stopping at the grocery, stopping at our favorite marine bookstore to chat with the owner, Ann, stopping by Downwind Marine and picking up many important packages delivered there for us–my car registration (expires this month!) and a wonderful gift from my brother, Brad, and sister-in-law, Alina. They studied all the pictures of Mahdee that we have on the blog and then Alina drew a lovely profile of the boat that she had an embroidery shop put onto two soft and warm merino wool sweater-jackets for David and I. I’m wearing mine now and we’ll have to take pictures shortly to post here.
All-in-all, a very good day for us. Tonight David is futzing around with the Shuttle computer and I’m catching up on reading; shortly we’ll watch a DVD about John Adams. Yes, all-in-all a very good day.
