A Mile In My Flip Flops
Today I awoke at about 3:30 AM to the refrigeration short cycling on and off, attempting to ignore it, I tried to go back to sleep telling myself way to early…. At 3:45 AM I decided I wasn’t going back to sleep and crawled out of my bunk to a gently rolling boat with very light Trades out of the NE… I checked my batteries and the power meter told me everything should be okay, however the recycling refrigeration was telling me otherwise… I plugged in the power cord which is plugged into my battery charging system and started my portable generator, problem solved… I gotta quit spending so much time on the computer, but needed it for some graphics I have been doing… Going below I rinsed out the old coffee grounds out of my coffee press/carafe… I use water I have made from seawater using my onboard reverse osmosis water maker I installed a few years ago for cooking and drinking water as it is cleaner than bottled water sold in stores and makes delicious coffee…. I have been making about 2 gals a day stretching out my onboard storage tanks… Of course I have started painting again requiring me to make even more… I have an on deck catchments system using a garden hose , but we have had very little rain, just windy not wet…
Getting back out of the marina has been a period of many adjustments to the changes which must be adjusted to… There is the constant rocking back and forth… This can be accompanied with some short periods of increased rolling… This is accompanied with the constant background of groans and creaks which come with any vessel… This background noise remains in the background and generally goes unnoticed until something unusual happens and a noise out of the ordinary happens, immediately getting my attention… I have been on cruises and it would drive my mates crazy with how I could tell, when even in the deepest sleep and how quickly I was awake and climbing out of my bunk and coming up on deck for whatever was causing this change… More than a few times I have come on deck to a owner leaning into his wheel as though pulling it hard against its rudder stop is going to miraculously cause the back-filled genoa powered bow to go against the laws of physics and wind and turn in the course he was trying to take… When coming on deck I was generally told “It’s okay, I got it”, or “The wind shifted”, once “Marvin I don’t know what happened” which was the worse and of course a couple of times to his being sound asleep… One moonless night I was greeted with “The wind keeps shifting” and after looking at the compass I replied, “if you are trying to sail back to Puerto Rico then you have it on a perfect course…..”
I remember watching a couple motoring out to their boat in a very rough anchorage next to me… The dinghy was expertly motored up to the swim step across the stern of the boat, drifting to a stop under difficult conditions… He stepped past his companion and expertly stepped up on the bow tube and stepping across open water onto the sailboat, almost with the grace of a ballet star, without looking back went forward and down below… His crew however, who was holding the dinghy, was now finding herself slowly being stretched between the sailboat, firmly in her grip and her feet which were now securely planted onto the dinghy bow and was slowly being stretched out over open, rocking water… She finally gave up and let go… Of course he had tied off the painter so there was no chance of the dinghy drifting away…
The hardest part of adjusting is the physical part, easier to adjust to far fewer showers or a clean change of clothes everyday… You learn to become self balancing on the constant motion of the boat… If you see someone rocking back and forth while standing they live on a boat… Part of life aboard, besides always having to climb up and down a ladder every time I go up to the cockpit, is getting in and out of the dinghy… I will refer to the process of getting in and out of the dinghy as “mounting the tender” or “popping the tube”… Tying your dinghy to the dock can test your balancing skills… Pulling into a dock with the waves surging past and hitting the shore nearby, slowing down going forward and tying off the dock line all while standing on the raised deck as the surge raised me and pushed me with equal force sideways trying to slide under the dock… Once secured throwing out an anchor line from the stern to keep the boat from banging on the dock, tying it off to the stern, finally I use a special cable I had made up to lock the motor, and gas can to the dock… Now, with trash bags tossed up on the dock, backpack and anything else I am taking with me ashore I climb up on the bow tube and grip onto the dock waiting for the wave to lift the dinghy so I can hopefully exit my dinghy and pull myself ashore without making it look to awkward… To get into the dinghy, usually under reduced conditions at night with no moon, same surge, a wee bit too much to drink… and most importantly no one around to watch the graceful ease I exhibit climbing down/falling/jumping into the dinghy from above, undoing all the tangle of lines resulting from the dinghy’s swinging/me drinking… After finally unlocking the lock while standing in the dinghy then pulling up the anchor all the while the surge rocking you back and forth in a sweeping circular motion in all directions, finally untying and passing on the temptation to smite it with my rigging knife while at the same time swearing oaths to the skies above, the mystery knot I so expertly tied in daylight/sober… Under the massive power of my 5 hp outboard I head out into the dark seas directed by my anchor light which I thought to turn on most of the time when I am leaving the boat to go ashore, knowing how easily I can be corrupted and how short trips to buy a couple of things and quickly check up on Stuart and Natalya can turn into after dark often late at night dinghy trips back to the boat, tying the dinghy securely to the transom then tossing any bags of stuff I picked up onboard, then hopefully step across the dinghy bow to swim step without any mishaps, in other words, going below in dry clothes… At least at night you have less of a chance being seen..
I have been staying on the boat working on a couple of postcard size paintings… I can apply the same skills learned on larger paintings, with all the same challenges but done quicker and looser… The rocking and rolling aboard with the weather we have been getting has forced me to keep it loose, especially with the smaller format…That has been a fault of mine on much of my artwork, too much control… What a surprise,,, Painting in a smaller scale will become my method of choosing which I might want to do in a bit larger scale… I am thinking of having the ones I am happiest with printed into Geeclee post card 5”X7” prints and sold in Vieques Yacht Club… I don’t know I might be really shooting for the stars on this one… If you are interested in seeing them I posted them on my website so click here then go to the bottom of the page to see the postcards… Tomorrow I will go ashore with camera in hand.. The coastline west of the Malecon has some fairly unusual rock formations along the reef and around the rocky point is some uninhabited beach full of palm trees, should get me something interesting there to paint, scout it out for some outdoor painting… The problems with painting outdoors is that people keep stopping and wanting to talk to you… Once while in Puerto Vallarta on the beach front watching several fishermen on the spray washed rocks fishing the surf I took some watercolors, that I had taken with me on my walk that day and sat down to paint it… I had been working around 15 minutes when for some reason I turned around towards the street behind me.. Standing there was about 15-18 Mexicans standing very quietly watching me work, never saying a word… When I turned I kinda jumped back when I saw all the people which, in turn, got mostly a smile from the people when they saw my reaction… It wasn’t a very good painting…
It is now Sunday morning and I am charging batteries and making water while updating… Being the 1st of the month I will go through my monthly maintenance routine which includes exercising the through hull sea cocks, running the diesel for 20 minutes or so, walking around deck and check stuff… Always something to be done…
I have decided to start eating Puerto Rican cuisine for all my onboard meals prepared in my galley, all 4 square feet of deck slace and 6 square feet of cluttered countertop… My reasons are simple, it is what is mostly available in the markets… I have some chicken which I will be making into a Arroz con Pollo a big favorite in Central and South America, including the Caribbean, especially the parts that were once Spanish… It will be my Sunday dinner, made in my pressure cooker, uses far less fuel and really turns out moist chicken and rice…. Of course I am pretty sure I will really be sick and tired of it by the time I get to the bottom of the pot… The markets (2) are little stores with a really poor selection of food but you won’t starve, however their ice cream selection is absolutely superb as is their pastries which include Honey Buns…
More Later….
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