Planing Blues or Gang Land Violence

July 23, 2006

Sunday, July 23, 2006 - Steve and Sally Dock, Oriental, NC
By Tom

Work continues on the boat to make her ready for our return to the Bahamas. We have tentatively picked October 1 as our departure date.

First, we got our new dinghy. It is a Livingston hard catamaran and it has a 4.5 foot beam, draws 3 inches and weighs in at 125 pounds. She is a little on the porky side, but it couldn't be helped.

Once we got her back to the Steve and Sally Marina Resort, Spa and Car Rental, we splashed her in the water and I managed to get our old outboard running. Unfortunately, the 8 horse power Honda is not able to plane the boat with both of us in it. More unfortunately, the Honda stopped running after 10 minutes.

We loaded the engine into the truck and took it out to the local Honda dealer. They said it would take a couple of weeks to look at it, so dinghy testing has been put on hold. While we were at the repair shop, I talked to the woman in charge and found out they do have a trade in program, so we may be trading up to a larger, more powerful engine.

With the dinghy situation currently stalled, we switched to the floor project. Our new floor material is called Nautolex. It almost looks like linoleum except that it is made from rubber and the surface is knubbly for traction. We got it ours in the shark color, which looks like no shark I have ever seen. Maybe its like a carpet shark or something?

Anyhow, I have cut the first section to fit the main salon passage way. This involved taking up all the floor trim as well as removing the salon step. Once clear of impediments, I cleaned the area and then layed in the cut piece. Amy and I are both happy with how good it looks. See supporting evidence at right.

I haven't glued the pieces down yet, because we are house sitting later this week for our neighbor Miss Pat and I figured I would do it while we are off the boat so as not to asphyxiate any ferrets with glue fumes.

In other work related news, I have finished wiring the 3rd bedroom to take our newly purchased freezer. Steve and Sally have one of those mobile freezers that work off of 12 volt or 110. Theirs is an Entec that they got off the internet. I borrowed theirs this week and did some energy tests and found that we can afford the power requirements with our current alternative energy setup.

I don't think we will have any problems as we only intend to use the freezer at times when we have a large fish that we will need to freeze part of while we eat through it. In my tests, I found that I could keep water frozen on a 40% duty cycle and draw only 2.7 amps while active. Not too shabby.

Milo is happy to know that the freezer and more importantly, food, will be parked right outside the entrance to his house. I fear he may never leave his bed again.

All of our assorted gear ordered on American Express frequent flyer points has arrived. In the accompanying pictures you can see our new dry bag backpacks, my sweet new volleyball, Amy's underwater camera and a few new squeaky toys for the ferrets.

Speaking of ferrets, Mila has asked me to thank the three of you who wrote her and wished her well. She has completely recovered from her surgery and is doing well. She can be seen at right pilfering some of my whiskey. Mila also said to tell the guy named Stavo in San Francisco, who asked that if she didn't pull through if he could make a coat out of her, to go burn in hell. Message delivered little weasel.

Less you think it has been all work and no play, we've been hanging out with Steve and Sally about every other night for happy hour at their house. Usually we show up just in time to watch them eat dinner, but as weird as that sounds, it is nice to get off the boat and see other people.

I may not have mentioned it before, but Steve and Sally have been having some gang related problems recently. It seems a wild and furry gang of squirrels has moved in and they have been showing up around sun down on the back porch.

The reason, I am told, we know they are gang squirrels and not the more common Grey squirrels is because their leader, who calls himself by the obvious alias Homey (home-ee), has been seen flashing all manner of gang signs on the back porch. I have included a hidden shot of Homey caught in the act. For your own protection, remember this face.

Anyhow, stay tuned.

P.S.

You didn't hear it from me, but rumor has it that Don Mila might have a job for homey's gang that involves a trip to San Francisco, some baseball bats, a goober named Stavo and an offer he can't refuse. Stavo should have known better, you never cross the God-Ferret.