Attitude
currently in: Myrtle Beach, SC

Today we made our first (but no doubt not our last) trips to West Marine and Home Depot.  As I swiped my credit card through the reader, I joked to Britt that now I finally felt like we were out cruising! 

We're making progress, slowly but steadily.  The deck and hull have been washed, the teak's been oiled, filters have been changed and the interior is getting very close to being livable.  The gouges in the keel from our close encounters with reefs have been filled in and await bottom paint.  The instruments have been reconnected and correctly tell us that our speed is zero.

Today we started the engine: Britt crawled into the lazarette and directed a stream of water from the end of the assembly of hoses that we have connected to the boatyard's sole water tap some 300 feet away into the seawater strainer, while I stood in the cockpit, arms outstretched, the fingertips of my left hand barely able to turn the ignition key, the fingertips of my right hand barely able to nudge the throttle.  We had to clean some corrosion off the starter wires before we even got it to crank, and I had to restart the engine over and over as it fitfully coughed over the air bubbles and dirty diesel in the lines, but Houston, we have liftoff - or at least we have an engine.

Another couple has come into the boatyard to prepare their boat for cruising.  I walked by their boat on my way to turn on the water, and the woman jokingly asked whether she could borrow a Valium.  It seems they had asked the yard to paint the bottom, and had hired someone local to do some interior work, and neither had been done; in addition, the boat was dirty and things were a mess, and the prospect of the work that lay ahead depressed them both.

Listening to them made me feel very odd!  Because certainly, Windom isn't in any different condition than their boat, and in fact their boat has only sat for a year while ours has sat for two.  But by contrast, we're excited and happy, and it seems to us like there's not that much to be done before we can get underway.  They're thinking, oh no, two whole weeks of work, and we're thinking, oh boy, only two weeks of work!  I guess in absolute terms, maybe we don't have it so good - but all we have to do is remember the labor that we endured in 2004, and this seems trivial!

This brings to mind the saying that some friends reminded us of back in 2001 when our cruising life underwent a series of unfortunate events:  "Attitude is the difference between ordeal and adventure."  I wonder how much of my current feeling of ebullience and excitement stems from simple anticipation, from knowing that we're heading out again, having missed it, and being focused on the positive - and from having expected worse.  Because it is a lot of work, no question, and I'm not exactly crazy about hard work, as everyone who knows me is well aware!

Well, it's a good thing we've got this positive attitude.  Because the bad news is that one of the yard guys is on vacation, and another one is injured, and although we were hoping to get splashed tomorrow, it's looking like we won't be able to get put in the water until Monday.  Our hotel room isn't bad, but it's not that cheap, and we have to give the rental car back on Saturday - so I think we're going to be living on the boat on the hard for the weekend.  No fridge, no running water, and I'll have to climb down the ladder and walk to the marina restroom (or more probably the bushes!) if I need a toilet. Hopefully my attitude will come through the weekend intact.

- posted by S/V Windom @ 3/07/2007 [link]