June 3rd, 2014

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Monday June 2nd. Can you pick out the new “Fleetwood”?

Tuesday, June 3rd, 2014

I am on schedule for the Wednesday re-launch. The third finish coat went on the top sides,the boot stripe and the first anti fouling, today. Tomorrow the boat is moved so that I can anti foul the area under the stanchions and do the second boot stripe and anti-fouling coat. Then I will be on  my way to my temporary home in Gig Harbor, on Wednesday.

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So, which is the old “Fleetwood” and which is the new one? I have received some well meant concerns about re-naming an existing boat name and/or calling it # 2. But if it is hard to see the difference, who cares? I think that our parents should have given me and my twin brother the same name, because we listened to both names anyway. Can you figure out who is who from this picture? I can’t, only our mother and older sister know the difference.

JaapJan1949

Yesterday I went to mass again at Saint Martin of Tours in Fife, which is very close to where I am staying with Lisa and Harry. The pastor is Father Gary Weisenberger who was the priest in my parish in Gig Harbor. He married me and my last wife on December 18, 1993. We have something in common, we both have Frisian mothers. His mom is 93 and she particularly loved reading “The Mastmakers’ Daughters”. Her roots are in Sint Nicolaasga a Roman Catholic enclave in the predominantly protestant Frisian province. I love this priest. He has something in common with the pastor of the church I attended when I lived on the boat in Amsterdam, father Ambro Bakker of the Augustinus church in Buitenveldert. Both have a special gift to bring the gospel alive, every word  is a message to help us in our journey to salvation.  There should not be one empty seat in both these churches if the neighborhood would realize what these men have to share with them. 

For the Puget Sound area people, a reminder of the presentation this Wednesday at the Gig Harbor Yacht Club. See my previous blog. It sound like it will be well attended, quite a few of new and old friends are coming. And also if you can make it to the Blessing of the Fleet on Sunday the 8th, in the afternoon at Jersich Park, you’ll be able to see the new “Fleetwood” at the public boat ramp, for her blessing by deacon John Ricciardi, who blessed the old “Fleetwood” on the same occasion in 2004. We plan to have a picnic on the grass with my daughters and their families, weather permitting.