July, 2018

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Sunday July 8th. Travel plans to the North West.

Sunday, July 8th, 2018

I mentioned briefly in my previous blog of June 15 that I was considering making a short visit to attend the 80th birthday party of Sid Nesbit. Laura sprung me buddy tickets for the flight on Alaska. I have booked my standby ticket from Baltimore to SEATAC on the 25th. And plan to return on the 8th or 9th of August.

The birthday party is on the Nesbit beach on the Lummi Rez near, Bellingham. Full moon is on the day before and with the Western exposure towards the San Juan Islands, it should be extra festive. I met Sid and his wife Leslie on a KLM PNSA ski charter flight to Zurich, in February 1972. We skied together at the Arlberg in Lech-Zuers and have been friends ever since. The only other commitment I have, so-far, is to celebrate my youngest son, Seth, 38th birthday near Portland, Oregon on August 4th. I will be staying, first with Lisa in Fife and later with Rose Marie and Donovan in Federal Way. I hope to attend the 8.30 mass at St. Nicholas in Gig Harbor on August 5th, to catch up with my Gig Harbor friends. 

I had another setback on the re-launch of “Fleetwood”. The access to the water has been, in my opinion arbitrarily, blocked by a huge motor catamaran. I was blocked earlier in the meantime I finished rewiring the mast and make repairs to it. The one item that was keeping the mast from being re-stepped was the installation of reinforcing rods from the keel bolts near the mast-step to the cabin roof through the bulkhead roof beam. I had a very difficult time to thread the holes I had drilled into the nuts on the keel bolts. But, presto!, Joe Darzey of the 48 foot catamaran “Presto” came to the rescue this afternoon. Joe helped remove the nuts and this will make it possible to weld the nuts for the rods to them. Be sure to read Joe and Sue’s “Presto-Log” at:   https://www.sailblogs.com/member/presto/392048     Joe and Sue are from the Northwest, Kingston-Poulsbo, he has fished commercially up and down the Pacific west coast to Alaska. I met them here in Cape Charles last fall when they were preparing to join the “Salty Dawgs” rally to the Caribbean. They came back here recently to repair one of their broken rudders. Joe also questioned my theory that I could not bottom paint from just a few days before launching, I double checked the label and, again Presto!, it is good for 60 days before splashing. So, I have some work to do on the exterior. It has been just too hot to work inside the boat. That will be a lot easier and cooler in the water. Hopefully I will have a picture of “Fleetwood” back where she belongs in the next blog. 

I just posted a short video on you tube of this weeks’s 4th of July celebration: https://youtu.be/MslSBfInLe0 and one of a very entertaining event last Friday evening at the Palace theater. https://youtu.be/JHl_W9dtp10

I was with my friends Bruce and Audrey Brinkley. Bruce used to have his own band and knows several of the musicians of the “Raw Beets” that played Friday evening. I even got to dance with another friend, Thelma, who is also a musician, song writer and painter and a great dance partner. I am fairly certain that the last time that I danced was in 2005 at the Honiara Yacht Club on Guadalcanal Island in the Solomon Islands and there is a picture of me crashing a Saigon wedding in 2006.  It continues to amaze me the talent and diversity of the people I meet here. It will be very sad to hear the “bon voyages” once I am ready to move on. The people and the landscape have become very dear to me. For sure a good place to look forward to revisiting. 

For my Cape Charles friends: I will give a presentation on my sailing adventure on August 12th at 11 a.m. at the “Lemon Tree Gallery” http://lemontree.gallery/ I will also have my books “SoloMan” and “The Mastmakers’ Daughters” available for purchase and signing. 

I finally have a working cell phone again, with my old number 253-441-7204. Jeannine, my daughter here in Chesapeake, came to the rescue after I got a 6 week run around by TracFone. 

(The internet connection here is awful right now, I will add a few pictures when the connection improves)