It took us a day and a half just to pack the van. Barry had bolted additional 2-by-4’s onto the roof rack, and while I sorted and packed clothes and food and toys and cmping gear, he was strapping a room-sized piece of carpet, our mizzen sail, and a collection of conduit and PVC on the top.

Then we carefully went through the boat, stowing our fiberglass tools and boatyard-skanky clothes and our dorm-sized refrigerator inside. We removed all loose items from the deck and the area around our jackstands, set off a bug bomb inside to eradicate the palmetto bugs, and locked the companionway. The last thing we did was take down the ladder.

And then I turned the key, and the Squid Wagon did not start.

How is it that an inanimate object, a simple dumb non-sentient vehicle, can know that we are about to ask it to drive 6000 miles? Whoever heard of a lazy van?

But Squidley knew that we were about to head on a cross-country road trip, and instead of a giant diesel-sized roar, there was just a tiny whimper.

Luckily, Kenny Bock keeps a portable charger for such emergencies, which probably occur every few days around boats. We got the van started, I got hugs from all my favorite guys in the yard (that’s Randy, Larry, and Dale) and we headed west.

In truth, we’d simply run the batteries down with the dome lights while doing all that packing. Once Squidley realized that we really were heading all the way to Nevada with a deconstructed port-a-potty strapped on top, he decided to cooperate.

As I write this, we’re driving across Utah on I-80. The sunshine on the Great Salt Lake is achingly beautiful, and there are many sailboats out there.

The sails don’t tempt us at all. We continue on, away from the water and toward the Nevada desert.

Our first encounter with other pilgrims was in the middle of Nebraska, in a Cabela’s parking lot. When we came out, we found a note on our windshield: “We shall see you at the gates of heaven.” It was in response to one we’d left on a New York van on our way into the store: “See you at home!” We never actually saw them, only their vehicle, which featured mountain bikes and (the dead giveaway) a large Burning Man logo.

Our next encounter was on I-80, somewhere in Wyoming. At the Squid Wagon’s usual 60 mph, we rarely pass anyone, but some Burners travel even slower, laden with art and gas cans and misshapen trailers of curious gear. Last night, we honked and waved as we slowly passed a converted shool bus with dozens of hula-hoops strapped to the back.

We’re all excited and happy to be going to Black Rock City, that amazing temporary city of 50,000 people, where Burning Man is held. We come from all over the world, from Australia and Scotland and New York and San Francisco and Seattle and, of course, North Carolina. We bring art and costumes and food and drink to share, and we bring a spirit of freedom and generosity not found anywhere else in the world.

As usual, our voyage across the country to this amazing event included a lot of stops along the way. We started with my brother in North Carolina, then detoured to Ohio to see a whole passel of friends, siblings, in-laws, and nephews. This was followed by a stop with my aunts, where we stayed in a convent crammed into a twin bed (there’s no reason for a double bed in a convent, evidently).

Best of all was the shopping, which started during a rendezvous with Margaret’s Dad in South Carolina and ended during a rendezvous with Barry’s Mom and Dad in Nevada. The list included Lucite platform shoes, pink knee-high boots, inflatable aliens, and 8 packages of tofu. We’ll have to write more about that — and the port-a-potty on our roof, and the original Tin Roof Sundae, and the tag-team oil change — later, when we emerge from our week-long communications blackout.

Through it all, Squidley has started each day with a giant roar and that diesel rumble that sounds like a UPS truck. I think that van has a sense of humor, and has been laughing at us all the way across the country.

You know how it goes….it is supposed to be a simple, easy project.

I stopped to ask Kenny about marine “goop” compounds, so I can pick the right one when we install our new forward hatch.  After he answered, he asked if we were ready to be moved and have the boat lowered.

Ack!

I said something like “Uhm, it will take a couple days, since we haven’t done anything to put new bottom paint on the centerboard and trunk yet…”

By this time, we had already finished a bunch of boat projects, and weren’t starting many new ones — we were trying to figure out our plans for Burning Man instead.  All we had left was removing some leaking hardware and plugging the holes with goop, installing the new hatch, putting a cover over the hole where the main mast will go….and probably a couple other jobs I’ve since forgotten.

So this sounded pretty easy — just pick out some bottom paint, scrape the centerboard and trunk clean of mollusks, do a quick scuff sand, and slap on the bottom paint.  Of course, picking the bottom paint was an agonizing decision that took forever, but that was OK, ’cause we were doing other stuff in the meantime.

First off, we didn’t have the right sander for the job. The best and fastest tool would probably be a big 7″ or 8″ right angle grinder, but it just seems too big to keep on our boat. Instead, I drove Margaret nuts shopping for the perfect 5″ random orbit sander…after checking every store in town and combing the internet, we decided to order one online and pay for expedited shipping.

Then we had to haul the centerboard up so we could get better access to the trunk (from below).  Normally that wouldn’t be a big job, but we have a ballasted centerboard that weighs between 1000 and 2000 pounds. With the built-in purchase and one of the winches it goes up with a bit of a grunt.  But the deck was sagging under the weight, so we wanted to rest it on cribbing.

Cribbing is two-foot sections of lumber appropriate for railroad ties, very heavy stuff. You stack it up under the boat like Lincoln logs. Unfortunately, while fetching enough to hold up the centerboard, Margaret threw her back out.

The next day, the sander arrived and I started on the centerboard.  The sanding went well, except that there were these places where round bits of fiberglass showing through the paint.  What are these?  Blisters.  Yep, no doubt about it.  Blisters.  Some of them even ooze ugly liquids when I poke them.

Now the “simple” project had a major complication.  However much we wanted to just zip through this, we couldn’t slap bottom paint over the blisters.  So I told Kenny that we wouldn’t be ready to have the boat moved on the original schedule, and now the job was redefined like this:

Sand all the paint off, down to bare fiberglass.  Grind out the blisters.  (Hello to my old friends, the 4 1/2″ angle grinder and Mr. Dremel!)  Water wash and solvent wash everything.  This was the only part of the job I would let Margaret do, since the grinding and sanding is at an awkward angle for a bad back.  Oops! Missed a couple blisters, especially some deeper ones.  Grind out more blisters.  (Apologize to my poor wife for doing this after she already washed it.)  Water wash and solvent wash again.  Fill the holes with epoxy and expensive West System colloidal silica filler.  Run out of filler after doing one side and a third of the other.  Buy some cheap cab-o-sil the next morning when the yard opens.  Fill the rest of the holes.  Sand them all smooth again.  Water wash and solvent wash.  Fill again with Awlfair fairing filler.  Sand it smooth.  Water wash and solvent wash it again.  Put three coats of barrier coat on the centerboard.  (Somewhere in the second coat figuring out which rollers would work and that brushing doesn’t)  Put two coats of bottom paint on the board and the trunk plus the bottom of the keel.  Since the centerboard was a little awkward to work on, I didn’t let Margaret do anything except the washing to prevent further injuries.

Whew!  After all this, collapse for an hour or two.

While I was sanding, grinding, filling, and painting, Margaret had been doing other jobs or resting her back (recovered by now). And finally, Flutterby is in her new home, about 100 feet away from her old home, out of Kenny’s way, and about four feet lower. We are very happy with her new altitude!

I felt really stupid last week. Most of you will be aware that this is not a rare occurrence.

A fellow boater, not a liveaboard, came by to purchase our old stove. He was curious about life on the hard, and he asked me, “Do you have AC?”

I thought to myself, “Gee, he’s kind of oblivious.” He was standing right next to the big yellow 30-amp cord that runs from the power pole up to the boat.

“Oh, yes,” I said, nodding vigorously and gesturing at the power cord. “We have both AC and DC!”

There was an awkward pause, and then everyone laughed politely. “Oh, you didn’t mean alternating current, you meant air conditioning … er, no, we don’t have air conditioning.”

But I felt embarrassed at the misunderstanding, and I wonder if living in 95-degree heat and 100-percent humidity without air conditioning has permanently addled my brain.

A certain member of my family, upon hearing that Barry and I are going to Burning Man in August to escape the humidity, said vehemently, “You guys are wimps!” This particular individual, who shall remain nameless (but his initials are HHS Jr), lives in an air-conditioned condominium and has a side-by-side refrigerator with an icemaker.

I protest. We are not wimps! It’s just that we need some attitude adjustment, despite a number of well-thought-out changes to improve our quality of life:

Refrigeration: After a month of driving to town every other day ($5 in gas) and spending $5 for block ice, we ran the numbers. At $60, a dorm-sized refrigerator in the cockpit would pay for itself in less than a month.

Our luxurious 1.3 cubic foot fridge has an ice cube tray that makes about 12 cubes the size of your thumbnail. With 12 ice cubes, who needs air conditioning? We even tried buying ice cream sandwiches, but that meant taking out the ice cube tray. Then the ice cream sandwiches melted into a gooey blob and refroze into a flat solid mass that had to be chipped out with a chisel.

Music: We got tired of the tinny speakers on the computer and bought a stereo that plays our iPods. Music is the best mood-enhancer, but the folks on nearby boats sometimes wonder about the belly dance music.

Communication: We picked up a used cell phone and signed up for prepaid service with Alltel, the only company with good signal in the boatyard. Now our phone actually rings on the boat, making it feel like home, thanks to the telemarketers.

And then came the best quality-of-life improvement of all, not even one we initiated. Last week, Bock Marine installed a satellite internet system, giving us access to the Web right here on the boat. No more driving to the Beaufort library, just to check Barry’s online comic strip. No more evenings sitting in the van, watching the tourists as we try to order power tools.

Just as we get all these quality of life improvements, we’re going to Burning Man. We’re exchanging humidity, hurricanes, and fiberglass dust for a week in the desert, with 110-degree days and overflowing porta-potties. But at Burning Man, there are no 2-inch flying cockroaches. And there’s the real reason I’m fleeing the boat. Go ahead, call me a wimp.

A couple of months ago, passing through Tennessee, we spent a night in a campground intended for horse people. The facilities were great, especially the restrooms. I wandered over to use the ladies’ room, and while I was washing my hands, I chatted with a woman who was blow-drying her hair. About an hour later, I went back for a shower. She was still there, styling her hair. I could hardly believe it.

It turned out that she shows horses professionally. As such, she is judged on her appearance and performance, as well as the horse’s. That weekend, she was just going to be trail-riding in the woods with her family, but to her mind, there was no way she could ever go out on a horse without doing full hair and makeup.

It was a fascinating conversation, during which I admitted that I hadn’t owned a blow-dryer in many years — my hair is too long to benefit from such treatment. I held back any comments about wasting a large portion of one’s life in a public restroom with a blow-dryer for company.

What does this have to do with working on Flutterby? OK, I’m getting there.

We have a giant hole in our deck that’s become something of a sore spot. Giant is relative — the hole is about the size of my hand. We’ve had lots of gully-washer thunderstorms, and this hole holds about a cup of water, no matter how we try to cover it up. A couple of days ago, we looked at each other across the soggy hole and said “We need a blow dryer.”

More damned shopping. I gnashed my teeth.

I mentioned this to my friend Pat as we were making plans to meet for lunch. “Maybe we’ll find a blow dryer at the thrift store,” I said, hopefully. I love shopping at thrift stores, and I hate shopping at places like Target and Wal-Mart. But Pat had a very reasonable objection: “Why would someone give it away if it still worked?”

So we got into the Squid Wagon and drove into town with two goals. One, have lunch with Pat and Belinda (happy thought), and two, buy a brand-new blow-dryer (tooth-gnashing thought).

When we arrived in town, it was hot. But Beaufort is an old town, with nice big trees overhanging slightly narrow streets. Instead of taking the first Giant Squid-sized parking space, I circled a couple of blocks, looking for a shady spot. At one point, I had to pull way over to allow the garbage truck to go by. The garbage men were wearing orange vests that said “Inmate” on the back, and they had very, very short hair. Not the kind of guys who would need a blow-dryer.

Finally, I found a shady space, just past a couple of garbage cans waiting to be emptied.

Barry got out of the van first, but for some reason, he was standing behind the vehicle. I could hear the chuckles start, then full-on belly-laughter, and when I walked around, he was pointing at the garbage can.

Sitting on top of the lid was a blow-dryer, the cord neatly-coiled. We looked at each other, and Barry’s laughter faded to a slight frown. “How will we know if it works?” he worried. “I’d hate to drive back to the boatyard, thinking we’ve solved our problem, only to find it’s useless.” I stared at the strange, miraculous find and thought about it.

“If it was broken, they would have put it inside the trash can. They put it on top, with the cord neatly coiled, hoping somebody would take it,” I said, slowly. “I bet it still works!”

With a shrug, Barry picked it up. Then he opened the door and placed it in the back of the van without taking a single step. It was meant to be. Perfect synchronicity.

Today, I took the blow-dryer up on the foredeck and tackled the giant hole (which I now call “the blow-dryer hole”). I put on my iPod and sat in the sunshine, watching the boats on the Waterway and the birds and the dolphins and our Finnish boatyard neighbors. As I blow-dried the hole, I thought of the woman in the Tennessee restroom. Thanks to a strange coincidence, I, too, have a blow-dryer, and I spend hours with it each day. I wonder if she could give me some tips for styling fiberglass?

The “lounge” here at the boatyard isn’t much. It’s back behind the office, in a cinderblock building. There’s a soda machine, a coin-operated washer and dryer, and a couple of cast-off tables and chairs. One corner has a shelf full of books to trade, and under the sink is the “free table,” where boaters can swap their unneeded junk for other boaters’ unneeded junk. Mainly, the lounge is an air-conditioned, grubby space that provides access to the restrooms and showers and a reliable old-fashioned landline telephone.

So when a small incongruous sign appeared in the lounge one Friday evening, saying “Potluck, Saturday 6 pm. BYO everything,” I chuckled. “That must be the Australians,” I commented to Barry.

Boats here in the yard come and go by way of the Travelift, which plucks them out of the water and gently carries them, in woven slings, to their assigned place in the yard. A few mornings earlier, alerted by the distinctive sound of the Travelift nearby, I popped my head out, prairie dog-style, and reported to Barry down below. “Honey Moon, Mooloolaba, Australia. Definitely a world cruiser.” We met Don and Aggie a little later. “Welcome to the neighborhood,” I said.

The two of them have been cruising for decades. They’ve been on their current circumnavigation for a few years, having done the Red Sea route to the Mediterranean and then cruised the French Canals and Holland before coming across to the Caribbean. Down in Trinidad, they were looking for a spot to store their boat while they flew home, and they heard about Bock Marine. It was just what they were looking for, and only a few thousand miles away. No problem for someone who had sailed halfway around the world from Australia.

Once they were established in the yard, they launched into their list of projects, Aggie toting vast quantities of laundry on a small folding bike to the lounge. Whenever I walked past the washing machine, her distinctive koala-print bag was sitting on top. Don stayed close to the boat, working and supervising the sandblasting and welding. But they’d been through this process before, many times, so they paced themselves, allowing time for a social life. Hence the potluck.

That Saturday evening in the lounge, we discovered a number of people living and working in their boats who we hadn’t met. Albertine and Joop, from the Netherlands, were parked right next to the Travelift. Walter’s boat is near the bridge. We knew Dan, whose Alberg 35 is over in our area, but we hadn’t yet met Kevin, on Dynamic Duo. His catamaran was next to Dan. There’s a fellow named Steven, whose Irish accent is almost incomprehensible, and his partner, a woman from Taiwan who never speaks at all. They’re working on a huge mysterious sailboat back in the “sandpit,” as Steven calls it.

In addition to the folks at the potluck, I knew of five others who hadn’t attended. That meant that even on a Saturday evening, when the boatyard was closed, there were about 20 people working and staying on their boats here. We are all grinding and sanding and painting and building, and at the same time, we all have to sleep and eat and carry things up and down a ladder a hundred times a day. It’s a crazy lifestyle, and it’s nice to know we’re not alone.

After the potluck, the ice was broken. Every few evenings, we’d hear laughter coming from one boat or another, evidence of a little get-together. Albertine and Joop invited us to dinner on their boat, along with Don and Aggie. We watched the sun set over the water from the cockpit, enjoying drinks and Indonesian food. It was just like having dinner in a little marina, except for the 10-foot ladder. The next day, the Travelift picked them up and dropped them back in the water, and they headed north to New England.

Kevin launched a few days later. He spent the first night tied to the dock, and we went aboard for beers and conversation. What a joy to be on a boat that was actually floating!

I wanted to host a gathering, too, but our interior is so bad, we’re not even sleeping in the boat. So I hauled the barbecue out of storage and invited Gigi and Val and Don and Aggie over for hamburgers. There were two challenges: Where to attach the marine barbecue, and how to deal with a 25-knot breeze. I parked the van sideways as a giant windbreak, and then we rolled a 10-foot-tall scaffold over to it. Barry clamped the barbecue onto the scaffold (marine barbecues are designed to attach to rails or pipes and don’t have legs), and we spread our fixings and watermelon and beverages out on the scaffold. Then we made a circle of chairs and sat under the stars, eating and talking in the shadow of the boats.

When a boat goes back into the water, it’s a happy time. But it’s hard for me, because it means another friend is gone. What I find most depressing is when friends leave, but their boats stay here. I was depressed for a couple of days when Don and Aggie flew home to Australia, leaving their boat silent and tarped. And for another couple of days when Gigi and Val drove north to Quebec. This week was the worst, when the yard workers took their summer vacation as well. I miss the smiling faces of Randy and Larry and Dale!

But we are not completely alone. Over in the sandpit, we often see Steven working at the top of his mast, the tallest in the boatyard. He’s strangely attired in full foul-weather gear as he reeves halyards and adjusts rigging. Last year, he says, he went up unprotected and discovered a wasp’s nest. “The bastards never die, they just kept stinging me over and over, all the way down,” he complained.

Dan, on Arima, hurried to launch his boat before the yard closed for the week. But the next day, he found that his shaft was leaking, so he didn’t actually leave. He’s tied to the dock, bilge pumps running, waiting for the yard workers to return. I’m sorry for his misfortune, but it’s nice to see his smiling face around the place.

The best company in the boatyard right now is not even human. I don’t mean the palmetto bugs — we had a fat brown 2-inch visitor to the boat last week, and I could do without him. I mean the kitties.

When we arrived, the boatyard had three cats. Now that Gigi has gone north, I’ve taken on the job of feeding them early in the morning — 5:30 am, to be precise. “Hello, kitty!” I sing, coaxing a white-and-gray calico closer with treats. She nervously stuffs herself with dry cat food, her belly close to the ground. Then she stands up, looks around, and begins to make a strange meeowing-yowling noise.

It’s a kitten call! From across the parking lot, four babies tumble out of the “kitten hole” a small irregular opening that Dale cut for them in the wall of the steel work building. They scamper out and hide under the crane, and the black one ventures halfway across the parking lot. Then a big scary garbage truck comes by, and Mom quickly leads them back to safety.

Play time is over, both for us and for them. But it’s a gentle reminder that it’s not all work here in the boatyard. Social butterflies that we are, we will always find company, even of the feline kind.

(One, two, three, four, five…)

I have a personal vendetta against the guy who drilled all the holes in the deck of our boat.

(…six, seven, eight, nine…)

I admit, a boat needs a lot of holes drilled in the deck. Our deck bristles with interesting hardware, much of it through-bolted. There are handrails and fairleads and stanchions and cleats and clutches and winches. But the guy I want to throttle is the one who drilled all the EXTRA holes in our boat.

I’m guessing that his boss gave him a template and a drill. But he was a ham-handed idiot. Maybe it was his first day, and he’d never used a drill before. So he plopped the template down, and zippity-zap, lickety-split, he drilled a bunch of holes. Oops! In the wrong place!

(…ten, eleven, twelve…)

So he filled the holes in with some sort of goop. Not anything structural, but the paint would hide that on the top, and the headliners on the bottom. Maybe the boss knew, and maybe he didn’t. Then our ham-handed idiot put the template down again, in the right place, and drilled. Zzzzap! Oops! Crooked!? More non-structural goop, more drilling.

(…thirteen, fourteen, OK, I’ll stop now…)

No, I’m not counting. I just happened to notice that our two mast collars need a total of 16 bolt holes. So why did we find 24 extra, or 40 total holes, in the mast partners, a place that needs as much strength as possible?

The legacy of the ham-handed idiot continued when we took down the main cabin headliners. What’s this? A fairlead that needed three holes, but got six? And look, there’s a delaminated area! That’s because the rope clutches, which only needed 9 holes, had 18 — and the infamous “goop” that he put in the extra holes failed.

This is a reminder to all of us. When you screw up and take shortcuts, you can cause a lot of heartache down the road. And if your mistake is bad enough, someone might come after you later. They might sue you, or worse. What I have in mind for the ham-handed idiot is worse.

Here’s another bit of counting: Twenty-seven. That’s how long ago this criminal drilling happened. If he’s not yet retired, maybe I can track him down. Here’s what I would do: I’d drill a couple of holes in his head, and stick some bolts in, like Frankenstein. I’ll only miss-drill once or twice, but I’ve got a tube of 3M 5200 here. That should be good enough to keep his brains from leaking out. If he ever had any.

When all our work in the forepeak is done, I’m sure Barry’s memories will be of a challenging engineering project. We took out hardware, ground out fiberglass and balsa, added fiberglass, and replaced hardware. There were challenges and bumps in the road, but the end result is a sturdy, well-found boat.

Here’s the female version of it. Be warned. It’s a lot more, er, emotional.

I knew from the beginning that the bow pulpit needed to be removed and rebedded — the first time we looked at the boat, I had crawled into the v-berth, stuck my head partway into the forepeak, and said to Barry, “Eeewwwww — what are those ugly stains?” Despite the fact that I couldn’t get my head in there, I was blissfully ignorant of the fact that we would have to remove the forward mast (ch-ching!) to do so.

OK, once the mast was out, this should be a simple, straightforward task. Ha! Not so fast, lady.

To get into this tiny bit of space, you have to lay on your back in the v-berth and slide into the forepeak through an access hatch that’s only about eighteen inches wide. Once your butt is through, you can sit up, but that does NOT make it comfortable. Your nose is now pressed against the bulkhead, and your tools and supplies are on the other side of that access hatch. If you’ve left them more than 6 inches away, you’ll have to reach them with your toes, because elbows don’t bend in that direction.

Years ago, we saw a fellow at Key West doing something he called “Rasta Yoga.” On Mallory Pier, at sunset, he would slowly fold his entire body into a plexiglass cube that was about 18 inches on a side. I now wonder if his day job involved climbing into forepeaks.

Anyway, Barry weaseled his way into the space, wearing the full Tyvek bunny suit and respirator. Then I passed the angle grinder through the hole left by the mast, and he started grinding away over his head. And feeling extremely guilty, I left. The entire boat was full of toxic dust, so I had no choice. Really.

To assuage my guilt, I volunteered to vacuum up the mess when he was done. At the end of the day, he peeled off the bunny suit, which no longer looked so cute and clean, and slouched off to the showers with a tell-tale red mark around his face from the respirator. I climbed into my own bunny suit and immediately started to sweat like a pig. The fit was lousy — the crotch was hanging somewhere around my knees, so I had to shuffle with my feet together. That didn’t matter, since I had to crawl on my hands and knees to get into the v-berth anyway. Then I rolled over on my back and slid into the forepeak, using the technique described above.

Damn. There I was, nose against the bulkhead, with no vacuum cleaner. Even if it was close enough to grab with my toes, I couldn’t fit it through the access hatch. So back out I went. I stuffed the vacuum in, slid myself on top of it (ouch!), then twisted around until it was on my lap. There are a lot of things (and people) I’d rather have in my lap than a wet-dry vac! And a screaming baby would have been much quieter.

When I finally came out, I have never felt less glamorous. I gave off clouds of fiberglass dust, and I felt like a toxic Pigpen. When I caught sight of myself in the mirror, I was horrified. The worst part was the hideous knit thingie we call the “head sock.” Bald would be prettier.

This trade-off continued for days, Barry, then me, then Barry, then me. Finally, Barry set up his mixing station on deck, creating batches of epoxy, painting them on the fiberglass pieces, and passing the resulting mess down to me through the mast hole. This was partly because of my guilt at letting him do the grinding, and partly because of history.

Back in 1990, we needed to make some repairs to our daysailer. We bought fiberglass and epoxy and read the instructions, and either of us could have applied it. But Barry was wearing contacts that day and had no eye protection. I had seven stitches in my thumb from a bagel-cutting accident, but we talked it over, and we knew that the one who applies the fiberglass wears gloves, anyway. And so our roles were established: Barry-the-mixer-of-epoxy (who only gets it on his gloves) and me, the-one-who-applies-the-fiberglass (and ends up wearing it everywhere).

I call it “toxic decoupage.”

Unfortunately, I hadn’t applied a lot of fiberglass since 1990, and I’d never applied it upside down, in a space only suited to a Rastafarian contortionist. And I’d never applied it in the dark — we were so desperate to put something IN instead of grinding stuff OUT that we started at dusk.

The result was a mistake. No, call it a learning process. Actually, it was just a huge mess. I had dripped epoxy everywhere — my arms, my head, my face, my chest. I’m surprised I could still breathe through the glop-covered respirator. I’d carefully donned safety glasses, but somehow had gotten epoxy on my eyelashes! And although I managed to emerge clean from the bunny suit, the suit itself had to be trashed. When the epoxy hardened, the zipper was history.

Worse, we discovered in the daylight the next day that the layup was just about useless, full of air bubbles and voids. Barry suited up, picked up the grinder again, and removed most of my work. I nearly cried, but wrote a limerick instead.

Me, an emotional, whining complaining female? Nah, just the willing victim of a challenging engineering project.

It started with a deck leak where the bolts hold the bow pulpit onto the boat.  Then we removed the bow cleats and two big bolts holding on the anchoring platform. Then the grinding began, wearing full protective gear.

I’ve had much better times in a different bunny suit…and Meps had a great time with just the head a while back. But this is a different time, and it calls for another kind of bunny suit.  I actually like it, especially the riot police style facemask which lets me both see and breath at the same time. And while this stuff isn’t fun, it really improves my life/health while I’m grinding fiberglass and doing fiberglass and epoxy repairs, which has been job #1 lately.

Actually, the balsa core wasn’t damaged far from the bolts, but it was kinda rotten for an inch or so around the bolts.  I have to call that “good news” since it means that the water and rot didn’t migrate very far.  Unfortunately, it was still a pretty big grinding job because where some of the bolts go through, the core was angled at 45 degrees, which made for a very poor place to bolt something on.  So I had to grind it out in a much larger area to make a flat-ish area under the bolts, then bevel the area around that.  Up in the forepeak, this is even more grinding, because there are two layers of balsa core (about two inches think) for extra strength where it holds the main mast up, so the bevel just goes on and on and on.

This makes it sound like a simple job, probably done quickly.  But of course, it wasn’t–first, the grinding happened in three or four strages as I figured out how big my problem was and how much bevel I needed, and that coarse sanding disks on my grinder work better than the abrasive disks for this job….with about four trips to the hardware stores trying to figure out exactly which attachments I needed for the grinder. (Thanks again for the grinder, Tom!)  Then there is the fiberglass and epoxy layup.

Since I had put on the full suit of gear and started grinding away in temperatures too hot for the job, Meps took the uncomfortable job of climbing into the forepeak laying on her back and fiberglassing over her head while I mixed epoxy and saturated cloth on deck and passed it down.  The first time it seemed easy, but that was before I took a careful look and then ground out quite a few voids.  The net result was that the first layup didn’t actually leave much on the boat, but we learned a lot:  1. Don’t lay up fiberglass at dusk, when you can’t see it.  2. If you are doing it overhead, use plenty of resin so it saturates well.  3. Grind those holes smoother so it won’t make voids at the transition points.  4. Start with thickened epoxy in the corners like a fillet to help with those voids too.

So I went back to grinding, then Meps went back to glassing.  Ultimately, if I remember correctly, there were three more gooey upside-down layups with glass cloth and epoxy.  Then I realized that the new backing plates wouldn’t sit flat.  Oops, I neglected to mention that in addition to the angle under some bolts, there were only fender washers underneath, and we didn’t think that was up to the job….so we made backing plates from 3/16″ aluminum plate…I know 3/16 is overkill, but that was the size of the scrap available in the boatyard. So back to putting the backing plates on–the flat area that was supposed to be above them was smaller than they were, so first we tried putting on some layers of chopped strand mat with epoxy to build up a flat area, but that didn’t do enough.  So after letting it cure and grinding it for the next coat to stick, we added a layer of thickened epoxy. Still the backing plates didn’t quite fit flush.  Grind it again so it had a little more tooth, and move on.

Then came the next step–fitting the bow pulpit back on.  It got bent a little in its history somehow, and that is probably why it wants to spring its feet apart–when you attach one foot, the other three don’t want to go where they belong any more.  So with a bit of wrestling, I got some holes drilled that were almost aligned–I could get all 12 bolts through, and they didn’t ALL bind up at once, at least after I had re-drilled three or four holes to enlarge them.  Then we tried to fit the backing plates onto the bottom….I mostly ground those holes larger with the Dremel instead of re-drilling them.  Finally we cleaned everything up, waxed the bolts and nuts, and added a last layer of thickened epoxy to both fill the space and glue the backing plates to the underside of the deck.

When that was done, we removed the bolts and drilled the holes out again (the epoxy had formed threads on the bottom, and I wanted open holes to put nuts and washers on the bottom). Then one last grinding job — removing the frozen epoxy “goobers” — and a very careful final cleanup.

The bow pulpit is now installed, mounted with expensive marine caulk and 12 brand-new 316 stainless steel bolts, nuts, and washers. Finally one thing is ready to go back to sea–way too much of the work so far has been in the direction of taking things apart instead of putting them back together.

A couple of weeks ago, we were sitting in the air-conditioned lounge between fiberglassing projects. We were wearing what Barry and I call our “itchy-scratchy” clothes, ratty things we only wear for the nastiest, messiest jobs. For me, that means denim shorts with a hole in the rear, an old t-shirt large enough to fit an elephant, and sandals.

A fellow walked in, and I glanced up from my notebook and said hello, absently. Then I looked at him again.

It was over 100 degrees, and he looked cool as a cucumber. He was wearing tooled leather cowboy boots and black jeans, with the kind of dress shirt you see at a country and western dance, or a square dance. It had shiny button covers and fancy trim along the yoke.

I realized I was staring, and I blurted out, “You sure don’t look like you’re working on a boat today!”

“No, I came on my motorcycle to show my boat to a prospective buyer,” he replied. He explained that he had a powerboat for sale out in the storage lot, the place we jokingly call “the field of broken dreams.”

A few years ago, when shopping for a boat, he was that extremely rare breed of boater who would consider either a powerboat or sailboat. He’d found a sailboat he liked, but the asking price was too high. He thought of making a lowball offer, but didn’t want to offend the seller. So he walked away from the sailboat. Later, it sold for the amount he would have offered. He kicked himself, but it was too late. He’d just bought a powerboat, a tri-cabin cruiser.

Now his powerboat is for sale. He can’t afford to use it, his dream broken by the high cost of fuel.

Occasionally, sailors buy powerboats, when they get old and tired of hoisting and trimming sails. Rarely does a powerboater buy a sailboat, but these are unusual times.

There was a very large Hunter sailboat tied up at the dock last week, and Val and Gigi wandered out to see it. “We were surprised to see all the lights on, but none of the hatches were open,” she said. “Then we realized it had two air conditioners, so of course the hatches were closed!”

They chatted with the couple on board, who were taking their new boat home to Texas and had recently run aground and needed repairs. They had sold their powerboat, because the cost of fuel was so high, and now they were going to try sailing. Given the size and complexity of the boat, they were certainly jumping in with both feet. But it was what Barry and I call a “furniture boat,” lots of pretty woodwork and fancy electrical systems, designed for the dock, not the waves.

The problem is, it’s just not natural to make a sailor out of a powerboater. A few years back, I had a coworker with a 25-foot planing powerboat. At the time, we had the Northern Crow, a gutsy little 25-foot sailboat.

Initially, I’d come in on Monday and compare notes with Gary. We’d spent a day ghosting to Poulsbo, watching for favorable currents, while he’d zipped up to Port Townsend in a couple of hours. But after a few months, I started coming in on Monday and seeing a long face. “How was your weekend, Gary? Did you take the boat out?” I’d ask. And his answer was always, “No, I couldn’t afford the fuel this weekend. The kids needed…” At the time, gas prices were half of what they are today, but he had teenaged boys in the house who ate up all his money.

I often teased him, saying, “How about a sailboat?” but it was a joke. He’d take up sailing when pigs fly.

Eventually, Gary got fired and had a mid-life crisis. He ran off with his stepson’s girlfriend, and his wife bitterly filed for divorce. She sold the boat.

I wonder if Gary or the fellow in the cowboy boots will ever have another boat. Given the price of fuel — high and going higher — the answer might just be, when pigs fly.

Barry came to me with a long face. “Er, I have some bad news.” He paused, leaving me to wonder just how bad this news was going to be. Sometimes, I wish he would just blurt it out, instead of making me wonder how bad it was. I found myself checking to make sure all his fingers were still attached.

“I killed your Dremel.”

Well, that wasn’t so terrible. I was a little sentimental about it, because it was a gift from my sister, and it was the only power tool in our arsenal that Barry and I both called “mine.” But we could easily buy another one.

So the next day, we got in the van and drove to the hardware store, about 15 miles, to buy another Dremel. Mission accomplished, we headed for a nearby restaurant for lunch. I was driving, and then Barry said, from the passenger seat, “Uh-oh.”

The only thing I hate more than “I have some bad news” is “Uh-oh.”

And one more thing we both hate is power windows. Unfortunately, the Squid Wagon has them. For months, I’d refused to use the one on the driver’s side. It was so slow, I was sure it was going to break and get stuck in the “down” position, and then it would rain. Now Barry followed his “Uh-oh” by telling me that the passenger window was stuck in the down position. This was followed by a rumble of thunder.

The window was going to be a much bigger headache than the Dremel. Frantic, we drove to the nearest Ford dealer.

“We don’t keep such old motors in stock, but I can order you one,” said the parts manager, smiling.

“I’m not certain the motor’s what I need…” said Barry.

“Electrical parts are non-returnable,” said the parts manager, and I realized the smile was robotic.

“I’ll go home and figure it out, and we’ll call you to order it in the morning,” said Barry.

“Nope, I can’t accept a credit card over the phone,” said the smiling, robotic parts manager. So we’d have to come back in person to order it, then come back in person to pick it up? At this point, Barry had to leave the store, unable to say anything besides, “Grrrrrrrrrrr.”

Luckily, the motor was in stock, cheaper, at an auto parts store.

The rain held off; it hadn’t actually rained in two week. Then, that night, before Barry could figure out how to install the new motor, it poured buckets on our sorry plastic-covered window. He finished the installation between showers the next day. He said “Grrrrrrrrrr” a lot.

And then it was my turn. I was using our tiny, lame saber saw to cut some aluminum backing plates. The motor started running more and more slowly, until it couldn’t cut any more. Well, it might still cut butter, but only if it was soft, and you wanted to cut butter with a saber saw.

This was turning into a bad week for motors.

At this point, I had to decide what to say to Barry. Should I start with “I have some bad news,” or simply “Uh-oh?” I opted for a different method.

“Barry!” I hollered. An alien looked down at me from the deck, wearing a white Tyvek bunny suit, full-face respirator, and ear muffs. His mouth was invisible behind the respirator, but I saw his jaw move. I guess he said, “What?”

“I killed the saber saw,” I shouted, twice, three times, waving the dead saw at him. Suddenly, he took off the respirator and the ear muffs. He was grinning.

“You killed it? Really? That’s great!”

He’d been wanting to replace that lame piece of junk for years, and I had just given him the excuse. The next day, he was exceedingly cheerful as we got into the van, and I got into the mood by playing with the passenger window. Up, down, up, down…wheeeee! We tooled around town and finally chose a 6.0 amp Skil brand saber saw. Then we rewarded ourselves some more with dinner, internet, and a phone chat with a Seattle friend. A lovely day, unlike the one when we replaced the Dremel.

It would have been an appropriate coincidence for the driver’s window motor to die that day, but it’s still working, although only fast enough to cut soft butter. So maybe our run of bad motor luck is over. May all the other motors on the boat live long and prosper, and best of luck with your motors, too.