It’s freezing here in the boatyard, literally. Temperatures dropped to the low 20′s, Fahrenheit, and didn’t rise above freezing for two nights and two days. Even in the late afternoon, with the sun shining all day, icicles hung from the cockpit drains of several boats. Six-year-old Marvin, from Switzerland, breaks them off, then runs around using them as swords against invisible opponents and visible boatyard denizens.

Although local folks warned us it could get this cold, they seem to have forgotten their own warnings. They grumble and huddle around the heating vent in the employee lounge.

When I walk across the yard, even my feet notice the difference, as the soft sand is frozen hard, like rock. Dale, who has worked here for decades, drove through a well-known mud puddle on Friday afternoon and was amazed that it refroze before he went home.

Aboard Flutterby, we’re almost warm enough. We have layers of longjohns and two small space heaters, so the cabin is tolerable. But the water pump under the cockpit froze, and Barry had to commandeer one of the space heaters to thaw it. Still, nothing is getting done. It’s not the cold, precisely, just the usual struggle with unrewarding projects.

After we finished rebedding the deck hardware, we thought we’d have a nice, dry boat. But there were still leaks in the side decks. Where were they coming from?

Eventually, we narrowed it to two sources: The decorative “eyebrow” rail that was screwed to the top of the cabin, all the way around, and the portlights. The eyebrow rail was original equipment, so we could forgive it for failing. But the nine portlights are new, installed by the former owner just before we bought the boat.

Removing one of the portlights gave us our answer. It wasn’t through-bolted, just screwed in from the inside with woodscrews. The portlight itself was smaller than the opening, and the gaps weren’t properly filled. There were gobs and gobs of silicone and a chunk of resinous stuff that snapped off with our bare hands. In short, not a portlight you could trust to an offshore passage. No wonder they leak.

It’s reminiscent of our hatch problem — the forward hatch leaked when we bought the boat, even though it was brand-new. We were actually lucky that it leaked, because that made us look at it closely. What we discovered was the construction was so flimsy, it was only suitable for inland lake sailing. We ordered a sturdy, offshore-capable model. When we took the old hatch out, the leak turned out to be from faulty installation — a cutout improperly prepared and stuffed with gobs and gobs of silicone filler.

Now I lie in my bed at night and look up at the new hatch with a sense of satisfaction. The opening is smooth and fair, and it fits closely to the aluminum Seabreeze hatch we selected, with just the right amount of bedding compound.

I know when all nine portlights are done, I’ll have the same sense of satisfaction. But it’s only 20 degrees out there! In this weather, I have to take the windows out? That’s enough to make anyone grouchy, grumpy, and downright cold. Until tomorrow, that is, when it will be in the 50′s, and I’ll just be grouchy, grumpy, and replacing that first portlight.

A few days ago, we drove the Squid Wagon back into the boatyard from Florida, dog-tired from a two-day drive. “Hey! There’s someone on Honey Moon!” exclaimed Barry. Our circumnavigating friends Don and Aggie were back from Australia, having stored their boat for six months. They spent a week finishing their projects and launched the boat on the windiest day we’d seen yet.

The problem was an external deadline. When their plane landed in Los Angeles, the US Customs agent had only given them 28-day visas, barely enough time to fly across the US, paint the bottom, provision the boat, see their friends, and get out of the country.

We were sorry to see them go, and a little worried as the wind picked up even more that evening. Boats were shaking on their jackstands, large items were flying through the air, and the wind sounded like a freight train. They were probably fine; they’d sailed half the world to get here.

The next morning, I was in the office, chatting with a cruiser from Switzerland. Having a Swiss flag is kind of like having a boat with a home port in Nebraska or Wyoming. There’s no coastline, so the boat can never actually go to its home port.

Anique was behind the desk, answering the phone as Patricia and I talked. “Good morning, thank you for calling Bock Marine,” she said. Then I heard, “Margaret is right here…” and she handed me the phone.

This was a complete surprise, as I have never received a call on the office phone. I go into the office for about 5 minutes a day, always at a different time — how would someone know I was there?

It was Aggie, from Honey Moon. They’d left their boat key behind, and were wondering if we could bring it if we came into town. “Sure, I said, “how were things last night?”

“Absolutely awful!” said Aggie. It was an understatement.

It was their first night at anchor in six months, and it was a night to remember. In a 60-knot gust, they dragged anchor. Pulling it up, they found a giant muddy fishing net wrapped all around the anchor and chain. They had to back in circles to keep from fouling the prop while they struggled to cut it off. The deck knife was too dull, so Aggie went below for a sharper kitchen knife. She crawled to the foredeck, where the wind was picking Don up and bouncing him against the stays.

Sometime around then, the headsail partly unfurled. The wind caught the loose edge and began to shred it. At around 10 pm, Aggie hauled Don up the mast to wrap a spinnaker halyard around the flogging headsail.

The anchor was cleared and reset, the sail was secured, but this was no time to go below and sleep. They maintained an anchor watch all night, meaning one person had to be awake to make sure the boat didn’t drag anchor.

After a night like that, the least we could do (besides delivering their errant key) was drive them and their sail out to the sailmaker for repairs. Afterwards, they invited us to come out to the boat for a cup of tea. I looked at Barry, “Well, we were going to do some shopping, but…” “You’re not going to Wal-Mart, are you?” asked Aggie.

This was followed by some discussion about what each of us needed from Wal-Mart. They needed to put more minutes on an expired cell phone. We needed a new space heater. “We have a space heater we need to get rid of,” said Don. “You can have it.”

Now we didn’t need to go shopping, so the four of us got into their dinghy and headed for the boat. We made it about ten feet from the dock when the engine died. Don yanked and yanked the starter cord as Barry and Aggie held us off a piling. Then he said, brightly, “Here’s the problem!” The fuel hose had gotten brittle and broken off.

We let the wind push us to a nearby bulkhead, and Don rowed the dinghy back to the transient dock.

“Good old Squidley,” I said, as the four of us piled back into the van. “We really like your van!” said Aggie.

This time, we went to the marine parts store and then to Wal-Mart and Staples. It was evening when we returned, so they invited us aboard for dinner. This time, the dinghy made it without incident.

After dinner, we were sitting in the cabin when there was a noise outside. “You’d better go have a look around,” said Aggie. She calls herself the “noise police.” Don was warm and cozy, and he shook his head. “Nah, I’m sure it’s nothing.” “That’s what you said last night!” said Aggie. Laughing, he got up and stuck his head out the companionway.

“Oh, this is interesting. You’d better come up and see for yourself,” he called down.

The three of us piled into the cockpit to see. It took me a second to realize that giant white wall was a huge yacht that we’d bumped into as the current spun all the boats in the anchorage around. Oops.

After adjusting the chain to pull us away from the neighbor, we went back below. “You haven’t been cruising in a while,” I said. “You’ve gotten a bit rusty!”

When it was time for us to leave, Don got into the dinghy and started the motor. The fuel was old, and it conked out and had to be restarted. Barry and I climbed in, and Don revved the engine to keep it going. We said our goodbyes to Aggie, and she tossed down the painter.

Don put the engine in gear quickly, so it wouldn’t stall, and we zoomed away from the boat. We made it about ten feet. BOING! We were jerked to a sudden stop, like a dog that has reached the end of its leash and looks like its eyes are popping out. If a camera had been running, it would have been a candidate for “America’s Funniest Boat Videos.”

Aggie and Don are conscientious and careful cruisers. That means they secure the dinghy with not one, but two painters. Unfortunately, when we took off, neither of them remembered this fact!

I couldn’t stop laughing, all the way back to the dock. Not because of the mistake, but because of the looks on our faces. I’ll file the two-painter idea away as a smart cruising tip. I’ll file the leave-one-attached idea away, too: Under practical jokes.

I’ll be driving down the road, with Barry snoozing in the passenger seat. I hate to wake him up, but I have to. “Honey? Could you write something down for me, so I don’t forget?” If he’s driving, I sometimes ride with the notebook open in my lap. The result is what I call “fluff,” those funny things that flash by as we’re lumbering down the road at 55 mph.

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North Carolina has many institutions of higher learning, like Duke, and UNC, and Back Swamp Community College. If I was trying to get into graduate school, I’d hate to have that last one on my resume.
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We recently drove past an antique store in Woodbine, Georgia, where they call a spade a spade. Their sign simply said, “Dead people’s things for sale.”
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Speaking of signs, our nearby farmer’s market has a huge banner that says, “Collards,” in 2-foot tall letters. At Thanksgiving, I watched a man come in and buy so many that they filled the cab of his truck. He drove away, his head barely peeking above the sea of green.
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Near Christmas, I saw another huge banner, along a back road in North Carolina. This one said, “Collard Kraut.” I bet that gets a lot of takers.
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Somewhere along I-95 in Florida, we saw an actual restaurant called “Ying’s Chinee Takee Outee.” That’s either an anachronism or a sadistic signmaker.
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Speaking of Florida, I’ve got a new slogan for the state, based on recent observations: “Florida, the dead armadillo state.” Then again, there are a lot of states vying for that title.
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Georgia might consider a new slogan, too. “Interstates under construction…since Eisenhower.”
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And South Carolina might use this: “Y’all be nice, or we’ll secede again.”
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OK, what’s with the Christmas inflatable yard decorations? Only about one in ten is inflated. The rest are not festive holiday cheer, they’re what Barry refers to as “technicolor flaccid lumps.”
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Real streets I would not like to live on: Tattletale Lane. Embarrass Avenue. Dead Cow Lane.
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Real streets I would like to live on: Ju Ju Lane. Daisy Street.
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Can you imagine having a friend in Friend, Nebraska? It’s easier than imagining an enemy there.
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Laramie, Wyoming: Where the truck stop ladies’ room has a vase full of plastic flowers…and the vase has water in it.
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What would you find across from the Sleep 4 Le$$? The competition — a white sign, black letters: “Generic Motel.”
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In Elko, Nevada, we drove past an establishment called “Inez’s Dancing and Diddling.” Wow. Are there really still women named Inez?
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We stopped at a rest area next to Stinking Water Pass. When I took my water bottle to the fountain to fill it, I was stopped by a large sign that said, “Non-potable water.” No kidding.
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On I-95, we were passed by a car with a personalized license plate that said “Ms Epoxy.” She was driving fast, probably trying to get away from a bunch of single guys with boats.
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Weirdest boat name this year: A fishing boat called Dang Brothers. I guess, to be grammatically correct, that should be Danged Brothers.
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I wish the folks at Gaskills Hardware had some punctuation for their changeable sign. The last time I saw it, the sign said, “Crab Pot Trees.”
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Speaking of things that don’t go together, here’s my favorite pair of highway signs from Route 24: On the top, “Welcome to Turkey, North Carolina.” On the bottom, “Bird Sanctuary.”