At Sea or in a Marina, Life is Always Interesting While Living on a Boat

Wilbur enjoys a Bloody Mary morning.

Hmmm, so what's happened here at our marina since April?

Thanks to an unusually low tide, a boat across from us would have completely sank instead of settling onto the bottom after a simple hose worked itself  free of a clamp. I did take a couple of pictures but I'm not going to post them as I wouldn't want anyone doing that to me.

 The man who fell off his boat this past March ended up spending two weeks in the hospital with three days of them in intensive care. He developed pneumonia within hours of falling in and I really didn't think he was going to survive. I told him that recently, and he laughed and said he's done dumber things in his life. He'll be 80 this month!

Our neighbor fell and broke 3 ribs. Hearing his screams of pain during the night when he coughed and his ribs didn't realign themselves properly is something I never want to experience again and I'm sure he doesn't either. Of course his cat chose to fall overboard that night too. It wasn't the first time and it won't be her last.

During my Mother's Day phone conversation with my 30 year old son, I told him that Hans and I are now swingers. After a long pause he told me I really need to learn how to phrase my comments to him in a way that won't give him a heart attack. I thought he knew that I meant we'd taken up swing dancing. Actually, I just like messing with his head.  About our swing dancing.  I love it. Hans, not so much.

I wonder how my son will feel when I tell him we have crabs. We've found two of these poor guys all dried up in our guest berth.

Hans and I are attempting to play tennis. We bought our rackets at WalMart and mine is designed for a 9 year old (the tag didn't state whether it meant physically or mentally).  Hans is experienced, I am not, but I'm very thankful for his patience. I do feel badly for him as he suffers from neck pain due to the car accident he had over a year ago and his mobility is not what it should be although it does level our playing field a bit. During the day I've been hitting a ball against a wall and in addition to sweating up a storm, I fear I now have tennis elbow.

The other day I watched a sailboat roar through the marina like it was in the Indy 500 so of course I ran up to our bow to watch. The renegade boat managed to turn around at the lower end (it was either that or run into a wall) while two men from the marina both armed with boat hooks, jumped aboard. Pretty impressive stuff.
The boat shot back up the marina, zipped past me and then attempted to get into its slip. It bounced off a piling and since we were at low tide all the oyster shells and barnacles that had collected at the high tide mark crashed into the water. The boat now skidded around toward the boats on the other side (our marina is U shaped with boats lining the inner long sides of the U. This creates a lane of water between that we use to get in and out). Luckily, it didn't hit anyone and revved up for a second attempt at docking. Wham! it slammed into the next piling and sent another cascade of barnacles into the water (at this point I wondered if we just might have chanced upon a rather unorthodox way to rid pilings in our marinas of those pesky and germ ridden creatures). The crew, looking and sounding like a band of pirates, shouted and brandished their boat hooks like swords as they caught the lines from the pilings and managed to screech to a stop before the cement wall stopped them.
Those poor people had just bought the boat and must not have had a survey done and this was their maiden voyage. Apparently the throttle only worked at full speed and was then only interested in going forward. It would eventually reverse but took forever getting there. Also, the rudder cable didn't care to cooperate and having its own agenda, didn't want to go where everyone else wanted to go. Considering all this, I think the man who jumped on board, took over the helm got this boat back into its slip did a pretty good job.

What I'll never forget was the look of sheer terror on the faces of the two women who were sitting in the cockpit while tightly clutching a toddler. The women's eyes were as big as saucers as they sat frozen in fear. The toddler's eyes were as big as saucers because he was being squished like a bug. But since we were at an extreme low tide and the water was about four feet deep I wasn't too worried about anyone disappearing from sight if they did sink.

This alley of water seems much more narrow when you're trying to maneuver  your boat in it.

Wilbur still loves going to the park, he likes whipped creme on his breakfast kibble, he sneaks up to the bow of the boat when he thinks I'm not looking because he's a big boy now, he peed himself when a dog from another boat knocked us over during a walk, he's still afraid of the neighbor cat and the Yorkie from a few boats away, he's very selfish and won't share toys with other dogs at the park although he feels they should all share with him, and last week during a dinghy ride he jumped out and towed us to shore.

Every thing tastes better with whipped creme.

Gee, I wonder what's going on over there?

"OMG!!" Wilbur exclaims in true teenager fashion, "When are you going to stop being a helicopter  mom and leave me alone??"
Never!