The Whole Dirty Story

 

After sitting for nearly seven months on the hard, our Knotty Cat welcomed us back today with filthy open arms.

Oh, my, where to start.

Well, she's just plain filthy.

Mildew. This seat was spotless when we left last summer.

I moved a line and this stain remained. Only one spot among many.

I feel like we left our teenager alone for the summer with hopes of her showing some personal responsibility and making us proud. Instead, it would appear our girl partied the summer away knowing full well we'd clean up her mess upon our return. We found dried up frog/toad carcasses scattered on the deck, wasp nests, too many cocoons containing God knows what, a half finished bird nest, tarnished stainless rails and lifelines, grimy dirt, and it was obvious that hygiene went straight out the window as everything that wasn't covered in bird poop was covered with a green haze.

Our dinghy outboard is mounted on a rail. You can just make out some branches from a bird nest in the middle.

You can see it a little bit closer.

Tarnished stainless rails.

But first, we needed to hoist Wilbur aboard. Remember, our boat is on the hard which means the deck is way up in the air and we can't just step aboard. We need to climb the skimpy swim ladder that drops down from the stern. This means that at 5 feet 0 inches I have to lift my leg up somewhere in the vicinity of my armpits in order to get a good foot hold (and yoga is not one of my strengths). And since Wilbur is shorter than me, we had to strap him into his life jacket and when he saw us drop the main sheet over the side in order to tie it around his middle he went ape-shit. Wilbur has the memory of an elephant and I'm pretty sure he recalled us doing this exact same thing to him years ago when the line got tangled and he ended up doing an unplanned mid-air somersault.

"As God is my witness, I will never be hoisted again!"

We finally got the little man aboard and then proceeded to assess the situation. I made Hans go below first as I felt if there was a nightmare to be discovered, he could handle it far better than me and I was thrilled beyond belief that nothing major seemed to be amiss.

We put our solar panels out and they immediately began charging our batteries.

After yanking the hell out of the generator cord it finally caught and also started charging the batteries.

Our inverter decided to work even though it was a big stinker at the end of our trip last year and only performed when it felt like it.

I was able to prime the water pump (we'll find out about the hot water tank tomorrow), our cabin lights work, the refrigerator hummed for the couple of minutes we turned it on, and we didn't find any major water damage from leaks.

I will admit that I was disappointed to find that the phifertex shield that wraps around what I call our 'windows' (official term is dead lights) failed. We had this wrap made for us a few years ago and it keeps the tropical sun out of the inside of the boat. The problem is that it's held in place with glued on snaps and not snaps that are drilled into the boat. I found some gorilla type Velcro on the boat and I'm going to see if I can fix it on the cheap. We really don't want to drill holes if not necessary.

Failed phifertex. I hope to fix this tomorrow.

But, I have to say, I believe my happiest moment occurred when I realized that even though our girl partied the summer away like it was 1999, we came home to a boat absent of crabs cockroaches.

I can live with that.

 

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