Escaping Death, Not Once, but Thrice

This is a fresh tale to interupt the "Running Up to Beaufort" saga and it is pretty long -- I’m sorry -- but I’m still buzzing a bit from all that just happened. I wanted to write it down while it was fresh. It’s a good story nonetheless. 

Last Friday, I faced death and destruction no less than three times. I’m a sailor, so what follows might be a slight exaggeration, but it felt pretty real to me. It just happened in the last twenty four hours.  

The day had arrived. After a restless night (more on that later), I had made breakfast and started working on my Task List. Earlier I had wandered up toward the office, but no one was in yet. A typical lazy-ish Friday around the yard. The guys were working in the various buildings on various boats, but the office was not yet occupied. I had started pulling tools together to go back over to Anago, the boat from which I was taking the engine. 

Just then I heard the mahogany baritone of Sam, the boatyard owner. I peaked out my companionway and could see his truck, so I dropped my tools and went after him. I had been chasing  him a few days to get the mast down and pull the engine from Anago. It was going to be the day before, but Sam had to make an appearance at the funeral of an old friend’s sister. I was determined to coax him into doing it that day. 

“You want to do something today, don’t you,” Sam said when he saw me coming after him.  

He was stringing an extension cord to a fishing boat that had been sitting here a while. He plugged the cord into another and craned his neck to look up at the fishing boat’s wheelhouse. He cussed and started walking back toward the pylon where the power was. 

“See if that light comes on.” 

Um, which light exactly. Oh, nevermind.

We worked at the lights for a time. Presumably, Sam was switching outlets on the pylon and I was watching the dome light in the boat. It’s tough to keep power working all around the yard. Each pedestal has 30 amp and 50 amp connections like most marina docks and also standard 110 volt outlets. 

“Well, I’ll call him and tell him we tried,” Sam said in his sing-songy Carolina accent. “I’ll go up to the office and tell them what I’m working on, then I’ll meet you at Anago with the forklift.”  

That was music to my ears.  

I hustled to get my extension cords, my angle grinder, and my ladder then trudged over to Anago which was 30 yards or so from Ruth Ann and my “camp.”  Once I got there, I strung the extension cords from a pylon that I knew worked and leaned my ladder against the boat. 

Right behind Anago, literally only four feet or so, was the good ship Rare Breed. Rare Breed is a fishing boat, about 40 feet in length. She was built by her captain, Brent, about 25 years ago and he is working on her now. Rare Breed is a beauty; purpose built with the loving hand and attention to detail of the man who knew he was going to captain her. Brent had spent the last several years as the captain of a large luxury yacht. It had been an excellent gig but he had been kept away from Rare Breed. Then the couple he had been working for were getting old enough that they decided to sell the big yacht and he was out of a job. This was really a stroke of luck as Rare Breed had been just sitting on the hard. An ignored boat starts to succumb to nature and little things start to become bigger problems.  

Brent was working on some small areas of rot in the floor timbers of Rare Breed; getting her ready to do fishing charters again. Anago got placed right on his bow in the rush of pulling boats ahead of a storm a few years ago. Brent has never liked how close the boat was to his. His worry was only amplified as the boat just sat there and no work got done on her. He was glad when I showed up with a plan to extract the engine and get Anago to the landfill. However, he wasn’t so sure of my plan to drop the mast. 

I explained how we were going to take the mast down. I should have consulted with Brent anyway as Rare Breed is literally a million dollar boat. I know from our conversations that his deductible is $10,000. Anago was set with her bow higher than her stern. This meant that the mast was leaning back; toward Rare Breed. If anything let go, the mast would fall on Brent’s boat and likely cause significant damage. The first two times I explained my plan, he just said “I don’t know. I need to talk to Sam.”   

Then the third time through, Brent seemed to understand that I had some experience rigging heavy stuff and that my plan was solid. With all that in mind, on the day it was actually going to happen, I had to bang on his hull and shout for him to hear me over his grinder. I told him that we were about to drop the mast and pull the engine, but that his truck probably ought to move. He finished what he was working on, crawled out of Rare Breed’s bilges to move his truck, and stuck around to supervise.  

Sam came around with the big forklift and we briefly talked about the plan again. I climbed up on to Anago with my grinder and a nylon strap from the forklift. Standing next to the mast, I was ten or twelve feet off the ground. Sam pulled forward putting a fork on each side of the forestay. I waved and he stopped. I wrapped the strap around the mast twice and then over the fork and attached it to itself with the shackle. As the strap lifted slowly, I made sure that it didn’t get caught on the winches or anything else. The strap gradually tightened up as it went higher toward the spreaders. When it stopped, both Sam and Brent shouted “OK.”  

A couple things that landlubbers need to know to understand the next couple paragraphs: a mast is held up in all four directions, usually by stainless steel cable. The forestay holds it from the bow; shrouds hold it from the sides; and the backstay holds it from the back.  Also, when a boat is out of the water it is “on the hard.” A sailboat on the hard rests with all its weight on its keel. Jackstands are placed around the sides to balance the boat. Jackstands are not designed to hold weight. In fact, trouble begins when the jackstands start to take too much weight.   

I stepped back to the cockpit and grabbed the grinder. The important part of my plan was that Sam was pulling the mast forward as I cut the backstay. The mast was on a tabernacle (a hinge), so that as Sam pulled the mast, it was still attached to the boat at the base. Also, the shrouds along the sides and the forestay at the bow were still attached and would prevent the mast from going backward (toward Rare Breed).  

When  I cut the backstay, the boat jerked as the mast jumped forward, pulled by the forklift. Little did I know, but Brent had told Sam that if things started to go bad – just floor it in reverse. I think Sam thought that the tabernacle was loose enough that he might be able to yank it off. Either way, while I was still about ten feet in the air, Sam gave the mast a good yank with the forklift. The boat and I jerked back and forth a couple times as the jackstands were deciding whether to fold underneath me or not. I held up a hand like “OK, fella, settle down” and I jumped to the ladder and climbed down. 

Later I noticed that the wood block under Anago’s keel had moved almost two inches when the mast was yanked. A couple more inches and the metal tubing of the jackstands would have likely buckled and Anago and I would have tumbled to the ground. That would have been exciting, but it wasn’t the most exciting thing that day.  

On the ground again, I untied the strap from the forklift and from the mast. Brent picked it up and put it on the back of the forklift. Sam wiggled the big machine around and lined up to lift the engine out of the cockpit. I grabbed the straps and shackle and climbed the ladder again. 

“Oh, sorry,” Brent said, “I just put those up.” 

“No worries,” I said, “If you put it away, you can find it when you need it.” 

“That’s how I was taught,” Brent drawled with a slight hint of appreciation.  

Next Sam and I pulled the engine up out of the hole I had cut in the cockpit floor. It was fairly anti-climactic, but the engine was what all this work had been about. As Sam left with my engine, wiggling between a couple boats, Brent approached and thanked me. 

“That was a well planned and executed safe method. I appreciate you,” he said.  I took that as high praise from a salty old fishing captain.  

“Thank you, sir.”  And I ran after Sam who was delivering the engine to Ruth Ann. We set the engine down on a couple of large wood blocks. I removed the straps from my chains, folded them, and placed them on the back of the big forklift. 

“Thank you, sir,” I said with a slight bow of my head. 

Sam winked and drove off.  

My next job was to get the mast the rest of the way to the ground. The tabernacle had been twisted in the lowering process, so I was going to need to cut the mast. More than three quarters of the mast was hanging off the bow, so I needed to be careful. Most sailboats have a row of teak grabrails on top of the cabin; Anago was no different. I carefully laced a line back and forth across the mast and under the rails. I figured with three points on each side holding the mast down it would be secure until I slowly lowered it. I cut through the mast about a foot from the hinge, but when the mast let go, so did everything else. I had purposely positioned myself on the high side of the prone mast, but when it jumped up all hell broke loose. The mast lurched, which made the boat lurch again and the grabrails gave way immediately. When the tip of the mast hit the ground, it stopped going that direction but then lurched the other way as it slid down the starboard side of the boat, stopped only by the wires that were strung through the inside. All the while I was showered by teak debris from the exploding rails. But just as soon as it had started, it stopped. The mast was still askew, but everything had settled. That was pretty exciting too, but it was not actually the closest I came to death and destruction last Friday.  

Sam, the boatyard owner, is a charmer. I like him a lot and I know he has a lot on his plate as the yard is not his only business. Further, nearly everyone else active at the boatyard is worth more monetarily to Sam than I am. He has a way, though, of making you feel like you are next and his highest priority at the moment. Sam had to leave during the afternoon on Thursday to go to a funeral, but he had kind of made it sound like he would be back late and we would do the mast then. Now there is Eastern Standard Time, Island Time, and there’s Sam Time. He did come back. In fact, I saw him, still in a suit, behind a boat instructing his guys on what to do with that boat’s outdrive. But soon it was after five o’clock and everyone was gone. I knew then we weren’t going to do the mast that day and I began to putz around and do some other little jobs around Anago. I got wild, grabbed my grinder, and decided to take out the compression post which was stainless steel. I am scrapping a bunch of stainless, aluminum, and the lead keel taken off of Anago. Another few pounds of stainless was money for the good. With that done, I was tired and packed up.  

Now, for you landlubbers again: a compression post is a post inside the cabin of a boat that supports the mast. My boat has what is called a keel-stepped mast; the mast goes through the cabin roof and is seated right on the keel in the bottom of the boat. Many modern production boats, however, have a deck-stepped mast; which is a bit of a misnomer because the mast is usually stepped on the cabin roof, not what I call the deck. 

I made supper, diddled around, and went to bed. It was just after midnight, when I awoke in a cold sweat. My heart was literally beating like it was going to ram its way out of my chest. I had a single thought; a thought so powerful it had woken me. In a B movie, the camera would have cut to the whole solar system, pause for effect with all the planets and the stars behind them, then zoom past Pluto (yes, I know), Uranus, Neptune, Saturn, buzz Jupiter and Mars, focus on the Earth, then oceans and clouds, continents and countries, fields and cities, to a house in a neighborhood, right through the roof, to the guy on the couch, through his forehead, the brain, the synapses, a couple spasmodic cells and then a gigantic explosion. I was wide awake! 

I had taken the compression post out from under the mast on a boat that had been sitting in the yard rotting for four or five years. The post that was meant to support the mast was gone. Now, the mast was supported only by the fiberglass shell of the cabin. If the roof failed, the mast would begin to fall down which would slacken all of the stays holding it vertical. It would inevitably fall – onto Rare Breed. Or if the Universe was in a particularly finicky mood, it could hit that boat and the boat next to it which was worth nearly as much. If such a calamity occurred, those two skippers would roam the earth to find me and shred me into pieces small enough to burn and stomp on the ashes. They would kill me. And worse yet it was something that I had decided to do for no good reason other than I was near the boat with a bunch of tools. There would be nothing I could say or do to compensate for the losses – financial and emotional – that I would have caused.  

I lay there trying to decide what I could do. There was no one in the yard but my pal Mike asleep on his boat and me totally not asleep on mine. I couldn’t see the boat in the dark, but if something was going wrong the only choice would be to try and wake Sam up at home and get him to the yard. Mike might be able to drive the forklift but neither he nor I would be willing to weave our way through a bunch of other expensive boats with a hulking machine to try and save another. If something was going wrong, there was nearly nothing I could do about it that night.  

And what if it had already fallen, but I hadn’t heard it. 

If I go look, will it be worse or better for my sweaty brain. 

I wasn’t about to get any more sleep that night. 

Finally, I decided to get dressed and go look; figuring that if it wasn’t bad I might actually sleep. I climbed down out of Ruth Ann with a flashlight and made my way over to Rare Breed and Anago in the dark. Brent has scaffolding on three sides of his boat with ladders in each corner. I climbed one of his ladders and poked my flashlight at Anago’s mast step. It was hard to see. I couldn’t really tell without climbing up into Anago anyway, but the curve of her roof looked like a continuous arc. I thought I could see the very bottom of the tabernacle. I decided that the worst wasn’t happening yet. So, I went back to Ruth Ann and back to bed. I actually slept some after that. 

First thing in the morning, I looked out the port in my galley. I could see the hulk of Rare Breed in the emerging dawn – and I could just make out the thin line of the mast beyond her, still standing. All was well in the universe. [do I have to say again: I’d rather be lucky than good.] I was determined to tell Sam my mistake if I had to, just to get him to take the mast down that day. 

And that was as close to death and destruction as I got last Friday. It wasn’t the exploding teak or the dancing boat, it was doing something stupid that could have affected two boat captains that I know and respect. If it’s all the same to Davy Jones, I’d like to never get that close again.  

Chronologically, this last bit happened before everything else, of course. After I made some coffee, I went looking for Sam. When I first didn’t find him, I set an alarm for one hour to look for him again. Before that timer went off, I heard Sam talking to someone nearby and that is where this post started. I dropped my tools and chased Sam down. 

A bit more than a day later and the mast is stripped of anything other than aluminum and is chopped up into manageable chunks. My pal, Anthony, chopped up a boat last year and got it to the landfill on a flatbed wrecker, so I enlisted him for my project. We have only to call for the wrecker and haul the metal to the recycler. We're splitting the scrap money after the cost of the wrecker and the landfill. 

I’d rather be lucky than good. 

Running Up To Beaufort, Part 2

We had an easy start Saturday morning. Victor’s mom, Cheryl, fed us like kings. I think it was sausage and egg biscuits that morning as we were soon to be underway. Cheryl was nursing a broken finger but helped a lot with docklines and other boat stuff; while also handling all the galley responsibilities. The Navassa Railroad Bridge is only about a mile downstream. That bridge had to open, so we waited for slack tide to head down the river. As soon as we started moving, we radioed to request an opening. When we got close, the bridge started creaking open. An easier time than I had had with that bridge on the way up to the boatyard with Ruth Ann. Victor’s Willard 36 is a unique traditional looking, strongly built trawler. She was repowered with a big John Deere diesel a few years ago which rumbled confidently at the push of a button. The trip down the river was uneventful and the boat performed without a hiccup. From the boatyard to downtown Wilmington, the river winds its way through salt marshes and acres of seagrass. We could have been traveling the river in any century except for the hum of the John Deere. Bare trunks of trees, some surely cedars, poked up through the seagrass while all kinds of herons, ducks, and other waterfowl went about their day; mildly bemused by the noisy humans floating by.. The only view of civilization to ruin the ancient river atmosphere was the Thermo Fisher Scientific building that towers across the marsh from the city. It wasn’t until we rounded the last long curve toward the junction with the Northeast Cape Fear River that downtown Wilmington loomed into view. We were thrust back into the 21st Century, but without much other traffic on the water. Soon after we past downtown there was a scattering of industry on each side, then oil storage tanks to the east. After a short stretch of wilderness, we came to the Port of Wilmington. The huge cranes had been in sight, but now we were right next to the huge docks and stacks of shipping containers. I don’t remember there being a ship docked in port that morning. Beyond the port we were back on a wild river. This stretch, however, was dominated by pine forests and random spoil islands. It was peaceful without too much traffic until we got to our turn. There seemed to be a collection of boats around the intersection of river and the ICW. Most were fishing but a few were on the move like us. We followed a sparse trail of daymarkers to cross a broad section of flat water from the Cape Fear River over to Snow’s Cut; the man made channel that connects the river to the ICW headed north. The Cut was the original reason that Victor and I started talking. Back when we thought that both our boats would launch about the same time, the first plan was for Victor to follow me since I had been through the Cut a few times. The boat and crew settled in and we made pretty good time through the cut, into the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW), and on toward Wrightsville Beach. There were nine bridges on our route, but only three which we had to request to open. Now that we were on the ICW proper, the Wrightsville Beach Bridge was the next bridge we had to call. The bridge opens on the hour and the half hour, so after checking in with the bridgetender, we cruised out Masonboro Inlet and into the Wrightsville Beach Anchorage just for fun. Back out into the ICW, and back on a northward track, we made the bridge just in time and cruised under it's gaping jaws. The evidence of Wilmington thinned out pretty fast and soon we were rolling along with salt marshes and spoil islands to starboard and boathouses and docks to port. We enjoyed the quiet scenery of the ICW offseason. Nearing Surf City, we were looking for a place to put in for the night. Sears Landing, a restaurant with docks, caught our eye on the chart. However when we got there, it was a long skinny channel up to the docks with a pretty stiff cross breeze just then. Since all three of us were new to the boat, we decided to keep looking. Daylight was soon to fade and Victor was calling around, but all the nearby marinas were full. We motored a little further up the ICW and found an anchorage just past the Topsail Island Bridge. The sun briefly splashed some color but faded quickly behind the blue grey of the overcast horizon. With the anchor down, we caught up with our weather apps and suddenly found that a strong wind was on the way. Indeed, a small craft advisory for morning. And then a marina called Victor back. So just as the sunlight began to disappear, we hauled the anchor. I went to the bow with a borrowed pair of gloves. The windlass was not working, so I began hauling on the rope. Victor had opened a hatch and I shouted to give a little forward. The anchor rode came aboard without too much effort, anchor rope turned to chain, but we began to overrun the anchor. I wrapped some chain on a cleat and paused but the big boat had some momentum and we drifted further forward. Lacking some old salt patience, I asked Victor for a little reverse to bring us off the anchor. Soon, that John Deere kicked in and I was struggling. It was a scramble to keep the anchor chain from running back out, and just as hard to keep from getting pulled over the bow myself. But we won and the anchor finally came aboard. We motored toward Swans Point Marina, anticipating a safe harbor for the night; and the morning’s blow. It was dark when we arrived. The dockmaster was a bit coarse and direct to a fault, but exceedingly helpful in his own curmudgeonly way. He directed Victor into the dock while Cheryl and I stood by to heave dock lines, and then he helped us tie up. . Victor did great despite the shouting and grunting from the dock. Then the dockmaster informed us about a nearby seafood restaurant that would come pick us up for supper if we called. Victor had to call twice to convince them to come get us, but they did. Amazingly, it seemed like more than a 10 minute ride each way. We had a great supper and a couple beers, and then got a ride back to the marina.

Overnight the winds piped up and we were happy to be tucked into a little marina rather than at anchor in a fairly open spot. Cheryl made us a hearty breakfast and we strategized. It was decided that we’d stay until Monday morning to avoid traveling in some pretty stiff winds and possibly having to find another marina anyway. I began to quietly fret just a bit for my plans. I had to catch a bus in the wee hours Tuesday to make it to Florida for orientation and a new job on Wednesday. 

Running Up To Beaufort, Part One

To properly start this new season of the Bubba the Pirate Blog, we must start from the end of last season. Here is a story from mid-December, 2021. It was a hell of a send-off for me on my way back to a stint of truckdriving. 

As early as October, Victor and I had thought that our boats would be launched about the same time. We had talked about heading down the river together, and over to Wrightsville Beach. The main obstacle along the way is Snow’s Cut; a man-made canal that connects the IntraCoastal Waterway (ICW) coming down from Beaufort to the Cape Fear River. The tidal currents can rip through the cut and since I had done it a few times, and because Victor had just bought his first big boat -- he was keen to follow someone who had done it.

Victor is a youngish guy, an engineer and recently out of college; recently compared to me anyway. The boat he had bought was going to be his home up toward Beaufort, NC, near his job. We had gotten along from our first meeting and he can geek out about diesel engines, electric motors, and general boat stuff, but had lots of questions too. I don't yet qualify as an 'old salt' but I was nearby, and I have a lot of opinions. And I was a hero one day because I was the last person to hit the start button when his engine started.

His boat, a Willard 36 trawler was near my boat in the yard and he came over one day with a question about his diesel. I demurred that I probably wasn't the right guy to ask. We had talked enough previously that he knew I had been a truck driver for a while.

"But you've started a bunch of diesels," he stated with confidence I hardly deserved. "Can you just come have a look?"

So, I wandered over and climbed up into to the shippy-looking old boat and admired its efficient layout. The floor boards in the main salon were all up exposing the engine. Victor hung onto the water intake hose slung into a tub of water and had me gingerly cross the open space to get to the helm station. I pushed the start button a couple times, but didn't get it started. However, he might have been right about my experience because I sensed that it really wanted to start. We agreed on giving it one more try, so I pressed the button with new found confidence and the big John Deere engine roared to life. We all danced around and I got the credit; though all I did was push the button one more time.

Back at the yard last December, I had just figured out that my engine had seized and Ruth Ann wasn’t going to make the trip. Also, the yard had discovered that Victor’s boat had several cracks in its stern tube. We had talked about me crewing for him in lieu of taking Ruth Ann, but I had started to look for a job to pay for a new engine. The stern tube had to be custom made with an uncertain leadtime, and I was preparing to leave town.

I had pushed my luck and stayed nearly longer than was feasible. Hoping against hope that the yard's boom truck would get fixed and my mast raised. Nevertheless, the mast never moved before I headed back to Florida nearly out of money.

The stern tube had suddenly arrived the first Monday of December and the yard was going to install it yet that week. I had 4 or 5 applications out and was waiting for word on a driving job. Helping Victor sounded like great fun, but timing was everything. I was ready, and it was basically necessary for me to jump whenever one of the trucking companies called.

My batteries had to be at 50% state of charge for storage. So, Wednesday that week I disconnected the solar panels and started using up amps that wouldn’t be replaced. Thursday morning Victor’s boat was ready to go and I had the job offer that I wanted. I was headed back to Florida to drive for a good little company that I had worked for before. I knew the people, the system, the equipment, and the schedule. And I knew that I could work for several months and not have to buy a car. And ... I was going to be able to make the trip with Victor!

Truck driver job ads are a bit like used car ads and I have trouble believing anything I read. Going with the devil I knew was an easy decision once my application had been approved down in Groveland, Florida.

As luck would have it, the company sent me to get a drug test at a clinic that was right across the road from a laundromat that I’d been using all along. The nights had been chilly that week so after it warmed up a little, I loaded my laundry into my bike’s saddlebags and rode into town.

After my clothes were in the dryer, I walked over to the clinic, but they were pretty busy. The lady at the desk suggested that I come back in an hour or so. So, I wandered back to the laundry. Once everything was folded and packed back up, I left the saddlebags on an out-of-the-way table and walked back to the clinic.

Victor texted that the yard was ready to launch his boat. I replied that I was stuck in line at the clinic and he should not to wait for me. It crossed my mind that my reply might have sounded a bit churlish but I didn’t think he was prepared to leave without me anyhow.

When I pedaled back into the boatyard, Victor’s Willard was in the slipway, in the water. He beckoned me aboard, so I ditched my stuff and climbed in. The yard guys had helped with a couple final details and we were ready to make a trip -- momentous but only about 20 yards over to the dock. The boatyard is not a marina, it is, in fact, a boatyard. The dock is a fairly large platform but is only used as a place for skippers to stage their boats either on the way in or out of the yard. In fact, we met a couple that evening, who were preparing to bring their boat up the river and had stopped by to check out the facilities.

Friday evening we prepped both boats. I tidied up Ruth Ann and the space around her and gathered my stuff for the trip. I was likely going straight to the bus station from the boat. Two stuffed duffel bags, my book bag with my laptop, and a ukulele were all I had packed to occupy me for the next six months or so. It was just spitting rain when I pitched my duffels to the ground. After climbing down, I hung them on Ruth Ann’s jack stands to stay dry. Back up the ladder, I did a final check and turned off the batteries. When I climbed back down and was thinking it would be best to make two trips over to the dock … I was confronted by an empty jack stand - a missing duffel!

There’s a few of us hanging around the boatyard, so I immediately suspected that someone was messing with me. However, there had also been a guy, occasionally acting a little crazy, who had recently brought his boat to the yard. Sometimes he was more than a little drunk, and other times random things had come up missing around the yard. I had not met the guy yet, so all that was mostly hearsay, but just in case, I decided to pass by where his boat was.

I grabbed my book bag, my ukulele, and the one duffel I still had, and crunched through the gravel across the yard. Around the building, with a flash from my light, there was no car and no activity around the allegedly crazy guy’s boat. Just then, a pebble skittered across the pavement near me.

“Now I know you’re out there,” I said out loud to my unknown nemesis.

I started walking toward the dock as if giving up. Another pebble skipped over the gravel. After a few more steps feigning nonchalance, I spun around, clicked on my flashlight, and spotted Mike -- laughing and lugging my biggest, heaviest bag.

I hadn’t seen Mike in a couple days and I was leaving. After helping Victor get his boat to Beaufort, I was going to catch the bus to Florida to start truckdriving again. It was good to have a chance to shake hands and say ‘see you later’ to Mike, one of my boatyard pals. My bags were packed heavy, hence the two trips idea. After we laughed and shook hands, Mike said with a smile, “well, I’ll walk down to the dock with you but I’m not carrying your stuff.”

Departure Morning Sunrise

So there I was with everything in one trip, but I didn’t mind. We stumbled down to the dock. I shook
Mike's hand again and tossed my stuff down to the boat. Victor’s mom, Cheryl, was aboard with Link, Victor’s big, ol’ sweet dog -- and lots of food. There were several grocery bags, a large cooler, and takeout supper that was filling the boat with delicious smells. She had brought provisions for a battalion.

“Do you think we’ll have enough?” she asked.

Victor arrived and the three of us, and Link, prepared to tuck into the fried chicken, BBQ pork, coleslaw, and hushpuppies Cheryl had brought from Smithfields. We stowed some of the groceries, moved the big cooler, and each found a place to sit down to eat.

“I’ve been on 3 day voyages with less food than what you’ve brought for supper,” I told her with a smile. “I think we’ll be just fine.”

If It Was Easy ... [ Part 37 ]

We are back to “If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.” The Universe has been testing me, but I am unassailable. 

It’s been a frustrating week, but it all started fine. “Started” is a funny word, because for the last eight months or so, my week has been six days on, one day off with my “weekend” usually falling on Tuesday. Anyway, on Monday, which is kind of my Friday, I turned in my two week notice. I will soon be done with truckdriving and will be back at the boat by the first week of September. 

I normally would have rolled back into the terminal during the day Monday, had Tuesday off to reset my DOT clocks and run some errands. There is a lot on my mind as I crash toward the end of this round of truckdriving. Apparently, I had failed to email my dispatcher with my requested hometime. This formality has been a little bit more formal with my current dispatcher. Also, I had a slim week because I had spent most of the day Saturday in a truckstop shop getting my trailer fixed. This meant I hadn’t used up all my hours for the week. 

So I got another load rather than being dismissed for the week. Trucking is an unpredictable occupation and I have learned to just roll with it. I had my doubts from the start about this new plan and as expected it got sideways. I picked up a load of cardboard bales and headed toward Georgia again. The unloading at the papermill went faster than expected, and I headed on to Savannah to grab the Walmart load that was going to get me back to Florida.  

Along the way back, I was watching my clock and how many miles I had yet to go. By the time I got near Gainesville, I knew I wasn’t going to make it to the delivery and then ‘home.’ I called in, but my dispatcher was at lunch. The load could have dropped at the terminal for someone else to deliver the next day, but the guy I talked to said it was set up for me to take it all the way and offered no options. I didn’t argue. 

What I did do was pull off at Hawthorne, FL - a little early - where I knew I could take a short hike and get some Chinese food. If I was going to take the load all the way, it didn’t matter how far I drove that day. I’d get there at the same time tomorrow one way or the other after taking the required ten hour break. What that meant, however, was that I was going to roll in on Wednesday and have Thursday off; shifting my schedule by two days. 

When I woke on Thursday, I had a lot on my mind. I already have one foot in Navassa, NC next to sv Ruth Ann, my boat. I took off, dropped the load in Brooksville, and headed to the yard in Groveland (“home”). What I should have done somewhere along the way was get some damn fuel!  When I turned the corner in downtown Groveland, the fuel all sloshed to one side of my nearly empty tanks and I got a short buzz to tell me that I was low on fuel. Dang.  

At the yard, I dropped my empty trailer and called my dispatcher. Pete has been very good to me but I was causing us both a problem. He did not have any advice about fueling up as there are no truckstops nearby, but he had me check with the shop. The mechanics could appreciate the silliness I had got myself into, but could not help.  

I’ve been living out of my truck since late December. My whole living space is about two thirds the size of a full size van. I have standing headroom, and the cab is about as wide as a big van, but behind the driver’s seat is a small cabinet and then the bunk. With all the fancy new auxiliary air conditioning for when the truck is stopped, there is nearly no storage under the bunk. I throw my duffel bag on the seat to make room to sleep in the bunk and throw it back on the bunk when I wake in order to drive. And … there’s a ukulele, a laptop, dirty clothes bag, and other supplies that make those hops back and forth too. Under the mattress, are three boxes I bought from the UPS Store so that I could ship some of my cold weather clothes back to North Carolina. I needed longer sleeves until about March, but haven’t worn them since. Hauling less through the Greyhound station in a couple weeks will be nice, but that stuff is not getting shipped this weekend. 

I couldn’t rely on what little fuel I had to run the auxiliary a/c for 34 hours on my weekend. I also needed that puddle of fuel to make it to a truckstop to get more. The shop thought that I had about enough fuel to get to the nearest truckstop. The other pressing issue was that I had about 55 minutes left of the 70 hours I’m allowed to drive in a week. The truck can’t move without the computer knowing it and there is no wiggle room for goofy personal problems. After evaluating my options, I made a snap decision. Back in the empty lot, the only trailer available was the one I had just dropped. Empty trailers are often worth their carrying capacity in gold. I always need one to move about, empty or not. 

The guard at the gate eyed me curiously as I dragged the same trailer out that I had just brought in. “It’s a long story,” I said as she checked my lights and my permits. Pausing in the driveway, I quickly typed a message to Pete. I was headed to the Pilot Truckstop in Wildwood to get some fuel and spend my 34 hour weekend. It was a slightly dumpy, older Pilot, but it was home … until late Thursday. However, there was no laundry and not a grocery store in sight. I’ll make up for missing my weekend errands on the road after I get moving again. 

svRuth Ann Awaits

All this goofy drama trying to get to my weekend is not unlike my life trying to get to sea.I have been frustrated. I’ve been blocked and bamboozled, but I’ve kept going. I’ve rolled with it for fifteen years and four boats. Things have not gone the way I thought they would; the way I had hoped. It’s been harder, more expensive, and sillier than I could have ever imagined. But I’m still here – still doing it. I will not be turned away! I am already detached from the expectations and the faux authority of normal life on land. For fifteen years, I have been living on my own terms. It has not always been what I wanted it to be, but it has always been headed toward my goal: living aboard and wandering around the Caribbean Basin by sail.

I have no fear of life or death. I have done my best and I am satisfied. If all goes according to plan, I will be sailing before Halloween. 

And Then It Went Bad, just as fast

My last post was called "It All Happened So Fast ... ," as in a good thing. As of last week, it all kinda went bad, unexpectedly and just as quickly.

I had a running joke with Hung Su, one of the senior clergy at the Grand Rapids Buddhist Temple. During one of our Thursday morning discussion group sessions, I confessed that I didn’t think that I was a very good Buddhist. With a wry smile, Hung Su reminded me that the Buddha taught that there was no such thing as good or bad, but that thinking made it so. I shot back with my own wry smile that he was proving my point. In much the same way, I’m probably a little better mechanic than I ever claim to be, but I am now confronted with a catastrophic, plan-altering problem with Ruth Ann’s Yanmar diesel. And it may not have anything to do with my skill level as a diesel mechanic. The short version of the curious problem is that I should be able to turn the crankshaft of the engine, but I can’t. And(!) the propeller shouldn’t turn easily when the transmission is in gear  …  but it does. Somewhere between the engine and the gearbox something has gone terribly wrong. And none of the diesel experts around here can explain how such a thing could happen. 

So, if I contributed to this tragedy it was that I’ve been ignoring the engine. I’ve had lots and lots of other things to do during Ruth Ann’s refit. But obviously, I should have paid it a little more attention. Nevertheless, when I brought the boat here from Little River, a trip of about 65 miles, the engine never coughed, never hiccuped, never smoked or made any unusual sounds. It ran like a champ; and I pushed it real hard the first day. That story is here.

I actually moved the boat in July 2019, but I went right back to Michigan to finish helping my Dad. It was March of 2020 when I finally returned to Navassa, NC where Ruth Ann was waiting for me. I started work on getting her into ‘Bristol’ shape and making her mine. It was a lot. There was so much wire in the boat, much of it no longer even in use, that I spent a couple weeks tearing out wire before I had the space to run new wire through the nooks, crannies, and wireways. I took out the tank and toilet of the old system and installed a composting head. Six thruhulls were removed, some by brute force, and new ones installed. One thruhull was no longer necessary and after some grinding and glassing that hole was shut. By far, however, the most hours (many, many) were spent grinding out and repairing blisters on Ruth Ann’s hull. I probably fixed more than I needed to, but I had become obsessed. I was insulted by the mere presence of the blisters. I never had the heart to actually count them, but there were hundreds of blisters. I must have spent two months on the whole process. Nevertheless, I am super proud of how the hull looks today. Most people, even fellow salty sailors, would have no idea how the hull looked before I completed those repairs. Her hull is smooth as a peach and the hull story starts here.

And then COVID hit. For a good while, I never left except to run into town to grab a few provisions or boat parts and supplies. A lot of boatwork got done. After a while though, money was getting a little tight but also the world had changed and my original plan wasn’t such a good fit. 

My plan had been to invest whatever it took to get Ruth Ann rigged for cruising off-the-grid for long stretches of time. I was going to cut it close with my personal capital but after getting the boat in the water, I planned to find some work to refill my cruising budget. With millions of people suddenly out of work, I could no longer be certain that I could find a fill-in job when I needed one. It was time to reevaluate the plan, so I decided to go back on the road for a while, make a little money, and hide out from the pandemic. I was back behind the wheel in late June. 

After a time, things seemed to settle down in the world and I was itching to get back to my boat. So last April after about 10 months, I quit the trucker life again and came back to North Carolina. Reunited with Ruth Ann, I got right back to work. Solar panels and lithium batteries were installed; the mast was pulled and rewired; new navigation lights were installed, and the Dyneema rig I had made was prepped for when the mast went back up.

I could have given the engine a little love along the way. I could have turned the crankshaft a few times. However, I did not have a starting battery or the cooling water connections hooked up, so running the engine was not an option. When I finally got around to servicing the engine, it all began fine. I replaced the fuel filter and bled the fuel line; then replaced the oil filter, the impeller, and the belts. When I tried to start the engine, however, all I got was one loud clunk from the solenoid …. and nothing else. I started troubleshooting; checked the wiring, and tested the starter and the solenoid. The battery was brand new and checked out fine, but when I tried to turn the crankshaft I realized that I had problems. The crankshaft should turn easily. It didn’t. 

A boatyard neighbor had resurrected an engine that had seized from sitting and so I followed his advice. I pulled the injectors from the top of the engine and poured “Metal Rescue” into the cylinders. They soaked for two days, but nothing changed. I tried adding PB Blaster. I got a breaker bar to assist the socket wrench … and nothing. Big trouble. Trouble that was killing my schedule. In a cruel irony, I was counting on moving south and then finding some work -- again. Getting Ruth Ann back in the water was going to use up most of the money I had made this last summer. 

My inventory project was done and I was out of work. I thought I was going to be in the water by the first or second week of November … and then this. All I’ve had to do was work on the engine and haven’t had to buy much in supplies, but my money wasn’t going to last. I have no debt, so I can bet on my plans and push my limits, but when the plans start to not work out, it gets a little sticky. Luckily, I recently got a little help from a friend.

“Another man might have been angry. Another man might have been hurt.”

     -Harry Chapin

One would think that maybe I would get the hint and stop chasing this dream; sell the boat or light it on fire. Y’all have heard me say, more than once, that I’d rather be lucky than good. Frustration was setting in, of course, and I was flabbergasted that the one thing that could hold me back was, in fact, holding me back. But after a few deep breaths and a cuss word or two, the magic started to happen. 

The land pirate who bought my campervan had an engine for sale from a sailboat he had owned. His engine was a different brand from mine but it was just the right size; mine was 15 horsepower, his is sixteen. Repowering with a different brand engine is certainly possible, but it would have to include some engineering and modifications to the motor mounts and likely the propeller shaft as well. Along the way, I had kept Sam, the boatyard owner, up to date on my troubles. He kept trying to sell me a motor out of an orphaned sailboat in the yard; a thirty horsepower motor he said. All I could think was that his engine would burn more fuel and probably wouldn’t fit into my boat anyway. Sam is a card and he kept bugging me about the deal I could get on his motor. 

Finally, one night last week, I dragged my ladder across the boatyard and leaned it against the orphaned boat which is right next to a friend’s boat. I explained to the friend that I had to crawl into that boat so that I could tell Sam that his engine wouldn’t fit. After chatting for a while, it was getting dark, so I excused myself and climbed aboard. I slid back the hatch, removed the washboards, and climbed down the rickety steps into the dank cabin. I slipped the barrel latch and pulled open the door to peer into the engine compartment. I twisted my little Maglite to light the space, blinked, rubbed my eyes, and stared in amazement at the model tag on the motor. I retreated back into the cockpit, closed the hatches, and stumbled back to my boat; ladder in hand, shaking my head. 

The next morning I caught Sam in the office. 

“Well, I’ve got good news and bad news,” I said, smiling.

“You’re finally leaving,” Sam teased. 

“Bad news is I’m fairly certain that your engine is not thirty horsepower,” I continued, ignoring his poking at me. “The good news is it is identical to mine. I want to work out a deal on that engine and maybe those winches in the cockpit too.” 

We made a handshake agreement, right then and there. 

But …

I like to play with my cards out on the table. No bluffs. No hidden agendas. Sam probably already knew, but I told him that I could not buy that engine just then. Regardless, our deal is good for both of us even if I have to go back to work for a while in order to afford it. I will help strip the orphaned boat and prep it to be crushed and sent to the landfill. For that I will get a good price on an engine that will drop into my boat onto the existing motor mounts. I have already turned that engine’s crankshaft and it turns so smoothly, without effort that I can hardly stand it. Along with the engine, I’m going to get a couple nice self-tailing winches, a couple sails, and a matching clock and barometer. 

My mast is still on sawhorses but I want to get it back on the boat before I start working again. With the mast out of the way it won’t get bumped or knocked over, but it will also be easier for the boatyard to move Ruth Ann while I’m gone if they need my spot. 

And about that back-to-work part, I’m going to go back out on the road for six months so that I can afford to buy that engine. The slightly tarnished silver lining is that I should also be able to buy a watermaker when I return. A watermaker was the one missing component in my off-the-grid plan. Once I have one, teamed up with my solar panels and lithium batteries, I will be able to make my own freshwater from seawater. Without having to find a marina or other source of water, I will be able to stay out sailing for very long periods. 

This new situation sucks, but it also doesn’t. If it were easy, everyone would be doing it. I’ve basically been living on the boat since I sold The Moose, my campervan, and I know that this is the life for me; living aboard is where I belong. 

Please note: this blog will be inactive and my Patreon page will be suspended until I get back to Ruth Ann next June. I will be working on my book and might post a preview here. 

See y’all soon. Thanks for your support. 

It Happened So Fast ...

The Moose and me on the road

It’s such a dime novel cliche but it all happened so fast. I knew it was all coming, but then it buzzed on by, and I was sitting on my boat wondering where I was going to put everything. To back up, I’ve been working for three months at a construction equipment rental company. Last Saturday (10/23) was the big inventory and my work was done. It was a success. Not only did my bosses predict multiple rounds of variance checking - and there were only two - but the outside crew’s count was so close to mine that the managers decided to accept the count and be done with it.

And then suddenly the guy who had put a deposit on the campervan was back in town and we consummated the deal. The Moose and I had been together a long time. It was the end of an era and a little daunting, but I had spent the previous couple days moving out of the van and cleaning it up. The morning my buyer was coming, I finally caught up with the owner of the boatyard and cleared that I could stay on the boat for a couple weeks before the launch.

Ironically, I’ve joked that my little ship was going to feel luxurious because compared to the cramped living in a campervan for so long. However, the first few days I was “living aboard” it was damn crowded. It took a while to find a place to stow everything. The stowing was often complicated by all the stuff that had to be moved to get to the lockers where other stuff could be stowed. 

Getting Near Livable

It has now been about five days. Life is good and the boat is much more liveable. In fact, tonight I’ll finally get back to the double bunk to sleep. For now, Ruth Ann could sleep three. In the future maybe four, but I’ve got some more organizing to do.

Yesterday, I ran some of the last wire needed inside the cabin. When the mast goes up, I’ll have a little more wire to run from the mast to the panel that controls the navigation lights. By then, most all my electrical stuff will be done. I also need to pull my outboard out of the trailer to check it over and test start it. I didn’t get any gasoline while I had wheels, so I’ll have to bum a ride into town.

The best story -- just my luck -- was about the impeller for Ruth Ann’s diesel engine. I ordered a service kit for the Yanmar; a 2GM20F. It came last week with oil and fuel filters, a couple belts, and an impeller. While I was moving aboard, I found a few parts in a drawer that I was going to use for flatware and kitchen gadgets. Curiously, there was an impeller in the drawer that was exactly the same size as the one that came with the service kit. The only difference was the way they connected to the shaft. The Yanmar impeller had a slot for a key, while the one marked “Johnson Pumps” had a pin across the inside diameter. I googled “johnson pumps” and saw shower sumps and wash down pumps; used to clean your deck or anchor chain. I figured there must have been some other pump on the boat previously that wasn’t there now.

So … I threw it out.

Now, I am a pack rat, but ratpacking is my main problem right now as I try to fit all my crap on the boat. In trying to be brave and reform myself, as soon as I understood that I didn’t need that other impeller, I got rid of it. It felt like a little victory … for a while.

I had procrastinated servicing the engine because I don’t have mechanical confidence. Nevertheless, I find that  once I get started, I realize that I know more than I think I do. I can do OK when I need to. So, I changed the fuel filter, bled the line, then changed the oil filter and finally got around to the water pump. Yanmar makes tractors and all kinds of other equipment, so things are not always convenient on a boat. The water pump faces the engine and must be removed to get at the impeller.

I gently coaxed a couple bolts that hadn’t moved in a long time and got the water pump removed. When I turned the damn thing over it said “Johnson Pumps” on the coverplate! I removed the cover and confirmed my fresh fear that the Yanmar water pump had been replaced with a Johnson one. The impeller I had thrown away a few days before was the one I actually needed. The supply company couldn’t have known if I didn’t know, but I don’t have a Yanmar water pump.  Oy!

Today (Monday, 11/1) was laundry day. In my new human- and wind-powered life, that meant loading up the pannier bags (saddle bags for the bike) with as much laundry as I thought I could carry and riding into town. The trip is about nine miles there and back, but it was a pleasant trip actually. I hit the hardware store and the grocery while I was in town for a few things that would fit with my clean clothes. I grabbed some lunch while the dryers were going, folded, packed and headed back to the boatyard. Tomorrow, I’ll do it all over again for a more serious grocery run. Then I’ll be done for a while. The last grocery run lasted me more than a week.

If you’d like to be one of the first to know, one of the first to celebrate with me, when Ruth Ann and I are back in the water, consider becoming a Patron at the link above to Patreon. Even a buck or two a month makes a huge difference. Patrons get early access to the blog, along with other perks like BtP swag, occasional live chats, and sneak peaks at the book I’m writing. There will be a Live Patron Event online during and after the launch, as technology and bandwidth allow. Thanks to everyone for their support. 

Superstitious Mine

I don’t have many superstitions on land, but I have a few around the sea. Occasionally, I make fun of old sailors’ superstitions by participating in them. Other times, it feels more serious than I’d like to admit. I may have told a version of this first story back in 2014, but it’s a good segue into a tale about last weekend. 

In 2013, I had been working on my first boat for about six years and I was really burnt out. Late in the year, I had a heart-opening conversation with a good friend. She gave me the vocabulary that I needed to give myself permission to move on; to give up the boat project I had started with. The traumatic process of letting that first boat go is described in this post. 

Of course, a sailor is always looking at boats; especially a boatless sailor. Way sooner than I had expected or planned, I found a great boat at a good price. That boat was Bella, an Albin Vega. The story of buying Bella is here. I had found her on Craigslist, went and looked at her in a freezing cold Wisconsin barn in December, and worked out a deal to buy her with a little help from a wonderful friend. When the snow and ice finally melted, I was able to get some time off work to go back to Wisconsin and bring her home. That finally brings us to the superstitions. 

I had owned the boat starting in mid-winter. The Winter Storage bill had been paid, so all I had to do was wait until it was warm enough to go see her again. During that time, I started obsessing about her name. Bella was nice, but it didn’t connect with me at first. I started making lists -- and lists -- of potential names. I’m mostly Irish so I looked up salty names and phrases in Gaelic. I considered Spanish and Portuguese names for some reason. Of course there were options in English, but also in Ojibwe. I fretted and deliberated on many, many potential names. It became a problem; an addiction. While I waited to go get my boat, I had nothing more to do than to grind and grind my brain about her name. 

It felt especially important for me to decide on the name before I went back to retrieve her. I was never sure how superstitious I actually was (still not sure), but I knew that I would have been pushing my luck if I had sailed her across the Lake as "Bella" and then changed her name. It needed to be settled before I launched her again. That was my rationale in deference to Posiedon, Ruler of the Seas.

In the end, I gave up. I had wound myself so tightly about her name that I eventually snapped. I decided to just keep the name. It was a good name; “beauty” in Italian. It also fell in line with my two rules about boat names. First, a boat name should be easy to say and to understand over the radio. And second, the story behind the name can’t be too cute or too convoluted. You will likely be asked many times, “so how did you come to name her that?” The story has to be one that you can stand to tell perhaps several times a day whenever you are with the boat. In keeping the original name my story was abbreviated to simply “that was her name when I bought her.”

When May came around and the snow was gone, I got back to Wisconsin, back to the storage barn, crawled inside to survey my little ship … and nearly fell over at what I found. I had not noticed back on that chilly day in December, but above the door into the forward area of the boat was a small plaque. It was a thin rectangle of metal, laser-cut with the name “Bella” in script. If I had changed her name and attempted to remove that little plaque -- for certain there would have been two screw holes left in the wood, but also, and most likely, the shadow of “Bella” would have been a permanent mark in the finish. Surely the varnish on the door frame had faded over time, but the rectangle and “Bella” was protecting the finish underneath. Superstitious or not, to some degree or more, I would have been completely shaken by the bad precedent of the old name remaining aboard. Further, I didn’t have time to sand and refinish the frame before leaving. 

If you’d like to read the story of meeting Bella again, prepping her, and crossing Lake Michigan without an engine, that story starts here. Click on “Newer Post” at the bottom of each page to get the whole story.

I was happy to have kept the name “Bella” and perhaps to have kept myself and my little ship in the good graces of Poseidon, Davy Jones, and Old Hob. [ certainly not the words of a skeptic ]

That brings me to this last weekend. 

I had ordered vinyl graphics for sv Ruth Ann; her name and hailing port. And after hanging them in different spots and deciding on the best location, I cleaned the hull and applied them. Ruth Ann is a U.S. Coast Guard Documented Vessel, so her name must be in letters four inches tall. I think that that is supposed to apply to the hailing port as well but I had some spacing problems. “Ruth Ann,” just seven letters and a space, is too wide for my transom at four inches tall. I have a windvane mounted at the center and a swim ladder to port, so I only have the transom’s starboard half for her name and hailing port. What I decided to do was put “Ruth Ann” on each forward quarter in 4” high letters, but put “Ruth Ann, Detroit, Mi” in two lines on the transom in letters sized to fit. I think I will be all right. 

After I had emblazoned her name on the topsides, I confirmed that there was no evidence of the old name aboard. Then last Friday night, I caught Mike, one of my boatyard friends, and we walked out to the dock on the river. I had a slip of paper with the old name written on it and a pint of Wild Turkey. Bourbon has become my traditional boat christening liquid and Wild Turkey has been my bourbon for a long while. I’m not really a champagne kind of guy and the boats I’ve owned are not champagne boats either. I poured a shot for Mike and one for Poseidon (I only had two shot glasses). I raised a glass and said:  

“Poseidon, Ruler of the Seas, I beseech thee. My little boat has had many names; the last being neither proper nor fitting for a sailing ship such as her. Please strike that name from your ledger as I will be christening her in honor of my mother and grandmother in the coming weeks. Please keep an eye on my boat and I as we travel your waters.”

And with that, I heartily pitched a shot of Wild Turkey 101 into the Cape Fear River. And then I slipped the paper and the old name into the water to dissolve in the river on its way to the sea. Finally, I poured a shot for myself and another for Mike. We may have had a few more right there on that peaceful night. 

The water here is brackish, a mix of freshwater and salt, and very much connected to the sea. The Atlantic’s tidal currents come all the way here; 35 miles or so upstream. The river actually flows backward at the peak of the flooding tide and races a little faster when the tide is in full ebb. The river will carry the drink and the stricken name straight to Poseidon himself. 

It’s no secret that the boat’s most recent name was “Afraid Knot;” a name altogether too cute and too corny for a proper sailboat. Such a name is befitting only of a lowly, prosaic powerboat. I’ll have no reason to speak of such a name any longer. 

So … was I playing with an old sailor’s superstition? making fun? or was I taking it all very seriously? I don't know what to tell you, but I do know that the first time through, I had forgotten the piece of paper and had go get it in order to do it all over again to make sure that all was right with Poseidon. Sounds pretty superstitious to me. 

Here’s to old sailboats and oak barrel-aged whiskey.

Struggles, Schmuggles

Post Road Trip, loaded bags.

I don’t deserve this bike, but that is getting way ahead of the story. 

It turned out to be kind of ironic that I was working on a blog post about my struggle and all that it can take to dump a career and get a boat set up for off-the-grid travel on the water. I started working on a piece about self sabotage, but it had transformed into a curious review of my project. “Fourteen years and four boats” was the opening line. It all seems a little ridiculous. I can’t decide if I’m a special kind of stupid or a special kind of stubborn or whether I have been on the right track all along. It’s probably a combination of all three, but I wouldn’t want to weigh out how much of each is in there. 

I’ve been through all of the classic self sabotage routines. Procrastination. Time wasting. Burn Out. Distractions. Etc.  Luckily, it had gotten bad enough for me that I could recognize it. Many people suffer from self sabotage without ever realizing that they are doing it to themselves. 

I’ve actually been lucky even after all these years. I’ve learned an awful lot and I’ve done some great sailing too. It was especially lucky that I decided to cash out my 401(k) in 2007. I literally bought that first boat with my so-called retirement funds mere months before the 2008 crash and Great Recession. I had cashed out for a greater purpose, a righteous quest, just before I would have lost a lot of dollar value. 

I got bogged down on that project but I did some good work and she taught me some things. I’ve made better decisions each time from the knowledge I gained on the previous boat. Money, in dollars, is not even the point. I don’t consider that I made an investment in a boat; that’s a fool’s errand. What I’ve done is invested in myself; in the lifestyle I want and in my own skills through the medium of those four boats. 

The luckiest bit of all was in 2018, when my mom got sick, that I could pack up and go home to help. If I had managed to already have had a boat in the water at that time, the logistics of heading home would have been much more complicated. It was a precious privilege to have spent so much time with Mom in her last few months. I had had a boat in Florida, but it was not very close to completion. I simply tarped that boat and left. I spent the rest of that summer in Michigan; precious time with Dad and did a little sailing too. In the end, I managed to sell the Florida project as the opportunity to acquire Ruth Ann came up. 

That special kind of stubbornness showed up today. Stubbornness that kept me going and helped me solve a problem. I was on my way to the temp job, had stopped for gas, and then was only a couple miles away when I heard my serpentine belt go. The Alternator Light came on immediately. I was coming to a stop in the left turn lane of a red stoplight when it had happened. When I got the green arrow, I quickly realized that I also had no power steering. And then the temperature gauge started climbing. Going on into work was no longer an option. The lumberyard where I was working is way out in the country with a gate and a long driveway that would have complicated any recovery of the van if it wouldn’t start at the end of the day. I drove right by the yard and called in at both the shop where I was headed and the temp agency. 

I kept my eye on the temperature gauge except when I was wrestling the steering wheel around a corner. On the small stretch of unavoidable freeway, I had my hazard lights flashing at first, but  was able to sneak up to 55 miles per hour in the cool morning air without pushing the temperature out of the ‘normal’ range. When the Moose and I coasted down the long hill toward the Navassa exit, the temperature went down significantly. I crept down Royster Road to the boatyard where all my tools were. As the gate slowly opened, I noticed that the morning sun was shining through a couple trees that stand over the dock. Of course, I had to stop and grab a picture. Then I lurched over to where sv Ruth Ann sits and backed into my usual spot. 

I plugged the campervan in right away because the battery charger tops up both the house bank and the starting battery. The side windows were still down, so I tried to restart the van, but it struggled. The windows closed with just the dwindling battery power. The engine needed to cool before I could do any diagnosis, so I opened the hood and let it rest while I cleaned up my bike. I was going to need the bike.  

My poor bike has been neglected for over a year. I used it a little last summer, but it spent a long time chained to a fence in the driver parking area of a truck terminal. The poor thing has been chained to the tongue of my tool trailer since about April. I am ashamed of how I have neglected this bike. A flowering vine of some kind had nearly swallowed it. That morning I hacked back all the vegetation and then cleaned up and greased up the bike to make up for my neglect. The front tire checked out fine, but I needed to replace the rear tube as there were a couple leaky patches on it already.

When I decided that the engine was cool enough, I started poking around. To my amazement it wasn’t the belt at all. In fact, the belt was still in one piece and not in too bad of shape under the hood. The belt tensioner pulley bearings had failed and the plastic wheel spun until it melted … and fell off!!  I found the gnarled pulley caught in the front end suspension; it had made the trip all the way home. 

I started checking online and dug up the Haynes manual that I had. The Moose is a campervan built on a Ford E250 work van chassis. All the relevant mechanical information is the same. The manual wasn’t a great help other than the names and locations of parts. YouTube wasn’t that much better, but it’s probably not YouTube’s fault. My campervan is a 1994; 27 years old. Many of the videos were about more recent model vans and, of course, since 1998 or so the belt tensioner design had changed significantly. Nevertheless, I was able to glean some solid information and confidence. The most helpful video was actually about an F150 pickup truck about the same age as The Moose.

  

If you had asked me two weeks ago -- hell, four days ago -- to point at the belt tensioner, I would have been stumped. I knew what a belt tensioner did, but I didn’t know exactly where it was on this engine. I had never needed to be too deep under the hood of The Moose. I know now! 

With more than a little apprehension, I started looking around online for a belt tensioner. Last fall when I was having transmission trouble and a funny noise, a local Florida shop quoted me almost $900 for replacing the belt tensioner and something else. I’m curious to find that paperwork because in my memory the tensioner was the majority of the $900. The other thing, which I don’t remember clearly, was actually a misdiagnosis of something else that was fixed when the rebuilt transmission was replaced. I haven’t been having any belt problems and I kind of ignored that recommendation because the other recommendation was faulty. 

The Auto Zone website said that a belt tensioner was in stock locally but I called to make sure. They indeed had a couple in stock and plenty of belts too. And for way less money than I had feared. At the boatyard, the crew were just arriving and starting their day. My other friends who are working on their boats here weren’t around yet that early. I wasn’t going to wake someone or pull someone from their job for what really wasn’t an emergency, so I turned to the bike. It was going to be an adventure; and a good story. I don’t think I ever biked into town last year, but I always meant to. The pannier bags were in the back of the van, in the shower actually which I use for storage. The bike was clean and ready to go. And it looked great with the bags on again. I was off. 

On my way past the office, Sam, the owner of the boatyard, had just arrived. 

“Good morning,” I yelled as I pedalled on by.

“Alright!” he answered enthusiastically.

It’s four miles to the Auto Zone from the boatyard and it was a pleasantly cool morning. I waited for the light at Village Road, then swung around behind the Walgreens, and locked the bike in front of the parts store. No sense in making it easy for someone to grab. The Auto Zone guys were great and it turned out that I could buy just the pulley rather than the whole belt tensioner mechanism. I bought a new belt as well. Another half mile down the road was a Food Lion and I had a grocery list too just in case I was stuck at the boatyard all weekend. 

As I came around the corner of the grocery store, I noticed that Brodee Dogs was open. With COVID and the economy and all, Brodee hadn’t been open much when I was around in town. I hadn’t had a dog since last year. It was about lunchtime by then, so -- hey -- this how we do up car repair around here: I stopped for lunch. I had a Tarheel Dog and a Gaelic Ale from Highland Brewing in Asheville, NC. The Gaelic Ale was a rich, full bodied Amber Ale and was so good that I didn’t even get a picture of the Tarheel dog; one of my favorites. After a dog and a beer, I grabbed some groceries, packed them up, and pedalled back out to the boatyard. It was about a nine mile round trip, but the Gaelic Ale in the middle made it an enjoyable ride on a beautiful day. 

The belt tensioner pulley went on very quickly; almost anticlimactically. I had a bit of fun running the new serpentine belt over and around 7 or 8 pulleys and getting it seated and tensioned. Nevertheless, the van started right up and purred as usual without heating up. Success! 

The Load, 2 bags worth

My whole boat project story has been a bit like that day. Escaping ‘the system’ is actually harder than it seems. With some regularity, an obstacle shows up unexpectedly and must be dealt with or fixed. These obstacles can lead right into self sabotage modes. They can cause a cascade of burnt out feelings or, in many cases, become a rich source of distraction and procrastination. It takes some discipline to think “all right, I’m going to fix this properly but as quickly as possible and get right back to my project.” I am so close now to the life that I want that even a belt tensioner pulley failure can’t slow me down much. Further, I’ve exchanged emails with the temp agency, told them that I had fixed the van, and I am still on to work at the lumberyard next week.

It’s another one of those quirky things about doing whatever I need to do to get off-the-grid. Mondays and Tuesdays, I am in a button down workshirt consulting on inventory issues, developing policy ideas, and often working for hours in their computer system. The rest of the week, in t shirt, jeans, leather gloves, and a sun hat, I am grunt labor schlepping lumber around the county; hand-unloading it and carrying it across lumpy, dirty job sites. It’s great exercise actually.  

Now ... back to boatwork.

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