LIFE IN A REFRIGERATOR!!!!!!

SHIP'S LOG:

I did get down to ABISHAG on Friday last to try and do some few projects. If that grammar is not correct blame it on the cold. It was really quite like trying to work inside a walk-in freezer. Still in all I was able to get a few little tasks done before the cold chased me.

I re-installed a brass lamp with a frost glass globe. I set it on the bulkhead over the starboard settee in the saloon. It provides a nice warming light and I suppose could even take the chill off on a summer's evening but in this weather it really is a case of shoveling against the tide. yet it looks nice, very nautical, though the brass is in real need of some serious polishing. I was able to wirebrush off most of the tarnish and corrosion, but it still doesn't "gleam." If I had "crew" it would be a perfect task for them but it's another thing I lack. It also became clear that I am going to need a small funnel to fill the light. Another small item for the "get list."

Skip is planning to come by Wednesday morning and we will install the fireplace. It seems a rather simple procedure according to the plan and instructions as these things go which undoubtedly means that it will be a bear. It is already clear that the location I favor in the center of the saloon will require moving a light. This is not a particularly difficult thing to do except for the fact that I will have to take down the overhead liner in order to re-run the wire. We will also have to avoid the handrail that is on the top of the overhead on deck. I am also going to have separate and and insulate the fireplace from the bulkhead to which it is to be attached. That means getting a piece or two of stainless steel and attaching that first. I also want this installation to be temporarily permanent so that come the summer, I can take it down and get it out of the way until it is needed again. As I said, a "simple job."

I was also able to install a small microwave oven. "Install" is a bit too much in that all I did was unpack it from the box and plug it in. It works and no circuits blew so I can actually "cook" after a fashion. Let's hear it for "Lean Cuisine," "Healthy Choice" and "Stoffer's."

I was also able to "screw in" several panels in the nav station that were being held in place by single screws, and that was about it. The cold got to be a bit much and it was time to leave. The fingers were getting a bit numb and when I could no longer pick up a screw I dropped, I took it as a sign that it was time to boogie.

MASTER'S LOG:

I am hoping for March, expecting April and will probably have to settle for May. What might actually force the issue is the launching of all the boats that are stacked-up in the shipyard. True, most want to be in the water for Memorial Day at the end of May, then again, most don't want their boats in any earlier because it will be "too cold" to do much sailing. Usually, yards have a contract that states a date when they will put the boat in the water, ready or not, which forces people to do their outfitting. People who keep their boats at the dock rather than on a mooring, then to be the first in. I would tend to think that I am in somebody's primo slip and, that as these things go, he/she has the earliest date for a spring splashing. I may have to go sooner rather than later. Time will tell.

One odd thing, everybody else seems antsy about my leaving. It is not that I am going but rather that I haven't gone. People are forever asking when I am finally leaving and seem disappointed that there in no hard and fast date. Hey, no one wants to get going more than I do but it really is out of my hands. One of the three most important things that I have learned over the past few months is PATIENCE. The other two are PATIENCE and PATIENCE. I'll be leaving when I and the weather are in synch and until that happens, there isn't much I can do except take care of the little projects that need doing and learning about the boat. As there is little sense in heading too far south once the weather cooperates (I have to be north of the Chesapeake by June 1st), I tell them I have "tentative plans" (and I mean really, really tentative plans) to sail down to the Chesapeake Bay and then over to Bermuda before going north in the Summer. If it happens, it happens. If it doesn't, it doesn't. It's that simple and if they think it is frustrating for them, it is the same for me though I have just gotten use to it and just go with the flow.