Greetings from this side of 2011. I trust everyone made it through the holidays without too many thrills, spills, or pounds of turkey weight.
Taking a look in ye olde mailbag, our dear readership is inquiring Erik's lack of posting. Since no amount of encouragement has yet produced the written word from my dear counterpart, instead I present:
What is Erik Doing?
filling the diesel tanks
in the engine room
at the helm
back in the engine room
fixing the outboard motor
doing something loud and messy
adjusting batteries
checking the zincs
fishing wires
up the mast to work on the lazyjacks
still up the main mast
reconfiguring breakers in the electrical panel
I think we can sense a general theme, here. Erik is busy fixing disasters, and, more recently, making improvements. Erik’s motto is that everything can be improved, be it boat, house, business, country, person or attitude, and he works to uphold that principle on a daily basis. So don’t hope for him to write any time soon; he’s busy setting a new antenna.
The eagle-eyed among you will also notice that, behind every wall panel, under every floor board, around every corner, something is hidden in Papillon. And I mean that in a very Matrix-like way. Not a surface exists on this boat that does not conceal a bank of batteries, engine, pump, alternator (now I discover we have three!), pillow block, flag locker, sail locker, locker locker, or plain old chest of drawers. It is fascinating, the storage space build into this place. Oh, no, wait a minute. It is a complete and utter thorn in my side.
Last summer, back in the heady days of our sailing lessons, I bought a pair of deck shoes. Lovely blue Sperrys. Being a thinking-ahead sort of a person, I left them on board when I departed, reasoning that I would have no need of them back on land.
Well. Here we are, three months in, and I still can’t find my Sperrys. Every room hides about thirteen sneaky cupboards. I swear we’ve checked them all. Under the bunks. In the walls. Under the spare sails. Under the couches. Behind the couches. Nothing. And I cannot bring myself to replace them, though my loafers are now disintegrating, because the moment I hand over my credit card the errant Sperrys will leap from their hiding place to lounge in the middle of the salon. No, I won’t have it.
I think I’ll offer Indy and Stylish a dollar to suss them out. That’s good parenting, right?
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