We now have a few new boats in the anchorage and with it comes the happy hour introductions, more random nights out, a few pizza parties, gut busting rounds of stories and possibly/maybe a few tequila shooters in there somewhere.Welcome to Golfito, Dave and Mary, our friends cruising their Nordhaven named Jenny. We left them way back in El Sal and they just now caught up with us. It is good to run into them again.
Also a grand welcome to new friends Mark and Lyn. When they idled their boat WAHOO up and dropped anchor I noted the familiar BYC(Balboa Yacht Club) burgee he was flying and I HAD to call him on it. They have been motor-cruising their powerboat south since October. Interesting how one can travel 3000 miles and still run into connections from home. If anyone was looking for them I can toss a coconut and hit his boat.
It gets better tho. Also gathered around the table were fellow cruisers Patrick and Patricia (sv Rhapsody). At one point for some reason the topic switched over to geek talk (even out here) and Patrick started telling parallel stories I know I've heard before. I asked "Do you know Mike Friese?" Yep, they all worked together a while back. No kidding! He bought me a shot of Tequila. Thanks Mike.Not that Astor was in any state other than close to perfect, I still had TONS to do before Richard found his way back. He did just that Yesterday morning, and he said the boat was in better shape than when he left. We did good- I think we can come back (I wasn't really worried tho).
With many of the major projects finished off and put to bed I have taken on more minor PITA chores like practicing my whipping skills on all of the newly replaced lines hanging around. I even gave Paula a very challenging job of stitching up Replacement Deck Doily #4 which has needed to be done for a couple of years since the original #4 failed it's float test. 
By coincidence and a strange comedy of events, RDD#4 also recently failed it's float test(over the side), but was recovered from it's 40ft drop to the mud by a true salvage legend after about 30 minutes of exploring the depths and muck. For those that are keeping track, I am now 3 for 3.Yes- this means we are into another phase of our adventure. I spent a good part of the day looking at flight times, prices, seating assignments, booking a hotel stopover in San Jose, clicking on this and printing that. WHEW! That'll burn up a good part of a day. I started all this on my office on mid deck, but it started raining again so I had to move below. It turned out to be a good useless day to do it. Paula spent most of the day gathering all of our things from their little cubby corners and fitting them into our bags. Travel day towards SoCal begins Thursday and ends on Friday so we shall see how it all comes together. In it's infancy, flight travel used to be a fun and enjoyable part of a trip, but now there sure is alot of stress involved.
I'm not sure how fast we will acclimate back into the pace of SoCal. I'm sure much of it is the same, but since we left back in the begin of March you people have whacked out the fuel prices but that's ok because I hear the batteries in my truck are dead-dead, picked your American Idol, no doubt finished out the season for several of my favorite tv shows, made Hillary realize she is not the one for the US, and a few global tragedies have occurred on continents only an ocean away.
We still have a few stories in the writing stages so we will try to sneak them in here just for fun, and we will continue to blog probably in a different phase and perhaps rearranged a bit, but it has been a truly fantastic time.
For those that have enjoyed this, the best thing I can say is that sometime/somehow we will be back aboard and pick up the stories where we left off. This is only a planned side-step in the journey. Stay tuned.
Byron & Paula
Astor Tenders and Crew - Spring 2008
4 comments:
What is the deck doily for? Why do you need 4 of them? Why do they have to float? If one synchronized swimmer drowns, does the whole team drown? If you choke a smurf, what color does it turn?
No- they are not for big tea cups.
Remember back when I was varnishing those really big blocks(sailing term for pulley) and they had big screw eyes on one end?
Those screws fit into flush mounted nuts on deck and control lines feed thru them.
The deck doily lies down between the deck and block to protect each from bashing each other when the sails flog around sometimes.
Four are needed when both the headsail and the fisherman are up at the same time. Two are in use and two are lazy until we tack over. I try my best to model after the lazy ones.
They don't have to float, but it makes them easier to retrieve when they are tested(ie dropped over the side). Hopefully notes are taken and not done more than once.
It depends on how dedicated they are to the team and the effect they wanted to achieve. It usually isn't done during practice and also not done more than once.
I would think gray, but soon after they have x's instead of eyes(or was that SPark characters?)
Hi there want to hear some stories from someone that turned 21 living aboard in '73?
tloro at mac dot com
I varnished Astor's main mast, truck to deck by my self. Painted that knob on top white. The Pepperdine College sailing club was my crew for wet Wednesday's races in Channel Islands Harbor.
Tony
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