November 7, 2003

  • Ooh, Baby! It’s COLD outside!

    I am making my quarterly payment to the storage place where I keep my sailboat. It sucks, because I don’t like paying for it. I’d rather be using my sailboat. It sucks even worse because, my sailboat isn’t even docked anywhere cool, like a marina. It’s in dry storage.

    I really can’t wait to move somewhere where it’s warm year round. Keeping my boat outside isn’t in an option in the Midwest, because no tarp keeps out water well. Or if it does keep the water from contacting the the boat, it still collects on top and freezes into a solid block of ice which expands and cracks the hull anyway.

    So, my investment goes into dry storage.

    I’d really like to move someplace where I can buy a cabin boat, and just dock it at the Marina nearly year-round. Even if I can’t go sailing, I’d totally like to be able to just go there to hang out and study occasionally when the house gets too frantic.

    Not too far from us is a nuclear power plant reservoir, and the Marina there is full of houseboats. My clubmates used to call them “Mobile Homes on Pontoons.”

    I don’t make fun of houseboat owners. I think they’re cool people. I met one of them once, and he invited us in to see his houseboat which he named “Sanctuary.” And what a sanctuary it was! Microwave, TV, sofa, 3 balconies to fish from (top, front, and back), and best of all, (according to him) no wife! :)

    “The cabin of a small yacht is a wonderful thing;
    for it not only may shelter you from the tempest,
    but also from the other storms of life.”
    — L. Francis Herreschoff.

    Since it is a nuclear power plant reservoir, when September 11th came around, there were National Guard patrols on the water. They got upset at him because he had mounted a sculpture of a gun on the rail of his houseboat. He was told to take down the gun (even though it was fake).

    In fact, for a while, no one could go sailing on the reservoir, because all traffic close to the plant was restricted. So my sailing partner and I went on roadtrips to other lakes in the area, which was really exciting, because I didn’t know there were so many other lakes nearby! The most exciting find was the little agricultural pond that was only 15 minutes away, and I never knew that! It took the collapse of two skyscrapers and the death of thousands of people in order for me to discover a nearby drainage pond.


    Dry docked till next season!