2023 was a very different year

 Jim:  I never expected to live this long, and in fact I thought I would die in my 50s like my father did...genetics..... But here I am closing in on twice his age and 2023 started with a bang.

No, not fireworks. It started with our wedding after a whirlwind courtship of just six weeks. Oddly enough I didn't even see it coming, but just trusted my instincts. A year later I can say, my instincts were correct. What a year 2023 has been!

This picture is of an antique binnacle (the housing of the ships compass) that was salvaged from the USS Constantinople. A cargo ship I found rotting away in the marine salvage yard in Brownsville TX. It had been a supply ship in WWII and later after decommissioning from the US Navy had become a lowly “Banana Boat” until it was no longer economical to operate. This binnacle stands at the bottom of the 18 steps up to the front door where it constantly reminds me that I need a compass even now after all these 87 years. And apparently my compass is reading true as it led me to Mi-sA-le.

So now onward through the fog of 2024 with a true and tested compass. Maybe some sailing adventures still lie ahead, but whatever lies ahead, Africa, Central America, Ecuador, and more, I will be guided by a good compass. I thank the Lord for guiding me to Mi-sA-le, and guiding us through the maze of life.

YELLOW ROSE of TEXAS

I had an epiphany one day.  A revelation of a truth which all boat builders probably know but that I had not yet learned after 60 years of building small boats. Since 1963 I've been building boats from 12 to 32 feet in length, but for some reason it never dawned on me that a boat doesn't have to be perfect, only watertight.

I started building a Wee Lassie II one year late in March.  After 30 days of labor (not consecutive), at the rate of about 3 to 4 hours on each day worked (perhaps 100 hours accumulative), my Wee Lassie was named THE YELLOW ROSE OF TEXAS and almost finished.  Everything went just perfectly, building my expectations high. Until one day.. disaster hits - bubbles in the epoxy!

It turned out to be fixable, but it did take the wind out of my sails and lowered my expectations.  That was good.  Now I look at the labor I put into the boat and what I am getting out. OK its beautiful, but it isn't a show boat.  The only contest it had to win is the approval of my friends, and that was won years ago.  It was awesome after the first coat of varnish went on, even with the couple of flaws which no one but I will see.  I felt better. She would be a handsome dinghy to go on our planned world cruise.

It's good to lower one's expectations to the level of what you want to accomplish.  Sure, with another 50 hours I'll bet it would be a show stopper.  But it wasn't worth the effort, when the first time I pull it up on an oyster reef, the show stopper will become a fishing boat.

I took her fishing one day.  I caught a 32 inch Redfish.  The canoe and I together weighed almost 200 pounds.  Don't know what the fish weighed, but it towed me almost a mile in the wrong direction, away from where I had to go to get home.  Maybe I should've made a harness for the fish and took him with me whenever I went out!

Sea Salt Captain and Parrot

 A small memory from 80 Years ago:  When I was just in the first grade we had a neighbor in Oceanside CA. He was an old man. Perhaps the age I am today.

Across the street was a “Court”. In those years a Court was what we now call a Motel, with some variation. In the 1940s, the nation was just becoming motorized. People were starting to travel in automobiles. If you traveled by automobile, where could you put your car while you slept in the hotel? Most travelers in those days used trains or buses and the hotels were near the stations, so no need for large parking lots like we have today. Courts solved the problem, You rented a small cottage with an attached car port that was again attached to another cottage, and so on. You may still see them around today. These were often in vacation destinations. Oceanside was a vacation destination. The cottage included a living space with a fold away Murphy bed and a toilet and a kitchen.

The old man, a retired Sea Captain, owned the Court. He had spent his earlier days sailing “Square Riggers” 'round the Horn and was now retired.

Much of Oceanside, in those days, was retired sailors. There were homes built on the cliffs overlooking the ocean where an old sailor could retire and still enjoy the sea from a safe distance. The old man retired into a world that was not of his making, because the War changed things..

He built the Court so that it would supply him with a living...those

years were before Social Security and Medicare....   Around the Court was a concrete wall about a foot high into which he had 
embedded sea shells from his travels in the South Seas. The walls of the apartments were concrete embedded with pieces of Petrified Wood from the nearby desert.

He sat on the front steps of his apartment in his dark blue uniform with brass buttons and a Parrot on his shoulder.

Willing to talk to anyone that would stop. He had no family and was alone in this new world ashore. Few stopped as they hurried to their destination. Often, as we kids walked by, he would stop us and tell us tales of the sea that he had lived. As young children, we were in a hurry to some new adventure so didn't have the interest to truly listen to an old man telling stories. I wish now that I had cared more. Then I could have told you some of his amazing life stories. But now it's too late..

Today I realize it's about validating another person, and relieving their loneliness.

Emotional Ocean

 Jim: In 1970 I was in a Sea Shell shop in Mazatlan, Mexico. Just browsing. The owner, seeing that I was not buying anything suggested that I might like to look upstairs. I went up the rickety stairs to the attic where they had more junk than what is in my garage. Amongst the chaos was this painting, in the frame, and covered with dust. The price tag was 10 Pesos. But I thought they might have meant 10 dollars. The difference is that Pesos has only one strike across the “S” while dollars has two strikes across the “S”. So I asked and was assured that it was 10 Pesos. So I bought it! This painting is unsigned and I have no idea who did it, but for 10 Pesos, including the frame I could not resist. 10 Pesos in 1970 was the equivalent of 53 USA cents. It has hung in my living room ever since.

Bringing it back on the airplane was an ordeal. At the condo I took the frame apart and removed and rolled the canvas. The whole shebang was still too big for cabin luggage but the stewardess let us put it in the coat closet. 

Misale:  Even though most of the time we sit with our backs to this painting, it reflects in the glass doors and seemingly is ever present. In days gone by, I would have thought the artist was over dramatizing. Now, I look at it realizing it is not possible to show and tell with paint and words, the immense magnitude of an ocean with emotions. We humans are so small in creation.

This artist had experienced it and tried to bring forth that greatness. Yet, his story was worth only a few cents.. We all have amazing lives, every moment of it. If only we can value it. In the end we are only dust.

Bilge Treasures

 “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allen Poe came to mind when I found these bottles of grape juice, lying helter skelter, in the basement. These are not Amontillado, they are vintage grape juice. Purchased about 20 years ago as I was fitting out the “Millennium Falcon” for her circumnavigation.

I was looking for stores to squirrel away in the boat as a hedge against misfortune. In a local grocery store I found a sale on Sparkling Grape Juice. Liter bottles that normally sold for $2.75 were being offered at $1 a bottle! I sensed an opportunity here..... They were getting rid of their older stock! I called the bottler and I asked what would happen to them when they went out of date and was told they might ferment. To which I responded, “And that is bad?.....”.

I asked the manager if I could make an offer of 25 cents a bottle and I would take ALL he had. At first he balked, but 10 minutes later he accepted the offer. I had no idea how many bottles he had!   We began loading the XJ6 first in the trunk then into the back seat. When all were loaded the rear bumper of the Jaguar was only an inch off the ground! I don't remember now how many bottles there were, but it was more than 300.

We took them home and carefully loaded them into the bilge of the “Millennium Falcon” packed in layers of straw. It served as excellent ballast and we would not die of thirst when becalmed in the Sargasso Sea.

Later when the circumnavigation was abandoned we took the grape juice to the basement and just stashed it there. After 20 years, just before my marriage to Misale, I rediscovered the stash and we opened two for testing. They were fine and we enjoyed them. I toyed with the idea of serving them at the wedding on New Years Day, but didn't want to open each one to test it. They will be savored as time goes by. We plan to drink the last one on our first anniversary. 

Edgar Allen Poe is my favorite Poet and Author. He lived only 40 years and his works will, all, fit in a single volume. But he was a literary genius that died too young. I used to read his short stories to my daughters as bedtime stories.

“Fortunato had hurt me a thousand times and I had suffered quietly. but then I learned that he had laughed at my proud name, Montresor, the name of an old and honored family. I promised myself that I would make him pay for this — that I would have revenge. “ 

…..and then.....

“I put the old bones again in a pile against the wall. For half a century now no human hand has touched them. May he rest in peace! “