2025 Life Logs, Day 57: Changing Focus for a Day
Date: Wednesday, February 26, 2025
Weather: Beautiful Day, Again; High Temp 52, Low 34 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
A change of focus today, from politics to sailboats … what a refreshing change of view. Jed’s mother, Marti, and I gave Heather and Jed the promise of a new dodger for Christmas. As part of that gift, I volunteered to do the research necessary to find the right place with the right price to do this. What I found out immediately was that the price of replacing a dodger has increased exponentially in the past few years, so Heather suggested I start researching the possibility of just replacing the vinyl ‘windows’ in the dodger. You might be asking about now, “What is a dodger.” It is like a roof with a windshield that covers part of the cockpit and the companionway or entrance going down into the sailboat’s interior. The ‘windows’ in the dodger are like the windshield of a car and the roof is canvas. The canvas fits on a metal frame to support it and the clear vinyl windows snap down on the cabin top. If you aren’t familiar with the term cockpit, it is the outside area of the boat where the controls are located and where people sit to navigate and also to enjoy each other’s company. On a boat, a saloon or salon is the inside living room and the cockpit is the outside living room. The cabin top is the solid roof of the boat.
So, today I drove to Chatham on the Outer Cape to get another opinion and estimate. It was a Cape Cod blue sky day, a perfect day to enjoy the beauty of the Cape. I was visiting Mike Berg at Seaside Designs whose main focus is fine cabinetry and woodworking for boat interiors. But evidently, he also does canvas work. I learned quickly that Mike is an avid sailor. He just returned from Florida where he competed in the Helly Hanson Sailing World Regatta Series in St. Petersburg. I have never had any interest in sailboat races, but I can’t tell you how wonderful it was to talk to a fellow sailor about common places we have where we have both sailed. Plus, I got a very affordable estimate on refurbishing the dodger with new vinyl windows. Mike estimates that the canvas from Ardenna’s current dodger has 5 more years of life and he recommended just sewing in new vinyl windows for now and think about a complete replacement in a few years. He will also help with the installation of solar panels on the top of the dodger. Heather and Jed will make the final decision, but the price was right, and my gut reaction was positive.
Last night just before I went to bed, I saw that I had a voice mail message. It was from the speaker for today’s Exploring Public Policy meeting telling me he could not make it to the meeting. At 11:30 pm, I sent out a ‘Cancelled’ email, but this afternoon I showed up in case not everyone read an email sent at midnight! There were a couple of people, and we had a great little mini-meeting.
