NZ Land Logs 48, Year 2: Hang On, Aunt Ethel
Date: Saturday, April 7, 2007
Weather Today: Sunny, Temps in the Mid-60’s
Location: Whangarei, New Zealand
Today was a day of all work and no play. Mark was up by 7:00 am and had a new waterline stripe taped off and was almost ready to sand before I got up and out of the boat. When you are living in your boat on land, you have to use your holding tank–and since holding tanks don’t have all that much capacity, you use it judiciously. That means climbing down from the boat everytime you have to go to the bathroom. Like most cruisers, we use the head that is going into the holding tank during the night, but first thing in the morning, you get up and move fast to get to the marina bathroom. By the time I got back from the bathroom, Mark was sanding. I explained in yesterday’s log that we are sanding four-inches above the old waterline, plus the three-inch wide green waterline stripe and a little below that. Mark got the entire starboard side done today and about a fourth of the port side. Once he finishes the port side, we will start painting the sanded area with epoxy. I spent my day continuing to use my Dremel to polish the prop and when that was done, I scraped and sanded the rudder. I also did the more mundane things like the laundry, fixing lunch, and doing some pre-cooking for the Sunday night barbeque here at the marina.
Dinner tonight was aboard Ranger, a 40-foot Island Packet. Paul and Marie of Ranger lived aboard their boat in Marina Del Ray in Los Angeles just before leaving on their South Pacific cruise. Last week Marie and I spent an afternoon doing price and quality comparisons on foods that we will need to provision for this coming season. We both bought things that we planned to taste test, and tonight was the first test. I cooked two different kinds of green beans–canned and dried. Marie made rice and fixed two brands of the same Indian Curried Butter Chicken for comparison. The green beans didn’t make the cut. The canned beans just weren’t firm enough and the dried beans were easy to fix but way too sweet with added sugar. Both brands of butter chicken were good and deemed to be a great meal for passages. One package is enough for two people and all you have to do is put the packaged meal in hot water and boil for a few minutes. I bought a similarly packaged Bolognese sauce that we have to test on Monday night, and then we will be ready to go back and buy those things that make the provisioning “cut.”
I had to laugh when we were tasting the green beans tonight. My mother used to be really, really picky about the brand of canned green beans that she would buy and I always used to tell her they all taste the same. I was wrong . . . again. My mom died ten years ago at the age of 89–almost 90, and as children often do, I argued with her over everything. I am now older, and I think a little wiser, and realize that she was usually right. My mother was the only girl in a family with four boys. None of my mother’s brothers are still living, but I have two aunts that are in their nineties. I got news today that my 94 year-old Aunt Easol died this week, and that now leaves my Aunt Ethel. Aunt Ethel lives in Roanoke, Virginia, and will be 92 in September. She is absolutely amazing. She still mows her own grass, gardens, and drives everywhere, but she just doesn’t understand why we are out here sailing around the world. She sent a message to me via my sister last week telling me to get myself home. When we do finish our circumnavigation, I hope to spend some time with Aunt Ethel explaining to her why people do this. In the meantime, I will just hope that she is still there for me to talk to when we do finish our ’round the world tour. When she goes, it will be the end of an era, and I’m not ready to see that era pass just yet. Hang on, Aunt Ethel. I’ll be home in two or three or maybe four years or . . .