Day 19, Year 5: All About Heads
Date: Saturday, November 14, 2009
Weather: Hot, Sunny Morning with Rains Beginning Midday
Location: Rebak Marina, Pulau Rebak, Langkawi, Malaysia
This was a day of mixed emotions for Oma and Granddad. First we did a Skype call with Mark’s family in Florida where our son Justin, his wife Jo, and Ziggy are visiting. We got to see Mark’s family and got to watch Steve’s grandbaby Hayden running around and talking up a storm. He turned two in August and he is a bundle of energy. When Hayden looked at Mark on the computer screen he called him Grandpa. We all had a good laugh at his confusion. Mark and his brother Steve look so much alike that even though Steve was sitting right beside Hayden, the logic of a two year-old allowed him to think Grandpa was also on the computer screen. Ziggy was already asleep when we called which was a disappointment but we did get to talk to Justin and Jo. A little later Mark’s sister Jeanie arrived and Ziggy woke up to meet her, so we did get to see him today. That made us happy, happy even though Ziggy was obviously a little sleepy and not quite as lively as usual. But regardless, those big inquisitive eyes kept searching the computer screen to figure out just who he was looking at. We were bubbling with joy at seeing him. And then Jo asked us if we had heard about Sam’s accident. The emotions swung from elation to fear. What accident? After hearing the story from Jo we understood that Sam, our daughter’s oldest child, had fallen on Thursday and hit his head. He had to be taken to the hospital where they put in six stitches right above his left eye. After ending our conversation with the Florida gang, we called Heather to find out more detail about Sam’s accident. I was a teary-eyed Oma at this point, but after talking to Heather I felt much better. The accident happened at daycare when Sam went running out of the building to go meet his dad who had come to pick him up. Somehow he fell off the porch and his head and a rock collided. Jed took Sam to the Emergency Room where they put in the stitches. And Sam handled all of this very bravely. He didn’t like it when they wrapped his arms in a sheet like a straight jacket so he couldn’t move while they did the stitches, but otherwise he did great. When he got home he said to Heather, “Mama, big bonk.” And bonk it was for sure. But all is well and our emotions are back on track after a morning here of wishing we weren’t so far away.
Now . . . while on the subject of heads, I’ll take this opportunity to address a question posed to us in our blog by Rich. We have never met Rich but he has been reading and responding to our logs since the beginning of our voyage and we feel like good friends. Rich responded to my log of yesterday where I stated that two heads are better then one. Of course, I was talking about getting our heads together to share information, but he used that as an intro to ask the question about whether it is a good idea to have two heads (meaning bathrooms) on a boat. He has been against the idea of a boat with “two heads” but was asking for our input on that. It is a question that many cruisers wrestle with and there is no one answer. A second head definitely takes up precious space, but for us, two heads are definitely better than one. We have a v-berth forward with a head (sink, toilet, and shower head without a separate shower stall) and an aft cabin with a head (sink, toilet, and shower stall). We are a center cockpit boat and because of that, our main cabin is little smaller than most, but we have our aft cabin bedroom and bathroom which is very convenient, especially as you grow older and find you have to go to the bathroom more often during the night. We don’t have to travel out to the main cabin to a shared bathroom, and we like that. The v-berth is used for storage when we don’t have guests, but is transformed into a guest bedroom when people are visiting. The fact that visitors, no matter how seldom we have them, have their own space and bathroom is something we really like. It does mean you have to maintain the plumbing in both heads, but since the forward head is not used most of the year, we just shut off the sink and the toilet and only open those up when guests arrive. That way it is really not like maintaining two heads constantly. Our recent change of removing the thru-hull to the forward head and running water to it from the main thru-hull in the engine room reduces further our maintenance of that part of the boat. So if you are looking for a boat for two people and don’t have a lot of family or friends that will be visiting for extended periods of time, one head is sufficient. But if you have adult children that will be visiting, as well as other friends, I would definitely say that two heads are better than one.
With today’s log, I am posting photos that were taken of our family back in August when Justin, Jo, and Ziggy visited us on the Cape on their return from England. Kathy, a good friend of our daughter Heather, is a photographer and she did the family photo shoot for us. Since I’ve been thinking of kids and grandkids all day, I think this is the perfect place to post these photos.
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| 090820 Handley-Goldstone Photo Shoot |
