Piccata

Wow.....I had dinner last night with a friend....a beautiful, warm, bright, and funny woman I've known for a while from a safe distance...and, although it took a while for the butterflies in my stomach to settle down, it was rejuvenating to have fun with someone in the kitchen again. We laughed our way through making a piccata with shrimp and scallops, and enjoyed it with a nice green salad, some roasted asparagus, a few glasses of wine, and some lively and engaging conversation.

Life is good, brothers and sisters, life is good. Carry on!

etc., etc.

It's summer time in the Keys again, boys and girls, which means that people are drunk and people are screaming.....and the crabs are on the move again....I woke up yesterday morning to two big mommas trying to get out (yes, OUT, that ain't a typo) through the sliding glass door and one trying to get in....saw several in the yard this morning, and Katy scared one out of the grass in the neighbor's yard while we were walking a little while ago.

And, in other news, Zeke recently posted some photos from the wedding and honeymoon cruise.....here's a link....it's hard to capture the feel of an event like a wedding but these snapshots do a good job of telling the story.

Katy and I spent the weekend putzing around on Moon, putting in a new battery charger, swapping out one of the old bilge pumps for a new one with an automatic float switch and rigging it with a hot lead from the battery so that if the bilge fills with water it'll come on whether or not the breaker panel is turned on, and scrubbing the gel coat and polishing what turns out to be several miles of stainless tubing on the bimini frame, lifeline stanchions, stern and bow pulpits, swim ladder, etc. etc. etc. Like I said before, it's summer all of a sudden here, and between the sweat and the skinned knuckles I must have lost about ten pounds.

The marina that Moon is in now is a really Keys-ey place.....there are some pirate types that live in an asssortment of mostly derelict fishing boats on the west end of the cove, there's an underwater hotel up by the entrance, and a not-for-profit organization maintains and rents the slips in the middle to help fund their let's teach kids about marine biology program. There are also a couple of really good people that live on their boats there - a Sea Tow skipper and his wife and kids live on a houseboat directly across the floating dock from me, and a diving instructor lives on her Morgan Out Island 41 at the end of the pier. And there are several weekenders like me......and everybody there seems to have a great sense of humor, which is something that came in handy when I was trying to dock Moon the first time...Moon doesn't back up very well ( the guy I bought her from said "she backs up like a drunk elephant" and after trying to back her into her slip I know what he means!). The Sea Tow skipper ended up having to crank up his rescue boat and push me into the slip, with the entire marina crowd looking on, of course - after I fouled the mooring line on the adjacent boat but before I rammed into the fifty-footer tied up in the slip next to mine. That boat is a whole 'nother story....folks in the marina have a pool going as to when it's gonna sink (it's literally held together with baling wire, twenty-year old caulk, and a colony of termites that are all holding hands) - apparently I would have made somebody's weekend if I had rammed it and sent it to the bottom.
On the bright side, the entrance canal to the marina is very narrow, and although in places there was less than a foot to spare on either side we didn't scrape any paint of the boats along the way coming in. I can't wait to try that with a stiff crosswind!

I also spent some time refining the "to do" list for Moon today, moving the rebuild of the head to the top of the list and also adding checking out a nasty stress crack in the fiberglass around the backstay chainplate....

And, I got the guitar out and played for a while last night for the first time in a looonggg while - thanks for kickin' down the Big Daddy Love CD, bro - it's inspirational!

So, all in all, this was a fine weekend, and I'm feeling rested, ready and refreshed for another fun-filled week at work.

And speaking of the work front, it looks like I am gonna do one more project before heading out on The Trip, and it's not going to be the Nursing School project I've been sort of half-heartedly looking after for the last couple of months - we recently got the contract on a children's hospital in Orlando that should be interesting and a worthwhile way to make a living while I get Moon ready for The Cruise.....here's a link to a brief story about the project. This is an interesting job and I'm excited about the prospects, but it'll last about four years, which is two years longer than I wanted to have to wait before heading out........

But, it's bedtime now, and there'll be plenty of time later for studying on what to do about work and boats and such. So, good night, kids, and sweet dreams.

The Honeymooners

So....for those who don't already know the big news, Zeke and Judy tied the knot in a beautiful ceremony at the UU Fellowship in Auburn a little over a week ago, and came down here afterward for a bit of a honeymoon cruise on Everlasting Moon. We took three days to bring the boat from Boynton Beach down here to Key Largo and had an awesome time....we motored down the intracoastal waterway through Ft. Lauderdale and got to see all the oh my god mansions and good lord amighty yachts along the way, got the snot beat out of us by 4-6 foot seas when we went out into the Atlantic at Port Everglades, spent a night anchored in Biscayne Bay with the Miami skyline backstopping a beautiful starry night, sailed a glorious broad reach out of the Bay and back into the deep blue sea......I wish you all could have been there.

Here are a couple of pics from the trip....


Judy making a sandwich while we're sailing through the Bay...



At Crandon Marina on Key Biscayne...

And here's Cap'n Zeke checking out the proceedings.

It's getting late now, so I've gotta scoot, but there will be more photos and stories to follow.

Good night and fair winds, friends.