Adventures with Mary Lee

Yesterday was a pretty busy day on Mary Lee.

While traveling south Mike had got something stuck in toilet. Naturally being my boat made me also the mechanic. I know what you are thinking.... I thought that too.  However, it is my boat and I had never taken one of these apart so I did. It was not my favorite thing. A regular flushing toilet in a house is a much nicer thing to work on. I made it happen. It was fairly simple actually. It was the clean up that was disgusting. I thought to myself " I hope I don't have to do that again any time soon". Never ever, ever, think it, because sure enough, you might just get to. It turned out that I just hadn't tightened one of the little plastic pieces enough. I didn't want to break it. It is tight now :-) I also bleached the whole head from top to bottom.

Since my work is done in the head. It is time to go through the galley. It looks small but I took everything out and gave it a deep clean. I know it looks small and at this point it has no oven but I bet I can cook some pretty good stuff in there. I will eventually need to get an oven installed. Yes, I will be the installer. It really isn't going to be much of a project. I remember thinking when I first started working on Mary Lee that I was going to be eating pretty simple stuff. How could you cook a real meal in there? I watched Steve Franko cook some pretty good meals on Yesterdays Dream. I know how to cook. No reason why I can't also cook better meals.

 My problem has always been being to busy and then just eating whatever is handy. I am not going to do that anymore. Part of the idea behind buying Mary Lee is to slow down and smell the roses. I know, you are thinking "how does a guy who was laid up for so long figure he needs to slow down?" Trust me, I always found things to do, even if I couldn't get up to do them. If nothing else, I read a lot. I can get buried in a book if I have nothing else to do.

I remember when I was in the Navy standing watch at the chiefs barracks. Well, it was more like a motel for chiefs. I had almost nothing to do all night as my 12 hour shift was from 6 pm to 6 am. They had a big screen tv and a small library full of westerns. I didn't grow up watching tv much and wasn't really interested in it. I did however read 5 to 6 of those little books in a shift until I had read all they had. I don't read many westerns anymore they all seem like "ground hog day" (the movie) same thing book after book.

I am still going through Mary Lee deep cleaning and figuring out what to keep and where to put it. I am also scrubbing it all down and wiping down the wood with the right stuff.

You might remember these pictures. Plenty of wood to wipe down. I am also changing my computer over to Google chrome and searching out appropriate apps. I see google is no more by the end of the year. Might as well get an early start. I have daily walks that are important as well. The cockpit lockers also need to be cleaned out again. When the exhaust piece broke it gave everything in there a coating of diesel soot. That should be fun. Then re-torqueing the head, exhaust and intake manifold bolts. I know I don't have to do this but well really I do. The engine was just rebuilt and that work does have to be done and unless I want soot on my hands every time I get into the cockpit lockers, I have to do that also.

I got hurt in March of 2006. I am rapidly approaching my 7 year anniversary. In all that time I dated one gal last year who turned out to be so exactly opposite of me that it was almost scary. I did decide, however, that   I shouldn't give up just because The first gal in a long time was not the gal of my dreams. I am going to be more careful in the future. Opposites do attract and I need to just keep an open mind and not dive into anything. Hopefully the search is not to difficult.

I decided not to give up on dating. I like meeting new people and I especially enjoy a womans companionship, but better off alone than with the wrong one. It is funny how an extended period of being laid up with a good case of getting "matured" changes ones way of thinking. Finding a nice gal won't change who I am but it could very well alter my plans. I'll just be me and leave the rest up to fate.  Everything happens for a reason even if we don't see it. Who would have thought I would ever be living on a sailboat AND in North Carolina? I didn't see it coming but whatever life throws at me, I can take it.

I better get started. I have a short list for today but sometimes the list takes longer to get done than I thought :-) Who am I kidding, It always takes longer