50 years old!!! I saw it coming, knew it was not much different than 49, yet here I am contemplating where I have been and what comes next. Had a huge steak dinner and watched "The Hobbit" in 3D with Vivian. Vivian is teaching an online class along with her job so is quite busy. I offered to bake my cake and she wouldn't let me. I truly do not mind helping. She opted for buying an ice cream cake. I do like ice cream.

Vivian got me a good bottle of rum for my birthday to go along with the aforementioned movie. It was a very nice evening. We do fit well together.

I think the last drink I had was with Steve and Linda last year as they headed south on Yesterday's Dream.     Turns out I still finish off about half a bottle in 4 drinks without catching a noticeable buzz. I wonder if the strong pain pills I was on for so long have something to do with that.
  Whatever....I still enjoy a nice rum. The magazine was the last of a subscription I got for my 49th birthday from Vivian.

Vivian took me to the "TOURIST" part of town before my birthday to have a look. We went to the Gay Dolphin(gift shop) and rode the skywheel. It was interesting seeing touristville but it was after the season so was not crowded.

Got this picture online.

 Vivian bought me a piece of cystine for my collection

 Looking north and south from skywheel

The rest were taken by Vivian. Finished up with an ice cream cone and by then my back hurt enough I needed to be somewhere else. I made the mistake of wearing jeans. Jeans are too binding for me. It hurts my back to move around in them. Bending, whatever. Just part of my life.

  So as I type this 5 days after the big birthday. The foremost thought is about the decade that was pretty much lost to a back injury. It should have been my most productive years and set me up well for my 50's and 60's. No sense crying over spilled milk. Vivian has asked me why I am not angry about it all. Should I be? I had a stretch in there where being mad was the only emotion I could muster. Intense pain does not make you feel giddy. I never had much to smile about.
  I remember a short time after getting hurt where I almost panicked about the level of pain and knowing it may not ever go away. I could feel myself losing it and pulled myself back from the edge.

 I never allowed myself to go there again.

I was single for so many years before I got hurt that I was truly my own  center. Self centered? Good chance of that. I cared what happened to others but I moved around a lot so I had mostly strangers in my daily life for the lions share of 20 years. Being hurt like I was forced me to live with myself and be truly alone for the first time in my life. I came out of it with a deeper sense of caring for others than I had ever known. I also realize that I do not have time for pretentious behavior. I am who I am. I like and dislike for my own reasons. I truly do not care what path others may walk, I walk my own.

I have always leaned this way. I am still true to myself, but lots of time in pain and solitude with the only activity I could really enjoy being deep thought, really brought who I am into sharp focus.

  So what does this contemplation have to do with Mary Lee and my future??? Why ask me? Just kidding!  My future is wide open. The boating is coming. Working? I am confident I will find the right path. I am happier now than I have been in a long time.

All the projects? I realize I need to streamline and quit spreading myself so thin. That is going to be my main focus for the coming year. Yet, even as I think it. I have upgrades to do for Vivian and Mary Lee. Vivian does not require them but her home is in an area that is really building fast. People would rather buy brand new instead of pay the same price for used. Upgrades will make the difference when she gets ready to sell. There is a year or so until that point and anything can happen. I will do what I can. Mary Lee's upgrades are fairly straight-forward. I know what I am going to do and how. Figuring that out was the hard part.

Last but not least.

I finally get to use my cuckoo clock again. In over a week it has not lost any time. It did take a few days to adjust it. I understand most people are not as anal about adjusting the pendulum as I am and just accept the fact that their clock does not keep time well. This is the large size cuckoo clock. When I took it in to get it cleaned, I was told it was easily a hundred years old. We are enjoying it.

Not a lot of pictures to go along with the post this time. Have been sorting through the storage stuff. I am amazed sometimes at all the things I sold for next to nothing, if not just outright giving it away. I really had a lot of nice things at one time. However, I am not missing all the home furnishings. It was and always will be just stuff.
  What I am doing is enjoying the fact that I did what I did to force a change. I know people back home think getting rid of everything and buying a sailboat on the other side of the country was crazy. Maybe?? What I know for a fact, is that doing it was the best thing I could have ever done for my recovery. If I had not done it, there is every possibility that I would still be laying in a recliner with nothing to look forward to. All I really had was a bucket full of willpower.

 Why do I have this on my mind? This past week has been another landmark in my recovery. I mentioned, several times, the exhaustion I felt every waking moment. The sheer fatigue in my legs. It has been a very miserable stretch that was with me for quite some time before I even bought Mary Lee. Every thing I did, even just getting up to get a glass of water, was so very difficult. I literally had to force myself to move. Throw in the excessive amounts of pain and miserable is the kindest descriptor I can think of.

  That first summer working on Mary Lee was just insane. I would drink an energy shot and take a pain pill, then as they kicked in I would force myself to move. When the pain got bad enough, I would do it again. The winter in Montana was exactly the same. I tried everything I could think of. I used supplements, even got into sprouting while trying to figure out where all the fatigue was coming from. I gave much thought to nutrition and its role. I know a lot of what was going on with my legs was caused by my back muscles spasming and likely pinching nerves. That, however did not explain all of it.

 So here I am with a good start on my fourth year of owning Mary Lee. Just this last week I am noticing a much lower amount of fatigue. I know it sounds like a small thing, but I assure you, it most definitely is a big thing for me. I actually get up in the morning and feel like moving.  "WOW" what a change.

  What do I owe the change to? Well certainly never giving up. But I think it is a combination of Vivian making sure I am eating better, good vitamin and mineral supplements,  and the muscles in my back getting stronger(exercise). Let's not forget a year and a half since I forced myself off pain meds. All this has led to finally figuring out how to get more sleep. Still not enough, but better.
   I just keep moving no matter what.

  So it is a very big deal. I know I am not there yet, but, I now know that I will get there. That, my friends, is what all the sacrifice was about. I turn 50 on September 25th. I do so knowing that all is not lost and my best is yet to come. Beat that!

  Vivian has been so wonderful through the part she has shared with me. Fate smiled on me when we met.

  So.....Where does this lead? OOOOHHHH.....the adventures with Mary Lee have not even really started yet. I am back in the gym for the winter. I will start off next spring on a roll instead of recovering enough to get going. I have a partner in this. Yes, if you guessed that Vivian is going boating you are correct. Her youngest son is in his senior year of high school then off to college. A move to Florida is in the near future. Much better sailing grounds for Mary Lee. All the particulars have not been ironed out but we will be spending time in the Islands getting used to the idea. All very exciting stuff. Now you know why a bunch of the "quality of living" upgrades to Mary Lee are needed.
  Vivian and I have been together well over a year now. Disagreements are very rare and inconsequential, we "fit". Our beliefs are so similar it defies logic. Who would ever believe a mountain man from a small town and a city gal, who have lived such different lifestyles, would be so alike?

 For now...I have just one picture of what I have been up to.

First brake job since getting hurt. It hurts my back to do it, but I won't let Vivian pay for a brake job when I have the tools and know how. It takes longer to get the tools and jack out than it does to put in new brake pads.
  This next week I will finish sorting through stuff and putting what I am keeping into a much smaller storage unit. We need the garage back.
  Not parting with any more tools. I am lamenting the loss of welder and torches along with some of the grinders, buffers, compressor....well, the list is long. I will part with no other tools.

 I have a saying. A man with no tools is at the mercy of the man with tools when he needs something done. With tools there is nothing I won't attempt to build or fix. Throw in a couple books and I think I can do an acceptable job on anything within reason. If I cannot, I will tear it apart and do it better the next time ;-)

  The trip to Corpus Christi, Texas went off without a hitch. It was 1300 miles each way. Took close to 24 hours, straight through, to drive down. I think Vivian drove about 180 miles of it. I couldn't sleep and since I could make better time it made sense that I drive.

   We got there and checked in at motel and took care of uhaul trailer we had reserved. Got a motel and slept. Got up in the morning and spent about 6 hours loading, then took off to drive straight through to Myrtle Beach, south Carolina. I drove all of that as we had a trailer on and needed to make good time.

                                                                 Houston ,TX.

We stopped at Bucee's on the way down. It is a chain tourist trap we had not heard of. Vivian wanted to have a better look on the way back.......she also had picture taking in mind :-)

Wait...it gets better...

and better...

Yet there was no end of picture taking..

We ended up digging through the gemstones to see if there was anything we wanted at the bottom....Or she just wanted another chance to take a picture...   Enough already!!!

Okay...If that is how you want it...my turn...

One shot in the truck with the trailer..

So this...

Is now here...

Already using the mattress and tv.

Bed was very expensive and went into storage just a few months after being bought. Of course that is "Captain Ron" on the tv(one of our favorite movies).

I sold something over 40 rifles and pistols when I put stuff in storage. Sold more the last time I was there. I spent so much on gun smithing tools and reloading stuff that I could never sell the stuff and get remotely close to what I paid. I forgot how much I had. I also had several boxes of books.
  These are a few of the stocks I was working on for the rifles I have apart. The rifle is the first one I built the stock for from a blank. Not the best one(and I never took pictures of the latest ones.

One stock is a synthetic. The other two and the one on thr rifle are all done by hand from a blank like the one on the right. Extra fancy claro walnut. Lots of hours to complete one with files, scrapers, sandpaper, etc.
These are a few barrels.

One of them I have over $700 invested in. It is for a 500 bravo. Oh...did I mention I designed a group of cartridges and bought the reamers for them? The rifle in the last picture is a 416 bravo. The parent cartridge is the alpha, the ones I designed are the bravos.

416 Weatherby improved on the right. 416 bravo on the left. You don't want to know how much work it takes to make this brass from the parent case. The remaining case actually holds more powder than an ultra mag case. The 416 is a handful. I might add, it is also large enough to be legal for any dangerous game in the world.
  So now what? While unloading I picked up a job redoing a stock for a neighbor. Of course I would need a lathe and milling machine along with tooling to really be serious about gun work but I know how to do it all. Anything not requiring those machines I can do now. I really loved working on them and shooting. I was building a rifle for 1000 yard competition when I got hurt. It was very accurate. Sitting at a bench and shooting for long periods is now more than I can handle. Funny how life throws obstacles at you to get you moving in another direction.

  Vivian got a haircut yesterday. The long hair(hers is so very thick) is difficult for her to deal with on the boat.

and it went from this, actually it was a bit longer but I cannot find the picture I am looking for.

To this..

The selfy does not do it justice. It was a good change for her.

A glob of pictures from my past

And at the end of the day, this selfy tells the story

We are good together

But I better hurry up and get those cupboard doors painted :-)

Keeping busy. I started on the rope ladder I mentioned last time.

I have a half dozen steps to finish building and then finish putting it together.

Still healing from crashing clown bike. It really hurt me. I popped right up and hightailed it home to assess injuries but I am still hurt. Back has been really set back by it. I landed on the same side that I hit when I hurt myself in 2006.

It has been over 2 months since the crash. The road rash on my ankle, knee and elbow are still quite sensitive. Still have scab on ankle. The worst case of road rash I have ever had. Yet pretty insignificant compared to what my back is going through.
 Learned to throw a cast net this last weekend. The directions on the package were pretty crummy. We watched about a dozen utube videos and found one by a teenager that looked pretty simple. I was successful the first throw.

If you look closely at the water in the second picture, you can see the circle caused by the net hitting the water correctly. Then it was Vivian's turn. It took a couple trys for her to figure out how to throw it hard enough. She did great!

We had a very short time to fish before the skeeters come out here. Funny how we had none at Johnson's marina and they are thick here. I caught some bait fish and I fished the bottom with a rig that I have used for fishing off the bottom of rivers before. There were some nice fish coming out of the water next to the dock. Vivian just played with her bait right there and caught about an 18 inch Tarpon. I caught nothing. Skeeters arrived and fishing was over.
Winyah bay is a lousy place for sailing. Water is too shallow and channel too narrow. It is easily 2 hours to motor to the outlet. Add another 2 hours to get back and there is a 4 hour day at best before any sailing can be done. Not pleased.
 However, while staying on the boat we discovered that it is poorly set up to live on at this point. Much as I hate to say it. I really need to change some things inside. I don't even have a place to lay a chart out to study. Storage is so minimal that 2 people cannot tuck away a weekends supplies. It lays out on the settees.

What does this mean? I am staying in Myrtle beach this winter to finish what I started. So close, but still a bunch to do.
I have decided to build a pole to mount radar on the stern. I will have to change the starboard settee into a booth with a table. Saw a picture of a boat like Mary Lee finished that way. I liked it. I have an idea for the port settee that will eliminate the lack of comfortable seating and storage. Vivian sews, she will help with the canvas. Gotta have shade. I also will need to look at adding an autopilot. I know there are some that are compatible with my chart plotter.

In other news. I should be painting the cabinets I built above the washer and dryer as I type this. Will have doors hung and a picture for next post. I put handles and knobs on Vivian's kitchen cabinets last night.

21 knobs and 9 handles. Looks much better.
Labor day weekend we are going after my storage unit stuff in Corpus Christi, Texas. One more loose end I need to tie up. I am anxious to get my oil paints. I also have a couple rifles that I need to finish making the stocks for. I am concerned about the wood having overdried and cracked in the heat. They were very expensive(extra fancy) claro walnut. I had them basically opened up to receive the action and barrel. I also had the outside almost completely done. Just needs several hours of final inlet and sanding before glassing and finish. I hope they are still good. I also have my leather working tools. Not much need for leather work on a boat but I enjoy doing it and I spent a lot of money so I could make any leather item I wanted.

I sold off most of my woodworking machines and welder/torches earlier so although missing them, less stuff to worry about. I am hoping I kept at least one of my dremel tools. I certainly kept all my reamers and other gun working tools. The reamers are mostly for cartridges I designed. At $250 to $350 a pop I can never sell them and get much back. They are for wildcat cartridges and the average shooter who reloads would not know how to make the cartridges for them. They are much modified from existing cartridges and the steps involved to make them are quite extensive. All remnants of an old life that I much enjoyed. I was building the rifle to compete in thousand yard competition when I got hurt. I am not capable of spending the time on a shooting bench such a hobby would require anymore.

I thought I might have a picture of the last gun I built before I sold it. Nope, looks like all I have is a picture of storage unit.
Next post I will let you know how it went.

Where to begin? We would have been on the boat Friday afternoon but of course, now that the work is done, it was raining. Rain forecast all weekend and most of the coming week. Had about a 2 hour window on Saturday according to the radar so I fired Mary Lee up and took her to the new marina. Vivian met me with the car.

The timing was perfect. By the time I was happy with the dock lines and signed in the rain started again. Much better facilities here. Now if we can just get some nice weather.

So back to Myrtle beach. I will work on some smaller projects this week. First on the list is a rope ladder. I need to be able to go up the masts anytime I want or need to. Repairs are my responsibility and even though Vivian was okay with me winching her up in boatswains chair, I think it bothered me more than it bothered her. So back to the ladder. It will have oak rungs. I will start with this

Will see how many rungs I will get out of this. I need at least 20. Yup...that is the rope I will be using. Will show you a picture next post.
We made vegetarian tomales last night for the first time. They taste fine but the online recipe was wanting for proper cooking directions. When it was obvious the directions were not right we checked a few more sites. Now we know.
So...it was a late dinner

Not bad for the first go around. We have a change or two in mind for the next time. We have decided that sundays will now be ethnic night. We both like trying different foods and why not every sunday? We surely are not able to be out sailing!!! :-)

Vivian's office draws names for birthday cakes. It was her turn to bring a cake. The birthday boy plays golf. I made a golf cake.
I am trying to sort out exactly how the reefing lines and haul down are strung on a cat ketch with wishbone booms. I cannot tell you how much time I have spent online looking. I have yet to run across anyone who has a clue. I have a rough idea. I will go with what I think I know and change it if it needs adjusting to work right. In my search, I thought if I just found a picture I could study it might help. Came across this one. Not good enough to study the lines but it bears an uncanny resemblance to Mary Lee the way she looked in Baltimore

See what I mean?

And before the new lines went on

She sure does look ready to go out. I would go in the rain but I notice they have a lot of lightening here when it is raining. I kind of want to go when the sun is shining anyways. I am going to be weighing that out pretty hard this week. It's not like I will melt in the rain.

The four day weekend came and went. Rained out Thursday. Friday I pulled the other two batteries to have them tested as they were not holding a charge. Had them tested. Two more bad batteries. All three were bought in Baltimore three years ago. I suspect they went bad while at the last marina. No place to plug in and it did freeze a couple times. Mary Lee now has new batteries...again. It was not my favorite chore switching them out.

I have to exhale to get my chest through the opening. It hurts to be in the cockpit locker as I have to assume the shape of a pretzel to reach the batteries. I also have to get into that shape and out of it while lifting batteries into and out of the "hole".

I complain, but it needed done. This was Friday. Could not finish until Saturday as we needed to find a new latch for the battery compartment and a couple tools I had left in the garage. We stayed in Myrtle beach again. We arrived Saturday with plans to get the last of the big projects finished. Alright. I will admit that I had not repitched the engine yet. I was feeling a growing concern that I should not ignore this job. I was right to be concerned. The pitch was not off much at all and likely would have been fine........If the nuts would still have been locked down on the fourth motor mount. The two locking nuts on top were missing. I had more. You cannot see that mount unless you are laying on top of the engine intending to work on it. They are all good now.

Look familiar? This is picture taken in Baltimore the first time I pitched the engine. I have to lay on the top of engine while up on my toes for 2 to 3 hours (depending on how easy the job goes)just to pitch the engine. Takes longer if there is anything else needing done while you are there. It sucks!!! All this because I had a bent prop that shook everything loose until it broke. The exhaust had broke the third day out of Baltimore. When I put together a new piece, I left it a turn loose (I used inch and a half pipe fittings to build it) to negate any stress until I was sure I had vibration gone.

Long story....but it left me with an exhaust leak. I fixed that Sunday. Final analysis of the big weekend???
  Working parties are over. I am pleased with how well my old neglected boat has come together. Very happy that my first Mate has been so understanding. Vivian has been a real trooper through all this. Half the summer is over before she will really get to go sailing.
   The marina Mary Lee has been at this month was good for the work we needed to do. Not much breeze and quiet. Not to mention the dark walks to take showers in the evenings and the sand and dirt that got drug back to the boat no matter how much you tried not to. The water smells so we have not filled the water tank. So next Saturday Mary Lee moves down town. Closer to stores. Closer to bay. Better facilities, etc. etc.

Last but not least.....well not last, except for this post. Needed a new horse shoe. I also got a new book on knots. I am enjoying the splicing of lines and the new group of knots I have been learning are excellent!

You know how much I like my books.
   Vivian did manage to get a sunburn while I pitched the engine. Poor First mate. She just doesn't believe the work is finally done on Mary Lee :-) We will check in to the new marina next Saturday morning and then do nothing but sail all weekend. I really am quite pleased with myself. I really have revived Mary Lee and myself. Sure....There are small things that will need done in time.
 
 Mary Lee is mechanically sound and as such, she is ready to be enjoyed. See you on the water :-)