Famous quotes

I am fond of quoting Ratty’s wisdom on the merits of messing about in boats.  Its pretty surprising therefore that I completely failed to notice the framed quotation below while we were looking at Gray Hawk.  Today when we came onboard I almost immediately noticed it hanging below the chronograph and barometer on the aft wall of the salon.

We had no intention of coming back to the boat.  On Thursday when we said goodbye we fully expected to be on the road east today.  The weather forced us to change our plans.  There’s been wicked snow in the PNW and the Cascade passes have been hard hit.  We reluctantly moved our departure back.  Reluctantly because we both have a heavy schedule on the prairies and every day we delay makes our time there more hectic.

Having decided we were going to stay out here at least until Monday we were actually looking forward to a down weekend in the bus.  However when we got home last night we had no water.  That wasn’t a huge problem because our tank wasn’t empty but it wasn’t full either.  I had planned to fill both tanks before we left here but hadn’t got around to doing it.  Then the broker phoned last night to say that all the title documents were registered and that we could pick them up at his office if we were back in town.  We had also received confirmation of our insurance which was the last step necessary for the marina to issue us our parking passes and gate access codes.

So we decided to have a leisurely morning and drive in to pick up the papers.  That didn’t quite work out either because this morning the camp manager came around to say that they might not get their water back on at all for some time.  After hearing that we decided that if we were going to be at home in the bus with no water we might as well be on the boat where we could have showers and start to get settled in.

Over the years that we have been RVing we have often used Walmart parking lots for overnight stops.  Some people really abuse Walmart’s corporate hospitality but for us it is always an overnight stop or maybe an overnight and leisurely morning departure.  We don’t put down the jacks, get out the barbeque and set up lawn chairs under the awning on their parking lot.  Unfortunately a few people do, hard as it is to imagine why they would want to.  Anyway, we have parked for free at Camp Wallymart many times over the last 15 or so years but today we paid at least some of our debt.

We needed a variety of boat supplies, everything from tools to kitchen utensils.  We didn’t buy everything today but we put a big hole in it.  Then we stopped at West Marine and picked up the two most expensive tubes of caulking compound I have ever bought – 40 bucks for the pair of them and they weren’t particularly big.  They say a boat is a hole in the water which you pour money into and today we dumped several boat bucks into our new hole in the water.

There’s a couple of leaks on Gray Hawk but I think we got one of them today.  The previous owner did a wonderful job of varnishing all the brightwork this summer (brightwork is boat talk for wood on the outside of the boat).  But he didn’t recaulk the front windows.  I can only assume it was an oversight – he has a new boat in his life after all.  Today we got a weather break – the sun shone all morning and it didn’t rain at all.  We were seriously outside the temperature window for the expensive caulk but we put it on anyway.  When we get back in January we’ll know whether it worked or not. 

The brokers bought us a bottle of champagne so tonight we are toasting our new boat with champagne.  This has been almost a life long dream for me.  I can remember dreaming it while we were still living in Shellbrook and I was 14 when we left there.  For Marilyn it was a case of supporting my dream and then eventually adopting it as her own.  As Ratty said “there’s nothing so absolutely worth doing as simply messing about in boats”.