I managed to get in to the boat shed yesterday. My ladder was gone. Some brother boater, some ladder-less brother boater borrowed my ladder. Searching the boat shed after Pat has stuffed and cajoled all the boats into their little spaces is not an easy task. It took me 15 minutes to find my ladder and return it to Fracas. I got the ladder back into the narrow gap between Boat Father and Fracas. To say that Boat Father is sidled up to Fracas is not giving justice to the narrow gap between these two ships.
Up the ladder I go and I move the pigeon tarp aside to get into the cockpit. Sitting in my Captain’s chair wearing mitts and a headlamp the memories of a summer’s past flood through me. Then the reality of leaving a few beers in the captains ice box flood through the ice box. JEEZUZ although it is a little easier to clean when the beer is stiff.
Then I forgot to do the tasks that I went to the boat to accomplish. So, back today. I hope the bastard who took my ladder is unable to untie the knots I tied betwix the ladder and my boat.
It is like another world in the shed. The boat is cold, frozen and dark almost foreign. I quickly scan systems and the bilge and everything looks fine. I find the flashlight I have secretly thought Mike had lost. No sign of any critters or intruders…more sitting and thinking, time to get this boat out of these frigid winters. However Fracas will still be threatened in storage, the new threat will be summer hurricanes, the sun and the salt and perhaps cockaroaches and ants.
It is friggin cold here…and has been cold since I returned from the Caribbean.