Ow!

Ho boy,  We've gotten a great deal done.  I would be able to tell you about it in greater deal if it weren't for my accident yesterday.  I was stepping down from one of the diving blocks at the pool where I work and my feet flew out from under me.  Though I landed on the deck pretty hard, I walked away with only a badly sprained wrist.  Since it's difficult to type now, I will refrain from long winded stories.

Here be pictures.

A hole.

Covering the hole.

Madrona tree growing out of a piling.

Scraping.

Scrapey scrape-scrape.

Scraping!

It would appear there is wood after all.  I was beginning to think our boat was made out of linoleum.

We needed a pretty, instant gratification job.

Ooooh shiny!

Unfortunately blurry picture of wheelhouse overhead before.

Wheelhouse overhead after.

Pleased with result.

We've actually done more than what's pictured.  But the rest of the photos are on Ben's camera which is  . . . somewhere.  We now have paint samples taped to the walls and are planning the layout of the galley, which is a lot of fun.  I am going through my possessions and deciding what I really need in preparation for moving aboard.

My hand hurts now so this will have to be sufficient.  Thank you all for your kind words and support!

April

April is here.  Look, pictures!

Sitting on the aft deck knitting or reading in the sun make for the most pleasant moments I have these days.

I'm knitting my first sweater.  What?  I'm proud of it!  If you wanna see boat pictures, keep your shirt on and scroll down.

Oh no the roof is gone!

So yeah, we found some rot in the overhead, so we tented the deckhouse and knocked that shit out.  I forgot how much I enjoy the sound of rain from inside a tent.

New deck beams.

While the tent was up, we could enjoy staying dry while searching our pockets for the keys to the cabin.  Eventually, we would like covered side decks, but that's a little ways in the future.

I've got this brilliant idea that we should get a miniature donkey and get him to pull the dock cart.  I'd name him Donkey Xote and keep him away from windmills.

Ben thinks this is an incredibly stupid idea.  Feel free to leave a note in the comments to tell him how foolish he's being.

Shelter Bay Fire

There was a fire in the Shelter Bay Marina last night.  Before anyone asks, Susan is just fine, and so are we.  We are moored at Pioneer Point, across the ditch.  I hope everybody in the area is uninjured.

Excitement and the Return of the Sun

The Superbowl was on Sunday.  And you could tell just by being aboard on our spot below the Rainbow Bridge in La Conner.

Ben and I were planning out our projects for the day when we heard the sound of a passing vessel.  I, being still fairly new to the maritime world, thought nothing of it until I saw Ben look up suddenly and cock his ear to listen.  "Someone's going by fast," he said.  We'd lined most of the windows in the galley with garbage bags to keep them clean during construction, so we couldn't see out where we were standing.  I jumped up into the wheelhouse just in time to see wake of the passing boat coming towards us.  Once again, I'm still fairly new to life on the water, so it didn't look too impressive to me until I heard Ben, who had a view through the window by the diesel stove, shout "holy shit, hang on to something!"

Whoa!  I've never felt our girl rock like that!  Not even underway.  I saw green water over the dock and  Ben got a view of all the boats moored behind us dancing.  As soon as things settled down, we ran down the dock and started knocking on doors to see if everyone was all right.  Only three other people were home and they were all fine, but there was a lot of swearing directed at the yacht that was still heading towards downtown at ten knots.  One of our neighbors said he only gets this shook up about once every other year.  We figure it was someone hurrying to get home in time for a certain event.

Everyone calmed down (mostly) and started picking things up.  Ben and I shoved a couple of our fenders back into place and got to work on the cabin.

There was a giant blue 12th Man banner hanging from the bridge that you can't see in this picture.

It was eerily quiet.  There was very little traffic on the bridge and roads, and none on the water after that.  And so we became aware that somewhere off in the East, a game had started.  Now I should mention that neither of us really gives a crap about football.  However, I am extremely susceptible to communal excitement and this is Seattle, my hometown, which never seems to get its proper respect when it comes to . . . well anything.  The dead quiet was punctuated every now and then by roars from various open windows around the ditch.  It made us giggle every single time.

Ben turned on radio to the classic rock station in Victoria while we worked and after awhile he began to grumble, "Rush again!  Is that all you Canadians wanna listen to?!" Which just made me laugh harder.  The station was also following the game and we got periodic updates as we both tried to remember the rules.  "How many points is a touchdown again?" 

"I dunno three, six, something like that."

"Oh.  Then how did we get seven?"

"I dunno one of those conversion things."

"What's a convergent thing?"

"You're asking me?" More laughing.

Here's what we were working on.

Setting brads is now my favorite job.  It's really satisfying.

Putting the last panel in the Galley/Salon area.

Ben had the camera that day, so consequently there are more pictures of me then him.  Here he held up the camera and said, "do something."  When I said "like what?"  He said, "I dunno, look thoughtful or something."

Wheelhouse before.

Wheelhouse later that day.

Not all of these pictures were taken on the same day.  For the most part the weather has been very clear, but freezing with the kind of wind that goes right through you.  I am grateful for the sun though.  I can tell the season is changing and it injects a lot more lightheartedness into everything.

Truthfully

Did I say I've been busy?  In truth, I've actually been thoroughly depressed, but that's not something people like talking about.  This is a problem.  Most people I know who have dealt with some kind of mental illness, believe or believed at the time that they were completely alone.  Nothing could be less true, and since there very well could be someone reading this who is dealing with something similar, I am going to write about it.

I've dealt with depression on and off for a big chunk of my life, and like most people who have it, I dealt with it as best I could.  This was enough, until I was 16 and I started noticing shadows in every corner.  I was in the youngest student in the Basic Climbing Course at The Mountaineers that spring, and I was doing great and loving it, but suddenly on the Nisqually Glacier, I couldn't handle how quiet and still it was.  The worst part about dropping out of the course was that I couldn't explain what was wrong or what had happened.  I had my first panic attack the following October.  I'm still not sure which was worse, the actual episodes or never being able to be be completely calm, not even for a moment unless I was asleep.

I haven't had a real panic attack in a very long time now.  They taught me how to handle fear in a way I probably would never have learned otherwise, but I'm glad they're done.  However, nowadays, if I am depressed, that depression has teeth.

We got this boat last summer, and she has been wonderful.  The work and planning have been a huge source of inspiration and creativity.  But in the last few months I've been trying to find excuses to keep from going and working on her with Ben.  Only now am I realizing that recently while on the boat, I've been feeling the shadow of what I felt on the side of Mt. Rainier, almost ten years ago.

Depression is the unfortunate sister of Creativity.  I have found it extremely hard to have one without the other and as unspeakably shitty as the former makes me feel, I think that occasionally, maybe, just maybe, the latter makes it worth it.  My favorite episode of Doctor Who actually covered this, oddly enough, when the time-traveler swung by 1890 Provence to meet the under appreciated and manic depressive Vincent Van Gogh, and brought him to a museum in the present where he could see how beloved he is now.

From "Vincent and the Doctor."  Season five.

Later in the episode, the Doctor goes on to say, "The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things.  The good things don't always soften the bad things, but vice-versa, the bad things don't necessarily spoil the good things and make them unimportant."

Through a tremendous amount of luck, given my bare minimum health insurance, I've been able to get back on anti-depressants, and the difference is night and day.  I'm not totally a hundred percent yet, but I'm getting there, and I can go work on the boat without fear and poisoned thoughts.

Here are a few things we've been up too:

Ben cutting away at the first water tank in the fo'c'sle.

Here is the finished compass cozy.  I'm very pleased with how well it came out.

Earlier in December, I zip-tied a little christmas tree to the mast.  It took two attempts.  And while the picture doesn't show it, there are lights on it.

The poor little Doug Fir actually looks kind of bewildered.

I hope everyone has had wonderful holidays.  :)

Busy

Wow, I haven't updated in a while!  I don't have pictures at the moment, but the boat is still there, and we've been working on her often, giving her lots of love.  I balanced a pumpkin on her cap rail for Halloween, but was too busy to carve it.  Oddly enough, it stayed there through a lot of windy nights, so I think she liked it.
Thank you for all your well wishes, and I'll try to update again with more pictures.  :)

To La Conner

 Here are some pictures from the move last week.  We figured we'd leave at around 1pm, but for the first time, the starter batteries were dead.  After getting them charged, we ended up leaving at around 4:30 and made it to La Conner just as it was getting dark.  Some of the photos are a little blurry, sorry, I'm not the world's greatest photographer.

Hope Island.

Hope Island from the other side.

Our tugboat is actually towing something!   Ben's christened it "Dinghy Thingy."  (Notice Mt. Erie and blue sky in the background.)

Dad. 

My favorite kind of weather.  I spent a few minutes dancing on the aft deck in the rain. 

Starting up the ditch into La Conner.

The above is the best picture I could get of our dock that night.  My little camera was having trouble focusing.  On a clear day, Mt. Baker makes faces at us from underneath the Rainbow Bridge.  The view is amazing, I cannot believe our luck!