Write On The Water

by John Urban

After a number of spring weekends and late weekday nights, good old Factor X is ready for the water. It’s splash-time. She was built in 1945 and she’ll be heading out of the shed looking as good as new – assuming you are standing afar on a low-lit cloudy day.

Actually, she looks pretty good and as the prep-work concludes, it’s time to step back and reflect. In considering my observations, please recognize that I am exhausted from months of physical labor and am drug-induced by various marine paints and chemical solvents. Nevertheless, here is a wooden boat owner’s stream of thought on the day of launching:

1. Screw top wine bottles shouldn’t be allowed aboard wooden boats – you never know when you might need one of those little corks to plug up a leak.

2. Varnish is designed to protect wood from water, sun, and salt. Don’t worry about drips, sags, scratches, high spots, and embedded brush bristles because they in no way undermine the protective purpose of varnishing.

3. Poor woodworking craftsmanship is revealed by scratches and gouges, but when you do the work yourself it’s more appropriate to see these as… character marks.

4. Polished bronze may be a nice look to some, but a seasoned boater knows that bronze hardware reaches its proper patina only after years of carefully managed neglect.

5. A professional shipwright measures twice and cuts once. The rest of us keep large containers of epoxy, filler, and wood glue handy at all times.

6. Perhaps the best advertising campaign in the history of boating featured Dick Fisher and the unsinkable Boston Whaler. I wonder how many leaky wooden boats Fisher owned before he and Ray Hunt developed the Whaler.

(An early Dick Fisher Ad – the unsinkable Boston Whaler)

7. Imagine being a Boston Whaler salesman back then. For the first time people would have no caulking, no leaks, no sinking, no painting…it was probably easier than selling iPhones.

8. Getting back to the drips, sags, and high spots on the varnish. Jackson Pollack spent lots of time on the East End of Long Island. I wonder what his boat looked like.

(Jackson Pollack – now there’s inspiration for a novel varnishing technique)

9. If a boat slips from the travel lift as it’s being launched and the owner is nowhere in sight, will anyone hear it crash as it falls to the ground?

10. There’s an adage out there that goes something like: If God wanted us to sail fiberglass boats, he would have made fiberglass trees. This is a relevant question. I mean, am I alone in noticing those composite construction trees that are popping up alongside highways? And they must be God’s work because that happens to be one of the few places where I consistently get four bars on my cell phone.

C.E. Grundler

I know. I haven’t been around much lately, internet-wise. In fact, I must apologize, as last Thursday came and went before I even realized, which pretty much sums up my state of existence recently.

So what have I been up to lately? I think I’ll go with a thousand words in the form of a picture, as that’s probably the most eloquent answer I can offer.  Exhibit A:

Yes, that is Annabel Lee’s cockpit, and piece by piece all those shiny bits (and more) are going back onto the now sparkling engine.

Meanwhile, a new friend keeps making an appearance. The other day he looked at the work I’ve been doing, nodded to the raven, (nearby, but not in this shot,) and I’m sure I heard him murmur, “Nevermore.”  Or maybe I just imagined it.

Little Harbor when I last visited in 2008

by Christine Kling

Most of the time when folks use the phrase “island time” they are talking about how time slows down and people in the tropical islands aren’t in as much of a hurry as all those type A personality road ragers back on the mainland. Waiting 45 minutes to get your meal in a restaurant shouldn’t get anybody upset in the islands – it just means you need to readjust your internal clock to island time.

But for me, whenever I come to the Abacos, I also measure island time in a different way. Island time has come to mean change to me. Because I am only a seasonal visitor here, each time I return I see “progress.” More island time has passed.

This morning I am moored in Little Harbor all the way at the south end of what people here call the Sea of Abaco.  We have been side-swiped here by the outer edges of Tropical Storm Andrea. The weather has been gray, rainy and gloomy for a couple of days, so I came inside here and picked up a mooring to ride out the strong winds in this protected harbor. Little Harbor is the home of Pete’s Pub and the Johnston Studio and Gallery. Randolph Johnston sailed his schooner the Langosta down from Canada with his wife and three sons and settled here in 1951. He homesteaded here building a home and eventually the foundry where he and now his sons have been creating world renowned bronze sculptures for more than 50 years.

The first time I visited this place was about 25 years ago. I was married to Jim Kling then and our son was about three years old. When we visited the gallery Randolph Johnston was still alive and we had a brief chat with him during our visit. Pete’s Pub was little more than a pile of flotsam with a bar in the middle and I there was no food being served. The roads from Marsh Harbor were not good enough to get regular provisions in. I love this old photo I have of Tim riding on his dad’s shoulders outside the gallery. It’s been 15 years since Jim died but whenever I come here, I am filled with memories of the good island times we had visiting as a family.

The last time I was down here was in 2008, and it was my first visit on my own boat. The dog with me was Chip, my dear old buddy. Since that time they’ve had several hurricanes pass over and the old dock is unsafe. They’ve built a new dock that stretches out farther into the harbor and when I came in through the narrow entrance yesterday and saw it, I knew that more island time had passed.

Late yesterday after donning snorkel and fins to replace my zincs on the Maxprop and shaft, I decided the Terror and I had earned a pub visit. There were few boats in the harbor and many of the folks hanging out at the bar were the regulars like Pete himself, his son Greg. I saw Wellington arrive with the wild boar in a cooler all ready for the Pig Roast for Bahamian Labor Day on Saturday. The character with droopy gray mustache that extended several inches below his chin sitting next to me — who introduced himself as Catfish — told me to let my pup run free, that no one would mind. So, I did. Barney raced around greeting everyone, running behind the bar, begging for food, and I chatted as I used to do when I visited with Chip. Then I realized it had grown quiet and Barney was nowhere to be seen.

Catfish said, “Don’t worry. He’s just run off into the bush. He’ll be back in a couple of days, long as he doesn’t run into a wild boar.”

I called him and searched and time seemed to slow even slower than Island Time. Much as that little dog is an enfant terrible, he has stolen my heart. When I was just about ready to panic, I saw movement deep in the bush. It was that red tongue panting and a bedraggled little Yorkshire Terror came trotting out.  Soon as I tried to get the leash on him he darted off down to the beach, shook himself and began barking at me. As I chased him down the beach, I provided plenty of entertainment for the crew at the pub.

A great deal of island time has passed since I last visited Little Harbor with my well-behaved buddy Chip. But these days on the dog front, I’m wondering if I’d call this “progress.”

Fair winds!

Christine

It’s early June, the days are long and warm weather is settling into Southern New England. The sailboat’s topsides and decks are painted, the cabin sides and coaming varnished, and the boat will soon be lowered into the water and secured to its mooring. It’s now time to…head to Florida?

I remember heading to the Keys one April when I was young. It was hot, even more so with the absence of air conditioning. Later, a friend often talked about how much he loved his trips to Florida in the middle of May. I didn’t believe him. I figured we had a different reaction to heat. That changed last year when Sally and I made a visit to southwest Florida in early May. Warm days, comfortable nights, and jumping tarpon changed my perspective. So this year we’re going to test the limits with a trip this coming weekend.

I am looking forward to the chance to see nesting sea turtles. I suspect that the weather and humidity will test my tolerances, but I will be curious, too. I have lots of questions and I am looking forward to some first-hand experience that will guide me.

Here are some of the questions I hope to answer:

Are the bull sharks and hammer-heads that come inshore as the water warms truly attracted by gold rings?

Do the Pizza Huts and Mr. Tacos shutter-up and close in the offseason?

If we drive the side roads will we see Floridians releasing their Burmese pythons and boa constrictors?

Will the airport shops mark down their unsold Coconut Patties?

Will TV coverage of the Stanley Cup playoffs be preempted by NASCAR?

Will NASCAR be preempted by religious televangelist programming?

Will my white legs, and Sam Adams in my hand, give me away as a Yankee?

I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see. As they say, life is for learning.