hurricanes suck

When we visited my dad last weekend, he had just completed the monumental task of getting his damaged sailboat out of the water, and into his backyard.

He cleaned his enormous shop out, and added more enclosed space, to get ready for the huge project of getting the boat fixed up. He's been pretty busy over the last year, with the sailboat at the very bottom of the list. But now he's finally ready to get to work. While we were there, he was hauling concrete blocks in to support the trailer, explaining that even though he has it centered so that "all the tires will rot evenly" he still would like to avoid tire rot, since it's not his trailer.

I would say it was sort of a pessimistic way to approach the project- assuming that it will take so long to fix the boat. Except that I grew up at that house, and there has almost never NOT been a boat or two rotting into the ground at the back of the yard. When I was a baby it was a shrimp boat, that I think my parents were keeping for sentimental reasons. Then it was my dad's catamaran with the enticing suspended mesh that was the perfect trampoline until you got yelled at. Followed by a series of flat bottomed fishing boats, and then a big offshore fisher that I think was waiting for engine repair. I got a tetanus shot, thanks to stepping on a fishhook while playing in the cabin of that boat.

Keep in mind, the boats at the swampy end of the yard were not the only boats, just the broken boats. There were still a few canoes in regular use, either on top of the truck, or leaning against the shop. And of course the sailboats have always lived at the marina.

But my dad loves his sailboat, and I know he's going to have it (her?) seaworthy by summer. He's got motivation because if it's just up to me, Wren will never go sailing. Not because I don't want her to, just because I hate it. If I'm on deck I constantly feel like the boat is going to tip over, no matter how slow we're going, and when I go below, I get sick. The only part I like is the part where the boat stops somewhere and we get to swim. Then of course you have to get back in the boat somehow, and my dad has been known to forget the ladders. Ugh.

Anyway, this boat will be back in the water before too long, I'm sure. And this summer I will (hopefully) be subjected to sailing again. We'll see how Wren likes it.