EOY

I yam putting the finishing touches on our SECOND ANNUAL CHRISTMAS LETTER, AKA EOY or End Of Year 2016. I am posting this 2015 EOY about one year late just for the hell of it.

THE FIRST ANNUAL CHRISTMAS LETTER

From the CIC of M/V  PHASE II

13 November 2015

I am writing this a tad bit early because we will be out of touch from civilized world as we know it from 22 November until 7 December, Pearl Harbor Day 2015.

We are fulfilling a huge bucket list item of mine. We are taking Coral Princess from San Pedro to Cabo San Lucas. No that’s not the bucket list part. From Cabo, we’re gong to Nicaragua. No that’s not the BL part, hang on, I’m getting to it. Next port of call is Puntarenas Costa Rica and than, drum roll please we’re transiting the Panama Canal. Then on we go to Cartagena Columbia, then Aruba and end up in Ft. Lauderdale.

Now for this year, 2015, it has been a busy one.

In case you never got the memo, we have gone over to The Dark Side. Although I still consider myself a sailor, I am really a power boater. There, I said it.

There are four phases in a boater’s life. The first is the Sail Boat. The next is the Motor Boat. The third is the Motor Home and the last is the Rest Home. We have named our  39 foot Trawler Phase Two. She is a modest little two bedroom, two bath vessel. One head even has a bathtub. I can sit up in bed in the morning and not conk my kopf.

In January, we hauled her out in the yard. We had a lot of deferred maintenance work done and we changed all of the through hull valves from gate type to ball valves.

Early in February, we made an endurance cruise out to Oil Island White. About eight miles as the crow flies. The starboard overheated and we limped home on one engine.

March came in like the proverbial lion. We found out Sadie Marie had inoperable cancer on her scull.  

We lost Sadie on 16 April and I am still mourning my loss as are Jamie and Lady.  To help snap me back, we went on a three day cruise on Carnival Imagination. Jamie asked me if I’d ever been on a cruise before. When I replied that I’d been on many, she asked if I’d been on one where nobody was shooting at me, and I had to answer no. It was all I had hoped that it would be. We got a call from a guy who knew a guy who had to move his 28 foot motor home out of a storage lot. It is a ’88 Itasca with a 454 Chevrolet gas engine which hadn’t been started  in ten years. It was sorry looking on the outside but the inside looked brand new and it only had 22,000 miles on it and the price was right. Free. So we now own two motor homes. A 22 footer and this 28 footer. It needed a new battery and when I installed it. It started right up. Since then we have had the oil changed, put on six new tires and had all of the hoses and belts replaced plus a new double DIN AM/FM radio with CD player and GPS.  So we’re a bit ahead of the curve on phase 3 of a boater’s life.

In May, we drove to Denver to look at a used machine for a customer. I approved of the machine and loaded it onto a flatbed semi truck. While there, we spent a week with our good friends George and Melinda Arrand in Tinmuth, CO. A nice visit on the hard.

June and July were pretty uneventful. I was busy supervising a rebuild of a large rotary machine with my trusty associates Jamie and Lady.

In August, we saw Leon Russell at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano. You don’t know who Leon Russell is? Go to your room and Google him and say fifty Hail Marys.

We finally got the starboard engine put back together. The head and fuel injectors were rebuilt. New hoses and a new heat exchanger.

We started up the starboard engine and it sounded fine. When I cranked the port engine, It sounded like it had asthma. When it fired up, it didn’t sound good at all. I had a mechanic come out and do a compression check on the engine and #4 cylinder only had 200 PSI of pressure. The other three cylinders had 400 Lb. which is normal. So just like Henry VIII, I said off with it’s head. We took it to Dumas Diesel West Long Beach and Joe rebuilt the head and injectors. We are now in the process of putting it all back together.

On 6 September, we rented the same Nissan Versa that we took to Denver and headed east. We went to Muncie Indiana and I did a quick job and then on to Ohio to see my sister and her husband and attend my fifty fifth high school reunion.  We visited with Jamie’s family in Michigan and went up to Mackinac  Island. It was very quaint and memorable. In Saint Ignace, MI, I had some fresh water perch for the first time in fifty five years. It was to die for. We then drove up to Sault St Marie to see the Soo Locks. Unbelievably good  and worth the drive to the UP. Next we drove to New England and stayed in Bennington VT one night, We went on to Nashua NH to see Jimmy Boyd, Dave’s  Godfather. Jimmy’s in bad shape. He’s been fighting brain cancer  for years and he is still fighting the good fight. Positive thoughts and prayers are in order. On to Biddeford ME to do a job, We stayed right on the Atlantic Ocean in Old Orchard Beach. It was just past the season and some places were still open. A Sunday’s jaunt up to Camden ME to see the schooners was fun. We subsisted entirely on lobster except one breakfast while in Maine. On 28 September, we stayed at a B&B in Mystic CN. We went to Mystic Pizza which fulfilled one of  Jamie’s bucket list items. The next day, we went to Mystic Harbor and went on lots of old whaling ships and fishing schooners. They have a working shipyard that does nothing but wooden boats. Back to Muncie for another job and on 8 October we finally set a course west again.

We stopped one night in Amarillo TX and ate at the Big Texan Steakhouse a don’t miss place. The next day, we stopped at the Cadillac Ranch which has gone down hill the last few years.

The next night we stayed at The El Rancho Hotel which is much the same as it was when it was built in 1939. The El Rancho was built by D W Griffith’s brother as a civilized place for movie people  to stay in Gallup while on a filming. Everybody who was anybody in the 40’s, 50’s and sixties stayed there including The Duke himself.

On Columbus Day, 12 October, we moored in the marina, dropped anchor and secured the engine. Home at last after six weeks on the road.

A few weeks ago, we joined the Seal Beach Yacht Club and have become very active. On Sundays they have GYO, grill your own. For five bucks, you use their grill and they furnish the plates, potato, salad etc. Monday night is football. Once again five bucks gets a burger or spaghetti, salad etc. Wednesday evenings Donald, the baritone, goes to choir  practice. We will be performing at the SLBYC Christmas Party on 19 Dec. Friday evenings is dinner at the club.

On 7 December, we’ll be back from Panama and will begin Christmas madness in earnest.  I’ll be chopping down our six foot aluminum tree and erecting it in the salon. Then the dreaded shopping sprees will commence. I plan on self-medicating myself with copious doses of rum.

On 23 December Ed, Dave, and I are taking grandson Alex to see Starwars. Ed, and now Alex are both absolute addicts of Starwars.

New Years Eve we’ll be partying at, where else, the Seal Beach Yacht Club.

For now, we are all tucked in until 22 November when we put to sea again on the cruise ship.

Lastly, not to get too political, don’t forget to vote this year. Preferably moderately center, not liberal and certainly not for Hillary.