Just Another Working Stiff

The blog entries have really slowed lately. Between putting in a bunch of long days on the Boat Show electric crew and then having to spend time at the staff No Mo Boat Show party and then the electric crew party. Its tough and time consuming. That’s the electric crew and friends at Bob’s house above. Bob is the electric crew boss. He’s been doing the Annapolis Boat Show for 33 years. Knows everybody and knows how to put the juice into the show. Nice guy too.
The whole electric crew is, how do you say, somewhat eclectic. Firstly it is divided between The kids and everyone else. Best as I can tell the dividing line is under or over 50. There’s a bunch of long timers who have been working the show at least 10 years. There’s John, really nice and mellow guy who happens to be an ex-SEAL. John’s wife Alida. She’s the token girl on the crew who does most of the work. And Bill, the ex Navy submarine Chief who likes to take the brute force approach to most dismantling projects. And Mike, who made me quit whining about being just whipped at around 3 in the afternoon when he’d be showing me up in strength and tenacity. Mike had a liver transplant in January. Then there’s Bob, the ex Annapolis cop. And Lin, who more than holds his own at 77 years young. These are 12 and 14 hour days of tough physical work. I’m pretty sure this group qualifies as eclectic.
The boat show is a pretty impressive construction and deconstruction project. A new marina goes in. The piles are driven. The work boats, appropriately named Yank, Shove, Pull and Push put the floats in place. The dock crew hooks up the water. The electric crew runs thousands of feet of under water high voltages cable. Heavy ass transformers are loaded by crane onto the floating docks. Tents go up. Lights go up. Then the whole thing collapses and comes back down.

Annapolis City Docks without the boat show marina

Plus the boat show

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We did get away one weekend during the show. Chris’ old friend from Albuquerque, Suzanne, rented a house on the Little Choptank River for her 39th+ birthday. She had a bunch of friends and family from all around the states and England come and stay for the weekend. We brought Georgia over, anchored behind her house and got to share in the good food and Suzanne roast.

This is supposed to be a picture of everyone at the party house. Problem is that about half of them are standing on the other side of the camera trying to take a picture of everyone.

We had a nice sail back to Annapolis from the Little Choptank and got to try out our new to us, used, whisker pole. Worked sweet.

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We rented a car yesterday so we could drive into DC today and visit with our friends Catherine and Sally. Catherine used to work with Chris at the UW in Seattle. She now works for JHPIEGO and they live in DC. Oh, and she travels to Africa a lot, like Chris.

It was nice visiting with Catherine and Sally – but the real treat was getting in some puppy time. Here are the doodles- Banjo and her new little sister, Piper.

Did I mention that it is fall here. Lots of great colors. According to the locals it is a late fall – but we’ll take it.

If all goes well, we will leave Annapolis in the morning. The plan is to head over to the eastern shore to St. Michaels. Then take 3 days or so to work back down to York River. We’ve got some big boat projects to get done there: install new electronics and a solent stay roller furler and sail, build a mainsail stackpack, and haul and paint the bottom… the list is still long.
Then we’ll be ready to make a decision about where we are going next. Each time we discuss it, it ends in the same undecided plan. Definitely South… with the geese.
Paul