The Silent Sounds of Lonliness

Sunday October 16, 2010

Can I have this as my dinghy?

So on a Saturday afternoon in Michigan in mid-October you’d probably be sitting in your house with the heat kicked on and in your comfiest sweats possibly thinking to yourself, ‘Who would be crazy enough to want to spend the weekend (nights included) on a non-heated boat?  Well, we would be those crazy people.  Matt had begged and pleaded with me all week for one more overnight on the boat, even though the initial low temperature for that night would be 31 degrees.  Eventually I agreed because of all the weekends in the summer I had taken him away from it including a birthday weekend for me, a weekend at our friend’s cabin, and two weekends of my brother and his girlfriend coming into town.  Pulling into the Torresen’s lot I could see all the boats that had already been hauled out, but was even more surprised when we motored the dinghy into the mooring field and saw there were only 7 boats left in the water.  Yup, it was going to be a lonely night on the lake for us.

Since Matt had been on the boat the day before and finished installing the windlass, we didn’t have any big projects to occupy our time and chose to work on the one small one we did have.  That was to get our two oil lamps working to put some heat out.  The wicks that had been in there when we bought the boat had just about burned down and needed to be replaced.  Our lamps require 1/2″ wicks and the only place we could find that size was at West Marine costing $5 for only 2 wicks.  Matt had found 5/8″ ones at Ace for only $0.36 each and decided I could cut them down to a proper size.  So that was my project, and after using the worst pair of scissors ever I handed Matt a tattered wick which then took him close to 30 minutes to wind because of all the straggling strings would get caught.  Ugh, the things you do to save a couple of bucks.  Luckily once we got them working it was time for dinner.  For our last big meal on the boat I wanted to do something special and had brought NY strips drenched in a teriyaki glaze from our favorite meat shop.  With those on the grill I pulled out all stops and heated up a can of corn for our side dish.  The steaks were delicious as usual, and luckily for me, although maybe not so much for Mazzii, I was finally given a steak small enough to complete without having to give or throw any of it away.

Are you talking to me?

The usual after dinner routine proceeded of me washing dishes and Matt taking Mazzii to the bathroom.  With the sun setting so much earlier now it was already dark by the time they returned.  With nothing else to do we turned the settee into it’s queen size bed and scanned through the Netflix instant que before finally settling on a movie neither of us had seen.  A few hours later with a candlelight-esque glow in the background we finished the movie and prepared for yet another 10:30 bedtime on a Saturday night.  I’m starting to realize why most cruisers are over the age of 60, and it’s probably because they’re used to rising and setting with the sun. (I kid!)  I know I’m getting older, but right now my body likes to behave like a teenager’s.  If I had the option my sleep schedule would be from midnight to noon everyday.  None of this 6 am to 10 pm crap.