Landlocked in Galveston

Hmm. I know I need to send an update to y'all (I've decided to embrace the word instead of being confused by it). However, I have tried to make the previous updates amusing. It's tough to do that this time around. The amusing stories I could tell are not for public knowledge. Between the pregnancy and Thorsten's recovery there have been dozens of stories that I recall on a daily basis and giggle- but I can't repeat. Dam.

Basic facts. We are back at home in Galveston. We got here Saturday. The dishwasher doesn't work. I have a cold and have dreams about going wild with cold medicine but don't do it. Thorsten is pretty functional, about up to 75% of perfect health. I have banned him from lifting stuff and he's mostly obedient but I'm sure he gets up while I'm sleeping and lifts stuff while I'm not looking, just to rile me up. The boat will be taken across the Atlantic by our crew. We have a good crew so we're not too worried. We're still bummed that we can't make the crossing. We will get back on the boat in Annapolis after I've recovered from the baby. The baby is due early June. I look pregnant now, like I swallowed a smallish beach ball. I feel great (except for the cold).

Boat story...

Boat people know about THE BILGE but for the non boat people reading this, it's the area under the floor (sometimes not easily accessible) where there is equipment and supposedly, no water (on our boat). It's a good potential area for stowage of stuff but we haven't needed to use it so far. There can be 3 types of water in the bilge: saltwater, clean fresh water, and dirty freshwater, and VERY dirty salt water. If you are ever forced to choose, pick clean fresh water. Standing saltwater gets very very stink after a few days so that's a good second choice. You want to avoid dirty water of either flavor. Of course if you are in mosquito season, standing fresh water is BAD too. Any way you look at it, water in the bilge is not a good thing unless it's bottled and being stored there. It's a pretty good idea to open up a floorboard every few days or so and have a look to make sure it's dry.

On Blue Moon, we had (have) a few water in the bilge problems.

  1. There were (and still are) some loose hose clamps that let clean freshwater flow in the port hull. These were (are) fairly easy to find and fix. The crew was hunting those down.
  2. We hosed down the boat without closing the hatches (once). This problem will never happen again. Go ahead and laugh, we did.
  3. Then there is the salt water leak in the starboard hull... As we left, it was not clear where it was coming from. I told Pierre about it multiple times but he didn't find the source and therefore declared it "no problem". Sigh. I continued to search for it myself and before we left I cleaned out he bilge for the 4th time and dried it and put tissue under every through hull and the crew is taking it from there. I'm less of a Peirre fan than ever.

Getting to the point... I know I said that bilges are sometimes a tight squeeze to get into. We all know that I am a growing gal at this point. Well, the last time I cleaned the bilge I got a little stuck. I was afraid to tell Thorsten who was resting his back on the settee because I knew he couldn't do anything about it. I thought the most prudent course of action would be to wait a moment to see if the baby shifted and I could get an easier exit. During the 3-5 minutes that I waited, I pictured all sorts of terrible things but none of them happened. What did happen is that the baby moved down, directly onto my bladder. Necessity determined how fast I squeezed out at that point and everything turned out ok. I didn't hurt myself getting out and I made it in time to my next appt. I finished cleaning the bilge by dropping the sponge down into the bilge and retrieving it with my toes. Not efficient but it got the job done.

I better go now. I have to visit the laundry room to take our clothes out of the dryer. It is nothing but pure pleasure to use a real washer and dryer again. (That isn't pregnancy hormones speaking either!)

XO,

Heather and Thorsten

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