The Ship’s Cat Wants a Ship’s Goose

This is the busiest, craziest, hardest month for us to get away from the RV Park we manage—which is why we arranged for Lee to move her—but we did manage a flying-turn-around trip the other day, with a carload of boxes. Our guest room has been the ‘staging area’ for boat-boxes, as I listed and organized and packed boat-specific items (life rings, fender clips, navigation charts, crab pot) as well as ‘household’ items (sheets, dishes, toilet paper, coffee pot!)… With all those boxes STUFFED in the car, we grabbed Yoda, our most adventuresome cat (because: of course!) and hit the road.

It was the ‘maiden voyage’ for our folding canvas wagon, intended for use when we arrive somewhere by water and then have to ‘dock-and-walk‘ for anything from grocery-shopping to laundry. (Most marinas provide heavy-duty plastic carts, like undersized wheelbarrows, for use on the docks, but I prefer the comforts of self-sufficiency. Not to mention range, for destinations beyond the docks.) Our blue wagon and a borrowed marina cart went up and down and up and down in the heat—and we made our first “G-dock friends”! Travis & MJ (looking far less sweaty than we, sipping drinks in their cockpit) cheered us on as we trundled past and past and past again, chatted us up in installments, asked if we like racing, offered themselves as crew if we want company anytime.

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Whenever I’ve been sailing with chartered boats, there’s a privileged sort of feeling in ‘belonging’ (however temporarily) among the boats and sailors. Greeting and passing by tourists at a marina as they admire the pretty vessels, I get to walk past them—like stepping into a painting—and swing myself aboard our boat… At the Roche Harbor Market in May it felt almost like ‘name-dropping’ to joke with the cashier about bundling our purchases and supplies aboard our boat… When the scenic overlook of the Rosario restaurant was enhanced by the sight of a boat tacking into the bay under sail, our waiter seemed inordinately impressed that we knew that crew, who had docked beside us in another port and been aboard our boat. It’s the one aspect of my life where I feel like the coolest kid in the room.

We’re still tourists ourselves, of course—but we get to feel sorry for the poor sods who had to reach the same places in ferries and cars, while we got to be a working part of the ‘picturesque’ that they saw through windows.

Jon rummaged through the kitchen boxes to produce our First Pot of Coffee… and I shook myself out of reverie to tackle the mattress. Strangely enough, you can’t buy a mattress that tapers from full-size at the head to twin-size at the feet!—so my first job was trimming down a memory-foam mattress to fit our oddly-shaped bunk.

When I emerged, squirrelly brain a touch more serene, I finally sat still—in the cockpit—to look around me. Water. Masts. Water. Waterfront. Water. (Did I mention?—Water.)

My prayers tend to run largely to thank-yous: for friends & family, for health & Sobriety, for job & home, for my marriage (and sure, my kitties)… Not so much for things, usually (except in the sense that they represent security—like ‘home’)—but then, this boat represents a great deal in its own right. It will be home—and it represents a life on the water for which I have yearned for decades.

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Our First Night on the boat was somewhat disrupted thanks to Yoda, who was too excited to sleep. He kept returning to stand on Jon’s chest or mine, smacking the adjoining face with his paw like an open-handed slap. “Wake up, Mom! This is so cool! Why are you sleeping?” “Dad! Dad! Dad! Bring back the GOOSE! Dad! Dad!”