Though we stayed from December til May,
It was time to get back under way,
We had put our hook down,
In a posh Florida town,
And they just kicked us out yesterday.
Just kidding! The truth is complex —
No one in this fine town objects,
To our presence, in fact,
They speak to us with tact,
For my Dad’s the Crown Prince: “Vero Rex.”
He must be: He treats us like royalty!
There once was a fellow named Jason,
Who learned that it’s bad luck to hasten,
Just a trip and a splash,
Can relieve you of cash,
When your eyeglasses now need replacin’.
Jason’s really a quite graceful lad,
Just a chip off the block, like his Dad,
Who has pitched a few phones,
Down to old Davy Jones,
But poor Jason’s Blackberry — so sad!
All joking aside, send your kind thoughts to Jason, who banged up his knee in the incident. Given the dunking his Blackberry got, I wonder if texting had something to do with his distraction?
There once was a lady named Jacqui,
And her taste in small boats was not wacky.
She knows quick as a jig,
With her fine Freedom rig,
She can rotate the wheel and yell “Tackie!”
It’s her birthday today, and I wish,
That the day brings some cake in a dish,
And a stroll down the dock,
Where she hears, to her shock:
“Happy Birthday To You!” sung by fish.
There is a fish I call Harvey who hangs out under our boat and makes funny “groink” noises. We suspect he is a “croaker” or a “grunt,” as his ability to hold a tune is limited.
In other news, we heard some strange noises in our dinghy this morning, and I thought it was just the wave pattern. A few hours later, as we went to row ashore, Barry discovered a beautiful 12-inch fish in the bottom of the dinghy! If we’d realized that was the source of the earlier noise, we could have had fresh fish for breakfast.
We bought bottom paint, gooey and thick,
And we hoped that it would do the trick,
It was sold as “deluxe” —
It cost TWO hundred bucks,
‘Cause we didn’t want sea life to stick.
And that should be the end of the story,
But the grasses adhered in all glory,
Yes, it’s worse than I feared,
For her fuzzy green beard,
Means she now needs a depilatory.
When our gigantic sails are all done,
Then you won’t sit around poking fun,
You’ll be wishing your rig
Was as tall and as big,
As we zoom past the race starting gun.
Barry’s just posted his initial drawings of the new rig for Flutterby. On the Junk Rig Association forum, a couple of folks remarked on the outrageous amount of sail area (50%) added to the boat. That inspired my response, above.
~~~
As dear Flutterby hung on her rode,
We both got in our dinghy and rowed,
To our bikes, which we rode,
Down a nice, level road,
Meanwhile, Margaret composed this, Our Ode.
The problem with limericks is that sometimes they chase me down and refuse to leave me alone. This was one of those. “Go ‘way,” I said, but it didn’t. It followed me on my bike for 5 miles. It’s not even a proper rhyme, just a bunch of homonyms.
-30-
I’m wondering what are the odds
That people who call themselves “CLODs”
Would hang out with SLOBs
Who do not have jobs,
And party with one of their PLODs?
“It would be nice to find out about the weekly cruisers’ breakfast,” Barry said to me. We’d heard about it years ago through the Seven Seas Cruising Association.
“What do you mean, find out? Can’t we just go?” I asked.
He looked puzzled. “We’d have to find out when and where it is.”
“There’s a sign in the … uh … women’s bathroom…” Evidently, there was not a corresponding sign in the men’s room.
The sign advertised a weekly breakfast for cruisers and CLODs: Cruisers Living on Dirt. In other words, people who have “swallowed the anchor” here in Vero.
I told my Dad about the cute acronym. “I guess that makes you a PLOD: Parent Living on Dirt.” I suggested that he should join us for the boaters’ Happy Hour, and we would introduce him that way.
The next day, an email came from Dad, asking if he could “observe the SLOBs and PLODs thursday at the happily happy hour?”
SLOBs: I guess I asked for that.
Yikes! The depth-sounder beeps, and I twitch,
There’s a red one — a green one — but which?
Whew, I’m glad they’re not pink,
For these nav-aids, I think,
Are quite Christmassy here in the Ditch.
Anyone who has “done the Ditch” knows how critical the red and green markers are. After grueling sun-up to sun-down days at the helm, we see them in our sleep and sometimes have nightmares about going on the wrong side of one.
For you landlubbers (and Lee), here are some photos of the markers I mention above.
Top to bottom:
This day’s turning into a dud,
As I sit here and wait for the flood,
No longer afloat:
I have grounded my boat.
My name is not Meps, it is MUD.
She floated free after about an hour and a half of sitting outside the Beaufort Marina, staring at the Beaufort Hospital. A good time was not had by all, but we’re OK now.
Yes, I know that it looks like a yard
Sale, and yes, there is much to discard.
No, we did not take root
But that free table loot
Sure piled up, with three years on the hard.
The “free table” is a big shelf in the Bock Marine lounge where boaters leave stuff they’re discarding, and other boaters pick it up and (try to) reuse it. For dedicated dumpster-divers, it’s a source of wonderful finds, like heart-shaped measuring spoons and warm fleece hoods. But do we really have room for a waffle iron, a mangle, and a mildewed camera bag? Sometimes, we pick something up, take it to the boat, and then return it to the free table a few days (or years) later.
The photo below was taken after Flutterby was mostly loaded. I’m glad you can’t see where the waterline is — it’s embarrassing.
===