“Do I have to?” I whine and I cry,
As I stand under blue, cloudless sky,
But we’ve boiled every pot,
And the water’s so hot,
That my rain boots must keep my feet dry.
Barry buttonholed me today and asked me to to help him pour many gallons of boiling water over plywood (to bend it). This limerick is a fib — you can see from the photo that I love my rain boots. They’re cute and blue, like something Paddington Bear would wear.
The other photo is for my Washington and Colorado friends. It proves we have potheads here in Georgia, too.
Paddington Bear helps bend plywoodMeps, a two-quart pothead
There are critical foods that I lack,
So I pedal with trailer and pack,
To buy berries and greens,
And some snappy fresh beans,
And it’s only 12 miles, out and back.
I admit, I ate a few of the strawberries while I was making the drawing below. I bet Cezanne and Caraveggio were sometimes tempted to eat the stuff they were painting, too. You can find thousands of beautiful fruit still-lifes on Google Images.
After my last post, Come Monday, Jayne asked “So where is St. Marys?? :-)” She was writing from Seattle. Then Steve, writing from Paradise Village, outside Puerto Vallarta, said, “We need more directions about St. Marys. Just wondering where you are.”
So I decided, instead of trying to answer in words, I’d draw a couple of maps. The first one shows where St. Marys, Georgia is. The second one shows what you will find if you make it all the way here.
These are not to scale. But of course, you knew that.
Map of the US and southern states showing St. Marys, GeorgiaSt. Marys Boat Services “Features”
On a Monday morning, a couple of weeks ago, there was a knock on our hull. “Yo, Flutterby!” called a voice, causing us to pop out the companionway in surprise. Nobody knocks on Flutterby’s hull here in St. Marys. They wait until we emerge to use the bathroom, or else send us an email. Seriously!
It was Rocky and Jeff, the owner and his lieutenant, at the bottom of our ladder. “We just welded up our first staircase, and we want to test it out. We’re bringing it over here.”
They were pleased with themselves for this magnanimous gift, but I looked at Barry in dismay. My Dad would be arriving from Vero Beach any minute, and I had counted on that eight-foot ladder to keep him from peeking inside the boat. It was a mess inside!
To make a long story short, the staircase — and visit — was a huge success. Dad and his sweetheart, Sharon, both climbed up to the deck to enjoy the view (Sharon might say the vertigo), but they didn’t look inside (even though I did frantically clean the interior). Instead, they took us to town for lunch and some much-needed shopping, and we enjoyed each others’ company for a precious afternoon.
Dave, with his camera
That wasn’t our first Monday visit from a family member. On a rainy Monday in November, my brother Dave had driven from Daytona, stopping in Jacksonville to pick up a load of marine plywood. We also had lunch and some much-needed shopping, but the best part was two days of visiting and a photography expedition to historic Fort Clinch.
What a treat, that my Florida family members would drive all this way to see me and Barry and Flutterby!
Our latest Monday visitors, however, were the most remarkable of all, and definitely appreciated the new staircase. Barry’s parents, Sharon and Dave, have been a part of our Flutterby adventure for over six years now. They had never even seen the boat.
They started out on Camano Island, Washington, and went down through California and across the southern states, with a stop in Big Bend, Texas. The apogee of their circuitous journey was in the Florida Keys, where they looked up Sharon’s cousin, Vic Gaspeny. He’s a well-known fishing guide who has caught a record 200 swordfish in his career.
We were super-excited about Barry’s parents’ visit
By the time they stood under the bow of Flutterby, grinning up at us, they had traveled 6000 miles. Barry and I practically fell down the staircase to deliver some long-awaited hugs.
We had wonderful dinners in town with them and did more much-needed shopping (is there a theme here?). This time, it wasn’t groceries and plywood, but a salvage yard in St. Augustine, about 50 miles away. While we were taking measurements for Flutterby’s new main yard, which is a repurposed mast from a much-smaller sailboat, they were bird-watching in the parking lot! “Is that woodpecker a ladderback?” asked Sharon, juggling a bird book and a pair of binoculars.
We don’t have any more visitors scheduled, so if you happen to be in the neighborhood, please stop by and visit us here in St. Marys. It doesn’t have to be on a Monday. We always need to go shopping.
Barry and his parents on the infamous staircaseInside historic Fort ClinchThe beach at Fort Clinch State Park
One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, And one woman’s work is another one’s pleasure.
Painting Flutterby’s name with a marl-stick in 2010
On a warm, sunny day like last Saturday, the boatyards are full of all kinds of painters. You can tell the bottom-painters by their green or blue hair. Topsides-painters don’t usually have colorful hair, just colorful language. Every gnat who drops an infinitesimal bit of dust on their perfect mirror finish provokes a new and interesting batch of swear-words.
Less common are the traditionalists who paint the name of their boat, using a marl-stick, instead of ordering vinyl stickers. I didn’t know what a marl-stick was before I painted “Flutterby” on the side of Flutterby.
The least common painters are the women I saw last Saturday, who had colorful smocks and sweaters instead of colorful hair and language. Before they began, they walked around the yard, holding up their fingers to make little rectangular frames. Then they set up their French box easels and went to work on pristine white canvases.
They were “plein-air” painters: People who go outdoors to paint pictures. They follow in the tradition of artists like Money, Pisarro, Van Gogh, and Renoir, taking advantage of natural light to create images on location.
Average-looking fiberglass sailboat with lots of junk around it
But here, in an industrial boatyard, full of heavy equipment?
I struck up a conversation with one of the painters, commenting, “Every day, I ride my bicycle five miles to the library to draw. Then you guys drive all the way out here to paint!” “Oh, you should join us,” she told me, earnestly.
I shook my head. I couldn’t take a day off just to paint a pretty picture.
I asked what brought them out to the boatyard, because she’d told me she came from Fernandina Beach, about 45 minutes away. “We love the shapes of the boats,” she said, looking over my shoulder at a row of hauled-out sailboats. I turned and took in the scene. I saw a compressor, an orange pylon, a blue plastic kayak, a small RV, and in the middle, an average-looking fiberglass boat with a lot of stuff on the deck.
Then I looked at her painting. She had simply painted the maroon and white sailboat, capturing the classic lines of the yacht and the marshes behind it. All the ugly stuff was absent.
Artist with painting of sailboat
Suddenly, the whole boatyard looked different to me. “It’s about what you leave out, isn’t it?” I said, more to myself than to her.
In the days since then, I’ve looked at this place through new eyes. I’ve noticed the lines of the tugboat against a dazzling sunset. I’ve noticed the perfect reflection of a rusty crane in the water. I’ve noticed some breathtakingly colorful oil slicks.
For years, I’ve been telling Barry that living in boatyards is no fun, that these places don’t speak to my “artist’s soul.” But if artists are driving out here deliberately, in order to make art, I’d better rethink that perspective.
There’s a wonderful lesson for all of us from the plein-air painters. We see what we choose to see. No matter where we are, we can choose to see beauty and goodness with a little imagination.
This artist made a dumpster look romantic and added a shipwright who didn’t exist
Now that I’ve completed over 100 illustrations for my book, I’ve decided to start adding pen-and-ink drawings to the blog, too. I hope you enjoy these new “doodles!” ~1meps
~~~
Lucky kingfisher
With temperatures in the low 30s, the folks of St. Marys stayed inside today. They even closed the schools, just in case there was ice on the roads (there wasn’t). So when I set off on my bicycle this morning, there were more animals than people.
A chorus of birds serenaded me from the trees as I headed north from the boatyard. Then I turned west on the North River Causeway, pedaling across a small bridge and through golden marshes at high tide. Across the river, the Spanish moss-draped trees were full of big white blobs — egrets, huddled against the cold. To the south, a single great blue heron skimmed the surface of the water.
Farther along, I heard the distinctive chattering call of a kingfisher. I looked up just as he ended with a loud “SQUAWK!” A hawk had swooped down out of the trees, intent on attacking the small, noisy kingfisher. He failed, and the kingfisher zoomed past me, announcing to the world that he would live another day. The hawk circled back into the trees, disappointed.
The rest of the animals on my route were silent; even the dogs who usually charge their fences to bark at me were affected by the cold. I hardly recognized the one who is usually the most vociferous — he just looked at me and wagged his tail in cold, silent solidarity. The rest of the canines, the lucky ones, were inside their owners’ warm homes.
Needy kittens
I passed a house with a sign that said, “But I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinketh upon me,” and a few doors down, two tiny feral kittens sat on the sidewalk. They were poor and needy creatures, too cold and hungry to even run away.
By the time I arrived at the library, I was thoroughly chilled. I was glad to spend the entire day in that quiet place of refuge, writing and drawing. Silent, like the kittens, but sheltered and grateful.
Last month, I tried to donate a bag of stuff to the Salvation Army. When I pulled into the parking lot, one Monday morning, I found the office staff filling a dumpster. Over the weekend, someone had left an entire household’s worth of stuff on their doorstep. Rather than sort it, they just threw it all away. They looked at my tiny bag and said, “Sorry, we’d just put that in the dumpster, too.”
Froggie trivet aboard Flutterby
I took it back to the boat, which is full of overflowing piles on the settee, pilot berth, centerboard trunk, and chart table. I’m not sure where it is now, maybe on the dinette table, which is buried under a pile of pure, unorganized crap that threatens to fossilize.
It’s not my fault that I have all this stuff. When we bought Flutterby, in 2006, she was completely empty. There wasn’t a single dish, piece of silverware, or tool on board; we carefully selected the trivets and toys and t-shirts and canvas bags and navigation tools we wanted and brought them to the boat.
Over the next seven years, something unexpected happened in our lives. People we knew and loved died.
Our older friends nod their heads knowingly and say, “Get used to it.” But I stomp my foot and say, “No! We are too young for this!”
One of Stevie’s froggie toys
The problem is, every person who was close to us leaves behind items we love and have to find room for. Flutterby now has a Froggie trivet and a lot of Froggie toys — those were Stevie’s. Bill Brown left behind canvas bags from the Seattle Women’s Sailing Association that bring back happy memories. My clothing locker is overflowing with giant tie-dyed shirts from Philip’s collection. The chart table has navigation tools from Barry’s uncle Roger.
Don’t even ask about the ashes. They take up room, too.
Yesterday, I said to Barry, “This boat is full of ghosts.” He shook his head, saying, “No. Just memories.” That same day, I found out it could be worse.
Lance, who has been working on a very large Gulfstar sailboat, was gone from the yard when we returned from our Christmas trip. We heard that he’d gone north to attend a friend’s funeral.
Yesterday, Lance stopped by to talk to me and Barry. He’s a fairly quiet, thoughtful man, not someone who talks a lot.
“See that boat, there?” he pointed to a modest-sized sailboat across from his own. “I just inherited it,” he said, with a sigh.
A boat is a lot bigger than a trivet
Lance has owned a lot of boats in his life — this one is his 17th. She’s half the size and complexity of his own boat, and she’s practically ready to go. We talked about how easy it would be to finish a couple of projects, jump on board, and go cruising.
But Lance isn’t ready to give up his boat for his friend’s. That brings me back to my original dilemma. I’m not ready to give up my clothes for Philip’s, or my canvas bags for Bill’s, or my toys for Stevie’s. I just keep cramming more and more stuff into the lockers.
Lance did give me a great idea for storing the ashes, though. He was checking out a boat for sale once, and he noticed that it had a false bulkhead. Lance started poking at it, trying to figure out what was behind it, when the woman who owned it stopped him. “Don’t mess with that! That’s Harry!”
It turned out that her deceased husband came with the boat.
“That was too much for me,” said Lance. “I didn’t buy that boat.”
The place where we’re hauled out right now, St. Mary’s Boat Services, has a unique way of turning a little boatyard into a big one — they put many of the boats on cradles, so they can be moved easily and packed more densely. They use a forklift and a specialized hydraulic trailer to move the cradles around.
There’s a fellow here named Jeff who happens to be the most amazing forklift operator I’ve ever seen. He can do ballet-like things with the forklift that other boatyards need cranes and other complicated equipment to do. Yesterday, I heard him telling someone that in addition to training and certifying forklift operators for all of southern Michigan, he used to be able to pick up a quarter from the ground and hand it to you — using a forklift. “Not this one, though. The controls are too slow.”
Yesterday, Jeff and his boss, Rocky, needed to move four boats in order to make room for one who was ready to splash today. The first two moves were easy, just towing a couple of folks on cradles to new spots. Flutterby was the third boat in, on jackstands, and right after they picked her up with the Travelift, a van pulled in, delivering two shiny new cradles. There was quite a bit of excitement, because this was the first time Rocky and Jeff hadn’t welded up their own cradles.
As you can see, the first new one works perfectly. Now Flutterby can be scooted around in the forklift ballet, too. At dusk last night, they moved us to our new place, right across from a huge live-oak tree that is full of the cutest little birds on the planet: Bluebirds! It looks like somebody painted their topsides with the same paint Barry used on our bottom.
Flutterby in the slings with her new blue bottom paintTwo cradles arrived just at the moment when we needed oneFlutterby on the new cradle with the forklift in the foreground. Now she’s easy to move and fits into a smaller space.These charming little birds are the opposite of Flutterby, with blue topsides and rufous bottoms
Imagine that for the last couple of years, someone followed you around with a camera, capturing as many of your happy times as possible. What a gift to your family and friends, and what a gift to the photographer, to have captured so much of your joyful spirit on film.
Since 2011, I took that role with my beloved friend and artistic partner, Philip Wilson. I photographed all our adventures together, from one end of the USA to the other, especially Burning Man and Mexico. I documented every step of our joint art installation, Choose Art.
And then, just like that, he was suddenly gone, passing away too young and too soon last weekend. Although they make me cry now, I hope these images of his infectious smile will bring some joy and happiness to the world. That’s what he would want.
Hardship may dishearten at first,
But every hardship passes away.
All despair is followed by hope;
And darkness is followed by sunshine.
~ Rumi
Receiving his Master’s in Mad Science at Burning Man in 2011
At Mount Lassen, 2011
Working on Flutterby
Cruising on Flutterby in the ICW
With the Happy Spot painting he commissioned from Tess Murdock. It is the only painting on Flutterby.
On the beach in Playa Azul, Mexico
Tulum, Mexico
He loved to wear Tomas’ hat everywhere he went
Mexico
Climbing on Mayan ruins
Mexico
Mexico
Mexico
Enjoying the first of many post-retirement naps
Excited as a little kid at his retirement party, where he received a remote-control helicopter
His License to Chill from his retirement-“graduation” party
Visiting the coast near Santa Cruz
Soldering Choose Art in the backyard
Working on Choose Art at Burning Man, 2012
Reno Balloon Festival
I teased him about how compulsive he was about his phone
Grasshopper Cottage, in the Ocala National Forest in Florida
Mirror Lake, on the campus of the Ohio State University
Exploring Ohio
Clowning around
More clowning around
At Hocking Hills, in Ohio
Hiking in Ohio
We dyed Easter eggs in Ohio… over a month after Easter
Enjoying spring flowers
Philip loved purple, and loved the way these flowers matched his shirt
He always stopped to smell the flowers
He even enjoyed dandelions
Figuring out where to put the flower he just picked
Adventures in West Virginia
Camping in Ohio, where he was entranced by fireflies
In addition to red clown noses, he created two bicolored pink-and-blue ones, probably the only ones in existence
Burning Man 2013. He loved the Choose Art sign that Barry and I made and used it to decorate his home.
Reading Latitude 38 and dreaming about sailboats
Walking across the Golden Gate Bridge
He was fascinated by the construction of the Golden Gate bridge
San Francisco from the Golden Gate bridge
Curious about how this art was constructed, he ignored the “do not touch” signs
Trying to figure out an old piece of machinery in Colorado
Playing with an oven mitt he found in Bob’s kitchen
Enjoying fall colors in Colorado
Red Rock Amphiteater, outside Denver
A beautiful B&B in Colorado
Roxborough State Park, Colorado
Fancy breakfast at the B&B. He loved the yogurt parfait.
Dinosaur tracks
“You pretend to kiss the dinosaur, and I’ll take your picture.”
A surprise October snowfall in Boulder, and Philip’s brother Bob’s house
Philip’s personal photographer, Margaret, with the Commander of Chacchoben. Photo by Philip Wilson.
Even though I am thousands of miles away from my boat this summer, she is always on my mind. This week, I’ve been all smiles, because Issue 63 of the Junk Rig Association Magazine just came out, with another article (by yours truly) about Flutterby.
See the second panel in the JRA logo? Guess who unwittingly inspired them to do that!
For over 15 years, Barry and I have been members of the Junk Rig Association, an international group of people who are interested in junk rigs. They’ve been following our progress with Flutterby‘s unique rig, and when I wrote about our first test sail, the editor of the newsletter asked to reprint my article.
“Urk!” I choked to Barry. I was a little embarrassed. I’d written that piece in a very exuberant but tongue-in-cheek style, and putting it into an international publication required some major rewriting. I carefully rewrote it, splitting the article into two parts, and submitted it with photos:
I am so proud to share these with you! Not because of my writing, but because I was able to share Barry’s accomplishment with the world. He has designed and built his own rig, the only one like it in the world, and it works!
Many members of the JRA are expert sailors who know that the Bermudan rig is not the only option. We’re not nuts or crackpots, just evangelists for something that’s worked for thousands of years. Of course, writing for the JRA Magazine is like preaching to the choir.
Even if you never plan to own a junk-rigged boat, the JRA is a wonderful, encouraging organization that produces a beautiful, inspiring magazine. Check out the JRA website: http://junkrigassociation.org/.
At the end of next week, I’ll be living aboard Flutterby, currently in Georgia, for the first time in seven months. Ohio, Washington, and California were great, but I’m looking forward to unpacking my suitcase again.
