Hygge Adventures: 030: Knotting and Splicing

I’ve read approximately eighty British Naval Historical fiction books and in most of them their ship goes through a bad storm and when it is over, they spend a few days “knotting and splicing” ripped rigging and repairing broken spars. That is what Friday, December 1^st was for us. My luggage rack design was obviously not up to the task of bigger seas, so with the help of the marine supply section of the local Ace Hardware and various spare parts I had onboard, I significantly strengthened the set up by bracing the rack with poles on either side:

That night we had a quintessential “Looper” moment: a potluck dinner with other boaters. We got to share our “sea tales” of the crossing on Thursday, and again, everyone had something that broke.

On Saturday the 2^nd, Nancy and I walked up to taco-truck for breakfast, and each got a latte’ at the coffee-truck. The latte’s felt like we were back in civilization a bit, though Steinhatchee, Fl is not exactly a metropolis.

The proprietor of the trucks told us that it is one of the last of the “old Florida” towns, “Like Florida used to be sixty years ago before all the development and condo buildings.”

Amazingly it had been hit by a hurricane just three months earlier (“Idalia”). There was still a fair amount of debris around town but remarkably put back together given the footage we saw on Youtube. The storm surge at the marina:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWPFOBiiYU0

Still have some debris piles. They had trucks going on Sunday removing debris.

Poor boats around town:

I had another "bumpy" ;-)

Later that day Nancy and Kathy went to a school bazaar, and I did some boat-cleaning and went for round three with the dinghy. I located another leak and smeared it with silicone sealant. Time will tell the results of this attempt. When Nancy got back with some nice treats, she started on the inside of the boat and cleaned the cockpit area. She also came back with some local knowledge: Steinhatchee is known for its stone crabs and scallops. It happens to be stone crab season and a local restaurant was having a craft fair on Sunday, so we made plans to sample some crabmeat and check out the crafts.

I took some time out to sit and have my first cigar since, well I'm not quite sure since when, but I did enjoy it. That night Kathy made us all Italian sausage for dinner and we watched Jeopardy!

Sunday morning found me catching up with work items washing out rags in a bucket from the day before. The marina's laundry facility was destroyed in the hurricane and they have yet to get it back online, so it was "doing it old school" for me.

A nice lady that Nancy and Kathy had met the day before gave us a ride to "Kathi's Crabs" for the craft fair and stone crabs as it was raining. The crabs were good, but so much effort for so little meat!