The past three days have been invigorating, demanding, and almost universally pleasant. My captain rocks and, at least for now, has been patient with my utter lack of knowledge, ability, or short-term memory. My body aches and I'm consistently and completely coated in grime, but it feels good to work again.
Dude, I work on a sailboat.
Sigsbee's maintenance and restoration is going fairly well so far. I've been painting, scraping, sanding, buffing, cleaning, and bunging since minute 1 and the time has flown. Photos will follow as soon as my loving mother sends me my camera battery charger. (i left it in the bathroom. it was one of those sorts of move.) Kate and the other winter crew had torn out the entire quarter deck and replaced it, and I had the honor (and backache) of sanding it flat with a 10" buffmaster. The effect was incredible. What had been a maze of cotton cord, blue tape, and sheets of plastic became a gorgeous, honey-colored deck. Sigs is still under her winter tent, and removing that will be a bitch i'm sure, but I think we'll have help. Both Lady Maryland and Mildred Belle have been disrobed and are getting more engine/student preparedness work done by their current crews.
I spent much of today cleaning assorted steering parts with diesel fuel and a grill brush. it was dirty, stinky work, but kinda fun. Afterwards I used a bung cutter and, i shit you not, filled bung-holes. Turns out a bung is a little wooden cork that you cover in epoxy and tap into deck recesses to cover hardware. all fasteners on deck must be protected from corrosion, so they're countersunk deep into the decking slats, then covered with the same decking material. I had to try and keep the woodgrains aligned (i think that was just aesthetic, but i could be wrong) and managed to completely coat the hammer head in epoxy paste and forgot about it. i'm a big help. I just hope that when Kate gets annoyed enough to slap me that she doesn't have epoxy on her hand.
Things are going fairly well on the home front. an Australian man of indeterminate age has moved in across the hall from me--his hair is, self-described, impressively matted. when he takes his hat off the nesting pheasant clicks her beak in annoyance. He seems nice, in that cocky way Australian ex-pats tend to be. At least its someone else to talk to. The shipkeeper, a willfully ignorant and easily confused elderly Austrian lady, complains constantly and frequently tries to Jesus-ify me. I avoid her with something approaching terror. She tried to convince me that true Atheists don't really exist--"come on, you recognize some higher power--maybe not the Judeo/Christian god, but a God nonetheless--like the Force?" I could tell her Evangelical minister had suggested using this tactic to witness to the godless--to try and lure them into a false sense of security by admitting "yeah, i guess there's something out there making it all work, yeah, like the force" so that she could spring her trap by saying "God is that force!" but I replied with "no, there's no proof of any universal cohesion. Indeed, there's no proof of anything, least of all your or my existence. Its possible we're fleeting manifestations of the troubled subconscious of a fourth grader in some far off galaxy. There is no rhyme, reason, or meaning, to anything--there's no higher objective or anything in control, there's nothing causing anything to happen except the infinite circumstances that have led us to this point, and that's just fine. it gives the individual the power to make their own life, safe in the knowledge that it is universally insignificant."
That shut her up. and it was fun to spit out. I'm like a mastery-level challenge for god-botherers, and she's not even a journeyman. (It wasn't like I brought it up just to abuse her with it. She suggested I come to church with her, as I'm new to the area, so I could meet some people and have a church to go to. I reluctantly admitted that church wasn't my scene, knowing that it was opening a big heavy, spring-loaded door.)
Oy, i have a huge splinter in my finger. I think its metal. Its probably historic.
I work on a sailboat!
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2 comments:
I didn't know there were bung holes in the force.
This blog post has a grin on it, I'm glad. I'm also a little envious. I thought I liked my job but, come to think of it, I've never felt the need to exclaim "I work in Publishing!"
The words don't really roll off the tongue.
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