‘Wait and see if it goes away’

It is so gratifying to turn the key for the motor, press the preheat button for 20 seconds, then barely get my finger into the start button before the engine sings ‘Well it’s about time.. I thought you might have forgotten about me! Are we going? Are we going?’ Every spring after months of disuse, there is always a pang of concern that I wintered the motor correctly, and that I am going to find a new big problem I hadn’t anticipated. Fortunately everyone from the dock was there to witness my amazing engine.

The beginning of March I got word from Captain Rob (the Harbor Master) that I was going to have to move Ivy to make room for the S/V Hawaiian Chieftain, that was due March 18^th. I had been tied up north-south on the outside, which was a little exposed to northerlies, but typically a comfortable moorage. I had to relocate inside now moored east-west exposed to the south, and being that most storms blow up from the south, this has proved a bit less friendly. Oh well Winter is fading and Summer is showing, so I guess I can live with it for a month or so.

The S/V Hawaiian Chieftain made port right on time, was a beautiful day to see her come in. Unfortunately on her way from Crescent City she picked up a couple crab pots, and had a difficult time maneuvering with the starboard screw seized and the port fouled, but eventually they tied up to a dockload of tourists, all getting in the way. I had seen both the S/V Hawaiian Chieftain and the S/V Lady Washington in Everett just prior to leaving last year, but Everett is a big marina and the ships drew big crowds, so I more or less stayed clear of them. It wasn’t going to be that easy this time as Hawaiian Chieftain was less then ten feet from my Ivy. Everyday at dawn the dock was cluttered with noisy people and their kids and cameras. I must confess to being a bit of a bah-humbug, but this was my world they were invading, I had my routine down, and I didn’t care for the intrusion.

John (S/V Morning Light) and I had breakfast with Andrew the skipper Sunday morning at a little dive called the Blue Moon. Turns out Andrew has an Irwin 33, so we immediately fell into heavy sail talk. I think Andrew was just as happy to find people he could relate to as fellow sailors as we were to find another to argue the merits of the Rocna anchor over a CQR. A surprising week of good weather for the tours and day sails and the S/V Hawaiian Chieftain was off again, this time headed up to Newport.

In the mean time on Ivy I had been dealing with a few other situations. First, my laptop had been acting very unprofessionally. I would go out for a walk and come back only to find it turned off, when I know I had left it running; also the keyboard would get very warm, so I kind of knew what was about. Ivy is a very dusty boat down below, and I knew that the CPU fan was probably all clogged up, causing the video card and CPU to overheat. The problem with this diagnosis is, I didn’t want that to be, as it meant opening up the case, dealing with all those ridiculously small screws, and carefully detaching ribbon after ribbon until I got to the motherboard. Well, after putting it off far too long, that’s what I did, and that was the situation. I cleaned it out, put some fresh thermal paste on the heat-sink and put it all back together, only losing two screws and breaking one wire to the wifi card (better then I thought I’d do, believe me). Too little, too late.. I had put it off too long, and damaged the CPU. It certainly ran better than before, but now developed this insubordination that when I launched Firefox, the screen seemed to glare back at me as if to say ‘open it yourself ya bastard’.

All in all, two years is what I seem to get out of a computer, and I was coming up on that mark, so it was time to reach into the pockets and make my sacrifice to the digital gods. I generally buy the cheapest technology I can get away with, as this allows me to refresh often and stay more or less current. What I found was a new 2.2ghz dual core, with 3gb ram for $350, not the sweetest deal I have ever got, but pretty good considering I was in a hurry. Unfortunately it is running Windows 7, so I am going kicking and screaming into 64bit.

The second issue is with Ivy’s crew. I have for the last several months had some discomfort in my abdomen. You know that sharp, sudden, gut wrenching pain that alerts you that something is serious and better be taken care of immediately? That’s not what this was at all, I would hardly call it a pain or even discomfort, just a weird gnawing. Well after trying the ‘wait and see if it goes away’ technique that worked so well on my computer, I thought a visit to a Doctor might not go a miss. Four Doctor visits, an X-Ray and an Ultrasound, about the best they can give me is “umm.. it looks like you might have sludgy bile in your gallbladder”. Well.. I NEVER! How can you possibly defend yourself against such a criticism? The next step would be exploratory surgery, and being without health insurance, let’s just say that is going to be near the bottom on my list of next steps. So it’s back to ‘wait and see if it goes away’. If I can just make it to Mexico without it getting any worse I will be better able to afford whatever treatment there, without seriously bruising the cruising kitty.

I debated long about mentioning this health issue in this blog; but the reality of it is, these are the kind of problems and decisions one has to make out here on the raggedy edge. Not that I want to get political here, but I cannot get affordable health insurance inside the US. Once I leave US waters I will be able to afford good coverage, from a US insurance company, how screwy is that?

Randy

S/V Ivy

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