Some mature thoughts ………

Our project is split into phase 1 and phase II.  We are only able to move forward with our South Seas Adventure (phase II) provided that health and finances are up to the challenge.  So ……. there I was contemplating this substantive subject while installing a great little new device in the head.  Its a deodorizer, an “anti-pong” device.  Organisms grow in the raw water intake line, and after a day or two, the first flush  can be quire odouriferous to say the very least!

My kind adviser at Trotac said: “Really simple actually old chap, should only take a few minutes or to install.”  Being an optimist I walked out with the new gadget confidently tucked under my arm, assuring myself that by the noon hour it would be installed, and the odor problem would be a thing of the past.  Not so, dear readers, not so!

No installation on a boat is ever as easy as it may first appear.  This did not prove to be the exception.  The only way to mount it would be under the platform on which the toilet was bolted. I folded myself up into a small pretzel like shape, and flashlight in hand carefully examined the mounting options under that platform.  I could shine the flashlight, or I could get my left ear onto the sole to peer under ….. but not simultaneously.  So, in the most contorted position imaginable, I folded my senior-frame and resumed pretending to be a pretzel on the floor of the head.  Ahhhh, holes had to be drilled!  Unfold the pretzel and hobble to the tool bin.  Drilling completed, pretzel shape once again resumed.

New problem!  I could only see what I was doing by pressing my head to the sole.  When my head was pressed to the sole, my arm was trapped and could do no work.  What about the other arm, you may ask?  Ask on to your hearts content, dear reader! The use of that arm was totally out of the question altogether.  So, having cogitated, ruminated, considered, and otherwise exercised all other options, there was nothing for it except to work one handed and by feel only without sight. Pesky little washers and nuts!  Not one went on, without first falling into the shower sump.  Grrrrrrr.  Unfold the pretzel, pull up the shower grate, feel around in the sump, find errant nut, get turned onto my back, roll over onto my side with great difficulty, fold myself up into the pretzel position, and resume operations.

Two hours later, hoses installed after warming them with a heat gun (all double clamped because this is below the water-line) all started looking pretty skookum.

New problem!  I was unable to resume a non-pretzel position and get off the sole!  My joints screamed in protest. When I finally did slowly and gingerly gain an upright position, I had lost all feeling in the lower peripheries!  Project successful?  I guess one could say so.  But no more projects were going to be contemplated this particular day until a modicum of recovery could be gained.  Not this day!!  Not this day!!

What is the point of me relating this true encounter with maturity?  Simply this: Phase II of our project is dependent on good health and the ability to be agile enough to be a competent sailor.  Hmmmmmm.  Interesting thought.  Ah the vicissitudes of life!  More things to contemplate ……