Just What We Needed

On Sunday I looked out at the fresh inches of snow that fell overnight. I looked back at the still warm rumpled covers on my side of the bed and thought to myself, “Now, what if we just blew them off, stayed in, and tested the durability of our couch all day today.” Unfortunately that’s been my motivation this winter.

It used to be that we’d spend entire weekends, in the freezing cold, restoring the boat. We’d fire up propane heaters, strip down to t-shirts in the heat, and work on whatever the project du jour was. I have memories of sanding every single inch of teak on the interior of the last Sabine. I have another memory of scraping off the teak decks in the new Sabine. I remember replacing entire water systems, re-wiring lights—which I discovered I am extraordinarily bad at, seeing as how the light over the galley sink no longer works and is likely shorted out. Then at the end of the day, we’d pile on our layers, put out the propane heaters (when we weren’t leaving them on until the fiberglass cured if we happened to glass that day) and head home for a shower and dinner. We’d return to work on Monday exhausted, muscles sore, but one step closer to being able to sail in the spring.

Lately we haven’t been spending weekends that way. Some of it is sheer laziness, but most of it is that we don’t have those kinds of boat projects anymore. The projects we have to do now require the work of professionals. In February, Sabine is going into the shed for a professional re-fit. She’s getting painted, woodwork getting varnished. She’s getting an anchor windlass installed so that Todd won’t have to pull up the anchor by hand anymore. Hopefully, after February our radar system will no longer be classified as “decorative” and will actually become functional as well.

On Sunday I pondered falling back into bed, and trying out a day in the life of a Labrador. (Eat, sleep, move to another spot, sleep, get a drink of water, sleep, roll over, sleep, eat, sleep.) But then I remembered we made plans to introduce on of my co-workers and his girlfriend to geocaching.

There’s nothing like introducing others to a sport to get you out of the house and invigorated again. We love taking new people sailing because it’s fun to watch them hold the wheel at the helm and wonder at the concept of being propelled by the wind. It’s fun to field their questions. “What’s that rope do?” That lifts the main sail. “What’s with the propane tank?” That’s what we use to barbeque our dinner.

On Sunday co-worker Dennis and his girlfriend Nikki tromped through the snowy forests of Podunk, RI and found three geocaches with us. We watched the dogs bound over the snow, and slip on the ice patches. We walked single file across a frozen pond, holding our breath as we wondered if any of us would fall through. We marveled at the stone foundations of old houses we spotted in the middle of the woods and speculated at their age, what the house may have looked like, and where the occupants may have gone. We found the caches, wrote in the log books, joked, laughed, and took in the fresh winter air.

Thank you Dennis and Nikki for forcing us to go outside for an entire winter day. It was just what we needed.