Boat ownership is not for the faint hearted or sensible. It is always an adventure. Just like jumping out of a perfectly operational airplane or handlaunching fireworks or other things we should know better than to do.
After 6 and a half years, I am no longer terrified of my boat or all the hundreds of parts that are waiting their turn to rust out, short out, give out or fall out. Now I am only very sad when these things happen. It is not the boat's fault that I get sad. It is my inability to absorb the basic lesson that shit breaks. Boat shit breaks more. It is a life lesson that I comprehend cognitively, but not emotionally.
Those things being said, yee-fuckin haw!!! Close Enough is back on the water, having come across from the very good winter home with the good folks at J.O. Brown & Son, Inc.
The crossing was no big deal, except for the fact that my plotter blanked on me and I had to get through Ledbetter Narrows and Hurricane sound by fuzzy memory. It's way easier than I'm making it sound, I'm just trying to act big.
On the run to Matinicus from North Haven, reaching the end of Hurricane Sound is still a little thrill. The rocks are a gateway to big water and the trip home.
It was also cold. WTF, hands take turns in the pocket or on the wheel it's freaking May 12 already kind of cold. Both hands were numb by the time I got into Matinicus Harbor. I was numb earlier in the day for looking out the window and not dressing properly with ski gloves and a gortex parka.
After mooring, I did my usual wiggling of wires, connecting and unconnecting and just plain hoping for a different result on reboot. The plotter was not having it. Based on the display, it was convinced I was a few hundred yards up onto Nantucket Island.
Plotter or no, I was determined to get a couple of boatloads of gear set. That meant setting the strings which hug the shore well enough that I can find them without waypoints. At one point, rounding the corner to the back side of Tenpound Island, I looked up and realized where I was. My plotter inside was happy and spot on.
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