500 steps

That could be a rough guess at how long the path between Kintala and big water, or between Kintala and lake water for that matter, but it isn't. Five hundred steps is about the round trip walk from the boat to the marina's big trash bin, and back to the boat.

I call it my victory lap. Whenever I walk it carrying a load of removed, rejected, or replaced bits and pieces it feels like I am winning the battle of the boat.

Today I walked it with the last of the old water line. There is water on the boat, the pressure system works better than it ever has, and after a bit of a struggle there are no leaks on the pressure side...which brings me to a question.

Can anyone think of a reason that someone would take brand new barbed fittings for assembling the plumbing on an expensive, 42 foot sailboat, cut the barber part of the fitting off, and stick them in the main pressure manifold? Anyone?

I can't either, but that's what I found while tracing down various pressure leaks. (The cut-off fittings are in the trash bin with nearly 150 feet of crusty, stiff, oil soaked old hose.) I shouldn't be surprised by anything I find in boats anymore, but cut-off fittings? Are you serious?

The victory lap did come a few hours later than originally planned. Good friend Kacey insisted that we go sailing with him. He was unrelenting and so, after 2 or 3 seconds, we gave in. Four hours on the lake, occasionally running a rail under the water, hot coffee complementing the sun on a cool morning; this, friends and neighbors, is where everyone is trying to be (even if they haven't figured it out yet).  Or, as Kacey puts it, "I wonder what the rich people are doing this morning?"

We earned our victory lap this weekend.