Of Grandkids, Puzzles, Poker, and an adventure of another sort

It's been quiet here on the Retirement Project, but not because it hasn't been busy. Over the holidays we had all eleven of our grandkids here at various times with much princess dressup-ing, puzzle doing, poker playing (Grampy T's specialty and you really haven't lived till you've been beaten by a five-year-old in five card draw...), and planning for a very special adventure.

Image courtesy of Christopher Prugh

For those of you who have followed our eldest daughter and her boating family on their YouTube channel, you may already know of the pivot in their plans. The family has put the boat on the hard in Florida and has moved to Alaska where my son-in-law has been offered a job on the Alaska Marine Highway If you have the time, check out the ferry system at that link. It's a fascinating system of transportation for a lot of people for whom no roads reach their towns. The month before they left they were here for a visit and it was filled to capacity with shopping for the proper winter gear for all six of them and outfitting their Kia van for the trip from here in Saint Louis, north through Canada, and then to Anchorage, AK where they will live until they find the best permanent location in regards to the job.

Unfortunately, it turns out that the Kia wasn't up to the task of navigating the early heavy snowfall in the area and, after reaching a town west of Winnipeg, they had to turn back to Saint Louis and repack things for a flight to Anchorage instead. Once there, they will find a vehicle that can take the weather head on. (So if you know anyone looking for a partially converted camper van contact me through the blog contact form.) It was a pleasure to have all of the kids here together, but this aging grandmother was glad for the break when we dropped them off at the airport. It's an astonishing amount of work to feed teenage kids and to find sufficient winter gear for an adventure like that.

Here's their last episode on the change in plans:

Now that they are settled in Alaska and the holidays are past, our lives have reverted back to Tim's job schedule, which is a challenge in its own right. Getting up at 3:45am for a 5:00am start is no one's idea of a fun time, but his schedule has been pretty light so far so we aren't complaining.

For me, my time is now spent in pre-planning the rest of our Great Loop trip to bring the boat to Saint Louis. We hope to be able to leave for the boat mid-April and to have First Light launched in time to make the New York canal system opening May 10th. Since we all know how our plans worked out this past summer, these plans are more like guidelines—plans from which to deviate—but we'll do our best to make our goal.

Come April, First Light will have been on the hard untended for seven months and we have absolutely no idea what we'll find when we get back there. We did have our Nebo Link hooked up and powered on when we left so that we could monitor the batteries remotely, but something happened to the connection and we had to have someone turn off the breaker. It was reading 8 volts in the batteries even though the solar controller and the battery monitor were both reading 13 volts so either the unit itself failed or there's something wonky going on in the wiring to it. It's been added to the pre-departure list.

Also on the list is adding a coat of paint to the bottom and painting all the running gear with something better. The paint we used last season was not up to the task so we'll probably end up going back to Prop Speed. Tim also wants to do a little more work to the hardtop to strengthen it and there will be an endless amount of cleaning to do after it having sat on the hard that long. Two of our grandsons are planning to go with us for the first part of the trip so we'll have some extra hands to help with the launch checklist.

I admit that a lot of the silence on the blog has been because so far the winter, and being land bound, have  been tough on me. The Tiny Tot who spent so much time with us before we left for the summer grew up while we were gone and now has much more interest in computer games and movies with her siblings than in spending time with old creaky folks. It was a risk I was aware of before we left, but kids grow up and we grow old and nothing can stop it. In addition to being weary of the gray weather, I also admit that I'm still struggling with a little PTSD from the summer health events. I'll be glad when we can get back to the boat and do a little traveling. In the meantime you'll find me working on trying to get back my guitar playing hand strength, or working on my Duolingo Spanish practice, or sitting by the window working on my latest puzzle with my to-do list alongside counting the days till Spring. 

The crew of First Light wishes you all a happy and prosperous New Year.

After the storm...

Deb cranked up First Light yesterday morning and with the help of good friends we have made here in  Oriental, moved the boat about a half mile under the bridge and to a new marina. This one has floating docks so, once First Light was securely tied starboard side-to, I could get onboard using just one arm. Though less than a half mile away from the old slip, at the new one the boat rests an entirely different environment. Further from the bridge and around a bit of a corner into a small feeder creek, it is much quieter with very little fetch. The boat barely moves. All in all it is about as perfect a place to recover from the events of the last couple of days that one can imagine.

I was standing on the new dock as Deb pulled the boat in. There was no hint that this was her first time at the helm of a twin-engined trawler. Friends handled lines and helped her set fenders while I, under strict orders not to do anything dumb that would compromise my new accessory's install, didn't touch a thing. Though the boat is available, we will spend a couple of days in a hotel close to the hospital, just in case. After that, we will move back onto the boat, enjoy Oriental, and head off when this beat up old bod of mine is up to the task.

Our plans to do the Northern half of the Great Loop to St. Louis this year have, obviously, been derailed. It will be a couple of months before I can safely travel by boat as my left arm is, for all practical purposes, inoperable. The pacemaker is lodged between the muscle and skin that makes that arm go. It is vital that scar tissue forms around it and the electrical leads now imbedded in the heart muscles before I start using it for much more than scratching my nose. So I am recuperating in one of the prettiest places I have ever found in US waters. In a couple of months we will head off with the intent of taking one of the slowest passages up the ICW ever, landing in the north end of the Chesapeake Bay in the fall and putting First Light on the hard for the winter. Come spring we will pick up our journey, ending up in St. Louis sometime next year.

Messages, texts, emails, and phone calls have flooded in as news of the little episode spread, and I am deeply touched by all of the good thoughts and expressions of support. A life filled with good people is a good life. Mine is a really, really good life.

At least I can still play ukulele with the left hand!

Sunrise from the hotel this morning

Unexpected Chaos

cyborg

/ˌsaɪˈbɔrg/

noun

 a human being whose body has been taken over in whole or in part by electromechanical devices

synonyms:bionic man,

I am sitting in a hotel room after 2 nights in a hospital where I survived my very own near death experience. My heart simply stopped beating. The first attack came around 2 in the afternoon. I was laying back on the sofa on the boat after some easy buffing and polishing. A strange vertigo like haze (there are no words I know that can explain what was happening) flushed over me, instantly provoking a chaotic dream-like state too convoluted to describe. I came to with Deb shaking me and shouting my name, a look of panic on her face. I had been completely unresponsive for nearly a minute.

I came back completely disoriented, flowing with sweat, and barely able to move. Just sitting up was a long journey needing assistance. A 911 call brought help in the form of four large EMT workers who got me off the boat, into an ambulance, and to the ER a half hour drive away. It was the longest half hour I have ever endured. The vertigo-like experience was accompanied by a body-wide feeling of a brutal heart burn compounded by a feeling of complete dissociation. Every time the vehicle went around a corner or hit a bump the entire world dissolved into chaos. I had no idea what was wrong and, regardless of the multiple times I have managed to wreck myself, I don’t recall ever hurting that bad. The 911 crew was pumping in all kinds of drugs, none of which seemed to make any difference. Once in the ER, things didn’t improve much. They sat me in a chair and pushed me off to the side because they were so busy. The ride in the chair was as torturous as the ride in the ambulance. I clung onto Deb’s hand and the armrests, barely managing to stay in the seat. There was nothing but chaos and hurt. 

For what was roughly another (endless) half hour I was engaged in a relentless battle with a foe I couldn’t see and didn’t understand. After an eternity, someone finally got me on a gurney and connected up a heart monitor. The cause became apparent. My heart rate would plummet to 20 or less, the hurt and disorientation would become intense, then my heart would pick up the pace a little so I could hang on. That was what was happening. Why it was happening remained unknown. At one point my heart rate dropped to zero for more than 20 seconds. The alarms went off but no one noticed except Deb. She charged off to find help while the chaos and hurt returned to overrun the world. Somehow I struggled back from wherever it was that a heart rate of zero leaves you. But the 20 second flat line of a heartbeat was in the data file. Another eternity seemed to pass before an ER Doctor who could make some decisions saw the monitors. According to Deb he became more than a little angry and off I went to get a temporary pace maker probe installed through the right side of my neck and into my heart.

The first event on the boat happened at 2:28 pm. It was nearly 10:00 pm before I was wheeled into the Cardiac ICU, the temporary pacemaker finally bringing some relief. Over the course of the longest night ever, the device recorded having to step in to keep my heart going on at least 8 different occasions. The next morning the decision was made to implant a permanent and more sophisticated pacemaker near my left collarbone. I got out of the OR around 3:26. By 6:15 I was awake, eating, sitting up, with the chaos that had been my world collapsed back into one I recognized. And, to be fair, the care I received by the team in the Cardiac ICU was nothing short of excellent. For all of my practice, I am not a particularly good patient. But they took the best possible care of me during those initial hours of recovery. 

This afternoon I was discharged and now sit in a hotel near the hospital, just in case. The view out the window is of the river. The sky is quiet and blue.

If it had not been for the delay with the Dink motor we would have been in an isolated anchorage miles from any kind of help when the first event happened. There is little to no chance I would have survived the subsequent series of attacks. But now, except for the wounds inflicted by the temporary pacemaker wire run through the right side of my neck, the permanent install near my left collarbone, and four different places where IVs were inserted or blood was drawn, I am fine. My left shoulder is sore and it will be a few weeks before I will be allowed to lift that arm above shoulder height or reach across my torso. This is to give the pacemaker and the leads to my heart a chance to become buried in tissue and secured in place. I now fit the textbook definition of a cyborg. The thing is bluetooth enabled and can report my condition to a doctor half way across the country. It can also be adjusted as necessary. 

In the next day or so Deb and friends will move First Light from her current slip to a nearby marina that has floating docks. The move will make it possible for me to get on and off the boat over the six weeks or so I’m told it will take to fully recover. After that we will start a slow trek north with the goal of having First Light in the northern Chesapeake bay by fall. There she will go up on the hard until spring when we will splash once again to finish the trip to St. Louis. This is all very tentative but it is a good plan to start from. As the next few weeks of sitting on the boat in a beautiful place and in a quiet town we love pass, I will try to make sense of these last few days.

But I suspect that will not be possible. Nor, in a most basic way, does it matter. This is the day we have. What tomorrow will bring is mystery.

Decisions, decisions, decisions...

It has been more than a year since we purchased First Light. Having her on the hard this long was not part of the plan...not that we had much of a plan. When we left Kintala, our intent (plan if you will) was to get back on the water as soon as we could after my two year commitment to the job was over. We knew it would be in a different boat, exactly what kind still to be determined. Once we were back on the water roughly half a year would be spent cruising with the family we left behind living on their own boat. The other half would be spent here in St. Louis, enjoying the life that has unfolded here. It would be the the aquatic equivalent to the retired couple who takes to RV living, bouncing around the country to catch up with the people they love scattered across the country. It has been nearly four years since we returned to land; buying First Light was a commitment to making it back "out there."

As the months went by, we managed multiple trips to our new-to-us trawler. Trips spent (as was expected) getting the thing ready to splash. And we are getting close. But life has a way of changing things up. The family that lived on a boat now lives in Kansas. Kansas, as you might be aware, is far, far, (far) away from anything like big water. Indeed, it is about as far away as one can get from the water while living in the US of A. This required some serious rethinking about how we wanted to go about living.

Our first adventure of full time cruising meant more than half a decade of seeing the people we love most in the world just two or three times a year. Being away from growing grandkids was a heavy burden that came with the lifestyle. Until then, I had never faced that kind of heart ache. It was serious. More than once tears flowed while sitting in a beautiful anchorage, thinking of those far away. Facing the same kind of goodbyes that came with our first foray onto the water did not hold much allure. Going back to it only worked when leaving our land-based family was temporary, while the other side of the equation meant pulling up to our water based family and dropping anchor next to them. 

Then again, even with the heart ache, and having no family to meet "out there," being land locked for the rest of our lives doesn't hold much allure either. So the long debates started. What do do with First Light, how to make this work? How to balance being drawn in two opposite directions? How to be with family and still satisfy the wanderlust that resides deep in both our our souls? 

It was always assumed that, when our return to full time cruising no longer made sense, First Light would end up on a dock not too far from St. Louis. So, a few weeks ago and still not knowing what the short term plan might be, we did some looking at the long term. A weekend spent scoping out the marinas along the rivers surrounding St. Louis ended in Alton, IL. After a little bit of debate we decided that Alton would, eventually, be First Light's semipermanent home. It is within easy reach of our land side St. Louis home. There are rivers to explore with places to anchor out for long weekends. And there is a massive lake just a day or two's journey way. We could, when we felt like it, just spend time on First Light while on the dock, living the boat life and heading out for an adventure whenever we felt the need. First Light will become our (floating) cabin out in the woods. But between now and then? No real clue.

Things putter along as things tend to do. We set tentative plans to depart sometime late this year, literally within the next several weeks. The thought was we would take First Light to the Islands one more time, then bounce around for a while. Eventually we would head back to the States, wander around the Keys, along the West coast of Florida, and up the rivers, and end up back in St. Louis. We would be doing the bottom half of the great loop, only going backwards and against the current. Once in St. Louis we would take up our no-longer-full-time-cruisers lifestyle. But there was one little hitch in that plan. What to do with me after we settled in? 

We have survived these last few years on land because of a few very fortunate breaks. The first was that of ending up in a perfect living arrangement. A small apartment literally just yards aways from family we love and deeply missed during our years on Kintala fit our minimalist lifestyle. And second, I ended up at a job that is interesting, basically painless (unusual for jobs in my experience) and pays pretty well. That last is important for two reasons. The first is, not to put too fine a point on it, the world is a seriously screwed up place at the moment. Having options because we also have resources available just feels like the smart thing to do. And the second? Deb is pretty sure (and I happen to agree) that me being land locked without something like work to keep me occupied and challenged, would be...shall we say, difficult? As someone once said, "Getting married is for better or worse, but not for lunch." 

The logical choice, at least for a while, would be for me to keep working after our return. Queries at the shop suggest that a leave of absence is possible, leaving me something to do to keep from driving Deb crazy when we get back. But for reasons I can't explain, the impending departure was making me very uncomfortable. Something just didn't feel right about the plan, but it was all we had. 

We had considered a second option, with the same approximate departure date. It had us heading north rather than south. We had not had Kintala in the Chesapeake Bay for the last couple of years of cruising. It is a place we both enjoyed. Putting around it in a trawler would be a lot of fun. We have family there we haven't seen in a long time. There was some thought of making the bay First Light's permanent playground. But it is a long drive from St. Louis and what to do during the winter was a complete blank. That plan was quickly dismissed. Having First Light in the Chesapeake full time would simply not work. Back to plan “A."

While at the shop this week, I checked with the powers-that-be about the leave of absence. There is such a shortage of airplane drivers in our part of the world that instructors are getting very hard to keep, so the shop is pretty accommodating. They will be willing to hold my job and have me back as long as I would be back, full time, in just a few months. But I did need to give them a date as soon as possible. Scheduling clients, instructors, classes, recurrent training, and available equipment is the constant nightmare of this kind of operation. Just as I was about to tell them mid December until late spring time frame when I got a text from Deb suggesting I not give them a date. A possible third option was on the table. 

Burgee for America's Great Loop
Cruiser's Association

Don't go south in the winter, go north in the spring. Do the top half of the Great Loop in the right direction, with the current behind us. A plan similar to plan “A”, but with some attractive differences.

The north half of the Great Loop is territory we have never explored. It would be a new adventure. The Islands and bits of Florida that we love have all been hammered by Mother Earth since we came ashore. Maybe we experienced them at their peak and it would be best to remember them as they were. Moreover, big as she is, First Light isn't really a big water boat. Sure she could make the Islands easy enough, and work between them.  But, truth to tell, the ICW, rivers, and bays, are likely places where she (and we) will feel more at home. Also, I am happy with the idea of there always being being a land route between us and the family, one with no international borders to be crossed. And the best part of the plan? Grand kids can (if they want) come and go, meeting us at different ports of call, traveling with us for a while, and then heading back home with little difficulty. If there are no grand kids on the water to take First Light to, have the grand kids come over land to First Light.

Maybe our home for a few months?

  

This has become the new plan, and it feels right. The next trip east we plan on splashing First Light. She will take up a dock in (we think) Oriental until spring. We will use up virtually every vacation day I have to travel east and take her out to strut her stuff. But there would still be an income to cover whatever issues might come to light once her system are put to work once again. Come spring we will take that leave of absence and head north up the ICW, becoming part of the cruiser migration one more time. But, once north, we will turn into half-loopers, ending up at the dock in Alton. I'll head back to the shop and we will settle into the next chapter of our lives. Who knows, maybe some day we will head south again, cross our looper's wake, and see what might come next.

So that is the plan...for now.

Oriental Harbor Sunset

 

Plans, and the lack thereof...

Kintala is well into her second month of riding to the same mooring ball in Beaufort, SC. This wasn’t really part of the plan when we left Tampa Bay. Then again, the only real plan we had when we left Tampa Bay was to rendezvous with Blowin’ In The Wind and keep going north. It took longer than anticipated to meet up and we didn’t really manage that until we got here, already a good bit north of where we started. And, from here, we had a plan to visit St. Louis for a couple of weeks. It was a great trip full of fun and laughter, including a day spent in a climbing gym belaying grand kids up and down a 50 foot climbing wall. How cool is that? Deb and I even made a couple of our own climbs, belaying each other. The people who run the gym went out of their way to make it a good day.

When we left Tampa Bay I had thoughts of aiming for the Chesapeake Bay.  It has been a while since we cruised those waters and I like the place. And though not perfectly safe from hurricanes, it is still far less likely to get blasted than places further south. I used to think, compared to places south, that it was cooler up there as well, And it is, for part of the year anyway. Right now spot checks of the weather suggest this summer in Baltimore has not been appreciably more bearable in the heat department than Beaufort. In fact the rumors are that the Chesapeake is a bit of a rough go at the moment. Constant rainfall, a flood of debris, and a bumper crop of biting insects have taken some of the fun out of living on the water there.

It is impossible to say what the hurricane season will turn out to be like. So far the Atlantic has been quiet. The Pacific, on the other hand, appears to running a hurricane production line at full speed. I can’t decide if that is a good omen for this coast, or a bad one. But Beaufort, SC might not be a bad place to be either way. We are miles up the river from the sound and more than 10 miles inland from the coast. We asked the people at the marina where the locals take their boats when a hurricane comes. We were told they bring them here, to this marina. Apparently they have never lost a boat off of one of the mooring balls or at the dock. Our hurricane plan might consist of nothing more than stripping the boats, adding multiple lines to secure them to the balls come what may, and getting inland another 50 miles or so. Better, perhaps, than we could do if caught flat-footed at the mouth of the Chesapeake.

Blowin' in the Wind on the ball to our stern

So maybe this is a far north as we are going to get this year. The weather is bearable and, on some days, down right pleasant. The thunderstorms have been far less threatening than those in Biscayne Bay and often come late in the afternoon. Giant air conditioning systems that cool the boats and the air, hide the sun for the worst part of the afternoon, and offer up a good night’s sleep. Surprisingly, though there are marshes all around, insects have been a non issue on the boat. Expect to get nibbled on a bit if in the park as the sun goes down, but that is about it.

One downside to this place is just how fast stuff grows on anything that sits in the water. The Ding really needs cleaned about every two weeks. I cringe at the thought of laying to an anchor and 100 feet of chain. What a mess that would be to get on board when it comes time to move on. The cost of the mooring ball is (almost) worth not having to deal with that. The good news is that the dive service that works the marina and mooring field is a first rate operation. They charge by the hour which sounds a bit scary at first. But they are honest about the time it takes to do the job right. The charge is less for those on the dock. (There is a long waiting list for a full time dock.)

Another downside is the current that flows though here, first one way, then the other, for most of the day. New and Full moon tidal ranges are impressive. If yours is a rowing dink, expect a good workout. Blowin’ In The Wind has a sailing dink. The other day Grandson Eldest and I took it out in light winds and full current. At first we made couple of hundred feet of headway against the flow. The winds eased just a bit and the best we could do was hold station. The winds eased a bit more and we needed to call the Mother Ship to tow us away from the marina docks. The Merc had its little, 3.5 horsepower hands full, pulling both boats home.\



For now we are less cruisers and more live-a-boards…again. That will likely change…again. We just don’t have a plan for when.