Back on your heads!

Avast!

It is I, your intrepid heroine, returned from another week in Rockland! After taking a (very) long shower, eating some lunch and acting as cat furniture for a little while (my cat missed me) it's story time once again. Today, let's talk about the word, "schooner." The first schooner was built in 1642 in order to more effectively hunt the elusive schoon. A distant cousin of the snipe, the schoon was an agile marine mammal renowned for it's soft chartruse-hued fur. Unfortunately, due to many factors including the effectiveness of the schooner as schoon-hunting vehicle, water pollution, lack of schoon-industry regulation, dutch schoon disease and the popularity of chartruse in the fall collections of Paris designers in 1709, the schoon was declared extinct in 1740. The schooner, however, continued to be a useful boat for more pedestrian pursuits such as smuggling, blockade running, privateering and oyster fishing.

Okay, maybe not, but I like my version. In all honesty, the process of educating myself on all things nautical is going slowly. There's a lot to learn, and I'd say that if there was a list of Things One Must Know In Order Not To Look Like A Flippin' Idiot On Your Schooner, I'd know about 5% of the items on said list at the moment. (side note: if anyone has such a list, email it to me. please.) But when I get really frustrated, I remind myself of a few things:

1. This stuff is confusing. For example- a bowline (BO-lihn) is a knot. a bowline (BAU-line) is a line, which is a rope, but don't call it that. There is a different name for every scrap of wood, metal, canvas or rope (but remember, don't call it a rope, it's a line) on the entire boat and none of them make sense. Even worse, nothing is spelled like it sounds, so translating between written resources and spoken directions is difficult. Folks'll make fun of you if you pronounce "forecastle" wrong. Trust me.

2. I've been working my butt off. I haven't had much time to study anything in my off hours, because there simply aren't many of them. There's just so much stuff to be done to get ready on schedule that there isn't much spare time for education. I clean things. I sand things. I paint things. I try to remember the names of the things that I clean, sand and paint.

So all in all, I think I'm doing alright.

The fun project of the week did (of course) involve sanding and painting, but I was at least out sanding and painting the bowsprit and jib boom (long pointy nose thing on the front of the boat.) Weilding my orbital sander like a conductor with her baton, I danced blithely over chains and wires, seemingly supported by only the air itself, or perched like a figurehead of yore, restoring the appearance of my proud vessel to mint condition.

Okay, there I go with the romantic embellishments again. More accurately, I spent a great deal of hours crouched, clinging to the chains like a nautical dingleberry, realizing that not only is our bowsprit a huge pain in the ass to sand and paint, but that many people before me have realized this and thus half-assed (or in some cases quarter-assed or even sixteenth-assed) the sanding and painting, making my job much much harder. To my credit, though, it looks nicer now than it has in awhile.

I'm starting to feel like I'm actually making progress in terms of getting into shape. I don't like to weigh myself, but I feel more energetic and a tiny bit less flabby. I'm going to start rowing (at 6AM! Gah!) a few times a week starting next week- that should be tough, but definitely worth it. I have an actual suntan for the first time in years. I promise I'll post photographic evidence soon for those of you (hi Sean!) who didn't believe I was even capable of such a thing. Apparently I don't burst into flame and turn into a pile of ash when exposed to sunlight!