November 23 to December 12 -- Two Very Short Work Days (6.5 Hours for a Dozen Small Tasks) and two Other Days

During a five day visit in San Diego with Lene's family for Thanksgiving, I got to the Art museum while they went to the Zoo. A good museum with well trained guards who know the collection, but on the first of the two floors, the only one that I roamed, there was no material boat art except this one,

an oil by Stuart Davis in 1932 called Composition with Boats. The placard said the Gloucester shoreline is in the picture. Really? But it is pretty as an abstraction.








Another intriguing sculpture was constructed of bent ash wood boards and I had to explain to the docent how a steambox works and that the screws were under the bungs.

The second Other day was a meeting of the New York Map Society. It was what they call a "Show and Tell" in which members bring in and speak for six minutes (well many presentations took  a bit longer) on maps of their choosing. Included was a book showing the route of the Third Avenue El, heavily illustrated with 1950's color photos of the buildings in the neighborhoods it passed through; a 1600's map of Lithuania; one from the same period of England's Sherwood Forest (home of Robin Hood); maps drawn by Aaron Burr's brother; one from 1871 showing the extent of the German intrusion into France in the Franco-Prussian war; one outlining parks and major roads of Jersey City which was filled in by many residents marking the places where they lived worked and played; a map of Manhattan showing the location of the sports bars where fans of each particular NFL team could cheer for their team on TV; one showing the location and layout of the various Burning Man Festivals out west; and my contribution: a chart of Turks and Caicos 2004, showing our track across that island nation in March-April 2012 (as described in this blog). I'm apparently the only member who neither collects, sells nor creates charts and described myself as a "lover and user," and they liked my presentation.

The work was only 6.5 hours, half at home and half on the boat: I checked and pumped the bilge after having been away for two weeks, put a bit more charge in the batteries, found a cat comb that Lene wanted, checked the anti chafing padding, took a picture of the rod where the cockpit table hangs

amidst several emails refining the design of the new canvas bag to cover the cockpit table, located and removed the brackets holding the MOM-8 to the rail so I could get a replacement for the one that broke (frustrated that Landfall Navigation will only sell me a set of eight of them but they gave me the number of Switlik, the manufacturer, and if they won't please their customer, I'll get it used),

measured the diameter of the blue spinnaker halyard for replacement, sanded the teak and gathered the varnish, brush and thinner needed to finish the pieces, used the Dremel to grind a point of the stub of the broken marlinspike, bought a new ice pick and better indoor portable LED boat lighting.

All just little things that need to get done and by starting early ILENE should be ready for spring.