Mike Jastrzebski's Blog, page 40

Hey, where did the island go?

Everyone cheers as the tanker arrives at Green Turtle Cay

by Christine Kling

I was running the engine last night for about an hour to charge my batteries. When I climbed out into the cockpit to shut her down, I looked off to port and thought, “Hey, where did the island go?” The water all around me was pitch black. I looked up and saw millions of stars and the Milky Way spreading out across the sky like butter on black bread.

And it was quiet. There was no wailing from the Gully Roosters playing their Thursday night gig at Lizard’s, and Sundowners wasn’t yet throbbing with their beats. Once again, the power’s out in paradise.

This is not an unusual occurrence.

When you live over there in what Troy at Dive Guana refers to as “the great big shopping mall to the west,” you are accustomed to stuff working. The infrastructure is big and strong and like a great Big Daddy it promises to take care of you. When it does get broken, though, it also takes a lot longer to fix everything. Hey, just ask C.E. how the Jersey coast is doing eight months after Hurricane Sandy.

Here in the islands, the infrastructure is more like a net. It’s strong, but there are also plenty of holes in it, and one learns to adapt. When I arrived here in Green Turtle a week ago, I knew that I was going to be needing outboard gas soon. What I  hadn’t counted on, though was the Lionfish fishing tournament had recently finished and all those fishing boats with two and three humongous outboards across the back had sucked the island dry. There was no gas anywhere. So you adapt. While I had anchored in a nice spot well away from land and the accompanying mosquitos and late night music, I upped the anchor and reset close in to the main town wharf and dinghy dock. If the outboard quit, I didn’t want to end up trying to row upwind in 20 knots.

Another thing one gets used to when living on that big continent to the west is cheap and plentiful produce. In Marsh Harbor with the new Maxwell’s grocery store, the Abacos have achieved the plentiful part, thanks to the airport and bigger shipping port, but out here in the smaller islands, the produce section of most grocery stores is still about two shelves in a front opening cooler.

Yesterday, in addition to the tanker, we also had the arrival of the weekly freighter. I knew that meant the stores would be stocked up, so in the afternoon, I took the Yorkshire Terror ashore for his afternoon walk and went salad shopping. I paid $4.50 for the bag of 3 heads of romaine lettuce, $4.00 for an avocado and $6.50 for a bag of grapes.

But I had to charge it because I am also out of cash and I was too late for the bank. They were already leaving on the afternoon ferry and they won’t be back until Monday. There is a bank building here, but no ATM and it only opens when the staff comes over from Great Abaco on the ferry. There is no armored truck – just one Bahamian policeman carrying the bag of loot.

While I’ve been here, though, I’ve had lots of conversation with local people about hurricanes. These islands have been struck hard these past two years by Irene in 2011 and Sandy in 2012.But when you look around at these old wooden houses, you see almost no damage. Yes, there are a few places that are boarded up, but it’s amazing how few there are. There is a sign over the door of Sundowners Bar and Restaurant that lets you know what they thought about Hurricane Irene. One gentleman told me that he had offered a room in his home in Hopetown to a reporter from the Weather Channel during Hurricane Irene. The guy was really disappointed that there was so little for him to film. He was looking for damage – roofs blown off or smashed boats and he kept venturing out into the storm, but he found nothing. Finally, he got hold of a guy sitting in a bar on Guana Cay who, via telephone, was telling him about all the damage over there. The reporter was ecstatic, until he hung up and the Hopetwn guy told him he’d been talking to a local bar fly who was drunk and he’d made up the whole thing. Not surpassingly, the Weather Channel didn’t send anyone to the Abacos during Sandy.

And while the power goes out regularly here, after most hurricanes, it’s back on within 3-4 days. I can tell you, that’s waaay better than what Florida managed after Wilma.

So, as the island gets ready for the 38th annual  Abaco Race Week starting next week here in Green Turtle Cay, I’m also starting to think about my trip home right afterwards. I have lots of boat chores to do to prepare for the trip, but in the meantime, this morning, I am going to REALLY enjoy my precious grapes for breakfast.

Fair winds!

Christine

Share on Facebook

Sometimes progress isn’t pretty…

C.E. Grundler

Theoretically, we’re moving forward on the timeline to launch. I truly want to believe that, and somewhere in my mind I know work is actually progressing, though sometimes it’s hard to tell. Drying out wet deck cores isn’t a pretty process, and while the present heat wave we’re riding out is helping things along, the oppressive humidity makes fiberglass work both difficult and even more unpleasant than usual.

The plan for this week was to finish drying out and then seal up the forward and side decks. The teak planks came up weeks ago, revealing the fiberglass below, and we’d drilled out every single screw hole, which showed us where water had reached the teak lumber coring. Fortunately, unlike the bridge, there were actually large areas that had remained dry. In other spots, there was moderate dampness, but days of intense heating and forced ventilation have dried those sections out.

Those halogen shop lights throw a lot of heat. Get eight of them going and the decks are hotter than a car’s hood in July… hot enough to quite effectively heat my lunch by simply laying it on deck.  I’d add more lights, only I keep tripping the fuses in the shed as it is.  But in some spots, drying the core called for a more — shall we say — aggressive approach.

Once the moisture meter shows this area is more wood than water, that deck can go back down, we can fill the thousands of holes, then glass the whole thing up. And that pretty much sums it up for the moment. If all goes as planned, (yeah, knock on wood) next week I’m hoping to have some prettier, or at least less disturbing pictures to show everyone. And I can go back to heating my lunch in the toaster oven.

Share on Facebook

On the road again

By Mike Jastrzebski

We’ve been back to the States for two weeks now and we’re in Paducah Kentucky on our way to Minnesota to see the grand kids.

Right now I’m not quite sure which is harder, driving across country or sailing across the Gulf  Stream. Okay, crossing the stream was more rigorous, but driving 500 miles a day for three plus days is a bit hard on the back. I think this trip has convinced us that if we sell the boat we don’t want to get an RV.

As we’re driving we’ve been listening to the Killing Floor by Lee Child. I read the book years ago but I read so many books that I’d forgotten the plot. I’d also forgotten what a good writer he is. Mary and I have both been enjoying the book and it’s made this trip much more enjoyable.

We hope to arrive at my son’s house Tuesday afternoon. I have to admit that I’m looking forward to seeing the family, but I’m also looking forward to beginning the rewrite of the new Wes Darling book, Stranded Naked Blues, which I plan to work on in the mornings while we’re in Minnesota. If all goes as planned I hope to have the book ready for publication before Christmas.

Share on Facebook

Some high tech writing tools that save me

The Macro Timeline for Dragon’s Triangle

by Christine Kling

I am really bad at math. Numbers just won’t stick in my brain. They don’t like me. That is one more reason why it is crazy for me to try to write historical novels. Yet that is exactly what I am trying to do.

Yes, see, I’m currently in that middle part of a book. I’m in that head space where I hate the book, and I’m certain it’s the worst thing I’ve ever written. All you writers out there will know what I am talking about. It happens with every book.

Numbers aren’t the only things I can’t seem to remember. People’s names. Exotic place names. And yet here I am trying to write this big complicated story that covers more than 70 years and three generations and it takes place in Thailand and the Philippines where they have place names like the Hualamphong train station or the town of Tuguegarao.

One reason I am such a slow writer is because I can’t remember all this stuff and I have to devise systems to help me remember my story – especially in the beginning. See, I can’t even remember what I’ve written from one day to the next. It feels like all these complex details are just too much to hold in my head at once. I think about my story even when I’m not writing it, and sometimes I can’t remember whether I’ve already said something or just thought about it.

To help me keep my historical dates and plot timelines accurate, I use timelines. For each book I have a macro timeline that looks at the whole historical picture and a micro timeline that only concerns the events that happen in the modern story. Now, though, as I am writing a second book that takes place several years after the first, even that micro timeline covers quite a lot of time. Currently, I’m using a Mac program called Timeline 3D, but I just purchased a new one titled Aeon Timeline that might work better for me. I like the sort of outline mode one has for viewing the timelines in this new program. Timeline 3D is targeted at the education market. It is designed to be visual and they can be printed out and displayed on a classroom wall, but it’s getting very difficult to look at my huge documents on a screen.

Another system I have devised that should help me and my editor when I finally finish this book and start the revision process is what I am calling my style sheet. In Scrivener, the writing and editing software I use to compose my novels, I can keep my style sheet open as a floating Quick Reference page.  This enables me to do a quick check on place names, character names, boat names (I have lots of those in my books), and some special objects or language that I may have introduced. For example, this new book, Dragons Triangle, deals with something called a Tibetan prayer gau. It is an object. I refer to it many times throughout the manuscript, and I need to make certain I am consistent with spelling, capitalization and italics. My style sheet is already several pages long, but it beats trying to do a search through the manuscript for a place name I’ve forgotten how to spell.

The last system that works well for me involves my iPad. I use the navigation application iNavX to plot out the movement of my story on the nautical charts. I have waypoints and routes for all the places my characters go in their boats. The program helps me to calculate how long these trips would take at the speeds their vessels can travel. And because I have two story lines – one that takes place during World War II aboard various ships and another that happens in 2012 aboard a trawler and a sailboat, I have lots of voyages to keep track of.

I don’t know if I would be able to write these kinds of stories if I were back in the days of yellow legal pads, notecards and paper charts. I know it would take me even longer than it does now, and I probably wouldn’t live long enough to write the third book in this trilogy. I’d try to calculate just how long it would take me, but given that it’s a sunny morning and I’m anchored here off Green Turtle Cay in the Abacos, I figure why ruin a gorgeous day? See, that would require me to do some math.

 

Fair winds!

Christine

Share on Facebook

Three weeks?

C.E. Grundler

That’s the date we’re shooting for. There’s no way we’ll have the decks sealed by the upcoming full moon, a moon tide is vital when you consider Annabel Lee’s draft and the shallow basin we’ll be leaving. So it’s the upcoming following new moon, which sets us in early July. And along that timeline, I’m currently in ‘work like mad to finish as much as possible before the splash’ mode. Really, truly, I do hope that once we’re afloat life might settle to a more sedate pace, but that hasn’t happened yet. And right now, most anything I’d take a picture of looks too horrifying for words, with the exception of this…

 

Yes, there are still fuel and electrical lines to be sorted out, and a beautifully repainted manifold to go on, coolers, hoses, and more, but all the same, it’s looking good for a 35 year old diesel, and I’m fairly certain Annabel Lee will have one of the prettiest engines around.

Share on Facebook

Splash-time

by John Urban

After a number of spring weekends and late weekday nights, good old Factor X is ready for the water. It’s splash-time. She was built in 1945 and she’ll be heading out of the shed looking as good as new – assuming you are standing afar on a low-lit cloudy day.

Actually, she looks pretty good and as the prep-work concludes, it’s time to step back and reflect. In considering my observations, please recognize that I am exhausted from months of physical labor and am drug-induced by various marine paints and chemical solvents. Nevertheless, here is a wooden boat owner’s stream of thought on the day of launching:

1. Screw top wine bottles shouldn’t be allowed aboard wooden boats – you never know when you might need one of those little corks to plug up a leak.

2. Varnish is designed to protect wood from water, sun, and salt. Don’t worry about drips, sags, scratches, high spots, and embedded brush bristles because they in no way undermine the protective purpose of varnishing.

3. Poor woodworking craftsmanship is revealed by scratches and gouges, but when you do the work yourself it’s more appropriate to see these as… character marks.

4. Polished bronze may be a nice look to some, but a seasoned boater knows that bronze hardware reaches its proper patina only after years of carefully managed neglect.

5. A professional shipwright measures twice and cuts once. The rest of us keep large containers of epoxy, filler, and wood glue handy at all times.

6. Perhaps the best advertising campaign in the history of boating featured Dick Fisher and the unsinkable Boston Whaler. I wonder how many leaky wooden boats Fisher owned before he and Ray Hunt developed the Whaler.

(An early Dick Fisher Ad – the unsinkable Boston Whaler)

7. Imagine being a Boston Whaler salesman back then. For the first time people would have no caulking, no leaks, no sinking, no painting…it was probably easier than selling iPhones.

8. Getting back to the drips, sags, and high spots on the varnish. Jackson Pollack spent lots of time on the East End of Long Island. I wonder what his boat looked like.

(Jackson Pollack – now there’s inspiration for a novel varnishing technique)

9. If a boat slips from the travel lift as it’s being launched and the owner is nowhere in sight, will anyone hear it crash as it falls to the ground?

10. There’s an adage out there that goes something like: If God wanted us to sail fiberglass boats, he would have made fiberglass trees. This is a relevant question. I mean, am I alone in noticing those composite construction trees that are popping up alongside highways? And they must be God’s work because that happens to be one of the few places where I consistently get four bars on my cell phone.

Share on Facebook

Help! A review is killing me . . . well, kind of . . .

My newest Mick Murphy Key West Mystery, To Beat the Devil, has been selling well and the reviews on Amazon are positive, all but one that is. So, why does the one negative review continue to bother me? It’s not a bad review, it’s a nasty review and has drawn a few comments from people who disagree with the review. They are supporting my book, but still it bothers me.

It seems, he finds the idea of a conspiracy between government agencies a farce and he mentions snipers as if they were part of the story. I do mention that the local cops may put snipers out there and let it go at that, but it seemed to distract this reader from the book’s other 360 pages.

I have to assume that the reviewer does little besides read books. If he bothered to watch TV news or read newspapers, he would be aware that government agencies are practicing, on a daily basis, much more than my plot indicates and that’s within our borders. If the idea that a handful of rogue government employees wouldn’t put their interests above the safety and lives of common citizen, seems conspiratorial, he needs to catch up on the real word – and I ain’t talking about a dumb TV reality show!

I have good reviews that should comfort me, but the one bitching and complaining is what has stuck in my craw. It’s not as if I read the review and became aware of a mistake. No, it’s a nasty review by someone who must receive enjoyment out of bitching.

My wife and friends tell me it’s because I want everyone to like my books. True, but I know that’s not realistic and won’t happen.

Okay, all you couch shrinks out there, what is my problem and how do I let go of this horse’s butt? You know, it’s kind of like getting a song you really don’t like stuck in your head all day long and you don’t know why or how to get rid of it.

Help!

Share on Facebook

Back in the USA

By Mike Jastrzebski

It’s good to be home, which for us is now Harbortown Marina on Merritt Island. We spent the first couple of days back catching up with friends, including Tim and JoAnne  from Ex-Patriot and Scott and Susan from Isadora. We met both couples last year when we first came to Harbortown and we happened to run into both couples while we were in Marsh Harbor in the Abacos.

In the last couple of days we’ve pulled down our sails and found a storage locker. Today or tomorrow we plan to clean and deflate the dinghy and put that in the storage locker too. We’re doing everything we can to prepare for the possibility of a hurricane so that we don’t have to do everything in the last minutes before evacuating from a storm.

Also, we plan on taking a road trip to Minnesota. We want to see the grandkids, but I guess you could also say we need a vacation from our Bahamas vacation. After living at anchor on a thirty-six foot boat for 4 1/2 months we’re going a little stir crazy.

It’s surprising how many things we missed while living in the Bahamas. Hot showers with unlimited water, grocery stores that don’t charge $40.00 a bag, reasonably priced restaurants, hell I’ve even discovered that I missed WalMart. And let’s not forget TV, dependable internet, and unlimited electricity.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, just relaying the facts. Now I just have to get back into writing mode and we’ll be all set.

Share on Facebook

Happiness in Hopetown

by Christine Kling

It’s not everyday you meet some folks in a beach bar and get invited to their wedding less than a week later, but that is how things go here in Abaco.

A week ago, I was anchored off Lynyard Cay when a boat came in that was smaller than mine! It doesn’t happen very often. I pulled out the binoculars and read the name on the side New Girl on the Dock. The next day I moved inside Little Harbor and that night we had a fierce squall blow through. I got up to close hatches and make certain all was well, and I noticed New Girl had a very bright deck light on at 3:00 a.m. and they were on a mooring close to mine. I hadn’t seen them there when I went to bed, and I wondered if they had come through that narrow entrance in the dark.

On Saturday when I went ashore for the Pete’s Pub Labor Day Pig Roast, and I was looking for a place to sit, a friendly voice called out, “Hi neighbor!” It was the crew from New Girl on the Dock. Mark and Shawnae introduced themselves and I learned they are from Kalispell Montana and cruising aboard their Catalina 27 that they trailered down from Montana and launched in Fort Lauderdale. Kudos to them for their guts and courage to sail across the Gulf Stream and explore the Bahamas in a trailer-sailer with an outboard for auxiliary power! I got to hear their story about how they ended up on their mooring —their anchor had dragged in the squall, but they managed to snag that mooring which is not an easy thing to do in the pitch dark when it’s pouring rain.

We had fun chatting and in the upcoming days, I gave them a fishing lure  someone had given me (Montana – fish crazy? It figures), and a copy of Circle of Bones, and then after we both arrived in Hopetown, they gave me two fresh-caught fillets from a mutton snapper they’d hooked while trolling up from Little Harbor. Then one afternoon when I thought they were just stopping by to say hello to Barney, they told me they had decided to get married the next day, and they invited me to the wedding. They’d hired Vernon Malone, from Vernon’s Grocery and UpperCrust Bakery, who it turns out is also a minister at the local Methodist Church and presides over weddings and funerals. Vernon is a direct descendant of Wyannie Malone, one of the original settlers of Hopetown.

So that is how I came to take the photos here and got to be part of the joyous celebration that joined these two in matrimony. Shawnae was a beautiful bikini-clad bride with flowers in her hair and Mark was a handsome groom whose eyes grew moist with joy as Vernon read some wise words about marriage. It was a lovely ceremony.

I’ve always loved Hopetown, but now forevermore, I’m going to remember this place as a place of happiness. You know what, even the Yorkshire Terror was on his best behavior here and though I thought it best not to bring him to the wedding, he did get to enjoy his walks round the town.

Fair winds!

Christine

Share on Facebook

What I’ve been up to…

C.E. Grundler

I know. I haven’t been around much lately, internet-wise. In fact, I must apologize, as last Thursday came and went before I even realized, which pretty much sums up my state of existence recently.

So what have I been up to lately? I think I’ll go with a thousand words in the form of a picture, as that’s probably the most eloquent answer I can offer.  Exhibit A:

Yes, that is Annabel Lee’s cockpit, and piece by piece all those shiny bits (and more) are going back onto the now sparkling engine.

Meanwhile, a new friend keeps making an appearance. The other day he looked at the work I’ve been doing, nodded to the raven, (nearby, but not in this shot,) and I’m sure I heard him murmur, “Nevermore.”  Or maybe I just imagined it.

Share on Facebook