Friday Funny 04-23/2021 (More Trailer Action)

 

In preparation for our upcoming Denali Rose haul out, Bill needed to get the truck out of storage. He had to take the camper off, so he could use the truck bed to haul supplies back and forth to the boat yard. It is well known in my circle, that I have no spacial acuity, and Bill has learned to take the camper off, and on by himself, but he needed my help to move the trailers around. 

I had conned the boat neighbor into volunteering to help, but circumstances didn't work out that well. I took Bill out to the storage area in my car, so he could drive the truck back to the marina, and then he said, "why don't you help out while you're here." Oh, crap, tricked into it.

Some of you may remember this post about moving trailers from 2017. That post shows the trailers backed behind the storage facility. We actually had to move them back out shortly after that post, because the facility owners wanted them stored on a flat pad above the storage garages. Other people put their vehicles, and commercial crab traps on the same pad.

Bill had already moved the trailers out of the way, and taken the camper off, so really there wasn't much for me to do, so I sucked it up, took a cleansing breath, put on my big girl pants, and said yes. 

All vehicles spread out, ready for consolidation.

Bill had to do quite a bit of jockey-ing, (Is that a word?) to get the black trailer close to the tree line, and in front of the camper. My job was to make sure he didn't hit the camper. 

Backing in

Here are my tools of the trade, whenever Bill radioed me to ask how far, I would use the tape measure to measure between the camper, and the back of the trailer. It took out all of the guess work.

STOP NOW!

Success, and it wasn't so bad, maybe I don't really need to stress about it in the future. 

Lining them up.

Everything is back in position.

As always, we enjoy hearing from you, either here in comments or on our Facebook Denali Rose Sailboat page.

Friday Funny 04-16/2021 (Spring is Sprung)

 

My Mother's birthday was April 15th, she always said it was her birthday before it was Tax Day. She had the right's to the day first.  Little known facts; in 1913, tax day was March 1st, then moved to March 15th in 1918, and moved to April 15, in 1955. I didn't know the history until I looked it up on Google recently.

Well, the weather powers must have felt sorry for me after last week's blog post about never-ending winter.  Here are photos from this week.

The view from a grocery store.

I wore my Keen sandals.

Bill installed a new burner in the BBQ.

Gypsy Wind

We met this really nice young couple who charter their 72ft Irwin in SE Alaska, and this will be their second year here. They come from working on luxury yachts, Brittany is a professional chef, and Jonathan has his 100 ton Masters license. They're both very qualified, and their boat is quite beautiful, it even has a hot tub on deck. They left the shrink wrap cover on, so that they could sand, and paint while it was raining, and now they have good weather for paint to dry. Check them out at Gypsy Wind Charters.

This was the week we were supposed to pull Denali Rose out of the water for maintenance. We pushed it forward to April 30, because we thought the weather wouldn't cooperate with us.  Who knew.....

Oh well, Bill has a cold, and needs to rest anyway. We haven't figured out he managed to catch one, we're always masked, we use hand sanitizer in the car after we have touched anything, use wipes on the grocery carts, and wash our hands upon returning home. Crazy. When folks come by Denali Rose to say "Hi", we tell them Bill is ill with a cold, and they scurry like ants running to honey. 

I tried to find a funny cartoon with running ants, but I really don't like bugs, and even looking at cartoons made me woozy. This is one of the reasons I live in Alaska, no snakes, lizards, weird bugs, and I don't have any problem smashing mosquitoes. 

Since spring has decided to take over, the bugs are starting to emerge again. We had a fly onboard the other day, it's time to find where I stowed the bug rackets last fall.

One of my favorite tools on the boat. 💜

 

As always, we enjoy hearing from you, either here in comments or on our Facebook Denali Rose Sailboat page.

Friday Funny 04-09/2021 (Ol' Man Winter)

 

Full disclosure, I'm going into full whine mode now. I can't believe how hard a grip ol' man winter has on us.  I was walking out to the car to go to my water aerobics class, here's what it was like.

The hill behind the marina parking lot.

I have auto-start on my car, and can start it from the boat to defrost the windshield.

The docks were slushy, and on the verge of freezing, and slick. I refuse to pull my winter boots back out of the closet, so I wore my XtraTuffs, they have great sticky tread, so no falling down. Just in case you don't know what an Xtratuff is, they look like this:

Salmon Sister design on the website.

These boots are fondly called the "Alaskan Sneaker", one year a friend who was visiting us, asked why everyone in Alaska was wearing the same brown boot. The only answer is "cuz". My April 2017 post has more information about boots. 

I grew up in Alaska, and I always wanted the ground to be snow free at the beginning of April for my birthday. Since moving to SE Alaska, the weather is more temperate than further north, and for the last 6 years I have had my wish. That's what makes this year a bit bizarre, with snow so late in the season. All of the Alaska facebook pages have residents posting photos of record snowfall, record low temperatures, memes, cartoons, and everyone whining about how we need spring to show up. My Facebook page keeps showing me "your memories", of blooming flowers at this time of year. The only thing blooming now is Cabin Fever!

Well, that's one answer.

As always, we enjoy hearing from you, either here in comments or on our Facebook Denali Rose Sailboat page.

The Last Friday Funny 04-01/2021 (WHAT?!?)

 I know that this will come as a shock, and a surprise to you, our readers, friends, and family, but the previous owners of Denali Rose, Jack, and Susan, (Fred), have decided that they would like Denali Rose back in their life, and we've decided to sell it back to them. We didn't come to this decision lightly, but we know several friends who are selling their Nauticat 43's, and we're going to purchase one of them. We really look forward to redoing another boat, and spending the time, and money to make it our own.

This is the four of us at Dad's Diner, in Anacortes, the day we celebrated receiving Denali Rose.

They had always wanted to sail the South Pacific, and with all of the current upgrades, and improvements in electronics, heating, canvas, upholstery, and plumbing, they felt now was the time to take the jump. How wonderful that we were able to refit Denali Rose into exactly what Jack, and Fred would love to sail.

Denali Rose in the Caribbean. 

We're preparing to take Denali Rose down to Washington state, so we can transfer ownership. We're not going to pay attention to the fact that Canadian borders are closed, take our chances, and try to avoid any encounters with authorities. Also since our traveling vet hasn't been here lately, we'll have to go without making sure Gus gets his latest vaccinations, and health certificate. 

What you lookin' at?

While we're in Washington, we'll take ownership of our next vessel, and we feel like we don't need a shakedown cruise to make sure it's a safe vessel, we'll begin our cruise back to Alaska right away. This time the Canadian customs won't bother us, as we're returning home through their waters, and that is a valid reason for transiting. We'll have to stop for fuel, water, and food on the way, and we're counting on finding some sympathetic vendors, who will allow us to stop, and re-provision. Who knows, maybe we'll pick up another pet to keep Gus company.

A hint to the new boat?

As always, we don't want to hear from you, either here in comments or on our Facebook Denali Rose Sailboat page. We'll be closing out all our social media. 

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