Tales of a Castaway

I alluded last time I wrote about an incident I would tell you about later .  That time is here.  I present, for your enjoyment, the banana story. When we took the boat to Bay St. Louis, as I mentioned, our friends Kris and Chuck came along for the journey.  When they were boarding, Kris handed me a bag with fruit in it.  "Oh, bananas?" I said.  " It's bad luck to bring bananas on a boat ."  I then told her I really am not very superstitious and that I would take my chances. Well, we got underway and everything was perfect.  Boat - perfect.  Weather - perfect.  Bridge tenders - attentive.  Perfect. Until we curved into the Rigolets.  Chuck was down below, but Kris and Rick and I were on the bridge.  "What is that blue thing?" I asked.  "Police boat," replied Rick.  I totally panicked like a pre-teen joyriding in his father's mustang. "Go get the bill of sale," he said, as my lazy ass hasn't gotten the registration co

We took our first "big" trip last weekend, cruising to Bay St. Louis on Friday morning and returning on Sunday morning.  It was literally the most fun ever, and I am proud to say my girl handles 1.5 ft seas with ease.  A little spray over the bow just made it that much more fun.  I got to see places I've never been before and got to practice some of my "rules of the waves".  Channels are important.  What's even better is that the updated GPS card worked perfectly and matched up to the paper charts so I know I can trust it.  And it's depths.  Because drafts happen.  We watched a tug turn up mud. Before we left, I went to the store for provisions (sandwich meat, bread, cheese, rum and juice.  The necessities.)  This charm was on the door of the store: Dragons are lucky. Our friends Kris and Chuck joined us for both the trip out and back again.  Thank God for them, because, despite an incident I'll tell you about later, without them I think we

I read this article this weekend and chuckled, while ruefully acknowledging just how accurate this list is.  Don't get me wrong, I don't get to live aboard just yet and I count the minutes until I can, but still.  This list applies and has me motivated to chime in on each of the applicable topics.  Here you go.  A gift, or a series of gifts, from me to you. 1) Sometimes, it's going to get gross .  Wellllll ok.  So on Saturday night, we went to bed in the aft cabin and flipped on the a/c.  Within a few moments it started to smell really nasty.  Like funk and bilge and must and I don't want to think about what else.  But we were tired, so we threw some lemon oil into the bilge and fell asleep, vowing to look at it the next day.  The next day was yesterday, and Rick did some exploring.  And found that our blackwater tank had overflowed. Let that sink in for a minute. Our shit tank overflowed. Yes, there is a warning light.  It appears to not work.  No, we haven

When we bought the boat, the big thing was, will we use it as much as it deserves to be used, or will it waste away, waiting for our attention.  I think we silently agreed that we would never let that happen.  The cap goes aboard very nearly every single day, and I am on board at least five days a week.  More so, now that the small mate is in Georgia for a few weeks. We have had a number of outings with friends here and there since we got her, too.  This weekend was a new record for that though, and was so fun. At my work, we have a book club that meets monthly.  We read a book and then get together and eat lunch and talk about the book.  I got to pick for May's book (to be discussed in June) and chose an Agatha Christie book.  The book had an unfortunate original name (with a word that rhymes with "chigger") but is now called "And Then There Were None."  Decent enough, and features a boat/island, so it was fun to invite the ladies to lunch on the aft deck wh

Two weekends ago, I had five days off of work in a row.  You would think that would equate to much boat time... but not so much, sadly.  We had three gigs during those five days, and we were busy.  Really freaking busy.  It was, also, my birthday weekend, so I was both busy and spoiled  during that stretch of time. We did stay on board on Wednesday night, a night with a lot of wine resulting in me, apparently, demanding we watch The Bodyguard.  I am certain the boys were not upset when I couldn't get the Wifi to work.  Worked fine the next morning, natch.  Probably sabotage.  I can't blame them. I didn't even go on board again until the following Sunday evening.  We finally found a few minutes to relax and did so with great pleasure.  Nothing beats the boat life. Fortunately, last weekend was a different story.  First mate C-Luv went to Georgia on Saturday for four weeks with his father, but I was distracted by my friend John, who wanted to go fishing.  Note that our

Last weekend, our town hosted the official ribbon-cutting and grand opening of its marina, which is right in the middle of town, by a park.  It's also, conveniently, a five minute cruise up the bayou from our dock.  Same bayou.  So that was thoughtful of them.  Since Rick doesn't work during the day, most days, he had the opportunity to bring the boat up-bayou for the ceremony.  The result is a lot of pictures of our little dancy butt boat in the media, including a nice one with the (current) mayor: Photo bombing the mayor Cheesing for the ribbon cutting The bigger boat behind us gets much less attention   Pretty girl The whole marina is really nice, although it is a feat to get up on the deck from the low floating docks.  We have a step stool on board (it's blue, and you can barely see it in that last picture above) so that helps. That event was on Friday, and was, sadly, our only boat time on Friday.  Usually we (at least try to) sleep aboard on Fr

One of my biggest complaints - one of my only complaints - about my pretty boat has been the stereo.  While a decent brand (Sony, I think), and while it works fine, it is old.  It didn't have an aux jack.  And there wasn't a 12v outlet near enough for me to get one of those broadcasty thingees so I could broadcast my music  through the sound system.  I have a few portable bluetooth speakers but the sound system and speakers on the boat are on point and I hate to override those with crappy little speakers.  The only option is this - time to buy a new stereo. So I did!  My kid installed it for me last night.  In a few short days (when I'm not at work), there will, FINALLY, be showtunes playing through the system. Or at least not random country.  Which is fine, don't get me wrong.  But we need a little diversity. In other news, a storm is threatening to come up through the gulf this week, but I'm not worried.  For one thing, I think it's going to stay way Eas

We have spent the norm amount of time around the Castaway for the last few weeks. Which is to say, we have been there at least once a day (for the Captain) and I have been over at least five days a week.  This is the beauty of having the boat docked five minutes from home.  And having the boat stocked with decent red wine. During the last few weeks, the following happened: Last weekend, we stayed on board on Friday night.  It was a fun, laid-back evening.  Drinks on the deck (technically, I brought a daiquiri on board after work and sat on the forward deck for hours and hours, knitting and drinking and listening to an audio book.  Because I am a nerd.  But, I am a nerd that owns a boat.) and then dinner and then we hunkered down for television before we passed out cold in the beds. Daiquiris on the fore deck toes. In the morning on Saturday, Rick suggested we enjoy our coffee while we rode up and down the bayou.  Great idea, so we did that.  So beautiful in the morning and

On Friday, the First Mate had an overnight sleep over party to attend.  That left the captain and I free of responsibilities.  We had planned on spending Saturday doing boat work, anyway, and I set about cleaning some of the carpets onboard. Side note:  to hell with anyone who puts carpet in a boat. Ahem. Anyway, the captain joined me on board around 5:15 pm and we decided, spontaneously, that we would take her for an overnight cruise.  We got through the first bridge into alligator territory before we had a red wine spill (note:  red wine on white fiberglass constitutes an emergency.  Immediate deck swabbing had to happen, and did happen, by the admiral , no less, since the captain was driving.) We got that all situated and we continued our trip, out into the lake, where we had to wait a minute for the train bridge.  This ended up with us navigating the end of our trip in the dark, which was awesome.  Our nav lights work great. Seaward in the bayou We intended t

Last Friday, we spent another night on board.  We also took her for a little spin up and down the bayou where she is slipped, since the First Mate had yet to be onboard while she was underway.  He liked it.  He got to drive. Back at the dock, Jessica and Steven and Stella (our people neighbors, and their foster bulldog) and Ben (who's nine) came onboard to hang out for a while.  Much laughing and drinking ensued and it was a good time.  We slept great that night. Buzzy humans settling in for the night. We woke up to tornado watches on Saturday and decided to go onshore so we could avoid a "wet ass," as the captain called it.  Went to Waffle House and watched the skies swirl right over where she is docked.  She was fine, though it was hard to get to her because of downed trees and flooding in the streets nearby. We finally bought some of the things we have been needing for her.  We bought some dock fenders, the kind you put on the pilings at your dock, since our

Weekend one is in the bag.  Since we are also in a band, we had two gigs this weekend but that didn't stop us from being onboard as much as possible.  We had to move her from her previous marina to our slip, about a 30 mile trip, and the weather was not in our favor, so that was the adventure of the day on Friday.  Since I had to work until noon, the Captain solo'ed her over from Mandeville to Slidell, where he picked me (and my dad) up for the ride up the bayou to our slip.  I knew he was getting close to the Hwy 11 bridge so I took that route home from work.  Much to my delight and surprise, I was stopped for the drawbridge...  for my own boat.  Nice to see her from this angle, though. She was hauling ass. In Slidell, I took this picture of her coming in to the dock.  Isn't she beautiful? Oh, hi, gorgeous. After we got her situated at home, all plugged in, etc., we went and ate supper and fetched up the Captain's car from Mandeville.  Then we grabbed the

We closed on the purchase of m/v Castaway on Tuesday afternoon.  This followed six abhorrent weeks of trying to get a survey, get insurance, do this, do that blah blah blah that was among the worst six weeks of my life. During the time we were under contract, the seller gave us permission to crawl all over her and fool with whatever we wanted, pretty much.  We cleaned a lot (not enough) and discovered all of the broken things.  We found immediately that we needed to replace the gaskets around the windows, which we haven't done yet.  Then we found out that the davit for the dinghy doesn't work, the anchor windlass didn't work, the macerator pump didn't work and our engines wouldn't start. Fixed all of that except the dingy.  Mostly, stuff was just frozen up for having not been used in forever and a day.  We had a bunch of snap holes (I don't even know why) all over the fore deck and we put some crap in those, and the leaks seemed to have stopped.  That's

On April 3, 2018, we officially purchased a 1990 Chris Craft Catalina 372.  This vessel is an aft-cabin motor yacht, primarily to be used as a floating condo but we do intend to do some traveling on her as well. Our journey to find her started five years ago as an idea for "the future."  About a year ago, we started half-assed looking to find a houseboat.  We decided, after looking at a number of houseboats, that we would be too constrained by a houseboat and its inability to go out into blue water.  We live in South Louisiana and have easy and local access to the Mississippi Sound, including the fun-ish islands of Cat, Ship, etc. and we would like to be able to weekend out there occasionally. We called a listed broker about a Viking something-or-another about six weeks ago.  The broker said, "that is a project boat, but we have this Chris Craft you should see."  We knew she was the right boat for us the minute we saw her.  She was retrofitted with diesel engine