summer leapfrogs spring

it felt like summer today. i headed down to the marina and just kicked back in the sun with “the plague wars”, reading about the dirty wars in rhodesia. hideous instances of biological warfare, like seeding cholera in rivers and anthrax-laced cow cakes. it seemed a little too incongruous, reading about depressing stuff in the midst of such a beautiful day, so i headed over to the hardware store to get a tarpaulin to replace the tattered one covering the mainsail, and while i was there i got some orange-oil based wood cleaner/polish. tried a bit of it on a slightly discolored bit of wood in the corner of the head (where the porthole was leaking), and it made it look so good that i spent the rest of the afternoon refinishing all the wood in the cabin. that and monkeying with the fresh-water sink faucet thingy, (i am certain there is a saltier nautical term for fixtures in the galley, similar to a seacock or something vaguely naughty sounding). i ended up splashing a lot of water around, and had to bust out the bilge hand-pump to clean up after myself.
i would have liked to have gone out sailing, but right now i am feeling pretty good about having accomplished quite a bit of maintenance work today. i apologize to regular readers of theboate.com, i wrote this entry for my personal blog, and then decided that i was going to post it to both. next time i’ll try to pepper my language with some more “avast ye’s” and barnacle-smelling maritime aphorsims.