Flipping boats on John Brown’s beach

The game continues!

Currently without heat or water. The pipes froze. Spent Friday night threading new insulated hose beneath the dock so the snow plow wouldn’t run over it.

That same morning in the darkness of 7 am I got a fire roaring – I mean the temperature guage on the chimney pipe shot right through the burn zone. Then I smelled smoke. Turns out the crimping on a section of chimney had sprung undone topside – smoke poured into the studio. I went above onto the roof and peered down – creosote glowed red with the heat.

I considered using the fire extinguisher on the fire. Instead just damped down the flue and let itself burning itself out, using a belt to cinch up the section of chimney pipe. Took a photo of the pipe undone, caked with creosote.

This Saturday should be devoted to fixes. It will be. I want to usher in the new year with heat and water.  Except that boat I mentioned previously – Rick’s boat, which sank off the mooring buoy at Fred’s Creek over on Kruzoff Island – appeared like a lost dog on John Brown’s Beach, on Japonski Island. A couple thousand feet from where I now write. Essentially on the doormat of the United States Coast Guard – which demanded that Rick remove the skiff from the beach.

Snow pours from the gray sky. Which would be cool except they predict rain later on. On the other hand I’m all wooded up and insulated the hot water heater and we’ve been building a gangway so people won’t fall in when they get on the boat. That will be nice.

Also got deered up from a 5-day hunt with Spencer on the Dryas. We got four of them. We made a good team. Skinned them all out and got them sealed and marked for the chest freezer. We won’t be wanting for deer for a good little bit now. Just have to stock up on fish this spring and we’ll be set.

It’s surreal at night after days of working on the boat to pile up in fleece nestle beneath the covers and watch Season Three of the Wire on the laptop. Omar with his buck teeth flashing and shorties blown away, their Tshirts red with blood while behind me the starboard channel marker blinks green in Eastern Channel, obscured by the falling snow. Clumps of grass growing from the marble curbsides of Baltimore. Rows of vacant houses and those sunny, sunny days. Just like Philly.

We’ll use a come-along on Rick’s boat. Maybe a pump jack to try and flip it. Easiest I think would be to take a grinder or sawzall to it but that would require a generator. We’ll see what happens. It will be good to be outside, off this boat. Which has become like a needy girlfriend.

But how nice, how nice to feel needed.