A few days ago in an interchange of emails about music he had suggested I might like, a friend casually mentioned that he was resting, having run a marathon that morning, before playing violin in a community orchestra concert that night. Quite a double.
Tim runs several marathons a year, and said that he didn’t that morning ever hit the wall, feeling good both mentally and physically.
I trust the concert went as well.
His musical suggestion was “The Seasons” by Tchaikovsky. I downloaded a performance by Vladimir Ashkenazy from iTunes—still to me a minor, or perhaps major miracle that I can do that on a mooring a few hundred yards from land on the other side of the world; and Tim is right. I do like “The Seasons”. It doesn’t sound like Tchaikovsky, but more like nocturnes or preludes. There is one short piece for each month. June and October are my favorites.
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The rain moved east Sunday as forecast.
Rain fell for twenty-four hours, torrentially for a couple of hours late Saturday night. The forward hatch did not leak a drop.
Yesterday I applied Deks Olje to GANNET’s wood, including the new floorboards, the two part Avon oars in which I have used a hole saw to cut holes in the blades so they can be locked up, and the tiller. The line I used to tie down the tiller while underway wore the Deks Olje down to bare wood. The tiller will never look quite as beautiful as it did. But some scars are honorable. And I hope to be forgiven for quoting again one of my own lines: Life is the process of turning baby smooth skin into scar tissue. Even on tillers.
Before rowing ashore this morning I applied Deks Olje to the bilge.
This was not the plan. I was trying to put a second coat on the floorboards when I accidentally knocked over the can, half of which flowed into the bilge. Better there than on deck.
I sopped up the flood with paper towels, then went on deck and applied another coat to the tiller. I added a third to the tiller this afternoon.
Despite both hatches being open and a pleasant breeze blowing through The Great Cabin, GANNET smells strongly of Deks Olje, and so, I expect, do I.
