Another bump in the road

It's been a while since my last post. I have been busily transcribing my journal from our Baja trip. I wrote so much I got tendinitis in my wrist, which means I have to go the chiropractor three times a week and the acupuncturist once a week. I was writing in a 3" x 5" notebook for much of the trip, using a ball point pen. I used to like the resistance of a ball point, that friction on the page. I guess I'll have to change to something else that moves more smoothly for the Pacific northwest trip.

This voyage of the intrepid Valdesca and her captain and first matey has been nothing but bumps in the road, as faithful readers will recall from previous posts. Yet another faces me now. I got back my most recent PET/CT scan results yesterday and they show a new tumor in my abdomen. I have to do something about it, and fast, because the last time I had a recurrence the tumor grew from the size of an avocado to the size of a grapefruit in three weeks. It's a lemon now. So next week, I'd like to think I'll start chemo again. It's not that I like chemo, oh no. It's nasty. But chemo has gained me some precious time, time enough for trips to Brazil and Peru, Spain and Mexico. Time to sail Valdesca in the Sea of Cortes. Time to write and think. Time with my nieces and nephews. And hopefully time to sail again in the San Juan Islands and the Inside Passage.

The fitting out continues apace, despite the bumps. Tim has made the new thwarts. They are hanging in his studio, each day sporting a new layer of polyurethane. We have begun mounting new hardware. First, deck chocks for the Danforth. Kind of hard to know exactly where to put the Danforth. It's such a spikey, pokey thing. We're trying out the deck to port of the tiller, forward of the main sheet horse. It seems to be mostly out of the way of mainsheet and mizzen sheet, and body parts for crying out loud.

The new genoa jib has arrived. It's a beauty, in a deep dark port wine tanbark with Sunbrella along the foot and leech to protect the sail from the sun while furled. It will be sweet to have some extra canvas in those light airs up north. The spinnaker arrived, too. It has panels of light and dark blue and red corner patches. It was a racing sail for a Flying Scot. I am making a spinnaker launch bag out of red nylon, using a kit from Sailrite. And I just got the spinnaker halyard and sheets from a company that had short pieces of Staset polyester braid for half price as they were the ends of spools. This is a great path to consider when rigging such a small boat. Buy the end pieces of line and save a lot of money. None of the sheets or halyards on Valdesca are more than about 35 ft long. I found remnant line out there up to 60 or even 80 ft lengths.

Well, it's going to be in the 90s here today. Wish I could put up the sails on my little boat and sail away.

I'm sailing away

set an open course for the virgin sea

cause I've got to be free

free to face the life that's ahead of me

On board, I'm the captain

so climb aboard

we'll search for tomorrow on every shore

and I'll try, oh Lord, I'll try to carry on

-Styx