PARKING THE FLEET

Now that we own two sailboats and a dinghy, we're puzzling over where to keep the fleet. (If you count the two life rafts, that would be a fleet of five.) Isabella's at a dock in Colington Harbor where she can stay until May. Good Company is still in Rock Hall, iced in. We'll bring her down as soon as the weather warms up -- in March?

There are only a few places in the Outer Banks where you can dock and liveaboard, the only close ones are on Roanoke Island.

One possibility is Shallowbag Marina, shown in that photo. It has good facilities -- gym, laundromat, bathrooms/showers, pool table (Dylan) -- and the advantage of floating docks. (Floating docks move up and down with the water and the boat, which allows you to set your lines and be done with it. Much less wear and tear on everything.) We've heard the marina's not very well protected in nor'easters. I'm also not sure about living outside the windows of dozens of condos, my own personal stage.

The dockmaster is holding a slip for us at the Manteo Waterfront -- just northwest of Shallowbag Marina. It's a truly quaint spot with lots of shops and restaurants in walking distance. However, we probably couldn't stay there past May. How tempting would it be to just sail away????

Now back to watching the weather in Rock Hall. Come on global warming, work with us!

WHITE OUT

Chip's Mt. Everest metaphor for our lives seems pretty accurate about now. We're up on Hillary's step, summit in sight. We're freezing and a blizzard's a-coming.

Actually, I mean that in a literal sense. This has been an epic winter with record snow falls north of us -- north where our new boat awaits. As it turns out, we chose the only day in January that we could have managed a sea trial. YAY.

But now that the deal is done, we're Jones-ing to bring the boat here to the Outer Banks, so we can move onboard. What do we get? "Snowmageddon." "February Fury." The boat is covered in about two feet of snow. The water is frozen over again. Sigh.

NO LONGER TEMPORARY

We were awakened this morning by a call from our boat loan broker. My driver's license was expired (yep, January 1), and the bank wouldn't accept it as a valid ID. As the morning progressed, we learned they would accept neither a passport nor a birth certificate in its place. Are these the same banks of recent years that were handing out loans like cheese cubes on toothpicks? ARGH.

Assuming the DMV would require proof of residence, I went online to print out a recent utility bill but couldn't remember the password. With a temporary password obtained by spouting Chip's mother's maiden name, I logged in to find our wine shop account, not residence. AAAHH. I tried another logon but couldn't remember that password either. Long minutes later, using my mother's maiden name, I successfully logged in with yet another temporary password to find I couldn't open the file type that contained the bill.

DMV phone line was perpetually busy.

So I showed up, with nothing but an expired license, signed up and waited.

After failing half the road sign questions and blindly guessing on half the eyesight test, including an incorrect reading of the wrong line, they shrugged it off and moved on to issuing the new license. No proof of residence required, I could have given the address of the Hatteras Lighthouse (or a cave in Afganistan?). Instead I gave them the physical address of that temporary apartment we moved out of last month since that's the address the bank is using. Neither did they care where I had the license mailed as long as it wasn't a business. I chose a friend who, unlike us, has a mailbox and plans to be there for at least 10 days to two weeks until the license arrives.

An hour after arriving (including a quick side trip to get cash since they don't accept credit cards) I left with a piece of paper that proves I am temporarily allowed to drive until my license with a temporary address where I no longer live is delivered to another address where I have never lived.

Well, hallelujah for slack bureaucracy, but while I was handing out suspicious addresses at the DMV, the bank decided to acknowledge my existence (maybe they called my mom? I could have told them her maiden name). They issued the loan.

And so, at 4:29, this 28th day of January, 2010, we officially own a new boat.


**If you are an official-type DMV person, I sincerely apologize for handing out temporary addresses to obtain a temporary license. And, if you don't mind dropping me a line, I could use some advice on what address to give you when I'm living on a boat.

SIGN HERE ... AND HERE

We've spent the week dancing between the boat broker, the insurance company, the State of Maryland, the Coast Guard and the bank, a very full dance card, in duplicate and notarized. And then they all had to talk to each other -- and the sellers.

A smarter person would have read all those papers they signed. I'm not that smart. The only one I read word for word was the power of attorney form. Don't worry, it only offered limited signature rights for the boat transaction in case we missed one of the 843 places we were supposed to sign.

As the clock on our loan approval ticks down, expiring on January 31, it appears that we're almost done. In our perpetually almost life, we almost have a boat.

ALL A-BOARD

I once told a friend in the kindest way, "For someone so smart, sometimes you can be dumb as a board."

And once I called the kettle black.

This morning as we were sitting in Michele's office finalizing the details of the purchase agreement, it occurred to me, we're buying a boat!

That dumb-as-a-boardness had a modicum of smarts behind it. Since December 15th when our offer was accepted, I've kept this boat at arms length, not wanting to put all my eggs in one vessel, just in case ...

But this morning, once we set foot on the boat -- Chip and me and a bag of our belongings -- arms length turned into a full embrace. I took a pillow that had been moved at least five times in the last ten years, and when I put it on the settee a lot of things came home to roost. First I knew I'd never have to move that damned pillow again! But really, I had the realization that, ohmigosh, I finally have a home, a place to put things that's NOT temporary.

Even though sailing will be a life of constant movement, we get to bring this home along with us. No more packing, no more boxes, no more suitcases or strange beds, just that awesome bed, like a magic carpet, where we wake up every morning in a new place.

Now that's cause for celebration! Our first guests arrived in the afternoon, Chip's parents, Ted and Nancy, and his Aunt Peggy and Uncle George.

Michele, our broker, came by this evening to share a Champagne toast, tempered with home-smoked salmon and good laughs.

Just the beginning, the first day, of many happy times.

BATHED IN GRATITUDE

That "sea trial" nomenclature is becoming clearer to me now.

Six years ago during our sea trial on Isabella, we sailed out of the Fort Lauderdale inlet and into the Atlantic. Big, old choppy seas thoroughly shook up my excitement and Chinese lunch, and for the first time ever, I tossed my fortune cookies over the rail.

I couldn't help but wonder if the same thing would happen on today's sea trial, although, lesson learned, this time I skipped my date with General Tso and his damned chicken.

As we prepared to pull out of Gratitude Marina on Good Company, the bow drifted a little to port, so I threw Chip a line on the dock to pull us back. There was a very narrow channel to thread, and we needed a straight start.

I was taking photos when I heard a loud SPLASH.

I spun around to see Chip -- still holding the line -- dangling by his arms, with everything below his waist submerged in that frigid water.

And that was the last thing that went wrong all day. Our weather window opened a little wider giving us tolerable temps and avoidable ice floes. We would have liked a little more wind, but we whooshed along in a 9 knot breeze with all three sails flying.

The surveyor's tick list was amazingly short, a testament to the attentiveness of Marvin and Nancy. We selected an even shorter list of the things we asked them to repair, a request they immediately dispatched.

At the end of the day, Marvin and Nancy shared their cruising photos with us over dinner, and one final toast, to Good Company and new friends.

ON THE RISE

One of the most seductive qualities of sailing is the distant horizon, the mystery of what the day will hold, the allure of the unexpected, like a snagged line, for instance.

Good Company's main has a Dutchman flaking system. Imagine folding a piece of paper back and forth to make a paper fan. Now if you punch three holes through your folded fan and thread fishing line through the holes, you can fold and unfold your fan easily on the guide lines. That's how the Dutchman works: heavy fishing line threaded vertically through the sail to hold it in place while you raise and lower it.

Well, one of those long, Dutchman fishing lines got wrapped around a light fixture on the front of the mast -- and stuck fast. The best option for untwanglement was sending somebody halfway up the 54' mast. The lightest crew member always wins (loses?) that lottery, so up I went with Marvin hoisting me on the main halyard, Chip on the backup and Nancy taking photos.

Another day of congenial teamwork.