Cold, Rainy & Satiated.

After several hours of dead-to-the-world sleep, I awoke just after 5 AM here, 9 AM EST. During the night I cocooned myself in a t-shirt, sweatshirt, sweatpants and big wooly work socks inside an old green coleman sleeping bag. There's no heat in the boat when it's not running, so you have to create your own heat anyway you know how. My bunk is surrounded by the pieces of me brought from home; a black ruck full of books, camera, sunglasses, knives and other odds and ends. In the green duffel I threw in a towel, clothes and a too-full toiletry kit. There are some other things I have not brought that I wished I had- a wool watch cap, two sets of thermal underwear and deposit slips for my bank (doh!). We all know what they say about hindsight...

So I sit at the ship's mess table, an unceremonious deck-mounted affair on the starboard (right for you land lubbers) side of the cabin directly behind (as in attached to) the Captain's pilothouse chair. The morning is quiet save for seabirds, raindrops and the occasional truck in town. I've said that Cairo is where all the beautiful old British cars go to die; Dillingham is where all the rusted out old trucks come to be resurrected. It is still enough that even though the road is a half-mile away, I can hear every whisper of tire to asphalt. My rookie attire (as in, I had no idea what to bring and brought what I could) is an old pair of jeans with sweatpants beneath, a t-shirt, carhartt sweatshirt (child's size large, unfortunately. When will Carhartt recognize that women also do blue collar jobs?) wooly socks and the broken-in pair of Marine Corps issued all-leathers from college (pre their new uniform change in 2003). This morning I took a long shower, one of the few I'll get to have up here, I'm sure, and the dampness of my hair is chilling me from the inside-out.

Today is one for the yard, wrought and consumed with prepping the boat. In five days or less, we hope to be in the water and out to do the job. In the meantime, I plan on going back to sleep before the 9 a.m. call to change the port fuel filters or checking rudder assemblies.