We're Leaking

 If I had listened to my mum while I was growing up I would have known that bragging about our awesome weather would not only earn me ill feelings from others – but it might even cause one of them to put a cold and rain hex on us. Actually, she never said the hex part, but I’m pretty certain she told me that gloating isn’t very nice.

So I’m sorry. My last post was mean.

Can you make it stop raining now?

Please?

 I normally don’t mind the rain too much. When I lived in a leak-free home that had ample heat, and easy an easy way to dry clothes (and the kid) it was actually kind of nice to go outside and stomp through puddles.

But we don’t live in a leak-free home.

We live on a leaky boat.

A cold and damp leaky boat with indoor puddles.

 We discovered the leaks during our last rain storm. We had six of them (leaks, not storms). Six leaks is a lot and they included two leaking windows, one leaking hatch, one leaking heater, one leaking fitting and a mystery leak. Our mattress got soaked. And we had to use all our buckets and pots to catch the drips and then when it was time to make dinner we had nothing to cook in.

I though it might be a good excuse to go out.

But it was really wet out and the seats of the dinghy were soaked so we stayed home and went hungry. (See jinx person? This rain is really tough on us.)

 Fixing leaks on a boat is something almost every boat owner is familiar with. It’s such a popular topic that I’ve written quite a few variations of this article. So you’d think that we would be able to make our boat, a dry boat.

I thought I had a really good solution – avoid rain for a year, maybe two. My mistake was in gloating about it – so again, I’m sorry.

When you think about the fact we went from six leaks to two, we’ve really improved and are clearly quite good at fixing leaks (at least that’s what I tell Ev, so he doesn’t get too demoralized). As soon as the rain stops though it will be time to rebed and recaulk the leaking fittings (and quietly sneak south to places that are warm and where rain doesn’t fall.)

Heading south is actually a few more days off in our future. There must be a heck of a system brewing out there; our 5-7 foot swell is scheduled to grow to 15-17 feet tonight…