Day 40 - Knot Yet! — Captain Father John

Miles cruised 0, fuel purchased 0, slip fee $0, daily high temperature 82*F

We have been on this cruise for forty days and forty nights.

It is almost Halloween and the witches of Fairhope are out in force. We went to dinner at McShanny’s Irish pub. There is a fund raiser called the Witches Ride which is a charity event to support local animal shelters. The pub was filled with withes that arrived by bicycle. One of the witches was Captain Yvonne who owns a C&C 32 named Arcturus. She invited us to attend the Halloween party at the Fairhope Yacht Club on Saturday night.

The maintenance work on the boat went well. The engine oil and filters are changed, the generator oil and filter are changed, the zincs in the engines and generator are changed and the transmission fluid is changed. The work on the blowers did not go as well. They need to be replaced. The new blowers were ordered on Friday and will arrive on Monday and be installed Monday afternoon. This will delay our departure by two days. Instead of cruising to Pensacola on Sunday we will depart on Tuesday. Eventually we will cruise to Carabelle and cross the Gulf to Tarpon Springs. The key will be to get a weather window when the gulf will be flat enough to cross. Today is a good crossing day for all the Loopers that were trapped on the Florida panhandle.

Today was the day of reckoning. I got a haircut at Vernon’s barber shop in Fairhope. Vernon had been on vacation for two weeks so his regular clientele were lined up. Literally lined up. There was one guy in the chair and four waiting when I walked in at 10:00 am. Fortunately Vernon is a fast worker. No haircut took more than 10 minutes. In most cases there was not much hair to cut. Lucky for me, Vernon has a one price policy. All haircuts are $10. He uses an electric razor with a suction hose to do most of his work. This is called the “suck cut” in the hair industry. He actually had to use scissors on me. It had been six weeks since my last haircut.

The highlight of the barber shop experience was the endless stream on kindergarten and first graders trick or treating down Main Street. The school has a tradition that each of the classes dresses in costume and the shops all along the street put out candy for the children. Each group would wave in the window and yell trick or treat as they each took a single Bazooka bubble gum from the candy bucket in front of Vernon’s barber shop. I took one when a left. Trick or Treat.

Best deal in town.

Our boat neighbors on Knot Yet rented a car to go get their car and move it to their daughter’s house in Orlando. Eventually they will move their car to their winter marina on Isla Marada in the Florida Keys. This gives them an excuse to visit their daughter twice.

If we are going to the Halloween costume dance at the Fairhope Yacht Club we will need a costume. I used my Waukegan Yacht Club reciprocity to make the dinner reservation.

I was playing my ukulele on the afterdeck when Jeanne from Knot Now came over with a ukulele in her hand. She said her father recently passed away and she inherited his ukulele and was practicing so she could learn the song Amazing Grace. She promised her mother she would play that song when they spread his ashes in the ocean. When she stopped playing she could still hear a ukulele playing and eventually figured out it was me. Priscilla grabbed her ukulele and we had a little jam session.

Priscilla and Jeanne jamming on the ukes.

Phil is Jeanne’s husband and he said the name of their boat Knot Yet was inspired by Jimmy Buffett. In the concert version of One Particular Harbor Jimmy ad libs;

Most mysterious calling harbour
So far but yet so near
I can see the day when my hair’s full gray
And I finally disappear
“But not yet”

Phil changed it to Knot Yet.

Carl (Chef) Wooden – quote for the day.

Land was created to provide a place for boats to visit. – Brooks Atkinson