Kwai, in one of her previous lives, carried gravel. I don't really understand this. Gravel is rocks, and everywhere's got rocks. Everywhere has rocks, including the bilge (bilge= very bottom of the boat, under the floor, like a basement, but only two feet high. Everything eventually ends up there.) The bilge is full of thousands (literally) of pounds of old gravel and sand. The plan is to eventually remove this (I've already hauled a few hundred pounds out of there, as have others.) but Kwai Dirt is special. It cannot be destroyed.
Or so says the crew. Having used the ship's washing machine in daylight now, I'm wondering whether the dirt is as all-powerful as we think. Maybe our weird foreign washing machine (Place clothes in washer, turn on garden hose and add water, add soap, reattach lid...) might not be up to it. Either way, the dirt defines us.
The washing machine is located above a ladder leading up from deck, and below a ladder leading to the thing called Monkey Island. Kwai is in a transitional period and has not lost all the architecture of her life before us. This means that towards the back of the ship is a tall white tower (you can see it in the picture behind the sails.) This tower contains some normal stuff (the galley and the mate's cabin are on the first level) but above that it gets wild. Up the ladder on the Port side is the Dwarf Castle, a home-made cabin constucted of tarps and plywood now used for storage. On starboard is a secret storage space called the Noodle Hatch (currently contains mattresses.) The Monkey Island is the very top. (While I was getting used to the ship I spent a lot of time going "Wait, WHERE??")
Below all this madness is the perfect little cabin that Nate and I share. It is fabulously luxurious, containing such ammenities as an outlet, several clothes hooks, and a porthole. Nate has strategically placed fans so that fresh air is drawn directly toward the top bunk, which is big enough for us to comfortably share. The best thing though is the book shelf. Unlike many boat book shelves, its selection is not comprised solely of discarded spy novels and boring historical dramas involving boats. Sure, there's a copy of "Sail Tall Ships!" What boat doesn't have at least three copies? But besides that the space is filled by real writers like JD Salinger, Jack Kerouac, Joseph Heller, and (hurray!) John Steinbeck.
How to Make a Profit on a Tall Ship (Part 2 in a Series)
Do everything yourself.
So now I'm the ship's sailmaker.
Help.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment