this weeks post !!!!!

Ahoy there,

This week flew by !

Fabulous movement on all fronts

Apparently the synopsis plus the meat versions was a bit popular so I will stick with the format.

Ummmm just did the synopsis and even it is wordy!!!! Im gonna need cruel editor!!

Cassi project;

This week concluded with the starter installed, new/used alternator installed, fresh water pump freed up and greased, temp gauge and alternator wiring re done. Today I pick up the battery I brought in to hve a deep charge and maybe the ford starts today! The electrical toolbox cleaned a greased and what is still usable all organised (lots of little bits to rinse!)

I am going tomorrow to inspect a possible great deal on a Northern Lights proper yacht generator that a wealthy neighbor no longer needs but is in good nick. Fingers crossed major proper power. Imagine fridges and freezers watermaker and a washing machine on Cassi. Somehow wrong? Nah would be great! Some sheets of marine plywood are being shipped form Port Vila for hatches and watertank. Nivan workers are scheduled to start painting next week. Ramping it up.......

Book:

Working on a chapter that is very interesting involving war. How do I get that in? Well once there were torpedoes fired a Cassi, or so we thought, and there have been guys with machine guns on her deck in Venezuela and Panama, and a surprise assault by a US destroyer in the middle of the night. Ther are also a lot of veterans who sailed away because normal life no longer worked for them and they have told me a story or two.

I am really hoping this is going to be a book with stories about a lot of things that provoke thought.

Another pledge came in which puts us at 58. I am going to amp it up with a revamped presentation and publishing it in new markets this week. The best transfer method is definitely proving to be Western Union.

Snippet:

Christian and I were on watch not long after dark. It rarely completely dark at sea and it is astonishing how well you can see in the dead of night if it has been a while since you looked at a bright light. People dont normally sit in their room at bedtime after they have turned out the lights and stare for twenty minutes trying to see anything they can. That is exactly what you do when you are on night watch in the middle of the ocean......................

Moonless nights such as this have a different light, almost brighter with out the dark shadows created by the moons near sunlike presence. It is as though there is simply a little light everywhere, the whole sky slightly aglow with illumination coming from every angle.....................

We had been on our quiet watch for over an hour and our eyes had reached their pinnical of abilitiy so simultaneously we caught the new light out of the corners of our eyes and turned in perfect sycronicity to look at the sea. Neither of us said anything as we both grappled to understand what the swiftly approching light source could be or mean. It was one of those times when reason is confused by an image that defies reason. The conclusions that your mind comes up with seem ridiculous, impossible, but the only associations you can make to such an image are what is logged in your minds history.

Christian said “What does that look like to you?” I stammered “torpedoes”. “Me too” he nstantly replied. Two pefectly straght trails in the phosporecent sea headed directly at the beam of the boat at the exact speed of every torpedo I have ever seen depicted in the movies. Green wakes of brilliant bioluminescence frothing off of the propellers at the back with a round conical nose pushing the glwoing sparkels aside and along a long round body.

Why would anyone shoot torpedoes at us? I said. We were a thousand miles from the nearest land, who could be out here? Still two hundred meters away they were coming fast and it was imminent they were gong to srike the boat right in the middle. Christian speculated.” American navy exercise we got into? “Come on” I said but there seemed little other explanation and I actually began to believe that we could have been so unlucky as to sailed across the path of some war games. The perfect formation did not waiver and apeared to have been directly aimed at us from a long way away.

Time was up and they were a few short meters away. We both took a step back away from the rail....................................

Copyright Harold Neel 05 28 11

Better safe than sorry...

Thanks to all again ….........