Focus, determination, results. Quantum leap

Focus, determination, results. Quantum leap. Yes, Yeah For US!!! The engine is running. Crew is here, tunes are playing aboard and the Cassiopeia side of my project is in a triumphant moment!

So this report is late but I was not to allow a machine to stymy me any longer.

Project

Yeah I received a few more transfers to keep the books in the black and indeed a few more pledges as well! Thanks for the transfers and I stil have no easier way than the direct bank transfer or Western union options. If you need me to send the info again please email me. We now have 64 who have committed to helping fund the recovery of Cassiopeia and are shareholders in what is going to be a very different book. I am still working to complete the revamp of the presentation and initiate the new marketing program for the overall project. The past period however has been focused on Cassiopeia with major gains the result.

Cassiopeia

Yeah the engine is running! Tenacity, perseverance, persistence, and the sheer refusal to believe that I could not fix it, along with the fact that I simply had to, all combined to bring back to life the worlds best diesel engine. There are things that your friends say and sometimes you have heard them say it too many times, but since they are your friend you just listen and smile. I say “It is a machine. Man makes machines. I am a man. I can make this machine work.” About the fifth time I had the starter out in pieces and Mitch heard me say that again I recognized his polite smile.

But it goes!!!!!!! Aaarrrgh no machine gonna beat me!

A few more tanks of air and more tubes of underwater epoxy and the leaks are slowing.

Ben and Ben arrived today. Electrician and friend keen to help me fix her. Yeah, this is going to be a quantum leap. They are here for two weeks and I expect we will have her underway before they leave! Today we revived a few power tools and installed the stereo they brought. Tunes wahhhooo makes her feel alive again!

I am thinking her bottom could be a two phased event with a careening soon and then a full on haul out later in the year.

Book

Inspired by winning the only writing competition I have ever entered, when I received a notice of another in my inbox where I could win 1000 pounds. (British booty, sweet) I blasted out a piece of “Flash fiction”. It has to be under 250 words. How to create lots of images with few words. It is a great exercise and hopefully It will be good enough to make the six pound entry fee a worthy risk.

I had some input as I described some of the chapters and stories, and how they lead to other stories,

that I should be thinking about more than one book. Too many stories, imagine!

I have gone back over some of the work I have already done as it is good to let a piece “rest” and then look at it again. It does get better with each pass.

Someone suggested I have a coffe table version with lots of pictures.......uuummmm

OK snippet...........................

Every book has parts when it trundels along. There simply cant be torpedoes in every scene.

So here is a spot when a little fill seemed appropriate. The paragraphs just before had action and inuendo and foresahdowing and lust...............

We stayed flirting and oggeling for a couple more rounds but some more cutomers arrived and we were deprived of her undivided attention. Marianne and Todd and I toasted to our sucessful arrival and remenisced about aspects of the trip like the mosquitos from Arkansas, some of whom were still trapped in the van. We had opened the sliding door to to a swarm of the largest mosquitos I have ever seen and everything is bigger in Texas, or so they say. I have seen really big ones in Houston. But these were monster mosquitos, genetically empowered somehow, and they were coming at us from a scene out of the famous Burt Reynolds movie Deliverance about canoeing down an Arkansas river.

The guy who pumped the gas had on oversized blue jean coveralls showing his hairy shoulders and his hands were the size of bear paws. His eyes did not quite look at the same place and despite being over six feet tall he walked with a hunched over sort of beaten little kid shuffle. And there was a skinny old guy, like in the movie, wearing a straw hat sitting in a rocking chair chewing on the end of a long piece of grass and silently watching us as though he was remembering every detail and had lots of secrets. In a too tight, stained undershirt, the potbellied, grease covered mechanic had stepped out of the garage and was grinning at Marianne, fully displaying that he had no top teeth. She jumped back in the Van slamming the slidng door only to realise there were probably a thousand mosquitos inside.

Todd and I bought some orange juice to mix with the tequilla, paid for the gas and both accpted a fervent hand shake from bear paws before getting in the van to be attacked mercilessly by the bloodsucking hoarde that had invaded our otherwise cozy home on wheels. We hit the highway fast and rolled down all the windows to blow them out and even opened the sliding door. Clever creatures insects. When they felt the wind they all flew under the bunk and behind the curtains and hid from the possibility of being blasted outside. We suffered with them for thousands of miles.

America is a wonderfully diverse place and cetain regions have reputations. Like attracts like I suppose. Hillbillys like hillbillys so Arkansas filled up with them. Things on television and in the movies are often not far from real. Road trips like the one we had just done give you a quick overview of the cultural melting pot that is the USA......................................

Still rough and could well get the editors knife but it was a severly cultural few moments for us!

Thanks again for those of you who managed transfers and two goals have been stated for Ben and Ben”s stay. We are to get her underway and have a party before they leave. Quantum leaps in store.

YEAH FOR US !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Added the Sad Page to the blog

I posted the only photos I have showing what she was like when I returned and listed some of the ruin on a new page called the SAD PAGE!
Not that I am sad. I am great as everything is moving forward and the cops are actually looking!
YEAH FOR US is still alive and well................

What she looks like when she has all her lipstick on!

Trying more photos !T

oopps Layla rememmbers this spill      

More photos of work.......

Some of the other times Cassi has needed a bit of work !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the week that flew by

Ahoy there everybody,

Wooohhoo still!!! Moving forward ups and downs. It is sunny again!

Time is a funny thing. Sometimes a week disappears! Progress yes, frustration yes, busy yes, and yes fun, even some golf and harmonica playing! Booty needed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cassiopeia,

Still can not get starter working! I can now take it out and put it back in an record time with my eyes closed. Today I scooter to South Santo where there is rumored to be a bunch of dead Ford tractors and try to bargain for parts. Having more underwater epoxy flown in. Got new battery and sun is out so powered up a bit. Massive clean up day. Maybe next weekend will be the first party!

Book,

Worked on the chapter about ghost and the bus waiting around the corner. Revel in today as tomorrow is only imagination! It includes a few of the hard times and recoveries. Life in paradise has not been all roses. This is not the first time she has been brought back! Check the snippet for a few lines from the Blow Up story. Wonderfull lessons about faith and determination and help and spirits.

Project,

Two more pledges this week, trying to ramp it up again and reach the goal.

Booty getting low! Working on new transfer method Any transfers appreciated!

Trying week of attempting to build a project website and incorporate a pay pal type transfer along with new presentation for wooden boat magazine forum.

I am excited about what the new project presentation can provide and am confident the goal will be reached. It is good how close Cassi is to “working” again. The crew are arriving on the 25^th and that will be the quantum leap I am sure.

OK this weeks snippet,

This is to be a good chapter with ghost stories and trials. There is one story

that will make you cry.............

I heard a “phoof” and I had time to think, “Oh damn, the pilot light!” Then there was a BOOM from an explosion that shook the hillsides. That split second was the beginning of a time that I know call “Bonus Days”. That means all of the days that I have been alive since. By all rights, I should be dead.

I almost moved into the next dimension for the simple act of trying to kill the roaches on the boat. In an attempt to rid myself of the crawly scourge I nearly eliminated myself ! …...................

The path to real destruction of the little bastards, was to actually spray Baygon point blank into every crack and crevice in the whole boat. Then we would go to the beach for the afternoon.

We would play in the clean sunshine while the enemy choked and died in their new poisonous environment. It worked. Upon our return to the boat there were hundreds of war victims strewn about the cabin sole in twitching death throws. No Geneva contract here, death to all prisoners. In the end, they got me back for this merciless slaughter.......................................

Cassiopeia is a stout wooden boat with two inch by four inch laid decking, and a cabin sole of five quarter planks laid on two by four sole beams. The explosion erupted from the bilge and turned the cabin sole planks into splintered twelve inch chunks that were driven like wooden shrapnel into the hard pine on the inside of the deck and hull. That is, what remained of the deck. Huge holes were blown in the foredeck and the aft deck, cracking deck beams as the fasteners were ripped away. Her heavy wooden hatches with stainless piano hinges were torn from their two by four frames and flew through the air above mast height. The four foot by four foot beast of a main hatch traveled up until it collided with the fore boom, shattering into pieces.

There were canned goods blown into the water through the six foot long hole in the deck above the galley. Every door in the boat had disintegrated, jagged remains hanging on twisted hinges. Despite not having sprayed in the aft section, the gaping hole in the aft deck allowed pillows and bedding to escape into the air. The bunks and cabinetry of the main room were turned into unidentifiable piles of rubble. The laminated two by twelve planks of the setee table had smashed against the deck beams above and broken across the grain into jagged pieces. The cabinet next to the oven was built from a sheet of ¾ inch plywood. That three foot high piece of plywood was broken in a line at the edge of the oven. Ever tried to break a ¾ inch sheet of plywood?

The more I surveyed the damage later, the more I thought about Bonus Days. I really should be dead.................................................

I owned a house which was haunted by my best friend who was killed on his 21^st birthday when I was in university. I had lots of roomates and we became accustomed to him rummaging around. We would hear him downstairs while..........

Lights would go off and on and doors would open and close and windows would mysteriously be open and other silly stuff would.............

I am forced to believe in ghost after..........................

Maybe he was there the day I blew up. There is little other explanation for being unscathed and..............

Eliot was the first to come aboard and he braved the fumes and debris to come below. Eliot still believes I am a ghost. He always has this funny look in his eye when he talks to me. He slowly looked around in stunned silence at the smoldering wreckage. Then he ask, “Where were you?”. When I pointed to the spot he got a little pale and looked at me in that funny way that he has ever since. He turned and walked away and would not talk to me for weeks. He is scared of ghost...................................................

There was a recovery, but things changed...................................................

…...........................................................................................................................................................

Maybe this will be the chapter with spirits and drugs and the desert as well. The other side explored!

Thanks for all the support

This is a wonderfull time and project and despite some moments it is taking me on an exciting journey.

Hug to all H