Homer – Caro Babbo

Last Week

Homer, AK, 12-Aug-2023 — lt’s dark here, it’s not night, the weather has changed, it’s blowing in Homer harbor. We’ve been up here four summers, and it’s difficult to say what typical Homer summer weather is.

The first year, 2020 was the lovely year, the year we based everything on. The next year we went to Prince William Sound, and the weather wasn’t bad, occasional storms blowing through. Year three was terrible, we sat and hid half the time. Year four we find we are tired of this: the weather hasn’t been bad, very little wind, but we find were just tired of being here.

Today it’s blowing, may be 20 in the harbor. It’s not bad. We don’t have a car this year, so we’re sort of stuck here, which isn’t bad, Jennifer and I like being together.

I’m changing

Port Townsend, 12-JUN-2023 – I’m changing. I think I’m changing back to whom I was; I am different. I know I feel the same things I used to feel, but I’m different.

Since the stroke, there have been changes in me. In the early days, the days would pass by without really an end to them. They were somehow continuous. Eventually, that stopped, but even now days don’t have the strong breaks that they used to. I seem to sleep heavier.

Waiting for Haul out in Homer

Homer Harbor, Homer, AK, 29-AUG-2022 – It happens whenever I live on a boat in a harbor for a while. The water loses the appearance of water and becomes solid like earth or a roadway. It has happened again here in Homer. We’re rafted up next to a Crealock 37 named Trinity. We look forward down a fairway towards the mouth where larger vessels tie up and raft together.

Day is Done, Gone the Sun…

Homer, AK, 22-AUG-2022 – I hear the words to Taps in my head this morning. Our trip is over. We’re in Homer about ten days early. The weather in South Central Alaska has been such that staying a distance away risked not getting here by the first of September when Caro Babbo will be hauled out.

It looks like the Pacific High (pressure system) did not form this year – from what we see now that we can download large weather maps. Massive lows are coming in from Japan and up the Canadian Coast.

We’re rafted up with a 40-something-foot Hunter sloop. The Harbor Master says we’ll be fine as no one ever visits that vessel. We’d rather be in a slip than exposed to the traffic in the harbor. We also have to cross the Hunter any time we want to get to the dock. On the other hand, this is about as private as we will get – no one on the dock can see into our boat. I’m not sure they can even see our hull.

Airplanes and Nail Polish

Homer, AK, 16-JUL-2021 — I’m here. I’m in Homer getting Caro Babbo ready to ”Splash” at the end of the month.

Splash is a very visual word and a bit joyous, making a big splash is what many of us want when we make it big. When launching Caro Babbo that is the last thing we want to envision. Splash is a sail boat falling from the TravelLift into the water, a crane tipping over and other very visual mishaps that must be pushed from my imagination.

Count down to Homer

Port Townsend, WA, 23-Jun-2021 – In 22 days I will board a Delta Flight from SeaTac airport to Homer, Alaska changing in Anchorage. Rental cars are scarce; I will pay $125 per day for a three days rental car in Homer. In Anchorage, there are none – Jennifer and I paid $13 per day for a rental last September.

I am flying to Caro Babbo. The surge of returning has taken a long time to build in me. I once saw an interview with Norman Mailer describing the effects of using a testosterone gel. He said he hadn’t felt that way in years. Norman is long dead, but returning to Caro Babbo sharpens my senses and gives me purpose.

There is never the return to her that doesn’t have some apprehension. It is the not the uncertainty in the back of one’s mind when seeing a lover after an absence: Have things changed? Will I still be loved?

No, returning to a boat, our boat, is the apprehension of returning to a house that has been shut up: Will everything still be there? Will there be damage?

Maybe it is closer to returning to a loved exotic car. All of the above for a house, plus will it start? Can I get parts for the repairs I must make?

Unique to a boat: once I get it running, will it sink somewhere with me aboard? Will the rigging fail and Caro Babbo become dismasted?

Life in Homer

Labor Day Weekend 2020, Homer, AK – Homer is not what we expect. Alaskans tell us, uniformly, that Homer is the Port Townsend (where Jennifer has a house) of Alaska. We feel blind, because we don’t see it.

Caro Babbo Sleeps, John Doesn’t

Port Townsend, WA, 1-OCT-2020 – In Homer, AK, Caro Babbo, resting on stacked wooden squares called cribs, winterized, locked and watched over, sleeps. I on the other hand toss and turn. Dryland, people, culture, and COVID are difficult transitions.

Give me a few minutes to catch you up.