Allegro, non-troppo

Port Townsend, 3-MAY-2023 – It’s been a heck of a year since we returned from Caro Babbo last fall.

I’m back from almost 3 weeks of bouncing around Europe seeing old true and good friends. Just before I left I started to feel the pressure of tasks to be accomplished before Caro Babbo can go in the water. I set all of that aside, other than to book my flight, then jetted around Western Europe seeing friends. It wasn’t a return to an old life, we’ve all more or less left that life. Franz, with another 10 years before he wants to call it quits, has decided he’s had enough of the newspaper industry and being a CEO. He starting a new venture with a new love and exploiting an untapped Italian market for which there are government monies looking for a place to go.

Ann is still in Paris having left Dublin 40 years ago. She’s called it quits and lives the Parisian life of leisure and magazines. Elena flew down from Moscow, she’s a travel writer, we traveled for a week around Milan and Lake Garda: travel if you can with a travel writer. I don’t need to say more.

Clive, who I’d never actually met in person, flew to Dublin to meet me there. We spent about 24 hours wandering around the city to pubs and restaurants and spent time talking in person about things we’ve only spoken about on Zoom calls. And on my way into Europe, Morghan, who I call and think of as a niece, was nice enough to not only take an evening to sit in a pub with an old man but in the category of, what the hell was she thinking, took some of my advice! There isn’t a bigger compliment anyone could possibly pay me.

I saw Michela, who I met last year in Aruba, and stayed with her and her husband, Pino, and their two lovely daughters. They made me welcome and cooked traditional regional food that I have never seen in any cookbook. Michela’s family is royalty in her town with parks named after her grandfather and statues of him. She’s lived there her entire life and walking around town is a walk among lifelong friends.

And in the category of what the hell was I thinking, I dropped out of touch with one of my dearest friends, Linda Brockington. When I saw her in Paris eight years ago, the visit seemed strained. Linda’s not the type of person who calls you, you call Linda. Her apartment in Paris was the gateway to Europe crowded with people of all ages arriving and staying before they either moved on or waited, as in my case, for my apartment to be ready. Linda’s apartment in Amsterdam was the printing industry software vendors’ headquarters for successive IFRA trade shows.

I wanted to see Linda and her husband Gé to make amends for being out of touch and recover the closeness of their friendship.

When I saw Linda and Gé in a small Italian restaurant in Amsterdam, I could see the change in her face. We sat, the three of us, and Linda was her animated self: she wasn’t cursing, which in itself should be an alarm, but it was only a sentence or two until I was certain what I’d seen in the softening of the features of her face, the sort of blandness, or perhaps its lack of emotion that is in the face of someone who has Alzheimer’s.

Linda got up to go to the bathroom. It is a small restaurant and everyone knows Linda. As she disappeared around the corner, Gé said to me, ‘‘I know you have experience with this and I knew you can see it.’’ Writing this makes me cry. But in the moment I don’t think I expressed any emotion other than an acknowledgment that what he said was true.

I damn myself for not staying in touch: I damn myself because my last time with Linda was that time, because I wasn’t in touch as the symptoms started, because I wasn’t in touch to give what support I can give to Gé. Jennifer and I have experience, lots of experience, and we have time.

I had such a good time in Europe I want to return in April with Jennifer and do some of the same things and many different things. Elena wants to come join us for a few days; she and I hadn’t seen each other in 15 years and now at the age of 35 she is a full, accomplished, successful adult who has written for Forbes and Elle, and is becoming well-known.

I told Gé when Jennifer and I return in April we would see them and spend time with Linda so he could get some time off. He is doing this alone. One of Linda’s daughters will arrive in a few weeks for a week and Gé will go off on a motorcycle trip with some friends. Linda’s second daughter will arrive a month or two later for a week and Gé get some time then.

Jennifer said a year is too long for us not to see Gé. She is very fond of Linda and Gé and spent a special evening sampling Gé’s collection of absinthe. I tease Jennifer but never mentioned to Gé that the two of them drank the absinthe and none of it was ever offered to me or Linda who made do with Calvados.

Jennifer told me we will, instead, be going there in October when we return from Alaska. We’ll stay with Linda and Gé, as Gé was almost insistent that we do in April. Jennifer and I will stay with Linda, or take her around the city or something, and give Gé a break. Jennifer and I cared for Hilary, but there were two of us. In those two years, Jennifer and I were alone without Hilary twice for 90 minutes each time. This is a difficult thing for one person to do.

The longer I’m out of the workforce the fuller my years get. October 2023 is now completely full. I want to go to my house in Atlanta for a week or so and work on the unending list of things that a house requires. I want Jennifer to come with me and see the new Atlanta that’s sprung up in the years since we’ve gone downtown.

We will sail with Chris and Ivana on their centerboard sailboat from someplace south of Nova Scotia down to Annapolis for the boat show, and then off to Amsterdam to see Gé and Linda if they still want us.

In between now and then, I have to get Caro Babbo ready to go in the water, spend four months pretty much alone with Jennifer, and leave Caro Babbo somewhere in Southeast Alaska. Sitka is the destination of choice at the moment, based on someone we met at a party in Todos Santos, Mexico. (Gerry, if you read this, get in touch with us, we’ve lost contact information for you.)

Coming home from Europe, I feel this tremendous rush to get everything purchased that I will need to do the work on Caro Babbo. I’ll have it all shipped directly to Northern Enterprises Boatyard where Caro Babbo has been slumbering. We have one report from our friends Don and Brenda that confirms Caro Babbo is still upright with her mast pointing skyward. We’re relatively confident that this year, unlike last year, we managed to close all of the deck hatches.

Although I feel the rush to purchase all of these things, if I did so immediately after arriving back in Port Townsend, it would all arrive there weeks before I would. So I want to do these things with some alacrity to make sure it all gets done, but not with too much, (allegro non tropo* – fast, but not too fast) otherwise I would be imposing on Carol and everyone at Northern Enterprises.

The major task this year is to replace the engine mounts. They may be a little difficult to find, or the ones that I will find quickly will be very expensive. Ray Penson, our friend from our 2016 journey up the inside passage who sailed his boat back to New Zealand, has recently replaced his and shared his experience with me.

The list of things to buy is probably 30 different things. This year I want to replace the anchor rode, not because it’s worn out, but merely because it’s old and while I see no wear, it seems like the thing to do.

The Portland Pudgy Dinghy has been gaining weight as we store more and more of its accessories inside the hull. I’ll remedy this by buying a two-speed winch. I need to buy solar connectors to replace those that I somehow managed to break last year – I think I’m repressing it, so I must’ve done something startlingly stupid. I want to buy a new jigsaw, the last one bathed in a saltwater-filled aft-cabin locker. The locker filled because I was too chicken to tighten the nut on the rudder post as much as was necessary to stop the leak.

I have screws to buy that hold the propeller shaft bearing in place. As the engine mounts came to their end they changed the angle of the engine to the propeller shaft. That stress stretched the stainless steel bolts that hold the bearing in place. It isn’t the first time they’ve stretched. Who knew stainless steel stretches like this?

I have a note to buy replacement bobbins to auto-inflate the life vests. I think the bobbins are the tablets that dissolve in water firing the trigger that inflates the vests. Boat owners learn to store these life vests in dry lockers.

I have an emergency dental kit on my list. Last year I augmented our first aid kit with a tourniquet, large wound-stopping powder, bandages to close large wounds, and other emergency gear that I hope I will never need other than perhaps to loan them to another boat. The same I hope holds true for emergency dental kit.

I only have one preventer for the boom and I need to buy another one so that we can keep one rigged on each side of the boat. I need to buy a 20 amp circuit breaker for the autopilot control unit (ACU) that we bought for our auto helm. This control unit has enough power to run a RAM. I have on my list to buy a Pelagic brand RAM which needs a 20-amp ACU to work.

Ah, the list goes on and on.

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It’s a week later now that when I started this. Clots have formed, lessening me and been removed by a terrific surgeon, restoring me and abridging my sailing time by a month while we wait to see if the repairs and my abilities have restored me to whomever I have been and hope to be.

As is the case, I will move forward in the direction that I will move. Hopefully, back to Caro Babbo and Homer, with Jennifer. Probably not back to SE Alaska this summer, but back on the water nonetheless.

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* It was my father, Babbo, who told me about this phrase – and the movie.