McMicken State Park, 30-AUG-2026 – I’ve been thinking about all the additions and changes I’ve made to Caro Babbo, and all the changes in my life that have happened during our ownership.
There are still things I learn about my boat. Not many and not startling. I’ve learned about solar panels and batteries this year. I’ve learned about Jabsco toilets – learned more about them really. Enough that I am rethinking the composting toilet I had planned for this year. And I am thinking about all the people that have come into my life and those that have left life during these thirteen years. Twenty-three years if I count when I moved aboard the T-bird that first summer.
I installed a LiFePo battery this winter. The battery was around $500, the electronics another $500. The electronics is all Victron, top shelf and very cool to play with. The battery is a WattCycle the hot battery at the time. Victron is a Dutch company, everything seems to be designed and built there. It is all interconnected and speaks bluetooth. Speaking Bluetooth is very cool because you can see that state of all the equipment and the battery, and their history. You can shade part of solar panel and watch the power drop. You can watch the shade from the rigging cross the panels and watch the power drop. You can watch the charging to the battery turn off as it reaches full charge and know you can suck off all that excess power to charge everything else on the boat and it will have no effect on the batteries.
Victron batteries are as sophisticated as their gear, but cost five times as much as the battery I bought, which seems to work just fine.
Batteries from China seem to be like everything else that is a deal in China. You have no idea what you will get. Watching the tear down on Will Prowse channel of the same model of batteries says that most of the brands are just buying on the open market and putting their name on it. It really feels like electronic I used to buy. The one that was sent out for review was entirely different that the one that went into production. Who knows what mine looks like inside. I hope it is what Prowse dissected, but it works as advertised and I’ll leave it like that.
I replaced a major part of the toilet, which now works very well and very smoothly. I should have done it years ago, if I had had any idea. I have one more major piece to replace and the whole thing should work as it should. Easily and well.
The same thing for my stove, which gave such grief for those early years. I don’t know how everyone else kept their stoves working – couldn’t find it anywhere – but now that I’ve learned it all works well. Perhaps because we use(d) the stove so much, but that makes no sense. Many people live aboard twelve months a year. But whatever the reason, I have finally learned how to keep it in good usable shape (soak the burners in lye).
Electrical has never evaded me, but little bits still fail. The port (red) nav light failed on this trip, the second port nav light to fail. I now realize that this is an institutional failure: the line has been discontinued and I can only find starboard (green) lights on the remainders market. I have a spare at the house in PT, which I will pick up when we pass by there. Then, when it fails again, I’ll switch over to Hella at three times the price, but it should work for a longer time.
V-Belts continue to fail, but this may be the number of hours we put on the engine, but I don’t know if that makes sense. In the early years I don’t remember them failing. I keep a good supply.
I’ve finally gotten rid of all of the leaks from both inside the boat (fresh water from the tanks, leaks from faucet fittings and hot water tanks, leaks from the wet exhaust) and leaks from the outside (the dripless seal). All of these things need attention: hose clamps fail (almost all of the inside leaks) and hoses get old (the rest of the inside leaks). The list is unending. It is like understanding everything about someone you live with.
Some day I will make a list of everything, but to what end?
The boat is also a measuring stick of everyone who has left this life in the past thirteen years as is Alexa who has gotten a hold of my contacts list and reminds me to send birthday wishes to dear friends who have passed.
These people passed during the time we were on the boat, or more recently on a car trip instead on the boat.
JoAn, who was my business partner and dear friend. She and my dad had a certain spark but never followed up on it, to both their loss.
Carol, an ex-Aunt-in-law with who I stayed in touch with and with her husband. I never know how my ex felt when I showed up at the funeral. Carol’s husband, Ray, is in his middle 90s and doing well. Presuming I out live him – and that is agurable – should I attend his funeral? Will anyone care?
Hilary, Jennifer’s mother who lived with us, both on land and on the boat. We were only apart from her for 90 minutes in two years.
My father, that Babbo in Caro Babbo. He would be 99 this October. It is likely he would have passed by now, but who knows. Given his shape when he did pass, there is a decent chance he would still be with us.. The anger I had towards him for the stupid way he died has left me.* I now just feel sad.
My cousin Maria. I have five cousins. Three through my father’s youngest brother and two through his oldest. They all went to high school (and perhaps elementary) in Hicksville. I remember meeting Maria twice.† The first time in my Aunt Marie’s car. I must have been in a good mood. I remember singing a Monkees song to her – I rarely sing out loud, though I do remember doing it as well outside of Dunedin in a 1967 British saloon with a failed clutch slave cylinder.
Then at my grandmother’s funeral. She was dressed in business clothes, as was I. We both worked (or had worked) in NYC – I was living in San Diego at the time, I think. She was beautiful and beautifully dressed. My cousin Cara looked at her a remarked, ‘‘How can we be related to her?’’
I don’t know when or how, but we started speaking on a regular basis. This went on for a couple of years. Once when I was on Long Island I visited her house in the afternoon. I don’t even know what year this was. I don’t think her daughter was born so it must be more than 25 years ago. Soon after my mother called and warned me away. Her husband is jealous.
More years passed by. I would see pictures of her at family gatherings (I traveled and lived a thousand miles a way).
Then at my father’s funeral she was there with her daughter, who was equally beautiful. We spoke and decided to start speaking. We’d speak, generally, every couple of weeks during the school years, she worked at a college and I was on the boat during the summer. We lost touch for a couple of months and when I called this past spring, she was a little cold and we did not make plans to speak again. The magic had disappeared, I thought.
Then about a month ago I received a message from my cousin Cara: Maria has stage four cancer and won’t last long. I texted Maria and after a few days received a thank you message from her saying she did not want to speak. I had heard she was in hospice and in bad shape. I wasn’t offended. I deduced this was the reason she was distant and a little cold this past spring; she was facing her mortality.
When Jennifer and I were in Quebec City, I received a message that she would like to speak with me. I called and spoke with her for ten or fifteen minutes. She sounded weak, but not bad.
She died the next day.
I went to her funeral with Jennifer, two of my brothers and my sister-in-law, Sharon. I wanted to meet everyone and give my condolences and speak to them, especially her daughter. When I arrived no one, beyond her husband, knew who I was. (And her brother Rick whom I see every ten years or so.) She never mentioned me or the phone calls. Our relationship was just ours.
During the years we had been speaking – six I guess – we had met twice. Once for dinner and once for a three or four hour lunch. I had physically met her six times since she was twelve.
Her death is more recurrent in my life and dreams than any of the others.
I’m writing again. Perhaps the stroke has passed, or I realize that I am completely beyond my sell by date and I need to record what ever I will, or perhaps I feel I owe to the blog, but I am writing, tangentially and directly as the topics occur. Boat ownership is many things, it seems one of those is yardstick to measure one’s life.
*His prescription regime was missing a blood thinner. He knew this and just kept putting off getting it. When he stroked, there is time for it to be undone, as mine was, but the community hospital ‘lost’ him for 90 minutes. By the time they got him to the proper hospital that damage was permament. He lasted 30 days, completely locked in. Able to only blink and move one thumb slightly. Yeah, I know we should have sued the hospital, but to what end? It wouldn’t bring him back.
† I undoubtedly met her before – but I can’t be certain. I was seven years older than her, so she was just a little kid to me.
