By John – Page 11 – Caro Babbo

One last round with Hilary

Hilary doesn’t yet visit me in my dreams but she will. When time enough passes that she and I should have seen each other by now, she will appear to fulfill that timetable. I wonder if she’ll speak or just be present, communicating by her heat next to my face.

Seattle, WA, 14-JUL-2019 – The radar is installed and working, so is the new autohelm.

I’m your (almost) Captain. Goings on ashore.

Port Townsend, Wa, 18-May-2019 – Call me Almost Captain. I’ve passed all the tests, taken a Red Cross-approved first aid course, had a physical. There is only getting a TWIC card (background security check), getting a drug test and assembling 720 days of sea time, and then, with the addition of another few hundred dollars I will have a 25-ton master’s license for near coastal. Oh yeah, I also will have sailing, and assistance-towing endorsements.

This will allow me to captain, for money, power vessels up to 25 tons gross vessel weight based on volume (not displacement); the vessels will weigh, empty, much less than 25 tons. I can also master a sailing vessel of unlimited weight and get paid for towing boats that need assistance. In the US, it seems I can do all of this on non-commercial vessels, for no pay, without any license. (In other parts of the world this isn’t true: one must actually have training before doing these things.)

Taking a few minutes to play Hooky

Lee’s Landing, Lake Union, Seattle, WA, 7-MAY-2019 – Tests for my Master’s (Captain’s) license start tomorrow evening. I’ll take a few minutes to play hooky and tell you about the experience before the reckoning.

I row to class in our Portland Pudgy each afternoon, a little after 5pm and then home at 9:30. The row is around 50 minutes, five or ten minutes longer than walking, but if I paid attention to where I am rowing, it might be the same or less. When rowing, I only see where I have been, rather than where I will be.

At night, I will see only three or fewer boats on the lake on my row home.

Lake Union and the PNW boating community is as much my home, as any I have had. I think of the three places I’ve lived where I would run into I people I knew: As a young adult on Long Island, I would always meet people I knew at Smith-Haven Mall. As a slightly older, young adult in New York’s west village, and now sailing here.

Back in the classroom again

Port Townsend, WA, 27-APR-2019 – I’m working on a Master’s (Captain’s) license – I think the last time I was on the student side of a classroom was around 1981. I was still working for Digital Equipment and was regularly being sent for training.

I did corporate training for a number of years as an instructor, but I was never on the student side again, until now. It’s reassuring to know how much of the material I already know, but I’ve always been a poor student in that I never cared about grades. I didn’t know it at the time, but I am classic software engineer (or race care driver) in that sense. Artificial and external appraisals don’t matter to me†. It may be why I like single-handing a sailboat so much.

Here, it is different, I must get certain grades in order to get that license.

Hilary Has died.

At 7:42 pm, Atlanta time, Jennifer sent a text: ‘‘30 breaths per minute, hard, normal is 12-15.’’ At 7:54pm, ‘‘37 bpm.’’

Lake Union, Seattle, WA, 5:30 am PT, 12-Apr-2019 – At 6:03 am this morning, Atlanta time, with Jennifer holding her hand, Hilary drew her last breath and breathed no more.

Her passing was as Jennifer has hoped, peaceful and quiet. Jennifer was with her and Hilary was not afraid.

Life is a Mangle

7-APR-2019, Port Townsend, WA – Contranym – a word that is its own opposite. The noun mangle and verb mangle are life at the moment. A mangle is a machine with rollers that smooth cloth. I think of them as the wringer rollers on a washing machine, or the machines that iron sheets in a hotel. The verb is to destroy usually by twisting and cutting.

Hilary is dying. It blots out much of what I intended to write about.

She stood in front of the temple and spread herself upon the wind, thinner and thinner, until only the wind remained.
Apollo referring to Hera in Star Trek episode 33, Who Mourns for Adonis

Transitioning back

DL2955, 114 Minutes east of Seattle, 19-MAR-2019 – It is a transitional time. We’re headed back to Seattle with two houses sold, one undergoing renovation, one about to start. My friend and editor, Peter Coleman, sent me an email discussing the boat he bought in the UK (he lives in Australia), his plans for motoring through the canals of France and a sincere invitation to skip our transatlantic sail and join him and his spouse.

We’re going home…soon.

Decatur, GA, 7-MAR-2019 – With the Edgemont house listed, there is time to get back to life and Caro Babbo. Jennifer and I have been celebrating by seeing friends in the afternoons. Yesterday, we went to Marlay’s in Decatur and drank beer.

Lastnight, I registered for a Captain’s license course that I will start later this month. There is an irony. The course was offered in Port Townsend, while I was here in Atlanta, and now that I will be back in Port Townsend, I will take the course in Seattle, 2½ hours away. Keeping Caro Babbo on Lake Union proves itself once again, as I will be able to stay in Seattle the evenings after the class. I can also tele-attend via an internet connection from Port Townsend.

In short, it’s time to get back to the fun stuff.

Hilary, Spelling and the Camino; GPS, the Bahamas, and when will we ever get home to Caro Babbo.

Decatur, GA, 19-FEB-2019 – At times I’ve written that the true subject of this blog is Hilary.

Dyna and husband John at the 2019 Atlanta Orthographic Spelling Bee.

I received this email from Dyna Kohler, the Doyenne of the Atlanta Orthographic Spelling Bee. Dyna saw a picture of our dinghy, the Hilary Hoffmann stored on Caro Babbo’s foredeck.

I am really dumbfounded now to learn Hilary’s full name. Hilary Hoffman, did she walk the Camino in Spain in 2003? If so, I met her.…