"Don't let the perfect become the enemy of the good."

Beloved --

The "celtic knot" above shows the bronze port light frames after some elbow grease and buffing. The weather cleared enough this afternoon to allow my helper Mark and me to get the new port lights installed--the old port light plexiglass was horribly craze from 20+ years of UV exposure. For the first time in way too many years it is now possible to look out from the cabin of the "Game Fish" and actually see something. Note the view through the cabin to the adjacent boat.

Launch date is scheduled for July 2nd and for the first time today I felt like I was making progress on putting things together rather than dismantling the boat. Following a technical discussion with my diesel mechanic--and given his report on the status of the engine--I think the "splash" date is a good one. He wants the boat to "settle in to her lines" for a few days before doing the final engine alignment--which is fine with me. Gives me a few days over the 4th of July weekend to get ready for a shake down sail. I'll keep you posted.

The next several days will be re-rigging the mast, re-routing the exhaust hose, and getting the yard smutch off the boat.

I'll be real happy when I can sleep aboard in the marina as opposed to the boatyard. For the past few weeks I've felt like I've been living out of my car.

I miss you and love you all,

Jim

Wabi sabi or skata tees eonees

Beloved --

Bringing a circa 1965 sloop back from neglect is a worthy effort. But then, what effort isn't "worthy?"

Today I got started on the port lights. They have been finished and refinished many times in the last thirty years; but now seems like the time to take them down to the original bronze and replace the crazed plexiglass. What the heck?!? We all could use a cleared view of the world and managed "eyebrows" for accents.

Wabi sabi is Japanese for "used lovingly and long over many years" (sort of like me!). The "Game Fish" can and will bounce back--once again to enjoy beam reaches and sandy beaches.

Regarding the "skata tees eonees." In the late '60s and early '70s, Peter Throckmorton and his infamous camp followers (of which I was one) maintained a VW van in Greece. The old van did yeoman's duty ferrying stuff back and forth to s/v "Stormie Seas" in support of our various expeditions on behalf of patrons like "National Geographic." The van ran visa renewal trips to Yugoslavia as required (for those among us without Greek "green cards").

We had a mechanic in Pireaus who somehow kept the old van alive. One time, Joan (Peter's wife) asked Giorgo how the van kept going and especially what held it together. He responded in Greek (roughly transliterated) that it was "ta skata tees eonees." Let me translate that for you--"the shit of the ages."

My balancing act with the "Game Fish" is to focus on the 'wabi sabi' and thank the 'skata tees eonees' for giving me another chance.

I love you and miss you all,

Jim

Kind of a "Stay Vacation"

Beloved --

As personally enlightening as my adventure to S/SE Asia was earlier this year, there are are other realities to be considered (says Peter Pan). I'm working to get the "Game Fish" launched on July 2nd. She has spent too many years alone at the dock. . . .time to change all that.

I've been asked where her name comes from. It's from an e.e.cummings poem titled "Poem or"

Besides being a condensate of my "philosophy of life," the poem contains the line that "Only the game fish swims upstream." Aside from the difference in capitalization, I swiped the name unabashedly with the intent of living my life according to cummings' manifesto.

Wish me luck.

I love you and miss you all.

ps. Remember: "unbeing dead, isn't being alive"