It’s Raining, It’s Pouring, and Matt’s Kinda Snoring

Sunday September 25, 2011

The weather predicted this weekend wasn’t supposed to be great.  In fact it was supposed to be pretty crappy with rain threatening both days.  But with both of us being so stubborn that we would spend every weekend at the boat no matter what (with the exception of my longest friend’s wedding reception that was totally worth it) we packed our bags and my macaroni casserole with thunderstorms looming in the distance.  About 10 miles outside of Muskegon the sky just opened up on us and you could barely see 100 ft in front of the car.  Taking a quick look on the radar on Matt’s phone it appeared to be a short storm with the worst already on top of us.  When we pulled in the marina the rain had let up a bit but we pondered if it was worth going out or if we should turn around and go home.  We figured we were already out there and if worse came to worse we could watch movies and read all weekend, the same thing we’d do at home anyway.  Quickly trying to unload the car we rolled the dinghy down the boat launch and get everything in.  At this point the rain was beginning to come down a little harder again so I pushed us off while Matt worked on getting the engine started.  First pull, nothing.  Second pull, nothing.  I actually had to laugh a little the situation, us stuck out in the pouring rain with all of our belongings in a dinghy that we could not get to start.  It became less funny after five or six more attempts with no results.  Finally it started and we were able to zip soaking wet to the boat.  Stepping into the cabin once on board was difficult because Matt had emptied the aft cabin while replacing fuel lines and put all of the contents into the main cabin.  Stepping over boxes and bags I stripped off my wet clothes and went to grab something dry out of the backpack.  I knew it was going to be cooler that weekend and I had packed a lot of warm clothes that I couldn’t wait to get my hands on.  My sweatpants were ready and waiting to be thrown on, but all my other clothes were at least damp because of the rain getting into the bag.  Tank top it is!  Both of us were so tired when we got there that even though our stomachs were growling and we were starving, we had to climb into bed for a little nap.  We were passed out right away and the rain continued to tap on the hatches.  A few hours later we woke up now absolutely ravenous.

While Matt went back to work on the fuel lines I started to clear of one of the settees for sitting room and threw the casserole in the oven to bake.  There wasn’t much for me to do at this point.  I had planned on keeping my nook and working on blog posts, but I didn’t want to ruin my book by starting it too early in the weekend and then being bored with it by the next day and unfortunately my blog notebook got wet on the dingy ride over and needed to be dried out.  Pulling Chapman’s into my lap I thought I’d read about electronics and see if it made sense after the fifth time reading it.  After a few pages of reading and actually retaining the information the casserole was done I was happy to put the book down.  Dinner was delicious and just what I needed on a cold dreary day like this.  Even though it wasn’t too cold in the cabin we lit the oil lamps to keep things nice and toasty into the night.  We settled into the v-berth with mounds of pillows and blankets to watch a movie for the evening.  Everything was going along fine, it was a perfect Saturday night, and then we both saw a bright flash of light from the saloon.  At first it looked like car headlights passing by, and in the half second it took us to realize there are no cars out here we both realized what it was, flames!  I bounced out of the v-berth as fast as a person possibly could, trying not to get tangled in or rip out the DVD cords from the wall.  Racing into the saloon I imagined our beautiful boat going up in flames and all my dreams being slashed.  My heart was beating out of my chest and this three seconds felt like forever until I found out the big flash of light was the lamp extinguishing itself as the wick ran out.  Phew, crisis adverted.

The next morning we woke up to rain and then some more rain.  We had known going into the weekend that this would be a no-sail day and we would spend all our time in the cabin lounging around.  This time I had remembered to bring everything I needed for pancakes and went to work cooking.  I only had one skillet to cook on, so the sausage links went on first so a little bit of the grease left behind would keep the pancakes from sticking as I did forget to bring the butter.  Ooops.  While cooking I quickly realized how heat does not spread well on this skillet as the center links were getting burned while the ones on the outside were raw.  Some rotating worked on the sausage links but the pancakes were a lot harder.  I ended up keeping all the blackened ones that the work could barely get through so Matt could have the ok ones and continue to think that his wife isn’t terrible at cooking.  Looks like we’ll have to add a new skillet to the ongoing list of things that need to be purchased before we leave.  The food turned out surprisingly better than it looked though.  After we finished and the dishwasher (me) was run, there was still the question of what to do.  I took a seat at the nav station an started working on blog posts but that lasted for a little under an hour before writers block and a little bit of boredom set in.

Grabbing my Nook I made my way to the v-berth where I burrowed under the covers to do some reading.  Matt thought this was a good idea too and joined me.  He made it less than 30 minutes before his eyes started drooping and he decided to nap.  Less than two hours after we had woken up from getting twelve hours of sleep.  I tried to fight it as long as I could, but less than twenty minutes later I was ready to close my eyes too.  At least I can blame my thyroid for being tired all the time.  Besides, Matt’s snoring was making it hard to read.

When we woke up again I checked the radars and saw nothing but red coming our way.  Maybe if the boat had not been in such a state of disarray or it was a little bit warmer I wouldn’t have minded wasting away the afternoon reading and watching movies and generally lounging around below deck, it’s been done before, but I wanted to go home where I could crawl into bed and put on Netflix.  Maybe take a hot shower and raid the fridge.  Since there was a small window in the weather before the really bad stuff came our way we decided to make a break for it and hopefully not go through another dinghy ride in a torrential downpour.  Deciphering what parts of the mess in the cabin had to come home with us we started packing our bags and loading everything onto the dink while there was a clearing in the showers.  Heading back we had a dry ride to shore and soon everything was packed in the car and we were on our way home.  And just as planned we took hot showers and then crawled under the covers of our bed to waste away the evening in front of a glowing TV screen.