Am too working..

I am often amused when I hear a particular cruiser calling  out his boat name on the radio; invariably, someone calls back, "say what?"  The name of his boat is AM TOO  WORKING.  I get it! I know exactly why these people named their boat thus; they heard the following refrain way too many times: "Living on a boat... how much work can there be? You can't be working!"  And the boat owner replied, for the dozenth time, "Am too working!"
So bear with me for a bit of whining, understanding that I whine for the captain who really never whines himself.
Perhaps you've followed the saga of the hot water tank; at last writing the captain had a "few more" things to adjust before the big installation.  That was over a week ago and he has worked 8-10 hour days since then and still the hot water tank sits in a box on the dock.  There are really, really good reasons for this.

Michelangelo of the Bilge!

Once the leaky old hot water tank was removed the captain decided to do everything possible to prevent having to do a major job like this again.  So he spent days sanding and wire brushing  areas to be painted, then coated all wood areas with a foul smelling penetrating epoxy which required him to use a respirator and Buddi and me to be on the deck. About every five minutes I held my breath, ducked my head into the companionway, and yelled, "Are you o.k.?" Most of the time I could see only his feet and barely hear his reply as he spoke though the respirator. Next he painted metal surfaces with a silver paint which was pretty foul smelling as well and again made it necessary for Buddi and me to leave the area. Finally, he did the entire area in bilge paint which was only mildly foul smelling.  The end results are silver hands for the captain who "forgot" gloves one day, asthma for me and a beautiful shiny bilge.


Now we're into the wiring stage. A bachelor boater friend, John, is a retired boat electrician with time on his hands and knowledge to share.  For the past few days John has spent entire days here as he and the captain ran wires for the addition of two air conditioning units, a dive compressor, and an electric winch, then spent a full day straightening out a rat's nest of wires behind the hot water tank space.  It was an unbelievable exercise in expertise on John's part to reorganize the breaker panel box to accommodate all the new circuits and bring all the new additions up to code.  The captain says he is doing all of this work now as once the new tank is installed, reaching that area to work would be a gargantuan if not impossible task.
Just to make life interesting, while John and Larry work in the guts of the boat, Sergio the woodworker (not to be confused with Sergio the welder or Sergio the fiberglass man) is building a step in the head so my feet don't dangle as I use the newly installed Royal Crown II Raritan industrial strength turbo charged toilet. And Chava, the teak expert, is in the cockpit redoing caulking and resetting the bungs over the teak screws.  Yeah, I don't really know what that means, either, but I do know that it requires me to leap from the companionway to the deck to avoid stepping on the freshly laid caulk and epoxy. Oh, I almost forgot Hector the canvas guy (please don't confuse him with Hector the refrigeration guy) who periodically comes by to take measurements on the dodger and the bimini and get our opinion on sunbrella colors. Sometimes, folks, I simply huddle in my bunk coming out only for meals.
I think the end is in sight. Sigh....If we hadn't planned to attend a swap meet today in order to (hopefully) rid ourselves of extra stuff we either brought with us or took off the boat, we might actually take a hot shower on the boat tonight. Oh well, maybe tomorrow.  In the meantime, we'll just  make do with unshaven face and legs, add another layer of deodorant and hope to shower here tomorrow.