November 29, 2014.
I've been discreetly keeping tabs on
my friends as they make their annual migration southward towards
warmer climes. Fortunately, the house has kept us too busy to get
too melancholy over our new land based lifestyle. I might be exaggerating a bit as I do really enjoy being here but you get the idea.
The laundry room used to be in a nook
off the garage. So I put up a wall and now it lives in its own room
that's part of the house. While we were at it we opted to
significantly increase the size of the master closet.
The obligatory raised garden was built
in time to take advantage of this years planting season.
Not quite Babylon but close enough for us |
The galley is old but in very good
shape so it'll be a few years before we update everything but it had
this ridiculous little leg holding up a section of the countertop.
ich |
The haven for the cookbooks |
Of course, as everybody knows, land
livin' costs money so I had to get a job. The majority of the boats
I've seen around here are fishing boats powered by huge outboards.
Unfortunately, I don't know shit about bigger outboards. I had to
find myself a sailboat/ trawler oriented place.
Then I got to thinking “What else
would be important to me?” So I took a little trip down my very
own nautical repair memory lane. About a year and a half before
Christy and I jumped aboard the Veranda and left, I got a job at
Silver Cloud Harbor Marina on Barnegat Bay in New Jersey.
Yes Dave, I still have one of the shirts. |
I wanted to pick up as much nautical
boat repair knowledge as I could before departing on our own
adventure. I worked in the yard crew hauling and splashing about 350
boats twice per year. In the rare slow times I often was utilized as
a spare set of hands by the staff mechanics so I was able to pick up
quite a bit. The biggest thing about the job was that in spite of
the hard work, I loved going there. The place was a family business
and the work force was treated like they mattered. They knew that if
the employees succeeded the business would flourish and the family
would reap the rewards.
After a few years aimlessly floating
about we started working during the summer months. Due to the
combination of numerous boats and people with loads of money,
Annapolis was the logical choice.
I took a job with Viking Marine
Services. I worked for Bjorn and Dullard and the big draw was since
the company was a mobile repair business that the gig came with a
company truck. Having the truck on the weekends made laundry and
grocery shopping sooo much easier. Bjorn was one of the most
knowledgeable repairmen I’ve ever met.
Always loved that longboat.... |
So that season I started at Annapolis
Harbor Boat Yard. That was a pretty big place with about 16
employees. The crew and management were close, with one unfortunate
exception. The owner. We had several frank discussions where he
bitched about feeling uncomfortable coming to work at his own
business because he felt like an outsider. Yet he ran the place like
it was a mega corporation rather than a family business.
No, its not me |
After a few seasons at Annapolis Horror Boatyard
working for Pete and Michelle at Lunbar Marine was a dream come true.
Lunbar was also a mobile marine repair business. Pete was an
airframe and powerplant technician in the aviation industry in his
previous life and he brings that “quality first” mindset to the
job with him every day.
If you need work done in Naptown call them.... |
So after my reflections I realized I
wanted to find a family business. So after some word of mouth I got
a referral to a place only a few miles down the road from us. It's
at the end of a long stretch of road and when I came around the last
bend I was excited to see a field of mastheads sticking up towards
the sky.
The place has been run by the same
family for more than 60 years. Twenty employees, 2 big travel lifts
running all day and a lot almost the size of Jabins up in Annapolis.
I've been at the job for 8 days now and things are feeling pretty
good. I think I might get adopted....