Catching up

I realized that a week has gone by without me blogging. I guess I feel like I don't have much to report. The last week hasn't been that busy - I have quite a bit of personal business that I've been attending to and I've spend some time on the boat - just piddling.

Today, as I was doing one of my favorite things - walking around in marinas - I decided to take some photos to post to the blog.

Walking around and looking at boats is among my favorite things to do. It's a weird cross between going shopping (when you know you're not going to buy anything) and going to an art gallery. There's a certain beauty to boats. Not ALL boats have this beauty, but I find that there's 2 distinct types of boat that have this 'artistic' beauty to them.

This boat isn't 'ugly' by any means - but it hasn't gotten any love for a few years.

The first type is a beautiful classic - but sometimes even modern - design that just sits in the water reflecting beauty. The lines of the boat are a work of art and the way even the ports accentuate the design and the slant of the deck as it changes heights can bring a sense of beauty to the onlooker (at least me). I don't see this in all boats. There are plenty that I think are visually offensive. Some of this is due to the designers decision to value function over form. I understand that in many cases this is necessary - but - it doesn't mean that I have to like it. I find many racing sailboats fit into this category with me. Not all - but many. Again - this is not unlike art. There's many types of art - and many types of art that I don't care for.

This boat was obviously damaged in an 'event'. Whether it was just a blow or a real storm - the owner has some work to do if they want to use her again.

The 2nd type of boat that I really enjoy looking at is old derelict boats that have seen their better days and are kinda just hanging around in the 'old folks home' of the nautical world - simply because someone still loves them enough that they just can't part with them. They have backgrounds that would be really cool to see in fast forward with the ability to 'pause' when you see something interesting. All boats were new at some point and someone was very proud when they cast off the lines on the first trip out. Someone likely toasted with a loved one in the cockpit and dreamt of what they would do on the boat. Millions of dreams originate in the presence of a vessel - some fulfilled - some not.

Anyway, I took these photos at the Seven Seas Marina in Daytona Beach Shores this afternoon. It's not a fancy marina, but some of the boats here are real characters.

I leave on wednesday to go to California for some training for the new football system that we'll be using this year. I'll be back on saturday.

Here's a photo of one of the boats that was up on stands. These are barnacles that are attached to the rail of the boat. The only way that these can get here is for the boat to be submerged or laying over on it's side in shallow water for an extended period of time. Looking closer at this boat, I could see it was the latter. Someone has a big job in front of them.

This is the backwall of the 'grunt' side of the marina - where all the work is done on boats. I just found it to be kinda artistic.