All the panic attacks, all at once
Today started really rough. I suppose the events of last night probably effected my dreams and it sure was sitting on me early in the morning when I got up before everyone at 8am. I had a lot to write, and by the time I finished around 10am, everyone was still asleep. I have great cell service here so I went to post my blog and all the sudden my laptop went completely wonky. My word document got all messed up, my mouse wouldn’t work, nor even directly from the laptop keyboard. After half an hour of me trying to trouble shoot it I gave up in a state of panic. Guys, I had a small panic attack! It was at that moment that I realized how attached I had become to this blog. Even now I wish we had kept better logs of our sails back when we started in 2017. Seeing other sailors with their young kids aboard, we reminisce about those times. I have it documented with photos and an occasional Facebook post, but the memories and details are gone forever. The idea that I wasn’t going to be able to document this summer was overwhelming!
I decided to walk away, in my panic, and take Kona to shore. She was overdue as it was. I was trying to hide my panic, but my tears were too much and I woke everyone on board. They all decided to go to shore with me and were extremely kind to me in my moment.
On shore, after Kona had her moment, we chatted with the marina staff. We told them about the overboard phone and they gave us a fishing net to help us maybe retrieve it. Cory and I went to the grocery store real quick and got some BBQ sauce for dinner and another bottle of Cherry Vodka, this time from MI, not Door County. By the time we got back to boat to make breakfast…it was nearing noon!
Captain had slept on his problem and decided he was at least going to try and find his phone and see if we could locate it and maybe get it with a net. We decided to attempt this before we all looked at my computer. Cory volunteered to stick their head in the water from the dinghy and see if they could see anything. The day was overcast and there was enough wind on the water to take the visibility down to nearly zero at the surface.
It was while Cory’s head was in the water when another gentleman from the marina came out in his dinghy. “Is there a body in the water?” “No, just a lost cell phone.” Pouty face. This seemed like all he needed to hear. “I have my scuba gear back on the boat, if I have enough air, I’ll come look for it.” He was already on his return when I barely got his name, Steve.
Ten minutes later he was back with his bright green scuba tank and gear. We watched him gear up, throw himself overboard and slowly descend into the waters below. We could see his tank and bubbles. Seven minutes later he emerged with Captains phone in hand!!!! We were dumbfounded. I blew the conch and we all hooted. I’m sure the crew back on land understood!
We offered him a case of beer, payment, anything! He graciously declined saying how much he needed a reason to go diving and how much he enjoyed doing it. We agreed we would pay it forward and I secretly knew he wasn’t going to get away without some goods from our ship in the end. We knew which boat was his in the marina, I would be back! Turns out he and his family live down south Michigan somewhere but bring their boat up here and live all summer while he Captains the Beaver Island Ferry on the weekends! How cool!
We said our good-byes to Scuba Steve and then I decided I had calmed down enough to look at my computer. And by some grace it worked like nothing ever happened. So with a breakfast in hand, a working computer and a found phone the day turned from panic to relief. Captain’s phone turned on (Cory accidently tried it) so we have hope. We put a fan on it and are going to wait a full 48 hours before we know for sure. While we talking to the marina staff earlier in the day he had mentioned our bad luck was the Island telling us to “be on island time” and get off our electronics. I couldn’t agree more. I’m still addicted. But we are trying.
Captain and went to shore to get some more blazing and electrical tape at the hardware store and to give Kona girl some frisbee time. Before we did that we stopped by Steve’s boat to give him a Crew shirt, stickers and freeze dried ice cream as a thank you for the phone recovery. The days go by crazy fast when you don’t wake up until late and by the time we got back it was nearly 4pm. We all wanted a nap, so we took one. I woke up around 5:30 and managed to get everyone up with the idea of a run to get ice cream. Cory had asked, and looking at the time, it was either dessert before dinner or none. I like boat math. We headed back to shore and got some ice cream at Daddy Franks. I got my cherry dole whip, which was amazing! We also got back to Ciara just before the rain finally hit us for the evening.
We made BBQ sandwiches with our home smoked pulled pork that was freeze dried. They turned out amazing. After dinner we just enjoyed each other’s company. I attempted to make more cherry-tini’s with our new Cherry Vodka. I made a large batch in a mason jar so we could just pour and serve. They did not turn out well. Hmmm. Guess we will need to figure out what went wrong there. Was it the new vodka? Did I math poorly?
I decided to give some insurance to Captain by inventing a way to attach his phone to a lanyard and avoid his phone going overboard again. I used a plastic ice cream lid that I had on board (I use the bin to hold things on the counter underway) and cut out a little mockup. Captain was so impressed by my idea that he took over and perfected it. He won’t let me take a picture of it cause he’s going to make money off it. LOL. Dude, it is a modification of a thing you can buy on amazon…Oh well, he is excited and all I need to do now is make the lanyard part for him. I have a project! I’ll be able to show the finished product just not the secret part.
Captain used my phone to catch up on my blog and watch my silly videos. He kept pointing out my misspellings. Yes, I know pheasant and peasant are two very different things, much like Haul, and hull, but this is a girl who struggled really hard to get a B in English class. I hope you all enjoy my typos and find them cute. I don’t have an editor; this is a live blog. Priorities. :D I’m just so happy to keep it and watch it grow over the years.
So today was full of life and not so much the touristy type. The day got away and I feel like we did nothing and a whole bunch of other things at the same time. Grateful for Captain’s phone (let’s hope it comes back) and for my blog to live another day. We have one more day here to really enjoy the island before we take another long haul east.
