I’m practicing on pictures today, so I thought I would share two close-ups of the Serenity with you. This is a picture of her bow:

And this is a picture of her belaying pins, midships.

Monday night, Dear Husband drove us to Chicago to see the Tall Ship Serenity. The Chicago Maritime Society was hosting a fundraiser and it gave us the opportunity to board the Serenity and visit below decks. She has two compact living areas separated by an engine bay. As you can see below, she has two masts and four sails. She

Yep……today’s the day. Fred toodled off with the Arrr!!! Anyone who is driving on the Eisenhower in Chicago….please wave as he goes by. He’s the one towing a 32′ sailboat.
Fred is addicted to water. I don’t know where this came from, since we have lived our lives in a (mostly) land locked state. I always thought he was destined to be a pilot, and I would have been THRILLED to go flying with him. Somewhere he took a 180 degree turn and ended up a sailor instead. I wouldn’t mind it if I didn’t get violently ill every time I get on the boat.
We’ve tried every remedy known to man: Dramamine, Bonine, pressure strips for the wrist, ginger cookies and ginger tablets, ad nauseum (literally!). And nothing works. I suspect part of it has to do with the roughness of the harbor, and part of it is that the risks my free spirited husband takes scare me to death.
Soooo…each summer I become a boat widow. From today, May 17th to October 15th, he will be gone almost every Saturday and Sunday, off sailing Lake Michigan. This year, though, we have claimed two of his very early sailing days. On June 8th he has agreed to accompany me in the Walter Payton 5k Fitness Walk. And May 31st his only daughter is getting married. He asked her if he could wear his boat clothes to the wedding…… She didn’t smile.
During the early and late stages of my widowhood I do all sorts of things out doors. There’s an antique fair I love to visit, and the Gold Coast Art fair is fun. I do a lot of gardening, and try to get in some walking. I make plans to visit friends for lunch or brunch, and I make short trips. But when we get to mid July and August, I hibernate in my home. It’s too HOT to go out!
I’m collecting books for the summer reading session, and looking for cool recipes for meals. You’ll find me here, wondering where everyone else is. Come by and visit, ya hear??

Okay…..the title of my blog is based on the name of my husband’s boat. We sat around for a week tossing out possible names, arguing the pros and cons of each, wishing we had a really clever choice to settle on along the lines of “Cutty’s Ark.” We finally went with Arrrgh!!!, or so I thought. When the paperwork came back from the state, I discovered that DH had opted to change the spelling. I STILL give him a hard time about it.
The Arrr!!! is a 32 foot Bayfield sailboat. It’s a cutter, which means it has two foresails (jibs) and a main sail. She’s having her 20th birthday this year. Bayfields were made in Canada, so when it was time to do some serious looking for a new old boat, we went to the Toronto area to take a look at several that were for sail. Let me tell you, there’s a LOT to learn about buying a boat in Canada and bringing it to the USA. We found out about it the hard way. 🙁
Fred is so addicted to boating that he makes a boat widow of me from about May 15th to October 15th. I’ve been on the Arrr!!! a number of times. The year we bought her, I helped motor her upriver to the harbor where we moor her in Chicago. It was a beautiful day in June, and we made it through the locks without any problems, despite being novices.
Last year I went with to put her in the water, and it started raining just outside the locks where we stopped to have the mast shipped. It went downhill from there. The water on the harbor side of the lock was horribly choppy, and got worse closer to the mooring. We hooked up to the mooring ball and were rocking so roughly that I could barely keep to my feet. I began to contemplate whether I could make it to shore if I hurled myself over the side of the boat and swam for it Ya gotta know I’m not that great a swimmer.
It must have been the word “hurl” that did me in, because I got to worship the galley sink god. Again, and again, and again. FINALLY the tender came for us, and I realized they wanted me to jump from this madly rocking boat to THAT madly rocking boat. It wasn’t a matter of courage. By then, I was so sick that I really didn’t care much what happened to me. PLEASE GOD……DROWN ME!!!
The cheery boaters on the tender all reached out their hands to me and I THREW myself at them. They pulled me in, and I huddled in one corner praying that the trip wouldn’t be long.
He can have his boat, and I’ll garden and quilt and blog. I’m never gonna sail on a small sailboat again. Give me the Statendam, anytime! lol