The Start Of The Great Beautification

Take a close look at this image of Betty Jane. Does she look just a tad lackluster to you? A little pale, perhaps even a little chalky? If so, the reason's as simple and straightforward as the juxtaposition of apple pie and Blue Bell Home Made vanilla ice cream.

Betty's not had any kind of wax applied to her lovely (but somewhat aged) skin for pretty close to a year now. Why? Who knows exactly why, although lack of time and energy is part of the dilemma. But hey, I am preparing to do a super-duper wax extravaganza on Betty pretty soon, by which I mean as soon as I can get a weekend free and the mercury inches into the 60s or higher. I mean, son, it's been cold down here in northern Florida lately. And I mean COLD!!!!!!

My tools, I think, are gonna be few. I've got a few extra polishing pads for my 6-inch Porter-Cable orbital power sander on hand, a couple of admittedly old bottles of 3M Finess-It (to remove the matrices of millions of dark dots that cover many flat surfaces...I'm praying these babies are air-pollution-related, not fabric ridges peeking through gel coat) , and a big ol' bottle of collagen-type wax to protect Betty's pristine fiberglass...once it's rendered pristine via the hellish Porter-Cable/Finess-It combo.

I'll let you know how it all comes out. Or more to the point, I'll show you a picture of how things come out and give you a rundown on what to do for success and what not to do. One way or the other, the whole project should be fun. Heck, it's been worth fantasizing about for months now.

Are You Shocked?

To be quite frank, my life-long love affair with boats is not wholly centered on the Betty Jane. I also love sailboats (I've owned several), ships, tugboats, gheenoes, rowboats, inflatables, schooners, pushboats, belly boats, ferries, rafts, barges, oil-field supply vessels, sportfishing battlewagons, speedboats, and, last but not least, canoes. And every year, for the past few years, I have thoroughly enjoyed this last objet trouve by doing a canoe-camping trip to northern Ontario with my brother Mike.

The venue is always the same for reasons I guess you'll begin to appreciate by briefly perusing this photo of one of our most recent campsites. The photo was taken by yours truly toward the middle of last September and, if the truth be told, leaves out a couple of important details. Like the fact that this particular spot was so remote that packs of wolves howled every night nearby (and sometimes during the day) and bears swam a slough just a few miles from camp. And like the fact that this particular spot was suffused with an energizing aura of sweet, clean air and cool sun-spangled evergreen.

We usually do a little fishing on these canoe-inspired excursions. I take a fly rod and Mike tends to go with spinning tackle. This past September we caught zilch...never even got a bite. This was probably due to the coldness of the water in the myriad lakes within the huge provincial park we favor. We didn't have the right gear for the conditions, I guess.

Did I ever think of my ol' Betty while snoozing the evenings away in our tent? Or sitting around the campfire staring into the flames while listening to the wolfy music? Or paddling down the immense lakes in the Old Town? Or lugging our entire kit across the sloggy portages?

Heck yes. After all:

I love canoes and all the rest, but Betty Jane I love the best!

Favorite Places

This is an oddball subject, I guess. But I have special little spots onboard Betty Jane that mean way more to me than just the function they serve. Just the other day, for example, I hung up my red-hot GB baseball cap--I rarely wear a hat these days unless it's on Betty's flying bridge--on the lamp by the door that opens from the saloon into the cockpit.

And this was the oddball part. I experienced a subtle but highly positive feeling from the act of merely hanging up the dang cap, primarily because the spot where I hung it was rife with memories that feature a heck of a lot of my dearest friends. Like my buddy Chuck who stuck with Betty and I through the wintry vicissitudes of Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina as we all came down the ICW to Florida some years back.

Or like by friend Don who once sat behind the table in the saloon with his lovely wife and proclaimed with a grand smile and a sweepingly knowledgeable hand gesture, "This is simply such a nice space to be in right now, Bill--it's like living inside a work of art."

Or like my good buddy Bill who used to hang his hat on the lamp after he'd come back from one adventure or another ashore and then forget where he'd put the darn thing.

Funny. But I gotta ask myself sometimes. Do such places and things as lamps, V-berth book shelves, and coffee cup hooks solidify into little bits of geography onboard boats? Little states with their own histories, famous personages, poetry, and boundaries? And if so, why seemingly more so boats than cars, planes, or houses?