Cottonwood Island

24 May 2009, Sunday


Early morning coffee, then a nice eggs and polish sausage breakfast. Now I am ready to put in some more work. First, on the list is to replace my favorite America Great Loop Cruising Association flag which was ripped off the mast by the headwinds coming down river on Thursday afternoon. I dive into my flag stash that my good retired Naval buddy, Glenn has provided. I pull out a brightly colored Scottish flag which certainly is appropriate for all my Scottish ancestors.


Next, I see my old anchor gloves are filthy dirty so they go into a bucket for soaking, scrubbing and then drying out in the sun. I decide to clean the anchor chain locker, which I do not remember ever cleaning. All the extra rode is pulled out and placed neatly on deck, then the locker is scrubbed and since it is all teak, I oil it later on. After re stowing all the rode, the fore peak is nice and tidy. Then I clean all the windows inside and out and replace my windshield wiper blade.

I take a break up in my favorite reading area. This time I tackle reading Endurance, Shacketon's Incredible Voyage which he took in 1915 at Antarctica. It is a very unbelievably account of terrible hardships over a 16 month period. How he and his 28 member team survived is beyond belief. I couldn't put the book down all afternoon.

I did manage to pull myself away for dinner and tea and took time to watch the sunset. Later in the evening I finished the book. The spirit and endurance of the human being is extraordinary.