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Eddie lay too long at anchor. Time, tide, weather, and even an earthquake had done their job well, so both hooks battled retrieval from their purchase on China.
Despite the murder of millions with the aid of a scraper, the bottom harbored an entire ecosystem reluctant to assume refugee status. The water, fuel, and groceries that had provided ballast were depleted, with the result that Eddie’s uniquely placed propeller chopped as much air as water.
The crew aged gracefully as Eddie labored northward, a normally eight hour trip becoming something measured in geological time. Transplanting a reef is heavy work.
The lockmaster looked dubious as he peered down into Eddie’s flooded cockpit and asked the captain, knee deep in water, whether he was sinking. He didn’t seem convinced that it was actually Eddie’s hot tub, but explaining that the water was retained for ballast probably wouldn’t have satisfied him either.
In fact, Eddie had been pumping herself full of water, as the heat exchanger had corroded through and was leaking a constant stream of coolant into the bilge. The captain had perceived this as a good thing, adding more badly needed ballast, but what a mess in the bilge.
By the way, something you won’t have to concern yourself with, since you’re not buying a boat, is the bilge.
Though you won’t see this definition elsewhere, the bilge is the primary eating place on a boat. I don’t know why this is so, as most boats also have a salon and a galley. But for some reason the main issue about a salon is how many people can sleep there, even though the boat is likely to have a stateroom or two for that purpose. And as for the galley, though it’s decreed that it must be u-shaped, the only debate seems to be whether it belongs up or down. No discussion of eating there.
Some boats even have a dining salon, but on these vessels, for reasons having to do with relative expense, it is even more essential that one be able to eat out of the bilge.
So you’ll hear about a boat “so clean you can eat out of the bilge.” If you’re still provoking the gods, by all means go look at every boat where the claim is made that you can eat out of the bilge. This ought to provide sufficient knowledge about seagoing cuisine to discourage you from further investigation.
In the event you do find a boat where eating out of the bilge seems conceivable (though seating positions are likely to be uncomfortable) think twice before buying. Because once you buy that bilge it will become your job to keep it appetizing. Remember that the common definition is also true: the bilge is that low place in the boat where everything that leaks or spills ends up. This includes the vital fluids that the engine is supposed to contain. Furthermore that engine is connected to a hole in the boat that must leak. If the “stuffing box” does not leak, and you try to actually drive your bilge someplace, bearings and shafts and transmissions and things burn up.
Even if you have a taste for oily and salty foods, the day will come when your dining room is completely filled up with leakage and spillage. The enforced diet that ensues will be brief, because you will be sinking.
Another note about bilges: each contains a monster. The bilge monster inevitably grabs everything of value or importance on its boat, from your Cartier wristwatch to the only tiny screw in the world that can prevent your stove from exploding. Thus you will find yourself groping blindly downward, to your shoulder in grunge, grasping at other potentially dangerous items that the bilge monster has swallowed, and wisely planning a trip to the nearest restaurant if you ever retrieve your wallet. (And if the boat attached to that bilge hasn’t already sucked out all of its contents.)
Now, if you find yourself checking out a place where you don’t have to pick up the floor to examine your dining area, and where if you do look under the floor you don’t find oil and water and mysterious floating objects sloshing around; why, you’re not looking at a boat at all. You’re looking at a cabin in the mountains and you should buy it right away.
Anyway, Eddie came to forlorn rest at the bank’s dock. Repo men probably seldom see their delinquent property arriving on its own accord. It’s probably also rare that the mortgage holders decline and deny ownership. "We thought you both ran to Tahiti," they said. So, even in dire straits, Eddie continues to provide folks with valuable lessons in the desirability of boat ownership.
Giving the RockWacker to my ever-patient crew, I walked away.
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