It's More Than Just A Shower

In my post titled “Meltdown” I made brief mention of how wonderful it was to take a real shower after 13 days of lathering up and sluicing off from a stockpot. This got me thinking of all the memorable showers I have stored in my hippocampus.

 They say this little area of the brain is shaped like a seahorse. Hmmm.... interesting...seahorse, water, memories, there's definitely a connection here. Funny the events that stay with us.....that leave a lasting memory. Other people remember a home run hit in 6 th grade, the first day of your first job, the day you proposed. Some of my brain cells have decided to set aside room for the simple shower. Of course it's more than just a shower, it's the events leading up to it.

“Sure I'm game for sailing back, it'll be fun”

I hadn't thought this one through and before I knew it was sitting in the tiny cockpit of a tiny sailboat, 2 am, on lake Ontario in October. To add to the insanity I was dressed more for the party we had been at rather than the pre-dawn sail that I had agreed too.

This being only my third experience ever on a sailboat I didn't think heeling over to the point of my elbow skimming the sea was unusual. Naivety can be a good thing.
The captain of the vessel had long since retired to his bunk, as a matter of fact only minutes after we hoisted the sails and set a course. We'd been duped.
How amusing was it when that first wave rolled down the deck, missed me and soaked Mike, not so much the second time as it arched over him and found me as it's target. Eternity is 4 hours.

 The hull barely made contact with the dock when I was up and out of there. Taking only seconds to go aboard our boat, grab a towel, jeans, t-shirt, it was up to the shower house I was headed. Scalding water for 20 minutes brought tingling feelings back to my limbs and my neck and shoulders which had been in “turtle” mode could once again relax.

Wanting to learn all about being a sailor sometimes doesn't involve water. We were on the 'hard' or in the boatyard if you not up on all your boat jargon. Our date for untieing the dock lines and beginning the journey south was in sight so it was time to do her bottom....translation, hauling out and painting the part of the boat that sits under the water. This didn't sound so bad, couple days of sanding, I like to sand, and I'll wear my new bathing suit (I think it was a birthday present) to work on my tan at the same time....multi-tasking or just plain dumb?

 From that day on I was known around the marina as “smurf”. Who knew that sanding bottom paint was such a dirty job, oh by the way the paint was blue. It was the longest shower I have ever taken, maybe the longest shower ever. Is there a category in the Guinness World Book of Records for this event?