Not Just Any Old Day at the Dock

Okay, so by now we're becoming pretty familiar with the boat.  What's to get to know, you ask?  Well, if you've ever been on a trawler, which is designed for long-term cruising (good thing too cause they are not speed demons), you would know that they have storage and gizmos everywhere, even places you wouldn't think to look.  There is storage under just about everything, the bed, settees, steps, counters - and even the floor.  While one can never have enough storage, there does come a time when there is so much that you can't remember where everything was stowed.

In addition to storage, there are creature comforts with limitations - namely the freezer compartment of the refrigerator.  While it's wonderful to have a nice size frig on a boat, our particular model was not frost free.  As a member of the baby boomer generation, I never saw a freezer that was not frost-free, let alone own one!  So imagine my surprise when I stuck my hand in the freezer only to find it jammed between the top of the freezer and the shelf!  What's this I thought?   Oh, oh, looks like really bad ice build up to me.   What to do now?  Well,  I do what I do in every case involving some skill I don't have - find someone else who has the skill that can be conned into doing the job to demonstrate their fine talents.

After peering a bit frantically up and down the dock and finding no one, I did the next thing that usually worked - I called a friend.  Isn't that what's done on that millionaire show?  This friend happens to work with Kadey-Krogen, the company behind our boat.  My mother always told me it's important to know well-placed people.  One call to my friend Laura was all I needed, short of having her fly up from Florida to do the job for me (I couldn't think of a thing quickly enough to get her here)!  With cell phone in ear, Laura talked me through this ancient process, including reminding me to turn off the frig/freezer from the master panel in addition to the usual place inside the frig.  Luckily for me, my friend Vicki was aboard that day, another product of the baby boom generation.  Though Vicki knew as much as I did about freezer defrosting, she was another pair of hands - and comic relief.  After many trips to dump water over the side, sliding around in the melting ice and refreshing the pan of hot water in the freezer, we were done.  Never mind that it took over 2 hours and 3 soaking wet bath towels to do this - it was dark by the time we finished.    Vicki and I were quite pleased with our efforts - until she reminded me that this wasn't a once-in-a-lifetime happening!   I came to realize that this defrosting ritual would have to be undertaken at least every few weeks, more if we spent a lot of time on the boat eating and drinking (after all what else does one do on a boat)?   At least the next defrosting ordeals were accomplished with a minimum of effort - and mess. 

Since I can never sit still, I decided to see how the port berth actually became a bed.  Looking at the picture, would you know what to do?

Well, that makes two of us, actually three, since Vicki couldn't figure it out either!  So guess what?  Right, I called a friend - and yes, I called Laura.  I should point out that by this time it was 9 pm on a Friday night - talk about customer service!  Again Laura patiently walked me through this process.  Let me tell you, it's not a no-brainer.  It took many brains to figure this one out.   The cushions come off in weird ways, then some knobs have to be turned a certain way to release the platform that becomes the bed.  Once that's done, these little chrome legs have to be found (of course in a storage place) and attached FIRMLY so the bed platform doesn't fall down when one gets in.  You can see where this is going, right?  So, I found those little legs and firmly (so I thought) attached them to the bed.  I forgot to mention that while this was going on, the aft cockpit door was open and our dock neighbors were arriving to begin their weekend fun.  Well, I jumped (mistake) into the bed and yes, no suspense here anymore - those little legs gave way.  The platform pitched up at one end, down at the other and I rolled onto the floor - in full view of the gentlemen in the boat behind us!  Poor guy, he wasn't quite sure what to do.  When he saw we were convulsed in laughter, he ran for a bottle of wine, some glasses and we were ready for our Friday night fun!  And so ended another day at the dock, never "just any old day".