Stick Wrestling and Trashing Electronics

Non-boaters usually live in houses.  It's the normal way to live.  Living on a boat is different for sure, but also much the same.

I have an old friend who lives on a small lake in upstate New York.  He often writes about the wildlife around his house, and finds bear and raccoon tracks, among others.   I imagine it is only a matter of time until he comes face to face with bears and raccoons.   I often awake in the morning to neighbors like these...

I took the dogs for a walk around the marina, and they decided to forego the usual romp in the park and headed down the marina's boardwalk.  

There's a small grassy area down there that they like to play in.   They're favorite game is to stick-wrestle.  One dog picks up a stick and taunts the other with it until a chase ensues, with the result being a wrestling match for ownership of the stick.   Sometimes, this results in two sticks and some confusion.

While there we met a neighbor who wintered his boat on "A" dock with us, but as soon as the weather warmed up moved back to his summer dock.   Miro was returning from a spin on his jetski, and invited us for coffee on his dock.

The dogs really like Miro and he likes them.   We had coffee on his dock, basking in sunshine.   Ruby enjoyed some sunbathing...

and watching her brother eat shells.  

Seagulls dropped clams, oysters, and mussels onto the dock to crack them open and to eat what's inside, but Chevy was very happy crunching on the shells themselves.

Soon though, it was back to the boat with a determination to accomplish a boat project, dispite how beautiful the day was.   We can't waste a Sunday without accomplishing something on this project boat.    I decided to tackle the electronics and remove the 1980s vintage Satellite Navigator and radar.   This is before...

and this is after.

That would be thousands of dollars of obsolete electronics being tossed in the dumpster, soon to be replaced with thousands of dollars worth of a fancy dancy integrated GPS, AIS transceiver, broadband radar, and chart plotter, which in 20 years will be ripped out and tossed in a dumpster by some young punk. 

The new electronics take up much less space than the old so this area will be used by Pam as a workspace to make her seaglass jewelry, which she is doing very well with.