Evanston: GANNET has left the room
Evanston: GANNET has left the room
A knock on GANNET’s hull at 3:30 this afternoon marked the arrival of the brothers Paul and Danny, friendly and professional truckers. Paul has responded to some of my emails by writing ‘10-4.’ They approved of my securing the mast. I have had some practice tying knots. Ran two straps around the hull, one near the bow, the other near the stern. Hooked up wiring. Said that the tires needed air, which they would take care of. And they and GANNET were on their way.
I had not known there were two drivers, which explained how they covered the thousand miles from Vermont, from where Paul telephoned me last evening, so quickly. When he told me he would be at the boat by 4:00 this afternoon, I was skeptical, but said nothing. Paul lives in the desert 100 miles northeast of San Diego. He expects to be there Saturday, where he will park GANNET until Monday morning. Driscoll’s Mission Bay boat yard is not open on weekends.
This was my last commute to Winthrop Harbor. I rode the 1:00 p.m. train north; the 6:00 p.m. train home. I made some friends there, and I enjoyed the walk to and from the train through the nature preserve--today was windy and the autumn leaves sounded as well as looked like waves; but as I have mentioned before, had GANNET stayed on Lake Michigan I would have kept her on a mooring in Monroe Harbor in downtown Chicago next year.
Within an hour after these pictures were taken, the sky clouded over and was more winter than fall.
The tracking page is working. At this moment GANNET is just west of Ottawa and just north of Peru--Illinois.
Although she left almost thirty years ago, GANNET is a California boat. She is going home.
That Carol and I will be in San Diego in two days and that next Wednesday I will be living on GANNET a hundred yards from where I lived on my first boat in the late 1960s has not quite seemed real. It is starting to.
Thursday, October 11, 2012