Thursday January 17, 2019

Indiantown Marina, Florida
An Evant of a Lifetime

    
     First one awake after first night sleeping on boat. Last night I slept in the same bunk, next to the engine, port side. Slept pretty good. The bunk is more comfortable than 4 years ago when we were sailing the Gulf of Maine, not as smelly with diesel fuel leakage plus the boat isn't rocking on ocean swells. On the way to Indiantown, we've been sleeping in motels and at Marion's relatives houses along the way, now we inhabit the cabin of Indian Summer: Marion on 'the couch'; Jerry on 'the table'; and me, like I said, in a berth along the engine.

     The hatch is open somewhat. The boards in the companionway were warped and wedged tight in the steel slots so much that Jerry and I had to use screwdrivers and a hammer to force them out. So without doing some grinding of the slot on boards they won't go back on without a fight. From my berth, I can see the tops of many masts and the twirling of wind vane contraptions on some. The sun isn't up.

     We went to bed a little after 9:00 p.m. Not used to that. I didn't have any liquid to drink after 7:00 p.m. because the nearest toilet was over a hundred yards away in another part of the marina, unless I used the bleach jug I was issued for emergencies. The bunk door is only about 18" wide and 4' tall, so getting out with a full bladder isn't too handy.

     
Yesterday the boat was moved from the storage area to the work area here in Indiantown Marina. 

     Jerry and I had cleared a path into the boat so we could move in, working up a pretty good sweat. Perspiration was getting to be a problem when I decided WE needed to take a break and drink some water. Jerry agreed, so we stopped our labors below deck and got out. We couldn't find much water, so knowing Marion was still down by the marina office, we walked down there about a half block away. Marion sat at a large wicker table where there were four large wicker chairs beneath the palm trees.

     I had gotten up from the table to soak my bandanna I wear around my forehead at an outdoor faucet that I saw nearby to use, when a guy pulled in on a crotch-rocket-type of motorcycle and stopped in a parking spot not faraway. He took off his white helmet and we looked at each other a moment before I said, 
"Evan?" 
And he said, "Steve?"

     Here it was my great-nephew Evan Clary, whom I hadn't seen for over 20 years!! He learned from his mother, down in McPherson, KS, (who reads "Wannaskan Almanac"), that I was in Indiantown only a few miles from where he lives in Jupiter, FL., so he decided to swing through the marina in the chance he might recognize me as a Reynolds because, I presume, of my 'bald demeanor', that I've had to accept these past 32 years as an identifying characteristic of older Reynolds men.

       
     I couldn't believe it. I introduced him to Jerry & Marion, beginning an immediate conversation with Jerry around motorcycles and fabrication, both of which Evan and Jerry share passions. So while they were occupied, I phoned Evan's grandparents, my sister Ann and brother-in-law Clair, in Iowa, to tell them of our chance meeting and called my wife back home in Wannaska to tell her. Everybody was happily surprised.

     Walking up to the boat with Evan, Evan meets a man he knows who is working with the people whose sailboat is parked next to Jerry's. More coincidences! The man asked Evan if he came there looking for him! Ha! Evan knew the guy, shook hands and listened to the guy describe a big party Evan had 'missed'. Evan only said the man was a character; meaning well taken. 

     We had a nice visit before the clouds darkened and Evan had to go. Evan is moving to Essex, MA, a coastal town 26 miles north of Boston, in two weeks, beginning a new job.

This was quite the Evant!!