Care

Building the spiteful lady - I've always considered colour coordination a bogus science - much like astrology or arithmetic.

Whatever I wear, my mother tells me I'm handsome.

I choose to believe her.

So the Spiteful Lady has a bright red hull and blue decking. She looks like a lego boat.

After many tedious hours the hull and deck are 'corked'.

Now I'm not much of a carpenter and neither is Mike and our hands have been all over that boat. While, arguably, this should be a source of caution for those aware that the difference between a water tight boat and a leaky coffin is a matter of a few milimetres on each plank, we're not concerned.

For Ray, our friend who's been building fishing boats for nearly a million years, is something of a social scientist. Through careful examination of our characters over the past winter he has deduced that Mike and I "were born to hang."

Consequently, we shouldn't drown.

Buoyed by this cheerful thought, Mike and I have begun wondering how to get the Spiteful Lady to her natural element. Ray's shed is built on a rocky outcrop looking down a steep hill to the harbour. There's no room for a boat trailer to backup and haul all 26-feet of the Spiteful Lady away graceful like.

Mike and I proposed strapping on helmets, having a strong drink of fortifier and riding her down the hill to the harbour while holding each other and screaming. Ray had a better idea - within the next three weeks we'll be using block and tackle to roll her forward on logs and then slide her backward onto a flatbed.

A small example of the relationship we've developed over the past year. The 72-year-old fisherman has been teaching us about care - every stick cut is chosen for particular qualities that make it strong, free of rot or curved just so. Any one of us can tell you where the keel, transom knee, stem or gunnel stick was found.

Each stick must be milled with care, shaped with patience and attached with grunts and curses. Then there would be tea, talk of life and opportunities to watch how Ray translates his care over wood to care for neighbours, family and us.

All we had to share with him was laughter during a winter of many funerals.

I've stopped thinking about sailing her and it'd almost be a shame to see her in the water if it wouldn't be such a relief.

Next summer we'll finish the Spiteful Lady's house and add the masts, sails and rigging that'll make her a schooner. Then we'll do more than dream of sailing her.