We’ve had a lot of people come by Serenity while she hangs above the Berkeley waterfront, waiting for Monday morning to splash her again with her beautiful new old rudder. She still shines with her brilliant new red paint, with an even bottom coat and not a blemish on her (until you get close up, naturally, which is just the way of boats). The vessel bristles with protrusions that seem to be of use to its owners, and her transom bears an origin of faraway Seattle. This boat is small but serious.
We know, it’s not true this trip, but for us this journey *did* start in Seattle. Plus the name sticker was really expensive and hard to put on perfectly, but mostly the other thing. Tangent; unrelated.
“Serenity’s still here,” we’ll hear them say with pleasure and surprise while we dangle in the cabin above them. Or, “Look at that.”
“Frankly I (or we) can see no reason for it to be out of the water,” I imagine they think as they finish their inspection. Then again they may be thinking, “These kids haven’t seen nothing yet.”
Whether they’re our friends come to visit, or they just stopped to talk, we enjoy taking people on a tour of the unbelievable problems we found and how we went about their repair and renewal. It’s our story, and we are experts at what happened.
As we finish our story, we’re looking at our repairs, both new and from all that way before. We stand outside the boat while it swings softly, but ponderously, in giant slings, and shines a brilliant red. We appraise our hull, keel, and rudder like shipwrights, like owners, and we pass an agreeing glance. “We got pretty good at this. We’re thinking about putting a shingle out.”
People out here like to make calling cards to trade when they meet each other. We haven’t yet gotten around to this, mostly because we don’t yet have the perfect photo to leave behind. We don’t need them yet though. Serenity is our calling card.
Don’t look at our decks though. They’re awful. They’re on our list as we journey on.
Cameo: Harmony’s legs in upper left center. This was how the lovely lady ascended and descended from their home all weekend. With every movement it bobbed and swung like a springy swingset. The ladder was slightly undignified. Sometimes it felt like we were climbing back into our exhibit.