Sunday June 29

wow, I just spent 3 mornings doing cleanup on the boat, and I have a new respect for what theguys have been up to (except for throwing their cigarette butts on the floor). This week, they have: finished the floor in the pilot house, made a hatch to the forward cabin (my personal quarters), put a plank floor down there, and gotten the main roof started. That's the most visible stuff- they've also worked on the bulkheads and fuel tanks.

Other project is doing art with the New Iberia Rec Department, or NIRD -thought they just couldn't spell at first. I get the small children, as they seem to think over 9 and you're past doing art.


We started out making cards for Father's Day, then did a few large pictures together of the fire truck and police car that were visiting that week. Last week we drew animals and superheros. This seemed to bore them- they like cutting, gluing, and doing stuff to their pictures. Maybe there'll be more art supplies there on Monday to play with.

Happy Birthday Joyce

We are off to New Orleans to celebrate and fine dine for the weekend. We found a B&B that lets us bring our cats and is easy walking distance to all the good stuff. Joyce has been doing art with the kids at the parks program all week and I've been banging away at the boat. We're creating a large bedroom in the bow below the helm and it's looking good. Randy spent the week inside the fuel tanks welding all the new seams, absolute hell, no air, welding haze, 160 degrees, and a tiny hole to crawl in and out of. Next week we get the hull tested for thickness of the steel and the new power plant should arrive. Miss you all.

Saturday June 14

Got my guys back wed morning and we're moving right along. I'm supposed to be getting a rebuilt 8/71 with 0 hours next week for 8500 plus shipping and selling my 12/71 for 5000 so I'll be real happy if it all works out OK. Joyce asked for a private salon on the skow so we're opening up the bow area and cutting back the fuel tanks and engine room to make a large bedroom with bath down below the helm. We just keep on chopping away opening things up, so next week we'll start to replace the bulkheads so the hull doesn't warp or twist. I've been working with my cutting torch but the work is brutally hard on my knees.

Joyce has been doing art with kids at a parks program here in town and then helping out in the afternoons.


This weekend's photo op: shrimp boats in Intracoastal City- conspicuously not working.

move to New Iberia

yes we have moved to a much nicer quieter more spacious apt. I did the math on what it was costing us to commute from Jeanerette and it came out to 600 a month and the rent here is the same for a better place.


Not much has been done on the boat for the last two weeks as they needed my two welders on a large aluminum crew boat that the Coast Guard cited.

We did pull the engine out and got a lot of cleaning and planning done. After many consults with various mechanics I think we're going to put in a rebuilt 6/71 or 8/71, everyone loves em and they're cheap and available. I hope to get my guys back next week and get moving on the rebuild but living here in La is really sweet. We spent last weekend in New Orleans and this weekend we're going back to Breaux Bridge or Baton Rouge to catch some more music. Looks to me like we'll be here for a few more months but the whole project is looking good and pretty straight forward and fun.

New Orleans with Rose & Abby

We drove down Friday- with the cats- staying in a B&B on Prytania. Meanwhile Abby's downtown with Rose. They had some mysterious dying project going yesterday, plus I think they're building the entertainments for a friend's birthday party. Last night we had dinner together at Rio Mar, achieving my goal of eating someplace with NO fried oyster po-boys on the menu. Abby comes back to Jeanerette with us this afternoon. She can help us move, or pull the engine on the boat, or something.

Breaux Bridge

So David Norman told us about this place where they play music every Saturday morning and of course everyone dances. It's only about 40 minutes from Jeanerette- we drove up this morning and caught the scene. One club, the Cafe des Artes, serves breakfast while a zydeco band plays- abandanddancing. People line up about 8:30 for tables- the lucky get breakfast- and by 11 or so it's winding down. Lots of tourists by now, but nobody seems to mind. The antique stores prosper.

On the way out of town we stopped at a coffee place, and everyone had migrated over there. This time, it was local cajun musicians jamming together. We are incapable of Real Dancing so we stole their images instead.

Building de boat

Started out the week by damn near killing both my guys. A 250 lb sheet of plate steel fell on both of them as they were under it trying to guide it into place. For some reason the engage/ disengage lever got tripped and the sucker came crashing down. Both of them got banged up and John gashed his finger pretty bad. We were very lucky, an important lesson learned. Being butch, they both laughed it off, saying that things like that happened all the time in a boat yard, but it scared the shit out of me.

The main cabin is starting to take shape and it looks great. It seems the main engine may have a cracked block and have to be replaced. While this may seem like a real bummer I'm not at all unhappy about it. It's an old naturally aspirated hugh clunker of a beast built to drag nets 24/7 at slow speeds and by todays standards is not at all efficient or clean. Given how they're clamping down on dirty truck diesels these days and given the price of fuel, this might turn out to be a blessing. The savings in fuel will pay for a new power plant in a couple of years time.Or maybe not, I have yet to get any quotes and replacing it with a smaller 8/71 may be the way to go. There are more diesels in La. than there are people and I have my guys looking. I must say that topping off their paychecks with a little bonus each week is really working out well. They're enjoying the project and are endlessly helpful with interesting ideas and suggestions.

We are still in our little shack in Jeanerette, the other house had disgusting old carpets thick with fleas and the dude refused to put in wood floors even after I offered to pay half the cost, which was kind of loco on my part as I'm only staying a few months. I was feeling bad about leaving here anyway, we're the only pink folks in this whole section of town and our neighbors have been great to us. It would have been a real insult to them to leave. When we move onto the boat I'm going to have to get a kilo of cocaine and roast a pig for them.