Manana

Manana is the name of the flag ship for the Porcupine Press, which we understand means tomorrow or in the near future in Spanish. As the Captain, since taking over command in early June of 2006, The name Manana can better be defined as just some time in the future and forget the word near.

As the spring boating season (hopefully is right around the corner) nears, it is now 2010 and it is still manana. Just maybe however, this will be the year the hull will rest easy in the water again and take its rightful place at the marina in Escanaba, Michigan and as a member of the Escanaba Yacht Club.

A full makeover of an old lady can take a lot more time and money than ever expected. To make a forty five year old gal look like a lady in her prime of life, is usually something left to the makeup artists in Hollywood, not an old boat yard in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Vinette Boatworks was given the task of performing the miracle of reincarnation and they waved their arms and mumbled words reserved for the likes of boat yards and almost spiritually performed a revival series of events that created a renaissance and unquestionably a rebirth of the Manana. Dan the Boatman, acting as the High Priest, vows in the form of an epiphany, that a full baptism with water will occur early in the 2010 boating season.

Let's step back here for a bit and collect our thoughts on how and why this phenomenon has lead to the possibility of this affair to come to pass. Any good prophet could predict, that if you put a sailor with cabin fever, in front of a computer surfing e-bay, in the boats up for auction section, that there could become a problem. If you are a person that likes to gamble, than you can see why a boat could be won, sight unseen, at a price much lower than you were willing to wager, with money you didn't have. When you realize you won the auction you never thought you would, you are still excited and elated because you know it should have gone for a much higher price. Much higher than you would have ever bid, so it must be fate that you won and it was just supposed to be. You had the karma and it must be your destiny. So, that is how it happened and now that I have confessed that, I feel much better about it.

The prize I had won maybe was not reasonably close by, but it was stored at a marina accessible to Lake Michigan and dreams of sailing it up to the top of the lake from the bottom of the lake, sounded easy, a piece of cake. My Lady Robin, who by the way was still talking to me, just a little louder than normal, drove me down to St. Joseph, Michigan, together we laid our eyes on our auction prize. She didn't start crying until she got inside. I had planned on staying on the boat while I got it cleaned up and ready for the trip. She marched over to the Holiday Inn and got a room and even commented that she had no idea how long we would be staying. It only turned out to be two nights before we had the boat semi livable enough to move aboard and continue the massive clean up work.

Many trips to the stores for supplies of all kinds and twenty two very large garbage bags of moldy stuff tossed in the dumpster, we were ready to start on the outside of the boat. When we scrubbed the hull we learned that it was not white after all but rather a Robin's egg blue. I tried to seize the opportunity to say this was a good omen - my Lady Robin and the robin's egg blue color. I could see the boat was growing on her, at least that is the way I wanted to see it.

It took almost three weeks before Robin signed off that the boat was as ready as it will ever be for sea and that she was heading back home to pick up John Colley, our editor to make the trip on the boat with me. She had much more important things to do and she was not going to let me do it alone. I welcomed the addition of a crew member and promised to be safe. She waved from the dock when we left and I heard later she cried a lot, sure she would never see us again.

Nine days later we arrived in Escanaba and Robin and John's family were standing on the pier. Sort of like in the movies or a book of sea stories. We made it and life was going to be back to the everyday grind of business as usual. That fall we hauled the boat back out of the water and started the makeover. The rest of the story has yet to happen, but when it does, you will know all about it right here. We hope it does not evolve into a Soap Opera, but rather a continuing series of episodes, well worth following along with us.