Boat Improvements in Exotic Ports               While Circumnavigating

My wife was getting angry again.  I knew she was because she was being nice to me.  Our normal relationship was one of détente, armed truce where one minor flare up could lead to a World War.  It made both of us careful of saying anything negative; but also careful of saying anything nice.  Never show the enemy that you might have a soft spot.  And do anything to avoid that flare up that might lead to the end of the world as we know it.

I knew she was getting angry as she kept talking about the nice countertops on our friend Harry’s brand new boat.  He was a very rich, successful businessman.  But I didn’t hold that against him.  To tell the truth his boat did come with beautiful Corian countertops.  I looked at our 20 year old Formica.  The one by the galley was peeling off; the splashguard had already fallen off leaving pockmarked plywood that I had unsuccessfully tried to disguise with paint.

“You are such a wonderful, kind husband.  All my girl friends are so jealous of me."  Dear god.  I was in trouble.  She was really getting angry. 

“Why, just the other day Marge said that she wished her Bill helped out like you do around the boat.”  Time to get out of Dodge before she dropped the H Bomb.  Just as I was on the companionway ladder she let it rip.

“Harry said just yesterday, that if his boat hadn’t come with Corian Countertops he would have had them installed himself, being as how he likes them so much, and seeing as how much happier Grace is now that she has them.  Harry says that now he just has to wave his finger and Grace does what ever he wants, being as how she has her new Corian Countertops.”  By this time I was off the boat and on the way to the parking lot, but I knew it was in vain.  WWIII was declared and I was right there in the middle of it.

I considered a counter attack.  One about how my sore back never got rubbed.  No, she might rub it with an iron!  No, counterattacks were out.  Too dangerous.  Capitulation was the only answer and if I was going to surrender it better be fast.  At the Corian store I gazed in wonder at the prices.  It would be cheaper to plate the whole galley in stainless steel.  Sure, it looked nice, as long as you were a millionaire.  Capitulation was out.  It had to be war and it was going to be hell.

The war started like most do with a skirmish and women crying after.  My ultimatum that Corian was way too expensive was not too well received.  It didn’t help that I was in the right.  In war both sides always feel that they are on the side of the angels.  Karen started being mad at me.  I could tell because she stopped telling me where things were.  Now it was the ‘Find it yourself, you big loser!’ look, along with a gentle shrug of her shoulders.

I started taking long walks with the dog.  Ilia wasn’t a normal dog.  She was a cat trapped in a dog’s body.  When you asked her to come, she practiced her yoga for 10 minutes before casually looking to see if you had any food in your hands.  When you threw a stick and told her to fetch, she looked at you in astonishment; with a ‘if you wanted it why did you throw it away’ look.  But she was good at starting conversations.

Anyone who appeared ahead on the sidewalk instantly was an enemy to be barked and growled at, then on closer approach she decided they weren’t monsters after all, and she licked their hands, jumped up to their knees, and wagged her tail for all it was worth.  Her biggest attraction was her two different color eyes.We had found her in IslaMozambique as a 7 week old puppy.  She was going to be sacrificed in a pagan ceremony as the local fishermen were sure she had the evil eye.  (Little did I know that they were right!) Her owner came out to the boat and begged us to take her to the mainland where she might have a chance at life.  I don’t know why she is still aboard.  Oh, wait; yes I do.  My wife likes her.

Anyway, as I was walking the dog down the street, she took it into her mind that a side street was far more interesting and insisted I follow, being as how I was being walked and all.  In we went thru a factory office open door as brazen as could be.  Wouldn’t you know, it was a birthday party and the cake was being cut.  A normal person would have felt strange, barging in like that.  But, after all, I was just being walked and Ilia took over.  That dog can do every trick in the book and a lot never invented, if, IF, you have cake.  She was the life of the party and everyone thanked me for bringing her; as if I had anything to do with it.  Slowly I realized we were in a Corian sink factory.  There, they cut up Corian to make sinks and countertops.  I started talking to one of the workers about my boat’s galley.

“Why don’t you do it like us?  Do it for free?  Build her out of scraps.  Corian cuts so fine that the joins between two pieces are totally invisible.  Here come with me, I’ll show you.”  In a workroom he picked out a couple of good size scraps from the trash bin, laid them on the table, the edges kind of touching, and ran a router up between the two. 

“Doesn’t matter if you cut straight as long as both sides are cut at the same time.  After all, we will not see the seam.”  He showed me by abutting the two pieces together.  It was almost perfect. 

“What you do is buy the glue which is made different for each color of Corian and you won’t see the seam even in a magnifying glass.  The bad part is you have to buy a special expensive gun for the glue.  The good part is the glue isn’t overly expensive, and if you don’t like our prices, you can get them on e-bay.”

I went home with several sink cut-outs, the pieces cut out of the counter top where the sink will eventually go.  They were big for a boat. Each was 2½ feet by 18 inches.  That is a big counter on a boat!  If I could glue two together, that would be 5 feet by 18 inches!  Or three of them, why we are talking about 4½ feet by 2½!  I did ask how much a Corian counter would cost, installed.  He said,

“It is a lot cheaper than it used to be.  We can do it, easy, for less than $90 a square foot.  But do it yourself, cost maybe 10 dollars for the whole job.”

My wife was happy, again.  I could tell because she made me my special coffee in the morning and when she baked cookies she left them on the counter for me rather than hiding them or giving them to the marina kids.  She loved that I was fixing her galley.  I enjoyed myself.  The Corian cut cleanly without any of that melting you get while cutting plexiglass.  The glue worked great.  And you know what?  That glue might be expensive, but it is stronger than 5200.  The things you learn walking the dog.

You owe it to yourself to buy this book!

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