The Summer

of '99 will go down in our personal history as one of the

best we've had together.

We didn't travel to speak

of. Didn't do much boating. The weather was not

especially pleasant.

But this was the Summer of

the Boat. This was the summer we refurbished,added to,

and, putzing around in workshop and driveway, made a

25-foot Nimble Nomad our own.

Two previous owners had

loaded her with toys it would have taken us years to add.

There were life jackets for more people than the boat

would comfortably carry. Electronics Dave had only

dreamed of. A set of pots and pans, cooking utensils and

tableware - even a tinkly little set of wind

chimes.

The second owner, who was

admittedly inept in seamanship, transferred to Europe and

left the boat so abruptly that when we bought it, there

was a coffee mug in the sink with a spoon stuck to the

bottom.

His log entries read like

this (the misspellings are from the original):

Port of departure: Edgwater

MD

Weather: Very clear Bay had

about 2 foot waves....temurture was about 90 degrees but

nice out on the bay....

Could not get Boat away

from Dock we for got to untie Line on Starboard Side, we

felt like a couple of folls... fog comming off water...

had the river to oursleves really was nice.

But he sounds like a genial

fellow. Two days later he took his wife for another

cruise:

Edwater to Turkey Point

Clear Day lot's of Sun

There where some butiful

Boats.

The night before helped

Boater next to us. There where four people in his

company. They decided they would sing me and Ardie a

song. So from the front of our boat these guys sang us a

wonderful song....

Over the course of the

Summer of '99, his Beachcomber became our Alice III. The

best part was that Dave - who used to spend his time

at home wishing he were "down at the boat"

wherever it was berthed, or, if he was there, wishing he

were back home - had his boat right here in easy

reach of tools and equipment.

When we first thought of

buying a little trawler for river-cruising in the States,

remembering our pleasure barging the canals and rivers of

France, England and Wales several years ago, we

considered looking for a secondhand boat in Europe. The

kind we wanted is certainly more readily available there,

and would be in place to do what we both crave doing:

living aboard our own craft in the European waterways for

months at a time.

The main deterrent,

however, was that we could not picture ourselves looking

for parts in an unknown town and possibly in a language

other than English. And where would we stay while this

renovation was taking place?

Here, with Ace and Gil-Roy

moments away and Home Depot not much farther, where

virtually anything we need is available through the

Internet or catalogs, where we can pick up the phone and

get advice in a flash, the whole project was eminently

doable.

We bounced ideas off each

other. I can sketch and Dave can execute. Our dreams took

shape.

And so began the sanding

and scraping, the designing and improvising, the building

and glassing, the varnishing and painting.

When the afternoons were

mild, I knew by the sudden silence falling over shop and

driveway that Dave had stretched out on his own bunk for

his onboard siesta. And when the weather became torrid,

he worked in the mornings and used the heat of the day to

locate the odds and ends no boatman can live without.

We added a propane system,

another water tank, a nifty drop-in set of burners.

Wanting more refrigeration, we researched generators and

found a small-enough, quiet-enough affordable machine

right here in Riverdale.

The past couple of weeks we

have been constructing a compartment for it that would

protect it and keep it out of our way, yet look like an

original part of the little craft.

That project took a lot of

head-scratching, but turned out well. If you'd never seen

the boat before, I doubt you'd even notice that what

appears to be a small rear companionway is actually a box

with a generator in it.

Inside, in what I consider

my domain, sawdust and used sandpaper and bits and pieces

of materials cluttered the cabin so much it was hard to

show off to friends. The day came, however, when I

climbed the ladder leaning on the gunwale and gasped when

I saw what Dave had done.

The teak and holly sole had

been sanded and refinished with a high-gloss varnish.

It's more beautiful than any floor in our house. A new

spice rack appeared above the galley sink. The space

between outer and inner hull was made accessible through

a framed cut-out, and a knife block Dave made for me

tucked into a tiny space next to the cutlery drawer.

Soon I can make up the

bunks again, with their forest green covers matching the

hull paint and their rope-trimmed cushions inviting

curling up in a corner. Hoist a few boxes of food aboard,

make sure the Sun

Shower is stowed, throw

some sweatshirts in the storage hammocks, and we're outa

here.

Rivers are calling, and the

Chesapeake Bay with all its historic bayside towns, and

in a couple of years, destinations across the Atlantic.

But whatever we do after

this, wherever we go, I can't imagine we'll ever enjoy

Alice III as much as we did in the Summer of '99, when

she lay in dry dock in our own home port.

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