So, I got up this morning and it wasn't raining; awesome. Got dressed, grabbed Maddie and went for a walk. We walked all over the marina property and out onto the side of the road for a while. The ground was wet but not too bad. After our walk we returned to the boat and tidied up a bit.
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While I was tidying I couldn't help but notice that the cockpit needed sweeping so I got out the soft brush and dustpan and commenced to sweeping up the cockpit sole (that is the nautical term for the floor in the cockpit of a sailboat). The space is small and a bit segmented requiring the sweeper to sweep around obstacles, like the steering pedestal, and usually requires some form of inventive gymnastics to accomplish the sweeping to a satisfactory level.
Now don't get me wrong; I am not, nor have I ever been, a neat freak… But, after all, we are at a yacht club rendezvous so I want the boat to look at least nice, not perfect but at least cared for. This is a long way of saying I was crawling around trying to sweep the small corners of the cockpit and,every so often, I found a mud smeer (!). I'd no sooner clean it up, and I'd find another. It took me a couple laps of said cockpit sole before I realized it was me! And my shoes! That were leaving mud sneers as I crawled 😱
Tools down, checked my shoes and, sure enough, the soles of my shoes had collected lots of gooey dark mud on our walk and my wiping them off on the lawns hadn't been enough. Bottom line: this soul (me) had to wash down the cockpit sole to erase the mess left by the soles in the photo. DONE! No more chores today. TTFN. CJ
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