It wasn't a surprise to me last Sunday when I turned on the TV and heard this sentence from a Texas minister as he was preaching to his followers....

"Before the world was made, God knew you'd be turning into this show today."

I could not turn the channel fast enough.

As we sat at a dock recently on a lazy Sunday morning, pondering the meaning of life and how that preacher knew I was going to tune in at that exact moment, my feathered friends put on a bit of a show for me.

I am constantly fascinated by the human condition, especially when it comes to interactions between crew members on a boat who live together for weeks at a time.
Are you familiar with the phrase, "he doesn't have a filter?" meaning, he or she speaks before thinking. I know a few people who never have had a filter. But on a boat, a filter is used quite a bit. Let me explain.

 I was recently having a problem with one of our generators and we were going to have to leave the dock with only one working generator. Before we left the mate and I were discussing what ifs? Because of this temporary problem we only had one generator and no backup to depend on, he wanted to know the game plan if something were to happen to the one remaining generator while we were underway.

So, he wanted to know, what happens if the remaining generator tripped out or burnt up or sprung a bad oil leak. But, fearing he would jinx us by even mentioning the above choices, he put it to me this way.
"soooo, let's say the other generator..( long pause)....has a ..(longer pause).......hiccup?"

His filter was firmly in place.

Lucky for me, I have big crew members on board. It seems like everything we lift or push or touch on this boat is HEAVY, and I have, over the years perfected a way to get the big guys to help out. I recently had to deal with a main engine water pump. They was close to 100 lbs.
So I went to my buddy Chuck....big Chuck, and played dumb and said, " hey, could you help me get a chainfall and rig this water pump so we can move it down below?"
His response was, "Hell we don't need a chainfall, I can lift that." I feigned surprise, "No way you can lift that thing."

 You know what? Big guys LOVE to show you how strong they are. They do everything but growl and push me out of the way to lift whatever it is that needs lifting.
Years of experience my friends.

Happy Wednesday!!