A great disturbance in the Force

Today, for many, is Star Wars Day (May the Fourth be with you). Around here, we also call it Quatro de Mayo, both ways in which we remember that it is our wedding anniversary. When we were married on 05/04/03 (the descending sequence being our mnemonic for the actual date), no one had yet coined the phrase Star Wars Day.


Angel on the aft deck, one of her favorite places to be.

Today we have been married 17 years, a day of celebration. But it is also the first day in three decades, for either of us, to wake up without a pet. So today, in addition to celebrating our marriage, we also celebrated the life of Angel, the cat, who left this world yesterday afternoon after a long and well-traveled life.

We are overwhelmed with grief. This is the fourth time we've been through the process of losing a pet together. Each of those other times, though, we still had a pet or pets to come home to. Those pets got extra love and affection as we processed our grief. The house was emptier, but not empty. Today is different.


Did someone order a cat?

All of this is amplified by the grief we are all carrying right now due to the pandemic. When our last two traveling pets passed, we were surrounded by friends, who were able to comfort us not just with words, but with their presence. Today we have just each other, and that will be enough. And we are mindful that, as devastating as this has been for us, so many others right now are losing loved ones -- parents, grandparents, spouses, children, friends -- without so much as the ability to touch their hand one last time, or say goodbye even in the same room.


The most interesting cat in the world.

Angel turned 19 just a little over five weeks ago. That's a good run for a small cat, and especially so considering she only ever had one good kidney. We adopted her when we still lived a land-bound life in the San Francisco Bay area, along with her adopted "sister," born a day apart, when they were just weeks old.

They were immediately welcomed into our home by Opal the dog, and all five of us moved soon afterward into a tiny condominium in downtown San Jose. All three became veteran travelers as we spent two years making monthly road trips to the Seattle area while our custom bus conversion, Odyssey, was being completed there.


Angel with her sister-from-a-different-mother George, shortly after adoption.

We moved into Odyssey full-time nearly 16 years ago, and have lived a nomadic life ever since. With most of her life spent traveling, it's really the only life she's ever known. She became blase about rumbling diesels and loud air horns, thunder claps and even lightning strikes, birds and fish and other wildlife, and the constant motion of the bus or the boat. Seas had to be big enough to send Louise for the meclizine before Angel complained, which she did by becoming pissed.


I prefer my own box now.

In nearly two decades of travel, Angel has been to all of the lower 48 states (and DC), and four other countries. Although I'm sure to her it was all divided up simply into "cold" and "warm." If we had left the route planning to her, we'd have spent all our time in the south and the tropics.

We often joked that the name Angel was a misnomer, at least until now, and, in fact, we never called her that, and she wouldn't recognize it if we did. We called her simply "kitty," and she would come when called by that name. True to her Russian Blue (as best we could determine) heritage, she was unfailingly polite. She never begged but was always appreciative, and she was mostly compliant, to a fault.


Politely choosing a toy.

What she was not, for most of her life, was demonstrative. She did not cuddle, or purr, or curl up next to us, or sit on our laps. For 13 years, it turned out, she lived in the shadow of her adopted sister, George (yes, sister). We did not understand it until very late in their lives, but George was something of a bully, and was sure to get her needs met to the exclusion of her sister. And George was a love bug; we were never lacking for cuddles or lap time when George was around.


Angel had a shoe fetish. She's rubbing her face on these.

George left us in 2014 (memorial post here), and only after her passing did we learn that Angel was really meant to be an "only cat." Over the succeeding years she began to open up and relax, and very slowly became more demonstrative. She never really became a lap cat, but she would give us what we came to call "proximity love," curling up close by, touching a leg or an arm in just one spot. Sometimes if you touched her throat you could tell she was purring, just below audible.

She never failed to come running to greet us at the door when we came home, unless she was sound asleep, and if either one of us left she would cry softly. She wanted little more than to just be with us, although she did perk up every morning when it was time for her tablespoon of wet food that Louise gave her more as a treat than nutrition (she ate a prescription dry diet as her normal food).


Bags are almost as good as boxes. But harder to get into.

Long-time readers will know that we've been through some crises with this cat. And I am not talking here about the time she ended up in the drink, but rather the several times she ended up in the hospital, fighting for her life. We discovered early on that she had but one good kidney, the other being diminutive in size from birth. As she aged, she came close to renal failure more than once.


Angel drinking from her fountain.

What gave her a new lease on life after the last crisis two years ago was, of all things, a water fountain. She never drank enough water when we just gave it to her in a bowl, no matter how many times we filled it or changed it, but she loved drinking from the fountain. In the first few weeks after we got it, I had quite the challenge keeping up with the resulting output.

She was already 17 then, and we knew she would be living on borrowed time. The stay at an emergency clinic in the Upper West Side of Manhattan drained not only our bank account, but, for a time, her will to live. After she fought her way back, we vowed not to put her through it again. If her renal system crashed again, we would let her go. It was hard to see her that scared and alone.


Art imitates life.

The two years since then have been our best years with her. She would occasionally deign to be on my lap, in an awkward sort of way. She curled up with us more. Her water intake stayed up and she was generally spry and healthy. And still as polite as always, and running to greet us whenever we returned.



Sooooo sleepy...

As she approached her 19th birthday we could tell she was slowing down. She slept more, and jumped less, and became needier than ever. Potty accidents became more routine, and she started pawing at her water again, a behavior which the drinking fountain had put a stop to. We knew her days were numbered, and, yet, there was no clear sign when the end might come.


Looking out the hawsepipes, another favorite activity.

When we left for the Bahamas in early March, we did so knowing that it might well come while we were there. We still had a full liter of lactated Ringers and an IV set, as well as numerous other meds, but had to face the grim reality that vets in the islands are few and far between, and if the end were to come, we might not be able to keep her comfortable until we could get her someplace.

If the Covid-19 pandemic had not come along, in fact we would still be in the Bahamas right now. Most likely we would have been in Georgetown or Eleuthera, where veterinary care is available, but we were thankful to be back in the US where it is a sure thing. Even better, our friends Jennifer and Mark on Starlet, who are in New Zealand right now, reached out to connect us with a local friend here who is a veterinarian and would come to the boat when the end came.


My chart has ears.

In her final weeks she became weaker and sometimes confused. But she never seemed to be in pain or even uncomfortable. And the cat who, for 19 years, did not want to be on anyone's lap, suddenly could not get enough lap time. As if she needed to get all the love she missed out on before she left.


Relaxed on my lap for the first time since kittenhood.

Saturday morning we knew it was a matter of days, and I called Allison, the vet our friends connected us with. She was leaving town that afternoon, and could stop by on her way out, but she would not be back for ten days. We weren't ready, and neither was Angel, or so we thought. But the crash came late in the afternoon, and we knew for sure that it was time. Too late for Allison, who was already gone.

We found an animal hospital three blocks from a bulkhead where we could land the dinghy, and they gave us an appointment for 2pm yesterday. We scrubbed our plans to leave the boat for dinner, and instead spent the rest of the evening holding her on our laps and giving her as much love as we could. She was alert and comfortable, but clearly in no shape to be left alone.


I'm actually very artistic, don't you think?

Fearing she might try to climb up on the precarious chart table, or even just fall over the edge of the steep ladder to belowdecks, I set up a litter box in the master shower, brought her water fountain and food bowl downstairs, and carried her down to bed with me when I turned in, closing her into the master suite with us. She seemed to have a good night.


These muster drills are starting to annoy me.

Yesterday morning was a bit like any other for her, sitting with us in the saloon as we had our coffee, and excited as always when it came time for her morning wet food treat. We, on the other hand, were total wrecks. Having a set time made everything seem like a prison execution; dead man walking. The tablespoon of wet food became everything left in the can.

In what can only be described as the ultimate gift, she crawled into her carrier a full half hour before it was time to leave, and curled up motionless in a heap at one end. We knew without doubt that it was time. She whimpered a little on the tender ride, but nothing like her usual going-to-the-vet yowl. Another whimper or two on the three block walk.


I always helped decorate at Christmas time.

The vet office had told me on the phone that due to the pandemic, they would take her curbside, and after an exam and insertion of the catheter, we could come inside to a treatment room for the end. We called from outside at the appointed time, and ended up waiting on the steps for 15 minutes until a tech could come out. Angel fell so deeply asleep we thought she had already passed.


If the shoebox fits...

The tech who came out for her seemed to think we would be dropping her off and leaving. I explained that, no, we had been told we could be with her at the end. The tech said she would check with the doctor, and she took Angel inside. It was another half hour before we got word that only one of us could go in, and we regretted not saying a more thorough goodbye before they took her.

It was painful to have to choose which of us would go in. In the end, we decided my presence would be more comforting to her. I know Louise was a wreck for the brief time I was gone. We had arrived at 2pm, but it was 4pm before they called me inside. Fortunately, we had found a bench in the shade in front of an office furnishing store across the street to wait.


Does this bus go to Hawaii?

When I came into the treatment room she was resting comfortably on her side. Not purring, but not complaining either. I knew she was ready, and the doctor confirmed it was her time. We had a short video chat with Louise for one last goodbye, and she went quickly and peacefully. I tried to be calm and stoic and supportive for her, but as soon as the sedative dose was in, I bawled my eyes out.


Who does your nails?

In the time of Covid there is no time or space for pleasantries or even thank-yous for the medical staff. I had to swiftly exit through the back door, my tears streaming down onto my face mask. I found Louise on the phone, being comforted by a close friend.

How can one tiny animal, weighing in at seven pounds soaking wet, leave such an enormous hole in a space this big? The house feels empty. Neither of us can stand to be alone here now -- we were never alone before. In time, the sharp edges of our grief will wear down. We'll stop looking for her underfoot or expecting her to come running to the door. But for now, the pain is deep, and all we can do is be present with it, and with each other.


Resting on one of her final days. She was not allowed on the table and never asked until the end. How could we say no?

When we left on this journey of a lifetime 16 years ago, the tag line of this blog, which appears at the top of the sidebar, read Life on the open road. In a bus. With three pets. Are we nuts? You decide.
That tag line has since changed three times, with a change of conveyance and the passing of Opal and George, to what it is today, Life on the move. In odd, one-of-a-kind steel conveyances. With a cat. Are we nuts? You decide. Even that tag line is now hard to read. It may be some time before we can bring ourselves to write a new one.

We miss you, kitty. You will always be in our hearts.

New York, New York

We are anchored in the Hudson River, near the West 79th Street Boat Basin (map). The Boat Basin is a very familiar stop for us, but this is the first time we are anchored north of the mooring field, across from 97th street. We're between Grant's Tomb and the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial.


Macy's fireworks beyond Lower Manhattan skyline.

We very much enjoyed the fireworks show on the 4th. The bigger Macy's show over the East River was barely visible for us -- we saw the tops of a few bursts, but mostly just an eerie glow behind the city skyline, as if it was on fire. That show had finished completely and we even saw some of the faster tour boats coming back from the East River by the time the Jersey City show started just a few hundred yards from us.

Twin fireworks display.

There were two barges staged a short distance from one another, and the show mostly happened in "stereo," with exactly the same shells launched simultaneously from the two barges. It was really quite well done and we were able to enjoy it from the comfort of our aft deck. Not very many private boats came to view these; we had three other boats anchored with us, and a couple of megayachts hovered in the river, including our old friends, Usher. When the show ended, the flotilla of tour boats, ferries, and tows had the river stirred up for over an hour.


We liked the effect of the display reflected in the mirrored buildings of the financial district, right.

We weighed anchor at Ellis Island first thing Thursday morning, the 5th. The tide was close to max ebb, but the morning ferry traffic made the anchorage very unpleasant, and we opted to push upriver against nearly two knots rather than spend even another hour there. We had a pleasant cruise upriver, noting considerable construction on the Manhattan side since our last visit.


Cleanest shot I could get.

We followed our tracks from previous visits to drop the hook in the precise spot we needed for a comfortable stay north of Pier-i, at the very south end of the designated Special Anchorage and south of the Boat Basin's mooring field (map). We really like this spot because it's great people watching, a fairly short tender ride to the marina, and a little more protected from river traffic, wakes, and current.


Our cozy spot. Pier-i is at bottom, and you can see the dolphins we need to avoid just to the right of our alarm circle. To the left is deep water, and towards shore is too shallow for us. The orange and green tracks are from previous visits; red is our current track.

We had carefully left our kayak inflated so that we might be able to use the kayak dock near the pier, a much closer spot than the dinghy dock at the marina. Sadly, that dock was destroyed sometime in the last three years, and only the ramp remains, half submerged in the Hudson. Things ashore were more or less as we had left them, and it felt very familiar and comfortable to be on the Upper West Side.


Passing my alma mater, Stevens Tech, on our way upriver.

Our idyllic New York entrance was short-lived. We went out for a nice dinner, and when we returned home the cat was in crisis. She was crying piteously about trying to eliminate, and had managed to deposit runny fecal matter all over the boat, in addition to a few places where she threw up. Nothing we could do could comfort her or make her stop eliminating. We thought briefly about dosing her with more subcutaneous fluids, which we'd been giving her for the past week, but then decided she needed emergency care.

This is New York, the city that never sleeps, and it is often said that you can get anything you want or need here at any hour of the day or night. That's mostly true, and several vets not far from the dock were open to 9pm. But we had come home from dinner after 8:30, and by the time we decided to take her in, everyone was closed except for the few emergency veterinary hospitals throughout the city.


Another boater, passing by on the Henry Hudson Parkway, snapped this photo of Vector as we made our way upriver, and posted it to a Facebook group. Photo: Ed Hickey

We opted for the closest one, some 30 blocks away. First she had to ride the tender to the dock, which had her screaming the whole way. We marched up the hill from the park to 72nd Street and ordered a Lyft for the short ride to the vet. Things there were very clean, very professional, and very, very expensive. After an examination and evaluation they determined she was not having an end-of-life crisis (an outcome for which we had already prepared ourselves -- she is, after all, 17) and decided to admit her for IV fluids, overnight observation, and further tests.

With the boat a mess and ourselves now exhausted, we were just as happy to have them hold her overnight. We did sign a DNR in the event she coded overnight, and they let us into the treatment area to say goodnight. After the return Lyft and dinghy rides, we still had an hour's worth of cleaning to do to make the boat livable again. In her distress she had apparently wandered all over the house.


Going anywhere ashore usually involves passing through the popular Boat Basin Cafe, in the vaulted area under a traffic circle. New York's own "hole in the road."

Friday they called to share results of blood panels and other tests. IV hydration made quite an improvement, but it appeared she had developed mild infections in several organs. They wanted to keep her another night for continued hydration and to start a course of antibiotics, and we agreed. We went back ashore in the evening to grab some dinner and pick up a couple of things, stopping in the office to pay another few days' worth of dinghy landing fees.

As if having the cat in the hospital was not enough trouble for one day, the harbormaster informed us that we would need to move from our favorite spot to the northern anchorage, north of the sailboat moorings. We tried to negotiate with him but he would not budge. Since the feds have delegated management of this anchorage to the city, and the city ultimately can refuse to sell us dinghy landing, we really had no choice. It was too late to move the boat Friday and so he agreed to let us move on Saturday instead.


Vector in her new digs. GWB in the backgroun; Grant's Tomb to the right. Fort Lee, NJ at left.

Saturday we moved upriver on a partly favorable tide, set the hook, and then immediately had to head down to the animal hospital to pick Angel up. In a less hurried and harried moment, we were able to take the Subway down to the vet. After dropping three boat units to get the cat out of hock, we again took a Lyft back to the marina. This time she had to endure a tender ride of nearly a mile, which is how far we are now from the dinghy dock.

While it's not as good as down by Pier-i, there is still some people-watching up here. In addition to the usual walkers, runners, and cyclists on the river path, the lawn here gets used by sunbathers, and we even caught a bit of a concert on the hilly lawn adjacent to the tennis courts, sponsored by the Riverside Clay Tennis Association. We're also much closer to the George Washington Bridge here, and have a nice view of the bridge lit up at night, with the "little red lighthouse" beneath it.


Spotted this dead fish on the boat deck while I was working on spreader lights. That's a helluva jump, 10' above the water.

Angel is doing much better, although she's unhappy being medicated twice a day, a routine we'll have to continue for the next three weeks. And we've settled back in to life on the Upper West Side. Over the past week we've had dinner at a half dozen places in the area, gotten bagels from our usual kosher bagel joint, shopped at the local markets, and gotten some errands done, including swapping out our navigational iPad with a swollen battery for a replacement at the local Apple store.

We've re-connected with some friends who work in town and live north of here on the same subway line. We've also had our mail delivered, along with a number of Amazon items needed for boat projects. With parts in hand I've been chipping away at the backlog, including replacing the windlass remote, upgrading the spreader lights to LED while replacing a burned out bulb, and replacing the failed video monitor for the camera system.

Yesterday was "Manhattanhenge," and I had hoped to get a nice photo from dinner at the Amsterdam Ale House, but the weather did not cooperate. Of course, the days on either side of Manhattanhenge still have an alignment that makes walking west around sunset brutal.


These fireworks downriver happened last night, not July 4. Manhattanhenge celebration? Who knows.

After swinging at anchor here for nearly a week, it is very well set, and tomorrow we will spend the entire day taking the train down to the New Jersey shore to visit my parents, on the occasion of my dad's 90th birthday. Now that all my Internet devices are again working, we'll be able to keep tabs on everything remotely with the security cameras and AIS transponder. We'll medicate the cat just before we leave in the morning and as soon as we return in the evening.

I expect we'll be right here at least another week. We've ordered some more items to arrive on Monday, and I still have a list of things I'd like to do while we're here, a list that's been deferred due to the cat crisis and the unending boat projects. We're due out at the end of Long Island at the beginning of August, so we'll spend the last week or so of July heading in that direction.

Crewmember down

We are anchored in a familiar and comfortable spot, on Maule Lake, about halfway to Miami (map). I wrote extensively about this hidden gem anchorage the last time we stayed here, so I won't repeat myself. A couple of the places in the nearby Intracoastal Mall have changed hands, but otherwise it is as we remembered it.

We've been here since Thursday evening, even though I had hoped to be south of Miami by now, and therein lies a tale. We're one crewmember short, with Second Mate and Chief of Security Angel in the hospital, where she has been since Saturday. When we dropped her off, we feared she was at the end, but yesterday's report from the vet has given us some hope, and we are awaiting this morning's call.


Angel in her "most interesting cat in the world" pose, in better times.

She's 17, the last pet standing of the three stalwarts that departed San Jose with us 14 years ago. She's been showing her age, reluctant to go up and down the stairs and a little unsteady on her pins. And lately, she's been eating a little less and showing less interest in the pureed pumpkin we put out for her each morning to help her digestion (hey, she's in her 80s in people years).

We had a lot of drama on the boat Thursday. We weighed anchor around 8:15 to retrace our steps back to Dania Beach, and cleared past the series of three drawbridges. We had just cleared the Dania Beach Boulevard Bridge and were not yet at the cutoff canal when the yard called to say we should come right in to the lift slip; we were in the slings and out of the water by 9:30.

Paul the surveyor was already at the yard waiting for us, and so as soon as we could get a ladder alongside, there were a gaggle of us back aboard, including both of us, Paul, and three yard guys who came to replace the valve. We pointed out the cat to each who came aboard, and, honestly, she seemed to be fine and her usual self at the time, keeping mostly out of everyone's way.

I immediately became too busy to notice what she was doing after that. I divided my time between trailing the surveyor and answering his questions, and keeping an eye on the crusty old yard guy who was honchoing the valve replacement. As it stood, I barely caught him before he would have used the wrong bedding compound to install the valve, a non-removable type prohibited by the manufacturer. "Why would you ever need to remove this?" Hmm, well, let's see -- maybe because it broke JUST LIKE THE ONE YOU JUST TOOK OUT. Also, his decades of experience make him more qualified than the engineers at the manufacturer. SMH.


Failed seacock, disassembled for analysis. Piece at lower left broke off the piece just above it. No obvious reason noted.

The valve replacement was done in less than an hour, and the yard needed us out so we booted the surveyor off the boat, splashed, and drove around the corner to a dock at the community center (map), where he met us to finish the survey. After we tied up I remember paying a bit more attention to Angel, making sure she did not go out on deck during the remainder of the survey. Again we noticed nothing unusual.

The surveyor finished by lunch time, and we had our lunch there at the dock before shoving off. I am very happy to report that we had an excellent survey, with no major items noted and a valuation set considerably higher than what it's been since the day we purchased the boat, reflective of the enormous amount of work we've done to upgrade it. After a quick bite I spent a half hour in the bilge reconnecting the plumbing, and we were back under way before 1pm.

I had figured to end up right back at the Hollywood Lakes on Thursday, but with such an early start, and wanting to feel like we were finally making more progress south, we opted to come here instead, just another five miles (and three drawbridges) along the ICW. We figured to spend maybe two nights, taking Friday to relax, before joining the fray hunting for anchorage in Miami the week before the big boat show.


Sunset reflected off Sunny Isles Beach skyscrapers, from our anchorage in Maule Lake.

I don't really remember whether Angel was showing any signs of stress that afternoon. I went about my business, which included drilling a three inch hole in the floor of the guest stateroom right above the new valve, so we can get an arm in there to exercise it regularly. Previously, a ton of quilting stuff had to come out so we could move the mattress, and then I needed to don work clothes to enter the graphite-dust-covered bilge just to reach the valve handle.

Somewhere during the afternoon we noticed that she had become a little lethargic, and that she had not really been eating or drinking. We were pretty beat from a full day of work on the heels of a couple of stressful days, so notwithstanding our proximity to a number of good restaurants here, we opted to just grill a steak aboard that evening. And that's when we really noticed she was in trouble. We often offer her a single nibble of fat or meat when we have it, and she refused to even touch it, which is very out of character for her.

Thursday night she began a rapid decline. Having been through it before, we recognized it as the sign of renal failure. Angel has but one good kidney, and she's been through a renal crisis in the past. It seemed to us like her system had finally had enough after 17 good years. We tried to keep her comfortable all night and do whatever we could to get fluids into her, which is not much without IV bags and sets. And we ruminated about what we were willing to do beyond end-of-life palliative care.

Friday she was still up and about and generally being herself, other than a bit weak and still not eating or drinking. But she seemed OK for us to leave the boat, which we needed to do. Thursday afternoon I got word from Lauderdale Propeller that the custom plate for our PropSmith tool had arrived and was available for pickup. Just in time, too, since I'm not sure what we would have done, other than ask them to hold it, had it arrived after we left the US.


New PropSmith plate, right, replaces the one on the left with incorrect threads.

Getting that tool was just going to become more and more difficult the further we got from Fort Lauderdale, and so I booked a cheap rental car for noon on Friday so we could go get it. The car was less than it would cost to ship the tool to another stop, and there is an Enterprise right across the ICW.  We left the tender at the dock at the mall, where they picked us up. They were having a problem that day getting any cars, and so my booking for an econobox landed us a full-size, four-door F150 pickup truck, and they even gave us a quarter tank grace on fuel when I mentioned the fuel mileage difference.

We headed directly to Fort Lauderdale to get the tool. As long as we had the truck, we ran some other errands as well, stopping at West Marine to return the extra parts I did not use for the valve project, the auto parts store for dinghy spark plugs, and Home Depot to return a few items there as well. We also dropped by Progressive to trade the title to the stolen scooter for a check for the balance of the claim.

In the course of the day we learned that semi-local friends and fellow Neoplan bus owners Steve and Harriet had just arrived in town, and we agreed to meet them for an early dinner along with Ken and Pam, their in-laws. They were kind enough to meet us down in Hollywood so we could get back to the cat a bit sooner in the evening. We had a nice dinner at Sal's and it was great catching up with old friends.

We left the rental car at the mall overnight, which is a very busy place on Friday night; every restaurant and lounge is doing a booming business there when the weather is nice, and a good deal of the parking lot is given over to valet use. We parked in an out of the way corner and made our way back to Vector, crashing over the wakes of a dozen luxury yachts on the ICW Friday evening rush hour. "No wake zone" has a different meaning to some of those skippers.

We arrived before 8pm to a very lethargic cat. She'd stopped eating altogether and, worse, was not drinking either. We tried to get some water in her with a syringe, but that's like trying to put out a fire with a soda straw. If we had an IV set and a bag of Ringers we would give her subcutaneous fluids, something we did on a regular basis towards the end of George's life as her kidney disease progressed.

Friday was a rough night. As lethargic as she was, she still managed to make it down the stairs to come up and sleep between us on the bed, which is very unusual behavior for this cat unless it is very cold. It's been in the 80s here. When we awoke Saturday morning we thought we might lose her.

The morning discussion was what you can imagine surrounding the end-of-life issues with an elderly pet. Our chief concerns were her quality of life and unnecessary suffering. As it was becoming clear she was not going to just slip away without a protracted period of discomfort -- she was by this time wandering around the house crying -- we made the decision to take her to the vet.

We still had the car available until 1:30 or so, and I scratched my plans to do some final shopping in the morning and, instead, we stuffed her paperwork in a backpack, assembled the carrier, and took the whole kit and caboodle of us back to the mall in the dinghy. The cat is very blase about the big boat, but she was not happy about the tender ride.

We picked a pet hospital that was fairly close to the lake, where we could get back on the town shuttle later if they needed to keep her for treatment. She complained mightily in the car, which actually gave us a great deal of hope: it seemed like she still had some fight left in her, and perhaps the discomfort was something more acute than end-of-life renal failure.

The hospital in Aventura looked at her and determined, unsurprisingly, that blood tests were required, but then they informed us that they could not keep her overnight for treatment. So we ended up declining the blood work, loading her back in the car, and going north to Hollywood, where the veterinary hospital is 24-hour. They got us right in and ran some blood tests.


She loves bags. Looking at me as if to say "were you planning on going somewhere without me?"

Her numbers were horrible. But between ourselves, the vet in Aventura, and the vet in Hollywood, we determined that it was worthwhile to try IV hydration before making a determination, and they presented us a treatment plan for 3-5 days of hospitalization and fluids. The estimate was well north of what it cost to replace my scooter; there is nothing quite so expensive as a free pet.

After leaving Angel in Hollywood we raced back to Sunny Isles Beach to return the car, which was overdue. The office was swamped, with a lone employee, and she graciously waived the fee for being a half hour late, and also credited us for a Lyft home since they had no one to drive us.

It's been lonely here the last couple of days without her. All we can keep thinking is that we hope she makes it back home. The last two calls from the vet have suggested a great deal of improvement, so perhaps it was something acute. She's been through this once before, when we surmised she got into something toxic outside the bus.

She loves to go out on deck and drink the rainwater that has pooled in various places on deck, and with all the yard work we can't rule out some chemical residue on one of the decks, in spite of vigorous washing. And the vet suggested that something on the x-ray might be a small kidney stone; when George had one of these a decade ago she went completely into crisis.

We've been here in Maule Lake now for five nights, and we'll be here at least one and maybe two more. Things were incredibly busy and stressful up until we returned from dropping the car off, and in the last two days of "down" time, I've been catching up on another project that must be complete before we head offshore, switching my Google Voice number away from Sprint and moving my cell service to T-Mobile.

T-Mobile works much better than Sprint internationally, with service in many countries including the Bahamas and much of the Caribbean included in the plan. It also works better domestically, and now that I qualify for the 55-and-over unlimited plan it's also a better deal than my grandfathered unlimited Sprint plan.

My Google Voice and Sprint phone numbers are one and the same. When we last went to the Bahamas, even though Sprint does not work there, I missed no calls or text messages because I got them through Google Voice. I can't do the same trick with my T-Mobile number so instead I am "porting" my number, which Sprint actually owns, to Google Voice, and my calls will be forwarded to T-Mobile.

Of course, you can't just move a phone between carriers, either, and so while in Fort Lauderdale I bought a spiffy new pre-owned T-Mobile phone and signed it up for service at a T-Mobile office. I've spent the past couple of days rooting it, loading apps, configuring them, and transferring data. A tedious process to be sure. It's all ready to go and last night I divorced Google Voice from Sprint and fired off an order to port the number. That should happen sometime in the next day or two. If you have my number, nothing should change, I'll just be making and receiving all my calls and texts through Google Voice.

Update: Angel is back home!

I was still typing here this morning when we made the decision to head ashore, even before the vet called, to get a bagel and be ready to pick up the rental car I had booked for this morning in a fit of optimism. We enjoyed our bagels and did some shopping while we waited for the vet to call. Our 10am car reservation came and went.

Finally around 11:30 we heard the good news that Angel was eating and drinking on her own and that it was our option to pick her up today or have them hold her one more night. We chose the former, and called a Lyft over to Enterprise where the same clerk was again alone, swamped, and without a driver for pickups. She took the Lyft fee off our rental price.

It was something of a slog back up to Hollywood. After dropping her off there, we had seriously considered moving the boat back up to the Hollywood Lakes anchorage, but it turns out that getting ashore and renting a car there is not really any easier, and we'd make a ten-mile round trip in the boat, a three-hour process, to save ourselves twenty minutes in a rental car.

We had a long wait at the vet's, but eventually we got Angel out of her personal hell. We left the office with a box full of supplies, including five liters of lactated Ringers, injectable anti-nausea meds with a dozen hypodermics, and appetite stimulants to be administered orally. She looked a bit shaky, still, but much better than when we dropped her off.

On the way home we stopped at Walmart, the stop I had to forego with the last rental car, to pick up some needed items including a pair of mask-and-snorkel sets to replace the ancient ones that are disintegrating, and some additional items for the scooter to replace the ones that were stolen. We arrived back at the tender at an extremely low tide, and it was quite the challenge loading everything for the ride home.

Angel spent the first half hour sniffing everything in the saloon to make sure she was really home, then spent an hour or so next to Louise absorbing love through osmosis (she has never been a lap cat) before finally retiring to her "cube" where she is currently cashed out. It's exhausting being in the hospital.

Tonight we have to give her her first bolus of sub-cu fluids, and we're hoping that in a week or so she will be back to drinking well on her own. She is by no means out of the woods yet, and recovery is not a slam-dunk, but we are hopeful and holding positive thoughts.

Tomorrow we will return the car we had to rent for today's excursion, then deck the tender and head back out of the lake for Miami. I'm hoping to catch the "tech day" at the Miami Boat Show on Thursday, if we can get anywhere near the place, to talk to PC chartplotting software vendors. Our current system simply can not get good charts for most of the Caribbean or even, really, the Bahamas, and it's time to switch to something with more chart options.


Our final sunset over Maule Lake, from the aft deck.

Reluctant to leave her alone for a while, tonight we're eating aboard. We had a nice sunset on the aft deck, accompanied by the clamor of a drum fish. The drum fish have been serenading us off and on since we arrived, and it took us a few minutes to rule out something mechanical going haywire on the boat when we first started hearing it. We've heard them before, but it's been a while, and everything making noise underwater gets amplified on a steel boat.

With any luck we'll be in Miami or Miami Beach when next you hear from me.

Best. Cat. Ever.

.

Our sweetest girl, George, passed away today peacefully in our arms.  While we did opt to assist her passing, ultimately kidney disease is what took her from us.  The disease first manifested itself back in 2008, when she passed a painful kidney stone as we were deploying to the Hurricane Dolly relief operation with the Red Cross.  This disease inevitably worsens, notwithstanding tightly controlled diet, subcutaneous hydration, and careful monitoring and veterinary care.  Honestly, we are so thankful for all the years we've had with her, well in excess of what we were told to expect.


George and Angel on their first full day at home.  They'll grow into those enormous ears.

George came into our lives as a kitten, on the same day as her "sister" Angel, who is really from a different litter.  They both came from the shelter in the spring of 2001.  After a full day of hissing at each other, they became good friends, at least at the start, and we have many photos of them sleeping together.  In their later years, George would bully Angel, and probably the best way to describe their adult relationship is détente.


Intertwined.

Shelters learned long ago that pets, even kittens and puppies, are more adoptable if they have names, and when we got them, we liked "Angel" enough to just keep it.  (We later discovered that it was somewhat misleading, as "angelic" is not how we would describe her.)  George's shelter name was "Patch," and neither of us cared for that name at all.  We brought her home and ruminated about names for several days.


Come to the light.

We discovered in short order that she liked nothing better than to be held and loved and even squeezed tightly, and I could not help being inspired by a childhood memory of this scene from the Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck cartoon, The Abominable Snow Rabbit:



The first time I said "I'm going to hold her, and love her, and squeeze her, and call her 'George'" the name stuck, and thus we had a female cat with a male name.  To the very end she still loved to be held closely, although she was so frail that we dared not squeeze.


Sometimes I squeeze you back, daddy.

George loved confined spaces, and we'd often find her peeking out of boxes or bags.  When she was still a tiny kitten with big ears she crawled into Louise's motorcycle helmet through the visor area, and then was perfectly content when we closed the visor.


Can we go for a ride?


Take me shopping.

We still lived in a condo when we got her, moving to a different condo just a few weeks later. Shortly after her third birthday, she began her peripatetic life, starting with the car as we shuttled back and forth between San Jose, California and Sumner, Washington for monthly checks on the progress of the bus.


Antimacatsar.

Unlike her sister, who suffered from a bit of motion sickness at the start, George settled in comfortably to the traveling life.  Moving onto the bus was a big adventure for her, with many new spaces to explore, and transitioning to the boat was better still.  They have been indoor cats their whole lives, but on the boat she was allowed to roam the decks at anchor, which she loved.

Each of us has had many pets over the years, and for the last 13 years we've always said that George was the best cat ever.  She loved people, would purr just from proximity, and climbed into the bed between us for warmth and cuddles.  We will miss her terribly.

She spent her final day doing what she loved -- climbing onto our laps for morning love on the aft deck, and lying on the deck in the sun.  We gave her a final dose of subcutaneous ringers last night so she would be as comfortable as possible today.  I am very thankful we were able to find a vet to come to the boat, so she could spend her final moments in comfortable and familiar surroundings.

Goodbye, George.  You will always be the best cat ever.

Sunday morning

Coffee and cat.

I'm experimenting with sending photos directly to the blog from my phone. Hopefully this will increase the picture to word ratio here.

- Louise

Counting down while down for the count

We are in our final week here in Stuart, counting down the days to our planned departure, currently slated for Wednesday morning.  I have another follow-up with the eye surgeon Tuesday morning, and I am hoping that my vision will have improved enough by then that I am fully functional.  That has decidedly not been the case thus far, so not much has gotten done around here over the last week.

My left, "LASIK" eye is great, with near-perfect vision, and I have been relying on it for nearly everything.  The right, "PRK" eye, while now focusing to better than 20/40, is still quite fuzzy due to the ongoing corneal healing.  One consequence of the two eyes being quite different is that I can't get a pair of reading glasses that works for both, and so I have been useless for close-up work.  Even reading and working on the computer is a challenge right now and I am limiting my time.  For the first few days after surgery, about all I could do was sit and converse, so we are happy to have the convenient company of friends here.


Re-certified raft in its cradle, before strapping it down.

It gets better every day, and I've been able to ride the scooter and get a few projects done that don't require close stereoscopic vision.  We got our life raft back and I mounted it to the boat deck, horizontally just behind the aft rail, and with the painter now attached in the proper place.  Louise sewed a spiffy cover for it out of Sunbrella fabric so we can keep it out of the sun, hoping to avoid the UV-related container damage it's been suffering exposed on the rail.


Raft weather cover, glistening in the morning dew. "Bump" at top right is the hydrostatic release, which is a couple of inches proud of the canister.  The cover is held on only by a shock-cord gather around the bottom, so it will come off with the raft should the boat sink.

The last of the new LED replacement bulbs for the tender arrived and I decided to install it, which prompted me to spend an afternoon up there working on things.  For example, I added an hour meter to the tender, so we have some clue as to when maintenance is due, and also so we can get a better handle on how much fuel is being used.


Tender fuel tank exposed.  Recalcitrant sender is right in the middle.

Speaking of fuel, the fuel gauge has been inoperative since we got it, which is a real liability with the built-in tank and no reserve supply.  When I first looked at this a few months ago, I found the gauge itself had never been properly connected, but correcting that problem revealed that the sender was also bad, reading a direct short to ground.  In for a penny, in for a pound, so as long as I was working on the tender I cut through the sealant and removed the floor over the fuel tank.  It turned out the sender shorted when the nut fixing the sender wire had been severely over-tightened, and I was able to repair it with some pliers and re-install it without having to hunt down a replacement.

In my last post I mentioned that our depth transducer had stopped working, and I ordered a replacement.  The first two places I tried were happy to take my order for items allegedly "in stock," only to email me a day later to say it was back-ordered.  I eventually found one and it arrived this week.  Imagine my surprise, though, when the old one was mysteriously working again when I powered the system back up, in preparation for testing the replacement.  We left it on and it has been working ever since.  The replacement has been set aside as a backup -- these kinds of intermittent failures trouble me perhaps more than anything else.

We've also had painters on the boat on and off for the last week, touching up rust spots as I mentioned in my last post.  They made a rookie mistake, though, grinding down to the steel on the edge of the transom without cleaning up the grinding dust.  When we washed the boat after they had finished, we noticed rust spots from the dust all over the swim step.  They came yesterday to remove the rust, and while the rust is gone, the paint is also irreparably damaged.  They are supposed to come back today to completely repaint the swim platform, but we are concerned that weather may intervene, in which case our planned departure date will be in jeopardy.


Grill cover in place.  There will be a zipper in the front when it's finished; Louise did not have one on hand.

As long as Louise had the sewing machine out for the life raft cover, she also made a cover for the BBQ grill, and fixed some clothing items to boot.  (We try not to fall into gender-normative roles around here, but the sewing machine baffles me.)  We've both been also busy getting everything aboard squared away for our departure, and we even made provisioning runs to Costco and the grocery store in our friends' rental car.  Things are definitely starting to feel cruise-ready.



George has been hanging in there, and many thanks to everyone who sent her well-wishes.  We've increased her sub-cue fluids to every other day, and she has her ups and downs.  We are thankful for every day we have with her.  Lately, she's been wanting to sleep on the same pillow with my head at night, which is a concern now that I am no longer wearing eye shields.  She manages to sneak in there without waking me, and I notice her when I roll over.

At this writing the weather is still looking good for an outside run on Wednesday, and it looks like Stephanie might join us for the run to Palm Beach, with Martin meeting us there for dinner.  That will still allow us a full week before our reservations in Fort Lauderdale, and we'd likely do two more hops with a pair of days between each.  Once we are on the move, I will be updating here more frequently, returning to my practice of one post from each stop.