Bittersweet update not directly related to the boat.
Last Fall, a good friend (he was kind of like an uncle) of our family passed away due Lymphoma - he had been battling it for several years. He and my dad, along with 2 other friends had done the Great Loop on of the guys' trawlers, and I'd known him since I was a toddler. Like me, he loved to fish, and he did so all over the world. He had already given me a few fishing rods and reels for the boat, as he wasn't going to use them (among them a Penn International 80 combo, wow).
Well, my parents and his widow are still very close, and a couple of weeks ago, she told my dad that she had some things for me that her husband wanted me to have. He and I had fished together a lot with my dad when we were growing up, and he had been following the boat project as well; he knew how much I loved fishing, and none of his sons were really all that into it, so he had told her he wanted me to have some of his fishing stuff. The heart wrenching part of it all was when his widow told me that he had really been hoping to get to ride on the boat before we lost him. However, I know he is up there watching now, and is going to do whatever he can to help me get it running.
'Some' of his fishing stuff included 2 dozen rods, with even more reels, including some antique ones, several nautical charts with his favorite fishing spots marked (most out of Grand Isle), 7 fishing nets, countless spools of line and fishing lures, tackle boxes and more. Here is the really fun part of it - the majority of the rods (and they are of ALL types) are custom rods that he built himself. And in addition to those rods, I was given his rod building tools - his lathe, supplies, more thread than I know what to do with, and his rod making books, all autographed by the various authors to him. There is also other stuff, but I either haven't sorted through it yet, or simply don't know what it is.
I had considered learning the craft before, but now am definitely going to learn. I don't have pictures yet, I just picked it all up, and it almost didn't all fit in my truck. I have a busy weekend, and next week is pretty busy as well, so I doubt I will post pics before then, but I will as soon as I can - I *might* be able to get a few tomorrow.
On the boat side, I am still waiting for the engine rebuild estimate from the mechanics, at which point that should get started. Anyway, in the 20 minutes I had before concert madness today, I thought I would share at least some kind of update.
