Ever-changing plans

In a world that's rapidly running in circles, sometimes it's hard to remember to sit back and just think. While there's still a lot unknown, and with it a lot of needless panic, the most frustrating thing is having to adjust your own lifestyle and plans around others. It does make the prospect of being a thousand miles into the middle of the ocean a lot more appealing. Rather than get into all that wonderful debate, I'll skip ahead.

As of now, my potential trip to Cali has been cancelled until further notice. Schools and such have been closed for the next four weeks, but that they've cancelled my trip that's nearly two months out seems to be jumping the gun. There's no way to know for sure if four weeks is going to be fine, or if it'll be months on end. The bigger question is things like, will there even be water around to stock the cooler when summer hits? Or do I need to take out a loan for a water-maker... Obviously I have no doubts that somehow, logic will return to the percentage of Americans that are panic buying out of fear and misinformation, and slowly the stocks will return to the shelves. In the meantime, filtered water will do just fine out on the lake.

In the meantime, I'm still brainstorming my bow roller for this Rocna on my floor. I swear it looks bigger every day. The largest issue is the raised toe rail, followed closely by a serious lack of space on the bow. Since I'm not at the boat, I can't give a perfect picture, but suffice it to say, engineering will be required. So far, my plan is to use a block to mount on the deck and then mount the roller onto that. The anchor locker will need to be modified, I may have mentioned it earlier. I'll probably end up cutting it down, maybe in half, or somehow modified, and then the roller can mount on it's position. The other question in my mind, is how to secure the rode once the anchor is deployed. Part of the reason for raising the roller up over the rail is for clearance, but the other is to allow access to the bow chock underneath to feed the rode through at anchor. My preference is to not use the roller as structural at anchor. Normally when deployed, the rode feeds out along the roller, and away you go. My initial plan will be to deploy the anchor, letting the rode pay out until it's where it needs to be. Then, I'll reach forward, and pull the rode back from the now-deployed anchor through the chock and cleat it off. So far that's the only feasible plan I have. Obviously the roller will be mounted with a sufficient backing plate, but I'd rather be safer than broken.

I did order a roller for this week. It's quite impressive, how many different versions, styles, sizes, and makes there are. There are hinged ones, and ones designed to be more effective for certain styles. In my case, I've cheaped out and went with a very basic one, to at least see if my idea for mounting is even feasible. If it is, then great, I can come up with a version 2.0. And if it doesn't pan out, I'm not out a lot of money.

So I can afford more toilet paper.