Weekend Recap and George Update
So, George the cat had an abscess from a bite from his 'little' brother (Edgrrr is at 12 lbs now, the former 'runt' of the litter, George is 8 and some change). Then he got another bigger bite. The first one responded well, the second one seemed to be going very well considering and he wasn't worrying at it too much and it was healing. I tried an E-collar but he just lays there like he's dying of shame. He won't move, let alone eat or drink anything. Food being more important that keeping him from occasionally scratching at it, I took it off and it seemed to be doing well. Twice to thrice daily applications of anti-bacterial ointment keeps it moist and clean.

Friday comes around and he's his usual perky self bouncing around the yard and there sill a bit of swollen tissue but it's solid and not squishy. He's on the mend. So, I go to Mobile with a friend, nuit23, to go sailing.



5 Hours down on Friday and we stay at his parents place. Saturday morning we rise and go sailing on John's 16' Hobie Cat. I've been sailing before, but years ago. As many of you will know, I'm familiar with the principles of a lot of things, sail boats being one of them. Sails, when properly trimmed are airfoils. You get MORE force from the shape of the sail when harmonized with the angle of the wind. Set the trim of the boat correctly (with your bodies) and you're doing good and getting some speed. I brought my GPS and the cruddy conditions had us doing 10 knots on the outward bound leg toward the Middle bay lighthouse. It's tricky though, as I expected it was from my introduction as a young teen by a old flying buddy of my grandfather who had a Cal 20 on Lake Lanier.

I get some time, and start to get a feel for it, but given the light conditions it's hard to really get much speed. We end up stuck out on the water for a bit when the wind shifts from the morning to evening directions. We had no wind and were in a 1 knot current. John did seem to like having the GPS along because we could tell exactly what our headway was (or wasn't as it turned out). We never did get close enough to the Middle Bay Lighthouse as the currents and wind conspired against us. We finally headed in to land and then spent a good bit of time extracting John's car from the sand where we put in because the sand had dried and was thus less able to bear the weight of his car. Sand Channels John, ya need some sand channels.

Sunday was better for sailing and we put in at a different spot up the bay (not far however). We did some good running around and playing with the sails, I've got the knack for setting the jib right, but I need to work on matching Jib and main sails and getting the rudder right. The craft is so small that the rudder work is also a constantly adjusting thing to get a course set and stay on that course. But, the additional problem is that the wind, especially inshore in a bay like mobile bay, is quite variable and tends to move around a bit, so you're constantly adjusting the sails, the rudder, adjusting your course and getting things set. We were getting 6-10 knots consistently and that made for some good sailing if at a jogging pace for that boat.

At around 1:30 we needed to get in to pack up, clean the boat up and then get back on our way to Atlanta. We decided to get a last burst of speed in and see what we could do (since we had something to measure speed) and we started a leg running on a beam reach. We had just gotten into it and we handn't had time to set the trim nor really get settled and the port bow pontoon dug into a larger than normal wave and we pitchpoled. That is, the nose dug in and we were flipped over into the water, not quite head first. John had shown me how to right after something like this and it was still clear. Knowing about leverage (I'm a light guy, you don't move heavy things with brute strength, you use leverage) I was pretty comfortable with the principles. I'm happy to say that we had the sails slack in the water, myself and John up on the pontoons and had the craft righted in less than what I estimate to be a minute. A power boat came by to check on us and we had the cat back upright in about as much time as it took them to come to a stop and inquire. They even gave us a cheer for our speed.

Luckily we didn't loose any gear (GPS, dry boxes and water bottles) and we took longer getting the craft un-fouled from the pitchpole than we did righting it. At that point we decided that heading in would be a good thing to do.

Lara had texted me earlier saying that George's ear had swelled up rather badly. She'd been keeping it clean and trying to drain it, but cats are amazingly fast healers BUT that means that wounds that are infected get sealed up and the infection can fester. In this case it was quite large and when I got home it was hard NOT to be worried about him. He's a trooper though and didn't seem to be minding quite so much. Confined to the cage though he was a bit unhappy with that but still slept. Monday morning I met the Vet at the Vet-shop and handed him off for surgury and snippage.

Today, I collected him. He has a drain and is a bit more bare of hair than he was before but is otherwise fine and chipper as usual. The vet found him to be wonderfully happy as a cat. She saw the exact same behavior with the e-collar. She put it on him and he'd just lay there in misery. She said she took it off and all he wanted to do was cuddle and rub either side of his head up on her. $420 later though, he's home and frustrated that he can't go outside and romp. He did get to do so for a moment while I was getting cat food for the boys (Shamus and Edgrrr) setup outside and he was happy to chomp down on some wet cat food. But it was back into the big cage he and edgrrr slept in their first few weeks at the house to protect them from the big cats.