Looking to Score

One of our favorite parts of getting a new old boat is looking for treasure. Boats have the most ridiculous storage, caverns that you could fit into and nooks and crannies so deep and small that you forget they even exist. Which often means people forget there's anything in them.

These stowages are dark, dirty, and home to spiders. But they could hold an old love letter or a piece of jewelry or an EPIRB. What the hell is an EPIRB, because we found one? It's a strange antennae that broadcasts your position to satellites so that you hopefully won't be eaten by sharks if your boat goes down.

When you're going through another person's space, especially when it is bound to include forgotten things tucked away in hiding spaces, you start to write a little narrative in your head about the characters who've been here before you. For instance, when we found the EPIRB we knew we had a very safety conscious person on our hands in 1985, one who probably made or was planning to make an epic journey in Kenutu.

​But when I found the crack pipe I just couldn't make sense of it.

Tucked in a cabinet above the head (aka toilet), crammed deep in a corner and wrapped in toilet paper, was a real life crack pipe. I'm no expert, but I've watched enough Intervention to know a crack pipe when I see one. I'm also no drug addict so this find was more of a character development score than a materials score. I'm 99 percent sure this was not the property of the quiet old guy we'd just signed the paperwork with earlier that day, the one who almost cried when he left Kenutu for the last time. 

I kept cleaning/snooping with gloves on and found a sack of women's clothing in the hanging locker (aka closet). Also in there was a shopping bag full of Miller Lite beer bottles and empty menthol cigarette boxes. After a consultation with the captain, we decided Squatter. The hatch over the head was broken, so most likely someone let themselves in, smoked meth, and camped out for a few days. All marinas have strange (you've got to be a little crazy to take a canoe into the ocean) but the marina Kenutu is in right now is like a floating trailer park. Hence, squatter.

The crack pipe was definitely the most unusual find of the cleanup, but the thing I'm most excited about is what I'm sure is my biography. Hours after making this discovery I tossed my gloves and curled up in the pullman berth (aka bed) with this prized bit of literature.