A Pirate's Wife Life by Michelle - Live Aboard Storms

Well, when your husband lives on a boat sometimes you do, too.  Lasse bought a 34' 1980 Marine Trader Trawler in 2012.  He did the American Great Loop in 2013-2014 and that was an exciting adventure.  After a two-year hiatus he is just about ready to drop her back in the water!

Sixteen Tons....and what do you get?

So, he named this boat after a 1940's song, "Sixteen Tons" by Tennessee Ernie Ford.  I think only people of a certain age remember that song but it is an old coal mining song that says, "You load sixteen tons and what do you get?  Another day older and deeper in debt.  Saint Peter don't ya call me, 'cause I can't goooooo; I owe my soul to the company store."

 Sixteen Tons by Tennessee Ernie Ford 

The old lock masters all over the United States started singing this song while he traveled through - a real joy!  I always say, "He left me for a gal named, "Sixteen Tons" - it could be worse!"  

Right now we have been sitting on the bow deck, drinking glasses of merlot while a big storm is brewing.  The wind is really howling and slapping the lines against the masts on hundreds of boats.  I am quite impressed!  The lightning is constantly brightening behind the storm clouds but I haven't heard any rumbling of thunder.  And I feel peaceful.

For most of my life I have been afraid of storms but not any more.  After all the trials of the past two years, I think I am able to say that the LORD is my anchor.  Nothing can touch me that He has not allowed.  Lasse already believes that and that is probably why during all this shrieking wind, he is on the fly bridge (top deck) doing something completely crazy but in his words, "necessary" and without fear.  I am inside typing - if I hear a few thumps and a scream, I'll have to excuse myself and check on him!  And no, I couldn't talk any sense into him as he is the one man I don't boss.  

Snapshot of the Weather 

Today we visited with a man who is selling his sail boat.  Sixteen Tons is a trawler and her standing rig just isn't big enough for sails; this means she isn't really a blue water boat and not meant to sail across oceans.  But my husband has to go....across the ocean.  So, there we were visiting with this man, discussing buying his sail boat.  (Sigh.)  Azores is calling.

Azores....seriously, would you look at that?!
The picture doesn't even fit on the page!

Azores is an archipelago more than 2,200 miles from Boston and more than 900 miles from Portugal.  It is considered the Hawaii of Europe.  Who wouldn't want to visit that Garden of Eden?  

But the reason I mention this was the storm inside the man selling his sail boat.  He has cancer that has metastasized into his bones.  But his storm comes from his wife passing away a year ago.  She was his anchor.  And he is tossed.  Ah, this is a topic we are discussing while sipping the red wine.  Sad. I do understand him as I have faced that threat myself but I don't know the devastation felt at the death of the "one whom my soul loves".  We will pray for Jim.  Just like storms, time passes, too, but it does not mean that its passing heals all wounds.  

If your storm is raging, then the only solid anchor is the LORD.  He is the anchor that holds and He is willing to hold those who come to Him.  

Hebrews 6:19-20

"This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil, where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek."