Okay, I have decided that I have truly made the transitions from regular working stiff to SAILOR GIRL. A while ago I gave up my female compulsion to purchase more and more pairs of shoes, from the practical to the outlandish, and decided to concentrate on nuts and bolts instead, STAINLESS STEEL, of course (is there anything else???).

When working on a boat you have to have on hand any number and type of stainless steel fixtures. You have to have bevelled head screws, pan head screws, machined screws, tapping screws. Naturally you need numerous and various sizes, different diameters and different lengths, you have to have small skinny ones and small fat ones, and long skinny ones and long fat ones and you can't forget to have the middle sized ones as well, so small middle sized ones, medium middle sized ones and long middle sized ones, the list in endless, rather like shoes except they don't come in different colours. Then there are nuts, on a boat you want the teflon nuts, that is stainless steel nuts with teflon inserts, ordinary ones will just work themselves loose and become a hazard, so teflon is the way to go, and of course you need every size you can think of. The size is dictated by the diameter of the bolt. To be included with this are the washers, all stainless steel and as many different sizes as you could possibly imagine. We have some really big ones that are referred to as backing plates but I am still a little confused as to when a washer is referred to as a backing plate, but I am sure I will learn that soon.

This particular rant came to mind when I took one of my northern sailing friends to the West Marine store to purchase some nuts and bolts for her partner and their boat. I had to explain why she just had to buy the teflon nuts, the regular ones just wouldn't do, it was then I figured I had made the transition to SAILOR GIRL.

Hope all is well with everyone, we are off to a Bluewater Cruising meeting tonight with a presentation from a very experienced pair of sailors, should be good.