Imaginary Joe, who has been able to purchase a 28 foot wooden motor yacht to be used for pleasure, to cruise the intercostals waterways in Florida. His desire is to furnish his motor yacht with beautiful nautical décor, he enjoys searching for furnishings for his dream boat. After getting the telephone line installed at dock side and into the boat, he is able to use his newly purchased computer to go on line and has been able to purchase many new gifts for his single mans domain, what he calls his second home and Office. He purchases a marine designed Wall Clock and Barometer to keep him in touch with time and changing weather. One who lives on a boat and enjoys the view from the helm notices the sight of Cat Paws across the water, ( Cat Paws are the ripple over the water, produced by the winds ) This sight causes one to loose track of time except for the ever rise and lowering of the tide. Joe now finds that the tide caused a change in the length of lines mooring the boat to the pilings. After almost falling out of his bunk bed, due to the listing of the boat, he had forgotten to adjust the length of the lines as the tide rises and lowers several times during a twenty four hour period .
He now realizes that it would be a good idea to have some Property and Liability Insurance on his newly purchased vessel. By going to an annual boat show he finds many booths with Marine Insurance salesmen promising great deals and almost a positive statement that they can insure his new prize vessel, but they tell him that he must have a Marine Survey and to have this done, one must have the boat taken out of the water to have a Certified Marine Surveyor attest to the condition of the entire ship. Joe now finds that this is no easy task, for he must now find a Certified Surveyor who works with a ship yard for the removal of the vessel . The yard must have a traveling lift that is capable of lifting a ten ton boat, of course one that has the proper straps to put under the boat and lift it out of the water without damage, for we must remember this is a wooden boat and in salt water there are these little critters called worms, such like our little termites that eat away our wooden frame homes. Joe is very lucky in finding a Certified Surveyor, who happens to be a former Marine. After being discharged from the Marines his former friend and buddy went back to school studying to receive his Captions license in order to be hired to handle large sea going ships. He also received Certification as a Surveyor thereby knowing just where Joe should take his craft. He is to take it to a Marina that has rails that will not have to lift the boat with straps , but put it on a skid that will run on rails like a train, taking it up on dry land.
Joe renewing his friendship with a former Marine buddy brings back many memories that had been placed back in his brain on shelves that holds memories that we each would like to forget. Remembering that at a very young age he joined the United States Marine Corp and was put through a very fast short term training to remove the boy and make a man. Within six months he finds himself on a ship heading to islands in the Pacific for advance training. He recalls that at one time he was to ship out with all his buddies that he was formally trained with, but due to a slipup, he was held up in the States and was retrained with a new developed replacement group.
Now he thinks back, realizing that those former Marine buddies had gone to an Island that was a volcanic ash beach called Iwo Jima and most of them were either KIA (Killed In Action) or wounded, he now knows that he would have been one of them if the slipup had not taken place. But now ,he is thinking of those times he was faced with death on another Island in the Pacific called Okinawa. Many times Joe and his newly found former Marine buddy climbed up a very strategic hill called Sugar Loaf over looking the once great city of Naha, which is now nothing but rubble after all the bombing and shells from the ships off shore. There company was over run by the well dug in and Kamikazes Japanese soldiers , reducing there company of 220 Marines down to 60 within a few days and new recruits that were assigned as replacements died without anyone getting to know there names. This is where Joe recalls loosing a close buddy, Torre, shot in the chest and died almost immediately, then next was a Corporal who was shot in the thigh , severing the large blood vessel, immediately loosing large volume of blood and going into immediate shock and died. Joe had not seen his former Marine buddy since that late afternoon of June 12, 1945 when a mortor shell landed knocking Joe unconscious , destroying his hearing , injuring his neck and lower back as well as shrapnel in several area of his body. Now there is nothing that would replace the closeness that he will receive from his former Marine buddy in helping him get his Motor Yacht surveyed .and insured.
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