Harness and Tether STAT!

Kitty is what we like to call a "full tilt toddler". At 14 months she has but one speed and that speed is go. Unlike Maura who was an early fan of reading, daydreaming and chillaxin, Kitty is an explorer and adventurer at heart. This is a great quality to have as an adult but is a challenge when she is too small to really understand that gravity is always on and sometimes things can get pretty hairy very quickly on a boat.

Kitty is a climber. If it is there, it must be climbed. Companionway, chairs, cockpit coamings or cabin top if it provides a toe hold, she will climb it. She is also scarily quick. Due to this and the fact that sometimes both of us have to get our hands dirty on a project, we made an emergency run to West Marine. Not my favorite place to shop but they had a child sized sailing harness and tether in stock and we needed them NOW. Oh and we got to oogle the Dyneema lines we will have on our boat. Eventually.

Our life line netting is on its way from Fisheries Supply but when it comes to keeping kiddos safe on the boat, I prefer to have redundancy. Also, with temperatures regularly just shy of 100 Farenheit asking Kitty to lounge around dockside in a PFD is just cruel. Seriously, would you want to wear a parka in the subtropics in the height of summer?

And so it was that we found ourselves procuring a harness and tether for Crash. She's happy enough to wear it in the cockpit because she can just peek over the coamings well enough to see what we are doing. We've still got to install padeyes and jacklines, but this is workable for now. She is not a big fan of wearing it below (when we need to keep her safely away from power tools) but she'll adapt. I can now breathe a little easier knowing she is safer although I do miss the days when she hadn't figured out how to climb the cockpit. So happy she is learning and growing, just wish we were a bit further along in the refit before she mastered vaulting out of the cockpit or scampering up the companionway.

*post script * My friend Gina is one of my most favorite people in all the world. We have been friends for many years. We were friends back in the day when our youthful eyes could easily read white text on a black background. We are still friends although our eyes are no longer so youthful. Due to the fact that I do not want to permanently "burn the white text into her retinas" any longer, I've changed the font to an easy on elderly eyes grey. If for some reason this new color doesn't work for you all, let me know and I will consider other options.