Second Sailing

With the in-laws visit coming to a close we had to get them out on the water at least once. Finally on Saturday the fog had lifted and the wind was 10 knots so we took the opportunity. The weather was pretty dreary and cold and the kids were not impressed about going out again. It took us ten minutes to just get the boys to go on the boat with constant reassuring that it would be much smoother than last time, of course I was praying in my head that this really would be the case. We dragged them on kicking and screaming and shoved off.

The cockpit is a complete, disgusting mess, since we can't set tools up on the dock we have to do out cutting in there, sawdust everywhere. 

The whole time we motored out of the harbor Finn clutched onto me like a koala, shut his eyes and I assume was just waiting for it to be over. Thankfully the wind was low and the waves non existent so I tried to get the boys to relax. Aislinn on the other hand is not scared, actually she's a bit too comfortable, it's hard to keep her in the cockpit when all we wants to do is hang off the bow of the boat, a la Titanic.

The poor dog is a bit skeeved out by it all too, but I'm less worried about her adjusting. We didn't bother with the main sail this time, we knew we wouldn't be out long so we unfurled the jib and cut the motor, we tacked back and forth across the mouth of the harbor a couple times, coasting along at about 2.5 knots, the boys finally asked if we were actually moving at one point and started to unclench. After an hour we headed back in, the boys were our look outs from the starboard hatch. 

All in all it was a much more successful trip than last time. We've decided that every calm day we get we will take the kids out, just motoring in the boat so they can get used to just being on the water, they need some relaxing experiences before we actually try to sail anywhere.

We also need experience in docking Sweets, we are on an end tie close to the entrance of the marina but we have boats docked on either side of the dock and it is difficult to maneuver into a good position. There is a floating log barrier leading up to the boat launch and fisherman dock and it's a very busy area with the fishing boats constantly coming and going and we are just so wide! The marina manager suggested it might be easier for us to shoot past our slip and turning around by the fisherman dock and slide into our spot on the starboard side, which we tried to do yesterday, unfortunately, good in theory but difficult to execute, we are too wide to turn enough to get in that way. Sweets doesn't exactly turn on a dime.

Fogged In!

"Holy collection of liquid droplets, Batman!"

For the past week Whidbey Island has been chalked in with fog. I'm talking beyond pea soup, this has been brick wall fog. All day. All night. This being our first Autumn here we aren't sure if this is normal weather for this time of year or not, but we do not like it. The fog rolled in and set up house around this tiny island and it has been brutal for driving and very dreary to look at.

There's the marina, can't you see it?

There it is.

Well, these days may have been hazy but certainly not lazy. We have been waiting for a good day to go sailing with Marks parents before they return home to Nova Scotia next week, but the fog has made that impossible so we have managed to get a lot of work done on the boat. All the AC wiring has been done on the boat now, so we have outlets to plug in all our tools now.

Mark has been working away at bolting three massive solar panels on top of the Bimini, still waiting for the batteries to come so they aren't completely set up but are on their way. We have sealed more hatches, I know you must be thinking, "how many hatches could there be left to seal?" Well we only have one left to do before everyone has been done.

Mark is building a new electrical panel to clean up this mess of wires.

Jim (Marks Dad) built the wall today between the v berth and the head...

And they are working on building the radar mount. We didn't want to spend over $1000 to buy the pole and mounting kit from Defender or west Marine so they are fabricating one themselves from some sheets of steel and a metal pole for only $150 from Home Depot. We'll see how it goes.

Monopoly after a hard days work, Penelope is very interested.

Here's hoping the fog will lift tomorrow so we can go sailing, the weather is calling for it, 10 knot winds and less than 1 foot seas.

What we've been up to.

Work has actually started on the boat. It's very exciting to see things getting done, very slowly of course and the boat actually looks worse, but I guess it needs to be torn apart before we can put it back together. Mark has two weeks off and has been spending most of his time down at the marina working with his Dad who is visiting from Nova Scotia. The first project that needed to be tackled was moving the transmission levers up closer to the tiller so we can actually stay standing and control where we are going. Electrical is the major project we want to get accomplished, we have all new electronics that need to be hooked up, plus get shore power and an AC panel with plugs running throughout the cabin. Also we need the bilge pumps wired and the fridge wired and ... Okay pretty much every single thing that could need a wire, needs to be wired. Big job.

I have been on the hunt for a copper kettle since we bought our little skippy stove.

The antique stores are full of them

But I am not into paying $100 for some dented, tarnished kettle, so the search continues.

While the guys have been busy working away on the boat I have been busy working on other family projects. Aislinn and Finnegan have a birthday party coming up, they are 3 years apart in age but only 5 days apart in birth dates so we usually have a double party for them. This years theme is a chef pizza party, above are the invites.

Ever since we bought the boat we have had the kids in swimming lessons, we figured that was something important for the kids to know how to do. Aislinn is very skittish of getting her face wet so we have a lot of work to do with her. Mac on the other had in a fish so I figured he would excel in lessons, but not so. These lessons were held in the large swimming pool and apparently it is very cold water. Of course on other child had a problem with it, babies in swim diapers didn't mind it but Mac refused to get in and when he was forced he screamed and fought the while lesson. We were getting pretty discouraged, we didn't think he could possibly find it that cold and that there was something else going on. I got him a rash guard but that wasn't good enough so finally, giving him the benefit of the doubt that he actually was really cold, we invested in a real wetsuit for him. $80 later, I was pretty skeptical but yesterday was his first lesson with it on and it worked like magic. He was a completely different child. Problem child to star student, worth every penny!

First electronics wired into the boat. Our internet extender, we now get any unlocked wifi signal within 25 miles . Our marina neighbours are going to love us, we just boosted their internet too.

New VHF.

And the giant fridge cabinet is gone. It looks a mess I know but we are loving the extra space. Of course we can't just leave all that empty space unused even if we do like the openness feeling. Now we are just trying to figure our the best use of that space.

New transmission box.

AC/DC

Now that all our equipment is rolling in we now have enough stuff to get going on some major projects on the boat. It has worked out that Marks parents are visiting for a couple of weeks and he has taken the time off so with many hands and free time work will finally be getting started on Sweets.

A game of 'Life' hit pretty close to home, live in a log cabin and buy a sailboat, pay $30,000. Of course we are about $10,000 over that amount now but still pretty close.

More goodies. Our solar panels and obviously a new anchor.

While we prep for work on the boat the kids are preparing for Halloween. Some years we go trick or treating, other years we haven't, we aren't too hung up about it one way or the other. Many of our fellow believers are against Halloween and that's fine but we haven't had any person convictions about it, we keep it a cultural, social event, keep their costumes wholesome; we all enjoy the kids dressing up and walking around our neighbourhood. But that is not what this blog is about so back to the boat talk.

Thankfully Marks Dad has a lot of experience with electrical, he's always done our work for us in our previous apartments and our house so we feel confident deferring to his expertise on this. It's amazing how complicated electrical is. Up until tonight while we were sitting around the fireplace talking about it, I figured we had a good handle on how it all worked, I was way off.

Firstly, I don't have a brain for this kind of thing. I have a really hard time wrapping my head around 

anything electrical or mechanical and being a visual learner I really need to be shown physically how it all works. 

The first thing I have discovered is the difference between AC and DC (not just a band anymore), well actually, I discovered that there even was a difference, to me electricity is electricity, I don't understand amps or volts or watts and still don't actually have any conception of what any of them mean other than they are ways to measure electrical current. But I don't especially need to know all the nuances of how it all works I just need to know how it all pertains to me and my situation.

 So I have been informed that the boat is wired for 12 volt DC. That's what the batteries are, that's what the solar panels are, that's what the lights are, what the bilge pumps are, okay, good... great! But then they tell me that 12 volt DC doesn't have outlets. No plugs. So how do you plug in your toaster, or your electric tooth brush, or more importantly your iPad charger? All these things are AC powered. Well you'd need an inverter, that changes the DC into AC. Okay, so this expensive little box will somehow be wired into our battery bank and when turned on I will have two outlets that are in this little inverter box? So two outlets? That's it?

As I am wrapping my brain around this I find out it gets worse. This scenario, with the 12 volt everything working off of batteries and two outlets from an inverter is only for when we are away from a marina. Marina power is a whole new set of problems.

Marinas usually offer 30 amp, AC power. So that's great, right? But how does my entirely 12 volt DC boat work off of AC power? It can't. You now need an AC to DC converter. 

So, so far we have an inverter to change DC to AC and now a converter to change AC back to DC. I'm confused again. It seems that for every situation the boat could possibly be in, there is a completely different power set up.

If we're away from the marina we are completely DC, battery dependant. But in the marina we are AC shore power reliant and thus need to change the current to suit the wiring in our boat.

Is all this a scam to get more money somehow? It has to be. I don't understand why there are two different kinds of electricity. Regardless, I accept that this is the way it is, but why does everything for a boat need to be DC when the entire world runs on AC? It's not compatible and thus the companies can sell us more gadgets to make it all work together. 

They tell me DC is more efficient, consumes less energy, yada, yada, yada, but I don't see how more efficient it actually is in day to day living if you need so many other things just to plug in a regular toaster.

Tomorrow, we make another pilgrimage to West Marine to pick up the last things we need to start the electrical on the boat, AC power panel and circuit breakers, AC/DC converter, shore power connections, automatic transfer switch... I assume I will eventually discover how all this works, I have to if I want to feel confident in being able to run the boat and possibly fix any situations that may arise since so much of our necessities run on electrical (chart plotter, radar, depth sounder, bilge pumps, fridge...) but as of right now it is making my brain hurt.

Skippy

Things are flying in now, everyday big boxes are on the doorstep. I've now got foam for my cushions, it came shrink wrapped in this box so it's downstairs all spread out trying to regain its shape.

Today was a trip back to Port Townsend day. I found out the distributor for the west coast that sells shipmate stoves was the Wooden Boat Chandlery in port townsend. When I called them up ask asked how I go about ordering a stove they said they had a floor model I could buy. I loved the sound of that, save me six weeks of waiting for it to arrive and $100 delivery charge.

So we decided to make a day of it. Gammy and Granpy and the kids and I took the ferry over this morning.

We found some cool pirate head rags.

Walked up and down the town area, checking out the shops.

Finns checking out the wooden dog.

Doesn't every boat need a giant antique gong?

Love the antique ornate carving on this oriental bed.

The cool old architecture of port townsend reminds me of Halifax, all the old buildings, feels kind of like home.

Out for lunch.

And home with our purchase. When we arrived at the store there was the little black skippy right next  to the green 211 model, the one I really wanted to get with the oven in it. When they told me I could take either I had to spend about half an hour debating it all in my mind again. I love the green porcelain colour and it pumps out more heat than the small skippy and the oven is cool but for an extra $2000 more I couldn't justify it. Also the skippy weighs 40lbs and the 211 model weighs 140lbs, that kind of scares me. A 140 pound cast iron stove falls off its stand while under weigh you are in a world of hurt, it'd probably go right through the hull.

                                        

So here is our little black skippy wood stove. Can't wait to have it installed in Sweets.

And of course the brass deck iron and smoke pipe. $500 sitting right there and we still need a flu, but I am told Home Depot should be able to set us up. Amazing, the first thing we can actually buy that's normal, not super, heavy duty, marine grade, just normal chimney pipe.

It's like Christmas

Our first package has arrived. We've been anxiously awaiting any of the dozen packages we've ordered the past two weeks to arrive. And finally today we came home to find a big box on our doorstep.

I don't think we could be more excited, seems strange to be so thrilled about a toilet but everything that we ordered is still just ordered but this we actually have in our possession and it feels real and one more step to making the boat livable.

Mac the first one to test it out, figuratively of course.

While We Wait

While we are waiting for the postman to bring us all our boat goodies we are pretty much just hanging around on the boat, not achieving very much. It's an odd state of limbo, there is so much construction work that could be done now and painting but when I get set to start I think about all the wiring that needs to be run and plumbing and so on that it wouldn't be worth painting now when all this work is going to scratch and ding it up anyway, might as well wait.

So we head to the boat, leave it docked up so the kids can run around and get used to just being on it, just the small wake from passing boats coming into the marina make the boat go up and down (the wiggles the kids are calling it) and that sends them in to fits of crying as it is. Mac does enjoy being the Swabbie.

More leaky hatches, we have resealed all the hatches and windows except for two and of course those two leak the worst so more sealing. It's just time consuming, taking off the hatch and scraping off all the old silicone and then put epoxy on the exposed wood and new silicone then reattach it.

Feels like winter has arrived here. It was very chilly on the boat and we have no heat as of yet, the stove is on order so we had a small electric heater plugged directly in to the shore power through an extension cord since there is no inverter or plugs on the boat yet, so it's heat or lights right not both.

Penelope sitting by the small heater watching the kids run around on deck through the hatch.

This is a project I could work on now. I took out the propane stove that was on the boat already and it needs to be cleaned up and repainted, we'll see if I can get it looking goo again.

Today was Canadian Thanksgiving and since we are in the states right now it was hard to come by a turkey so we got two chickens to roast instead. There are a lot of pumpkins now though, I have three of them right there.

Marks parents flew in this morning from Halifax, NS, they will be staying with us for two weeks. We are very excited to show them the boat, we are hoping to put Marks Dad to work while he's here, gotta take fee labour where you can get it.