Amazingly enough we have had three days of great weather and managed to get a lot of the exterior work done on the boat. We've enjoyed just being down at the boat, blue skies and some of the clearest days we've seen since we've moved here and could actually see all the mountains off in the distance.
We managed to seal most of the hatches that were leaking, (of course it hasn't rained yet to see if they stay dry) and replace the cockpit windows with clear plexiglass and sealed the leaky anchor locker.
It so nice to have the clear windows, now when we are sailing we will actually be able to tell red markers from green and it's the first thing we have done on the boat that is actually noticeable, after all the hard work we've done, cleaning and resealing the boat still pretty much looks the same, a mess, but at least now we can look at the windows and feel like we actually accomplished something.
While our days have been spent on the boat, at night we drag our sore, feeling-our-age bodies home, stuff some unhealthy food in our mouth and start looking up things we need to buy for the boat. We pretty much have to buy everything, head, holding tanks, plumbing, sink, shower, batteries, solar panels, inverter, stove, heater, electronics... And the list goes on.
With the list so long it's hard to know where to start and what to get, there is so many options, ranging from expensive to outrageously expensive.
But faced with an intimidating task, Mark and I decided to divide and conquer, his job was to investigate electronics and come up with the best system for the money we can afford and I looked into stoves, cabin heaters, cooking stoves, barbecues, etc.
I didn't figure this would be too hard but once I'd scoured every website and online marine retailer I couldn't come any closer to a decision but just had more questions. Cooking stoves, do we go with propane or diesel? Do we want to minimize the types of fuels on the boat? Diesel is difficult to get going and maintain, propane is heavier than air and poses a risk explosion. Safety? Cost? Convenience? BTUs? Too many options, which is best?
Seeing as I couldn't decide on a galley stove I figured I'd move on to cabin heaters, and the two do overlap, we could get a galley stove and oven with a built in diesel heater, nice to have it all in one and since we have a diesel tank for our engine anyway seems like the best plan and diesel does pump out the BTUs, but from reviews I've read diesel stoves are complicated to operate and maintain. There was one more option I had dismissed from the start and didn't even bother to look up was a solid fuel stove, it seemed impractical to burn wood on a boat, how would you store the wood? How would you chop it? But being thoroughly unimpressed by propane and diesel options I looked up marine wood stoves and absolutely fell in love. Through some cruiser chat threads I was turned on to shipmate cast iron stoves.
Growing up watching shows like Road to Avonlea I always loved the idea of the old fashion wood cooking stove and here I am presented with a miniature version made just for boats, thats awesome! I'm pretty much sold on these stoves but the cost might be a bit too much, we'll have to see if we can swing it, now to check with Mark and see what he come up with for electrical systems.
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