Sailing SweetHaven: Keep Calm and Breathe.

Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson.

One of the best perks of living on the ocean is the closeness to nature. Above Finnegan is watching the mama seals and their babies settle in on their log for the night as the sun sets below the mountains, it's like something out of a painting, too perfect to be true. And actually a lot of our moments spent up on deck are like that, we are immersed in creation, the sky, the sun, the clouds, the water, the weather, the animals and the smell of salt in the breeze but a lot of that life is spent below deck too and sadly that air ain't as fresh.

To combat the stale, dampness that can infect the air while living inside a wooden boat on the water we have some small appliances that help us. First up is my electric space heater, it's sad but a necessity while living in the Pacific Northwest, but we need heat pretty much year round. On sunny days we run the heater in the morning to chase away the night chill and again in the evening once the sun goes down. The dampest part of the boat is the v berth where Mark and I sleep, so about a half hour before we go to bed I put the heater in there to warm it up and dry it a bit.

Next to the heater we have our weather station, which tells us the forecast for the next day and the temperature and humidity inside and outside the boat. We like to keep the inside humidity under 50% to fend off mold growth, which is difficult to do when most days the outside humidity hovers around 90%.

Next we have the air purifier, it's noisy and big and pumps out cold air but it fulfills a major necessity on the boat. Since we do keep the humidity in the boat managed most days we don't worry too much about mold, which the purifier will help clear out of the air but the main reason I put up with this obnoxious machine taking up precious floor space is because it eliminates odours. In a small space even the slightest bad odour can become unbearable, left overs in the fridge, dirty laundry in the corner but we keep it in the head for obvious reasons.

Lastly, we have our small dehumidifier. As much as heating the boat helps to reduce the humidity there are corners and spaces that heat just doesn't reach and moisture likes to collect. Usually we keep it right up in the v berth but it gets moved around as needed.

With these three machines that are running pretty much constantly we have to consider the power they draw, when we are alongside it doesn't matter of course but when we are at sea we have other options. The dehumidifying buckets with the white crystals, do work well and don't require power, we have about three of these around the boat and mostly in areas where the clothes are stored.

So far we have been so blessed with the weather this month, but the sunshine couldn't last forever and the last two days have been cold, windy and rain, rain, rain.

The rainy days have had one benefit, we now know where all the leaks are and there are a few. Woke up to wet feet, the anchor locker above our bed is leaking, the main cabin hatch is still leaking after numerous attempts to seal it, the chimney is leaking around where it goes through the deck and there is water accumulating in the pantry shelf but we haven't discovered where it is coming from yet.

After a few days of rain the boat becomes very damp and cold and sometimes the little electric heater won't cut it so it's time to break out the big guns, skippy. Last night we chopped up our energy logs and flash up a wood fire, skippy sure pumps out the heat and it just dries everything out, we can actually watch the humidity drop on our weather station.

Unfortunately, we are still getting used to using the wood stove inside such an enclosed space and there are some important aspects we need to always be aware of. Around mid night last night as the fire was dying down the carbon monoxide detectors started beeping. This of course sends us into battle stations, I freaked right out and we spent the next hour opening every hatch and doorway which let out all the lovely dry heat we had built up and let in the rain, while we checked every single gas fitting and finally realized it was the wood stove. We had shut the flew but left the bottom vent open a bit and it was leaking out of there. It was a miserable night, I refused to close the hatches completely just to be sure so it was freezing and wet inside and I had mark sleep on huge boys cabin floor and I woke about every half hour to check and make sure we were all still breathing. I am so thankful for working alarms and we will be more vigilant next time we light a fire to make sure we have proper ventilation.

Work has had to stop while it was raining, we pretty much hunkered down below and tried to keep warm and dry. But this morning the rain slackened off a bit and Mark went out clamming on the beach, our neighbour told him these were the best kind of bait to put in our crab traps, we shall see.