All Work And No Play...

As the work week comes to a close and Nan and Poppy get ready to head home on Sunday we are greatful for the ton of projects that have been accomplished these past few weeks, mast steps, propane locker, lifelines started and the huge one, trampolines!

Some smaller projects are being picked away at, we have a new stained glass, covered front door courtesy of my Mom and lazy jacks are being made in the evenings, as well as some light sewing to make our old sail cover last a few more years. But the week hasn't been all work and no play, we all know what that can lead to, so we have had our fun in between too.

The days have been so hot the kids were melting here at the boat while everyone else worked so we let them go swimming around the boat.

They had so much fun, jumping off the side and swimming around it and under the akas, we couldn't get the swim ladder on the dock down so we hoisted them back on board with a halyard.

Took some time for some kite flying lessons at the RV park.

This was the kite Aislinn won at the fishing derby for catching the biggest fish.

A makeshift sun shelter, we are all burnt after this week, but it won't complain about the sun.

Got the hammock chair up.

Had BBQs...

Swinging.

Took a day off and we all went to Anacortes to browse around some sailboats for my parents who may be in the market for one of their own.

Stopped for lunch at the Juicy Dog, $40 for 7 hot dogs is a lot but they are good dogs and they have gluten free, which is a prerequisite for where we eat.

Yesterday we finally took Sweets out for a shakedown sail. The first time since we moved on board. It was a lot better than the first time we took the kids sailing. There were some smiles instead if terrified screaming, but that's probably because there was no wind. We managed to sail a little ways out of the harbor but then lost the wind completely and we bobbed around for a few hours, the only motion coming from passing speed boats. 

The new trampolines were a big hit, they are great for lying on.

We managed to catch some wind in the afternoon as we headed back in.

Full sails, a thing of beauty.

Checking out some seaweed. We saw what we think was a porpoise jumping around and about four seals.

Steering with his feet.

Overall we had a good day on the water, would have been nicer if we could have actually sailed but a quite day is better to get the kids accustomed to being out in the boat. Everything in the boat we secured stayed put and we tested out our power inverter to run the fridge. 

We had a propane leak in the cockpit, we think it was coming from the water heater, that blasted water heater is the bane of my existence. We think once the water was disconnected the heater kept trying to ignite do to the loss of pressure, when we shut off the propane everything was fine, but the smell from the propane in the cockpit upset my stomach and I had to take some gravol (Dramamine), which made me groggy for the rest of the day.

I think we were all glad to get back into the dock, the kids did well that trip, no crying but they all kept asking when we could head back, I asked Mac at one point if he wanted to steer, he said no because if he drove, he said he would drive us back to the dock, he thought that was pretty funny. 

We discovered that living onboard and going for a day sail is a lot of work, packing up and then setting up again when we get back. We tried turning the boat around to face the opposite direction but I lasted about ten minutes before I needed to have it switched back again, it just felt wrong facing the other way, dock feng shui I guess, our energy was all wrong.
 Mark said we need to think of it like camping when we head out, but I wouldn't go camping for five hours so I'm not sure it's worth the amount of effort, for the rest of the summer we hope to go for weekend trips because we certainly need the practice handling the boat and going for longer might make it worth it.