We spent the remainder of Thanksgiving weekend working on various boat projects, then our friends came over to cast judgment on our new home.

11.27.17

Kyle took down the wind generator, the mount needs some weld repairs and we don’t want the wind gen to sustain damage during weld repairs. He said the wiring for it was barely twisted together and taped, the ideal long-term way to mount very high-amperage wires (yikes).

Kyle registered the dinghy on Wednesday, so he peeled off the old registration numbers and I applied the new ones, so we can finally go for dinghy rides. We were both estimating the dinghy motor to weigh somewhere in the 40-50lb range, but at dinner on Thursday another boater said it’s probably more like 100lbs, which is slightly more than I can lift. We were going to figure out how to get it from the motor mount onto the dinghy, but now we are a little intimidated by that project.

The sugar scoops were extremely yellowed – like they were stained from rust or tannins. I thought there was no way we’d get that stain out, which was disappointing because overall the boat is in great shape for her age*, but those yellowed scoops were a real eyesore. Behold the results of some oxalic acid and elbow grease! This one little thing has made me so happy, especially since there are other ugly stains that I now know can be cleaned off. Also, we have a bottle of expensive boat oxalic acid, but that is the active ingredient in barkeepers friend, which is super cheap.

One more little triumph: on Wednesday, I bought a camera kit and lenses. I didn’t need expedited shipping and Amazon offered me an incentive not to (due to the Black Friday rush). I checked the prices of the kit and the lens again today and both had gone down by a decent margin, and since the ones I purchased hadn’t shipped yet, I could cancel my orders and re-purchase at the lower price. That was an easy $90 savings.

*If this vessel had a tagline, it would be “in surprisingly good shape for her age.” That has been used to describe just about everything on board.

12.4.17

At the Coastal Expeditions annual gear sale, we got a great deal on a couple drybags. Then it was back to the boat for some serious cleaning, because this weekend was our first open boat / boat warming soiree.

Our friends love our new home! Up until they saw it, I assume they all thought we were certified insane. Now they know we’re crazy, but they also see what an awesome living space we have. Someone asked the question, and Kyle got out a measuring tape to estimate how tiny our house is. It looks like the interior space is about 300 sq ft, you can viably add the cockpit as porch living space and that brings us up to about 400 sq ft. I would count the decks more as yard space than livable area.

Luckily it was a gorgeous day so we enjoyed hanging out in the cockpit well into the evening hours. It was pretty comfortable having 8 people in the cockpit – I’m sure we could handle a couple more before it starts to feel too crowded. We managed to go through a whole bottle of rum making dark’n’stormies.