Life Aboard

Well, what is life like aboard a sailboat! I don’t know, yes we live on a boat, but I spend so much time working on it that I barely realize that I do live on it. With only 8 weeks or so before we leave to go south, there is no time for reflection, barely time to blog, and no time to go through the 50 some-odd emails that have collected on my Blackberry from my last trip to Lowes’s free wifi.

Since the last update. The engine is now running, it was a pile of work, but she purrs like a kitten. Just hope it stays that way. The mast is rigged and up. I installed two winches on the mast with cleats, and exits. The boom is on with its new fittings. I am going to try and paint it tomorrow. We have lights; or at least 2 of them. I bought and installed a Xantrex battery monitor, but I don’t have the wire to finish the job yet. However, when I was drilling the hole for the meter the hole saw jumped and ripped some components off of the solar controller. A $300.00 + tax mistake. I spent 20 years in electronics, so I am hoping I can fix it, but if not, its going to hurt. We have TV, but only roughed in. I installed a new cockpit drain with hose that was temperature rated. And; sold the camper. The travel trailer went to its new home today. It was painful swallowing the lost money, but it easier than watching it get further devalued sitting in a storage facility, not getting used. We are considering a truck camper next year maybe, who knows.

The double bed didn’t really work out as we had hoped. Even after it was extended, it was still too small for the two of us, so for sleeping, its separate beds, for anything else that a bed might be useful for, well, life on a boat has its uniqueness.

There are a million other little things that have seen some work. Add club duties, family responsibilities, and we are chewing through 16 hr days. We usually get to shut down around 10:30 every night, shower, have a couple beers, go to bed, get up, and start it all over again. I have never been so engaged in my whole life, and never so focused, now that there is nothing left but the boat. I would beg for another fours weeks, or at least some descent weather, but mother nature and God don’t care much for our schedule.

One of these days I hope to blog about the systems, there design, there installation, and why the hell we spent so much money on this leap of faith. It would also be nice to blog about our travels. Unfortunately our only travels so far are a quick 200 metre trip to get our waste tank pumped, and a second 100 metre trip to the mast crane to step the mast. Not really exciting stuff. Everyone we talk to seems to have this glorious view of living and cruising on a boat, we’re just waiting for it start…….