Monthly Archives: March 2016

Progress on the Aft Cabin, and More

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I’ve been so focused on writing all the posts for the A-Z challenge I almost forgot to post the update on the aft cabin.

We’ve made considerable headway! Take a look at what we’ve done so far: 

We are pretty stoked about how it’s turning out. This has given us considerably more room in terms of the berth, and has not cut down on walking area at all. The sole actually curves up, if you can tell that, under the extension on the right, meaning that we couldn’t stand there anyhow. And there is obviously a shelf under the middle part. We aren’t going to miss that area at all because even though it had a cushion for seating, neither of us ever sat there. It was actually wasted space. Now it’s a good place to store shoes, which is kind of what we used it for anyway.

To save the access to that middle space, Mike wanted to avoid putting in a mid-span support piece. But the edge needed more support to be really structurally sound. So he added an aluminum angle iron to the edge and it worked out great! The whole thing is very sturdy. Here are a couple of details of the underneath part. aftcabindetail

aftcabindetail2

We still need to put the trim back on and make a decision about the mattress. That process has been stalled because I got completely overwhelmed with the number of options and had to take a step back. I got a bid for a custom mattress. The bid was $3700, and that’s with the cheapest options. Um. Hmmmm.  I want a new Strong Track for the mast, and we probably need to have the mainsail looked at, and, well, I just couldn’t pull the trigger on it. I think I can get comfort for less than that.

So I looked at the mattresses at Ikea and, of course, fell in love with their natural latex mattress. Because of the odd shapes involved, we would need a king size mattress, plus a double mattress. So that’s a lot of mattress. All told, that would be around $2000, plus I have to do the cutting and sewing. Okay, I might be able to do that and save about $2000.

There are also cheap memory foam mattresses at Amazon and even at Walmart. But frankly, I’ve learned that if a price is too good to be true, there is probably a reason for that and I don’t really want to buy something without trying it for the purpose we have here.

Then there’s the natural latex mattress topper Ikea has. It is very luxurious and what if we got our local foam and upholstery place to make us a good foam mattress, and then put this on top, then covered the whole thing? Would that bring the cost down even further? Would that be comfortable enough?

So because this is a big investment and critical to my happiness living aboard, we decided to ‘press pause’ on the aft cabin and do the V berth cabin first so we could try that idea in a less critical place. That foam needed replacing, too.  This photo shows how we set that cabin up during our cruise this summer. We could lounge in there and watch DVD’s when it was raining outside.

So I took the old foam down to Tacoma Foam and Fabric, and we will pick up the new foam on Saturday. I found upholstery fabric on sale for $2.99/yard. Yes, you read that correctly. I know how to find a good deal and I’m open to color and pattern. That’s how I found the Galapagos fabric. All I cared about was that it look good with that pattern we already have.

We’ll pick up the new foam mattress on Saturday and try it out in the v berth. I’ll buy a latex topper and we’ll give it a spin. Then if that works, we’ll do the same thing in the aft cabin. I think we may be on a roll here.

Here’s your link to the next episode of the Aft Cabin Remodel.

 

Update on the Sugru repair: holding strong!

 

 

In Which the A-Z Theme is Revealed: Ta Da!!

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Yesterday was our 34th wedding anniversary! Yay, us! We are a good team! But in other news, today is also the day I reveal the theme I’ve chosen for the A to Z blog challenge. This is really the news of the day, because after 34 years, celebrating the marriage is kind of an everyday thing. Because, well after a certain point, you are just happy to still be alive to BE married, much less together. So every day I wake up knowing I am still alive and still married to Michael Boyte is literally the best day of my life. Because we all know how easily that could change through a series of unfortunate events, or even just one world-shattering thing. This leads me to my theme.

Escaping from Wyoming in a car with no heat. In December. No worries there.

Escaping from Wyoming in a car with no heat. In December. What could possibly go wrong?

I’ve described how my brain went into overdrive when Ellen over at The Cynical Sailor and His Salty Sidekick invited me to be challenged in blogging by entering the A to Z Challenge.  The idea of committing to such an endeavor created many internal conversations, mostly in the form of loud protests and trying to get out of it. There were a lot of ‘words’ exchanged, fingers were pointed, arms were waved. What I didn’t reveal at the time was that most of that was about coming up with a ‘theme’ for 26 different posts. Yeah.  Somehow, in order to participate in this challenge at the highest level, I was going to have to choose a way to tie everything together. Not everyone is doing a theme, of course, but I didn’t want to be a pansy about it. I mean, if I’m going to sign up for something, I may as well take the whole challenge.

Ellen had hinted she would have a theme, and I think I know what it is and there is no possible way my theme could be as cool as hers. If it turns out to be what I think it is, I’m toast. I’ll probably read her blog before I even read my own. Her blog will be wildly funny. Mine will be marginally humorous. Her blog will be colorfully illustrated with digitally enhanced dancing penguins! My blog will have recycled photos of 1970’s families on vacation. Her blog will have people partying and drinking margaritas. My blog will exist to drink Nescafe with no cream and certainly no party. I couldn’t think of even one decent theme that didn’t seem actually pretty stupid even to me. I was on my way to a complete frontal cortex shut down.

Here's another one of us from then.

Here’s another one of us from then. It’s 1981, not the 1970’s but close enough.

I was just getting set to work myself up into a nice lather about having to choose a theme and feeling completely creatively blocked about it when I realized this: I already had a theme breathing its hot breath down the back of my neck. Oh my God. What a relief! The theme was staring at me with big watery eyes and I didn’t even notice!  Are you ready?

Anxiety

Yes, my theme is Anxiety, specifically when it comes to giving up our cushy middle class life to go cruising on a big old boat.  People are always thinking we’re ‘brave’, or ‘stupid’ or ‘crazy’ or all of the above when we explain our plan to them. They say, ‘Aren’t you scared?’. And ordinarily they are talking about things like rogue waves, storms, pirates, and all the scary movie stuff you see in the media. And I have to say, um, no actually. Those things don’t worry me too much. Maybe they should. Ok, maybe pirates worry me. But I just don’t think about that very much, just like I don’t think about the criminals who live all around me in Lakewood, WA.

So I will take a tongue-in-cheek view of living with the anxious brain. I will wax humorously, philosophically, educationally, and perhaps occasionally poetically about all the things about being a cruiser that can keep me up at night. I plan to let it all just hang the hell out when writing these posts.  And the beauty of this theme is that when I realized what it should be, I immediately had at least half of the alphabet taken with possible blog posts. Way to go, Melissa! I rock!

Our first family sail aboard Saucy Sue, our Catalina 27. Andrew was 12.

Our first family sail aboard Saucy Sue, our Catalina 27. Andrew was 12. We started sailing after he had a life changing accident. Sailing was a way of healing our family, and him.

But wait! There’s more! In order to help the visual learners among you, I have invented this entirely scientifically accurate measuring device I have named the Fear-O-Meter. After years of research on my own self, I have come up with a way to let you know 100% of the time just how scary a specific situation can be for me. I’ll be including the data from this device, which I made up by myself without any help from anyone, and created using common household tools you can find in any well-stocked garage. Here’s a photo of my new unit:

The Fear-O-Meter, trademarked and copywrited and all that stuff. I have lawyers somewhere.

Go ahead. Enlarge the photo and get a close look. Notice how as the needle moves more to the right, the rational thinking ability begins to fade. We’re going to talk more about that later. This is going to be so much fun!

Of course, I’m writing these posts for myself because it’s great therapy for me. But I  know that some of our readers also suffer from anxiety. How do I know this? Because it’s one of the most common mental health issues among people living in the United States. Most of our readers live in the United States, and I’m almost 100% sure that all of you are human beings. So it’s logical to think that some of you are anxious and worried about life for no logical reason, regardless of whether you are cruisers. So I’m writing these posts for you, too.  I hope you will stay tuned to the blog and learn a little something, hopefully through being entertained. But I’ve decided not to worry about that.

Life’s Little Challenges: A Personal Tale

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We’ve been writing this blog now for over 4 years and it’s been a lot of fun for me to record this life transition. Looking back at our earlier posts I am sometimes stunned at all the progress we’ve made in these years and at how much the blog has helped keep us on track.  What started out on October 8, 2011 as a way for me to keep a kind of on-line diary turns out to be something I actually like doing. Except, at times,  for the coming up with ideas part.

Love this photo of Galapagos out on Commencement Bay last April. Photo taken by the good people of S/V Elsa.

Love this photo of Galapagos out on Commencement Bay last April. Photo taken by the good people of S/V Elsa.

Especially when there is nothing cool going on down at Galapagos, I can hit considerable dry spells where life just doesn’t seem interesting enough to write about. If you write, you know what I mean. Real life is just filled with all kinds of what I call ‘beige’; things that are really the neutral backbone of living and bring everything together, and yet they don’t actually get noticed. Most of life is lived in the ‘beige’, and yet we write mostly about the ‘red’ moments, the moments that make everything else go ‘pop!’. (Photos from our cruise last year because how else would I illustrated this post? These are photos of the ‘beige’ parts of cruising.No drama. Just living.)

How we dry our socks aboard Galapagos. Yes, we are careful.

To keep the writing mojo going you kind of have to get ‘creative’ and you need to have a serious supply of ‘butt glue’, a term first revealed to us by a successful published author, years ago. She said this was her secret. You have to glue your butt in the chair, put your fingers on the keys, and compel them to move.  I remember that term every time I sit down in front of the computer and wait for inspiration to hit. It’s a little bit of what I’ve termed ‘Nike Therapy’. You “Just Do It”.

Lately I’ve made space in my life by cutting certain things out of it. I’ve written extensively about all the junk we’ve given away to other junk collectors and to charities. I’ve released my contracts with insurance companies and commercial office spaces in my work and chosen to work as a Life Coach rather than a Psychotherapist, freeing up much needed psychological space and energizing my practice. But nature abhors a vacuum and now I have internal space to fill. It’s like clearing out a room in your home. What will you do with it now that it’s empty? The possibilities are endless.  I’ve decided I need a little more of a challenge for myself in terms of writing. I need to up the ante a bit, and have a little more pressure to bring the blog up a notch. Well, actually, it’s more about bringing my own development up a notch, but if the blog benefits, that’s all to the good.

Getting creative in the forward berth. This will be the ‘rumpus’ room and the guest room.

I religiously read The Cynical Sailor & His Salty Sidekick and also SVCambria.com.  Both these bloggers do what’s called Blog Challenges. The idea is that some alpha-blogger out there in cyberblogland gets a God complex, or maybe they just are gluttons for punishment. Said blogger then sets up some kind of rules about what you blog about, then they hit ‘go’ and a bunch of bloggers sign up to follow their rules and begin writing their little hearts out. Must be a powerful feeling! I mean, you should see the list of blogs from people who want to get on board with being challenged by rules! There are more blogs on that list than there were people in any of my graduating classes. (Note: Little Cunning Plan is number 970 on the list.)  But I have been intrigued. Am I a blogger? Can I be challenged? Do I want to do this? Am I commitment phobic? The answer to all of these questions is yes. I am, I can, I do, but I am.

Ah, commitment. That last one is the biggest hurdle for me.  When Ellen, over at Cynical Sailor, announced she was doing yet another blog challenge, the A to Z Challenge, that little voice that compels me to obey started yammering in my head. “You must do this. This would be great for you. You have plenty of time to devote to this. Just look at all the empty space in your psyche! This is the time. Just do it. Stop procrastinating you lazy female. I don’t want to hear excuses.”  Really, this voice is like every gym teacher I ever had in any school anywhere.  Apparently I needed to get my butt glue out and just do it. Yes, it would mean committing out loud to something that would take time. Yes, Mike and I are traveling to Washington D.C. in early April, the very month of the challenge. Hmmm.

Breakfast. I made these crustless spinach quiches and froze them. No muss. No fuss. Plenty of protein.

Of course, I didn’t go down without a fight. I’m much too willful to simply obey without questioning. I mean, I have never even played a team sport!  And there are many good reasons for that. We should all be grateful I passed those up. I argued and used logic. I put my hands firmly on my hips. I stomped around a lot. I threw that voice more insults than a Republican at a ‘debate-ish’ type of event. But it was like my own arguments didn’t even register on the voice’s little radar. It’s like this voice thought I had nothing better to do. Sure, I actually don’t have anything better to do right now.  But still, I was a whiner and didn’t give in. Until Ellen said Stephanie over at SV Cambria was going to do it, too. Well, crap then. The gauntlet was thrown down. Okay, fine. I’ll do it.

And now I’m excited to get started. Sometimes commitment to is like that. You resist for no good reason except sheer laziness and the feeling of power of getting in your own way, then once the promise is made, it’s all good and that yammering voice simmers down for awhile. So get ready for daily (except Sundays, a day of rest as the good Lord intended) blog posts in the month of April. I’m already writing them in my head and guess what else? There is a theme! The theme will be revealed on March 21, because I’m trying to follow the damn rules, okay?  Should be a fun month.

Enjoying the aft deck after we removed the huge bulk that was the old life raft. Clearing space is good.