Monthly Archives: February 2017

Morning Coffee

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Toay I awoke in my usual way, wondering where the hell I was and what time it was and whether I could get out from under my heated blanket without freezing; looking forward to my first cup of coffee. I checked the phone. 7:00. Two hours until Doyle comes to work on the nav station/galley remodel. I check Facebook. Behold!! Paul Bryan over at Lat43 has posted one of his famous ‘Morning Tea’ posts! Excellent! Those are my favorite posts of his. He rambles on a bit with all the stream of consciousness thoughts that kind of move in and out of his head organically. Those posts make me laugh out loud and want to meet him and Deb in a nice anchorage sometime. This morning’s post was great.

The lovely Uig Hotel. There will be a quiz later.

I was having some good chuckles over my eggs until he started dissing on my coffee. And now I am compelled to respond. Some people are religious about religion, some people will argue about anchors or whether to solder or not to solder electrical contacts on a boat.  I can take a lot of crap, but when people start putting my coffee down, well I have to draw the line somewhere. I can no longer be politically correct about coffee choices. Here’s what he said, and I quote verbatim:

“Yes, I said I was drinking instant coffee. How low I can go?”

I almost snorted my Nescafe right there.

You’ll need a bit of history to understand what has led me to my position on this topic today, as I sit here with my steaming cup.

My history with coffee is a straight line trajectory to full blown addiction. I started drinking it for the same reasons many start smoking: To fit in. I was the new therapist on the block. I was young. I was not yet  hip to the jive of the clinic where I worked. Everyone else looked jaded and world-weary. They all knew the secret handshake. I was the young, fresh, hungry outsider. All the other therapists stood around drinking coffee during the weekly stafff meetings. What else could I do?

My choice made, I went over to the coffee urn and filled a cup with the dark, acrid, smokey liquid, added some non-food creamer and a packet of chemicals. I took my first sip. The watchful room went silent. There was a brief but profound intake of breath; a meeting of eyes.  I smiled, acted natural-ish,  and said, ‘AH! Deliciousl Nothing like a little mid-morning pick-me-up!”. Smiles, nods and exhales later, I was one of them. My career was off to a great start.

Surreptitiously, I poured the rest of the nasty stuff down the drain in the bathroom during a sneaky break. I return, empty cup in hand.  “Can I refill that cup for you, Melissa?”.  “Oh, no thanks, Bill. You know, I have to limit myself to one cup. Otherwise I can get those ADHD symptoms!”.  Smiles and nods and understanding chuckling all around. This was going to be so easy.

That afternoon, I noticed I was a little more on top of my game than usual, considering I had already seen 5 people that day. Hmm. Maybe there was something to this coffee thing.

Time moved on, as time is apt to do. I was a fair weather coffee drinker at work. Then came the second child in our lives. Mornings got to be more complex. Kids started school at two different times. They both needed to be driven to schools in way different parts of town. I look back on those days and wonder how I ever found the energy to do that five days a week. Oh, right. Mother’s little helper. Those were the days of the programmable coffee pot; ready when I stumbled out of bed to rouse the troops.

As time went on I discovered Starbucks. We live in the Pacific Northwest. Is there anyone who hasn’t discovered Starbucks? I think Starbucks is the equivalent to the old Coca Cola that had real coca to give you that special little lift. Their coffee has real caffeine. The real deal. I began to look forward to my trips to the coffee shop more than is natural.  I learned how to go into Starbucks and order coffee, which, if you haven’t ever been in a Starbucks (REALLY? WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?) is not as easy as it sounds. There are lots of words you have to know. Like the difference between a latte and a cappucino. And whether you want ‘skinny or full’, ‘whip or nowhip’. And there is the grammar of ordering as well. You need to describe your desired beverage qualities in a certain order. If you say ‘skinny nowhip mocha with one pump’ you are going to look like the rube from out of town that you probably are. It’s ‘one pump nowhip skinny mocha’, you fool. Get it right.

Then I made my first trip to Scotland to visit Claire. We were stuck in the lovely little Uig Hotel in Uig on the west coast, waiting for weather to abate to catch a ferry to the Isle of Lewis. (Note: weather on the west coast of Scotland in mid March never actually ABATES, as it were.)  Claire slept in and I wandered to  the hotel dining room for a cup of coffee and breakfast.  When I saw the size of what the Scots consider a ‘cup’ of coffee, I upgraded to an entire pot. I mean, why should I make the delightful waitress serve my table over and over, even though she offers a bottomless cup? When I can already see the bottom of the cup before drinking, it’s too small. Everything is bigger in America. Even the coffee. The waitress checked herself before she could question me about needing a full pot when I was clearly dining alone, although she did seem confused. Flinging sidelong glances my  way, she brought me my full pot and I began what was destined to be a life long love affair.

Well named, indeed.

After the second cup I gestured to the waitress. “What kind of coffee is this? It’s really delicious. I’d like to purchase some to take home.”.  She made that dismissive sound Scots make when you’ve asked a question that has an obvious answer. “Ach, it’s just Nescafe.”.  “Nescafe?”, I said, still not really understanding, and it wasn’t her heavy accent that had me confused. “Did you say Nescafe? Isn’t that instant coffee?”.  “Oh, aye.” (Or something on that order.) She was too polite to add, ‘Ye daft American. What else would it be?”

Stunned. That’s what I was. Just stunned. I poured a third cup, added a splash of cream from the sweet little cream pitcher, and a naughty pinch of real sugar. I sipped it slowly, savoring the flavor, rolling it around my tongue; feeling the ground under me give way. My world was rocking. Instant. Not brewed. I’ll never forget the revelation.

I reflected back on the time Andrew traveled to Turkey with a friend who had family there. She was instructed to bring a suitcase full of Nescafe because it was so much cheaper here. At the time, I laughed at this. Silly woman. Now who is stockpiling Nescafe? Now who has a special cabinet on the boat just for those big things of Nescafe, which, by the way, are carried by COSTCO! I mean, if Costco sells it, then many, many people buy it. So there, Mr. Lat43 with your instant coffee dissing. Take that!

I’ve been drinking Nescafe ever since. I’ll still drink whatever coffee is offered (Except Farmers. It’s awful.)  I mean, I’m not a TOTAL coffee snob. (Yes, I am.)  But at home, I’m a Nescafe convert and let me tell you my other little secret: it makes a damn fine latte-ish beverage when combined with my fabulous little milk frother, which I will use with an inverter when at anchor even if I have to turn every single other thing off to do it. Just buy this model. Don’t even bother trying to look at others. I’ve already done that and wasted money for you. And compared to the cost of a real espresso machine, or buying lattes at Starbucks, $40.00 is dirt cheap.

Be ready my Lat43 friend. Should we meet at a lovely anchorage somewhere in the future, I’ll be serving you Nescafe. Or beer.

My lovely Latte-like beverage. Pretty cup for the win.

 

 

 

 

 

Our New Parking Brake

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The list of items and projects to be bought or completed seems to only grow longer as we race to cut the dock lines this summer. Melissa and I seem to be working feverishly on about a dozen projects all while living on the boat and working full time.  So when we do get an item ticked off our list, it is worth celebrating.

Bill and Donna on sv Denali Rose bought a 99 pound Spade anchor for their Nauticat 43. Their New Best Bower Post was timely and inspired yet more googling.  The Spade is a great anchor and at 99 pounds, will surely keep their boat safe in the worst conditions. I had been considering the spade anchor, among others, and had almost made up my mind about buying one when we did our annual trip to the Seattle Boat Show. A new best bower for Galapagos was at the top of our list.

Usually at the boat show you have the opportunity to hear the sales patter from several different manufacturers and this year, we looked at the Mantus, Excel and Rocna anchors. I had done my due diligence research on line and had seen that anchors, like religion, all have their followers. In the end, the consensus seems to be that pretty much any of the new fangled anchors out there are good but there isn’t one particular anchor that is best in every single situation. Melissa’s brain trust group, Women Who Sail, splits about evenly between Rocna and Mantus in terms of anchor love.

For those readers not familiar with the term ‘Boat Buck’, that means $1000.  Both the Rocna and the Spade would cost us about 1 boat buck, more or less, for the size we need for Galapagos. At the boat show we saw another very nice anchor, the Excel.  It was going to cost us, again, a bit more than one boat buck. And anchor is not something where you want to just go with the low bid, but that’s a lot of money. And again, all of the new anchors get good reviews.

So, what did we buy?

The Mantus anchor comes in three parts but in one really heavy box.

The 40 kilo (88 pound) Mantus anchor above was shipped to our marina in less than a week and cost us less than $600 with shipping. That was about half the price of the very nice Excel anchor we saw or a Spade.

Everything laid out and ready to assemble. Small packs of Lanolin are also provided to smear onto the bolts.

The assembly was quite easy with everything provided and a one page set of instructions.  Small Packets of Lanolin are used to coat the bolts prior to assembly.  The use of nuts and bolts to connect the shank and roll bar to the fluke was a concern to me as it has been to many folks considering anchors that can be disassembled.  Given the robustness of the bolts provided and the use of common sense to check them periodically, I think the fact that the anchor can be taken apart and stowed more easily can be an advantage. Using bolts to put an anchor together is a bit counter-intuitive, but the way the load is distributed on the anchor relieves that concern. Losing the bolts is not an issue that has been a problem for any of these kinds of anchors.   Mantus could add some peace of mind to the system by drilling the bolts to accept a pin or seizing wire, like the Spade .

The 30 kilo Bruce being usurped by the new Mantus. The difference in surface area is impressive.

As far as I can tell, any of the new style anchors will be superior to the older CQR or Bruce anchors we now carry.  We have been using a 30 kilo Bruce for the last two years of Salish Sea cruising and it has held well in winds up to 30 knots.  But as we travel further afield, we need to know that we are secure. One of Melissa’s friends in the WWS group describes their Mantus like a parking brake. I like that.  I was tempted to go up another size to the 45 kilo Mantus but worried that handling that much weight by hand if things go pear-shaped would prove difficult. The sale’s person at Mantus did not recommend we go up to the next size.

The anchor fits well but it doesn’t leave much room for a second anchor on the port side roller.

The new anchor fits well onto the starboard roller which is the only side of our windlass with a chain gypsy.  The roll bar can be an issue for some boats but it fit well on Galapagos.  The very wide fluke does cause a problem on the bow though.  I can’t fit a second anchor on the port side roller and I would like to carry the Bruce as a backup.   At this point, I am thinking that I will stow the Bruce below with 30 feet of 3/8 inch chain and two hundred feet of rope rode.

 

There is good clearance for the anchor but no room to stow a second anchor on the bow.

I look forward to taking Galapagos out for a weekend to test our new best bower.  Melissa and I rarely take guest moorage in a marina and we love anchoring out. Knowing that you are well and truly fastened to the bottom during a blow makes for restful nights and more enjoyable time away from the boat.  We’ll keep you posted on how well this new piece of kit performs.

 

We’re in Such a State!

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Yesterday, after days of constant rain; the kind of rain that makes every tiny leak show up and shout for attention, the sun came out. It warmed up, we turned the heat off below. It was feeling like spring was just around the corner. Mike said it was the kind of weather that made him want to cavort and kick up his heals. He’s such a lamb. It was also the kind of weather that puts us on notice that we are really short timers at this dock. Good thing we are making considerable progress with all the interior projects we need to finish up before we leave. Exterior projects await our time, attention, and $$.

MIke and Melissa, thinking about summer.

We are smack in the middle of our navigation station/galley remodel. Long-time contractor and friend Doyle Lewellen is guiding us through this bit and doing the part of the work we don’t have the skills to do, such as cutting formica neatly and correctly and building drawers in a space not quite square.  Doyle was the contractor we hired when we remodeled our 1964 rambler 16 years ago. He’s a skilled contractor with an artist’s sensibility and eye.  If he does something, it will be done right. Doyle is responsible for many of the design features in our home that we still love to this day: the plaster walls that glow in the light, the deep window seat and picture window in the kitchen, the big soaking tub he was able to squeeze into the master bathroom by using creative thinking. We’ve never grown tired of those things. So it’s his eagle eye we wanted for the galley and nav station remodel.

The galley/nav station re-do includes being able to access the storage space in by way of a nice sliding drawer that we can pull out without lifting the top. We retain the ability to lift the lid when we want to, but the addition of the drawer means we don’t have to clear everything off that area to get to a pencil. It’s been one of the aggravations in living aboard, that desk area.

In addition, a storage space in this area, seen in the photo below,  has been expanded and is now the home to our brand new baby Engel freezer. I am dead excited about having a separate freezer as it will lengthen the amount of time we can stay at anchor away from the amenities of grocery stores and still have fresh meat. I am reminded by Donna Rohwer over at SV Denali Rose that we can also keep ice cream on board this way. Donna is a caring friend to want me to have ice cream. But clearly she doesn’t understand my relationship with that cold, creamy goodness. It will never see the inside of a freezer for very long on this boat.  But the thought was a nice one.

Doyle takes careful measurements for the navigation area.

In our galley, our sink has seen better days… days that date from 1974 when this boat was built. Frankly, I don’t think the drains will survive a Pacific crossing. It wouldn’t surprise me if a drain breaks off in my hand as we pull the thing. But finding a sink to fit in that space was like looking for a unicorn. The problem, for those unaccustomed to boat interiors, is that the countertop is only 19.5 inches wide. Go measure your countertop in your kitchen. Go ahead. I’ll wait. You’ll see that it’s much greater than 19.5 inches. And that’s why almost every ‘normal’ sink of average size is 22″ wide. To get one much narrower, you also have to go much shorter. I wanted to maximize the size of my sink because on a boat, a sink is a useful area.  So, after leaving room for putting in faucets, I had a need for a sink about 17″ x 31.5″, a long, narrow rectangle. It does not exist. I could find 18″ sinks, but even though they would fit, there would be no room for faucets.

After a week of constant looking, measuring, and remeasuring,  sinks and measurements were swimming around in my head. It began to look as though we needed to have one made. What innocent babes we are about some things. I drew up a sink I would love to have and we took it down to the local stainless fabricator. After all, a woman who has a Whitby 42, which is the little sister to our boat, got a great looking sink made in Chinatown in New York City for 400$. How much different could it possibly be here? The answer to that is a lot different.  Like $2,500. Uh. No. Just NO. We have way too many other things to buy.

The sink looks large, but there is a lot of wasted space in those rimmed areas and the second sink never gets used for anything but the dish rack. Effectively we use 1/2 of this sink for sink duties. Forget rinsing clothes out in this sink. It’s too shallow. And that drawer unit to the right? A lot of wasted space.

So I got creative with my search and eventually I branched out to laundry sinks and I found this one for less than 100$. I think Mike actually loves me a little bit more since I’ve found this sink and decided to compromise a bit on the length of the thing. Do I wish it were 31.5″ long? Yes. But will it suffice? Also yes. No, it’s not marine stainless. Yes, we’ll have to care for it. Yes, in 5 years maybe we’ll have to replace it again. I. Don’t. Care. It’s easy to install, it’s really deep, and it’s bigger than the sink I’m currently using by a lot, since I only ever use 1/2 of the double sink we currently have.  I can do laundry in this sink. That’s what I need. I can’t wait for it to get here so I can stroke its silky finish. Maybe by the time this sink rots on us we’ll be somewhere we can afford to have people fabricate things.

Of course, you know how remodeling goes. You start one project and suddenly it has mushroomed into several. Since we are replacing the sink and faucets in the galley, Mike will take this opportunity to replace all the water lines (he’s using Pex). And since we are replacing all the water lines, this is the time to replace the water heater with a new one that has a heat exchanger that will allow us to get hot water at anchor. (Shout out to Sure Marine in Seattle for giving us a good price.) And since he’s replacing the water heater may as well get it out of his precious engine room and put it under the sole in the aft cabin where it will fit snugly in a little cubby all its own. And, again,  since we’re replacing all the water lines, we may as well replace the leaky faucets in both heads. And since we’re replacing things in heads, may as well rebuild both toilets (post to follow when one is finished. He’s doing one at a time for obvious reasons.)

Galapagos is not ready for guests right now. Guess how much I love having a toilet in my salon. Just guess.

I think that’s all, except for the new anchor, which Mike is writing a post about. Oh wait, no, there’s one more. Since we are tearing up the galley anyhow, I may as well get rid of those pesky drawers that are a waste of space and drive me nuts and turn that space into a cabinet. That one’s on me. I think I have the skills for that one. Cha-ching!

You know, we’ve lived through years of remodeling houses. Two houses, to be exact. Now we live through remodeling a boat interior a bit. It’s just like doing a house, only smaller and everything takes three times as long and feels four times as messy. I do my best to keep the mess to a mild roar, but really I’m looking forward to this all being done so I can go back to my tidy boat. This boat is in such a state!

We’re this far. It’s going to be great.

Time is skipping along. While our trajectory is still to haul out in June, in reality we need to have the boat ready for that haulout and almost ready to leave the marina for good by the first week in May. Claire is getting married in Scotland in May and the entire extended family is going over. It will be like herding cats, but it will be a lot of fun. We’ll be there for three weeks and when we get back we’ll need to hit the ground running.

After the haulout? We will sleep for a month.