Aft Cabin Re-Model: Making Patterns

We’re making progress on that aft cabin.  I spent a great deal of time making a template out of heavy cardboard and playing with all the different combinations that would make the sleeping space larger without using up too much floor space.  We finally settled on expanding the port side and the middle, and leaving the starboard side as it is. Decision made, I set about making a template for Mike to cut a piece of wood to fit in the space we’re enlarging.

Red magic marker defines the shape.

To make the pattern for the piece, I took a marker and ran it along the edge of the existing berth from underneath the cardboard, marking the shape on the cardboard. Then I flopped the cardboard over and, using heavy brown paper from a couple of grocery bags, I was able to fold and cut until I got the right size and shape.

Paper pattern

Naturally, because we don’t want to waste furniture grade plywood, we wanted to cut it from something cheap first to check fit and fine tune the whole thing. Mike bought some cheap, thin plywood and cut the pattern piece at home, then we went down to the marina to see if it would fit. On the way we took a little detour to the other side of the water way to see this:

It's the Saucy Sue! She lives down Foss Waterway from us.

It’s the Saucy Sue! She lives down Foss Waterway from us.

The is the sweet boat formerly known as Saucy Sue. She was our first sailboat and we truly enjoyed her. We felt so nostalgic seeing this little boat who taught us to love sailing so much. She was a lot of fun, easy to sail, and encouraged us to go further and longer. Some of our most ‘exciting’ times were aboard the Sue. We’d love to meet her new owners. She is called Finn du Monde now, which is the name she was given by the woman we sold her to 8 years ago. I love it that she is so close by, still sailing Commencement Bay.

Back at Galapagos after our detour we tried the piece on for size. With only a minor correction here and there, it was good to go. 

Turned out Mike had cut one side a little short, likely because my pattern got folded back or something, but that was fine as we needed to eyeball that corner on the port side and decide how to do it anyhow. That could be a thigh killer if it isn’t done right.  After a little discussion, I cut a piece of cardboard to fit, and we measured, trimmed again, and taped in place.

When we install the final piece of 3/4″ plywood, that  corner will be trimmed off so there are no sharp areas to create bruises. If you are a sailor, you know what I mean.

With the aft cabin cleaned up and the pattern in place, I wanted a visual of how this space might look when finished so I threw a blanket on it and we tried it out. We think this is going to be great and that we’ll be quite happy with it.

Read the next episode here.

 

 

How Much Does It Cost To Go Cruising?

Aside from ‘What Kind of Boat Should I Get?’, this is probably the most Googled subject among potential cruisers. It is asked so much that many of the cruising blog writers will give you a breakdown of their monthly expenses so you can know exactly how much they spend on this lifestyle. I hate to disappoint you but we aren’t those people. I never met a spreadsheet that could keep my attention for more than 5 minutes. Maybe Mike will want to keep a spreadsheet while we’re cruising. After all, he does that kind of gig for a living. I’m sure he’ll miss it terribly when he dumps his job and waves bye bye. (Wink wink)

Money, schmoney. This view is priceless.

So we’re unlikely to be that cruising couple that keeps track of stuff down to the penny. We’ve just never been that way. But I will tell you this: you know those people who answer the above question with a smarty pants answer like ‘It costs as much as you’ve got.’? As much as that kind of answer irritates the crap out of me, they have a point. And that irritates me, too. (Maybe it’s just been too long since I had chocolate or something. I’m extra twitchy lately.)

I think what people should really be asking is how much it costs to PREPARE to go cruising. This is where the big money is, unless shit happens and you have to have serious repairs in faraway lands. You can’t know that in advance, unless you just go with a completely unprepared boat. Then, well, you’re kind of asking for trouble. It’s a risk some people choose to take, and that’s fine for them, but not for us.

Where is this man’s PFD? Bad, Mike! Bad!

We’ve got about a year before we leave jobs and start preparing to get out of Tacoma. Between now and then there is a lot of money we need to spend. How much will we spend? Please reference the smarty pants answer in paragraph two: as much as we’ve got. And this will mean cold hard cash, not credit cards. Our employment prospects on the high seas are fairly grim. I mean, I’m not going to do any Life Coaching or Psychotherapy via sat phone. And I guarantee Mike will not be coding at sea. No, we’ll leave with debts paid off and just enough in pension money to able to do this without being terrified.  So the answer of how much we’ll spend is going to truly be however much we have. Damn those irritating smarties with their hands on their hips.

I thought it would be a fun little exercise to make a list of the things we need to purchase for Galapagos before we leave. To be sure, we don’t need everything on this list if you get right down to it. (If you want a game of semantics, just begin a conversation about wants vs. needs. It goes downhill very quickly.) We have a safe boat now. She floats, she doesn’t leak, she has sails. We have a dinghy and oars. We have good anchoring gear. Who really needs a life boat? What are the odds, I mean? Who needs a Sat phone if you can just have an EPIRB? We can sail without a working SSB radio. We do it all the time in the summer. The ‘go now’ people might say that we should just forget everything else on this list and go. We kind of like being a little more prepared than that, though. Call us crazy.

Love our Walker Bay for up here. But if the dinghy is the family car of cruising, this is like driving a VW Bug.

People  may say that we don’t have to purchase everything we need before we leave the U.S., and that, too, is true.We could definitely leave without a sat phone, or even an SSB radio. But it’s so much easier to get things here, and having stuff shipped to foreign lands like Mexico is not something I would deliberately set out to do. So let’s assume, for argument’s sake, that we want to have these things before we go, especially as most are related to safety and communications.

Want to know about how much we’d need to spend before we leave on stuff that will make our cruise safer, easier, and possibly more fun? Here you go. Don’t forget we have high sales tax in Washington State. Add at least 8% to these prices, more in Seattle. (I have not included the usual maintenance stuff like doing a bottom job because that would have to happen regardless of staying or leaving. Maintaining the vessel in good working order is a given.) Also note that almost all of these things are the same price for our big boat as they are for people with small boats. We are also willing to buy quality used goods to save money whenever possible.

Photo via Craigmarine.Info  I want the white one, but if we found one used at a reasonable price, I’d take what I could get.

  1. Portland Pudgy Dinghy –     This is our first choice for a dinghy. It’s extremely practical, easily rowed, and can be a sailing dinghy. We are loathe to give up our Walker Bay because we both like rowing, and because we could outfit that for sailing as well. But our trip this summer to the west coast informed us that this Walker Bay 8 foot dinghy is wonderful around here, but too small and lightweight for wilder areas. We could make do for awhile with the Walker Bay, but it would limit us. The Pudgy is unsinkable and stable like no one’s business.  The downside is that like the Walker Bay, it must be stowed on deck during passages. Considering it is also a lifeboat, that makes sense. It’s very hard to find these used, although there was one recently on Craigslist. The used price was not much lower than the price new.
    Basic Boat- $2695
    Life Raft Kit –  $1975
    Sail Kit (really wanted, but not needed) $1295
    2.3HP Honda motor (or equivalent)  $927
    Total:        $5597 without sail kit
    $6892 with sail kit
  2. OR   Rigid Inflatable dinghy with a folding transom, like this Achilles model,  so it can be stowed below while on passages. We are less likely to buy a used inflatable because there is a reason why people call them ‘deflatables’. (Still, if we found the right deal, never say never.)  The idea of being able to store the dinghy below, leaving the forward deck clear during passages, is appealing. If we go this route,, we have to buy a life raft, plus a larger outboard engine.  If we stay cruising for several years, we’ll have to add the cost of getting the life raft repacked and recertified every couple of years. Some manufacturers have you do it more often than others, and you have to be sure to be in a place where that service is offered.
    Life Raft, 6 person (we may have passengers) – $3200
    Achilles RIB – About $3385
    Tahatsu 9.8 HP or equivalent-  $1900
    Total approximation:$8485    Ouch!
  3. Either SSB radio or Iridium Sat Phone. In a perfect world, both. Galapagos has an old Kenwood SSB on board but Mike, a radio geek, has not been able to get it to work. Anyone know someone who could take a look at it? Melissa is decidedly NOT a radio geek, or any kind of geek other than a plant geek. She just wants something that works, and will keep them in touch with family, weather, ships, other cruisers, and the occasional post to Facebook.   If we could get our current SSB to work, that would be very nice. Know someone who might help with this? Contact us.
      ICOM IC-M802 SSB Transceiver $1840
     Iridium Go – $1270
  4. EPIRB  like this one.     About $400  Another bunch of money on stuff we hope never to use.
  5. Internet and cell phone booster such as the Wirie Pro or equivalent –  $650
  6.  Offshore PFDs with build in harness similar to this one: $200 x 2 = $400
  7. Tides Marine Strong Track for our mainsail. It would just make life a lot easier. Easy to raise the sail, easy to drop the sail. I like easy. I’m a lazy sailor. And our main does not drop easily. In high winds this can be a problem. I don’t like problems in high winds.  This product gets rave reviews from cruisers and Practical Sailor just reviewed theirs and they loved it. Our sail track is old and worn. It needs refurbishing. Practical Sailor says this product costs $28/foot. Our track is about 50 feet,  so approximate cost for our boat is $1400.Grand total of everything we dream of buying: $12,452 , plus whatever I forgot to put on the list.

Of course, these are only the ‘big ticket’ items, and I may have even missed one or two.  Here’s a partial list of the smaller (less than $1000) items we’ll want to have before we go. This list seems to have a mind of it’s own and grows without our even feeding it:

Hatch covers and screens
Medical supplies for first aid
Ditch bag. We have many of the items needed already, and I have a waterproof                        backpack I can use for the bag itself.
More dock lines
Additional fenders, like these inflatable ones by Easystow.
Cockpit screen enclosure. We could get this done in Mexico.
Millions of spare parts, extra pumps, etc.
Rebuild kits for both heads

We love the open cockpit in the Pacific Northwest because we hardly have any trouble with bugs. That will change as we go south. We’d like a screen enclosure. Mexico might be a good place for us to get this.

Now you know why we still have our jobs. If we can release ourselves from our house, the items on this list will be much easier to attain. No action yet on the rental plan for the house, so that may just be a no-go. Did we completely miss the mark in terms of the market in our area? Maybe. We had to give it a try and we’re still trying on that. We can afford to wait a few months.

But we do have plan B, which is another long shot but includes our son, Andrew, getting a good job here in the Tacoma area with his new Geographic Information Systems certification (which he completes in June). He’d love to live in his own house with his girlfriend and a couple of friends,  and we’d love for him to do that, too. If that works, then wonderful! If it doesn’t, plan C is to sell the place and just be at peace with it. I think when it comes to separating yourself from the family home, it’s kind of like a divorce. You want to be sure you’ve done everything you can to stay together. Then, if it still doesn’t work, you have your answer and can feel ok about it.

Rainbow over Sucia.

Here’s to forward momentum, regardless which direction. The universe will show us the way. You readers are part of our universe, so any thoughts or leads you have on how to pinch a few pennies are welcome.  Know someone who wants to sell their white Portland Pudgy? Yeah. I didn’t think so.

Man Vs. Rock on D'Arcy Island

Man Vs. Rock on D’Arcy Island

 

 

Short Timers: A Play in One Act

Mike and Melissa realize their Little Cunning Plan will be coming to fruition in the next year.

From our 2014 Vacation in the Gulf Islands

The setting: A 1968 rambler somewhere in western Washington.  It’s a Thursday evening and Melissa has just gotten off the phone with a friend who has a cool little twin keel sailboat. It has been an uplifting and fun conversation of trading resources and talking boats. Mike is sitting on a couch, reading the paper, having overheard the conversation.

Melissa: (Hanging up) Wow! That was really helpful and nice. I want to take Galapagos down to south sound this year for a long weekend and say howdy to Gary and Rose, and see Mud Duck.

Mike: Yeah. I’d love to do a long weekend and go down there. (He is wistful with a faraway look in those eyes.)

Melissa: You know I’ve been telling people you have one more year to work and then we go. To hell with everything; we go. The house will work out one way or another, the dog will work out somehow, we leave our jobs, we get hauled out and do some final preparations on Galapagos, then we just get the hell out of here. I’ve been saying this out loud to people lately.

Penelekut Isand, 2014

Mike: (visibly brightening, nodding yes): Yeah! Say it!  That’s right! We need to begin saying this. One more year. (pauses as if reflecting)  If we leave early enough in the season we could explore the inside passage, up into BC before we head south. That would be great.

Melissa: Yeah, we could do that circumnavigation of Vancouver Island we’d like to do, a shake down of sorts, and not have to hurry up. Maybe even see Princess Louisa inlet.   (She is looking through Facebook as she talks)

Mike: Yeah! Then if all goes well, we just keep heading south!!

Melissa: Yes! Hey, LLBean is having a sale. (She clicks through to Bean’s and begins scrolling through the sale pages.)   Do you want to see if they have anything you need?

Mike: Nah. I’m not interested in buying clothes right now. Hey, know what I want to do? How about when we head south we stop for awhile and explore the Columbia River? Do you want to do that?

Melissa: (Clicking on things) I don’t know. It sounds OK, but I’d really like to get further away. How about that river delta in Northern California? We could explore that? But really I’d like warmer weather sooner rather than later. Hey, they have bathing suits on sale and those sun shirts that have 50 SPF. I do want to get a couple of those while they are on sale. All I really want to buy is swim suits and things. It feels like magic. If I buy the suit, the warm weather will come. You think?

Portland Island, a favorite place.

Mike: (laughs) I guess we’ll probably stop in San Francisco, because it’s kind of an iconic thing to do.

Melissa: (shrugging, because she, at this point, doesn’t give a rip about iconic anything, much less San Francisco) Yeah, well you know what? By the time we leave I’m not really going to give a crap where we go. You want to explore the Columbia? Fine. I’m probably going to say yes to that just because guess what? We WON’T HAVE A TIME SCHEDULE THE WAY WE DO NOW! So hey, if we spend another year exploring up here, part of me says ‘what the heck, why not?’. But then those swimsuits, they will sit in a drawer for an entire year. Hmm. We shall see. (Another winter in the Pacific Northwest? She hopes not)  I guess it will depend on the Pacific weather. We’ll let the weather decide.

Mike: I’m thinking being close to the coast should be ok. Then we could stop some places. I have a friend in Monterey Bay I’d like to see.

Melissa: Okay. (Thinking that’s fine but she’d really like to just get out of sight of land and just do a longer passage off shore, and also she thinks the coastal weather could be worse, but who cares right now?) I’m ordering two of the sun shirts. I can wear them this summer up here, at least.

Just saying “No” to a marina at Sidney, B.C.

(Lights fade as they close up their laptops and toddle off to bed, full of wonder at the passage of time and how much there is to do between now and a year from now, their budding sense of excitement and anticipation buoying them with energy for the next push.)

Not an auspicious name for a boat, I guess.

Not an auspicious name for a boat, I guess.