Category Archives: Cheap Tricks

Some Accessory ‘Wins’ on Galapagos

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During our month long cruise aboard Galapagos Mike and I paid a lot of attention to how we lived aboard. We noticed things about our habits on board, our routines, what we enjoyed, and what had yet to be settled. We knew that this month away would give us a lot of time to collect data; really get down to some details about how to make Galapagos into the home we want her to be.

Tzartus Island

Tzartus Island

As the time to move aboard begins to get closer, we become increasingly interested in what other people use on their boats. What do they like? What works and what is too much trouble? We’re not talking about things like sail systems or radar here, we’re talking about  day to day living on a floating object. I mean, think about it. Even if you don’t know much about boats, you probably realize that something like my Kitchenaid Mixer is both too large and too power-hungry to be a good choice on a sailboat.   We pay a lot of attention to other people’s blogs for that kind of content.

So I was thrilled when a few weeks before we left  Brittany over at Windtraveler.net blogged about her top ten simple and inexpensive items they use on their boat all the time. Woo hoo! Jackpot! See, Brittany and Scott live on a small sailboat with three tiny tots. (!!) Small sailboat + 3 tiny tots = one busy set of parents where easier is better when it comes to using stuff on a daily basis. I figured if a busy mom thought these things were good, who was I to argue? So I read, I clicked through on some of her links, and I purchased some things on her list.

Here is our own list of ‘wins’ in the accessory category. Thanks, Brittany, for turning us on to some of these.

That’s right. I have wasted most of my life using other, less worthy towels.

1. Turkish Towels – Who knew? These towels really ARE better and I am wondering how come we don’t use these at home? Do not be fooled by how thin the fabric is. They actually are super absorbant and we used them, like Brittany, for so many things. They do dry in a flash, too. Good for wrapping around your body, for shading the overhead window in the hard dodger, and for keeping hot skin from sticking to the surface of the cockpit cushions.

I always try to get the green one. It’s my favorite.

2. Copco To-Go Coffee Mug – Our Thermos brand mugs somehow developed a rounded bottom so I bought a couple of these based on Brittany’s recommendation. I have to say we really do like them. Lightweight, easy to hold onto with their grippy middle, easy to open and close, and they keep the coffee nice and hot in the cockpit. Plus, they do not rattle in the cabinet when we’re sailing.  Pretty good for the price.

After using it for a month, well, pretty disgusting actually. The one on the right is new.

3.  Wet-it! Cleaning Cloths – I had mixed feelings about these. I wanted to try them because when we are at home we use a lot of paper towels and that’s very wasteful. I also use a lot of dishcloths, but on the boat those get stinky and are hard to wash. Needless to say, we won’t be using many paper towels when we are traveling because, I mean, they create trash. These Swedish cleaning cloths were recommended by Brittany, who has those three kids, after all, so they were worth a try.I think she had better luck with hers than I had with ours; or maybe we’re just dirtier than three toddlers. That could be true… I used one the entire month we were gone. The result is as you see in the photo. This was used to clean the counters and the stove in the galley, and to wipe up any food-related spills. The absorption is great, and these dry pretty fast. But they get grungy fast as well and the photo above was taken after soaking this cloth in a bleach solution. I’m not very impressed with that. I’m a little persnickety about wanting things that are clean to actually LOOK clean. Still, it’s on the list because it is a good substitute for wasteful paper towels. Maybe I’ll just hide it underneath the sink where I don’t have to look at it between wipes.

No, I’m not kidding, actually.

4. Sunny Portable Stepper – That’s right, I brought this on the boat. And it’s actually a great little unit. It’s very well made, adjustable, and it is easy to store either underneath the salon table or under the seat in the v-berth. This is one of those things I used several times when stuck on the boat due to rain, or just because we were underway a lot with the engine running. I was determined that I was not going to come home from our last cruise wearing larger clothes and this little unit helped me reach that goal. As a bonus, if you use this underway, you’re going to be giving your core muscles a very nice workout, and you will certainly break a sweat. I find the arm bands to be pretty useless, but maybe I just haven’t found my groove with them yet.

The face of a man at peace.

5. Chillax Hammock – I bought one of these for $14.99 at Costco as an impulse buy for Mike’s birthday. Does he like it? Oh yes, he really does. This is strong, yet light weight and very easy to deploy on the boat. I still have my heavy, cotton hammock that I used on Moonrise, but if Costco gets these again this year, I’m getting another one of these. With our ketch rig, we can have dualing hammocks. They take up no space and would be comfortable to sleep in. I’m thinking we could even hang one of these in the quarter berth cabin to use for sleeping while underway. No problems with heeling when you are hanging in a hammock! The other thing I like about this hammock is that there is enough fabric that you can completely wrap yourself up, as though in a cocoon, which protects from the sun. But the fabric is lightweight enough that air flows through easily. A total win.

Getting a little sun protection.

6. Bodum Milk Frother – As a Pacific Northwest coffee lover, it is my secret shame that I really do like Nescafe instant coffee. Blame it on Scotland. I learned to love it there. Not only that, but I make a latte with my Nescafe every morning using my dandy, cheap and easy Bodum frother. Heat a little milk, froth it into a dense and creamy foam, add your instant coffee granules just on the edge of the cup and gently pour in the hot water directly on top of the granuals, disturbing the top of the foam as little as possible.

Just yummy!

Just yummy!

It’s just about perfect. For my birthday, Mike bought me a really nice stainless steel rechargeable unit. Unfortunately, it’s so powerful that it actually doesn’t make very good foam and I end up splattering milk all over the kitchen. I like my foam to be very dense and hold up for the entire latte experience. On the other hand, the rechargeable unit makes terrific scrambled eggs. I recommend getting rechargeable batteries for your cheaper, easier to use Bodum.

Vegetables lasted at least two weeks stored in these vacuum bags.

7. Food Saver Vacuum Sealer– In terms of provisioning for our trip, this was a spectacular win. Not only is it fun to use, but it really does allow things like fresh vegetables and fruits to last much longer. Before we left, I made sausage and egg breakfast muffins, small meat loafs, and greek spinach and cheese ‘loafs’, vacuum sealed them, and then froze them.  I also bought meat, divided it into servings, and vacuum sealed it in bags to freeze. I did the same thing with produce and stored that in the refrigerator.  We were able to go for a long time without provisioning. In addition, the bags can be washed and re-used, reducing the amount of trash you have to deal with. We plan to use this tool to store and protect small parts, hardware, tools and other things in addition to food. We bought ours at Costco, which has a better price and frequently puts them on sale.  

8. DryCase Basin backpack – I got tired of worrying that my camera or phone, etc, would get wet on the dinghy ride to shore, and I didn’t have a backpack. I wanted a waterproof one. As a member of Women Who Sail on Facebook, I took advantage of a great discount on this backpack when it was first manufactured. It’s turned out to be a great pack. It’s versatile, has pockets on the outside for water bottle, etc, and even has suction cups so you can attach it to your SUP, if you use one of those. I am happy with how it fits, and with the mesh back that keeps the sweat at bay. I also like that it is basically one big open compartment that you can easily stuff things into. Too many little compartments only make me lose things. You can carry a lot of groceries in this pack. I know this well.

Notice the wide, padded straps.

Do you have some favorite little things you find to be useful on your boat? Please tell us about them!

Guess what? This is not out latest post. To see our most recent post, go here. And thanks for reading!

 

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow: Cheap Hair Tricks For Sailors

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When my neurotransmitters are cooperative I try to enjoy what life has to offer wherever I am at the moment. At the moment I am at home in our house on land so I am reveling in the freedoms that land life has to offer: the freedom to drive across town on a whim, the freedom to grocery shop without advance planning, splaying on the big king sized bed, taking long steamy showers, having unlimited internet juice, cooking in an oven where I have some real temperature control. I am working on not taking these things for granted as we get closer to moving onto the boat.

First, the ponytail.

First, the ponytail.

It is the relative safety of this land life that allows me to experiment with how we might do things once we have sailed away from our network here. We will leave behind our friends, family, massage therapist, our chiropractor and doctor, and the yoga studio. These losses will be hard, but they are nothing compared with the loss of Rose, my hair stylist.

Cutting straight across is difficult with a lot of hair, on a moving boat, looking in the mirror.

Finding a good hair stylist that can beat my hair into submission without breaking the bank, or a nail,  is not easy. In my land life, my hair is of medium importance to me. I know I am not alone in that considering how long it takes me to get an appointment with Rose. Apparently, sailing will not change that as is evidenced by the Women Who Sail Facebook group to which I belong, along with thousands of other women. Hardly a week will go by that someone does not ask a hair related question on that forum. They ask questions about what products other boaters use, whether they like their hair long or short, whether they continue to color their hair, and how they manage to get it cut and styled. All those questions got me to wondering: Will Rose fly to the Galapagos Islands to cut my hair?

Cutting into it to feather the ends. Should be holding it straight up, but my arms aren’t long enough.

Well, maybe she would, but it would be on my dime, making that the single most expensive haircut ever. So I decided I needed to learn to cut my own hair. Sure, Rose laughed at me when I told her, but I’ve never been deterred by other people’s amusement. I began to let my hair grow out, longer and longer, making plans to cut it while we were on the boat in Canada. That way I would be sure to have Rose as a backup if things went horribly wrong. If my hair sucked, she might say ‘I told you so’, but she would fix it for me with a smile.

Of course, I realize people do get their hair cut all over the world. I also know that there are a lot of people who cruise who also cut hair. Still, I like to see how far my ‘I can do it’ will take me. This is the personal grooming equivalent of solar panels. And really, after a month on the boat, I was ready to get creative with my time.

The unveiling.

I waited until almost the last possible minute to take the plunge as I was more than a little concerned about the outcome; having not actually cut my own hair since age 4.  By the time I had studied up on how to do this via the modern equivalent of beauty school, Youtube, my hair was down to the middle of my back. Some of it needed to go.  Mike recorded the event and I learned a few things about how hard it is to hold hair up straight and cut correctly while looking in a mirror on a moving boat. Mike is no help here as he cuts left handed. I have to help him cut paper straight, much less my hair. No, we don’t have left-handed hair cutting sheers, although that might be on the list of things we bring with us on board.

The results, while not exemplary, were at least acceptable leading me to believe that with practice I might actually be able to pull this off. Sure, there were some pieces that were too long and I spent a little time evening things up. Next time I will be braver, go shorter, have sharper scissors. But in the end, when we got to Tacoma no one began pointing at me and laughing, no one asked me if I’d learned my lesson on hair cutting yet. I will take that as a success. Now if I could only learn to do my own foils.

So far, it’s ok.

Result: not terrible but I did have some parts to re-trim.  Next time will be better.

 

It’s A New Year’s Post with a Cheap Boat Trick

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Shhh. Galapagos is sleeping. She’s hibernating during this very cold part of the winter, just trying to conserve energy for the sailing season that is right around the corner; when the sun comes back to stay in the sky for longer and the weather gets above freezing. That’s right. We tiptoe around the subject of boat ownership in the winter. We don’t want to stir that pot too much. It’s not a very satisfying time to own a boat; those months between fall and spring. These are the times when you just write that moorage check and look the other way.

We took a New Year’s walk down at the Nisqually Wildlife Refuge, which is about 5 miles from the house. A great way to see the water.

In terms of boat work, Mike has been a more dedicated soul than I have. I check on her during the week to be sure she is well tied and safe. He trudges down to the marina on the weekends and does a little of this and a little of that. This week he finished a small project that had been nagging at him for awhile. He had replaced the fuel gauge and the new one was smaller than the old one so you know what that means. Right. The existing hole was too big for the new unit. He hemmed and hawed for awhile about how to mount the thing where it would look decent in the cockpit and keep water out of the cabin. Star Board? Sure, if you want to buy a big piece. He didn’t. Wood? Yeah, we don’t really have the right tools/skills for that. No go. The solution came to him during a nap. Mike does some of his most creative thinking during his naps. You get to benefit from his solution.

You know those round plastic discs that people put on the wall where a door handle would hit? They protect the wall from being injured by people flinging doors around indiscriminately. They also do a dandy job of becoming a mounting plate for a fuel gauge. Just drill a hole for the gauge and Bob’s Your Uncle, there you go. Cost: about 3$, and available at any local hardware store. He’s a smart man.

Neat and tidy!

I gave up on my boat project for the winter because it’s too damn cold. And this is bitter irony because my boat project involved insulating the hull. Only problem is the materials I want to use to not do very well in cold weather. As an experiment I painted the hull inside some of the stowage spaces in the salon. Three days later, they were still wet, even though I was running a heater, blowing directly into the space.

That’s a heater being directed into the painted space.

I used some heat and noise reducing paint called Al’s HNR, which I ordered from Amazon. It’s got those 3M microspheres already mixed in. Yes, I know I can buy a bag of those spheres for 10$ and mix them myself. I’ve got that bag. This is easier in terms of experimenting because I don’t need to protect my lungs in order to use it. If you mix your own, you need to wear a respirator to keep the little microscopic spheres from entering your lung tissue.  If this turned out to be worth it, then I’d mix my own.

Anyhoo, the paint goes on like whipped cream, smooth and silky. But it’s too cold for it to dry. I’m still interested in experimenting with how much of an actual difference it would make, but I’m not interested in surfaces that won’t dry because the weather isn’t warm enough and the hull is 43F, a fact which I know because Mike bought himself a nice little hand held temperature meter and I stole it from him.

See? I’m not making this up. Also I love this thing.

My plan was to paint the hull inside the cabinets with this stuff a couple of times, then use hull liner over that. I got a screaming deal on some very nice fuzzy hull liner at the local foam and fabric place. It will make the interior of these cabinets quiet and hopefully condensation free. It goes on with spray adhesive. It’s probably too cold to use that, too. And, maybe it’s just me, but the idea of using a spray adhesive when I’m using electric heat to keep the cabin warm enough to live in just sounds like a stupid idea.  So this winter project is an epic fail. It will wait.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch house, we had the gift giving holiday and Mike gave me a nifty one-touch winch handle and a waterproof case for electronics. Sweet! It must be love. 

Want to see what I got him? This.

Finally!

And, in keeping with the decorating theme, I felt like the Man Cave on board Galapagos could use some decor.

Why does this make me laugh hysterically? Now featured above the workbench.

And this for the engine room:

It’s funny, because it’s true!

I know what you must be thinking. “They have that big blue boat they are refitting and THIS is the stuff they get for Christmas?” .  Hey, we can’t all be married to Mark over at Our Life with Ceol Mor; Mark, who bought his wife, Cidnie, brand spanking new Lewmar 55 winches for Christmas. No way. We can’t all be married to him. And that’s just fine I tell you!  Because guess what? We have already purchased our tickets for the boat show later this month and Mike says we are taking our credit card this year! You know what that means? It means Merry Cruising Christmas to us because we are shopping for refrigeration, among other things!  Oh yeah, baby, there are boat projects coming this year.

So we’re saving all our energy for the next big push, which will be this spring before we take off for our 4-5 week (Holy Extended Vacation, Batman!) cruise in July. Mike wants to have another go at the west coast of Vancouver Island.

Until then, we live life in the slow lane. Mike putters. I paint. Here’s a little boat totem I painted for Galapagos. Some people are diesel mechanics. Others are not. Galapagos Totem