I am not a good saver. Mike is, and he gets a regular paycheck which makes regular savings easier. But I am loathsome at it. When we were raising kids,  much of the money I made went to buying clothing, food, and the myriad of other things that come with the schooling years. It always seemed like there was an expense that needed urgent attention in the moment.

LIving simply like this costs much money.

The rule of ‘pay yourself first’ is not that easy for an in-the-moment person like me. I always paid my bills first, took care of kids second, bought supplies for whatever hobby I was focused on third, then if there was something left over…well actually that never happened to be honest. I realize that this is an undisciplined way to live so don’t even bother to tell me. I’m already taking out my hearing aids so I don’t actually even hear you. Now that the kids have been replaced by the boat, it’s still hard.

Beautiful, but costly.

I am always just amazed at how good Mike is at saving money from every paycheck, but to be fair, working for a mindless corporation comes with some benefits such as having automatic withdrawals and deposits. Even to get that kind of convenience, though,  I would never have survived the corporate world because my bullshit detector is always set to ‘stun’.

Well the digital world has finally caught up with people like me. I discovered this fantastic application for my phone: Digit. Their motto is “Save Money, Without Thinking About It”. Are you kidding? Sign me up!  But wait, is it safe? How does this thing work?

Money Money Money!

I explored their website and found that all funds up to $250,000 are FDIC insured. OK, well that’s the same as a big bank so that’s fabulous. I’m unlikely to save that amount without spending some of it anyhow. Also it’s free, which it should be since it’s actually acting as an online bank, which means they are holding my money for me until I want it. They get to use my money just like the banks do. That’s a fair trade for this amount of convenience. You do not earn interest, but when was the last time you really earned interest on a bank account? Who cares?

So how does this work? It’s actually pretty slick. You connect Digit to your checking account and their program analyzes your spending and deposit patterns by checking your account for activity every few days. Then it begins moving small amounts that you will not even miss into your Digit savings account. If that sounds stealthy, well, it is. But the beauty of this is the amount of communication you receive from Digit, and this is what I really love about the usability of this application.

Every single morning I get a text from Digit telling me my checking account balance. I LOVE that. I don’t have to remember to check myself, I don’t have to log in to my account. I just get this nice text. All communication is done via text. When they move money over to my Digit account, I get a text. If I want more information, there are commands I can text back, such as ‘balance’ or ‘recent’ to see recent transactions. No dealing with ‘press 1 for English’, ‘2 for someone from India who says his name is Ken’, ‘0 for us to hang up on you’.

So for instance, last week Digit saved $9.72 for me. That’s not very much, and I didn’t even notice it, which is part of the beauty of this system. They texted me to let me know they had saved money for me, then if I wanted to save more I could text them back and tell Digit how much more I’d like to save.  I can also log onto the website and see a complete history of all transactions. It I want to make a withdrawal, a simple text command is all it takes to transfer money into my checking account.

Lucky bandits. They have access to Digit in their youth!

I’m pretty impressed with this application. Actually, I love it. So far I have saved about $125 that I would definitely not have saved otherwise. I’ve been using it for a little over a month. That’s not very much yet, but it will buy muchos fish tacos down in Mexico.

My only regret is that this is a new thing, and I would love to have had something like this 20 years ago. If you are working on beefing up your sailing kitty and want to try Digit, here’s a link you can use to sign up. If you do sign up, please consider using the link here. Full disclosure: I get 5$ if you use my link. If you sign up, you will get your own link to use with your friends and family. Then you, too, can buy fish tacos.

Check it out!

It’s time to update this blog and we have so much going on at one time that I have a hard time knowing what to report about and what to just skip over. We hit the ground running when we got back from the long trip this summer. August was completely dominated by the clearing out and big sale. The week after that we moved half of our furniture up to Andrew’s place in Bellingham.

How did all of this fit into our house?

Once that was done, it was as though a clogged drain had been cleared. The energy vortex around the whole ‘getting the house ready to rent’ issue went into overdrive.  Rooms are being reclaimed for bedrooms, walls are being painted, molding is being finished up, and gardens are being seriously downsized. This is taking almost my entire focus and almost all of my time, hence this blog has been neglected. I get up every day asking myself, ‘what will I clear out today’, rather than my usual ‘What will I write about today’.

We have a dining room once more. It’s ready to go. Except those plates over the door are now gone. I keep finding new things to get rid of.

Meanwhile, Galapagos has not exactly languished in her slip. Mike has taken her out once or twice, and we’ve been continuing to do some projects aboard. But let me tell you this: it is really hard to work on a boat and a house at the same time, considering that we still work at paying jobs, and that there are still only 24 hours in a day. We were both hoping to get in some fall sailing, maybe a trip to a nice anchorage or something. But it’s not going to happen. Anyway,  within the year we’ll be living aboard and I’ll have plenty of time to be in anchorages, quiet or otherwise. For now, there is too much work to do.

We did complete the replacing of the hatch lenses and we are very happy with the outcome. The last time we checked in about this project, we were in the midst of removing the (Gaasp!) silicone from the hatches, doing our own little research about what works best to get those last little microscopic bits of silicone to release their deathgrip on aluminum. I’ll tell you what works best: elbow grease and razor blades. It’s the only way. But in term of products, that Boat Life ‘Release’ is the way to go. Unfortunately, we ran out of it, so we bought something called Contractors’ Solvent. It was not nearly as efficient as the Boat Life ‘Release’, but it did work and we were very close to being finished by the time we ran out of the Boat Life stuff. I’m going to go ahead and order a large bottle of this stuff just to have on hand in case we need it again.

Another product that helped with the tiny bits was this great sandpaper Mike found at the local Lowe’s. This stuff is great. It has a flexible backing that allows you to work in into small spaces with it tearing and is easier on the fingers than regular sand paper.  A combination of elbow grease, this sandpaper, the bronze wool I bought, razor blades, and the Contractor’s Solvent seemed to do the trick.

We also bought 220 grit.

To bed the overhead hatches, the ones that had been bedded in silicone, we chose to go with another silicone product since that had been holding for over 20 years and we were worried that a non-silicone product might not stick to the surface.  Mike bought GE Silicone II, a basic good quality silicone. Yes, we kind of made a deal with the devil here. We taped off the top edge, Mike laid down a heavy bead of the stuff and we dropped the lenses in. So far, they haven’t leaked a drop, even in very heavy rain. The true test will be when we go sailing a lot.

The cheap boat product, however, is the tape we found to use around the outside of the non-opening ports in the hull. These ports are screwed onto a heavy butyl rubber liner that is firmly attached to the hull. When we removed the crazed originals, this rubber liner was in very good condition, so we left it alone. The lens is screwed on, and the the seam and screw heads were covered with some kind of black material. You can see it in this photo.

The ‘before’ shot.

This stuff must have been original to our 1975 boat. It was so degraded from UV that we couldn’t tell what it was and it literally flaked off into my hand when I began removing it. I had no idea what to use to replace it. I wanted something like a tape because it needed to have crisp edges. I found the answer on FindTape.com; a beautiful butyl rubber tape by 3M that was designed specifically to stop leaks! Woo hoo! The Pro Tapes Pro Flex Patch & Shield Tape is described as “one of the heaviest, most aggressive sealing tapes available”. In addition, it came in several sizes and lengths. But what makes it a ‘cheap trick’ is the price: A 5 foot roll of the 2″ stuff for $3.31. I bought one roll for each of the ports.

Mike screws the new lens in place.

This is the best stuff since ice cream was invented. We love it. And we are sure this is going to work really well. It’s very sticky (so be sure you do it right the first time) and goes on easily and smoothly. The paper backing comes off cleanly. We think it was the perfect solution to sealing the seam on these ports. And we’ll just carry some extra rolls in case we need it for something else in the future. We think this stuff will be handy for any number of things.

Once on, the warmth of the hull smoothed out those edges.

With heavy heads and spirits hanging low, we started home from our last anchorage, D’Arcy Island, in the morning on July 30 and by 4:00 in the afternoon on July 31 we were safely back in our slip at Foss Harbor Marina in Tacoma. We missed our family and friends, but wish this trip could go on much longer.

Finding my groove on the back deck.

Wait, July 31? That’s correct, you read that right. It took us less than two days to get home. Have we ever mentioned that this boat is a lot faster than our previous Cal 34? Our bodies are still timed to the Cal in so many ways. It takes us aback when passages are that much faster. Coming around Pt. Wilson with current and wind in our favor, we had speeds upwards of 12.5 knots. What a sensation! So we’re back, the party’s over for now, and it was a terrific trip fraught with beautiful scenery, PNW wildlife bingo, fine tuning what we want out of this boat, introspection, and yes, even fun. Our cups runneth proverbially over.

With friendly hands to help grab dock lines, Mike absolutely did not hit the big Vagabond ketch the marina docked next to us in our slip. I did not throw up, and I don’t think I lost any years of life this time due to stress, in spite of all the times he had to back up and tweak the wheel. Another successful docking.  We decided to spend the night at the marina to have plenty of time to get the boat cleaned up and to get used to being on land again. Man, it is noisy here. We hate this noise. And talking to my mom on the phone yesterday when we were sailing in, she was stuck in wall to wall traffic from Chehalis to Kirkland. Man. We hate traffic. To celebrate, or perhaps to anesthesize, being back in the fast lane of our land life, we walked down to The Fish Peddler on Dock St. and overindulged heavily. Damn, that Jalapeno Pineapple Margarita was delicious. All this noise activity; no wonder people drink.

We usually anchor at Dungeness Spit before crossing the strait. It’s so peaceful there. No alcohol required.

So now that we are here we get to compare notes about the trip and I have an entire notebook of a cruising journal to reference for posts and for lists. I have so much information it will take me while to get it sorted. We have a lot to tell you.  But let’s start with gear. Everyone always wants to know what works and what doesn’t and why before they buy things for a boat. So here is a partial list of small  ‘wins and fails’ to whet your appetite for the posts coming your way in the next few weeks.

Wins!

1. Marriage Saver Mariner 500 headsets from Crusing Solutions.  These were so useful it makes it a damn shame that Cruising Solutions doesn’t sell them anymore. We probably got the last pair because when I went to order them I found that they had been discontinued and replaced with an expensive pair of Bluetooth headsets. I was so disappointed I emailed them and they offered me a pair without a box and with a limited warranty from their back stock. So great customer service, anyhow!  I took them up on it and am so glad. Here’s the deal: If Mike is at the bow and I am in the cockpit, we can talk to each other. If Mike is working on the hydraulic steering and needs me to turn the wheel, we can talk to each other. When docking, I can tell him how many feet he has before he hits the boat next to us. Yes, there was static on the line, but we could hear each other and you know, these are not cell phones.

This ability to communicate was priceless. But let’s talk about price anyway. I paid about 80$ with shipping for our set. Their replacement product costs $179. Apiece. As in, you have to buy one for each person. Sure, they are ‘Blue Tooth’. Sure they are modern and sleek.  Who cares? My boat was built in 1975. We don’t need no modern or sleek. Sure, you can use them for up to 300 feet away or something. Our boat is 47 feet long end to end. I don’t need 300 feet. I just need to be able to communicate without my hands and without yelling. I hope they bring back the original Marriage Savers. Not everyone wants to spend $400 on something they use only intermittently. This falls under the category of ‘it it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. People loved those Marriage Savers. (No photo of us modeling these for you. If I tried to take a photo while we are anchoring or otherwise need them, Mike would probably have something to say about it and I probably wouldn’t like it.)

Testing out some fishing gear.

Contigo Stainless Water Bottles – We love these. I bought them at Costco as an impulse purchase because we were looking for a way to keep drinks cool and also an easy way to get enough water and avoid dehydration. We both love them so much I’m hoping to get more so we have extras on the boat. If not, I’m ordering them from Amazon. They went everywhere with us, do not leak, are easy to drink from with one hand, and even in the hot sun, water stays cool. A big WIN.

Arctic Cool Towel – Another impulse buy for Mike’s birthday, it was actually hot enough in our PNW heat wave to use these and in spite of my worries that these might be a ‘gimmick’, they actually work! Is this some kind of wierd magic that makes these towels nice and cold when you get them wet and give them a bit of a snap? It sure did feel good to have ones of these around the old neck when temperatures were in the ’90s. We got ours at Costco, but you can order them from Amazon.

Adorable little ‘Scamp’, built in Gig Harbor, anchored at Liberty Bay for the July 4 festivities. Couldn’t we have this as a dinghy? So cute!

Fails

Verizon phone plan for Canada.  Three words: Just don’t bother.  Reception was terrible, even in places like Ucluelet where there should be plenty of reception. And the data plan was laughable. If you want to update your Facebook application like we did, you won’t be able to post any photos or you will eat your data really fast, even small photos. With Verizon’s plan, you get 100 mb of data and when you go over, they just tack on another 100 mb for 10$.  That sounds good until you realize that you’ve used more than half your data in about 4 days. Even after turning everything off on the smart phone, an Iphone 5s, I eventually learned to just turn the phone off. At least I was able to text with my kids on occasion. I didn’t bother checking email, but Mike did on his phone. I kept the FB application page updated without photos but you’ll notice the updates to the blog stopped. That’s only partly because we were having so much fun. We will have a fat phone bill this month. I believe there must be a better way, and I’m going to find it before next summer.

Motorola rechargeable weatherproof walkie talkies of unknown model since it’s not indicated on the unit anywhere. These are a fail because the battery sucks. And since they don’t put the model on the unit, I now am suspicious of all Motorola radios.  When one of us wants to go rowing or paddling and the other one stays on the boat, it’s nice to be able to stay in touch. That way we don’t worry. But in order for this to work, you have to be able to leave your radio on. And that’s the problem with these. After about an hour, the battery is dead even when you start with it fully charged. So maybe I can see Mike in his little boat way out there in the middle of the channel, or maybe that is some other fisherman. Maybe he’s waving his arms at me because he has snagged a whale by accident and it’s pulling him out to sea. I’ll never know because I assure you the battery on the radio is dead. We will  need a better solution than this.

Got your radio, honey? Oh, never mind. It’s dead, Jim.

There’s more, oh yes, but I couldn’t wait to get back to posting updates, which we stopped doing due to the data usage and poor cell phone reception. I don’t know how people post to their cruising blogs all the time when they are actually out cruising. I see lots of people going to internet cafes but on this trip we were primarily in wilderness areas where towns were few and internet cafes even fewer. I’m in touch with Behan Gifford of Sailing Totem to see how they do things on their boat. (Read her latest post about minimizing data usage in exotic places.)  This is another little issue that needs solving before we cut the lines next summer.

D’arcy Island. Ready to go back there.