Galley Product Wins, Plus Cheap and Easy Trick

Posted on by

We are on the home stretch in this dang galley/navigation station remodel and before I write up the final Show & Tell post, I wanted to share some of our little galley product wins with you. These are items we bought with the new galley in mind and that we’ve been particularly pleased with.

The color is actually lime green.

Let’s start with this nifty and colorful Bistro Knife Holder by Bodem. This replaces a big, heavy teak knife holder that not only had seen better days, but also did not fit our knives. I like this for its sleek look, ease of use, and the fact that I didn’t have to drill holes in my new Formica on the bulkhead in order to install it. I don’t like drilling holes in Formica unless I am jolly well sure I’m not going to be sorry. This is made of a heavy plastic, holds the knife blades between two brushes, and comes in this fabulous lime green color that I love.

While I’m at it, take another look at those knives. See the two knives with brushed aluminum handles? They are my favorite knives and are made by Rada Cutlery right here in the United States of the blessed America.  My friend Teri gave me a small paring knife a couple of years ago for Christmas. She told me it was her favorite knife. It quickly became mine. Lightweight, sharp as a razor,  it became my go-to knife for almost everything. For Christmas this year I bought Andrew the French Chef’s knife, like the big one in the picture. I was so impressed with it bought one for the boat, then got the bread knife as well, even though we don’t eat much bread. These are very reasonably priced for good knives. I also bought their nifty knife sharpener and it works great! Don’t let the cheap prices of these knives fool you into thinking they are low quality. They aren’t. They are excellent. You can get them on Amazon, but I like to order directly from Rada so they get more of their money.

I guess you could also use this as a cooling rack for baked goods. So really, it’s useful for more than one thing!

Next up is a little gadget I found while shopping for a sink. This is a stainless steel over-the-sink drying rack for dishes. Placed over half of the sink, it gives you a place to put dishes to drain directly back into the sink and It extends your counter top space as well. The best part, however, is that this is easy to store because it rolls up. The stainless tubes end in a removable silicone sleeve that keeps the unit in place. The unit was a little wide for our countertops, but Mike was easily able to cut the tubes to the correct length and replace the silicone sleeve. Perfect fit! We use this every single day and when we get underway it will be easy to store in the cabinet.

Rolled up and ready to put away.

If you’ve looked under my sink lately you’ll realize I collect cleaning things. I like cleaning products and also cleaning supplies. You might say that I have an unconscious, sort of, belief that if I own enough cleaning supplies and products, my house will be clean all by itself because I don’t necessarily love USING these things, only having them on hand. Except for these Catch Mops, which I do love to use and use many times per day. The tag says ‘Made in Korea’ and, in fact, I found mine at the local Korean household good store in Tacoma, ShinShin. I love ShinShin. This is the Korean equivalent to Ikea when it comes to cool little home gadgets you can’t find anywhere else. 

Unfortunately, I can’t find these Catch Mop kitchen cleaning thingys anywhere on the interwebs for you to buy. QVC apparently used to sell them, but no more. And you can find them on the Korean wholesale sites. I found this offering on Amazon, and yeah, this set includes two of these little beauties. But $143.90 for some cleaning supplies is a little much for me, even if they DO give you free shipping. I think I paid maybe $2.50 for my pair at ShinShin. So if you have a Korean home goods store near you, maybe you’ll find them there. They are microfiber, but really GOOD microfiber. One side does a perfect job of drying out and polishing the new stainless steel sink. The other side is great for catching crumbs from the countertop. They are thick and cushy and frankly terrific. So terrific I will be going back to purchase more of them. So if you see them around, grab them quick.

And finally, what we have here is a Cheap and Easy boat trick. Awhile back I read a recommendation for these Lunatec Travel Washcloths. They are said to be quick dry, smell free, and self-cleaning. With that kind of advertising, I was hoping they would also scrub the dishes for me without help.  I paid $9 for two of them on Amazon.

When they came I thought, ‘Huh. I’ve seen this scrubby fabric somewhere before.’. And, indeed, I had. It’s the same stuff that they use at the Olympus Spa in Lakewood,  known locally as the ‘Lady Spa’. You can go in there and get a body scrub and they will use these little mitts that exfoliate the heck out of your skin and leave you with a wonderful pink glow.  It’s the same stuff but a finer weave. They also use these long ‘towels’ made out of a coarser weave that you use to scrub your own back. (I’ll wait while you figure out how you do that.) Those ‘towels’ are exactly the same thing as these washcloths.

A little trip to ShinShin, again, found me buying a couple of those Salux ‘beauty skin cloth’ towels as shown in the photo. They were $1.25 apiece and about 45″x12″. Cut into large pieces, I will get at least 3 washcloths from each one. I’m not even sure I’ll have to hem them.  I’m going to give you this Amazon link, but I’m kind of ashamed to do it because look at that price! They want $11.46 for three of these towels. I got three for $3.75 plus tax. Still, if you don’t have a ShinShin or other Asian home goods or dollar store near you, it’s better than the $9 for two washcloths I originally paid for the Lunatec ones. These things are really great in the kitchen. Plus, you can use one to wash your face and body and get great exfoliation. What’s not to like about that? Your skin will positively glow!

Okay, that’s all for now. I’m on the home stretch with the painting and I have to go to the house to use the miter saw for apiece of sea rail to fit right. Then we’re done! Hurrah!

 

Morning Coffee

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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.