We are on board Galapagos at the dock this week for the first time ever, testing out this ‘new and improved’ lifestyle we’ve worked so hard to achieve. This morning I awoke with mixed feelings, which, I suppose, is natural. Having worked for the last week in a focused, almost manic way, to get our house scrupulously clean and move all of our personal supplies and thingamabobs out of the house, we are both just dog tired. And speaking of dogs, we miss our Skippy dog. We really do. He went to stay with Andrew and Jill until our renters are gone and we are back in the house. It’s weird how a dog gets under your skin. But seriously, you can eat off of any surface in our house if you wanted to. It’s that clean. It looks like a frickin’ hotel.

After our 5 day cruise, Mike worked on a list in his little notebook. Now the list is growing every day.

Today I’m just not thinking much about how strangers are living in my house. Instead I am looking around in this boat and reflecting on how great it is, but how very much there is to do, and also how very much neither of us want to move anything on board. We just like that it wasn’t junky looking on the inside. Past tense. We liked the clean, sparseness that is an almost empty boat. But that’s not going to last. Already I am irritated with the number of items that are out in plain view in the salon. And the aft cabin is just a downright shame. We are waiting for our mattresses to be upholstered so we are sleeping in the rumpus cabin (v-berth). This means I have to remove all the rumpusing stuff from that cabin, make the berth sleepable, then the next day I have to undo everything and replace it like it should be. So I’ll need to add that to my morning routine, which now goes from about 7:30 to noon. Half my day is already gone.

One thing about this week is that 6 days is really not enough time to bother putting everything away. We’d just have to get it out again in less than a week. So we are going to live out of containers for a week. Woo hoo. Even my containers are disorganized.

Why bother stowing this stuff? We’ll be back at the house next week.

This was Mike’s first day getting ready to go to work from the boat. Neither of us got much sleep last night since we are not used to sleeping that close together, we were both still running on adrenaline, we have never slept in the v-berth, and the boat was making a ton of noise because of wind. Sleeping at anchor is different. Mike’s preternaturally good hearing is not a gift when he’s trying to sleep and there are a million noises. Also, I realize how much light there is in the city, and in this marina. Tonight I will put something over the hatch in the forward berth. It’s too light in there for sleeping.

I will be working this week as well, but since clients come to the boat to see me, I better get up and put all this shit away. I can’t have people coming down to a boat that is in disarray. Maybe that’s another good thing about working from the boat. Lights a fire under my rear to keep this salon looking decent.

My alarm woke me this morning and the boat was cold. Seriously, it was warmer in the cockpit than inside the boat. This does not bode well for living aboard next winter, which is probably going to happen. I just don’t want to think about that because….cold…damp…. On to the next thing for now..

I have a few little projects to get done this week. We are remodeling the hanging locker in the aft cabin. Seriously, these are just huge caverns of wasted space right now. Mike will do a post on his part of that. My part, today, is Bilge Kote and some fabric headliner I need to use up. I need to get my butt off the settee and get started on that. I’m noticing a trend here.

This is in the salon. I used that thick fabric headliner to cover the walls. Clean appearance, and it absorbs sound also.

The aft head is a mess. I want to put everything away, but there is a leak in the deck drain above the aft head. I hate those deck drains. They are too small, and I don’t understand why water has to drain anywhere but immediately OFF the boat. In a perfect world I would pay someone to put drains in the bulwark. Why is it even possible for it to drain into the cabinet? We have a fix in mind. It’s on the list. Meanwhile, everything is out on the counter. It is chaos.

There are too many different places leaks can occur on this thing.

I do love having a hot shower inside the boat. I thought it was ridiculous when we bought her. I was wrong. It is luxury.

We are discussing the galley remodel. Seriously, it is LONG overdue. Take a look at what’s underneath those sinks. It’s a leak waiting to happen. Oh, wait, it’s already leaking. And those drawers have to go. They are narrow and deep. Just try finding anything in them without emptying the drawer. There is a lot of wasted space in that area. I want a cabinet with pullouts or shelves.

What do you think? Time to pull this out and start over? Love that big gob of silicone on the right? Excellent.

And this:

Narrow. Difficult.

This week we played ‘What’s That Smell?’.  On warm days, when you come to the boat, the cockpit has a weird smell. Then you open the companionway door and WHEWY! Until you get air circulating, it’s pretty bad. Of course, people always think ‘it’s the head, or your hoses’, but it’s not that. New PVC pipes. Excellent holding tank installation. No leaks. No smell. It’s the bilge. My nose knows. Looking down in the bilge we notice something that looks like transmission fluid, but it’s not. However, it is possible it is hydraulic steering fluid. Mike took the shop vac to it and cleaned out the bilge.  Problem solved. The smell went away almost completely. But these lines to the hydraulic steering are old and travel through fiberglass tubes so it’s likely there is a small leak, but enough that over time fluid collects in the bilge. They will be replaced. Pretty sure that’s the issue as the boat has always had that smell to some extent, and we’ve had to mess with the steering a couple of times. Just say ‘no’ to nasty boat smells.

That’s our boat in the South Pacific. Notice the Minto on the foredeck. Notice the double furling foresails. Notice how pretty she is.

Let’s see, what else? Oh, dinghies. Still considering options there. We’d still love the Portland Pudgy, but $$$ and also they are back ordered on the liferaft kits. We would have to order everything now to be sure to have it by next year. We don’t have the money to do that now so we’re looking at options.  A previous owner of this boat had two dinghies: an inflatable and a Minto sailing dinghy, both kept on the foredeck on passages. Hmmm. He emailed us his thoughts, having a ton of experience on this particular boat. We are strongly considering his views for many reasons.

On the Women Who Sail local page, a woman was selling her nice hypalon dinghy and a Minto that needed transom fiberglass work. We drove out and made a deal on both of them, offering her full price. She declined a deposit, saying she didn’t need one.  I texted I would pick up today. She texted ‘thumbs up’, which meant, to me, that this worked for her. Then she sold the inflatable to someone else the same day. Then she told me that the Minto was no longer available. Huh? Or rather WTF??  Karma will not be kind to her. That was a dishonorable thing to do. I’m still angry because this week is Mike’s birthday. That little Minto would have been a fun birthday gift. But it has got us thinking about our options again. So we’ll stick with that. I’m sure there must be a reason the Universe intervened on that purchase. Maybe the hypalon had a leak? Who knows? When the right combination of boats comes together, it will work out.

Random, fairly disorganized thoughts. Like my boat right now. Ok, procrastination through blogging over now. The aft hanging locker is calling my name and it’s getting irritating. I must bow to its wishes and make it pretty.

It will be a fascinating week! We are looking forward to it.