Tag Archives: boats

Boat Lust and Teeth Gnashing

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I fear I have an addiction. No, I’m not into drinking or doing mind-altering drugs. But I continue to engage in an activity that, by its very nature, is probably not good for me and makes me feel weepy and frantic at times. It’s like one minute I’m on a magic carpet and the next minute I’m in a tumbling free fall until I come smack down to earth. Still, I continue, knowing this will happen again and again. I feel somewhat powerless in the face of this behavior. I don’t exactly ‘hide’ this behavior from my husband or friends, not exactly, but other signs of addiction are mounting. I spend more and more time engaging in the behavior. I neglect other parts of my life in order to give myself wholly to this endeavor. It owns me, heart and soul.  I speak, of course, of looking at boats on Yachtworld.com.

Okay, so I'm doing it again. What's your point?

I can spend literally hours at a time cruising the Yachtworld pages. I have a running list of boats I like, most of which are not even listed anymore. I compare the boats available in the Great Lakes region to the ones available on the East coast, to those in California, to those in my own Pacific Northwest (where I will have to pay about 9% sales tax on a boat! Damn! That’s going to cut into the budget seriously!).  I consider the wisdom of buying a boat in Mexico or Canada.

But, hey, I’m doing research! I mean, I do learn a lot about what I like and don’t like about each boat. I guess you could say that all of this looking is helping us narrow down what’s important to us. But mostly it makes me feel like whining.

In spite of myself I’ve experienced price creep in my longings. I started out keeping my searches to a reasonable price of 50,000$. Yes, that IS a lot of money. But not for a sailboat. It’s not going to buy you much of a sailboat. So I upped it to 75,000$.  That buys a bit more. That will buy a boat that is workable for our little plan, but will still need substantial upgrading if I want to feel safe and prepared at sea, which I do.

Like all good addictions, that wasn’t enough. Soon I had to increase the price to $100,000. I hear all the gasps of pain from you readers, especially those of you who are not owned by boats. It’s a crazy amount of money. But this will basically be our HOUSE for a number of years if all goes as planned. Does it still sound like too much? Yeah. That’s what I thought, too. So I started looking at boats between 100,000 and 200,000$. Did you catch that complete disconnect there?  Dear God there are some beautiful floating houses out there. Now I’m REALLY flying out of my league. Way, way out.

Not even close to my price range.

The day is coming when the shopping needs to end and a decision needs to be made. I think we are getting closer to making that decision to buy a different boat, my addiction not withstanding. The money we’re spending on a boat now needs to be spent on a boat that will take us to Mexico and beyond in the future. This is only logical, people. It must have been that logic that caused me to fall completely in love with an Oyster39 center cockpit for sale up in Sydney BC. I had looked at the boat on line couple of times before and thought it looked very nice, not to mention that Oyster yachts have a fine reputation as blue water cruisers. And the price was right, too. Unbelievable.

So here is where the teeth gnashing comes in. I contacted the broker, only to be told that an offer had been written on the boat THE DAY BEFORE! Oh my dear GOD in Heaven!! Teeth gnashing doesn’t even begin to cover it. There was wailing and carrying on and tearing of hair, at least inside my head. There were visions of me prostrate on the ground, praying to whatever little gods are in charge of boat-buying to save that boat for us. I believe wheedling and deal-making may have been involved. There began to be actual praying that the sale would fall through for whatever poor soul is buying our boat. How unworthy of me! I had to pull myself up short. And believe me when I say it was HARD! I still have my moments. Sniff.

So I fear I have willingly bought a ticket for the worst kind of roller coaster. Last time I rode a roller coaster I had vertigo for a week. I had trouble telling where the ground was. I’d wake up in the night and clutch the bed, thinking I was falling.  Let’s hope this experience is not more of the same. I’d like to keep my sanity intact. Meanwhile, Mike is holding onto his wallet for dear life.

I tell you, this is important research!

Black Friday

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So here is how our Black Friday went. Hint: this is not about shopping. We will not be contributing much to the economy this year.

The Agenda: Take Skippy to park and walk hills for an hour. Then return home and finish cleaning out Claire’s room so she can move back home for awhile. Go through old yearbooks and take photos so the yearbooks can be tossed. Rearrange furniture to make room for the many pieces that will soon be landing on the doorstep.

Level of excitement about the day’s agenda: Low to very low.

Current weather conditions: sunny, temp in low 50’s.

Weather forecast for the rest of Thanksgiving weekend: Torrential rain.

Reality check: Go sailing.

View of Mt. Rainier from the deck of Moonrise.

It was Skippy’s first time aboard Moonrise. He was not amused.

Skippy, being un-amused.

 

We sailed over to see the sea lions, who were making an astounding amount of noise. Well, these aren’t, but the other ones on the other side of the barge were.

Really loud sea lions.

Skippy was very afraid of the sea lions and their noise. He’s basically a little afraid of everything.

Andrew encouraging Skippy to love the sea lions.

Finally Skippy understood that the floor of the cockpit was the warmest place for him, and also the place where he could keep an eye on people above and below at the same time.

Skippy getting smart.

Light winds, but it doesn’t get much better than this in late November on Puget Sound.

 

 

 

A Tour of Moonrise, Part 3

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   In this post I’ll be talking about a subject that is close to my heart. This part of the boat is both luxury and necessity. I speak, of course, about the bathroom, otherwise known as ‘the head’. Such an intuitive name for this part of the boat, no? No? Okay, well it’s called that because in ye olde sailing times, sailors relieved themselves over the side or through a platform at ‘the head’ of the boat, meaning the pointy part. I’m imagining they chose this position so that the wind would blow their foul stench out to sea, not into the faces of their fellow sailors. Unfortunately today’s modern boats don’t have this feature (unless you are at least 3 miles offshore, in which case they might, but be careful.)

No, today’s luxury yachts require one to travel with sewage. Let’s not put too fine a point on it. If we’re old enough to read and write, we’re old enough to know at least some of the less savory facts of life. I’m actually quite proud of the head on Moonrise. As marine toilets go, this one is a dandy. It has the look and feel of a land lubber potty, right down to the porcelain bowl. But the similarities stop there.

We would probably have a lot more guests on the Moonrise if it weren’t for the issue of  sharing facilities. People who know me know that I am frankly a pretty private person in most respects. I’ll share my business, but on my own terms, and generally not this kind of business, if you know what I mean. And most of my women friends feel the same way. I believe that if there were better designed marine heads, more women would agree to their husband’s dream of sailing away. I don’t think many women would be satisfied with a slop bucket, but I’m willing to be wrong about this. To be fair, these designers don’t have much to work with considering that they have little choice in terms of getting rid of the waste. It pretty much has to stay on the boat until you can pump it out at a designated station.

So let’s just say I feel lucky to have such a pretty head. Never mind that using this facility is a several step process that involves filling the bowl with water, making the deposit in the porcelain bank, then pumping it dry, then cleaning the bowl. It’s worth it because there is literally nothing that fills me with more loathing than the idea of being stuck somewhere without a potty. I have middle age and two childbirths to my credit.  I’ve earned a good toilet on a boat, and Mike has replaced the vent hoses and made a dandy air filter so we  live with a lot less stench than other people. If our boat has ‘boatitosis’ neither of us is happy.

Our head is located between the salon and the V berth. It’s separated from those two spaces by two doors, so there is complete privacy, at least visually. Walk through the door from the salon and to port is the potty, to starboard the sink with a deep cabinets for supplies both above the sink and below. Behind the toilet is a hanging locker for wet items.

There is a wooden grate covering the sole in the head. I installed this grate to make the floor a flat surface and to create a storage space underneath. It is easily removed for cleaning or to access that storage space, which was wasted before. There is a similar grate in the v-berth.

 

 

In Part 4, I’ll talk about the quarter berths and, my personal favorite area, the V berth.