That sinking feeling you get when liquid pours out of equipment on your boat...

This is where our compass used to be. Matt was trying to remove it to fix the light. He unscrewed the only eight screws that were available (the engine guru worker on the next boat over confirmed that he thought those were the screws to remove). Apparently, those eight screws keep the liquid inside the compass (the screws to remove the compass were already gone).

It took a long few minutes for all the liquid--mostly mineral oil--to pour out onto the deck. At least the teak looks nice now.

It would cost twice as much to buy a new one as to fix it, so we shipped it off to the manufacturer today. Oh, and there was nothing wrong with the light. It just wasn't hooked up.

And...we have ice

Which we will need because the kids keep injuring themselves. Mark is very good at assessing his medical needs when he hurts himself. When he hurt his toe he immediately screamed, "I need a Band-Aid!" After he fell off the rope fence and hit his head, he yelled, "I need ICE!"

Here is an "after" picture of the freezer. Matt insulated it from the inside (the decision to insulate the inside is a long story relating to some questionable remodeling choices made by a previous owner).

Although it reduced the square footage from 6.5 cubic feet to 4 cubic feet (we'll have even less than that because of the gigantic holding plate--the thing that makes it cold), it will be really well insulated. And it should be plenty big for us. Our boat friends on svFullMonty, who also have a Privilege, gave us the idea to insulate from the inside.

 

If you're interested in the nuts and bolts, Matt used 2-inch polyurethane foam backed board and laminated it with 2mm FRP board. Then we had a worker at the yard help epoxy in the joints. Matt amazed himself by fitting everything perfectly the first time. That never happens. All the years of woodworking prepared him for this moment. Or we got lucky. Either way, it looks beautiful. Now I just need to grow longer arms so I can reach the bottom.

 

Creative uses for wooden spoons

(making due without real clamps)

Alive and kicking...

 

We have been living aboard for a little over a month now. This is a life that Matt and I have been talking about for over a decade (with a solid 5-year plan that has taken about 7 years). So how is it you ask?

Well, we have been living in a marina and are having a bunch of work done. So in that respect, it is like living in your house while you're renovating it. In other words, stressful and annoying. Matt spends almost every daylight hour working on the boat (and a good chunk of the remainder thinking and researching). Although it is hard work for him, he gets to accomplish something concrete almost everyday. He is in his element with the wide variety of systems. But we hope to be traveling soon and only fixing things monthly (weekly?) rather than daily.

We are already used to getting enough sleep and the warmer weather. We start shivering when the mercury drops below 75 even though that is about 75 degrees warmer than Chicago right now. This article talks about hedonic adaptation. People get used to changes, even big ones, relatively quickly (whether it is winning the lottery or losing a limb). So we are pretty much used to cooking, eating, and sleeping on the boat. Even being with each other 24 x 7 is starting to seem normal. That does not mean that we always love being around each other. It does mean that we are learning how to be a family that sees one another more than a few hours a day. No one has been thrown overboard--yet.

In a few weeks (hopefully) when we start moving and are no longer in a semi-routine at the marina, we'll have a new set of changes to face. Here are a few boats pics, since people having been asking.

 

If you knew sushi...

Matt whipped up some great sushi on the boat. The fish was from a local place that had very fresh seafood--yay coastal living. Hopefully soon we can catch our own sushi fish. That's our new stove underneath the sushi. It's a fraction the size of our old stove but seems to do everything we need it to do.

King of kludge

We removed the fridge so we could reinsulate it. We found this "workaround" in the air conditioner plenum that someone put in at some point: a coffee creamer container as a hose coupler.

Resourceful or schlocky? Yes.

With the re-insulation complete, the fridge doesn't lose quite so much of its coldness. So the beer remains nice and cold--priorities, man. Another unanticipated project crossed off the list.

What about television?

Our old TV.

This is what we'll be doing now instead of TV.

Do you know someone who grew up not getting any sugar and is now addicted to it? That's what might happen to Conrad and Mark with television.

They used to watch about 2-3 hours a week (on weekends). Our close friend Laura lets her kids pretty much watch as much TV as they want. When we rented a house in Florida and her daughter had her face glued to a portable DVD player for most of the trip, I questioned that. But now I'm envious when I see her kids being indifferent to television. My kids would never walk away from a television that was turned on. Conrad will watch the cooking channel. And history shows. My kids will snarl and bite your hand if you try to turn the TV off without warning. They love, love, love television.

Maybe letting them have more of it would have lessened the appeal. But now it is too late for that and there will be even less TV than before. I like the idea but the kids do not. Matt seems to be adjusting and is actually reading a book--with WORDS and no pictures. I admit that we really missed this last season of Breaking Bad and will miss Game of Thrones when it starts up again. I guess it will be an adjustment for all of us kids.

This place is a little too familiar now

A view from our dock. Behind the birdhouse is a
yacht you can buy for $6.2 million (reduced).

The guy that brought our fire extinguishers back after being serviced accidentally discharged the big one for the engine compartment that costs about $500 to recharge. He was fiddling with it, trying to get it just right when all of a sudden there was a loud hissing noise. He just put his face in his hands and stayed like that for 5 minutes.

I guess he has been working for the company for five years and this was the first time this had happened to him. At least we know it works. It uses a super cold gas so it didn't make a mess but it was really cold in the engine compartment for a while after that.

The Ft. Lauderdale area seems to have everything that Chicago has. You just have to drive 10 miles to get to any of it. Today Matt visited a railing company in the area that is known for having extremely cranky and rude owners/staff. Both times Matt has been there, he starts explaining what he needs and the guy cuts him off saying, "West Marine. Just go to West Marine. They have that." Matt: "But you didn't let me finish. I just came from West Marine and they didn't..." The guy: "West Marine. I'm telling you." They routinely send people away. They told one person we talked to that he had to call before coming to the store and then as he was leaving came out to the parking lot asking, "Are you still here?" Monopoly maybe. Or money laundering front.

In other exciting news today, while the last toilet was being replaced, it was determined that a SCUBA diver was needed to stabilize a broken valve. That's one thing we didn't have to do when renovating the house.

The good news on the income front is that the kids created a bunch of drawings to sell so that they can buy their own iPad. Mark sold one to the co-owner of Just Catamarans for 35 cents, so he sold his first piece. Although the asking price was $10 so he needs to work on his negotiating skills.