Urine Sucks!

Our Natures Head composting toilet has a urine container. This container is 2 gallons. We tend to fill it up about every other day. The first couple weeks living on the boat we over filled the urine several times. Its a mess to clean up.

When we pull up the seat urine spills everywhere. Then when we pull out the container it spills again from the bottom where it was soaked with urine, we have the lid on container so it can't come out the top. Then we take it up to restrooms and while pouring into the toilet, it spills everywherearound toilet   because it is so full. By the time we are done there have been many urine spills.

The composting head part works great, we put peat moss in and follow the directions, no problems. The urine on the other hand SUCKS! It stinks and over flows because we can't see the urine fluid line. 

So far we are using blue food coloring, dye did not work, so we can see the water line. This is working  well. The rancid odor we haven't found anything to help. We use brown sugar, but it doesn't seem to work. I've tried baking soda, it didn't do anything. Maybe we need bigger quantities of brown sugar and baking soda?

Organizing and Making stuff fit on the boat . . . An ongoing project

So we've been living on the boat almost 1 month. We had a truck and car full of stuff to fit on this boat.

We have managed to empty and sell the truck. We emptied some into our other car's trunk. And cleaned out the car we drive. All but 5 medium size boxes are on the boat, and everything has mostly found a spot somewhere on the boat.

It is an ongoing process which I see my hubby and I doing about every other day. He'll get tired of clutter around sink then put stuff in a hatch, or I'll get tired of clutter on pilot birth and put it in a hatch. Then we will look for something, sometimes for about an hour, trying to remember where we stowed it and either find it or give up till later.

This organization is an ongoing project. I am thankful we only have 5 boxes left and they all fit in the trunk of a car.

Of the boxes leftover to unpack: one is of books, two are of pictures and memorabilia, one is of documents we couldn't get rid of, and one is office supplies/papers. We are hoping once the pilot birth is completed we will use space under and around there for books and papers. And I can scan the remaining pictures/memorabilia, and stow somewhere these documents we have.

The documents like our passports and birth certificates we cannot get rid of, so we are devising a water proof safe area or file to store these in. Another work in progress!!

Sail Cleaning and Repair

Our boat came with 5 sails. A main sail, jib sail, stay sail, 150% genoa, and drifter. Each sail needed cleaning and some needed repairs. I am not an expert. I took sewing classes in high school and have sewn many things over the years since then. I have researched ways to clean and repair sails, take what is practical in light of my budget and facilities, then I just do it.

CLEANING SAILS:

All sails were cleaned, using what I call the bathtub method of cleaning. I've tried the driveway, the yard, a line in the yard, and the bathtub; by far the most efficient and cleanliest is the bathtub method. I use laundry detergent and Oxy-clean, a sponge, and warm water. If I have a tough moldy spot then I use a small amount of bleach on that spot and rinse thoroughly.

I start by letting them soak for a couple hours, at least. Then I scrub with a soft sponge starting at the head of the sail and work down the sail.

 Sail soaking in bath tub, this was the Stay Sail, we have a Cutter Rig.

This is the same sail hanging over the curtain rod. I cleaned both sides with sponge and then rinsed. We were able to lay the sail to air dry in our basement on the carpeted floor, while we were in our house. I'm not sure how we will do this at the marina, but I'll research this and figure it out. If we keep them up we probably don't have to clean them often and not all at once, like we did with these.

The most frustrating part of cleaning used sails is the damage and laziness you encounter from previous owners. On our main sail we had spots of lacquer all over the sail, we are baffled how someone got lacquer on this sail. Yet as we tear apart the boat, we find cheap stuff and corners cut everywhere, so it figures they lacquered and didn't bother to cover the sail, even our brass port windows have lacquer on them, UGH! With some elbow grease and basic supplies, I cleaned this things up nicely. When we raised our main sail on the boat last week it was nice and white, love raising a clean sail.

REPAIRING SAILS:

I used my Pfaff 332 to repair the stitches and tears on the sails. Our sailing instructor told us about his wife's patch work on their main sail, and I read about the strongest way to patch a tear, both said to use the a patch material and then zigzag stitch around it, so that is what I did. We bought the sail tape (Dacron-for jib, main, genoa, and stay sails and Nylon - for drifter) and a polyester uv and mildew resistant thread. I was able to use an 18 size needle, and the machine fixed all the patches with ease.

Repair of the Drifter: 

I reinforced the stitching above because it had come loose, and below shows a tear between the clew and tack of sail. This drifter is made of nylon and is very thin and frail, the foot of the sail is easily caught on sharp or pointy objects. It reminds me of a parachute, but I understand it is very helpful in light winds. It is similar to a spinnaker, but without the pole.

 Patched this using nylon tape and zigzag stitch with polyester thread.

Repair of the Genoa:

This sail is made of a lighter weight Dacron, I believe it is a 150% Genoa. The foot of this sail encountered something and endured some tears between Clew and Tack, similar to the Drifter. 

Above is the tear, and below is the patch using Dacron tape and the polyester thread.

 Another small tear.

 Patch using Dacron tape and polyester thread in zigzag stitching around tear.

 More small tears.

 Small patches and stitches.

Repair of the Main Sail:

There was a tiny tear in the main sail. I patched it with Dacron tape and polyester thread.

Here is the Pfaff 332, hard at work!

We Have Running Water! Filters?

My hubby is working on all sorts of projects. While redoing the electrical battery stuff, he noticed the old water pump not working, thus no water pressure. Our water tank was full, so we knew it was either the electrical or the pump.

So we looked into water pumps. There are options out there for these. There are manual foot pumps, electric pumps, fast ones, slow ones, and the list goes on. We have to buy a marine grade pump, as is with everything in the boat, marine grade means about $50 to $100 more. 

My husband decided one day, while at one of his many trips to West Marine, that he wanted a water pump, so he bought one.  A Shurflo, this was same pump in the boat but newer. He wired it up and got running water in the boat. I came home to the boat, from a grocery/kid outing, to find these pleasantries going on in our head and galley, running water.

Since then our lives changed on board, no more hauling gallons of water into the galley and head. No more washing dishes with cold water from a leaky jug. It has opened up many more possibilities. We have a hot water heater and it works great. 

We figured out that our tank is aluminum and there are pros and cons with this, so we will probably end up replacing it down the road cause there are the funky white crystalizations on the bottom from chlorine. I did chlorinate and vinegar the tank the first couple fills until I read how chlorine and aluminum don't work well together, so using chlorine in this tank to kill microbes is a no go. 

Then we need filtration. We bought the basic filter, 10 inch to go right after the tank, but need the two step for at the faucet so we can drink from it. We back-ordered this at the local store and am still waiting, I'll probably end up getting it online somewhere instead of waiting for their back order, it was the 3M 7500 gallon capacity.

The best thing since sliced bread, running water! Thank you hubby!

As you can see our sink has some issues, there are two, they are separate, and they leak. The leaks happen on the counter, in between the sinks, and then run down to the cabinet under them. We've removed rotted wood under the floor and imagine we will just keep removing rotted wood until all the wood has been replaced. One day we think of getting one rectangular sink, but the size is unusual and of course since its in a boat it will need to be marine grade or something and cost much more than a normal sink would. We love the copper counter tops and brass faucet!

Pets on a sailboat, Cat overboard!

The pets have been on the boat for a little over a week. Funny to think of pets on a boat and living at a marina, but there are many. Our neighbor has a cat, and that cat looks content to sun bath on their deck all afternoon.

Our dog Jack seems to have mixed feelings about the boat. He likes to be near us, and the large walking and running areas and trails, and the sun bathing on dock. He doesn't like a 3 year old constantly pestering, poking, or kicking him out of his new bed. And our cat Rock-o he went into hiding the first couple days, in vbirth forward compartment. He finally came out to use the new litter box and find yummy food. We are storing the litter box under the stairs for now, it works ok, but the litter makes a mess - this is a work in progress.

It seemed like the cat was getting used to the small living space, back to his routine of sleeping all day and waking up in the very early morning to play and meow for food thus interrupting our sleep. (Note: We finally moved pets into galley at night and us into vbirth with door closed, this works well.) Until this past Monday morning, instead of having blues of the upcoming work week, we got the early to rise pet and kid morning blues. As I was taking the dog out for a walk around 6 am, the son wanted to go because he was up too, and then the cat decided he wanted to go too. The cat had not been out of the boat since we moved him in. He proceeded to jump onto the dock, similar to how the dog does it, and then he got scared and started to run, he took off down the dock and disappeared. The dog had to go potty and the son was getting restless, so I decided to come back later to look for the cat.

We looked for the the cat all day, called his name, walked up and down the dock, and no cat. My husband even got his guitar out and played it in the evening, this always gets the cat out, but even the music did not work so we went to bed. Very early the next morning I heard footsteps on the deck and sniffing, I immediately knew this was Rock-o. I opened the hatch and he jumped in, he was soaking wet and must have taken a swim. I got a towel out and dried him, fed him, and I went back to bed.

We thought about his journey home that morning, and were amazed he made it back to the boat in the middle of night and after a dip in the water. He is a pretty tough cat to end up swimming in the middle of the night in cold water and making it back to the boat safely. Now his fur is shinny and his gunky eye looks clean. The dip in the salt water cleaned him up nicely.

Lately, we are trying to get him in a routine of eating his food in evening when he rises after sleeping all day. Then letting him come out on the deck without jumping overboard by coaxing him back inside the cabin before he gets too scared and bolts down the dock. He then proceeds to do his nocturnal activities, and as usual up in early morning demanding more food, as is the dog.

Some mornings they are just too demanding, ugh!

Sold truck, bought a Dinghy

Now we are down to 2 cars. We did have a truck and 2 cars, but we sold the truck. It was diesel and loved to eat the gas. Already we are feeling lighter without the big truck. Next we need to sell one of the cars. One car is on brinks though, so hopefully we can get rid of it quick and for good money, we will see.

As we were selling the truck, we bought a dinghy. The dinghy is a Ranger Minto about 9ft, fiberglass with teak trim, with oars and sail kit all for a good deal of $500. Our boat did not come with a dinghy, so before we bought this dinghy we researched for months. We debated whether to get an inflatable hypalon type as RIB or hard one. Overall we knew we wanted a good rowing boat with ability to sail, so we decided on a hard dinghy. And a hard one with long lasting material, such as fiberglass. 

As we went back and forth from our house to the boat, we would search on craiglist and a nice one would pop up near the house, while we were on the boat, and vice versa. This went on for a couple months, we were always in the wrong place when a deal came up. In our desperate and impulsive mission to buy a dinghy, we drove an hour to look at a 10 ft Walker Bay with sail kit and oars, the guy wanted $2200 for it. We offered him $1500, he said no and we left, that was the best decision we made. The drive was nice and scenery pretty, this was a lesson to be patient. We decided to wait until we moved onto the boat. After we got moved onto the boat, we searched craiglist a couple days later and this dinghy was posted at $500, it was a great deal and we jumped on it. 

We've already sailed and rowed around the marina and it's lots of fun. Sort of sad when we bought it though. The guy who sold it to us was selling his sailboat too, and explained to us that it was due to illness. He was in tears as I rowed the boat away, I think he did not want to let it go. Luckily the dinghy was in the same marina as we are, so we did not need help transporting it with the truck gone. 

Next on project list, find a spot on the boat to store dinghy.

Tattoo, Ditched Wedding Rings

We ditched our wedding rings on our fourth wedding anniversary and got a tattoo. My first ever tattoo.

A year later got tattoo darker. We were told fingers aren't best spot, lots of wear on hands you know. Plus, the first one was too light, and faded after a year.