We Love the Windscoop! A Natural Air Conditioner

The days in the Pacific Northwest this year have been warmer than usual. We had a heat wave one week and those high 80s make our boat hot in the evenings.

Our neighbors have a Windscoop, or chute, to help with bringing air into the cabin. We were so hot that week instead of making one, as I have a pattern for one in my canvas book, we decided to order a Windscoop online, had it delivered. It arrived and wow how nice it is, keeps the boat cool and brings the wind right in.

I noticed our scoop is not 4 directional, it pretty much brings the air into the cabin from one direction. Currently, our boat is facing north, and most of our wind has been coming from the north or west, so we get nice breezes, especially in evening. When we have to replace this one I will either make or buy a 4 directional scoop to adjust for wind shifting automatically. 

With all our hatches and port windows open the bugs are coming in, which is driving me crazy, so the obvious next project is for mosquito netting over each hatch and window. We are not sure if the Mosquitos are unusually numerous this year because of the heat, but whatever the reason we know every evening we get inundated with Mosquitos. And we all have bites from them. I imagine we will do a netting over or inside the hatch and have to figure out how to secure and maintain a netting over the windows, a work in progress. 

Sanding Sucks

We've been sanding all sorts of wood around our boat: floor in galley, the cap rail, the hatches, the scupper covers, bow spirit, and more. Most of this hubby has done, but me and lil guy have helped out. We use the orbit sander for flat surfaces and a triangle sander for those hard to reach spaces, and our hands for everything else - which is a lot.

Our lil guy loves to sand when we are out there, he picks up triangle sander, as it has no moving parts, and sands cap rail. He does good and it entertains him, and the cap rail needs lots of sanding. He doesn't put a lot of pressure on triangle sander so it really doesn't do much, that sander you really have to put pressure for it to get into the wood.

To this point, we have almost finished the starboard side of cap rail, a big project because we have to clean under it and get it ready to seal and prep for paint around it too. For we are planning to paint the boat, deck, cabin, above water line, and when we pull it out we wi ll paint below water line. We also h ave paint for bilge, and hopefully one day we will paint that since we have already dried it out.

Back to our cap rail, so we have to finish sanding and cleaning the starboard before we move to port side. It is all teak so we are using cetol to cover it, not a varnish. We cannot wait till it is done, it will look awesome and make the boat pop. Then we hear it will only last 6 months, so it's pretty much in vain, but we will be so proud when it is done. 

The sanding of deck and cabin is hit and miss, I think as we find a hole or blemish we cover it and get them ready for paint, sort of feel like everyday we are working toward a overlapping project. Fix the leaks and prep for paint, replace this and that. All done in hopes for a nice boat!

Stove, Propane Tanks, BBQ

We have a stove, it is stainless steel, called a Shipmate which is original to the boat (from 1976, they are out of business Shipmate, their stove works good many years later). It took us a couple months to get things situated, propane working and what not. Now that it is working we love it! It has 2 burners, and small oven. The metal around the knobs are a bit sharp and the oven door is on a spring so it shuts really hard. We have become proficient in cooking 2 burner dinners and I just now made biscuits in the oven, it worked great! So excited to cook more in the oven.

We also have a BBQ, Magma all stainless steel too. Operated by propane too, we are using a Coleman 1lb currently, but there is option to plug into braced tanks on stern. At first it took some time to get used to it, a little small and located off our stern, so if something fell from off side it falls in water. After cooking several times on it, we started liking this new BBQ. Keeps the heat out of cabin on hot days and gives meat the BBQ taste.

The propane tanks, there are two, hubby mounted to stern railing since they originally were in an old life sling cover that was delapitated and did not have a locker of any sort. We weighed the options of purchasing a locker for over $500 or making something to hold them, but we decided since they are aluminum we will just get the stainless brackets and mount directly to rail, then cover with canvas. We did add a rope with clip to each tank so when we take them out of brace for refilling they are secured to rail should something happen when realesing them from brackets. These 6lb aluminum tanks hold 1.5 gallons of propane. After we made sure they were completely full, we went almost one month on one of them. One just recently emptied and we found a refill station within walking distance. Which helps out tremendously since our car isn't working too good at this time. Next on project list is for hubby to (fix car so we can get things to finish projects) make regulator brace since it is not mounted to anything, and for me to make propane covers. Never ending projects!

Lee Cloth!

This was a quick and easy sewing project. I found a book on the boat, for canvas works. Inside it had all sorts of sewing projects for a sailboat.

The Lee Cloth is in our pilot birth. I bought remnant canvas at fabric shop near downtown. I followed the instructions, measuring isn't easy so we just estimated at our widest point between top and bottom. Then the length for 6 ft birth is about 4 ft, which is same on each side space for head and feet.  And cut fabric the sew up hem on each of sides. Place grommet on top corners. Then eye bolts at each top corner of pilot birth, tie grommet of lee cloth to eye bolt.

Nice easy project. I already have a list of new projects: wind scoop, spar bag, deck bags for stay and jib sails, fix repairs and errors on interior cushions, put up a water cover and safety netting, and the list goes on and on.

Norcold Refridgerator and Egg Preservation with Water Glass

Our old ugly brown Norcold Fridge (model de-251d) works well, keeps our dorm size amount of groceries cool. I'm not sure if it is original with boat, it looks pretty old, but works good. The freezer part I finally figured out how it works and is now frozen, some stuff is stuck frozen to the rack. Now I have to unstick by warming it up, having it leak everywhere, remove stuck groceries, and maybe place freezer paper down so that no more future items stick to it.

The size we are getting used to, we went from 18 cubic feet to 2.7 cubic feet fridge. Grocery shopping, and shopping in general, now has a new meaning. I am always searching for supplies which take up little room. I feel like a schizophrenic shopper, need this, but it doesn't fit, so buy that because it will fit.

To save space we are trying a new thing egg preservation using water glass, or sodium silicate. This recipe we got from Internet and understand this was an old time way to preserve eggs. Hubby bought two dozen farm fresh eggs, a glass container, and we already bought the water glass. We boiled 9 cups of water, let it cool, added 1 cup water glass, then added eggs (after only wiping straw and poo off each egg, no washing protective coating off). We figured out the eggs displace liquid and overflowed, so we had to take out some of our water glass and water mixture, and spill some too all over the counter. Overall it worked out well, and our daughter said it looked very decorative : ). We plan to keep them in there until our current dozen supply in fridge is used up, but they are supposed to last up to 6 month if stored in cool, dry, dark place. 

See our experiment:

Bathroom Mimis

I gave away my hair dryer. I didnt think I'd have room for it or power enough in the boat. Now after my shower I use the hand dryer in the bathroom. It actually does a nice job, takes two pushes and my hair is mostly dry.

I just turn the blower up and voila it's a hair dryer.

The shower is different for us, but we are getting used to it. My son and I now have to take showers together, something we didn't do too much in our home. He usually took a bath and played in the water. Now he either goes with me or hubby, and we have to pay 0.25 cents for 3 minutes of hot water. A quick shower with him is 3 quarters, we can take our time with a dollar shower, that gives us 12 minutes. 

We use the handicapped shower since it is bigger, and he uses the sprayer while the shower head keeps working. Overall we are getting used to this, at first it was weird. Now we have our shower bag with our coin purse and Dr. Bonners (we use for body wash and shampoo). The bad part is when we have to wash his hair, he doesn't listen and sometimes puts his head down and gets soap in the eyes. It burns, so he screams. You would think he would listen to one of us, he does it with both of us. I may just go back to Johnson and Johnson no tear shampoo, has lots of chemicals, but won't make him scream. It's a trade off, maybe there is a natural no tear shampoo, I'll have to research this.

My hubby tells me shaving in men's bathroom is difficult. For two reasons, first there is only one sink in the shower area and there are definitely more men in the marina than women and the showers,are busy on men's side. Secondly, the sink is automated so he has to put his hand under it a couple times for it to get warm to rinse his razor off. He is still shaving, cut off his long beard a while back and keeps a small gotee. And he actually let me buzz his head with the new clippers, I guess he is finally trusting me. I am now the designated hair cutter.  

So here is our marina bathroom. They clean it regularly, that is good. They also stock nice thick paper towels on shower side, I use them for all sort of things, cleaning my flip-flops and washing my face. Some people store their toiletries on the shelf above bench. I have not done that yet. In our laundry room, there is a cabinet and all the Live aboards store their detergent and dryer sheets in there. We gladly stored our huge detergent jug in there so we don't have to lug it back n forth, but that is another topic all together - laundry. (Size matter in these small spaces, so big jugs for some things are impractical, we are learning!)

We don't currently have a shower in the boat, we do have a solar camping shower and had a corroded shower head in cockpit lazarette that we tossed. One day when we get other more important things done, we will figure this out. We are preparing ourselves mentally to take fewer showers. I'm down to one every three days, and hubby about every other day. Of course on the dirty project days, we take an extra shower. By myself I can usually do a quick shower with 2 quarters, 6 minutes. 

Overboard Mondays!

The second Monday living aboard the boat the cat went overboard.

The third Monday living aboard the boat the son went overboard.

The fourth Monday living aboard the boat no one went overboard, we broke the cycle!

We are lucky our son loves wearing his life jacket, he wears it all the time when we are above deck and while in the car, at the store, while eating out. Immediately before he went pumph (as he says it) overboard I told him be careful, he was on the dock reaching for one of the lines on the bow spirit, while I was on deck washing a forward starboard port window. He was in my peripheral vision, but I heard the splash and did not see him go. I yelled to my husband, then jumped off the deck onto the dock and into the water. There was a split second thought to wait, but then the overly protective mother instinct inside me just took over and I jumped in.

To our surprise, he was calm and floating without any difficulties and already kicking towards the dock. We've taken him swimming since he was 2, so he is somewhat comfortable in the water, he cannot swim just yet though. I guided him closer to dock, but not too close to the mussels, and my hubby easily pulled him out of the water.

Next was the difficult task of getting me out of the water. Hubby pulled on my arms while I was trying no to touch the mussels on side of dock. I was so slippery that every time he pulled I would slip right out of his grasp. I told him to pull on my pants, so he did and up I went right onto the dock. We immediately went to the showers and rinsed off, the water around the marina is - well water around a marina- not always the cleanest.

Now our son keeps talking about how he went pumph splash, and we review the events that happen that day. In retrospect, I wouldn't jump in, instead I would just fish him out because it was harder to get me out of the water. And we thought about tethering him, like we do when we are sailing and he is in the cockpit or deck, but while at the dock there are many lines and posts for the tether to catch on and cause another hazard, so we just keep an eye or ear on him and always - always make sure while on dock or deck he has his life jacket on. We did think that if one of us adults fall overboard, we could use the swim ladder at the stern of the boat. I could have swam to the back of the boat and just climbed up, if hubby couldn't have pulled me up, but we were caught up in the moment of getting out of the water. Luckily, it was a warm sunny day and the water wasn't too cold.

Another learning experience and many more to come.