A New Year Aboard Harbinger 2015

It has been about a year since I posted and haven't really written anything in last 6 months.

We started cruising around the Puget Sound in spring of 2014, then cut the dock lines on June 1st headed to the San Juan Island. The Islands were beautiful and we did not want to come back to our home port. During our summer cruise we learned so much and saw some really neat scenery, it was truly invaluable. We came back to the docks on October 1st and have been in dry dock ever since.

Dry dock is certainly dry, yet it is a royal pain. We work all the time, either on the boat or making money, and surely miss the water. There is a ginormous tarp over our boat and it provides privacy, warmth, and more dryness. The projects are so numerous aboard I believe we have gotten lost, but the boat is looking better and better every day.

Soon we will haul back in and stay at the marina for a while as we plan our next cruising adventure.

Like us on Facebook!

I haven't posted in a while because we are transitioning our blogs and life. We left the marina traveled a lot in the boat in 2014. Endured a tortuous winter 2014 on the hard while earning a living outside the boat to refill the kitty. Then we started 2015 finishing up numerous projects aboard and more traveling. Now as we approach the end of 2015 our list of projects continue, yet we feel closer to our goal to take off in our boat and sail the world. We hope to make posts helpful in DIY projects, travels, and homemade recipes.

Like us on Facebook! Enjoy!

Coffee On the Boat

Coffee is a part of our life, every morning.

In preparation for living aboard the boat, we knew we did not want to take our electric coffee pot on board. So we started using the coffee press a couple years ago, and we researched and trialed different ones. 

Our initial coffee press had a glass carafe encased in stainless frame. We took this out on our trailer sailboat several times and were very happy with our pressed coffee. In fact, we were so happy with the resulting coffee from the pressed coffee we started using it more and more, instead of our electric coffee pot.

The bad parts about the glass carafe, as we found, it would not keep the coffee warm for very long. And on a boat which rocks and rolls the glass was too fragile to keep safe. So we looked into other options of coffee press. We finally settled on the Frieling all stainless steel insulated press. It holds up to 32 ounces, we can get 4 cups of coffee out of it. It keeps the coffee warm for at least a couple hours. On a typical morning, we will make two of these pots. Also, it can sit on top of the wood stove to keep it warm, although we typically boil water in our tea pot not the press.

In our downsize, we got rid of our electric grinder, now we are looking for a good substitute. I've been using the mortar and pedastle, but it's a lot of work. In time, we may purchase a grain miller that can mill grains and grind coffee, a multifunction gadget would be ideal, less to store on a boat.

Natural Air Freshners on our Wood Stove

Our wood stove has been running all day long with temps outside hanging around 40 degrees. With that said, I decided to try a natural air freshner. I've read some online about different herbs being placed in water and slowly heated to release their aromatic properties.

I tried cinnamon and cloves, this lasted a couple days on top of the stove. It smelled nice.

I tried the lavender I picked this summer. It lasted a day. At first it was very aromatic, then it just stopped.

I plan to try out the rosemary from our plant growing in our cockpit, and in time I'll have all sorts of herbs to freshen the air in our musty old boat!

My New Purse and Wallet Combined, a Lanyard, Downsizing Continues . . .

I'm guessing I was a teenager when I first started carrying a purse with a wallet. Now, 30 years later in my forties, I gave up my purse & wallet carrying ways and downsized to a lanyard.

It cracks me up to think of the hundreds of dollars, or more, I spent on purses and wallets over the past 30 years. And now to only have a lanyard with a key chain, it holds everything I need (bankcard, marina gate key-card, license, library card, museum card, boat insurance card, co-op card, and a grocery rewards card), it is the exact opposite of social expectations I was used to.

In our society, women are expected to carry a purse & wallet, and men carry a wallet. This is just how it is. Retailers advertise this in various repetitive ways. When I was a shopper I used to go to the local department store and drool over the new line of purses with matching wallets. It was like these were toys we had to have to be cool and look good. The logo was everything, and if it began with certain letters that meant you were socially higher and probably more economically stable and richer than others. Ironically, as I experienced myself and watched others do, the people who had these purses with logos where not economically stable or socially higher or richer. We got stuck in a trap, suckered into over-spending to show a certain fake facade to others. Billions of us did it, and we made some people very rich.

I sort of climbed this mountain throughout the past 30 years, lets call it Mt. Social Norms. I started at the bottom not exactly sure if I was gonna make it to the top, because after all only certain people made it there and had the nice things. I got to the foothills of this mountain it was foggy, I got lost and confused, incurred some debt. I kept going higher and higher, the bills stacked up, then altitude got me and I passed out. When I awoke there were billions of others laying next to me, and only a few made it to the top of Mt. Social Norms. Those that made it came down to us and told us don't bother trying to get up there because we weren't the right kind of person, and they already took their stake in it and to just go back down to the bottom. Upset at this we stayed there in that high altitude area, determined to prove them wrong, every now and then passing out dazed and confused from those high altitudes. In time, some just left, but others they stayed and are still trying.

For me, I got too sick of that mountain and headed down fast. And I never looked back because it felt so good to be away from it. They can have that stinking mountain because I prefer to be a happy outcast, rather than a miserable climber pushed down by society.

Now when I leave the boat or car I sometimes want to reach for my purse, it is habit; or when I leave some place I am looking for my purse. Then I look down and find relief because it is hanging on my neck, phew! I cannot believe how easy it is to carry only a few items of importance and have them hanging on your neck. Maybe it's not the most expensive, or prettiest, or socially acceptable, but it works for me.

Homemade Shampoo

I decided to use this concoction for my hair, may sound weird, but it works. When I was a child I've had this dandruff problem. I used the special anti-dandruff shampoos, some work, some don't. Now I've used this easy and cheap concoction for the past month and it has reduced the dandruff and makes my hair full and soft.

Here is what I do a couple times a week, either at sink or in shower:

Wet hair, dissolve 1/2 cup baking soda in warm water, pour on hair, rub in. This will exfoliate the scalp and hair follicles. Next I pour 1/2 cup vinegar over my hair and let it fizz. Scrub and massage in, I let it sit for some time, say 2-5 minutes. Then rinse.

My hair is soft at root and sometimes a little dry at ends, for not using commercial shampoo and only using this concoction it cleans my hair very good and my dandruff is under control. Here is picture of my scalp. Our son, we just noticed, has some dandruff on top of his scalp. I'll start posting on him to show the progress of using the baking soda and vinegar concoction to reduce dandruff.

Homemade Dish Soap

Here is my next project, homemade dish soap. For obvious reasons, we do not have space for dish washer, therefore, we have to wash dishes by hand. I am super interested in making all these detergents, soaps, body care, tooth care, and anything else we use daily, from items I can easily obtain and without a bunch of harsh chemicals and without breaking our pocketbook. With this soap I used all ingredients I already have: grated soap, vinegar, water, and tea tree oil.

2 cups boiling water

1/4 cup grated soap

1 tbsp vinegar

1 tsp tea tree oil

I boiled water, added grated soap let it dissolve, added vinegar, let cool then add teat tree oil. After it cooled I then poured into a clean jar. My first batch is pictured below. I placed it in this old pickle jar and cut a hole in the lid, then stuck a pump in it. 

So far, the soap thickened in a couple hours after cooled. I had to strain some of the grated soap that did not dissolve, so it would not clog the pump. I've used this for dishes and noticed it does not bubble up like commercial products, but it cuts the grease very good, which for us without a water heater is a nice thing. Sometimes when we wash a greasy pot or pan in cold water it just swishes the grease around. I will keep testing and tweaking, and update.