Aboard Madrigal

Rudder Time!

2012-02-06T17:23:00.000-08:00

As you all know, Jenny and I are trying to finish our new boat on a very shoestring budget. As such, I've done nearly all of the work myself or with the help of friends. Generally, my friends bring the talent and knowledge, while I try to learn along the way. Nonetheless, there are only so many hours in a day and since I work full time I simply have to find ways to hang out with the family. The one big project I decided to contract out was the rudder. Below is a picture of the rudder as we found it originally, hanging limply behind Creeky, swinging in the breeze.

The Rudder: Before

You may have noticed there is a giant hole in our rudder. Henry, whom we purchased the boat from, had planned to put a trim tab style self-steering gear on. He cut the hole for the tab, but never got further than that. It's good that he didn't get any further because those systems turned out to be rather sub-par. The downside is that we now have a giant gap to fill

Jenny modeling with the rudder.

Luckily, I have a friend who worked at Inshore Boat Shop in Marion Massachusetts. He still has connections there and he offered to turn the rudder over to the boatyard and have those guys do it as a friend of a friend favor. Of course, this isn't free of charge, but at least it was a discount.

When we got it back from them it looked like this:

All patched up!

They did a fantastic job. After the rudder had lain exposed to the Rhode Island winters for 20 some years there was a lot of work to be done. The guys in the yard grinded away at the already gaping hole and made it bigger. That gave them access to the stainless crossbars. They re-welded the joints to give it renewed strength. Then they took 3/4" marine plywood, bolted numerous layers of it together, and soaked the whole block in epoxy. That created the filler piece to take up the space. Almost an entire sheet of plywood fit into there. They bolted the plywood to the crossbars and then they put a layer of closed cell foam on top of the ply. The foam was then used to sculpt the shape of the rudder.

It is hard to tell from those pictures, but after they got the shape right and glassed the hole shut, they put a couple layers of biaxial glass over the entire rudder for me. That strengthened everything up and made it into one cohesive and solid unit again. I'm very pleased. It was costly, but worth it. As a way to save a little bit of cash, they returned it to me in a rough state of finish, with the fiberglass completely unsanded.

This is only the first coat of the fairing putty. It's still pretty darn rough right here.

I managed to convince Constitution Marina to give me a small corner of their workshop to let me do the finish work. I used Quickfair fairing putty. 3 coats, and many hours of sanding. I also added a couple more layers of fiberglass to the bottom of the rudder--can't have too much strength there. I am thoroughly pleased with the end result. Yesterday I finally got to hang it in place on the boat.

The rudder hanging happily in place.

I'm still sorting out all the parts I need for the stuffing box at the top. I'm lacking a few nuts and bolts for the gudgeon/pintle at the bottom... None of that is a huge deal immediately, just some things that still have to be fixed. Nonetheless, the rudder itself is DONE. that is a huge step in the right direction.

The Rudder

In the meantime, all is well. Sorry about the lack of posts.... babies and boats, boats and babies.

2011 in Review

2012-01-01T15:21:00.000-08:00

2011. Wow. What a year to remember. Obviously Ivy's birth was by far the most amazing, life-changing, wonderful aspects of the year, but we were truly lucky to have such a fantastic year in general and I can't believe how memorable a year it was.

In January, there was snow. So much snow.

In February, we had a few nice days and were able to get out of the boat and enjoy the nice weather...

And then March. Ah March, what a perfect month...aside from the waiting game of being mega-pregnant. Ivy was born on her due date (March 25th) and those first days with her as a new family are the most cherished moments I have ever had in my entire life.

April was the month of family help! I don't know what we would have done in those first few weeks with Ivy if we hadn't had her grandparents to come out and lend a hand, and our friends to be so gracious with walking Willie, feeding us (delicious) meals, etc.

The summer months brought about drastic changes to the Creekmore. Justin did such a great job fixing up the boat while still finding time to work loads of overtime and take care of me and Ivy too.

In May, we moved back to Thayer's Landing. And what a fun summer it was. Our friends, Jon and Kelli (and their son Seth) were our neighbors and it was so great to have a little company. So great, in fact, that we're all moving back there again.

July was Ivy's first experience with swimming in the ocean. She was truly impressed.

August was Ivy's first ever trip on a plane, and first visit home to Michigan where she met tons and tons of relatives.

The hurricane season brought about Hurricane Irene - the first major threat to the East Coast since we've lived here. We certainly took her seriously, and the guys put a ton of time into preparing the boats and the docks for some major damage. We were lucky and not much happened at Thayer's Landing, but towns not far from us were hit pretty hard.

And then! We went sailing! Our one and only sailing trip went a bit haywire, but we were happy to be out despite the chaos that ensues with a 5 month old on a sailing trip.

And all too quickly, we were back at Constitution Marina for the winter. We're happy to be back, but we really enjoyed the summer a whole lot so it was bittersweet to be back.

Halloween was so fun! Our first Halloween with the kiddo. Her skunk costume was a hit, and I'm sad that it's probably too small for her to wear already. Such a shame.

The "winter" has been anything but, and we've spent more time outside this winter than we've ever been able to before. I was so excited to play in the snow with Ivy, but unlike last year, the snow really just hasn't been around. No matter really. Instead, we've taken advantage of the nice days by going to the beaches and parks and just taking dock walks and walks around town.

December was an interesting month as well. Ivy and I flew back to Michigan to be with my family for Christmas while Justin stayed home. It was so sad to leave him behind, but we had a great week at home and will be flying out to Justin's family next week.

It was also the month of Ivy really growing and learning. She's 9 months old now and learning new things every day. What a fun age! She's trying to take steps here and there, she's pointing to things that she wants, she knows how to shake her head "no", and today we just discovered that she likes to sing a little bit. There's so much more - that's what she's learned in the past few days. Amazing.

It's seriously been an amazing year. I am looking forward to 2012 and we have many dreams about the upcoming year, but I don't know that anything can top 2011 in our books.

Christmas in Michigan

2011-12-26T18:39:00.001-08:00

Ivy had a blast in the UP. It was great fun all around, and the pictures show it all. We're happy to be back to be with daddy, but we're definitely missing grandma, grandpa, auntie and uncle, and cousin Eli. Happy Holidays everyone!

Wingaersheek Beach

2011-12-13T11:48:00.000-08:00

Life is busy, and we haven't had time to update in quite some time. Between the baby, working from home, trying to make healthy meals, preparing Madrigal for winter, working on Creeky when we get a spare moment...well, you get the point. Busy busy.

Sadly, the blog gets put on hold at times like these - times when we should be writing the most and cataloging our adventures of life.

Ah well, so it goes.

In the meantime, we went to Wingaersheek Beach in Gloucester with some dogs and some friends and took a few photos. Willie had a blast and it was a beautiful day.

The weather has been unseasonably warm, hot even. We've had more days in the 60s than I can even count, and only a small handful of days below 50. It has been nice for the heating bill, that's for sure.

Ivy is growing by leaps and bounds. She's taking a step here and there now (unassisted, without holding onto anything!) and mastered crawling long ago. She's in swimming lessons now at the Y and enjoying those immensely. She really seems to love the water.

Madrigal is doing well and keeping us dry and toasty on those few cold days that we've had. The rug heater has done wonders for us, keeping Ivy nice and warm on those cool mornings when she wants to crawl and practice standing.

Willie is doing well and gets along fantastically well with Ivy. The two of them are so fun to watch together, and it's nice to be able to trust him so much with her.

Creeky's projects are few and far between, but Justin is still making progress. Currently he's working on the rudder and he's getting close to finishing that project up soon.

And Justin and I are doing great. We're both quite possibly a bit overwhelmed with everything going on in life, but Ivy helps remind us to stop and enjoy every moment. It's just so fascinating to watch her progress day to day, week to week. She changes so quickly and it's so happy and sad to see. I can't believe that little baby we had just 8 1/2 months ago is now this little girl, and I sort of wish that she had grown up just a wee bit slower. At the same time, I am looking forward to everything to come. Bittersweet, for sure...but mostly just sweet.

Why Living Aboard a Boat with a Baby is Hard Work, or, Why I Spend a Lot of Time in Bed.

2011-11-15T17:21:00.000-08:00

Living aboard a boat with a baby is hard for a few reasons - one of which doesn't really begin until they begin crawling. Crawling babies get into everything! And when everything is a matter of inches away, they get into everything fast. We've gone to great lengths to try and keep the boat as safe for Ivy as possible, but some of it comes down to just being attentive with her.

Ivy started pulling herself up the same time she began crawling, although it hasn't been until this week that her balance is really top notch. I've spent a ton of time hanging out on the floor with her, because one fall was enough for me to realize that I needed to be down there with her so that she didn't do any major damage to herself.

But the other hardest thing about living aboard with a baby is that babies sleep, a lot. And if a baby sleeps a lot, you have to make sure that she doesn't get woken up. This is a very difficult task on a boat.

Ivy takes roughly 3 naps a day. Her first nap comes early - around 7:30 or so. I often keep Ivy quiet enough before that time so that Justin can get some well deserved sleep, so her first nap is an Ergo nap. Ergo naps are easy. Throw on some techno, dance back and forth, and she's out in five minutes. Her second and third naps tend to be Ergo naps as well, although we're transitioning lately to get her to sleep a bit more frequently in bed. I try to switch naps up a bit, so I stick our heads at the other end of the bed and play her children's music instead of techno. It seems to work, sometimes. But if she's teething or sick or has a belly ache or just feels like hanging out with Justin, the naps in bed become non-existent.

And then there's nighttime. She goes to bed early - between 6 and 7 pm. I had always been a night owl, but since Ivy wakes up around 6am, I tend to go to bed pretty early these days. Honestly, I'm usually just calling it a night by the time I get her to sleep and don't even bother getting up after she's passed out. Ivy likes to sleep on me, so it's really hard to get away. And even when I do get away, there's not much to be done. Justin's at work, and I have to be nearly silent in order to not wake her.

As I type this, Ivy is actually asleep in bed without me. This is incredibly rare. But like I said, there's not much I can do now that she is asleep. I can't do dishes (which always need doing around this time of night). I can't leave the boat, for obvious reasons. I can't make a phone call - she's less than 10 feet away from me. I can't close the door, because then it will get too cold in the v-berth for her. I can sometimes get away with watching a movie, but I can get away with that a lot easier when I'm laying in bed with her, because she sleeps a lot more soundly with me laying next to her and I can get netflix streaming on my phone!

And then there is the matter of the dog. The oh-so-protective dog. Living in a busy marina, he tends to bark at every passerby, every strange noise, etc. And then there are the people who don't think about the fact that there could be a sleeping baby aboard, so they knock on the hull, get the dog all riled up, wake the baby, etc. You get my point.

So when people ask me how it is to live on a boat with a baby and I tell them "it's no different, really", I'm totally lying. It's so different!

But there are awesome things too. I actually love being "stuck" in bed with Ivy all night, if I've planned on it. She has started throwing her entire body around while fast asleep, and it cracks me up. And I'm so happy that we're in such a small space with her. I actually think it's helping her learn balance and will eventually teach her how to walk, because there are so many things to hold on to.

And the most important thing, to me, is being close to my little family. I try to imagine living in a big house with a little baby. There are baby monitors. Video monitors, even. Parents are not only rooms away from their sleeping babies, but they are sometimes entire floors away!

I was worried that I was doing things "wrong" one day with naps and sleep in general and asked another boat mama what she thought. She gave me the best advice that I've gotten since becoming a mother. She said "When I don't know what to do, I ask myself 'what would a cavewoman do?' and I try that." And that's what I do now, with pretty much everything. This mantra keeps me much more calm and focused, and makes me realize that I'm doing an awesome job with Ivy.

So there you have it, the dirty truth about the difficulties of a baby aboard a boat. It's so totally worth it.

Out for a Stroll

2011-10-10T02:58:00.000-07:00

Willie has a pretty good English vocabulary for a dog from Puerto Rico. First and foremost of the words he understands is "Walk". For Ivy's six month birthday that just passed we finally bought a stroller, which means our frequency of going for walks has increased dramatically. However, energetic dog, stroller, baby, and traffic don't always mix well, so unless we are going to a big park we tend to leave Willie behind (sorry buddy!). Thus, it has become common language for Jenny and I to use the phrase "go for a stroll" when we want to go with the stroller and leave Willie behind. The language change is just enough to save him the roller coaster of emotions at hearing the word "walk" and then be left behind. Ahh, the difficult life of a dog.

Willie, asleep sitting up.

Buying a stroller is a huge deal for us. This little boat of ours is completely out of space. We really can't put anything more into it. Our car is a Kia Soul. I love the Soul. It is incredibly safe and has made a surprisingly good boatwork vehicle. Nonetheless, it is not the biggest thing on the road--at all. That means, in shopping for a stroller we are far more limited, size-wise, than most people. Most strollers that have any substance to them are of enormous size. Seriously, have you ever looked at one of those JEEP strollers? Or the giant Graco pieces of junk? They are huge, and their "folding" hardly makes them smaller... really just changes the shape of the space they take up. So, casting out all those huge strollers really left us looking at some umbrella strollers... you know, little ones that fold up like an umbrella. The MacLaren Volo is the gold standard of umbrellas (its amazing what I now know about strollers). But in all seriousness, those tiny little wheels just suck. We go to parks and beaches regularly. Just to get home we have to go down gangways and walk boat docks. Those tiny wheels going klangity-klangity-klangity on the docks would drive me crazy, not to mention getting stuck on every root and rock we come across in the parks.

Lucky for us, we discovered the City Mini, from BabyJogger. It's a bit of an odd stroller, with midsize wheels, but it folds down quick and easy and it gets seriously small considering how big the stroller is when it's in go-mode. It folds down flat enough that it fits nicely in the trunk space of the Kia or tucks nicely under the nav station on Madrigal.

I just happen to have a pic of
the Kia and the Stroller all at once.

So far, we couldn't be happier with it. We've been on all sorts of terrain and we've only had a wheel catch and stop maybe twice. Ivy thinks its the greatest thing ever. She falls asleep in it easily and reclines nice and smooth so she can keep sleeping.

As an added bonus, we sent a picture of Ivy to the BabyJogger company and she won their monthly photo contest! The prize is a free rain cover (which would otherwise cost us $45 we weren't looking forward to spending). That's awesome for us. We'll really need that cover as it gets colder out and we take Ivy for walks around the Charlestown Navy Yard. Go Ivy go, thanks for being so cute.

Here is a copy of the picture for when they remove
it from the BabyJogger website

Summer 2011

2011-10-06T20:15:00.000-07:00

Wow, where to start? It was such a... different summer. There were opposing forces at work: Ivy and Creeky. That made it particularly difficult. I love this little girl like I love no other, and I find it strange that I still manage to grow more attached to her each and every day. Creeky, as we've affectionately come to know our Creekmore 45 project boat as, owns a love of a different sort. Creeky stokes a fire in me that keeps a dream alive: we can live on a boat, as a family, having enough personal space to move around and live comfortably and we can do it on a budget while raising a family and enjoying ourselves. That is something we really believe in. Making that dream come true is a mightily oppressive task. The dilemma is that in order to work on Creeky, I (Justin) have to spend time away from Ivy. Time away from Ivy is a sad thing. To make it worse, time away from Ivy equals time away from Jenny. As one last bummer, all of that time away from them is being spent on a project that eats a tremendous amount of money, which means I have to work full time plus overtime in order to make it happen. All told, I lose a lot of time at home.

This is what time with Ivy looks like

This is what time with Creeky looks like

We know all the headache and hardships are worth it though. If all goes well this boat is going to provide a beautiful and lovely home for DECADES. And it will be a home we can take anywhere, even back to Michigan to live near family for a while. That is something we would really enjoy. So, we plod on, with me in the boatyard and Jenny at home watching Ivy by herself.

Now, I know I'm painting a pretty bleak picture here, and it just isn't true. Things aren't all that bad, I just want to make sure the blogger world knows what all this entails. I don't want to gloss it over and make it look easy for any would be amateur boat builders. However, I certainly take days off of the boat. We simply can't afford to have me work on it every day. That means I can kind of take my time. We get plenty of weekend days together, and very often we have splendid mornings together before I go in to work my afternoon shift at 3pm. When Ivy wakes us up at 6am and I don't leave for work til 2pm it makes for a very long morning--in a good way. We go to various parks and beaches. We take walks around Weymouth. And one of the great bonuses of this year is that we seem to have acquired our very own back yard.

The Yard at Thayer's Landing

Thayer's Landing is great for many reasons. This year, it improved mightily over last year. Jeff, the ever gracious and generous marina owner decided to make a few improvements. First, he purchased a 10 foot picnic table with a large umbrella. Shortly after that he went and purchased a huge Weber grill. On top of that, our friends Jon, Kelli, and Seth docked here this year. So any time I did get to stay home was great. It was a strange sort of achievement of the standard American dream: We had lovely place on the water with a fenced in back yard complete with all the picnic and BBQ equipment one could want. Many many hours were spent in the lawn enjoying a beer and eating at the picnic table. Ivy learned to crawl in this yard. That means a lot to me. Mind you, she's still a sloppy crawler, and it is really more of a belly flop/scootch/clamber/fall/crawl/giggle/wiggle and scoot. Nonetheless, we'd spread a blanket on the grass and set her down and she'd do her best to get across the blanket and pet Willie. Very cute, and a very effective learning method. After all, with such a small boat, a blanket on the grass really is the biggest crawl space we have.

This is the exact spot where Ivy spent hours trying to make her limbs propel her forward :)

And now fall is in the air. In between the boatwork and playing in the lawn with our sweet little girl, the summer has slipped away. In 2 weeks time we'll be back at Constitution, ordering shrink wrap and tying the boat in for the winter.

The picture doesn't show it, but it is cold and crisp,
with stiff north breeze. It's beautiful this time of year.

It'll be a very good winter, I'm sure. Creeky will be down on the South shore, too far away to run to every morning. And we really have to save our pennies for lead ballast, so I'll get to stay home a lot. Ivy will be walking soon, I have no doubt, at least by midwinter. We'll get to plod through the snow and chase Willie as he runs after snowballs...

Safety First

2011-09-16T07:34:00.000-07:00

Ivy is learning how to crawl now and has been sitting up on her own for about a month now, so we realized it was time to get serious about getting some safety features into the boat.

The most important one is some safety netting in the v-berth. It's the safest place for her to crawl around without getting into trouble.

I had planned on sewing up some lee cloths, but we had a bunch of leftover netting and we were able to make that work for us. We put pillows and blankets in front of it so she doesn't fall in between the netting.

Once she pulls herself up, it may not work anymore. I'm not sure. But at least we have something that works now!

Ivy at the Helm

2011-09-15T19:30:00.000-07:00

A moment I want to forever remember:

Leaving Peddocks to make our way back home, late in the evening. We had the perfect weather - a bit of chill in the air, *finally*. Ivy had just curled into the Ergo for her nap. She scratched at the strap around my waist with her little hand. *scritch scratch scritch scratch* and then was fast asleep.

I clipped the GPS to the ergo to have easy access - we were leaving the anchorage and I didn't want to suddenly run aground. Justin was forward at the bow, pulling the rocna out of the thick, black mud. The dinghy trailed behind us. Willie was already hiding in the v-berth, shivering and shedding from the fright of his home moving.

Having Ivy around definitely made things harder, and an extra set of hands would have come in handy a few times while we were out, but it was good to see that we were capable of handling the boat even if I was mostly incapacitated.

The sail home was quiet and peaceful and the wind was perfect. It was nice to finally be out sailing, but we weren't sad that it hadn't happened earlier in the year and we won't be too upset if it's the only sail of the season.

Our Sail of the Summer

2011-09-12T18:07:00.001-07:00

Well, we did it! We finally took Madrigal out for a sail.

Infants definitely make things much more challenging, but it can be done and we proved it!

We went to Peddocks and met friends. They rafted up together and we chose to anchor separately, close by. We hung out with them, grilled, etc. It was great seeing everyone again - Mark will be heading south to the Carolinas in a few weeks and we learned that Mike will be sailing with him, then going to school down in Florida. This will make for an entirely different scene at Constitution Marina this year, and our good friends will be missed.

We had planned on staying out two nights, but learned that Peddocks has changed greatly. Signs litter the shoreline - "No Trespassing: Police Take Notice". And take notice they did. Thankfully they didn't bother us and we were able to get Willie to shore without anyone noticing, but they were out and about with the boats, stopping people who were close to shore.

It's really upsetting to see our favorite gem of Boston closed off to the public. Earlier in the year, I had heard that they were destroying some of the buildings on the island in order to create a campground. The news was published in the Boston Globe just a few days before it happened, so there was no chance that any action could have been taken to stop such a thing from happening. Instead we tried to take the news as a good thing - more people would get to visit the island and see what a wonderful place it was. But instead, it has come to this. To go to Peddocks, you must (apparently) have to pay to take a ferry, then pay to stay in the campground. I'd like to hope that this is not true and that we will get to visit the island again with our boat without fear of getting ticketed, but the array of signs has me assuming the worst. And even if we can visit it again, how much of it will be left? How much has the campground changed the island? How much destruction has taken place? How many buildings were left standing, and how did they change those buildings in order to allow camping to take place? I can only guess that Peddocks is a very different place than it was just a year ago, and that's a hard change for me to accept.

The Fury of Storms

2011-08-29T17:30:00.000-07:00

Why is it that no one is ever satisfied with a storm? Either the storm is "too small" or "too big", but rarely is it the perfect amount of fury mixed with little damage to satisfy a crowd.

Hurricane Irene turned into a tropical storm before she reached the Boston area. The night before the storm, everyone was "hoping for the best". But after many many hours of preparation, I suppose people are hoping for a little bit of weather to prove that their hard work paid off.

Our spot at Thayer's Landing seemed to be quite protected - more so than our friends in Winthrop and Boston who were battered a bit more than us (although I did find out later that Weymouth did see a fair bit of tree damage).

We stayed at Jeff's house and spent much of the day out on the porch, waiting to see the gust that would make our hearts race. Had the boats not been prepared, the amount of wind that we had seen may have done more damage. Jeff's docks may not have held up so well had the majority of the boats not hauled out. With the low profile of our sailboat, we were able to stay in the water with being less of a threat to the integrity of the docks. Our boat was one of the few to stay in the water at Thayer's Landing. Other marinas who did little preparing saw more dock damage - we saw none. But without that preparation, Madrigal may have hit the docks as she heeled with the wind. Our things on deck could have been easily picked up by the wind and thrown into the water had they not been stowed.

We heeled a bit.

Ivy entertains us all.

Both north and south of us saw far worse damage - New Hampshire and Vermont were hit very hard, as were places on the Cape.

We were lucky. So lucky in fact, that we even attempted (and failed) to fly a kite.

I'm glad we made it out of the storm safely with no boat damage. Both Madrigal and Creeky were fine. I'd be lying if I didn't say that I was hoping to see a bit more weather, but I'm thankful that we aren't dealing with a terrible aftermath. Many people are still without power and many are still dealing with downed trees and flooding. A boat sank in Winthrop and quite a few boats were ripped from their moorings and slammed against the rocks. I'll take our undamaged and "boring" view of the storm over that outcome any day.

Hurricane Irene

2011-08-27T06:59:00.000-07:00

Things are abuzz as we continue to prepare for the hurricane. We will be staying at the marina owner's house, where we will be able to watch everything unfold while staying safe.

There's a lot of preparation to do (especially with two boats) but Justin has been making good progress with everything. Our marina is over half empty now, as most boats have hauled out to be on dry land. Madrigal will be strung between two finger piers to protect it from hitting against the docks. Our sails are off and all our gear will be stowed inside. The lines are all protected with chafe guard. Creeky is as prepared as possible.

Thayer's Landing is probably the safest place for Madrigal right now, as Jeff is meticulous with everything, especially hurricane prep. He installed some new chain for the docks yesterday (massive chain) and we'll all be throwing anchors out later on today to secure things even further.

I've started to pack our bags, as we'll be staying at Jeff's house both tonight and tomorrow night. I am very thankful that he offered to let us all stay there - Jon (aboard s/v Fattycakes) will also be staying with us and I'm sure we'll all enjoy the safety of the house.

I'm charging the batteries on my camera and plan on taking as many pictures/video as I can and will try to post it as soon as I can next week.

The eye of the storm is set to hit North Carolina around 2pm today, which is when we'll get a bit more information about how the storm is going to react. It's cloudy this morning, which is the first signs we've seen of the hurricane coming our way. The forecasters say it's the size of Arizona and only moving up the coast at about 14 miles an hour (or 11? somewhere in there). Much of New York City has been evacuated and the city of Boston has declared a state of emergency.

We're hoping for the best but preparing for the worst.

Living Aboard a Boat with a Baby

2011-08-05T10:13:00.000-07:00

Well, I've waited four months to write this post. I wanted to get used to living aboard the boat with Ivy before jumping to any conclusions about what living aboard a boat with a baby was really like and how it might differ from living in a house or apartment with a baby.

When people initially ask this question (and they inevitably do), I tend to tell them that it's not that different. In some ways it's true, but the more I think about the question, the more I see the differences. Let me explain.

Bathing:
Madrigal's head is pretty small. Our shower is the sink faucet that extends out to be a shower head, and we essentially shower with the toilet. It's certainly not glamorous, but it gets us clean. I've given Ivy a couple of showers in there, but it doesn't work out as well as her tummy tub. We are thankful to have hot water, so we don't have to heat water up on the stovetop to get her water warm. The bonus? We can give her a bath out in the cockpit on a nice day (which is what I plan on doing when she wakes up from her nap!) I don't feel like she's missing out on anything here, and I'm actually very pleased with this tub. She loves it, we love it.

Cloth Diapers:
Cloth diapers are definitely more of a chore for us than if we lived in a house with a washer and dryer. No doubt about it. We keep them in wet bags so they don't stink (which works great) and wash them by hand every few days. Disposables would have been another option, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. We spent $100 on her entire stash of diapers, and every one of them is going to last until she's potty trained. It would be easier to have a washer and dryer for them, but I'm happy we don't. I enjoy washing them by hand, I love hanging them on the lifelines, and I love how much money we're saving by doing so.

Which brings me onto another topic - elimination communication, or infant potty training. That's right, Ivy's mostly potty trained. It's weird and I won't get into it too much, but I'd say she's about 75% potty trained. We still keep her in diapers at all times, but for the most part they're staying clean and dry now. Ivy loves it because she hates being wet more than she hates anything else, so it's also cut down on the crying about 75%.

Eating:
Well, this one's pretty simple and would be the same in a house as it is on a boat. Ivy's 100% breastfed. We own a bottle (somewhere) but she doesn't use it.

Playing:
Ivy's playtime is ever evolving as she gets bigger. She started using a johnny jump up at two months old. It hangs from a handrail and she can push off of the cushion and bounce. She has a bumbo, but she's never been a big fan of it. Aside from that, we don't have any fancy contraptions for her to sit in/lay in/play in. No playpens or pack-n-plays.

She's just about sitting up on her own now, with a few topples here and there, so I decided to start dropping the table down to make one big play area for her. It's safe, it's cushy, it's fun. And I can sit over there with her while she plays, so there's currently no need for any safety netting. I know that's only going to last us a few weeks, so I've started figuring out the best way to make it safer for her. We have some extra lifeline netting that I plan on putting up very soon. She'll be able to practice crawling and standing up there, and it's a really nice sized area for her to play in.

She obviously doesn't have a lot of space for a lot of toys, but I'm sure most parents would say "oh, you're lucky!" She still has a good amount of things to play with - toys of different sizes and textures. Toys that squeak and teething toys. Fabric toys and wooden toys. She's certainly not missing out on anything there.

Sleep:
Ivy sleeps with us in the v-berth. She sleeps like a champ. It's awesome. But there are times when it's harder to live in such a small space with her because of the issue of sleep.

For instance, she likes to wake up at 4am sometimes. I like to let Justin sleep, since that's only 4 1/2 hours after he gets home from work. Usually it's just fine - I can take her out of the v-berth, shut the door, and we're fine. But if she's having a rough morning and screaming, that door is pretty thin and she keeps him awake. When she gets up at 4, she's usually ready for a nap at 6. The easiest way to get her to nap is to take her back into bed (well, that or the Ergo, but at 6, I'm always hoping for a bit more sleep as well). If Justin's still in bed, then we end up waking him up until she goes back to sleep. It's not a terrible setup by any means, but I imagine that naps with a baby in a house go much differently than this.

And then there are the daytime naps. The time where I think "Yes! I can do the dishes and vacuum and clean up the boat!" Except...I can't. I don't dare do the dishes, because if I drop a fork, she wakes up. And if she doesn't get enough sleep, she'll be cranky. So either I do dishes when she's awake and happy and playing somewhere safely, or I do them when she's in the Ergo, or one of us does them when we're both home.

Another silly thing that we have to be very aware of is Willie's collar. We've discovered that Willie loves to do that doggy shake that dogs like to do. It makes his tags jingle SO loudly, and sometimes that wakes the baby. So we're always frantically trying to get his collar off before he wakes her.

I do turn on white noise for her, which helps with most things. It allows me to worry a bit less about waking her.

Naptime for Ivy is quiet time for everyone. It's the time when I nap with her when she's woken me up too early, the time that I do indexing, or the time that I update the blog. It's a great way to force myself to relax a little, because soon she'll be awake and needing this and that. Naptime is me time, and I am very thankful to have it.

Diesel

2011-08-03T20:45:00.000-07:00

Great great news. When we got our Creekmore for free we had the option of buying an old Westerbeke W80 along with it for $1000. The westerbeke was not in the boat, it was just on blocks in Henry's garage. It is a 1981 model and had NEVER been started. Once. So essentially brand new, but 30 years old. And of course the w80 model didn't sell so hot or last too long. So it was a real gamble to buy the engine. We bought it anyway. Of course.

Monday, our friend Miles came down to help me try to start it for the first time. We rigged up a diesel day tank, a new starting battery and a garden hose to the engine, which is loosely mounted inside the Creekmore.

It started instantly on the first turn of the key. I was amazed. So so amazed and so incredibly relieved. It didn't leak a single thing. It seriously ran like a brand new engine... which really... it is.

The only thing we didn't do was run the exhaust water out (since there is no thru hull for such a thing yet). So don't mind the water blowing all over into the bilge haha. That was planned!

This week, we are very proud of our Westerbeke. Every once in a while it's nice to have part of the plan fall into place.

Working Aboard

2011-07-25T11:40:00.000-07:00

Here we are in late July and I'm finally back to working again.

I did one project in May, when Ivy was going through the worst of her colic. It. Was. Hard. I finished up the work, but decided it was too early to take anything else so I took another month off.

Ivy is 4 months old today, and with that comes a few wonderful things - a happier baby and regular(ish) naps. She is full of smiles. She takes a couple of naps a day now and while I can't always rely on them, for the most part I can get a few things done again.

Work is going surprisingly well with having her around. I know that it will be forever changing as she grows, but at the moment I can work while she's eating or napping. Since I know I have limited time, I am really focused on the task at hand.

That being said - sometimes she just won't fall asleep in bed, so I put her in the Ergo carrier and let her sleep on me. It makes everything a bit more difficult, but doable. Whatever it takes, right?

Crappy picture of Ivy strapped to the front of me while I index a book.

One project at a time.

2011-07-20T15:49:00.000-07:00

We're getting there....

We used the same 1/2 inch scratch resistant polycarbonate sheeting for the companionway drop-in board as we had used on the pilothouse windows. It is nice crystal clear and durable stuff. Very happy with it, despite the price! The upright posts are 3/8 inch stainless barstock drilled with 1/4 inch holes and through bolted to matching uprights on the inside. I think it should work out nicely. The hatch itself is a Bomar aluminum hatch made just for companionways. We boughtt that from Henry along with the rest of the hatches he had purchased for the boat nearly 30 years ago.

Fun stuff.

-Justin.

Here Comes The Sun

2011-07-19T04:13:00.000-07:00

It's been going on for a couple of months now, and somehow I've just noticed the pattern. Ivy goes to bed at sunset and wakes up at sunrise.

It's such a beautiful, natural thing and I hope it lasts, even for a little while. I love that she's already so connected to nature, and I'd like to think that living on the boat contributes a bit to this rhythm she's gotten herself into. We don't use a lot of artificial lighting and we have curtains that let the light shine through. Just last night I was thinking that we maybe needed to make the v-berth darker so that she'd go to bed sooner, but now I'm rethinking that.

Maybe I'm taking too much credit for it, but it seems that it's most natural thing in the world that we've all defeated early on in our lives with artificial lights to make the day longer and curtains to make the night longer. We stimulate ourselves with coffee in the day, then take a tylenol P.M. when we can't wind down at night. Then we wake ourselves up with terrible screeching alarms, but only after hitting the snooze button multiple times.

I have to admit that I've never been a morning person. Far from it, in fact. At my worst, I was going to bed at sunrise. I was in college and had scheduled my earliest class at 4pm because I felt so trapped by my horrible sleep schedule and decided to just go with it.

As I sit here at 6:30am, roughly an hour after being up with Ivy for the day, I realize that I'm really growing into this new cycle of sleep and awake. I admit, sometimes 5am comes awfully early. I also admit that coffee has been my friend lately. Even still, I'm far more awake in the morning than I ever would expect, even when I go to bed an hour or two later than Ivy. If I followed in her footsteps and went to bed at sunset I'm betting I could cut coffee out entirely, but those late hours are when I finally get work done so at the moment it's not an option for me. Best part is that she naps frequently, and I can always take one with her.

I love that this little girl is teaching me how to live a more natural way, and I have to admit that I'm glad I'm not too ignorant to entirely miss the point. I could easily be resentful of these mornings, but then I'd be missing out on so much.

I know it may not last, but for now I will work with it in hopes that she will always remember to pay attention to the rhythm of nature.

(If we lived in Alaska this would be an entirely different post). ;)

Another Creekmore Update

2011-07-08T16:11:00.001-07:00

Creeky's Blue!

Before and After

Ivy's growing like a weed...

Gnawing. On. Everything.

And Justin cut my hair.

Creekmore Progress

2011-07-04T19:40:00.000-07:00

Justin's been hard at work on the Creekmore and I wanted to show it off. It's starting to look like a whole different boat.

Handwashing Video Clip

2011-07-02T08:31:00.001-07:00

I had a request to make a video explaining how we wash our clothes. Well, that's kind of boring these days (we go to the laundromat), but I do hand wash Ivy's diapers. Here's how it's done.

Polycarbonate

2011-06-28T14:26:00.000-07:00

Whew, the pilothouse windows are finally in. What a project. They are custom stainless frames cut, welded, and molded from 3/8" stainless barstock then adhered to the pilothouse with 3m VHB tape. Then 1/2" scratch resistant polycarbonate sheeting is fitted and VHB taped into the frames. All the edges are then sealed with Boatlife.

I'm happy with it. I think it turned out pretty darn nice for having never done such a thing before.

A Dog and His Ball

2011-06-15T17:06:00.001-07:00

So. Willie has this ball.

He found it in the park one day and dragged it home, as he sometimes does. Generally he'll find a tennis ball, bring it home, bring it back to the park the next day, and forget it there. End of story. But this ball was different. We weren't really sure why. Maybe it has the perfect squish when he bites it. Or maybe it's the fact that when it bounces, it bounces high, but not too high, and he can catch it mid-air. Maybe it's the color scheme. Whatever it is, Willie. Loves. This. Ball.

And he'll do anything to get it. He'll run over greyhounds, for instance.

Last year, Willie and I had a bit of a power struggle when it came to his walks. I was newly pregnant and very morning sick (all day long), and it took all of my energy just to walk him up to the lawn in order for him to do what needed to be done. He had spent the last few years of his life going for a fair walk prior to doing his business, but the docks at Thayer's Landing are far shorter than Constitution's, so he felt cheated. All he wanted was a bit of time to run and play. All I wanted was to lay back down so I wouldn't vomit, so it took me a bit of time to figure out Willie's thinking. He'd sometimes end up going more than 24 hours without peeing, even though I'd take him out 7 or 8 times. It was so frustrating. Suddenly it dawned on me - when I took a ball with and played with him, even for a few minutes, he'd do what needed to be done at the end of the play session. Problem solved.

The instant we came back to Thayer's Landing, Willie got into this rhythm. Every time we turned right off of the finger pier, he knew we were going up to the grass and he'd run back and grab his ball. If we turned left, he knew we were going to visit our neighbors, Jon and Kelli. If he forgot it, he'd hurry up and run back to get it. Now he never forgets it. It doesn't matter if it's 5am or midnight. Sometimes I think he's forgotten it until we get up to the grass and he turns around with a big orange grin.

Generally, Willie is happy with any toy. But I know that if he happens to lose this one in the water or wears it out, we're going to have to buy a replacement for him. Who knew that a dog would get so attached to a ball.

What's been going on with the Creekmore?

2011-06-08T14:33:00.000-07:00

To answer the title question: LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS. That's the basics of what has been going on. The current result is something we are very happy with, and is pictured here:

Yes, we finally have the hatches in. And the deck is painted (sorta). The pilot house frames are now in as well (not pictured above), but the install of those is pictured below. Sorry for the lack of pictures of the process of all this stuff. It'd make for great reading material in a "how-to" sorta way, but I just haven't had the time to stop and take pics in the middle of these projects.

So, lets see now... how'd we get to this point... Well, all spring it rained. It rained and rained and rained. Meanwhile the boat was sitting with no shrinkwrap (because it had collapsed in late winter) and we had all the hatches covered with plastic dropcloth and taped over. When our parents visited for Ivy's birth we got a small break in the weather. The help of the two fathers (now grandfathers) was a fantastic windfall and the deck got filled, faired, and primered (I think that might be in a previous post). Then it rained for many more weeks. The next quick weather window I was able to paint 2 coats around the hatches and then tape em back up. Again, rain and then a break in which I was able to drill all 72 holes that were going to be needed for the hatches. I drilled them all at 1/2" and refilled with thickened West System epoxy. This gave a solid core to drill 1/4" holes in for the 1/4-20 bolts. I got it all set nice and ready to install and then had to re-tape and cover it all up because the rain was back. Finally, two weeks ago, the weather actually truly got better. That was the cue I was waiting for. I painted the entire deck with 1 coat of Easypoxy High Gloss White (It took just over 4 hours). That added up to 3 coats around the hatches and I was then finally able to bolt them all in. To do this I decided to go a bit unorthodox. I used 3M VHB tape around the edges of the hatches. It is the same tape they use to put windows in airplanes and skyscrapers. I have friend who used it on the windows of their Morgan 36 and has had a great experience. I figured it was worth a shot. The VHB is only 1/4" wide, and the flanges on the hatches were over an inch so there was still room for some 3M 4000 UV adhesive, which is generally more standard of an approach. All the bolts were also well slathered with 4000 before being thru-bolted and sinched on with twin nuts below. Those hatches aren't going anywhere, for a long long time. The lids will rip off of the hatches long before the hatches themselves could ever leave the boat. I am very pleased with how they have turned out.

As for the pilothouse window frames, they only had about 1/4" flange all the way around so I went with VHB tape only and then used BoatLIFE Life Seal around the edges to give a watertight seal. Our friend Jon, who lives on Shantih here at Thayer's Landing with us, had some experience with Life Seal before so he came by to show me the proper way of masking it. The real key is in removing the tape IMMEDIATELY after it is caulked. It made for a fantastically smooth and straight line. Again, very happy with it. Now I just gotta get the glass (scratch resistant poly-carbonate). Expensive stuff...we'll get that later.

Other things:

**The hull, from the waterline up has been sanded, bad spots (where old primer was crackling) filled, faired and resanded. It is ready for paint.

**The hull, below the waterline has been sanded, filled and needs to be re-faired.

**There was a bad spot on the keel, just a tiny crack from the freeze/thaw of sitting out in rhode island winters for 20+ years. That has been ground out, filled, fiberglassed... still needs re-fairing.

**I got ahold of two old teak steps to start a staircase inside. I built a box structure underneath them to provide more storage. We didn't want a ladder because it just wastes the space behind it. The structure is still rudimentary in the picture below, but I also have two teak steps that will make it a full teak staircase. It is solid, stable and looks great with all 4 teak steps. The ply stucture will be skinned in oak to match the other oak in the picture. The only issue is that my engine access is behind there and I need to devise a way to move the stairs in a hurry (probably some sliding track?) to get to the engine room under the cockpit. But the main purpose is getting Jenny, Ivy, and Willie in and out safely. Even Willie can maneuver these stairs. It's hard to find a sailboat that dogs can easily enter/exit with no assistance.

**We bought some 1.5 inch wide stainless bar stock 3/8" thick and I have cut and ground 4 lengths of it to use as a tracks for the drop in board at the companionway. I had to do some work to make the opening hatch align nicely with the cutout and that project is still underway. The picture here shows the cabin top cutaway at the companionway. My hands are not small.

**We began oiling the teak inside the salon. Wow. It makes such a huge difference. The oak trim, which many boaters frown on, is such a fantastic highlight to the teak. I really love the way it looks together. We started doing this as an attempt to make the salon feel a bit more home-like. I want Jenny and Ivy to feel comfortable when they come hang out at the boat while I work. It has been very difficult for Jenny to get any real work done as she is constantly tending to Ivy. She is a fantastic and wonderfully attentive mother, but that means boatwork has to be on hold for her a bit. Fine by me, I love doing boatwork. I'll try to get some pictures of the newly oiled teak soon. It really does help make the place a bit homier.

**In keeping with the goal of making it more home-like we have been working on cushions and cushion fabric in the salon. This is just for the starboard settee... the chairs on the port side will be next whenever we finish the cushions... they are about half done now.

**We've purchased the prop shaft and prop. Those will be next on the install list. More about that later.

*We also got a brand new 3 burner propane oven. We now have it sitting in place waiting for a time when conveniences like an oven are more timely to deal with.

**The rudder has been removed, packed up and shipped off to a boatyard for repairs on the open patch where a self steering gear had at one point been intended.

**I managed to find a dirt cheap Engel 45qt freezer/fridge cooler. These things are awesome and some of the liveaboards I know (http://www.ellenjohnandrubicon.blogspot.com/) have done away with their icebox coldplates completely in favor of an Engel. This will make transitioning from Madrigal to Creeky so much easier as we will have 12/120volt refrigeration immediately upon moving in. SUCH A HUGE HELP.

**Last, but certainly not least, I've been making plenty of time to hang out with my beautiful new daughter. Ivy is fantastic and growing like crazy. All the boatwork combined with 50 hours a week of actual work at my job has made getting time with Ivy difficult. I hate the fact that in order to make our new home, I have to spend so much time away from our current home. Thus, we are trying desperately to get the Creekmore launched as soon as humanly possible. If we can launch it, we can live on it and then we can all be together while I work on the boat. Right now it pains me to leave home each day to go work on it. But I know that if I seriously keep busting at it, I can get it done quickly and then we can spend every day together. Hopefully that time will come sooner than later. Either way I cherish all my time with her. She is a funny little baby and is already developing the personality of a hamhead. She smiles all the time. We get lots of quasi giggles and coos. She loves when I make faces at her, or make monkey noises with her. She loves to fly like an airplane. We have great fun together already and I can't wait til we can move into the big boat where she will have so much more room to play and grow... and I can be there for all of it.

Low Tide, Yellow Boats, Persistant Fog.

2011-05-22T05:16:00.000-07:00

The title really says it all. Low tide is strangely beautiful when the river is down to mud flats. Thayer's currently consists of mostly yellow boats. Our soggy springtime just can't seem to give us a break. It's like we've been living in a cloud for the past week. At least all the yellow adds a bit of cheer.

Spring Baby

2011-05-16T08:11:00.001-07:00

The weather forecast from this morning...

I was thrilled to be having a spring baby. The lilacs would be in bloom, we'd go for long walks, we'd sit out in the cockpit enjoying the warm weather...

Well, thankfully the lilacs are in bloom, but that's about it. We have learned to fully appreciate the few nice days that we are granted, because they are very far between.

In the meantime, we've been enjoying the baby during the cold, rainy days. She loves her bath and is learning to roll over whenever the opportunity arises.

Plimouth, and a growing baby

2011-05-13T19:11:00.000-07:00

Ivy is cute as a button and growing all the time. We went to the doc a couple weeks ago for a checkup and she was already over 10 lbs! She had also gained an inch and half in height! Crazy! She has a little bit of baby acid reflux. It causes her to puke sometimes and occasionally gives her a cranky day or two. Luckily those days seem to be more of the exception. For the most part she is very healthy and happy.

Ivy, Resting Quietly.

For Jenny's first Mother's Day we took a little road trip down to Plymouth Ma. It isn't very far, but we hadn't been there yet. It is a very nice little town. There is a replica of the original Mayflower ship there. It was built in 1958 in Plymouth UK and then sailed across the Atlantic to Plymouth MA. What an incredible journey to take in such a scary looking tub!

Jenny, Ivy, and the Mayflower

We also went there partly because there was a "yard sale" being held by Jesse's Marine. We managed to get a Jabsco water pump used for FIVE DOLLARS! What a deal.

Ivy doesn't seem to be enjoying the sun as much as us here.

It was a beautiful sunny day, and one of the few we've had lately. We ate ice cream and walked the town for a while. It really was a great day.

Tomorrow

2011-04-30T15:50:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow we move back to Thayers Landing. We look forward to so many things. Quiet days, quiet evenings, quiet nights. The birds. Our own yard. Familiar places. The farm stand, the park, the library. A peaceful river in which we can sail, row or motor the dinghy as a little family. And this year we're not alone! Our friends, Jon and Kelli, along with their son Seth and their dog, will be following us to also live at Thayers. This is so exciting for us all. They are great people and great company.

Seth!

There are things we will miss too. Justin's short commute to work. Friends. Sophie and Rosy. The conveniences of a large marina. The coffee shop nearby.

Sophie and Rosy on s/v Rubicon

But isn't that the beauty of the boat? We can always return, and most likely will. The things that drive us crazy at one marina end up being the things we miss the most after being away for six months, so while we're ready for some peace and quiet now, come fall we'll welcome the crowds, the city, and all those other things that we thought we'd never miss but somehow suddenly can't wait for again.

Ivy is looking forward to it.

One Month!

2011-04-25T11:28:00.000-07:00

Oh my! Ivy is one month old today. What a milestone. What an adventurous month this little girl has had.

Holy crap. She already looks like a little girl.

She had her first boat ride (well, the boat was moved by the people in the marina - we didn't actually start the engine or set sail...) so we are now out on G-dock, awaiting the big move to Thayers Landing. When will that be? It could be tomorrow, it could be May 1st. We're not sure yet.

Our friend Mark going out for a sail...and our view from G dock.

She made a best friend. Willie is totally in love with this little girl.

Willie's form of loving...an ear kiss. Or twenty, for her.

We are already spoiling her with gifts and purchased a boat for her...

Eli Scout 8'

Ok ok, so the dinghy isn't really for her...yet. We've gone through two dinghies already, searching for the perfect one. The first: a watertender 9.4. A very nice dinghy, but when we moved aboard Madrigal, it was too large to keep on deck. We traded it out for an Achilles inflatable. It took some time to get used to it, but it was so nice to have a dinghy that didn't clunk against the side of the boat while at anchor.

But then Ivy came along, and we realized with all of her cute little baby things aboard, we probably weren't going to get to take Madrigal out sailing a whole lot this year. Also, we watched a few people on sailing dinghys in the Fore River last year and we were thoroughly impressed and completely jealous, so we've been keeping an eye out on Craigslist for a few months in search of the perfect dinghy. In fact, we nearly decided to build our own dinghy but then we came across the Eli Scout 8' for a steal, and we couldn't pass it up.

The inflatable has already sold, so we're back down to just owning one dinghy.

With all that adventure, Ivy has been one tired little girl.

Happy one month birthday, Ivy! Another fun month awaits you.

Life is moving fast.

2011-04-12T19:17:00.000-07:00

Wow, time is really clipping by. In so many ways. There is so much to say, because so much has happened. I can really only touch on some highlights. We'll have to update more often in order to capture some details a bit better!

Ivy, asleep last night

Let's start with Ivy. She's growing. So quick. I expected as much, I had been warned. But it's true, her little cheeks have chubbed out beautifully. She is extremely pretty (I might be biased). She isn't quite 3 weeks old yet, but already some of her newborn stuff is a bit snug. Her big feet barely fit in the newborn socks!

Last week: somewheres around 1 week old

So far, she has been the perfect child. Jenny's parents visited for our first week home with Ivy. My parents visited for the second week. We spent most of that time on Gaia (the same boat we flew to St. Thomas to sail on last winter is now back in Boston and was vacant for the winter). We spent our nights on Madrigal and the days were spent hanging with the new grandparents either on Gaia or bumming around greater Boston. We made run to Nantasket Beach. We showed off our Creekmore project (more on that below). We went to Gloucester. We ate at Woodman's clambake in Essex. Lots of fun was had and we enjoyed hauling Ivy around the area. She had a lot of fun for a newborn.

My Mom and her beloved first Granddaughter, snuggling.

Ivy sleeps pretty well. Awake every 1-2 hours the first half of the night, but just long enough to nurse and go back to sleep (So it's obviously easier for me, Justin). But then in the wee hours of the morning... 4 or 5, she crashes out for a couple 3 hour stretches and Jenny and I catch up on sleep then. It works out pretty well. Of course, I'm back to work this week with a crazy schedule covering for coworker vacations, so now I'll be all messed up. Such is life.

Ivy and Daddy

Here are a few pictures of her from today, April 12th, which makes her 2 weeks and 4 days old. You can really see her change even from the one week old picture above. :)

She is a very "aware" baby. It's weird to say, but she really really stays awake and alert and quiet. Good and observational. I like it.

Her entire pinkie finger is the size of the last joint of my own pinkie.

She is also very strong. Like crazy strong. Jenny read today that when lain on their stomach a baby should be able to lift their own head by 2 months of age. Ivy did it on day 1. She does it regularly. If I lay her on my stomach, belly to belly, and she is cranky or hungry, she'll wiggle/crawl right up to my face and look at me like "Dad, y u no have boobies?" I think soon she'll be able to dance.

I like to stand her up and help her dance.

Pretty Ivy.

How about that other boat of ours? The weather finally broke while the grandparents were visiting. It was the opportunity I'd been waiting for. Jenny's dad helped epoxy putty and filler all the bad spots on deck which had been previously sanded down to lots of shallow craters. Just that was a huge accomplishment, and more than I had expected in the first week of being a first time parent of a newborn!

A test fitting of the hatches before the primer.

But it gets better. My dad then helped sand all those newly epoxied areas back down to smooth and fair. We were then ready for... gasp... paint! Well, primer anyhow. I pulled that silly old plastic sheeting off of the hatches and pilothouse windows and we primered around those areas first. Those areas are the key to everything right now. If I can get those dang pesky hatches installed she'll finally be watertight. That will be a HUGE relief, making her easier to work on, easier to leave sitting, much closer to being livable, and dang prettier.

Here we primed around the hatch openings.

My poor dad traveled all the way from Michigan
to see his granddaughter and I stuck him in a tyvek suit
and handed him a roller.

So now most of the deck is primed. There are a few areas that weren't quite ready yet. There is a hole where Henry had placed a chimney to a long since removed kerosene heater. That is the ugly patch in the middle that needs fixing. Plus the gunwales and cockpit are yet to be primed. But my main concern was the bulk of the deck and the hatch areas. Now a quick coat of topcoat easypoxy and I can install hatches!

The mostly primered deck.

The pilothouse window frames were recently re-welded and strengthened up by a friend of mine. I'll drill some holes in them soon and get those ready to install. Hopefully the next few weeks will see the rest of the deck primercoated and then at least one topcoat before hatches go in. Then 3 total topcoats followed by a grit paint. Likely Kiwigrip, a fantastic nonskid that some of our friends recently used.

Also, I'm slowly acquiring lead for the keel. There are a lot of resources in the works. I'll let you know how things pan out.

Whew. We are certainly busy, but we are loving life. Little Ivy really has made things more enjoyable. She adds a whole new spin on things and quite literally breathes new life into everything we do. There were many naysayers and I still hear people constantly remarking "Oh your life is over now. Everything is going to change. You've got a kid that'll take all your money and time. Your life isn't yours. You've done it now. etc etc." Those people suck and they are totally and completely wrong. Having a baby adds new life, it doesn't ruin yours. It's great fun. Stressful? Maybe, but not really. It's entertaining. She's cute. She's fun. She's a responsibility, but only in a good way. I don't regret a single thing in our babies and boats decisions and at this rate I don't think I ever will.

Introducing Ivy Angela Halteman

2011-03-31T19:22:00.000-07:00

Ivy

Born Friday March 25th, 2011 at 4:37pm, weighing in at 7lb. 10 oz. and 20 1/2 inches long. More details to come as we settle into this new life of ours. She's absolutely perfect.

Ivy asleep on Grandpa Caron (Jenny's Dad)

Jenny had a long and hard labor. It lasted just over 30 hours and we were in the hospital an extra day while Jenny received a blood transfusion. A whole team of doctors were there to deliver her strange placenta... a story in itself. Despite all that Jenny did the entire thing with NO pain meds. It was incredible and Ivy came out perfectly healthy. So far, she has been a dream child. She sleeps well, and often. She does not cry excessively. She is crazy strong. She sucks on my nose. She is beautiful and we love her very much. Willie likes to give her kisses on her ears.

Jenny's parents are visiting this week, and mine are visiting next week. By then we should be into a bit more of a routine and we might find some time to do a nice big birth story kind of post. We'll try to keep you all updated in the meantime. So far, it's wonderful and we are having a great time with our new little life aboard.

Welcome Ivy! We love you so much!

Sleeping

2011-03-18T17:59:00.000-07:00

I started having issues with the v-berth a month or two ago. Climbing out of the v-berth with a growing belly became harder and harder every day. I am getting up 3-5 times a night, and to get out of the bed I have to spin around, get my feet on the sewing machine step, and somehow try to not wake Justin in the process. Step 1 was the most difficult, followed by step 3. To get back into bed was just as much of a chore, and frankly it was exhausting. I was beginning to feel very much like this pup:

Finally, I had enough. Our table drops down to form a bed, so we've been sleeping on that for the past week. Truthfully, it's far less comfortable, but I'm not waking up Justin at night now and it has made getting back in to bed much easier. Getting out is still fairly difficult (in fact, I am much more like that little puppy trying to get out of the bed now!) but at least I've eliminated *some* of the frustrations of sleep!

Soon there will be a baby that will keep us both awake at night, but for now at least one of us can get a good night's sleep, and I can get in and out a little easier.

Nachos, Friends and Dogs

2011-03-13T09:20:00.000-07:00

This winter has been different than winters past - namely that there have been a lack of dinner parties, or at least far less than normal.

One of my favorite things about having people visit the boat is that it gives us a good reason to actually clean things up. No, we're not slobs, but seriously even ONE backpack clutters the boat up, so to have a few things laying around really makes it seem like a wreck inside.

We had a simple meal of nachos (with paper plates - classy), and had roughly 9 people over.

Even Willie had a playmate - McQueen! Willie and McQueen are the most perfectly matched dogs ever. You'd think they came from the same litter by how similar they are in looks and size, and their personalities blend perfectly as well. I could watch the two of them play all day long.

The food was good, the company was great, and we were even able to get a game of cards in afterwards! Such a great night.

Have You Had That Baby Yet?

2011-03-09T15:53:00.000-08:00

Last Week: 36 Weeks

Jenny found this delightfully informative site: http://haveyouhadthatbabyyet.com/

This Week: 38 Weeks

Friday will be 38 weeks.... She could be born any day now.

Deck Prep (or Sanding, Sanding, Sanding)

2011-03-08T15:51:00.000-08:00

With the shrinkwrap off of the Creekmore it means I can access the entire deck. That is great news for the sanding that needs to be done. And there is a LOT of sanding to be done due to water damage over the years. Henry had finished the deck, faired it all in and then put a good coating of primer on the whole thing. It was all set to be painted. Then he covered it in tarps and moved on with his life. Well, wet tarps on a primer coated deck for 30 years are not ideal. It caused a lot of cracking, bubbling, and crazing. I had sanded a lot around xmas time and thought I was near done, but when the dust was cleared (literally) there was much more to be done with smaller damage I had not noticed before. So, after many days spent sanding I believe I am finally ready to fill the new gaps and craters with a fairing filler. I am using System Three Quick Fair that I got from www.defender.com. Quick Fair is a 2 part epoxy filler that I used previously when I was fixing the cockpit seams on Madrigal. It worked well, the mix was a simple 2:1 and sanded nicely. A year later now and I can not tell the quickfaired part from any other part of the deck. So, I ordered a gallon and a half of the stuff, which arrived today, and now I just have to wait for weather above 50 deg fahrenheit to apply it. Then, I get to finish sand the whole thing again and apply a nice new coat of primer. Then, it will finally be in the same state it was 30 years ago: ready for paint :)

Below are some pics of the deck sanded and ready for fairing filler. The white-ish part is the old primer and the more tan colored spots are where I have had to sand through it right back down to the fiberglass & epoxy.

Progress is good.

-Justin

A productive, yet terrifying step forward.

2011-03-04T19:37:00.000-08:00

Drilling holes in a boat is always kinda scary, especially in any exterior part of the boat. The first time I had to drill a hole in Madrigal's deck was to install the 3" flue vent for the fireplace. That was a scary one. Madrigal however, was already full of various holes for deck fittings and thru-hulls.

Our Creekmore, is another story. I had before me the brand new, unspoilt, hand-laid, 45 foot, fiberglass hull of a future offshore cruising sailboat. And I held in my hand an 8-volt DeWalt power drill with a 1-7/8 hole saw bit. Ugh. I was sick to my stomach at the thought of what I was about to do.

"Measure twice, cut once" is the ever present advice of my Grandfather. I must have measured at least 10 times and I was still shaky with bad nerves when it came time to pull the trigger. Of course, this begs the question, "WHY? Why are you drilling holes in your new boat?" Well, the shrinkwrap was a bit of an ordeal and eventually leads to a need for holes.... The wrap and frame was hastily erected with a storm about to blow in, and our big trouble was that there are no stanchions, cleats, lifelines, masts, rigging lines or anything else to tie the frame off to. Nor could we tie the shrinkwrap strapping to anything. All lines had to be led under the boat as belly bands (which only works until the keel starts sloping forward and then the ties just shimmy off the bow) or they had to be tied to the boat stands. Lets just say the whole job came out shoddy, floppy, loose and annoying. Amazingly, I was able to coax it along and keep the system upright and shedding snow through all of our winter storms and large snow falls. I was impressed -until last Sunday. We had one of those awesome 50 mph nor'easters blow through and it finally collapsed the wrap. The frame splintered, the wrap shredded. It was a mess.

No shrink wrap creates issues. There are no hatches in the boat and there are no cockpit drains. We can tape off the hatches with plastic and no-stick duct tape (amazing stuff). That's easy enough and seems very waterproof. The cockpit drains are another issue. Hence, I had to drill holes in the boat.

Hull core plug.

I put two drains the back wall of the cockpit (using fancy little flat sided thru hulls I found, but do not currently have pics of- sorry) that run back into the aft lazarette and down though the overhang. Soon I will install two more that go down through the bottom of the cockpit and out the sides, and I'm even going to put a big ol' pipe or two that goes straight out the back in case we ever get a boarding wave. Lots of cockpit drainage is a good thing. In the end it will be four 1.5 inch drains (2 down and to the sides and 2 going back) plus two 3 inch pipes going out the back.

Looking forward and port this is a cockpit drain that comes back out of the aftmost

cockpit bulkhead and runs down out of the overhang above the waterline. (a temporary install)

The current scupper/drains are only siliconed in place for now. They are just place holders that are just waterproof enough until I can properly bed them. It was a quick job to accomodate the sudden lack of shrinkwrap. But really, it works out well as it gives me a good launching point. I can now spend a day fairing in the areas around scuppers and molding things exactly how I want them before I 5200 them in permanently. Hopefully I can get this cockpit to shed tons of water in no time flat :)

New England Aquarium

2011-03-02T11:14:00.000-08:00

It has been a long winter aboard Madrigal (and in New England in general), so to celebrate the coming of March, Justin and I took a trip to the New England Aquarium. I can't count the amount of times I have been there (umm, LOTS)...and honestly, nothing ever changes much with their displays (understandably so!), but I love it there. I can't wait until we have a kiddo to take with us!

Maybe we're not in the tropics where we could see some of these things while swimming around with them, but honestly, I love the seasons. That is not to say that I don't want to someday be swimming with these crazy looking creatures, but for now it's ok...because spring is right around the corner now, and the aquarium keeps me entertained.

Hatches and Ports

2011-02-24T17:27:00.000-08:00

We are sad to say that we have not had much quality time to work on the new boat. Blame it on my pregnancy, blame it on lack of money, blame it on the cold...but we just haven't been making as much forward progress as we had initially hoped. Such is life.

Finally, we decided to take a road trip down to Rhode Island to visit the previous owners, and to purchase some of the extras that they have for the boat. We decided it was time to buy the hatches and ports!

We keep going back and forth - do we paint and then put hatches (and ports) in, or vice versa? There are reasons for each way. Painting first makes more sense, but the boat is outside and covered with a sketchy shrinkwrap system. Lack of hatches in that condition is just asking for an accidentally wet interior. However, Justin thinks he can make the shrinkwrap last long enough to get the decks painted and then put the hatches in as soon as possible after that. We just hope the weather and the baby cooperate and that paint can happen sooner than later.

We had a very nice visit with Henry and Birgitta and packed all the hatches into the car. The Bomar hatches were purchased brand new ~30 years ago, and they still had the paper over the lexan to protect them from scratches! We wanted to see what they looked like underneath, so we picked away at the corner of the paper and tried to peel it, and...the paper was stuck. I mean really, really stuck.

We knew that you have to be careful with lexan, as it scratches very easily. We tried to just pick away at the paper with a fingernail until it came off, but we would have been doing that for a month! Also, when we did get the paper to come off, it left a terrible gluey residue on the glass. We were actually quite worried that this layer was basically baked right into the glass, and that these ''brand new'' hatches were going to look terrible when we were done.

Well, finally we found that some soap, hot water, and elbow grease really got the stuff to come off of the glass, including the residue. It all came off in layers - first the paper, then the glue, then the residue. We spent quite a few hours working on them together, but it was nice to sit down and work on a boat project together, to make good progress, and to see some beautiful hatches underneath it all.

Heating up the soapy water.

Peeling away at the gubbus.

Beautiful!

Almost There...

2011-02-05T12:44:00.001-08:00

Pregnancy has been far different than what I anticipated it would be. Morning sickness was worse, but bearable. Being large bellied is something I often forget about, until I knock something over with it or can't squeeze myself through a tight space...or roll over in bed. Actually, rolling over in bed has been one of the hardest things for me about pregnancy, and it's certainly nothing to complain about.

I'm 33 weeks now, and the countdown is on! I'm due next month! Next month, we will have our little boat baby here to cuddle and comfort. Knowing that we are *so* close now, time has come to a standstill. I try to keep myself busy - I've been working a lot (yay money), handwashing cloth diapers (they need to be pre-washed to get fluffier), spending quality time with Justin, watching movies, and reading/preparing for childbirth. And yet, time stands still. I'm actually thrilled that I have to go to see the doctor once a week, because each visit reminds me that another week has passed.

And still, I'm 33 weeks! I still remember so distinctly being 8 weeks, 12 weeks, 20 weeks, 30 weeks...and now 33. Time IS passing. We have our last Bradley class on Monday. We meet with our doula on Saturday. Most of our "to do" list has been crossed off. I've started packing for the hospital even! People always say that the 1st and 3rd trimesters creep by, and I completely understand. I was so sick the 1st trimester that I really thought it would never end, but the 2nd was far more enjoyable and full of so many firsts. I even went into the 3rd trimester with hope that it would go by just as quickly as the last, but 30 weeks hit and the standstill had begun.

I imagine labor will be the same way, especially if it is long. One of the big things that I keep thinking about my labor is- how will I pass the time?

Doctor Visit Update

2011-01-27T19:02:00.000-08:00

We had an early appointment this morning, and over a foot of snow last night! We were prepared and got up extra early. It was a good thing because it took quite some time to get there.

I am enjoying the new hospital quite a bit. Some reasons are simple, some are more complex, but overall they just make me feel much more comfortable. One of the simplest things is that all of the doctors, nurses, etc. always point out all of the restrooms to me, even if they know I've just used one 20 minutes prior! I always need to go, and it's such a nice touch. They probably snicker as I go in at every single opportunity, but I truly appreciate it.

Today was the first nonstress/biophysical profile test. They had two ace bandages that they wrapped around my belly, and two sensors that tuck underneath. One sensor measures the baby's heartbeat and the other measures for any contractions I may have. Her heartbeat went anywhere from the 120s to the 160s, and every time I felt her move is when it went high. The doctors left us alone and after 20 minutes, they came in and said that everything looked and sounded perfect.

Totally unflattering picture of me with the belts on, which look far more uncomfortable than they really are.

Next, I had my ultrasound. They are continually monitoring the velamentous cord insertion, and said that it showed no signs of change today. I don't think they were necessarily expecting any change, but they want to keep a close eye on it regardless. The succenturiate placenta also looks the same.

They also wanted to do an estimated fetal weight today, since a VCI baby oftentimes shows signs of growth restriction. They simply take a few measurements (they actually took a couple of measurements of her head) and say that she is weighing in at roughly 4 lbs. already, which is spot on for where she should be. I was glad to hear that she wasn't too small OR too big, and it obviously means that the placenta and cord are doing what they're supposed to be doing!

Baby weighs as much as this tub of Red Vines. mmm, licorice.

Since things looked so spot on, they were a bit more relaxed about having me come in for the rest of the nonstress tests/biophysical profiles. Initially they wanted me to come in twice a week, but now I just have to come in once a week, and they were able to set them up so they generally go along with my other appointments.

A couple of random things about our visit: they were able to see a little bit of hair on the baby's head! I won't be surprised if they are someday able to have colorized ultrasound machines and will be able to tell you the color of their hair. Seems strange that they can even see as much as they do already. Also, the doctors called her a 'wild child' and were in awe of how much she was moving around! This can only mean one thing - Justin and I better enjoy our sleep while we can. It's really a shame that you can't stock up on it before birth. And last - she was head down, just as I thought! She's beginning to prepare to make her way into the world!

Overall, a perfect visit, and 32 weeks tomorrow! Time is flying now.

-Jenny

------------

Justin here, just wanting to add some quick notes about the boat in the cold weather recently. It has been like a real winter here! Jenny and I are both from Michigan and we are used to weather much colder and snowier than what Boston has had since we've lived here. This year Boston has finally pulled out all the stops to give us an honest to goodness winter. :) We love it!

This weather certainly adds some interesting aspects to living on the boat. We've never had more than maybe 2 inches of ice in the marina, and even that was only in around a-dock where there is least water movement. Well last week we got a foot of snow, then it got to sub zero temperatures for the first time since we've lived here. The ice was a good 4 inches thick and the marina wasn't able to get their ice breaking tender in because it was too small and light. The movement of Madrigal swaying on the dock lines had kept he ice a couple inches from the hull and created sort of a safety pocket so that the ice didn't try to squeeze or crush. --then the wind kicked up as last night's nor-easter blew in.... We started rocking and suddenly our 2 inches of wiggle room between the ice wasn't enough. We would SLAM into the ice and everything would shake and rattle. It was really creepy, but our lines were just tight enough that it wasn't really doing any damage. Just making an awful racket and being a little scary. Our paint at the waterline might be a little worse for wear, but I doubt it.

And then there was the bilge pump hose issue... During those two days of sub zero temps the hose leading out of our main bilge pump froze over. It runs in a convoluted path from amidships to the transom and overboard above the waterline. Well, in the course of that run there are some ups and downs. The valleys created by the downs always have a bit of water in them. In the worst spot possible--of course-- the hose froze where it has to dip down to go under a bulkhead below the cockpit between two lazarettes. ugh. It took Jenny and I over 3 hours with pans of hot water, a hair dryer, space heaters, a steel wire snake, and a lot of contortions to get the dang thing warmed up and moving again. Now we know: if it gets down to zero, we have to let some of our cabin heat back there!

And through it all, we stay so toasty warm in our comfy little boat.

That's all. Otherwise it's just been fun in the snow!

-Justin

Laundry

2011-01-20T09:17:00.001-08:00

Sometimes you get into the swing of things taking a little bit longer due to the fact you live on a boat, and don't realize quite how much time is being spent with those chores until you spend a few days in a house with all the amenities.

Friends graciously offered Justin and I to stay at their cabin in the woods of New Hampshire, anytime we want. We have been wanting to get away this winter before the baby arrives, and Justin was able to finagle his schedule at work so that we had a long weekend to do so.

We had a fantastic time, and it's just such a beautiful spot. We went up with no plans whatsoever, but did bring our laundry, a few games, and of course, Willie!

Much of the laundry that we brought up was the new cloth diapers that we have. I was told to prewash them - some of them need it so that the cotton absorbs better, and some of them needed it for the fabric (PUL) to seal. Really, this was my first lesson in living aboard that laundry takes a hell of a long time to do when you live on a boat!

There are three ways of doing laundry if you live aboard. 1) You hand wash. 2) You use the marina's laundry facilities. 3) You go to a laundromat/friend's house/family's house. Over the years, we have used a combination of the three.

When I hand wash, I have to go into the lazarette, pull out life jackets, extra dock lines, and fenders, and pull the 5 gallon bucket out. I then have to empty the bucket, which usually has more lines in it, then I generally put everything back where it came from. I fill the bucket full of water, add soap, swish it around, and then add the clothes. I have a plunger that is used solely for laundering purposes, and I generally bring the bucket inside and set it under the table, where I plunge our clothes for a couple of minutes. Throughout the day, I will continue to plunge them as I walk by the bucket. Once I've decided that I've squished them enough, I dump the water, rinse the clothes, and hang them on the lifelines to dry. (Note: This must be done on a sunny day, otherwise the bucket gets thrown in the head and the rinsing/drying happens the next day).

When I wash clothes at the marina, I have to load up an Ikea bag or two (those things are enormous) and, depending on how much laundry I have, I may or may not have to scope out a dock cart. In the winter, this is an easy task because we are docked right next to the drop off point. In the summer, it's a whole other story. At Constitution Marina, dock carts can be hard to come by in the summer, and sometimes you have to walk the entirety of the marina just to beg one off of someone. Once you get the cart, you check your pockets twenty times to ensure that you have enough quarters and lug up all of your laundry to the washers and dryers, hoping like mad that someone else isn't using them. After the 15 minute walk to get to the washers, you almost always find that at least two of the three of them are full. As long as there's one, you're ok, but you have to be diligent to promptly switch your laundry over so that it doesn't get stolen by someone else....otherwise you'll only get one load of laundry in that day. Then there's always the issue - do I walk the 15 minutes back to the boat, only to turn around again to switch my laundry over? I usually bring everything I need to also take a shower, so that I can wait for it. Anyway, you get my point. Laundry takes forever when you have to do it at the marina, and you had better not expect to get much else done that morning/afternoon/evening.

The laundromat isn't too terrible, actually. You just have to fill those ikea bags, find that dock cart, and bring the laundry up to the car, then reverse the process when you get home.

So, when we got to our friend's place and the washer and dryer were in the very same living space, it was absolutely amazing and it suddenly dawned on me that we (boat people) are a little bit crazy for doing any laundry at all!

This has also made me realize that cloth diapering on a boat is going to be a little bit insane, so after much researching, we will be going with diaper covers and flat fold diapers for the majority of our cloth diapering. The flats are a square piece of fabric that you fold in various ways to cover the baby's bum. The great thing about them is they're way easy to hand wash, and they dry really, really quickly. I really think it's the only way that I will sanely cloth diaper the baby on this boat. We also have about a dozen of what are called pocket diapers and those have microfiber inserts, but both the cover and inserts must be washed each time, and they don't hand wash as easily, nor do they dry nearly as fast.

Hanging the flats to dry after their first, second and third prewash.

Newborn size diaper covers, thanks to Serena and Tig!

Pocket diapers and microfiber inserts. Notice that the snaps make them a one-size-fits-all diaper.

I realize that this is an insanely long post to discuss the ''simple'' topic of laundry, but I think fellow liveaboards will totally understand it, and dirt dwellers might get a small understanding of just how simple their lives really are! (And for the record - I am totally NOT complaining...I just found it interesting enough to write about).

Snow!

2011-01-14T05:11:00.000-08:00

As you might already know. It snowed like mad here a couple days ago (about 14 inches). Jenny and I both love having some real snow around. I think it reminds us both of Michigan and it is just fun to play in. Most of Boston, myself included, got the day off of work. Both boats, and their shrinkwrap covers, faired just fine. All in all, it was a good storm. The snow was very sticky and icy, and if you look close in the pictures of the rigging you can see that the snow grabbed onto the wires and built up into big spirals a couple inches thick.... like a giant candy cane for a backstay, with no red parts of course! So fun!

And we had fun playing in the snow. We ran around with Willie for a while and threw snowballs at fellow boaters on the docks.

Preparing the Boat for a Baby

2011-01-11T17:54:00.000-08:00

I am nearing the 30 week mark of my pregnancy, and that means one thing. We have to get this boat ready for a baby. I will be considered full-term in 7 weeks, so at the very latest we should have the boat entirely prepared for her arrival by then!

Slowly, we have been cleaning up the boat in preparation (and I mean really slowly...we really have to do a major overhaul sooner than later!) The quarterberth went from being our storage bin to being a storage bin in the back and a sort of ''nursery'' in the front. I use the term nursery very lightly. Basically, we bought a couple of plastic drawers and filled them with her clothes and cloth diapers, blocking off the rest of the quaterberth from view. (As you can see from the pictures, I am in the process of painting the ugly white plastic, and covering the front of the drawers with pretty fabrics).

The nav desk is right there, so Justin has rigged it so that the top of the desk is completely flat. We covered that up with a pad, and that is the changing table. Above that, I took some netting and hung it up with a few books in it.

One thing that I have heard fantastic things about was the tummy tub, and I really wanted to give it a try with our little one. If you do a search on youtube, you will find some fantastic videos of babies LOVING these. Some people find them a little creepy (you have to hold their head up at all times, at least until they are able to on their own), but they're quite amazing to me in that the babies really seem to absolutely love being in them. A lot of people ask why we didn't just buy a bucket, but we have been assured that the tub is not just any ol' bucket, so we trusted what we heard and purchased one. Thankfully, it was a tiny bit smaller than I had anticipated, but that still didn't mean we had a place to put it! For now, the best place we've come up with is above the nav desk/changing table. I attached a couple of small ropes and a clip to make it easy to hang, so we'll see what we think of it up there! So far it hasn't been in the way, but we may find that it gets in the way of the changing table. Hard to say, but for now it works.

Every baby needs a fire extinguisher hanging in their nursery...

On the starboard side, we moved what had once been our olive oil/balsamic vinegar/spaghetti noodle/wine storage back to the galley, and have replaced that with frequently used baby items (or what we assume will be frequently used). We have the Ergo and slings (thanks Jon and Kelli!), some baby washcloths, a few toys, a bottle, and a couple of soothie pacifiers.

One of my favorite stuffed animals (a puppet, actually) from when I was a little girl.

Also, we will be hanging the Happy Hangup (thanks again, Jon and Kelli!) on the starboard side, over a cushion (just in case *something* would happen, she would only fall a couple of inches, instead of a couple of feet!) We are hoping that she likes it, and expect that it will become a fairly permanent fixture over there, at least for awhile.

The awesome owl picture is from Auntie Angie, and the 'welcome baby' sign (to the left of the owls) is from Grandma Caron. Grandma also made her the cute teddy bear that is in the Happy Hangup!

For the times where we'd like her in bed with us, we purchased a bassinet (super cheap on craigslist!) which will probably go on my side of the bed, or we can move it into the main salon during the day if she seems to prefer sleeping in that instead of the happy hangup. I'm sure she'll want to change things up!

Justin's favorite stuffed animal from when he was a boy.

It's a work in progress, but we are pretty happy with the way the boat is looking. A few things will have to be tied down if we want to go out for a sail, but the great thing is that we should still be able to go out just fine. We expect that we'll get out on the water far less in the next year than we would like, but at least we'll still have the option. We won't be filling our boat with random baby crap that we'll never use, because we just can't afford to, spatially.

I expect that many of my posts in the upcoming months (years?) will be far more baby related, but I will work my hardest at relating those posts to living on a boat. I have been following many boat family blogs that are very entertaining to read, and I hope that some of our ideas will be inspirations to others that living on a boat with a baby isn't a terribly strange or scary thing to do.

I expect many of Justin's posts in the upcoming months will be of the new boat and our adventures with that. We haven't been down to work on it much lately, as we just haven't had the time/money (especially money) to do much to it. It's slightly frustrating, but sometimes, that's just the way it goes.

And since I haven't posted one in awhile - here's a picture of the growing belly!

It's a Girl!

2011-01-10T14:00:00.001-08:00

We have known for 2 1/2 months now, but wanted to keep it a secret. Turns out, secret keeping isn't really that fun for me, and it's definitely not fun for Justin.

But, after hiding this secret for so long, we decided that we needed a good time to tell everyone, so Christmas it was! We told our families first, then announced it to our friends.

We've had two ultrasounds now, and they're pretty positive that we are having a little girl!

Also - the 3D ultrasounds are fairly creepy, but they did one for us at the last appointment. It's fun to have a small idea of what our little girl looks like...but it won't be long now before we know for sure. Mind you, there are strange shadows that show up in these pictures, but you can still make out the facial features pretty well!

Christmas 2010

2011-01-07T18:26:00.000-08:00

Every so often, Boston gets hit with a doozy of a snowstorm. Of course, this year it happened the day that Justin was supposed to fly out to his parents in Michigan...and of course, it cancelled his flight. Long story short - he never did make it home for Christmas this year and we were both pretty bummed about it. I was able to see my family for about 5 days and Justin's for about a day, and then flew back to Boston with a suitcase full of presents.

It was an odd Christmas - our very first (and hopefully only) apart since we started dating. Ah well, 5 out of 6 Christmases together is not so bad, and with baby on the way, I highly doubt that we will miss any more of them together, for baby's sake!

A few pictures of the festivities:

Our Nephew, Eli and his mama (my sister in law)

Eli and his daddy (my brother)

Me and my mom

Eli with his grandpa (my dad)

My family was so kind as to throw us a baby shower while I was home!!

Justin's sister

Me with Justin's mom

me with Justin's dad

I bring Justin gifts from family!

And I promptly pass out from exhaustion. Pregnant traveling is hard work.

Merry Christmas (and other things!)

2010-12-23T22:37:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas everyone!

It is 1:30 in the morning and xmas eve is just getting under way. I (Justin) got home from work a little bit ago. Jenny flew to Michigan a few days ago. I will fly out the day after Christmas to meet up with her. I had to stick around this week to work... gotta pay for that baby and boat somehow! I just wanted to say Merry Christmas and give a quick update of boatwork.

We procured our first piece of lead. It is a keel from a scrap boat and weighs in somewhere near 1000 pounds. I spent a week or so making various attempts to cut it into smaller pieces. That mostly failed due to the thickness of the lead; however, I discovered that a shrinkwrap torch works pretty darn well in melting the edge of the keel into breadpans to make brick/loafs. So I made about a dozen loafs and that got the remaining keel chunk small enough to be craned in through a hatch. Nice. Now I just gotta do that 8-10 more times and then bind it all together and glass it (VERY VERY SECURELY) into the bottom of the keel. I have been researching methods of this like crazy. One of the biggest helps has been Ben over at Blue Schooner Publishing, who built his own boat and has been sailing it around for something near to two decades now. Thanks Ben.

In the meantime, we have cleaned and scrubbed and polished the interior up pretty well. It helps to have a clean place to work in and a clean place to spend time in when we are both there and just taking a break or eating lunch or whatever... sometimes even just relaxing and enjoying our new boat. Jenny has done a lot of the cleaning as we are trying our hardest to keep her away from all of the lead that I am working with outside. (Yes, I am wearing a tyvek suit and a respirator and all that jazz) By the way, the baby is doing great. Jenny hits 27 weeks today, on xmas eve. That means that even if the baby came as a preemie tomorrow it would have a 90% chance at surviving! We are really having a baby... neato! oh yeah, back to boats.... more on baby later.

The engine (a Westerbeke W80 which is essentially brand new-- yet 30 years old-- from the previous owner, Henry) has been craned into position. The rudder has been pulled off, and is about to be given to a friend who works in a boat shop. The rudder has a large section missing where Henry had intended to attach some sort of self steering apparatus. Instead my friend is going to glass it all back in and smooth it out again. Also, with the rudder off I can begin the search for a prop shaft and get that installed hopefully sooner than later.

Mostly, work has been preparatory... it feels kind of defeating spending hours and hours shrinkwrapping and building staircases and building work sheds, and hauling tools down there, all the while just wanting to start working on the actual boat. I know it will all pay off in the long run, it just takes time. Perhaps even years, but we are excited for it no matter how long it takes.

Right now, we are just waiting on money and the holidays to sort themselves out. Our trusty Volvo broke down one too many times and we traded it in on a lease for a brand new Kia Soul. It is cheap (for a new car), safe (surprisingly), reliable, and just big enough to haul boat/kid stuff around. But the car issues and the holiday travel expenses have nixed our boat funds for december and likely january. In the meantime we can work with what we have, which is not a whole lot, but should be enough to keep us busy. Hopefully January will land another good deal on a lead keel and I can keep up that battle. The keel is really the biggest issue. If we can get the keel done, the through hulls punched, the whole thing painted with the hatches in, we can move on. It is a tall order, but not extraordinary. Patience... not one of my strong points, but I am sure working on it.

again, Merry Christmas.

-Justin

A new boat has entered our lives...

2010-12-11T16:33:00.000-08:00

When it comes to “choosing the right boat” everybody and their brother has at least 12 pieces of advice to offer you, and rarely is a consensus achieved. Our thoughts have evolved pretty quickly over the last few years, and the grand culmination of our ideas has landed us with another new boat. We are thrilled. It was a long search, and rather a sordid one, so I figure it might make a worthwhile story for those seeking a new liveaboard boat. Perhaps our trials and tribulations can be helpful, and just maybe, I can spin it into an entertaining tale.

As of 2006, neither Jenny nor I had ever set foot on a real sailboat in our lives. I played around in a sunfish once when I was about 15, and Jenny had done so a few times when she was 12. So sailboats weren’t even a consideration for us... They seemed like some mysterious and complex machine that you’d have to really love to enjoy (true, it turns out). When we decided to live aboard we looked for the biggest, fattest, cheapest powerboat we could find. I was starting grad school, we didn’t have but maybe $500 saved up... and that is a stretch. We soon found a big wreck of a Carver Mariner 33 that was alive and floating for $11k, already in the marina we wanted to live in. Perfect. A simple personal loan and we were aboard, and giddy about it. We immediately fell in with the local sailor crowds and spent some time on their boats sailing around the harbor for free. Then we’d try to scrape up the $100 it would take us to go run around the harbor islands for the weekend, stinking of exhaust, listening to the engine drone, and rolling in the wakes. We knew immediately that sailboats were more our styles. Damn, shoulda figured that out a few months sooner. We were still happy nonetheless - just living and being on the water was great. We had both fallen in love with the ocean and ocean life.

Only about six months had went by and we’d been paying down the carver loan pretty quick when our friend was forced to sell his Ericson 35 mk-II, Madrigal, due to health reasons. We knew he was in distress about getting it sold and he told us how cheap he’d let it go for..... $6,500. He had gutted the interior of all but the bulkheads and cabinets. All the trim was in a giant pile in the galley. The water and electric systems were new, but sparse and primitive. The layout of the boat was small, and the sails didn’t fit right. But she had a bright shiny new yellow paintjob and we were sold. haha. Suckers we are, but suckers in love. We bought Madrigal that same week. And truthfully, i embellish a bit, she was in better condition than that. The motor (atomic 4) had just been rebuilt and all new components added. He gave us all kinds of new equipment still in boxes he had yet to install.

Money was still tight, but for now we had the “right boat”. We managed to sell the carver pretty quickly and condense all our boat debt down to an easily managed size. We were quite content for about a year, and then, as the sailboat bug really got into us and we really started to get into the lifestyle, the urge to go cruising for a long period of time started setting in.... and here is where the story gets hairy....

We are big fans of Don Casey’s theories which are along the lines of “GO NOW GO! GO! GO! AS SOON AS YOU CAN! IT DOESN’T MATTER IF YOUR BOAT IS SMALL! JUST CRUISE NOW!” Annie Hill has cruised the world over a number of times on very cheap money... but we were still paying on our simple little Ericson. So as much as we like those theories we didn’t want to leave for cruising until 2 things happened: 1) our boat debt was gone 2) our home business of indexing could be sustained from aboard to facilitate long term cruising. In the meantime, living and working from the dock for 2 people and a dog in an Ericson 35 really did start feel small. I can’t quite stand upright. I hit my head a lot. So despite the advice to go and go now, we kept our eyes and ears open for big giant cruisers (40+ feet) that might be a bit more comfy to live dockside in. Of course, the catch is that we have no cash to pay for one, and we refuse to take a big loan that would tie us to land jobs for eons.

So we’d reached a pickle. Buying a big cruiser would tie us to land. No good. Staying dockside in the Ericson had gotten a bit frustrating. So we resolved to go cruising this fall, 2010, right about now in fact. So we spent the summer doing a number of things. First and foremost Jenny quit her land job, and started absolutely pouring herself and her time into indexing. It worked. Our business is doing very well, and although it’d be a tight budget we could cruise on it... We also paid the boat off earlier this spring, so that our boat-debt free goal was achieved (hooray for cheap boats and fixing them up ourselves!). While Jenny was furiously indexing all summer I began furiously prepping Madrigal for departure. We picked the mast off, and installed all new LED mast lights (we had no mast lights at all before). We put in a new battery bank and new inverter systems and a big giant alternator and we put in a composting head and we got new water tanks and and and and... LOTS of time and money went into getting the boat ready to cruise this fall. It was really fun, and I learned a lot along the way.

One of the last major projects pre-cruising was to haul out, paint the bottom, and install a lightning grounding plate. What a miserable set of jobs that turned out to be. We found over 100 blisters that magically were not there during our survey only 2 years ago! grr. We spent 10 days living in a blacktop parking lot in a 95-100 degree heatwave over fourth of July week. Suck. Jenny indexed away inside the sticky, stale boat all day while I ground away at fiberglass and toxic paint underneath her all day. Even the nights were hot and sticky with no reprieve from the boatyard and no friends nearby in this strange little waterfront parking lot we found ourselves now residing in. At least we had each other.

Yeah, Jenny got pregnant. It wasn’t entirely unplanned. We had wanted to start cruising first and then have a kid, but we had decided that if a kid happens sooner instead we will just alter the plans a bit. Well, obviously, it is happening sooner. So we’ve decided to stay in Boston at least until spring (kiddo is due March 25th). It is most likely that we will not be thrilled about the idea of going cruising with an infant come May 1st, nor does the idea of cruising with a 6 month old seem like it will be appealing next Oct... We may be wrong on those assumptions, but if I know us (and I do) those assumptions are correct. So, we are back to living dockside for another 2 years or so.....with a growing family aboard. Back to the bigger boat search. This Ericson is rapidly shrinking!

Luckily, like I said earlier, we’d been keeping an eye out this whole time, occasionally looking at bigger boats that might be a steal of a deal. Watching craigslist for cheap boats, trolling yachtworld for oddities that may crop up, looking at friend’s boats, etc etc etc... all the while knowing that one day we’d have a kid or two and want more space. We were looking in the $30,000.00 range, which you likely all know is nowhere near enough money to get a good solid reliable 40+ft cruiser.... not for most people anyhow. I knew it was possible, just gotta wait for it and keep a sharp eyeball, while knowing that a LOT of work is going to have to be done to fix it up.

So what have we looked at?

Tanton 43 cat ketch.
The first large boat we looked at seriously was a Tanton 43 cat ketch. Wow did we fall head over heals for this boat. The layout is perfect, the rig is simple, the draft is shallow enough to be useful coastal, the boat itself heavy enough to be useful offshore, the engine access fantastic, the stylings to our liking, etc etc etc. Sadly, they are typically 80-120k boats. The one we found was craigslisted at 85k and needed a LOT of work. We liked this boat enough to offer him 50k (yes we were willing to accept the loan for how much we liked this boat) but he was dead set on his 85k, despite the vast amount of work needed to make a finished boat out of her. Fiddlesticks. Back to the drawing board.

Ericson 36c.
This is certainly the smallest boat we’ve looked at as an upgrade from a 35. A friend of ours has an Ericson 36c and the amount of interior space versus our 35 is astounding. Nice 3 cabin layout. We can already attest to the sailing qualities of an Ericson, and the thoughtfulness of Bruce King’s designs. The thought of staying small-ish for dock fees and repair fees is appealing and 36c certainly comes closer to our budget, often selling in the 30-40k range. There is one sitting in the woods in Maine. You can find it on Yachtworld, listed in the low 20’s. It has been sitting in those woods for over a decade now. You can imagine what has to be done. The owner is insistent that it is worth every bit of 20k. I doubt this, severely. We bantered back and forth a bit, but for a boat that is not really “big” we decided not to pour our time into it. If we ever have a 2nd child we’d be in the same boat-too-small spot again.

Allied Mistress 39
The Allieds are awesome. I love their.... sense of purpose. Built for a task: sailing and sailing comfortably. No frills. Looks like a bathtub, but lovable for it. Of course, they hold their value. I’ve seen a couple that are priced low enough, but they are just nasty in terms of rot and what needs to be ripped out/fixed rearranged. Just can’t seem to bring myself to pay 30k for something that needs such a vast amount of help even after that price. We saw a good one down in Georgia on craigslist, at a good price, but still out of our league.... gotta keep looking.

Ericson 39
Again, we enjoy our Ericson greatly, and have a good respect for the brand. The Ericson 39 is not the perfect boat because it lacks a 3 cabin layout, but the quarterberth/pullman is quite large, and with a little ingenuity could be privatized a bit. So, when an e39 hit the market for dirt cheap nearby to us, we give it a look. Beautiful flushdeck boat, apparently quite fast for its day. But man, this boat was soaking wet inside and out. Luckily it was raining the day we viewed the boat and we were able to see that it was also raining inside the boat. What a wreck, and a shame. Too much damage was already done for me to consider paying anything substantial for that boat. Even free it’d be a tough sell. I hope somebody picks her up and restores her though, could be a beautiful boat again.

Formosa Peterson 46
The Kelly Peterson 46 is an amazing boat, but they are priced accordingly. Fast, with an awesome safe center cockpit, and a nice 3 cabin layout. The Formosa version was a ripoff of this same design, made in the formosa yard with their typical lack of supervision. The one we looked at was 80k and it had severe structural damage. Even if he’d have taken 40k for it, it wouldn’t have been sail-able for 2 or 3 years and even then I’d be sketched about the whole thing. Keel damage, deck to hull damage, rudder damage, engine of dubious quality and unknown hours... ucghk.... Sadly, I just can’t pay 40k for a boat that needs so much work.... this is turning into a recurring problem.

Pan Oceanic 38
We have a friend who is selling his PO38. Asking 50k (maybe its sold by now, haven’t looked in a while) I think its a great deal. He has done some amazing work to this ultimately stout and seaworthy beast of a 38 footer. But the 38’s aren’t for me. Too much of a motorsailer and a layout that didn’t feel right. No real sleeping cabins... It’d be too weird for a family to arrange sleeping quarters. The PO43 and PO46 are some of my favorite boats though. I’ve always kept an eye out for one, but never seen one anywhere near the right price. I’ve been in love with that flush deck pilothouse look for a while. I think one PO46 sold in the PNW last year for around 60k, but it’s decks were completely shot and needed a rebuild.... to the point of that being listed on the YW listing. Again, so much work for something that costs so much initially.

Tartan TOCK 41
The Tartan Offshore Cruising Ketch was another boat that we came close to taking out a loan to purchase. They are fairly rare, with a bizarre but awesome layout. The aft cabin is 22’x13’ and is unbelievable! It is the main living area, with a v berth and a pullman up front acting as the sleeping quarters. It would be a fantastic family boat, aside from the very close sleeping quarters. Being a Tartan, it is of dependable make and quality. It was a tempting boat because for the 50-60k it would have cost, it needed the least work of all we’d seen. A new electrical system and a bit of deck fitting rebedding might have set this boat to being just about perfect. But again, even 50k is a staggering initial cost to us, and would require a loan that we detest the idea of. Eventually, we decided to let this one go. Beautiful boat though.

Gulfstar 43
No offense to the Gulfstar owners who read this, but Gulfstar’s reputation as a less than stellar manufacturer is no secret, especially in their early years. When we learned we were having a child, we went into panic/nesting mode and decided that maybe we should look at a cheaper brand of boat. Perhaps finding a Gulftar fixer-upper would provide a cheaper initial investment and allow us to upsize quicker, yet leave us with the ability to put more money into the fixer upper half of things. We looked at a, get this, $5,000.00 Gulfstar 43. You couldn’t have paid me $5k to take that boat. And then, I still wouldn’t have been too happy with it in the end. We stopped looking at those pretty quick, after just that one.

Trawlers in general
Yes, we even looked at some trawlers. We love sailing, and we love the “free ride” aspect of it. A friend of ours spent a couple years cruising, and when he decided to come home to Boston from the Virgins all it cost him was couple weeks at sea. Not bad. That said, some trawlers are beautiful and you can’t deny the livability and space provided in the same footage as a sailboat. Nonetheless, the prices reflect it. So that idea was quickly scrapped.

And then, a couple months ago, something interesting happened. I found a Craigslist ad in Rhode Island with text as follows: “Sailboat 45 foot - free. Custom - molded fiberglass hull with balsa cored deck - 70% complete; includes mast & boom. I'm too old to complete. Ready for last primer then your favorite boat color! FREE for the taking!” That and a couple small pictures of an unpainted hull sitting in the bushes was all it had to offer.

Ok, yeah right. I’m assuming this is a giant wreck of a boat that somebody started, didn’t know what they were doing, screwed everything up, and then gave up. Then, they probably let it rot for a decade or two and now they have to get it out of there for some legal reason. Nonetheless, in the spirit of keeping a sharp eye out for deals, I sent an email asking for more info. Can’t hurt to be a keel kicker. Turns out the boat is a Creekmore 45, a big heavy full keel cruiser with a good reputation in design and hull quality. The hulls were made in Florida, and then either owner finished or sometimes finished by a yard in Rhode Island. This one was purchased as a new hull in 1980 by a man named Henry Whited. Henry was 50 years old, recently single, and planning to sail around the world. He did a fantastic job over the next 9 years building a rock solid interior. First he designed a perfect layout -almost exactly like the Tanton we loved so much, except with a flush deck and an indoor steering station like the Pan Oceanic design we love so much. The perfect melding of two great ideas (in our book). Before doing any construction, he laid 1 inch of fiberglass insulation on the inside of the hull, then glassed that in. Then he laid wood over that. That is some fantastic liveaboard friendly insulation. The bulkheads are teak and all the trim is oak. The cabinets/lockers are lined with pine. It looks beautiful.

Well, in 1989 Henry met his next wife, Birgitta. He put the Creekmore aside and built a new house and restored two other boats instead. Henry is a busy man, and quite talented with design and construction. Putting the Creekmore aside was not a sad thing, but a happy thing. He had a new wife and they daysailed together on their restored Pearson 30. They still do so. In the meantime, Henry has taken fantastic care of his beloved Creekmore. He put an elaborate tarpaulin system in place and every time it rains he checks for leaks. He’s kept the mice out of the boat. It looks like he just stopped working on it last week. It’s amazing. Even keeping it up is a lot of work, and having just turned 80 years old, Henry is tired of caring for it, and simply wants to see it get a good home with somebody who will finish it. Again, amazing.

This is not to say that the boat doesn’t need work. It needs TONS of work. The engine is still new, uninstalled from the mid-eighties (That can be good or bad, haven’t decided yet. We may or may not use this engine. Gotta look into it further). There is no electrical inside. There is no plumbing inside. The trim is not yet finished. A couple cabinets are still not finished. The steering mechanisms are not yet installed. Worst of all, there is no lead in the keel yet. Eek.

The advantage is that we aren’t paying $30-40k for a slimy old boat that needs to be disassembled before it can be reassembled. We are paying nothing and we have a fresh start. I can install electrical components the right way. I can plumb it how I want it. I can set everything up exactly how I want it. It is the barebones layout and structure that we have dreamed of, and everything else I can build to suit.

I realize this may take forever and a day to complete. The big deal will be getting the engine and the lead ballast in place. After that she can be painted and launched. The rest of it is all amenities -electronics, water, toiletry, etc etc. These can be done from living aboard it already. Even the sailing systems can be put on hold for a while until livability is situated first. So really, it might not take too horribly long to get aboard. She is being trucked up to a local boatyard for cheap, and can sit there for six month long periods on a very short dollar while I bring her up to speed.

I know this could be a $70,000+ project to finish it, but I really don’t believe it will be. If I paid top dollar for everything yes, but I’m not that guy. I have friends in marine junkyards and friends who do restoration and mechanic work. We all know how to find cheap stuff for boats, and we look in awe at the people who hire out the work to have their boats refinished. Man alive would that be expensive... I can’t even imagine hiring people to do the work. But me, I know how to bargain hunt. I already have almost 10,000 pounds of lead lined up for only a few grand cash. Not bad. There are many parts that we are buying from Henry... things he bought for the Creekmore but never installed. He had planned to sell all those separate, but for a couple thousand dollars he is giving us all kinds of good crap...steering systems, wheels, sta-locs, lead molds, stainless bar stock, brand new self tailing lewmars, engine equipment, propane oven, new bomar hatches, just all kinds of stuff....... plus it has a new mast, new boom, and 5 brand new sails. I don’t mind sweat equity, and really, I love doing this kind of stuff. It is fun and it will provide a good home in the end. I won’t pick a number of how much I think it will cost. The range is too great. It all depends on what I can find where and when.

One last thing I wanted to say about the stylings of the boat is that Jenny and I really always have been suckers for the non-typical “yacht” --especially on the interior. That isn’t to say we don’t appreciate the fine stylings of our Ericson, or the amazing teak work of the old Taiwan boats, or the perfect joinery of a Hinckley, but we’ve always been drawn to those boats with a bit of homemade flair. They have a special warmth and a lovingness that is permanently embedded in them by their makers. Often times, people do a terrible job at it and the home built boats look simply bad inside.... but even those are awesome if you ask me. I think though, that we found a perfect one. Henry spent TEN YEARS(!) on that woodwork, and it shows. It has a down to earth, home built feel, but still looks nice and manages to remain classy. If you ask me, it’s perfection in design and execution.

Looking Aft

Looking Forward

In the end, I think we got a good deal. After all, $1.00 for the the title to a “new” boat is hard to beat, especially after all the $50,000.00 pieces of crap we saw. It will be a lot of work, but we are going to love this boat-- we already do. We will have a large and comfortable home for our kid(s), and we’ll have a boat that is well worthy of living aboard anywhere we want to.

Boat Moving Day...

Steps for a Pregnant Jenny

As you can see, the boat is now here in MA, about 20-30 minutes from the marina we are living in for the winter. It is all shrinkwrapped up, with it's own staircase and we even made a shrinkwrap shed next to the boat. Work is coming along nicely, but I'll save that for another post!

Jenny made this quick video as a tour of the boat:

I'm Terribly Embarassed

2010-11-26T19:40:00.001-08:00

I can't believe how infrequently we've been updating the blog as of late. How terrible of us. All I can say is - life is very busy and I'm glad that we're living it rather than writing about it, at least for now. We're certain to have more updates soon, we just need to find the time to sit down and write them.

I meant to write this one long ago - nearly a month in fact, but just never got around to it.

Anyway, here are a couple of pictures of our halloween costumes. Anyone know who we're supposed to be???

Living Large

2010-11-09T15:54:00.000-08:00

Our first winter aboard a boat, we sort of roughed it. We had a wood stove and while it was nice in a lot of ways (nothing beats the smell of a wood fire), it was hard to keep warm. It went out often (we had to refill every 30 minutes or so) and it kept us cold at night (we weren't willing to get up every 1/2 hour to refill it!)

Every winter we get the boat to be a bit cozier. You may recall that last year, we purchased a rug heater from Speedheat Floor Heating and it was a fantastic thing.

This year we decided to take it a step further by buying cheap carpet and laying it out in the entire boat. Let me tell you - Madrigal is COZY. We've been walking around in our socks all day and we're in bliss. Willie has been laying on the floor like a normal dog (he wouldn't even sit on the floor before). Honestly, it's amazing. It makes Madrigal feel so much more like a home (it's unnecessary in the summer, but since we can't move the boat around in the winter, it's made all the difference in the world.)

Anyway, we love it, and wanted to share.

another photo of the new crew member

2010-10-29T12:44:00.000-07:00

Again, not a boat related post, but a very exciting photo to us!

We Have Returned!

2010-10-17T19:54:00.000-07:00

We are back at Constitution Marina! Thanks to our friends Dave, Mike and Mark for helping us get the boat back (no we didn't need the help, but it was fun)!

Justin is off playing a board game with Mark and I was feeling a bit punky (aka pregnant) so I decided to stay in for the night.

I will write more soon.

Three Days Left

2010-10-14T19:10:00.000-07:00

How could it be? How could we only have three days left at Thayer's Landing? Were we really here for six months?

Actually, the summer eeked by for me. Initially I was ecstatic that I wouldn't be in the third trimester of pregnancy during the summer, but in the end I have to wonder if that might have been easier to endure than the first trimester in the continual 90+ heatwaves that we encountered. The heat mixed with morning sickness made for a fairly miserable summer. Since I was working from the boat full-time, I wasn't able to escape into a nice air conditioned library. The boat was often 100 degrees, and it seemed as if breeze was never strong enough to reach me. Finally finally finally the heat let up and we have been having absolutely beautiful fall weather here. In fact, I can't remember a more spectacular fall season. This might be the best one ever.

Heat aside, it was a fantastic and absolutely unforgettable summer. We didn't get to see friends as often now, but we had each other and it was so nice to have that time together. I have started playing guitar again (except this time I'm actually halfway decent at it, unlike last time!), we have utilized the wonderful Tufts Library of Weymouth a lot, watched the entire series of Deadwood, worked on the boat, worked, and I even flew home to Michigan for over a week to be with my family. Oh, and we even found the time to go sailing a few times in there. Oh, and we made a baby too.

While it will be sad to say goodbye to this gem of a marina that we have found, it will also be nice to be back near our friends for the winter. In fact, I am actually looking forward to living in the city again! Weymouth has a lack of cozy coffee shops, but Charlestown has both Sorelle and Zume's and I am really looking forward to doing some indexing off the boat in the comfort of a cozy chair.

Well really, I could go on and on. It is always hard to say goodbye to a place that has treated us so well, but I'm sure that winter will treat us kindly and that we will enjoy the familiarity and familial aspect of Constitution Marina for yet another winter!

I'm sure the next I write, we will be all cozied up in our new winter spot. Hopefully our internet treats us kindly, whichever slip it may be!

**Note** I have tried and tried, but the internet is not working well enough to post pictures along with this update. I may very well sneak in and add pictures at a later date, but for now this is a pictureless entry. Sorry!

Sailing near Hull

2010-09-30T01:24:00.000-07:00

We were fortunate to go out sailing on Madrigal about two weeks ago with the owner of our marina, Jeff.

I was even more fortunate that Jeff was insistent upon helping out, so I was able to kick my feet back and relax which helped keep both the morning sickness and seasickness at bay!

We got caught in a bit of a squall. Even though we were only out for a few hours, our trip felt like two distinct trips - being in the storm and crazy wind, and being in the calm after the storm.

Madrigal sailed in both types of weather flawlessly, and a fine day was had by all!

Camping

2010-09-10T09:34:00.000-07:00

If you looked back in history...say, 5 1/2 years, you would discover that the foundation of Justin and my relationship is built upon the art of camping.

Petoskey, MI

It all began in May of 2005 with an invite to go to camping with Justin and his friends Jason & Katie to Petoskey, MI. I had just gotten a tent that Christmas from my parents and was very eager to use it for the first time during that Memorial Day Weekend. Long story short - the weather forecast called for rain and thunder all weekend, so Jason & Katie wimped out and stayed at a nearby hotel/water park instead (we visited them and it WAS amazing). Justin and I thought they were crazy, so we decided that we would indeed still camp that weekend. Both of us still weren't quite sure where this new friendship/crush was going, so 4 days by ourselves really gave us time to figure that out! It turned out to be the best trip of our lives, and we still love going out in that same tent as often as we possibly can to enjoy the great outdoors together.

Jason & Katie did come out and visit us at the campsite. Despite the forecast, the weather was beautiful.

Fast forward to last weekend...

Justin had two days off of work and we took the opportunity to drive to Cape Cod with Willie to enjoy the beaches and get a little camping in. We found ourselves wandering around Provincetown for quite some time and it was lovely to be in such a dog-friendly place!

We found a campground in North Truro, which was close to all the dog-friendly beaches. We took our bikes and tried to find the beach, but took wrong turn so I didn't get to see it the first day. I was pretty exhausted (I blame the baby!) so I took a nap while Justin went exploring with his bike. He came back exclaiming, ''it's amazing. we have to go there tomorrow.'' I didn't quite realize HOW amazing it was going to be until we got there. I had such a hard time pulling msyelf away from the beach the next day. We had it nearly all to ourselves, the shoreline was immense, there were starfish washed up on the beach! The list really goes on and on. It was lovely. I never expected I would enjoy the Cape quite so much, but I can honestly say that was one of the best places I have seen in Massachusetts (if not anywhere!) It probably helped that we went off-season (by one day, haha) and it was a Tuesday.

It was fantastic.

Trusty tent.

Happy Happy.

Baby is growing and so am I!

Happy Jenny.

Kite!

Digging to the other side of the world. Which is off the Southwestern coast of Australia.

Our last camping trip before the baby comes!

Hurricane Earl

2010-09-02T08:21:00.000-07:00

Extra dock lines are cleated, fenders surround our boat, our water tanks are full, batteries are fully charged.

We are about as prepared as we can be for Hurricane Earl, and yet forecasters still don't quite know what's going to happen when it reaches this far north.

It all depends upon a cold front that is moving from west to east. Will it push Earl out into the ocean? Will it move too slowly to do so? No one knows for sure yet, and so we prepare the best we can, keep a watchful eye on the weather, and wait.

Guppy

2010-08-31T05:59:00.000-07:00

We haven't been doing much sailing lately. Blame the morning sickness, blame the full-time job that Justin acquired, blame anything you want...but we just haven't made it out much lately.

Obviously, it's made for a quiet blog as of late and I feel terrible. I am hoping that once winter kicks back up, I will be more inclined to update more often. We'll be transforming our two-person boat into a baby-friendly boat, and while I don't expect that we will be making a lot of changes to Madrigal, I'm sure we'll have things to update about. Also, it's just easier to update the blog when it's blustery outside and we're holed up in our little shrink wrap cave.

In the meantime, I am excited to say that we saw our little guppy via ultrasound, and all is well.

Week 8

2010-08-13T09:55:00.001-07:00

We're having a baby!

Today marks week 8 of Jenny's pregnancy. We are both very happy. We discovered our news right around week 4 and we have been frantically adjusting our plans. A couple months ago we had pretty much decided that we were going to cruise Madrigal south this fall... unless Jenny becomes pregnant, which of course she did. Really, the timing is perfect. We can stay in Boston for the winter, and baby is due to arrive sometime in late March. Our seasonal winter slip will end in May. After that... who knows!? That is the big question right now. We certainly plan to raise kiddo aboard the boat. We've tossed around the idea of getting a bigger boat... but maybe not for a couple years. Dunno. We would like to come back to Thayer's Landing next year, but Constitution is closer to my museum job (and lots pricier), but a mooring sounds cheap and fun (maybe not with a baby!). Life is kinda chaotic right now, but in a totally fun way. We are mostly just trying to figure out the where/when/how for all this baby stuff. The good news is we have a good place to spent the pregnant winter, with lots of friends and good medical facilities nearby, we have insurance and good jobs and indexing is going great... So life is good and baby is exciting.

In the meantime we've done a bit of sailing. We took a trip to Gloucester for a couple days then through the Annisquam River to the north side of Cape Ann. There we visited Ipswich Bay Yacht Club for an evening and returned home the next day. Jenny's morning sickness was battling her will to sail, but she prevailed. I can't get pics to upload right now, so hopefully sooner than later.

-Justin

Cruising World

2010-07-27T06:13:00.000-07:00

We haven't gotten to see it with our own eyes yet, but apparently a photograph I took last year in Gloucester, MA made it in this month's Cruising World magazine!

I didn't get top prize (darn - a nice pair of binoculars would have been awesome!) but it's still neat that it made it in there, especially because I had no idea they were going to put any of them in the magazine.

Happy Anniversary!

2010-07-18T06:18:00.000-07:00

Today marks the passage of one year since we got married at Round Lake in Michigan. It has been a very good year and we are both happy to have made it so happily to the one year mark. One of our wedding gifts last year was a gift certificate for a bed and breakfast in the Berkshires. Hence, part of our blogging absence has been due to the fact that we spent a couple days last week at the Berkshire 1802 House near Sheffield Mass. It was very nice place to stay for our one year celebration. The landscape is beautiful there and we got to go for a hike at Bartholomew's Cobble. The B&B served a great breakfast, and the old house had a nice feel to it. I think for us one of the best parts was having air conditioning and as much running water as we could stand. That sure felt different!

Speaking of a/c, it has been HOT here. The picture above is Willie's typical pose these days: panting. I think we've only had one day below 90 F since before we hauled the boat out. We did get to go for a nice evening sail early last week. It is always great to get out in the harbor on a Tuesday afternoon. Nobody else is on the water then and it provides a much calmer more relaxing experience. More like sailing should be.

Our haul out and bottom painting made all the difference in the world for Madrigal. I had begun feeling like we had this slow old antique sailboat.... we could only motor at about 4.5 kts, and when under sail power, even in 15 kt winds we could only get going about 6 kts SOG. It was miserable. The motor back to home from the boatyard we hauled at: 7.5 kts! It was a amazing. Truly, truly amazing. Our sail on Tuesday afternoon drove home the point of the importance of a clean bottom. It was gusty out, probably 12-15kts sustained with gusts up in the mid twenties, so we didn't even bother putting the main up. We just wanted to relax and stroll around anyhow, so we just unfurled the genoa. Lo and behold, even beating against the wind with only a headsail we never dropped under 5.5 kts. We mostly sailed around 6-7 kts the entire time. It was AWESOME.

Anyhow, Happy Anniversary to us. I'll be in New Hampshire doing some archaeological digging for the next week, and then we hope to be able to get out and do some sailing with our newfound speed in the following weeks.

-Justin

Just one more day...

2010-07-09T13:57:00.000-07:00

Here we are, still on the hard. It's been a long and arduous journey to get where we are now...

Ok, maybe I'm being a bit dramatic. I blame the heat. It's been roasty toasty since we got here (upper 90s, 100s, etc.) which means the average temperature in the boat during the day has also been upper 90s, 100s, and even 105 on Wednesday. Turns out, I'm a baby when it comes to this kind of heat without having the option of going swimming.

sanding sanding sanding...

blisters ground out and drying in the heat...

Good news though - we are bottom painted and ready to go back in the water! In fact, we were ready to go in this morning but (as our luck seems to have it) the workers aren't here today. This worked out fairly well, as I have a load of work to do and it gave me all day to work on it and Justin cleaned up the boat which is very nice.

Friends are a fabulous thing, and Mike (aboard Gaia) returned from his 621 day cruise a few days ago and was kind enough to help Justin paint the bottom of the boat on Wednesday. In his ever adventurous behavior, he attempted to sail here with his newly aquired sunfish, but realized he might never make it here in time as the winds weren't in his favor. He instead took the ferry from Boston to Quincy and it's a short 1 mile walk from the ferry stop to the boat yard that we're in. The painting was quick and we were free to hang out, have some nachos, and just enjoy the evening. It's very nice to have Mike back in town.

Gaia in Boston Harbor

Oh! Speaking of Mike...

We hung out with him for the 4th of July. We didn't really have any plans aside from "let's hang out with Mike." So we went to Gaia and decided to go visit our friend Mark up the Charles river for the big fireworks. We wanted to let the blisters on the hull air out a bit anyway, so it was a great day to take off and have some fun.

Long story short - we found Mark and climbed aboard. There was a ton of food...tasty food. We were settling in for the fireworks when suddenly there was a knock on the hull from ~6 kayakers and canoers, asking if they could raft up to us. What a funny thing, yet not entirely surprising. I think there were at least 17 or 18 people that ended up climbing aboard (with baked goods, no less...they were prepared!) and hung out with us for the fireworks. A good time was had by all, and as soon as the fireworks ended we all climbed back in the dinghy and spent the night on Gaia. Willie was with us too - he loved the dinghy, hated the fireworks. I think overall, he was happy to have gone :)

A few of the canoers and kayakers.

Didn't get a chance to take photos of the finished bottom yet. That'll be the next post!

sanding, painting, etc.

2010-07-01T14:17:00.000-07:00

We slept on the boat last night while on the hard. Not sure if they wanted us to, but they knew about it and seemed fine with it. I had strange dreams of the boat tipping over, people boarding the boat, etc. Sadly, I sleep better at anchor. It should be the other way around.

The marina power washed the hull this morning around 10:30 and I was surprised at how long it took - maybe 45 minutes or so.

As soon as they were done, I grabbed the dustless power sander and got to work while Justin ran to Constitution Marina to pick up our friend Mike, who is helping with everything.

It's now after 5pm and I'm about 1/2 way through with sanding, but am utterly exhausted. The guys had lots of projects to do too, and it looks like we'll be here for quite a few days because we discovered we have a few blisters in the hull that need attending to. I'll finish the sanding tomorrow. For the rest of the evening, I have some indexing to attend to.

ugh. Blisters.

Anyhow, a couple of pictures of our progress.

Justin and Mike

holding the entire boat up with my head.

On the Hard.

2010-06-30T19:00:00.000-07:00

It has been too long since Madrigal has been bottom painted. In fact, I've never seen her bottom until today....Justin has from under the water.

Anyhow, now we're on the hard for a few days!

Slightly scary.

You'd think we had black paint on the bottom. It's actually bright blue.

gubbus.

a quick update

2010-06-28T11:14:00.000-07:00

All kinds of fun stuff has happened. My parents brought their motorhome out from Michigan for about 10 days. We camped at Wompatuck Park (the same place Jenny and I stayed over 4 years ago when we came to look at Boston as a possible place to live) for a few days, then took Madrigal out for an overnighter at the harbor islands. The first day was mostly a no-wind motor, but the second day we had a great southwesterly all morning which we used to spinnaker our way out to sea and up the coast.

My mom is, well, not really scared of sailing, but more... petrified might be the right word. So a nice gentle spinnaker run was doing her some good and she was fairly relaxed. Well we didn't go very far because I knew we had to turn around and beat back into the wind to get home, so after a short while we struck the spin and tacked around to come home. Just then the wind picked up about another 10 knots and blew a consistent 20 dead on our nose. We didn't quite have the rails in the water, but I think my poor mother may never sail again. She was pale and tired by the time we skipped back into the harbor at a nice 7 knots. We struck the sails and motored our way through the myriad 100's (literally) of boats that were out enjoying what everyone around here considers perfect sailing weather. I must admit that Jenny and I were put a bit on edge by all the wind with so much boat traffic around, but mostly it was just fun. We so rarely get out in blustery weather like that. We are still getting accustomed to it ourselves.

After the sailing adventures were over we all piled into the RV for a trip up to New Hampshire's White Mountains and then over to Portland Maine for a stop and go trip down the coast back to Boston.

We ate lots of seafood and stopped at nice beaches. It was a ton of fun, but I'm out of time here and the internet is not being good about uploading pictures. Perhaps I'll get some more up later.

In the meantime we've scheduled our haulout. In 2 days time Madrigal will be sitting high and dry in Quincy Mass for a few days as we paint the bottom, change zincs, add lightning grounding plate and a transducer for a depth sounder. Should be fun despite the hard work. It will be the first time we've ever actually seen Madrigal out of the water!

-Justin

Up the Mast Again

2010-06-21T07:15:00.000-07:00

A funny thing about taking the mast down is that the crane operator wanted the Windex to be taken off the top. I guess they can get caught pretty easily and get ripped off. So...up the mast I went!

We had to get a bosun's chair (finally), because we had no one else's to borrow this time. That was fine though - we've really needed one a bunch of times now and it's such a good thing to have.

The hardest part for me was the first spreader. I must've spent a solid five minutes at this point before making it the rest of the way up.

We've Been Busy....

2010-06-11T16:02:00.000-07:00

Not much time to write now, but just wanted to post a few pics while I got the chance. We got the mast taken off and Justin did a ton of work, so we now have anchor lights, an antenna, a radar reflector and various other fixes to the mast. It was pulled on Tuesday and put back on today.

There's something nerve wracking about watching your mast dangle above your boat. I wasn't too keen on that.

Anyway, that's all for now.

Thunder, Lightning and Lots of Changes

2010-06-06T13:32:00.001-07:00

Wow, lots of thunder and lightning here lately! Tornado warnings, even. Feels a lot like Michigan this spring/summer. I'm liking it a lot. Ok, I'm slightly nervous about the whole bit too, but even still it's been a nice change of pace from the normal Boston weather.

We've been improving Madrigal in lots of small ways lately - almost too quickly to blog about, but I'm trying to keep up.

Did we tell you that we installed the composting head (err, toilet) in Madrigal? We had bought it for the Fitzcarraldo but the new owners didn't want it and kept it for us. We've been using it since we moved to Thayer's Landing and it's working out well, thanks to the solar vent that Justin installed in the cabin top. Hooray solar power. That thing is a power horse.

The other bit we've been trying to put more focus on is safety. We're hoping to use the boat more this year and if we're going to be sailing more, the boat should be as safe as we can make her. Seamar sells affordable netting for the lifelines. We got the netting a good long while ago but couldn't put it up due to the big topsides paint job that was taking place. Well, Justin added the grip paint over the weekend (well, *our* weekend, which was Thursday or Friday) and so he then added the netting too. The grip paint is another vast improvement for Madrigal for safety, as we're not slipping around on deck when they're the slightest bit damp. It made a world of difference.

Anyhow, it's hard to keep spending money for these upgrades, but we're doing it as wisely as we know how. Maybe one of these days we'll go a good long stretch without buying something new for the boat. Until then, this boat just keeps getting fancier and fancier.

Big Catch at Thayer's Landing

2010-06-05T07:59:00.000-07:00

Justin and I noticed yesterday morning that a few boats were "missing" from Thayer's Landing. Actually, it's finally boating season around here! So a few people had gone out for the day.

Here are a couple of pictures of what may come to be a fairly normal thing for us to see on the weekends...

Free From the City

2010-05-30T12:09:00.000-07:00

We spent nearly an entire month at the docks before we were able to find the time to go sailing. We were busy for various reasons, and wanted enough days in a row to make the trip a little more worth it. I suppose oftentimes, we're the sailors that like to go places, and less of the "let's go for a short sail" kind of people. We like to let the anchor explore new bottoms and actually get away for awhile.

captain.

rocna.

Our plans never quite seem to work how we want them to, and so a trip to Scituate turned into a trip to Cohasset turned into a trip to World's End turned into a trip to Peddocks Island. Let me explain.

The plan was that we'd sail to Scituate and anchor. We spent the money on a nice anchor for a reason, but after scouting out the charts for anchorages and not finding any, Justin called the harbor master. Upon finding out there was no place to anchor in Scituate OR Cohasset, we decided to turn around. We wanted to get somewhere before dark. World's End is not far off from where we live now, but we had never been there so we thought it'd be a good place to go. Also, we knew they allowed people to anchor there, so it seemed a safe bet.

Once we got there, we threw anchor and within five minutes, the Hingham harbor master was asking us how long we planned to stay. Turns out, they didn't really want us to anchor there either. From what I can find online, we should have been given 48 hours to anchor but what he said didn't line up with that - he said he'd make an exception and let us anchor overnight, but that in the future we wouldn't be able to do so. Turns out, they're putting 40-some mooring balls in there soon, so it doesn't sound like there will even be room to anchor.

Before the storm

That evening there was a crazy thunderstorm. The lightning never got too close, but there was a lot of it which made it fairly hair raising for awhile.

The next morning we made our way over to Peddocks Island since we've anchored out there many times and didn't want to risk our luck. Some friends came out a couple of nights later and rafted to us for a few hours, and afterwards we went ashore and got to know some of the locals. It's funny - we've been there numerous times but have never stopped to talk to them. We weren't quite sure if they'd prefer us to leave them alone, but they were very friendly. There's quite a history to the island and (what's left of) the locals that I'll have to write about sometime.

Anyway, this trip was fairly significant because it was the first time I was freelancing at anchor. Well, that's not entirely true. I've worked from anchor before, but this is the first time as a full-time freelancer. It was amusing to motor around the anchorage and choose our spot according to the wind, the depth AND the strength of my cell phone signal. Cell phone signal = internet connection, which was vital this week.

The anchor riding sail that Justin and I made seems to help.

Taking a break from work to get some freckles.

Christina's favorite pasttime.

Ahmet and Danielle came to visit with the whaler.

Even Marley came to visit.

Mark and the sunset.

settling in

2010-05-19T18:24:00.001-07:00

We are finally beginning to feel settled in. I worked some long hours the last couple days and the commute started to feel normal. Then, when I got home, I felt like I was 'home'. I didn't realize it until today, when I had the day off (we went shopping for Jenny's 28th birthday :) and we after we got home and made dinner I realized how normal it felt to be here. It's really fun living on a boat. Moving our house around is exciting. I like it.

And tonight we are all cozy around the fire on a rainy night. I'm messing about on the computer while Jenny does some indexing. Yep. Home.

Oh, and there is whisky involved.

Double Rainbow

2010-05-18T14:43:00.000-07:00

We saw a neat double rainbow the other day. Sadly, it was hard to get a good picture because it was still raining and I didn't want to get my camera wet.

Thrasher Spanker

2010-05-14T19:04:00.000-07:00

That's right, we have a "Thrasher Spanker", more commonly known as a Spinnaker. Yes, we've made a grand new purchase. We just happened to find a perfect fitting, perfect color, perfect condition, perfect price asymmetrical cruising spinnaker on craigslist this week.

We've wanted one of these for quite some time, but I never expected to find one locally used that fits our boat so well. The pictures were taken at the dock today while we were testing its fit. Hopefully we'll get out on the water with it next week or so.

I call it a "Spanker" because of the reference in this informative little site: http://www.cncphotoalbum.com/doityourself/spinnaker/spinnaker.htm

And I call it a "Thrasher" because it came with a nifty sailbag that has THRASHER stenciled on the side of it. Being a fan of old thrash metal, this is a particularly nice perk for me :)

It also came with a fully functioning dousing sock and all the necessary lines. Happiness :)

In other news, Jenny and I will be spending the next two days scuba diving. Last summer, as a wedding present, a bunch of the fine folks at constitution marina got together and purchased us a gift certificate for dive lessons at United Divers in Somerville. It's taken us until now to find the time to actually take the lessons, but we are both pretty excited. Thanks everyone :)

Strawberries, Exploring Weymouth, and Sugar Wine

2010-05-07T14:11:00.000-07:00

Well well. What a neat little place we live in. We've been exploring our new neighborhood and have been finding some gems! We came across a farm stand yesterday that had fruits and veggies galore, along with plants for purchase. We found a small corner that had a few things discounted so we got an enormous bag of strawberries for 99 cents.

The largest appliance we own is a food dehydrator, which we just can't seem to part with. It has made us many tasty batches of beef jerky and has given us abundant dried fruits that store well for an incredibly long time. It turns out dried strawberries are amazing. We filled the thing up and voila! tasty treats.

There's a cute little park really close by that we've been taking Willie to. It's hilly, and sometimes a dog trots her way over from the other side of the road to bark at us and sniff Willie. We call her Beefcake.

Beefcake.

The park.

Indexing has been a gift and has allowed me so much more time in my life. I've actually not had a book to work on in a little over a week (ok, that's a little scary) but I've been working hard at revamping the website (it's going to look GOOD), organizing lots of little things, and contacting a ton of publishers. Today was by far the best day for responses, so I'm feeling really good about things. I'm lined up for two projects at the moment (one isn't for a few months, but at least it's something) and I work with enough publishers quite regularly that I'm not really that concerned. But still, I'm putting full-time hours (or just about) and because I don't have to commute (or index when I get home from a full-time job) I've been granted gobs of time to enjoy life again. I take the time to hang out with the mutt, I've been cleaning, and I've been reading for pleasure. Seriously! I can't remember the last time I read a book just to read it. Amazing.

And hobbies. Justin and I have been picking up hobbies again! Because I was so busy working and indexing (and he was indexing too), we really had to stop focusing on so many things and we simply worked, minimally cleaned, etc.

So, we finally took a couple of hours out of our day to pick up the Alaskan Bootlegger's Guide (that we spoke of here) and we took good ole Leon's advice and started with the simplest wine we could make - Sugar Wine. He says "You can even drink this stuff, but don't expect to impress your true love with it during a romantic candlelight dinner." As you can see in the pictures below, this is really bottom shelf stuff we're making. We used bread yeast, for goodness sake. But who cares, we're not selling it and it's more for enjoyment than it is for anything else. It was nice to have the time to carefully sterilize everything and do things the right way (as right as you can with sugar wine, haha).

Somewhere along the way, Justin decided it was best to keep his hair out of his face.

Anyway, we're really enjoying ourselves here. It's starting to feel like home already. We're still one of the only boats here, but I expect that a lot of people will be coming in this weekend to snuggle into their new summer homes.

Our Move to Thayers Landing

2010-05-03T05:16:00.000-07:00

Well, we did it. We moved our boat and our lives to Weymouth Massachusetts. It was a strangely happy and sad farewell all at once. Not like we are 1000 miles away or anything, but it is still a weird feeling to have left all our friends and our daily routines. We had a great trip over here. At one point our friend Mike, who lives on an oversized speedboat, came racing out with a small crew of our friends to do circles around us as we luffed in a squirrelly breeze. It was a fun, and it made for a nice goodbye gesture. But with no further adieu, here is our boat snuggled away at its new dock.

Madrigal at Thayer's Landing

So far it has been a very pleasant experience and I think we'll be very happy spending the summer here. It is so completely different from Constitution Marina. First off, it is quiet. So pleasantly quiet. A train goes by once every 1/2 hour or so at most, but even that sound is muted and minimal compared to the constant traffic over the Charles river bridge that we are used to. Also, I don't think I've heard an emergency siren once! Nice. Aside from quiet, it is very green looking and pleasant smelling. That's surely a change. Jeff's backyard is full of lilacs that smell way better than exhaust.

I took this picture just to show how amazed I was to see real living

trees and greenery outside our ports :)

After we settled in we both crashed out pretty quickly. It had been a long couple days preparing and then the 4 hour sail over added to our tiredness. But of course, we weren't so tired that we couldn't make some homemade pizza for dinner :)

Jenny making pizza dough.

Then came Sunday. It was a beautiful 85 degree day, and we were both free to explore our new surroundings. Sunday included a dinghy ride up the river and across to a park, a bike ride into town, and a walk to other nearby parks for Willie.

This is looking down the Fore River. The ocean is a few bends past those powerlines.

Speaking of those powerlines, the trip up the river was quite hair raising the first time. We have to go under the Fore River bridge (7 feet of clearance for us at high tide) and then under 3 sets of powerlines (about 15 feet of clearance at high tide). The visual perspective staring up the mast as you go under these things is all skewed. It looks like you are surely going to run straight into one of them. Of course, we cleared everything fine, but then there is the narrow channel to follow with very shallow water on either side. It was a bit tense, but really it went just fine.

A channel marker near our dock with some geese. (lots of geese here)

We seem to get the occasional swans as well.

Our dinghy ride to the park across the river (a 30 second dinghy ride-- I could probably push off the dock and coast all the way over) yielded some neat finds. There is moped quite similar to my Kreidler which is submerged in the lowtide muck. Perhaps some vintage Puch or maybe even a fellow Kreidler?

Moped in the gubbus.

A closeup of the moped in the gubbus.

The floodplain area of the park has some really neat swirled grass kind of stuff. It is strange and cushy to walk on. Willie really had fun running around in it.

Willie in the grass across the river.

We also discovered that this river we are in is technically a Marine Estuary with a really neat little segment of marine life in it. This placard below is posted in that same Park. If you click the picture it will give you a large version that you can read. Neat.

Estuary placard.

I don't think Willie's nose has stopped sniffing since we got here.

And this was from our dinghy ride up the river. That was about as far as

we could go before shallow water and a little dam stopped us.

So all told, we are pretty happy with things. It is going to take a while to get used to not being able to just be like "I wonder what Mark is up to?" and walking over to his boat to find out. And there was almost always a crowd of 3 or 4 already over there playing games and having drinks. Instead, it's just us. But I like it. It is more peaceful, more subtle, and more how I always pictured living on a boat with a beautiful wife and a sniffing dog.

Our Last Day at Constitution Marina

2010-05-02T08:18:00.000-07:00

Our last days at Constitution Marina were productive, fun, and (quoting Justin) pre-nostalgic. We really couldn't have had a better last day at the marina, as the weather was amazing, the grills were out, and we were able to gather with many good friends and enjoy everything about the marina that we have loved so much.

Early in the day, Justin borrowed a wetsuit and dove under Madrigal to clean off the prop and shaft, as we have been experiencing some slow motoring due to....gubbus. No, that's not the technical term, but it about sums up what was floating in the water after he was finished! Now our boat motors as it should, but we still need to get hauled out soon and get the rest of that crap off the bottom and paint it up. Soon, so soon. Everything costs so much money though, so it's never an easy thing to do.

The rest of the day, we spent the day cleaning, doing laundry, taking our last *real* showers (it's boat showers from here on out!) and packing things up in the boat (bikes, hoses, etc.) Once we were all finished with that, we went up to the grocery store and bought hot dogs, hot links, chicken, asparagus, corn, etc. for the grills.

It was great seeing everyone up at the grills again and the night was pristine and the weather was warm. Boats were going in and out of slips after dark and it was great to see the marina alive again. The food was fabulous and company couldn't have been more perfect. It was a night that will not soon be forgotten. We're both going to miss everyone so much, but we're looking forward to our new adventure and really hope that we'll be able to see everyone a lot over the summer, despite our new marina.

We sailed into Thayer's Landing yesterday and all went well. Tomorrow I'll post some photos and a little write up of how everything went!

The end of the beginning

2010-04-27T07:56:00.000-07:00

Today is Jenny's last day working at the library in Watertown. This is a huge day. All of our income and expenses will suddenly change. In fact, our lifestyles in general will change, and change rapidly, because this is also our last week living at Constitution Marina. This coming Saturday, May 1st, we leave for Thayer's Landing in Weymouth.

The boat is all ready for the move. This past week I replaced the electric head/undersized holding tank combo with the Airhead composting toilet that we had originally purchased for the Fitzcarraldo. There will be no regular pumpouts there, so a new solution was needed. Having such a small holding tank on an electric head with 2 liveaboards just sucked anyhow. I also installed a Nicro Day/Night solar vent to assist the composter and provide our head with some much needed air circulation. Over the winter I installed a direct from dock water system to go along with our tank water. That way we can take showers with normal amounts of water while docked. Our batteries, and charging system is all set. The engine is up and running after a few little flukes with sticky oil pressure regulators after the long cold winter. Fuel filters are changed and we are excited to move. This week I have to dive under the boat (in the cold Boston Harbor!) and clean up the prop. I could tell on our first run of the season that it is a bit gummed up with crust and gunk, so that shouldn't be too big of a deal to clean.

and then we're off.... out of this Big City. That calls for two appropriate songs.

Big City, by Merle Haggard

and Money Stinks, by DRI

Two fantastic songs about leaving the city and leaving steady jobs.

Long Island (of Boston)

2010-04-23T18:09:00.001-07:00

Madrigal had her first sail of 2010 today, and all went very well!

We decided to just sail out to Boston's Long Island, where we used the rocna for the first time. What a scary feeling to throw such an expensive, heavy chunk of metal over the side of the boat!

We made up a lunch of fish cakes and corn bread and played a game of cards. While we took the dinghy along, we decided to just keep it a short trip so we never did use it.

The sail itself went really well too - we got up over 7 knots a few times and averaged 5 knots or so. Not bad, considering the condition of our bottom!

Escanaba Michigan

2010-04-22T12:11:00.000-07:00

So, we may be in Boston right now, but Jenny and I are truly not Bostonians at heart, and likely never will be. We both hate the Red Sox, and don't really even like baseball in general. We hate the bad traffic, and the lousy almost snowy but generally just soggy winters. It isn't us.

That isn't to say it isn't a cool city. We've had a lot of fun here and we're both very glad we came here for a few years. It's been a ton of fun, and I have trouble picturing myself in most big cities, not just Boston. So, when springtime began to roll around we started debating on what to do about registration, which was about to expire. Madrigal was registered as a Boston boat, but if we are ever going to cruise her away she needs to be documented with the US Coast Guard. It wasn't a hard decision to realize that we'd fit with our boat much better if it was a Michigan boat. I came from mid-Michigan, lots of little lakes, but nowhere a sailboat like this would ever be found. Jenny, on the other hand, grew up just outside of Escanaba Michigan.

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We may or may not ever get to sail all the way up there. We'd love to. It'd be a great trip up the St. Lawrence, and the waters of the great lakes are so clear and fantastic, well, at least up north in that area they are. But the facts that it's on the waterfront, it's Jenny's hometown, and we both really like the whole area up there were enough reasons for us. And so it was that an old race boat from Marblehead MA was overhauled in Boston for a couple of years and is now a registered cruiser as S/V Madrigal hailing from Escanaba MI. Neat.

I repainted the transom and put our new sticker on yesterday. I think it looks nice. I'm happy with it, and I think Madrigal is happy with it too.

-Justin

Jenny here...
I just wanted to add a bit to this post...just a couple of links, really.

Here's a link to the Escanaba Municipal Marina which we someday hope to visit by boat...

The lovely Escanaba, MI

And for the few of you out there that may be saying to yourselves "Escanaba...where have I heard that before?" It may be from this goofy Jeff Daniels movie, Escanaba in Da' Moonlight, which they were filming while I was in high school. Funny stuff.

That's all!

picturesque

2010-04-21T05:49:00.000-07:00

It has been an incredibly busy spring. Jenny has been working all her waking hours split between indexing and the library. Only 6 more days at the library though :) I've been indexing as well as doing massive amounts of boatwork. In the meantime, we haven't really had the chance to upload many of our own pictures. Well today I finally cleaned out the camera and decided to just upload a bunch of pictures. They are roughly in order of oldest (about 6 weeks ago) to newest (yesterday). So I'll just give them some quick captions and hope you enjoy.

Jenny snapped this shot of me applying the second

coat of easypoxy to our deck.

and one more.

This photo is facing starboard and slightly forward in the cockpit.

The big white panel at left is the forward bulkhead which I removed

the old wind gauges from and fiberglassed over.

Willie, admiring himself.

My left hand looks funny up there.

Apparently I was about to scratch my head.

Sometimes, we're odd.

Somehow, Gollum is still alive.

Springtime in a Boston marina is a fantastic time.

Everyone comes out of their little plastic shells and starts to be

social again. It's really very nice.

Ladies, pictured at right is Keith. Keith is a single white male,

roughly 30 years old. Keith enjoys boating and wearing cardboard

shark heads. If you share these interests call him at 1-800-my-shark.

Willie and Rusty love to play. Rusty is 14 years old and so arthritic he can barely

walk, but he still manages to give that young pup a run

for his money.

This is one of our assistant dockmasters, Howie, helping move Madrigal

to it's temporary summer slip. We'll be docked on the outside

of the marina until we leave for Thayer's Landing on May 1st.

Willie has a new superhero costume.

Don't tell him you know who he really is.

He prefers if you call him Wondermutt. It helps him

stay incognito.

Our new Rocna finally arrived yesterday :)

Now we can sleep at anchor with much greater confidance.

It will be a very fun summer.

And just a couple quick shots of the boat in its current state,

new deck paint and all.

and Willie too, of course.