Big Catch at Thayer's Landing

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...

settling in

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.

Strawberries, Exploring Weymouth, and Sugar Wine

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.

Monahan's Marine

Justin, Willie and I took a trip to Weymouth last night when I got out of work to go check out the new neighborhood. For some reason, it reminds me a lot of some of the towns/areas of Michigan (maybe it's the fact that there's a place called Bucks Bar and in Escanaba there's the Buck Inn)...anyway, we drove around for awhile to see what was nearby to Thayer's Landing.


By far, the most exciting thing is Monahan's Marine, which is 1.2 miles from the marina. I haven't been in it yet, but Justin has gone a couple of times and says it is absolutely amazing. We tried to stop by last night but by the time we decided to go in, it was already closed. This place is huge though and will be a great place to spend way too much time and even more money.


The other thing we saw while driving by was a park, which we later found out to be House Rock Park. Here's an interesting blog post about it. Apparently the rock is the largest glacial erratic boulder in all of New England. We couldn't see it in the dark, but here's a photo I found online.


Otherwise, we just looked around at the restaurants, convenience stores, laundromats, malls, grocery stores, etc. There's a lot of stuff super close by and it is appearing that we're going to have an awesome summer, and all in all, Weymouth sounds much more down to earth than Boston (in my opinion), and I'm really looking forward to that.

Thayer's Landing

Well, it's official. Jenny and I have decided to move Madrigal to a new marina next spring. We love Constitution Marina and have only good to say about it, but it is time for some change. We bought a boat so we can move around a bit, so we might as well. Also, we are both growing tired of being in the city 365 days a year.

With that in mind, we've kept an eye out for a marina that happens to stand out a little. Well, a couple days ago a craigslist posting appeared advertising one open slip in Thayer's Landing Marina in Weymouth Mass. I've never heard of the place before. So far as I can tell, neither has anybody else. There is a good reason for this. The marina only has about 8 real slips and then a long dock that fits about 8 more boats. I don't think there has ever been an opening at the marina. Jeff Thayer, the very nice gentleman who runs the place, said he usually has a 3 year waiting list and he's never really had to advertise before. I can tell it is true because I can't find ANYTHING about this place online.

I think we got very lucky. It is a beautiful place, located up theWeymouth Fore River. Jeff Thayer's house was built in 1680. Dr. Cotton Tufts (pun intended?), founder of Tufts university and doctor of Abigail Adams built the house. It is old, large, and beautiful. However Jeff came to own it is currently unknown to me, but 20 some years ago he built this small marina in his back yard. It is peaceful, quiet compared to our current downtown Boston location and wonderfully, deliciously, green colored. There are trees down both sides of the river. There is a park just across the water from us. The house has a fenced in yard. It is very quaint and should be a nice change for us.

We'll still spend the winter seasons in Charlestown at Constitution Marina with all our friends. All the friends here are seriously going to be the hardest part of spending a summer (and perhaps many) away. There is a great community here, and we've gotten quite close with some people. It is nice to know that we can come and go though. Thus is the real freedom of living aboard.

This is the monstrous Fore River drawbridge that we will have to go under. The picture doesn't do justice to the size of the thing. Our boat can sail right under it. It has a 55 foot clearance at high tide before the bridge even goes up. The bridge gives a pretty industrial look, and the waterfront right there really is industrial. It was home to the Fore River Shipyard. Luckily we are upriver a ways and it gets nicer and nicer up the river. Neither of us have ever spent much time in Weymouth. I've only been there because of Monahans, the fantastic marine store that we will now only be 1 mile from! (I'm not sure if that is good or bad). But from driving around there the past few days it seems like a very nice town. Lots of good looking cafes, restaurants, and coffee shops. Seems upscale, but not snoody and annoying. It also puts us close to quite a few good outdoor areas. Blue Hills Reservation is close by as well as Wompatuck State Park, which is the park Jenny and I camped at when we vacationed to Boston for an inspection tour to see if we wanted to move here almost 4 years ago. We'll also be about 1 mile from Bare Cove Park, an excellent place to walk Willie off leash.

Getting out to sail will become easier as well since we won't have to beat through Boston Harbor and get tossed constantly by the ferry boats and hordes of powerboats. In all, I think we'll enjoy it. Life will quiet down in the summers and move a little slower, but that's OK by us.