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Boat = Home.
The panic is gone – today the boat is home.
Things have worked out so well that it is hard to remember why I even felt that way. Our plans for the future, while still quite general in nature, include all the advantages of having a home that is mobile. Little L. is having the time of his life. Ma and Pa are able to be with him 24/7 – what they do, he does. Because of our lowered expenses I am able to work much fewer than the average 40 hours a week. This means more family time and more time to pursue those things that really interest me. I don’t regret the decision to move aboard for one second. The freedom from following the path of “normal” has been worth it all.
Yves, a friend of mine who is also a bit of a dreamer and a wonderer, said it best at in the intro to his blog Bohemian Sailors:
“Somewhere, out there, exists the “book of life” written by society” which establishes timelines for a variety of life’s stages.
The following is a condensed chronological version of these conventional, predetermined stages:
1. after high school comes college or university (trade) studies,
2. then the hunt for that perfect companion starts,
3. establish a career,
4. marry that perfect companion,
5. buy a house and car,
6. have a couple of kids,
7. work longer hours,
8. buy a second car,
9. work longer hours,
10. buy a bigger house,
11. then work for the next 25 years in preparation of those last 10-15 years of retirement.”This is what is considered normal? Can you say dangling carrots? We have broken out of the mould – we follow our own path. On this new path my boat is my home.
OK – that’s enough of that – this sort of ends the chronological part of this blog. From here on out I plan to be current – to record the things and thoughts that happen to us on a daily basis.
I’m off to tbe marina bathroom for a shower…
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We Live on a Boat – Day 1
I remember laying in the v-berth that night with the weight of apparent impending doom on my chest. “What have I done” I asked myself over and over again. This is where I have brought my family? They trusted me, and this is what I do in return? These thoughts were equally offset however by the joy of knowing that I did not owe a cent to anyone. Debt free and loving it! (I found out how much I hated debt when I got rid of it.) Starting over, on a boat no less. Adventure and unknown – almost like being 20 again.
Hmmm – I wonder if this is what people call a mid-life crisis?
I don’t remember a lot of details from our first day on board. I seem to remember a lot of giddy, nervous, wild eyed laughter between A. and I. I think we spoke about how great it was to be free and clear of the house. How we were now able to do anything we wanted. We viewed our position as at a crossroads – we could go any direction we wanted. Which way to go?
But my most vivid memory of day 1 is the panic that I felt that night in the v-berth.
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Break it to them Gently – The Slow Peel Method
When removing a Band-Aid, there are two schools of thought. One is the slow peel method, maybe using a bit of warm water. While the other (rather violent method) is the mighty rip. There are pro’s and con’s to both. The Mighty Rip is painful and usually removes some skin and hair but thankfully the pain is over quickly. The Slow Peel is more gentle and usually leaves most of the skin still on your body. However, the period of pain is much longer. When trying to figure out how to tell our parents that we were moving aboard a sailboat (and taking their only grandchild with us) we elected to use the Slow Peel method.
Initially, we did not talk about what we were going to do. (Truthfully, we were not absolutely sure in our minds either.) All we talked about was getting the house ready for sale. We had a lot of work to do upgrading the house and making some repairs that had been long left undone. With all the painting and landscaping and hiring of workers we managed to avoid the question of where we were going to go. As the time came closer for the house to go on the market we told everyone that we were going to bunk out on the boat for a while till we figured out what we were going to do. At that point, I suppose that in my mind we were going to stay on the boat for longer, but A. had not yet committed to it.
Once the house went on the market we went full speed ahead in preparing the boat for us to live aboard. We did a lot of sanding, painting and varnishing. I installed a refrigeration system and A.’s mother made up new seat and berth cushions for us.
As time went on we began to allude to the thought that we might even stay the winter aboard if everything went well. We spoke of it as our little adventure and tried to paint it up as a cool thing to do but I am sure that people thought we were crazy.
Once we actually moved aboard, it was a done deal. Everyone just knew that we were going to stay here for a while. Today, we call the boat, home – and it is a home. After all, home is where the heart is, and well, my heart is here.
And that is how to break it to them gently – the Slow Peel Method.
Next: 1st day in our new home.
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Launch and Thoughts of Living Aboard.
Launching is a curious thing. On one hand you have the anticipation of another great sailing season. After all, once the boat is in the water – summer is practically here, right? On the other hand, you have the worry that something might go wrong. Maybe the engine won’t start. Or maybe those new thru hulls you installed are going to leak. Oh man, did I remember to close that one in the head?!? You know, that sort of thing.
Summer ’05 launch went well. They dropped the boat into the water and after I quickly jumped aboard to check for leaks I was sent down the dock to install the mast. The crane made short work of it, and in about half an hour I was in my home slip – freezing my butt off, but oh so happy. Summer’s here – yaaaah! After celebrating the arrival of summer I jumped into my truck to try to warm up. I guess summer is a little cold this time of year.
At this point, we had not seriously discussed moving aboard. My wife had taken her maternity leave and did not expect to go back to work. I had started my own appliance repair business less than a year earlier and while I was doing well, I did not feel like putting in the long extra hours needed to makeup the money that we would surely need when the maternity ran out. Plus I found spending time with my son and wife rewarding in that I did not miss anything and my wife never really felt alone in raising him. (Mind you, I have no illusions – she did all the hard work.) We had a little brick house in Toronto proper that we had bought some 13 years previously. We did not have the mortgage paid off, but had taken a good piece out of it. Plus the house had grown in value somewhat. What to do? Do we move away – to some area of the country where living was cheaper? Would A. have to go back to work and little L. go to daycare? (In my mind, this was never an option.) Should we sell the house and just find a cheap apartment somewhere? None of these sounded good to us.
Then there was “the plan” (see the post titled Where to Start … Some History.) Were we still going to sail around the world? We had the boat… Well, if one were going to sail for a great distance and for a great period of time, it would be good thing to do a bit of a trial run, right? Slowly, the idea began to filter into our minds that we could solve our living arrangement problems and continue the sail around the world dream all in one move. And that is how we got to the point of thinking that this might be the perfect time to try out living on a sailboat.
To be perfectly honest with you, I was shocked that A. was willing to give it a whirl. With all she was going through – giving birth and being on call 24/7 to feed the boy, I never dreamt that she would seriously consider it. But consider she did and shock me she did. I guess I should not have been too surprised. In our time together, A. had always had an adventurous side. She more than I sometimes. I tend to become a bit of a homebody although once I get going I always end up asking myself, “what took so long”?
So that ended up being the plan. Sell the house, pay off all our debts and move aboard the sailboat. A mighty plan it was!
Up next: Break it to me gently – telling our parents.
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Unexpected Hull Repair
I had covered the boat for winter using a big blue Canadian Tire tarp supported by electrical conduit pipes bent over into upside down “U” shapes. I used four of these hoops which in hind sight were not enough. I should have used maybe five or six.
I checked up on the boat on a regular basis, and while I found sometimes a knot had come loose and a corner was flapping, it generally did the job of keeping the snow off the boat. As winter wore on and less snow fell, I checked in on her less often. Big mistake! What happened was, we had a big wet heavy dump of snow – the kind that feels like you are shoveling cement – followed by a day long heavy rain. Then everything froze again. I did not think too much of it. My sister was visiting from out of town so we thought we would show her the boat. As we pulled up, something did not look right. The back end of the tarp, (the part covering the cockpit) was all caved in and one of the conduit poles was broken and poking through the tarp at a strange angle. I climbed the ladder up to the cockpit with a sense of dread. Sure enough, the tarp had caved in where the poles had broken under the heavy weight of the snow. Then the cockpit filled with water and froze. I had a solid block of ice in the cockpit about 2 1/2 feet wide by 5 feet long by about a foot deep. That was some ice cube! The tarp was frozen into the middle of “The Cube”, so I could not even get into the boat. We went at “The Cube” with hammers and screwdrivers breaking it into manageable hunks that we could throw over the side of the boat.
Finally, we got most of it out and were able to lift the tarp and actually get into the boat. I climbed down inside and lifted the floorboard out of habit just to check for water in the bilge. NO WAY!! The bilge was full up ice almost to the top of the batteries. (Here after to be called Cube 2.) “Cube 2” was not slushy ice either – another solid block. I felt sick to my stomach. It took me two days of chipping, adding hot water then sponging out and using a heater to get “C2” out and to see the bottom of the bilge again. What a job! I guess what happened was, when “The Cube” invaded the cockpit, water was able to flow into the boat around the cockpit seats thus providing the raw material for “C2.”
With “The Cube” and “C2” finally out of my life I got around to looking at the rest of the boat. Looking at the hull I noticed that the antifouling paint had come loose on both sides of the hull in about the same place where “C2” took up residence in the bilge. I guess there had been some expansion after all. I also noticed a crack forming in a strange place further up the keel toward the bow. As I chipped away at this new crack I found that I was actually peeling away what looked to be a layer of fiberglass wrapped around the bottom of the keel running some 6 or 7 feet long. I decided to have the hull checked out by a professional who I hoped would give me some advise on this crack as well.
I met a fiberglass/hull man the next evening at the boat to check it out. He was not worried at all about where the hull had expanded by the bilge, however the crack in the keel did not look good to him. He went at the crack with a 2″ chisel and hammer and in about 30 second had peeled off a huge layer of fiberglass that had been stuck to the bottom of the keel by a previous owner (PO). I guess this layer was part of an old repair that had been done rather poorly in the past. The glass had been laid up right over the gel coat which I understand is a no no. He advised me to peel all the old repair off, then grind the gel coat off and then he would come back and do a proper repair.
I did the required peeling and very quickly found out why he had me do the grinding. I still sometimes close my eyes at night and taste the fiberglass dust and feel the itch and burn of it picking and poking its way into my skin. After cleaning the old area up we noticed that the hull was dripping from a couple of cracks that we had exposed when grinding. No problem my repair guy said, just drill a couple of holes up into the keel and let the water drain out. So drill I did – except that did not go as planned either. No sooner had I drilled a couple of holes but chunks of fiberglass resin started falling out of the area around the cracks and holes. When all was said and done and the hull had stopped blowing chunks, there was about a 5 inch hole in the bottom of the keel right to the imbedded iron ballast.
To me this was a rather disconcerting sight, but to a hull repair guy its just another day on the job. I watched in amazement as he quickly made up a patch that he plugged into the hole. Then after waiting a couple of hours for it to dry he laid up a new repair and smoothed and faired it into the old gel coat. When he was done, you could not tell where he had worked. It looked and felt perfect to me. All this was done in about 4 hours. I have a new respect for guys who work with fiberglass – mine turned out to be a real artisan.
I guess that cube 1 and 2 were in a way good things as they exposed a problem that I had not been aware of before. Now, I am confident the hull is in good shape and in a proper state of repair.
Next time: 3… 2… 1… Launch!!