No time to be schmoopy- ITS CHRISTMAS!!

I have not been neglecting the blog. I do try to keep is somewhat focused on the boat (with a healthy bit of kid thrown in. Hey, the title is OUR life and right now our life is pretty darned kidcentric) and there had not been a whole heck of a lot of progress on the boat this month. We aren't slacking, far from it but the truth of the situation is that when Mark is away, precious little ground is gained. If we thought October and November were busily pulling us away from the boat with work, December taught us that we didn't really KNOW what busy was.

December found Mark traveling for work to Florida for a week. No time for fun and sun, he flew back home for a less than 24 hour stay. Bright and early the next morning, he was on a flight to Bergen, Norway. He was so frazzled by the quick flight turn around, he forgot to bring his coat. Mark joyfully embracing the stereotype of the thrifty Scot refused to buy a new coat when he had a perfectly suitable in his car. In Houston. So he bravely kept up a crazy weeks work schedule in Bergen, Norway in December. With no coat. Dude. I appreciate not wasting money as much as the next guy bit getting frostbite will definitely slow your roll.

Anyway, he was able to fly to Scotland to visit with his mother, sister and brother in law for you guessed it- one day. Then it was off to Nuremberg, Germany for a week. While he worked long days, he did find time to enjoy the Christmas markets. His take is that there is no place on Earth that does Christmas better than the Germans and we have put Christmas in Germany on our bucket list. Wouldn't a photo be nice? Yeah. He never takes his camera with him. Its on the nav desk on the boat, far from any image you might want to capture. From Germany, it was back to Norway but this time he was in Stavanger. His time in Norway has put another post cruise option on our list of possible locations. He just loves it there. I never thought much about living in Norway. but it would be kind of neat to see where my mom's family is from and we do have friends there so who knows?

From Stavanger, it was fly home to Houston. Hang your hat for a couple of hours then back to Florida for a few days. And that my friends was all of December. The bad news is that Oct., Nov. and Dec. have managed to push our schedule back by 3 months so there is the very real possibility that our departure date will have to move. The good news is that Mark doesn't so these kinds of work heavy months for the fun of it- they pay him. So bad news, schedule off, good news more pennies in the cruising kitty. I am not going to be schmoopy about yet another possible delay because he is home, we are together and IT IS CHRISTMAS!!!

I unabashedly adore Christmas. Its not as if I undergo a complete personality transplant and suddenly become a cookie baking, light installing Martha Stewart type who creates wintry tablescapes out of twigs, marshmallow forest creatures and snow I created in my freezer but I appreciate the handiwork of all those who do. This is shaping up to be a great Christmas and the biggest single reason for this is having a 2 year old who is every bit as excited when she sees light displays and decorated trees as I do. Kitty is a fellow fan of Christmas and man, is it ever fun.

This girl is completely horse crazy.

We went to a community Christmas party where they not only brought in Santa Claus (Kitty loves the Claus in theory, not reality. No photo ops with Santa this year. She kept telling the kids behind her 'Its your turn'. ) but ponies (Kitty is seriously horse crazy), a train, bouncy castles and the mother of all wonders for kids raised in the subtropics- SNOW!! 

Kitty could not wait to throw herself into the snow. Once she did, she learned the hard, cold truth. (pun intended) Snow is damned cold. She turned around holding her hands up "Mama. I need glubs".

 Maura was excited by the snow until she realized that snow in 75 degree weather turns to ice and that stuff is slick. She looked like a geriatric tottering around on the ice but is wily enough to have plucked a candy cane decoration that was the perfect size to function as a walking cane and enjoyed the ice until her feet were too cold and then it was time for home. Who needs Disney World?

While Mark was off traveling the world for fun and profit, Maura and I got to work on a fun little project. My dear friend Steve Rees, formerly of Two O'Clock Courage was kind enough to record a little piece of Christmas music for Maura to sing. Steve is an incredibly tasty guitar player and I love what he did for her. We didn't tell him anything other than "Do your thing"and boy did he come up with a lovely arrangement for her. He's not only a fantastic musician, he has a place in his heart for young musicians. I think he was the perfect conspirator to work with Maura on her first ever recording.

 Cindy Pruitt of Smiley Face Records was a gem to work with as well. Even going into a small studio, doing a quick and easy vocal take without any bells and whistles or studio magic can be daunting to an inexperienced singer. Cindy was very warm, welcoming and put no pressure on Maura. I think Maura had a really great first studio experience which will serve her well when she is grown should she continue to want to sing. Thanks again to Cindy and Steve. We really place a high value on experiences over things and this was a great experience for her.

So here is Maura singing a song of the season with highlights of the past year. We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year. May this next year find you an abundance of laughter, joy, health, adventure and a great big horizon.

* When Mark heard this his comments where "ACK! It sounds so ENGLISH! Why did you pick something so slow and without a beat?!?! Because Mark, 'God Rest ye Merry Gentlemen' is my dad's favorite Christmas song and my dad is my number one Daddyo and since he is the bees knees, he gets his granddaughter singing his favorite.

Not to worry. Kitty shares your love of hard rocking Christmas music as evidenced here:

That's right. That's my baby singing The Kinks. That is how we roll. Merry Christmas everyone.

Props to the Liveaboard Refitters

Some folks make sailing heroes out of those who sail the higher latitudes dodging icebergs and dealing with extreme weather.  Not me. Why anyone would want to sail in frigid waters with the only reward at landfall being some seals barking at you, penguin poop and yet more frostbite?

No, my sailing heroes are the folks who manage to live aboard while undergoing a real refit. And by real I mean something a little more involved than changing the curtains and adding new electronics. That's not a refit, that's shopping despite what the boat brokers try to tell you. Living in an already really confined space with everything topsy turvy and managing to not fly into a homicidal rage? That is worthy of admiration. I respect those who do this because there is no way I could do it.

Here is the current state of our salon. All the floorboards are up, Bondo fumes fill the air, the headliner is still off and tools are everywhere. Though heaven help you if you move the tools because Mark has them placed just SO.

The reason for this latest bit of upheaval? Tidying up the run to the bilge. The area under the floorboards has never been faired which means we have lots of little bumps and crevices along the way to the bilge. Bumps and crevices which like to hold water (which despite our best efforts continues to drip down the mast). Sure, its a tiny bit of moisture but its a small boat and that little bit of moisture does like to grow interesting things like mold and mildew. Our goal is to make the boat as dry as possible so we need any and all water to go all the way down to the bilge where we hope one of the numerous bilge pumps we are putting it can give it back to the ocean.

We would also like to be able to install sliding trays which run on elevated tracks in this unused space. Not a whole lot of things will fit there, but provisions sealed in airtight containers should fit. We will have enough canned good storage space to provision for the zombie apocalypse. That's the thing about zombies, everyone knows they can't swim so a boat is a perfect place to avoid brain stealing walking dead. That was my first thought when Mark and I discussed adding storage. Mark just raised an eyebrow at my fantastical rabbit chasing mind. He can be really patient at times. But I digress...

So we endure the smell of Bondo as we try to make the under floor area baby butt smooth. The fumes tend to make me lightheaded, then I start to like the smell and wonder why no one has come up with a Bondo scented aftershave because is it ever a MANLY smell and then I realize I am obviously destroying the few brain cells I have and I'd better go on deck for a fresh oxygen infusion. When my thinking process returns to normal (or as close as mine ever gets) I then think about the folks who are doing similar tasks on their boat while living aboard and I am in awe of their fortitude. THAT is some serious chutzpah.

What do we do while we wait for the Bondo to cure? Why tidy up the topsides of course. We are still pondering what we want to do to the deck layout to make Ceol Mor easier to sail but we know all the decks need to be in tip top shape before we install anything so while we think, we tidy. We tidy up which means there is every bit as big a mess on deck as there is below.  Gingerly step around the needed tools and gently remove any yuck staining the fiberglass under the old deck hardware, check for soundness and paint as necessary. Repeat. Go below, brave the fumes and clutter and Bondo some more. Then be very thankful we don't have to try to live in this big mess and give a hearty salute to those brave souls who chose to do so. You folks are made of stern stuff indeed.

All work and no play...

Mark is still working away on our plumbing. He ordered all the copper pipe, tubing and fittings and was getting ready to redo our water system because of course, you can not install the fuel lines until you do the water because of the way the boat has been laid out. To his credit, he did not bemoan the fact that he can not install his AWESOME fuel system until he did the water system, he just got on with it.

In another example of But Of Course!!, after all the plumbing supplies arrived he realized he ordered the parts based on measurements of the pipe size which is great except he needed the fittings for tubing. And they are measured differently, which he knew (I didn't! and if you don't you can see what's up here) but he was in his ordering groove and got so focused on ticking boxes that he forget this important detail. Whoops. Its times like this that I wonder how they can even allow people like Mark and I to own a boat, let alone sail it around other boats. I guess the fact that the water is wide is a very good thing. So now while we are waiting for the proper sized fittings to arrive, Mark and I are debating the merits of deck layouts while he tidies up the bilge in preparation for the install.

My sister endured a full day of judging Junior High Shakespearean acting duets which included a catered lunch of Totino's pizza for which she was compensated with tickets to the Texas Renaissance Festival and would we like to go with her and my adorable nephews Jackson and Liam? Oh heck yes. These kids need to see something other than a never ending parade of boat projects.

Kitty was absolutely gobsmacked. The gates looked like a CASTLE! There were pirates and princesses and swords and real elephants! Everything our wee girl loves all in one place. I spent a small fortune on elephant rides, llama rides, petting zoo trips and pony ride after pony ride. It was totally worth it as Kitty's face still lights up when she talks about it. When she wasn't bonding with critters big and small, she was dancing- nonstop. All day long. She was perfect, even without a nap. Maura had a great time with sword fighting lessons, and falconry demonstrations, games, listening to music, seeing old friends and just having a ball. It was a much needed break for the kids and big thanks to my sister for making it happen. Kitty was absolutely unconscious before we even got out of the parking lot.

And then, it was back to bilges and boat sewing projects. Huzzah.

Keep On Keeping On...

Kitty likes sparkly, fluffy crowns. And power tools and trucks. This girl contains multitudes....

There have been a flurry of projects going on around these parts. Maura has been working on increasing her social media presence which is why there is no photo of her. Also, my memory card with the photos of her is el corrupto. In all fairness, Maura has helped us tremendously by helping out a lot with household chores and watching the little one while we work. She has had some successes- YAY! She made dinner and cleaned up! And some failures. If you are babysitting and things get really quiet you need to assume your charge is off making mischief of some sort that will invariably end badly. Life lessons. All important life lessons.

Which brings me to Kitty's project. Kitty took it upon herself to trim her own hair. Remember how I mentioned how much she loved her scissors? Who knew that post contained foreshadowing. No, the photo does not show her hair parting over her ear. It shows where she hacked off a honking big chunk of hair leaving a gap over her ear. She doesn't have a whole lot of hair to begin with and now she has even less. She will be sporting more than her fair share of clips for a while. There is no reason for Mark's hair. It just is what it is.

While we are planning out the placement of our new clutches and winches and figuring out how to improve the run of lines to the cockpit, Mark took the traveler apart for a bit of maintenance on the traveler, the mounting plate and the deck beneath it all. We spent a good bit of time matching paint colors (why oh why did the PO use 3 different shades of white on one boat?) and hopefully once its all tidied up, perfected and painted it will look brand new. I had photos of it all but again with the corrupted card. They weren't terribly exciting photos anyway, so there.

Mark continues to work on the Most Splendid Fuel System Ever. I know that he is methodical in all that he does and I know the man does not possess a single slacker gene but I can't help but think that there has not been a tremendous amount of progress. Actually, there has been it just doesn't actually LOOK like it. He has all the parts he needs. Or so he thought. He originally planned to bend copper tubing using the tools he made to ensure that all the bends were exact and all the straight runs straight. He found out that by bending the copper himself, the foot print of the tubing runs was too large to install on the Star board plate for mounting. We either need to get another boat with a bigger engine room or he will have to order new copper elbows and what nots which have a tighter turning radius. These have to be ordered because of course, no one stocks these. No one. These are not exactly exotic but apparently no one does their own plumbing, except for us. So we are waiting on
the fittings to finish stage 2.

For those of you who geek out over wiring and plumbing diagrams, Here's an isometric for you. If you are planning on redoing your fuel system and you want to out geek your dock neighbors, go to my Flickr account where I've made all 3 of the schematics and isometrics public. Download and blow em up. We just saved you 2 weeks of work. Let your Nerd flag fly my friends, let it fly. Yes, we have similar paperwork for every single system Mark has touched. No, he really can not stop being an engineer for even a minute. Yes, I have learned to embrace his persnickety perfectionism. No, I have not adopted it for my own projects. Be serious.

Speaking of my projects, I got busy on my latest endeavor. There was a huge flock of vultures hanging around which can only mean one thing. I am about to begin a sewing project.

Seriously, flock of vultures and I am not even kidding

I began working on the salon port light curtains in earnest. I desperately want to try to make the boat interior just a wee bit more modern. Ok, I want to drag it kicking and screaming out of the 1980s. Not that I have anything against hunter green other than it induces a desire in me to wear high waisted acid washed jeans and to arrange my bangs to resemble a shrubbery on my forehead, but having the boat feel like a home makes me happy and I am all about being happy. So freshened up and modernized it must be.

This should be easy right? Wrong. Firstly, the fabric I chose to help in the de-80fying of the boat has a lovely geometric pattern. While I love the crispness of the design, I do not love the perfection required in cutting out said fabric. The boat will never heel over enough to cover up my wonky first attempt. In order to a have a peaceful existence, it is important to know yourself. I bought lots of extra fabric.

The second issue which makes things tricky is that our cabin sides slope. This means the readily available boat curtain rods won't work as the curtains would never hang down over the portlights. Also, our opening ports have dogs which protrude too much to allow us to use the commercially available curtain tracks. We need something that will attach at both the top and the bottom, will allow the panels to slide to open and close and with enough stretch to work around the port light dogs. I think I've come up with a solution with shock cord and pad eyes. We shall see how we get on.

 I did have a stroke of genius for the backing fabric. The heavily insulated, bubbly, shiny aluminum stuff you see on most boats is too bulky to allow the curtains to be slid open and closed on the shock cord. I am lining ours with aluminum coated ironing board fabric. Time will tell how well it holds up to mildew but during my initial most definitely NOT scientific explorations it did reflect the radiant heat much more than just a plain fabric liner. I'm sure the bubbly stuff is better at insulating but the ability to open and close the curtains easily outweighs the slight insulating advantage of the bulky stuff.

Fortunately, I have quite a bit of time before Mark will let me install the hardware for the curtains as he works in the boat so I can take my time and do the sewing in fits and spurts as a way to diminish my inevitable cursing of my trusty Singer. I will be sure to post photos of the salon once its all installed- whether it works beautifully or ends in tears.

And soon, very soon I shall begin the completely functionally unnecessary but oh so soul satisfying girlification of our head. Just need to brush up on my air brushing skills first. Ok, so I need to obtain some air brushing skills but that is all part of the plan...

I

Please Continue To Hold...

Boats in the marina...waiting.

We are deep in the middle of waiting. As Robert Heinlein said in 'Stranger in a Strange Land, "Waiting is...until fullness". Very apt for the state of things in and around Ceol Mor. We are most definitely strangers in a strange land. Living life with one foot firmly planted in the day to day of living ashore in the suburbs with work and school and kids activities and running a household and one foot out the door into the world of sailing (vagabonding!) around , seeing the world outside our little corner of the planet. I am not going to sugar coat it. Waiting is hard.

We had a bit of a stroke of luck last year. Mark's work load was fairly light so he was able to really put a bunch of time into getting our boat ready. This year his work load has increased to a level that is beyond full, requiring him to travel quite a bit, to work on brain taxing technical problems and to try to squeeze in a bit of boat work as well. The work relationship is a necessary one. They need the work done and since we have not won the lottery we need the funds to stockpile to pay our living expenses while we go gallivanting. It works out to a good if decideldy codependent relationship. I know that his short temper these days has more to do with trying to fit everything in with very little rest than anything we are or are not doing. I also know that this too shall pass. But its hard. Hard to know the answer is to get out sailing where Mark visibly relaxes and a calmness overtakes him and to know that the answer is still 12 months away.

Then there are the little things that are hard. Little things like my car. My car is okay but really way too small for my day to day life with a toddler in tow and a preteen as well. We really could use something that offered us the flexibility of hauling kids and/or boat refit supplies and equipment. We looked long and hard at the used car market and no matter how we crunched the numbers, to get something in decent shape would require us to take a $2500-$3000 hit over the course of 12 months. How many months of cruising would that $3,000 buy us? Almost 2 on our projected budget. Do we want to give up that time in exchange for a bit more comfort and convenience for only 12 months? No, keep your eye on the prize but as I load up the car for another day it does annoy me.

A really hard thing was giving up a long time dream of my own. I had a great career in folk music and felt like I had reached all of my goals save one- I always wanted to do children's music. Some might not get it because its not cool or hip, but I have always wanted to perform for children. When I heard that my absolute favorite of all time children's music group The Singing Kettle was searching for a new cast member, I sent in my resume, some past recordings and a short video. I thought it was a pipe dream and did not expect anything. Then they came back announcing I had made the short list and would I send in a another video? I sent it in and then Mark and I sat down and crunched numbers and logistics of moving the family and boat to Scotland, changing our sailing plans and all the changes and sacrifices that chasing this weird little dream of mine would entail.

As we waited to hear back, I came to the conclusion that the sacrifices we have made for the past 3 years would have been wasted if I were to take the position. I quite tearfully made the determination that choosing to chase the dream of cruising meant foregoing other dreams and goals. I knew I had to withdraw my name should I be invited to Scotland. It was a bit of good fortune actually, that in the end choosing a Texan for a Scottish children's group did not fit in with the Singing Kettle's needs and I did not have to write that painful letter withdrawing my name. Knowing that I had to forgo other dreams was very hard. Its not one I will be able to revisit so it really is choosing one longed for experience over another. Hard indeed.

The kids are finding waiting hard as well. Not so much Kitty, whose only real sacrifice is a backyard climbing frame/slide of her own (and man oh man would she love it) but Maura has had to give up opportunities and things in order for us to do this. We live in the epicenter of suburban/American consumerism and in order to make cruising work, we have to make different choices than our neighbors and while on the surface it might seem superficial and inconsequential, if you are 12 years old and are the only kid around not following the prescribed formula it is hard. No iPhone, they are too expensive and you won't be able to use it in a year. No competitive dance or sports because you will be leaving in a year and those require a 3 year commitment. Amassing a junior high school worthy wardrobe? You'll just have to get rid of most of it in a year and when will you wear those trendy jeans with all the gelcoat scarring studs on the boat? Other coveted gadgets and items are just more things to soak up the finances and must be gotten rid of in the name of available storage space. Maura desperately wants a sailing dinghy of her own but we don't have time to get good use out of it before we leave and where would we store it on the boat? Birthdays and Christmas are small, both for financial reasons and storage space considerations. Certainly not life or death choices but if you are 12 and giving up all of the things your friends enjoy for an unknown experience, it is hard.

So, I continue to wait. Waiting for the payoff for which we have all sacrificed. I do not begrudge those who are able to just buy a boat, step aboard and take off. I am happy that life happened in such a way to allow them to skip the waiting because some times, waiting really sucks. And blows. Simultaneously .Our life has not happened in such a way for that to be the case. We've had to sacrifice, work and wait. While the waiting can get me down, I know that no one will be more excited to finally cast off the dock lines than we. I know that all this annoying and at times maddening craziness will result in an adventure many others will never get the chance to experience and for that, I am extremely grateful. So we shall keep on keeping on and until we finally cast off our ties to land I will try to remember "Waiting is...until fullness."

Chasing down a leak...

You know you are really and truly a boat owner when you get the privilege of spending 2 or 3 days chasing down a mysterious leak. After a very hard bit of rain, there appeared a leak on the aft cabin berth. Perhaps it was the winch seating? Nope. Both winches above the cabin look to be okay but we did find a bit of old deck rot which must be attended to. No answer to the leak but yet another project on our non-project boat. Maybe its the traveler? That needs to be reset anyway, lets have a look. Nope...not there. Portlight? But we just reseated those and while Mark is not the fastest worker in the world the man is thorough. After 2 days of dismantling everything and putting it back together we have come up with the answer- maybe it is the winch after all. Or maybe not. We will have to wait and see.

The good news is that Kitty was around to assist for a lot of the leak chasing. She found this very exciting as it involved hammers AND screwdrivers. She offered her opinion on our work while Mark and I loosened bolts, then retightened them. Again. And again. The she was off screwdriver in hand to check every bolt and screw on deck. Kid has a bright future in a boat yard somehwere, She didn't miss a single one.

Why yes, that is a different pirate costume. This one was purchased after her previous one literally fell apart from wear. She was a little upset that this one did not have what constitutes a proper hat but was placated when she figured out her head scarf included earrings. I am just hoping this one lasts until Halloween...

Sundowners with the Sundowners

Sausage bread and Arancini- not burned and therefore worthy of documentation

I write this blog really just to document this time in our lives so I A: don't forget how hard we worked to get here and B: remind myself why I have vowed never to refit another boat ever again. A side benefit of writing this is that our little blog has given us the opportunity to meet some really incredible people and to develop some great friendships. Without this blog, I would never have met my now good friends Cindy and Laureen. Friends that I know have my back should I ever decide that this was all a really stupid idea and will listen for hours if I have a mental breakdown and weep uncontrollably over our exploding holding tank. This alone makes keeping the blog worthwhile.

We had the good fortune to get to have a meet and greet with Tate and Danielle from Sundowner Sails Again. They were in Kemah for a Westsail owners Rendezous. We were on the boat working on the never ending refit once again. We invited Tate and Dani over for snacks and cocktails, followed by a tour of our boat and a rare dinner out.

We just loved meeting Tate and Dani. I think perhaps Tate was born about 100 years too late. He just has the heart of a Victorian era explorer with the can do attitude and aptitude for picking up and excelling at whatever he puts his hand to. Like a modern Dr. David Livingstone. He just exudes capability as well as having a really wicked sense of humor. He could wear a pith helmet and a monocle and you would not raise an eyebrow because he could totally make it work.

Mark is smiling because he finally met someone who understands his Captain Perfecto tendencies

Dani is just grace itself. Impossibly lovely, gracious and with a keen intellect and that same inherent capability that Tate has. We all loved hanging with Dani but Maura was absolutely starstruck. If we all think Dani is the bees knees, Maura thinks she is a rockstar- smart, beautiful, fearless AND capable? I think Maura will be heading up her fan club. The only one of us disappointed was Kitty and that is only because we told her all week were going to meet Tate and Dani but she thought we were going to see Dani who would bring her CAKE. When she figured out Tate was a person and not a confectionary she just sighed.

Bonding over a shared dismay of the state of our galleys...

We ate too much, drank enough, laughed a lot and stayed up waayy too late. We had a blast. The next morning, it was up with the sun and back to chasing down a leak on the boat. Such is life during a refit but man oh man was it fun to put down the tools for a bit and have a good time with peeps who are simpatico.