Two Year Anniversary!

We've done it! We've been onboard for two years now.

When we first made the decision we promised each other that we would give this lifestyle at least three years. We weren't allowed to give up after the first winter no matter how bad it got.

And now? Two winters (and two glorious springs, summers, and autumns) later? We can't imagine going back to a non-floating residence.

Check out all that we have accomplished in 730 days:

Interior Renovations/Redecorating

• A home office so I can comfortably and effectively work at home.
• A full length mirror in the Master Stateroom.
• A new hot water heater.
• The purchase of new dinnerware.
• Lots of organization tricks.
• The replacement of two faucets.
• The addition of a printer nook.
• Prep work for winter condensation.
• The purchase of electric heaters for winter.
• A new mattress for the Master Stateroom.
• Fixing the washer/dryer.
• New LED lights.
• Two new HVAC units (this vessel has four).

Exterior Maintenance, Safeguards, and Fun

• The purchase of an ice-eater to protect us during an extremely cold Baltimore winter.
• Winter water prep and protection of outdoor pipes.
• A Lehr propane motor for the dinghy.
• Four short hauls.
• A few days "on the hard."
• A new name.
• Figuring out how to change the oil, fuel filters, impellers on the engines and generator.
• Four new house batteries.
• A couple fresh coats of wax.
• New LED lights (with the option of blue or white).
• Replacement helm stereo, speakers, and a new TV.
• New valves for the VacuFlush system.
• Repair of one holding tank sensor and replacement of the other (aren't you glad there aren't pictures of that?).
• Using Starbrite Waterproofing to seal the canvas against leaks.

Marina Celebrations, Activities, and Community

• A holiday party and the Baltimore Parade of Lights (perhaps 2015 is the year we finally enter our boat?).
• Movies on the dock.
• New Year's Eve.
• The Star-Spangled Spectacular.
• Trawler Fest.
• An Open Boat party.
• A total of 68 different neighbors on our 14 slip dock.

Trips

• We ventured to Annapolis, Fairlee Creek, Kent Narrows, Rock Hall, Saint Michaels, Seneca Creek, Sparrows Point, Stevensville, Sue Creek, and Tolchester for a total of 125 engine and 457 generator hours.

Curious what other projects boaters are tackling? Take a look at this list from Chicago liveaboards after their first year: http://waterwethinking.blogspot.com/2015/05/what-have-you-done-we-made-it-one-year.html?showComment=1432224545986

Making Space for a Home Office

As many of you know, I work from home as a Freelance Writer and Library Consultant (check out my webpage: http://www.juliedietzelglair.com/ - shameless self promotion done). For the past two years, this has been my office.

I'm ashamed to say that it almost always looked like that (however, they say that a messy desk is a sign of genius). It simply isn't conducive to organizational possibilities. It also became our dumping ground. So, for the past two years we have tossed around a multitude of home office ideas. The biggest ones being:

• Renovate the dinette into a cubicle-type office.
• Remove the loveseat and install a desk.

Renovating the dinette always seemed like the better option. We hardly use the dinette in the warmer months, opting instead to eat at the helm station table or on the pier (why be inside?).

The loveseat provides extra seating in the salon and also pulls out into a single sleeper giving us more space for guests. In all honesty, we've only had six people sleep on board twice since we bought the boat. Does it really make sense to keep a sleeper sofa for a once-a-year need?

Yet, the idea of a full blown reno scared us both a bit. There is already limited space onboard and a reno would take up space. We also have fear of making drastic changes no matter how much we love our floating home. So, we just continued with the status quo. I would clear off space as I needed it or just sit on the sofa and work.

Everything changed on a serendipitous trip to Office Depot. I found a desk that would fit and was extremely reasonably priced. If we could get the loveseat out and store it there would be no fear of drastic change.

Doug got to work taking the loveseat apart. Our biggest challenge was fitting the frame out the salon door. That is the frame sitting outside the salon door: it barely, and I mean barely, fit.

But once everything was out and the floor vacuumed we were ready to move ahead with Project Home Office. Just look at all this beautiful empty floor space!

We now have a useable desk:

I'm still working on figuring out the right seating for it. I don't want a large overbearing desk chair and the bar stool isn't the right height.

We also still have lots of salon seating on the starboard side:

Plus, the dinette is useable again (just in time for it to be ignored all summer).

In this age of technology, even if you don't work from home there are certain computer related needs on board. How do you manage your onboard "office?"

Spring? Is that you?

Here's the funny thing about spring at a Baltimore marina -- it's confused!

The marina is still iced in:

There is still snow on the ground:

And birds are still standing on the ice as they eat their dinner:

But! It's a wonderful 65 degrees inside the boat!

Want to know what's even better than that delightful temperature? It was that warm without any heat on inside the boat. And the cabin door was open. If you've ever wondered what it's like to live inside a greenhouse, move onto a boat. We face the perfect direction for the sun to do all the work and heat up the salon.

 

Well, if it's that warm inside the boat, just imagine the helm station.

Yup! That says 79 degrees. At one o'clock in the afternoon on March 9 in Baltimore. It was 55 degrees outside (according to my handy iPhone weather app) but I felt like I needed to open a window to make the helm station comfortable. Keep in mind that we had 7 inches of snow just 4 days ago.

 

Spring is right around the corner and I can't wait.

Scenes from a Winter Wonderland

As most of the East Coast is painfully aware, this has been a bitterly cold winter. Here are a few scenes from the past few weeks at the marina:


Most of the marina is iced in.

We bought an ice eater at the boat show this past fall.
It's been getting quite a workout keeping the ice from around our hull.

The boys fished this piece of ice out while adding an ice eater to another boat. It's a few inches thick.

I've always liked how icicles look hanging from the roof of a house. They are just as pretty on a boat.

Thanks to Doug for taking this picture early one morning before anyone added footprints to the snow.

An unexpected 8 inches on top of the ice makes boats appear to be sitting on land.

Frozen drink anyone?

Kayak? Or sled?

Looking out the salon windows after the snow storm.

This bird likes to keep his dinner on ice.

Bermuda

Every once in a while I get the opportunity to blog about something boat or water related outside of the Chesapeake Bay. There was our boat trip to Atlantic City a few years back. Then we had an amazing time snorkeling with manatees in Florida one December. This time, it was a trip to Bermuda.

First off, no, we did not take the boat to Bermuda. That is the first question everyone asked us when they heard about the trip. While it is possible to boat to Bermuda, there were two things standing in our way:

1. We were only going on a 6 day trip. We had sailboat friends that sailed to Bermuda from NYC and it took them 5 days straight to get there. Our entire vacation would have been spent getting to Bermuda.
2. Our boat isn't really built for that sort of travel. Plus, there aren't any gas stations along the way.

So, we flew.

There were a couple key boating related sites that I just had to see.

Did you know that Bermuda is home to the world's smallest drawbridge? The Somerset Bridge is only 32 inches wide. Want proof? I was able to stand on either side of the bridge.

The hand-operated drawbridge is just wide enough to allow a sailboat's mast.

The bridge has been rebuilt in modern times but it can be found in historical records dating back to 1620.

We also climbed 185 steps to the top of one of the world's oldest cast iron lighthouses. Gibb's Hill Lighthouse has aided sailors since 1846. Our first glimpse of the lighthouse was from the golf course at our hotel.

Visitors can climb to the top for a mere $2.50.

We stayed at the Fairmont Southampton and could see sheltered coves from our balcony.

If any runners read this blog, I highly recommend the Bermuda Running Festival. The races were the initial reason for our trip. You can test your endurance and sanity by running the Bermuda Triangle Challenge -- Friday evening is the Front Street Mile, Saturday morning is the Bermuda 10K, and Sunday morning is the Bermuda Half-Marathon or Marathon. Runners that complete all three races receive 4 medals celebrating their accomplishment. I completed the Half Marathon challenge and came home with some serious bling. The courses are absolutely beautiful, the crowd support is genuine, and the weather is perfect for running. Add it to your calendar for next January.

Running related trips have also taken us to the Bay Bridge Marina and St. Michaels. Any suggestions on where we should go next?

Lastly, we did not leave our boat and cats unattended for six days during the cold winter in Baltimore. Weekend warrior friends of ours are considering the liveaboard lifestyle. We asked them to "boatsit" while we were gone so they could get a taste of the floating life. It was a win-win situation. We had someone to take care of everything and they got a fun experience. No word yet on if the long weekend has put them on a liveaboard fast-track or has "cured" them of any desire to liveaboard.

Winter Water Delivery

Potable water is a precious commodity for liveaboards in winter climates. It's common to hear people discuss the size of their fresh water tank and how they stretch out the water it contains. We have a 130 gallon fresh water tank. During the summer months we easily go about 3-4 days without even having to think about conserving water. During the winter months we have to watch our usage. We are typically able to get a full tank twice a week but winter likes to throw curveballs so that water is never a guarantee.

Harborview really caters to the liveaboard community here. Once the water is turned off to the docks, the marina staff delivers water to all liveaboards on a weekly schedule. They fill our dock up on Tuesdays. The water is also turned on for self-service on Saturdays for a couple of hours.

I know this sounds absolutely amazing to many other liveaboards. I've read/heard stories of people disconnecting washing machines in marina laundry rooms and running hundreds of feet of hose to get water. There are people who hand carry/cart hundreds of gallons down the docks each winter. Boaters get creative and run hoses underwater so the water inside won't freeze.

The problem with our situation is that it is easy to get lazy. It is easy to think the water will always be there. Well.... it's not.

Remember winter's curveballs? Two were thrown at us last week.

1) Last Tuesday brought 4 inches of snow to Baltimore. That's not a ton of snow but it did keep the marina staff busy clearing, shoveling, and salting all day. So, our water delivery was postponed by a day. Wednesday was cold, cold, cold and I think there was still some snow safety maintenance type of work to do. So, Wednesday came and went without water. Thursday arrived with WATER! Our tank was filled and all was well in the land. The marina staff works very hard to keep everyone on a water schedule but there is nothing they can do about the weather. We have a dependable fresh water tank gauge and we made sure we had enough water to last until that Thursday fill up.

2) Saturday brought 18 degrees and wind. We went to hook up our hose for the self-service and found there was no water again. This time the water was freezing in the pipes before it could get down the docks. We had just been filled up on Thursday so we had lots of water but it's always nice to top off when you get the chance. Harborview has a backup plan for these days:

Yup, those are five 5-gallon potable water containers. You fill them at the marina building and cart them to your boat. They are heavy and bulky but they do the trick. We chose to do one trip to give us a 3/4 tank of water.

This week is looking much warmer (i.e., above freezing) so let's hope everything is back on schedule. I do want to thank our marina for have excellent year-round plans in place and doing all they can for the liveaboards.

Check out Prepping for Winter -- Part 2 for more information about water onboard.

But Baby It's Cold Inside

46 degrees! Sounds quite pleasant for a spring morning. Unfortunately, that was the temperature at the head of my bed this morning -- INSIDE the boat. The temperature outside at 7am was 9 degrees with a wind chill of -6. In comparison, the inside temp was balmy.

The reverse cycle heat has been off for about a week now and the electric radiators are struggling to keep up. We have three radiators plugged in at all times -- one in each stateroom and one in the salon. The one in the salon and in our stateroom are set for 65 degrees. I swear they are like the little engine that could. They keep trying and trying and trying. Unlike that trusty engine, they simply can't make it to the top of the hill. In their defense, they are radiators (yes, I am defending an inanimate object). They do exactly what they are supposed to do - radiate heat. With nothing to circulate that hot air the heat only radiates so far. They do keep the boat from getting too cold but there are definite hot and cold pockets.

Before you get all worried, I'm not shivering in bed every night. Flannel sheets, a blanket, and a feather bed do wonders. At one point last night I actually woke up too warm.

Why don't we just plug in more heaters? Or perhaps turn up the heat on the radiators? Sounds like a great idea! One little problem -- the heaters use a lot of amps and we have a fixed amount available to us via our shore power. I'd rather add another blanket than get up in the middle of the night to figure out which breaker has tripped. The previous owners made sure we could plug heaters into the reverse cycle units thus protecting our ability to use other appliances at the same time. This helps immensely but there is still only so much we can do.

During the day, I do add a ceramic heater to the salon. I also sit on a heated blanket while I work. With all that we are pretty much maxed out. While it's windy out again today, I am grateful that the sun is out in full force. It really makes a difference. It's currently 61 degrees in the salon.

Looking ahead -- Tuesday is supposed to be above freezing all day! Woohoo! Break out the bikinis and tropical drinks!

And to all you landlubbers -- you may have lots of heat but I still love my boat lifestyle.