Breakfast in the Cockpit

My standard, everyday breakfast of muesli and coffee was elevated to something a little more special this morning when I enjoyed it in the morning sun of the cockpit. Sunsets on deck are certainly worth the hype, but nothing beats drinking a steaming cup of coffee outside on a quiet, sunny morning.

Playing Tourist in Port Townsend

It’s a running joke among those who live in Western Washington that summer begins on July 5.  For that very reason, we decided to book our Port Townsend sails and rigging trip the week after the unofficial start to summer in the Northwest.  Did we make the right decision?  You make the call.

- Seattle’s high on July 1: 62 degrees
- Seattle’s high on July 8: 95 degrees (the day we left)

Golden Gardens beach and all the sunbathers as we left the marina

Friday was busy with the business end of our trip (getting measured for sails and having the rig inspected), but we made up for the “work” with a good bit of “play.” Lunch and beers on the sunny patio of Sirens Pub, a walking tour of Port Townsend’s historic Water Street and a movie at the charming Rose Theater.  The original theater was built in 1908, and we can’t resist seeing a movie here whenever we’re in town.

After a stroll through the lovely farmers market on Saturday morning, we took advantage of one of the lowest tides of the year to walk along the beach from the Point Hudson Marina to Fort Worden State Park.

The sand looked solid enough, but some graceful leaps and bounds were required to navigate the soggy sand and streams. What, that’s not graceful?

We hiked all around Fort Worden, an Army base dating back to the turn of the century when there  was an overzealous concern about protecting Puget Sound’s waters from attack, and had a picnic lunch on one of the old gun installments with sweeping views of the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Whidbey Island. Climbing up a bunker to our picnic spot

What a view!

The Point Wilson Lighthouse was open for tours, so we took the tour from three cute little old ladies.  We got a picture of the lighthouse but not the ladies.

The spiral staircase to the top of the lighthouse. Aaron got scolded by one of the ladies for bringing his backpack to the top.  For shame, Aaron!

To avoid the wet-shoe fest that was our walk out on the beach, we pulled out our street map and walked back to the marina via the road.  Not quite as picturesque, but pretty darn close… 

What a difference a day makes.  We were socked in with fog when we left with the tide on Sunday morning.  Yay for radar! And for ferries with horns. As the fog started to break up, we saw a sailboat motoring north toward Port Townsend.  The guy at the helm started waving both of his arms at us, but before I could discern if he was in trouble, a “Bella Star, Bella Star, Bella Star this is Cool Breezin’” came over the VHF.  It was our friends Craig & Cindy and their son Alex on their way to the Gulf Islands in Canada!  Small world.

New Sails for Bella Star

We’d booked a long weekend in Port Townsend to have Bella Star measured for new sails and have her rig inspected.  Sure, there are sail lofts and riggers in Seattle, but we’d heard excellent things about Carol Hasse’s Port Townsend Sails and Port Townsend Rigging.

Carol Hasse is the biggest name in sails in the area—and for good reason.  Her loft makes all their top-quality sails in house using the finest, most desirable methods.  And she and her team are just so darn nice!  But delightful personalities aside, their craftsmanship is superb and really can’t be topped.  The downside of all that stellar work?  The price, of course!  It’s a good thing we won the lottery last week or we’d be up a creek.  Oh, wait.  I only dreamt that.  Shoot.

It doesn’t help that we love the color of our existing tanbark sails (which is a very unique shade of reddish brown often found on traditional and classically designed sailboats harkening back to times when sails were dipped in tannins from tree bark to prevent mold and mildew).   We went back and forth about it—tanbark or white?  White or tanbark?—but in the end, tanbark won, and we decided to cough up the extra 12%.  Cough-cough. Maybe it’s because I’m a redhead, but I like to be a little different. :)

Photo from the Port Townsend Sails website showing the hand-worked detail and the tanbark color.

A new 90% genoa will replace our existing jib as our furled headsail.  And a new main will provide an added measure of safety (this is for you, mom!) by raising the boom up so as not to conk Aaron in the head.  We’re keeping our hanked-on staysail, storm trysail and storm jib and will decide on a light-air, downwind sail once our checking account rebounds. 

A side note on the storm sails: We knew a couple sails were tucked down under the Pullman in an oh-so-hard-to-reach cubby, but we assumed they were the original sails kept as spares.  Imagine our surprise when we pulled out the sail bags to find two storm sails in near perfect condition!  Score!  It doesn’t appear that they’ve ever been flown since they were made in… 1985.  That’s right; they’ve been sitting there waiting for us for 25 years.  Score, score, score.

Not much to add on the rig inspection.  The rigger checked everything out and said that we’re in good shape—which is just what we wanted to hear. 

4th of July Weekend

We had a great 3rd of July anchored out in the aptly named Liberty Bay.  Poulsbo does their fireworks show on July 3rd, so we took off Friday morning to get a good spot since we knew the bay would completely fill up with anchored boats.  To facilitate more convenient socializing, we started a raftup.  This is where two or more boats tie up together with multiple anchors down.

Our friends Greg and Nicole on Baraka left with us in the morning and started up the little floating island.

Jason and Christy on Hello World were next to arrive.

It just kept growing!  In the end  there were 12 sailboats on the raft.

 

Plenty of beer and snacks, and maybe a conversation or two about sailboats.

Saturday was actually pretty nice and we got to break out some T shirts!

It was the first time we’ve had difficulty finding a parking spot at the dinghy dock.

Sunday, July 4th, there was a mass exodus at about 11am as many skippers took some aspirin and left with the tide.  We joined the parade and headed home. 

It was a fun weekend.  Now back to work for a few days – we’re leaving for Port Townsend Thursday evening for a rig inspection and dropping off our sails at the loft.  The weather is looking to be significantly better for that trip.

A Hello World Wedding

It’s been nearly two years since we took our first overnight trip on Bella Star and serendipitously met one of the greatest couples we know. We picked up a mooring buoy on the quiet southwest corner of Blake Island overlooking a small bluff with just enough room on it for a campsite. After rowing into shore, off we went to explore the island.

By the time we got back to the bluff a few hours later, a group of campers was busy setting up camp. Our little wiener dog Greta, who was always good at breaking the ice, gave us the perfect opportunity to chit chat with the newcomers. As we got to talking, one of the campers mentioned the beautiful sailboat on the mooring buoy…

And that’s all it took.

Jason and Christy shared the exciting news of their recent boat purchase and how they were headed down to Mexico in a matter of weeks to ready the soon-to-be-christened Hello World for her journey to Seattle. They told us all about their plans to quit their jobs and go cruising in Canada and Mexico the following spring. Suuure, we thought. You’re going to buy a boat and start cruising in less than a year? Good luck with that!

We spent a great evening around the campfire talking about sailing and eating s’mores and hoped we’d see these guys (including their awesome friend, Kim) again. After all, we needed to know how their story would turn out!

Fast forward two years.

Jason & Christy just returned, tan and gorgeous, from a year spent sailing their boat, Hello World, through the waters of Canada and Mexico. And Aaron & I just returned from celebrating the wedding of one of the sweetest, most genuinely fabulous couples we know. Their story has a happy ending, but really, this is just the beginning.

Congratulations on your marriage, Jason & Christy! We love you guys!

Grillin' Season

With no rain in the forecast (at least during the dinner hour), we decided to put our new Kuuma grill through its paces tonight.  We actually bought the grill during the Seattle Boat Show (yes, the one in January), but with the weather what it's been here lately (see previous post), we never bothered to install it until this weekend.

And I'm sorry we waited!

The grill is a replacement of the old, small kettle-style Magma grill with an insanely hot handle (really, please tell me who designs a grill handle that can't be touched without a hot pad) that came with the boat.  It worked fine, but many-a bun was lost into the drink because of the poor grill design.  Picture a round grill rack suspended from the stern rail out over the water with no edges to keep wayward buns (or anything else) from taking a flying leap. As you can see above, our new, shiny grill doesn't have that problem.

I also wanted to try out these new Fire Wire Flexible Grilling Skewers that I stumbled across at Williams-Sonoma the other day.  I came thiiis close to buying the Star Wars Pancake Mold set too, because doesn't everyone need a Yoda-shaped breakfast treat to start the day off right?  Anyway, I digress.  Instead of a rigid skewer, these guys are flexible stainless steel cables.  After skewering your meats or veggies, you just curl them up and stick them right into a Ziploc bag with the marinade and pop in the fridge.  You can see the little tails hanging out in the picture above, which provide a handle for easy flipping and rearranging.  And don't fret about meat-juice contamination... you stick the tail over the flame for a bit to kill any bugs before draping it outside where it cools off rapidly.  Neat.  I'd say that both the grill and the skewers were a hit.   

May or November?

You've gotta love May in the Northwest. :)  Despite a bit of rain today, we had a fantastic time helping our friends on Three Sheets rechristen their boat this weekend in Bremerton.  There was plenty of Champagne for Mr. Neptune and plenty of beer for the rest of us.  Congrats, guys! 

What's Living on a Sailboat Like?

When we meet someone new and the topic of where we live comes up, we are met, understandably, with lots of questions.  Even our nearest and dearest are sometimes (always?) perplexed by our life on the water.  To help set the record straight, here are the top questions and answers, in no particular order, about the mysterious world of living aboard a sailboat (from Nicole's perspective).

1.  How do you stay warm?

At the dock, the same way you many of you do. Electric heat.  Away from the dock (at anchor), we use our diesel heater, which is like a small fireplace that uses diesel instead of wood or gas.  It's super cozy.

2.  Do you move around a lot?

A little bit, but it’s a gentle motion. We are in a protected marina, so the amount of movement is minimal. During times of high winds or tide changes, we do experience some minor rocking and yawing, though. One thing I noticed the last time I traveled for work and slept in a hotel bed was the stillness!  I found myself missing the soothing motion of the boat. And that's a good thing.

3.  How do you cook/eat/drink?

We have a well-outfitted galley with a refrigerator, gas range, oven and a good deal of pantry storage. While cooking aboard at the dock presents more challenges than cooking on land (having a compact fridge with limited space, digging that key ingredient out from the bottom of a locker, dealing with an oven that is just under-sized enough to prevent a standard cookie sheet from fitting), I don’t have a problem cooking dinner just about every night and baking a batch of cookies or brownies when the mood strikes. We’ve chosen not to have a microwave, and to be honest, I don’t miss it.  Here I am on Taco Night.

We have two water tanks totaling about 115 gallons. We fill up our tanks as needed from the spigot at our slip. Drinking water passes through a filter first. We also have a watermaker, which will allow us to convert seawater to freshwater when a spigot is unavailable (or if the water is questionable). For the meantime, though, we’re satisfied with our City of Seattle water.

4.  Where do you shower?

We have a separate stall shower, as compared to some boats that either don’t have a shower at all or have a set-up where the entire head converts to a shower (and everything gets wet). I have no trouble standing up, but Aaron is tall and he has to sit. Hey, some people pay lots of money for sit-down showers. Sure, they are geriatric, but still.  If we feel like it, we occasionally shower in the big, spacious marina showers.  And we enjoy the luxury of unlimited hot water and fresh towels by showering at the gym.

5.  Where do you keep your clothes and shoes?

We’re fortunate in that I work from home and don’t need many business-y outfits and that Bella Star has a large hanging locker (closet) and plenty of drawer space. I’ve definitely pared down my wardrobe, but don’t you have things hanging in your closet or stuffed in the back of a drawer that you never wear and actually forget that you own? Those are the things that feel great to part with.  Aaron works in a business casual environment, so he has a selection of slacks and button-down shirts (which, yes, I do iron aboard) hanging in the locker.

Shoes get their own locker, but I did choose to purge some. You know the ones that always give you blisters but you keep around “just in case”? Off to Goodwill. And that 3rd pair of black heels? Toodle-oo.

We do have a storage unit where we keep our off-season clothing. Winter sweaters and scarves are boxed up during the summer; shorts and tank tops get a place on the shelf during the winter.

6.  You work from home. How does that work when your home is a boat?

Well, my office is bigger and better lit than most people’s cubes, so I think I have it pretty good. And you can’t beat the view. Each slip in the marina is wired for high-speed internet, VoIP telephone service and cable TV, so I work just like everyone else.

7.  Is it like camping?

For some people, sure. But we’ve chosen to make this our home, and that means making it comfortable.

8.  Do you have a washer and dryer?

Nope. But there is a laundry room at the head of the dock, and while it’s easier to trot down the hall and throw a load of laundry in whenever you feel like it, I’ve found that I can do all my laundry for the week in about 2 hours—that's three loads washed, dried, folded and put away. That’s the beauty of having multiple machines!  Another perk?  My dad is collecting all the new state quarters, and since we need quarters for the washers and dryers, I've been able to add to his collection quite substantially.  Who knew the Northern Mariana Islands had their own quarter?

9.  What did you do with all your stuff?

This was a very real question for me when we talked about moving aboard. What about my [insert really important thing you simply cannot live without but won’t fit on a boat here]? Guess what? You don’t really need it anyway. And if you do, then you make it work!

Parting with our “stuff” was one of the most liberating parts of moving aboard. When we put our condo on the market, we boxed up the knick-knacks and tchotchkes and tossed the years' worth of sediment that fills up drawers and closets. You can’t even imagine how many boxes and bags we took to Goodwill. And as I sit here writing this, I can’t even remember what any of it was. So did I even need it in the first place?  Certainly there are things I couldn’t bring that I miss. Namely, my dear Kitchenaid Stand Mixer. But, I’ve found that a lot of things turn out the same (or better) when mixed by hand.  Plus, it's a decent upper body workout, which negates the calories of the baked goods, right?

As for furniture, we donated some things, gave others to family members and stored some pieces that we really liked (our dining room table and chairs, for instance). We thought about storing it all, but when/if we decide to move back to a house or condo, will we really want the same old couch anyway?

Christmas is probably our favorite holiday. As anyone who knows us can tell you, we turn into crazy little Christmas elves hopped up on spiced cider and sugar cookies decorating every surface we can find with Santas and snowmen, nutcrackers galore, twinkling lights, mistletoe, garland and snow globes.  And I can’t forget to mention our most glorious tree. It’s 9’ of gorgeous, life-like branches, 2,000+ glittery lights and utter fabulousness. It cost as much as our car is probably worth. And we adore it.  Each year we wondered if the branches had reached full ornament capacity, but we always found room for 10 or 15 more treasures.

Bottom line? We have BOXES and BOXES of Christmas paraphernalia. Which most certainly won’t fit on the boat. Or in the boat. Or anywhere near the boat. Sad as it was, we were forced to pick out a few items (I was going to say “our favorites,” but they are all our favorites), buy a 2’ tree and send the rest of the boxes up into my parents’ attic (thanks, mom and dad!).

10.  What do you find challenging?

There are many challenges, to be sure, like keeping the lines and halyards from banging on the mast when it’s windy, being concerned about lightning and storms, walking from the car to the boat in a downpour, managing power consumption (not tripping breakers by turning on two heaters and the electric kettle), having to always move something to get at something else, trying to find pans that will fit in the oven, not being able to make more than 6 muffins at a time, playing Jenga with the contents of the refrigerator, waiting in line for the washers in the laundry room on a busy weekend, needing to drive to the mailbox, combating moisture/mildew, not having room for that 9’ Christmas tree, walking on tiptoes up the gangway to avoid catching my heels in the slats, ruining a pair of heels by forgetting to walk on tiptoes up the gangway and catching my heel in the slats, not having a physical address, experiencing the glory of the pump-out station and learning how to maintain everything ourselves (engine, plumbing, electrical, rigging...).

11.  What do you miss the most?

Aaron and I might have vastly different answers to this, but I think we both miss the convenience of a dishwasher.  I occasionally miss having a yard and a garden (but to be fair, we lived in a condo before this and didn't have more than a container garden on the deck).  And sometimes I'd like to splay out on the floor and just roll around.

12.  Why did you choose this lifestyle?

Because nothing beats smelling the salty air, seeing seals and jellyfish swimming around the boat, gazing at trails of phosphorescence on a dark night, meeting interesting people, enjoying the beautiful scenery, having less stuff, living a simpler lifestyle, traveling with ease, always being at home no matter where we go, spending more time together, being different, dining in the cockpit, snuggling on chilly evenings, watching the sunrise and sunset, drinking coffee on deck on quiet mornings, listening to the sound of the rain, reading on the foredeck in the sunshine, getting a step closer to self-sufficiency, learning new things, hearing the geese and sea lions and fog horns, watching a fleet of race boats with brightly colored spinnakers flying by the breakwater, staring up at starry nights and taking evening walks through the marina.

13.  How long will you keep this up?

Just as long as we keep having fun!