I’ve mentioned electrics aboard. We have 30 amps of power running to our electrical panel and bad things can happen if the power needs go over that or have a big sustained draw. By “bad things” I mean tripping a breaker (which I have done), or overheating the circuits, or something else which is mysterious and ominous.
In our NYC apartment we didn’t have an outdoor space. In our Columbus house there were always bugs plus the outside air had a curious smell. In California we were too busy. In Seattle it was always raining…
The first few weeks of honest-to-goodness live-aboard life were spent sleeping in the vee-berth on the foam mattress that came with the boat. It’s good for a night or two but my back was beginning to complain after that third night. Our fondest (sleep-centric) wish was to clear out the trunk berth in order to put our very expensive and very comfortable memory foam mattress in there. It is by far the most comfortable bed I have slept on and I had missed it every night (basically since packing everything up and moving to The Commune).
First we had to get Narnia under control. This took a while since, as I have explained before, it had been torn apart, random stuff shoved in, moved around and completely messed up by the Delivery captain. So the first step to a good night’s sleep was to reorganize Narnia. It was no small task. Each thing had to be evaluated to make sure it was acceptable, viable and necessary. We threw out a lot.
Continue reading “cutting up a better night’s sleep. in steps”
It’s been a while since I was last here. Life – just the operation of living – is busy. My excuse is not just Life, though. It’s that the daily occurrences of living on a boat seem to be both monumental and trivial.
Four days after we moved aboard I experienced my first storm. Of course, My Better Half was on a trip so I got to experience the fun all by myself.
I thought I was going to die and the boat was going to sink and the mast was going to fall down.
It wasn’t my finest hour.
In the two months since we moved aboard time has both sped up and slowed down.
We no longer are counting back to our move-in date worrying about what an imposition we are being to whomever we are living with. Instead we are counting back to our move-in date and wondering where the days have gone. Summer is over and Fall is here. We have spent nearly every evening in our cockpit: watching the sunset, looking out over the lights of lower Manhattan and enjoying our zillion dollar view. Really and truly living our dream.
First full day on the boat: game on!
Let’s take stock of what we need and/or what is broken:
We were able to take possession of our boat the day after it was delivered. We dropped off the rental car to the delivery captain and then drove back to Commune 2.0 where we gathered our things, collected HerSpouse, and packed the commune kittehs into the car. It was pretty tight. When we left Commune 1.0 we had a full car and, now, we have a whole other person (along with his own things) with us.
I want to skip over a few things and just move on to the good parts. I am not going to write in-depth about the delivery captain because he turned out to be a colossal jerk. If you would like to see a list of my complaints just go to the bottom of this post where I make an attempt, fairly unsuccessfully, to be humorously vitriolic.
If, however, you would like to read about the good and positive bits, just keep reading…
All this time our Delivery Captain and his girlfriend of 5 months were bringing our boat from North Carolina to our slip in New Jersey.
I was antsy but we kept getting beautiful photographs every few days. He fixed our engine so that it could be run and was traveling up the ICW by sail and by motor.
Traveling slowly.
Well, it’s a sailboat.
Ok.
We have been in Commune 2.0 for a week. We installed under-counter lights as a thank-you.
Sailing Devilfish 