Living Aboard – Page 5 – Cannons to Cruising

S/V STORY TIME

Let me start off this post by showing you the BEST PHOTO OF OUR BOAT EVER TAKEN!

best boat

Shout out to Chelsea and Chris, our B-dock neighbors, for taking this awesome shot.

Now for the updates.

We renamed our boat! You all know we decided on STORY TIME a loonnnggg time ago, but this past weekend we finally got around to putting the new decals up and having our celebration. We wanted to make it a big deal, marking our 1 year anniversary at Gottschalk Marina and surviving our first hurricane. So many amazing people have come into our lives this past year, and we wanted to thank them all for being such great friends. How do you show people you love them? Give them lots of food and alcohol!

Here was the script we used for the renaming ceremony. The first part is letting go of the old name, AT LAST, and the second part is the christening. Boat re-namings are very particular and stem from centuries of superstition. We followed a script we found online, but made some of our own modifications. The cutest one was W hitting her xylophone instead of us ringing a bell 🙂

Opening Invocation & Blessing—Tay

Ring the ship’s bell and call the ceremony to order.

“In the name of all who have sailed aboard this vessel in the past and in the name of all who may sail aboard her in the future, we invoke the ancient god of wind, Aeolus, and the ancient god of sea, Neptune, also hailed as Poseidon, to favor us with their blessings today.

Expression of Gratitude—Tay

“Mighty Neptune, King of all that moves in or on the waves, and mighty Aeolus, guardian of the winds and all that blows before them…We offer gratitude for the protection you have afforded this vessel in the past. We express our thanks that she has always found shelter from tempest and storm and that she always enjoyed safe passage to port.”

xylophone — Calling the ceremony to order

Supplication & De-Naming—Conor

“Oh mighty and great ruler of the seas and oceans, to whom all ships and we who venture upon your vast domain are required to pay homage… We implore you in your graciousness to expunge for all time from your records and recollection the name AT LAST which has ceased to be an entity in your kingdom. As proof thereof, we submit this token bearing her name to be corrupted through your powers and forever be purged from the sea”

At this point, the coin with AT LAST is dropped from the bow of the boat into the sea.

“Now the name of this vessel which has hitherto been known as AT LAST is struck and removed from all records and archives. In grateful acknowledgment we offer these libations.”

(Pour champagne into water)

Ring the bell. Everyone drink a toast.

bowchampagne

Now to prepare for the renaming…

Rededication & Preparation for Re-Naming—Tay

“Oh mighty and great ruler of the seas and oceans, to whom all ships and we who venture upon your vast domain are required to pay homage, we implore you in your graciousness to guard this worthy vessel with your mighty arm and trident and ensure her safe and rapid passage throughout her journeys within your realm. In good faith, we seal this pact with a libation offered according to the hallowed ritual of the sea…we offer these libations to Neptune and the sea.” (Pour champagne and toast)

“Oh mighty rulers of the winds, through whose power our frail vessels traverse the wild and faceless deep, we implore you to grant this worthy vessel the benefits and pleasures of your bounty and your gentle protection.”

(Pour champagne and toast)

Placing of Good Luck Symbols—Conor

“As you likely know, part of the custom of a boat renaming ceremony is to place a silver dollar under the mast to show the boat that we will take care of every financial need the boat has. But instead of a silver dollar, we have a unit coin.

We will not place it under the mast, but instead it will be placed at the helm with promises to never steer our vessel wrong. We hope this shows the boat that we will look for fair winds and following seas, and to make her part of our great memories together.

Ring the bell. Everyone drink a toast.

“We will now perform the Re-naming.”

Renaming—Tay

Ring the bell—wait for silence.

“I name this ship STORY TIME….Let it be recorded, that on this day October 6^th, 2018 and forever more, this fine vessel is named STORY TIME.”

storytime1

Take a bottle of champagne, shake it and spray it on the hull.

“Finally, a toast to all of you, with many thanks for coming today to help carry out our naming ceremony. Cheers!!”

Ring the bell.

Then, we partied all evening. Our inaugural sail was the next morning, and STORY TIME danced along the wind. We are very happy with how everything turned out, and are grateful for our dream boat and wonderful friends.

Love,

Taylor, Conor, and W

After Florence

We. Are. Home.

I can hardly describe the relief I felt as we drove into the Gottschalk Marina parking lot after a 10 hour drive from Atlanta. When I saw the dock house intact and all the sailboat masts standing tall, I almost cried. I just felt so proud of our little marina and all of the responsible boat owners who helped ensure we would all make it through this hurricane. The power was already back on to the slips, the bathrooms cleaned out, a new washer and dryer were up and running, and everyone was hard at work on their boats.

You would hardly know that just a few days ago, the river tried to consume the marina. Now the only pieces of evidence left from this failed attempt are muddy floors, some broken wood boards, kayak dock damage, and felled trees nearby. After a force of nature tried to destroy everything, life has miraculously returned to normal.

I keep hearing stories about other marinas in the area that didn’t fare as well as we did, and I am so grateful we had a boat to come home to. This was the first true test of Story Time’s fortitude, and she weathered the storm like a champion. There was absolutely no damage to our boat, inside or out. The automatic bilge pump did its job and everything was clean and dry. When we left her two weeks ago, I remember being fully prepared to lose her in the worst case scenario. I envisioned the best case scenario as some damage, but still livable while we fixed her up. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine NO DAMAGE in a direct hit from a Category 2 hurricane. I should go buy a lottery ticket.

Love,

Taylor, Conor, and W

Hurricane Florence

Currently watching Hurricane Florence circle ever closer to the North Carolina coast…from our hotel room in Atlanta. Yep, we are nowhere near this destructive storm and have evacuated to Georgia.

To say the last three days were hectic would be a gross understatement. Sunday we were nervously watching the forecast and making to-do lists. Monday we were taking down canvas, bimini, sails, and wind generator. Tuesday was the ‘Oh Shit’ realization that we had to leave, and we worked from 5am to 5pm getting the boat ready. All of our interior closets, drawers, and cabinets had to be stuffed with padding and taped down. Water tanks were filled for ballast, lines were taped down in the cockpit pocket, everything that could be moved off the boat was put into storage. Once the inside and outside were as hurricane-proof as we could make them, we centered the boat in the slip and tied all of the lines we had to the dock.

hurricane florence

Our marina is located in a fairly decent hurricane hole with floating docks. The storm surge is projected to be around 6-8 feet there. I’m mostly worried about the high winds and one of the boats in the marina coming loose. If the boats can withstand the wind without significant damage, then the flooding and storm surge will be no problem. Boats will do what boats do–float!

My heart was still in my throat when we left, though. There will be damage to our home, either the boat or the marina, that much I know. I just hope that it won’t be insurmountable and that we and our friends don’t lose it all.

To lighten things up, here is a text we got from our dear boat friends who made it safely to Florida:

“I think I was drunk when I was packing originally. I’ll give you a rough inventory of what I determined were ‘essential items’… Electric toothbrush charger (but not the toothbrush apparently, that’s at home), a tent (no other camping gear), 10 lbs of dried beans (nothing to cook them with–pot, stove, not even a spoon), all of my bottles of wine, every pill bottle we had, and 4 raincoats for our party of 2.”

I laughed so hard I cried when I read this. People are the most important things in life. Everything else is extra.

Love,

Taylor, Conor, and W

Mommy and Me Boat Show Weekend

On Saturday I packed up W and we headed down to the Wilmington boat show. It was just the two of us, as Conor had been gone for the last 3 weeks (he’s back now though, hallelujah!). Even though it seemed daunting to navigate it all on my own with a baby, I definitely didn’t want to miss out.

It was…not what I expected. If you look back at one of my first posts here, I talked about our experience at the San Diego boat show. There were SO many sailboats, catamarans, and sailing seminars there that we stayed the whole day and still didn’t see everything. The Wilmington boat show was not like that.

Powerboat show

2 of the 3 sailboats

This is a relatively new boat show that was started in 2016, so maybe it just needs time to gain popularity, but it was 98% power and fishing boat focused. In fact, there were a total of three sailboats there. THREE out of hundreds of boats. Of course we went and toured the new Beneteau 38 that was there, though. I had to see how it compared to our 2002 Catalina 380. I have to say, even if given the chance to swap our 16 year old sailboat with that brand new one, I would have turned it down in a heartbeat. I whispered to W that I liked our boat way better, and she farted in agreement. We are all on the same page about Story Time—she is the best.

boat show 1 — Boob naps are the best naps

The pluses of the boat show: it was well-organized and super cheap ($5 for military). There were a lot of booths set up inside the convention center and out on the docks. People were friendly and helpful. Parking was simple and there was no traffic, but that could have been because we were there right when it opened at 10am. Baby girl had a lot of fun waving at everyone and looking at boats, and I felt accomplished getting us there. It was a fun outing and I’m glad we went. I will just alter my expectations for next year!

Love,

Taylor, Conor, and W

PS- I’m going to try and update before Hurricane Florence hits, but we are busy making boat preparations and hoping for the best. Please keep us in your thoughts and all of the other people in North and South Carolina! We escaped unscathed from hurricane season last year, but I guess this year it’s time to pay up. It’s looking like a Cat 4 direct hit to the Carolina coastline on Thursday night. I can’t even comprehend the damage this will bring.

A Very Crabby Morning

We had an unexpected guest on our boat this morning, and he made a lot of trouble for something so small.

The A.C. had suddenly stopped working. It wasn’t completely unexpected, because the tide had been out for a couple of days. We were sitting in a lot of mud, and that is what usually clogs up the raw water filter. Clogged filter= A.C. trip.

So with a sigh, I pulled up the floorboard and unscrewed the filter, and just about had a heart attack. A crab popped out and scurried into the bilge! He was the size of a quarter and super fast. I managed to coerce him into a mason jar and set to work getting the A.C. back on.

Nothing. The compressor didn’t turn on, and neither did the fan. That meant it was an electrical issue. Our little friend had blown the fuse!

Replacing the fuse was a pain in the butt. To reach it, I had to unscrew our settee bench, pull the cover off, find the fuse, put in a new one, and put everything back together again. Also, all of our tools were over in the dockhouse. I loaded W up to go get everything we needed and got to work. It is always a race against the sun when dealing with an A.C. malfunction, and I was very glad it wasn’t too hot out yet.

Here’s a visual:

baby containment — Step 2: Contain infant

getshitdone — Step 3: Break apart living room

Step 4: Figure out where fuse is, then replace. (It is the circular knob on the very bottom of the electric box)

Long story short: I am woman, hear me roar. This boat mama got everything up and running in 45 minutes.

Oh, and our new friend was set free to make trouble elsewhere.

free

Happy Friday, everyone! I hope you all have a fun and safe Labor Day weekend.

Love,

Taylor, Conor, and W

Visit from YaYa

I almost titled this post, “It Rained for 2 Weeks Straight”. Our terrible weather also coincided with a wonderful visit from my mom, who came all the way out from Seattle to spend some quality time with her grandbaby. I planned to have an awesome post about my mom’s first sail (ever!) but you’ll all have to be satisfied with mini-stories from the dock instead.

It is hard to believe we didn’t have a weather window to take the boat out the entire time my mom was here. We had AM and PM thunderstorms EVERY DAY. It was ridiculous. If you remember one of my previous posts, “How to Sail With a Baby”, while W is so young, we are only comfortable taking her out if there are no thunderstorm watches. I also wanted my mom’s first time out to be an easy sail, so we just kept waiting and waiting for better weather that never came. Today, of course, it’s sunny out with a perfect 10mph NE wind. LASKDFHLKDSHGODIFGGAHHHHHH

However, this trip for YaYa was a lot more fun than the one in January. That one included a screaming newborn, snow, and being stuck inside the boat. This time, we had cocktails in the cockpit, bbq’s, and field trips with an always-inquisitive 7 month old. Other highlights included 4—count ’em—4(!) dates for me and Conor, one even on our actual anniversary! We went to fancy dinners (as fancy as you can get in Jacksonville and Swansboro), the movies, and a couple’s night with friends. YaYa spent quality time with W, while Conor and I remembered what it was like to just be us. It made me wish we were on the west coast to be closer to family.

Other news: for our anniversary, Conor and I gave each other the extremely romantic gift of a TRX. I want to finally get back in shape post-baby and build muscle again, and it is the perfect workout kit for boat life. It all fits into one little bag when not in use! It hooks around the mast. Here we are trying it out:

trx

We were all very sad to see YaYa go, and we will miss her very much!

Love,

Taylor, Conor, and W

Hey There, Big Spender

helping dad — Helping Dad with paperwork is very serious business

June was an expensive month for us. It will always be an expensive month because that’s when we owe our annual insurance as liveaboards. Thankfully, we were able to switch insurance companies this year for a much cheaper option.

We were previously insured through Lloyds of London. We were grateful that they would insure us in the first place (read about our insurance struggles as a first-time boat owner here) but when it came time to re-up this year, we were disappointed that they were going to charge us the same astronomical rate, even though we were accident-free and ASA certified now. They also required a ton of paperwork hoops to jump through.

After shopping around, we realized that it was way easier to get insurance when you’ve had insurance and were able to get a much more reasonable rate through Pantaenius ($1,000 annually vs $3,600 annually). So what did we do with our savings?

Got a new A.C. unit! Our old one was 16 years old and on its last legs. We had it professionally installed, and Conor watched the process from start to finish. He is getting to be quite the expert on boat systems.

There are also some personal and decorative touches we have planned for the boat. Details and photos next post!

Love,

Taylor, Conor, and W

The Week Everything Broke

As I mentioned in the last blog post, we have just celebrated 1 year living aboard our boat. So how did our beloved home decide to mark the occasion? By having everything that needed to be replaced break at one time.

Let me paint you a picture: it is 3am. I have just been awoken by the dulcet cries of a hungry baby. I stumble down the companionway to the v-berth. I glance at the thermostat, and it reads 79 degrees. Shit. No wonder I’m sweating. The A.C. isn’t working. The air is still blowing but it is no longer cool.

I pick the baby up and start feeding her. All of the sudden, an ear-piercing beeping starts coming from both the aft cabin and the v-berth. The carbon monoxide detectors are going off, and I’m trying not to panic. I wake Conor up, who has miraculously slept through all of this. He’s searching for the manual binder to find out what is going on with the detectors. Turns out, it is the ‘end of life’ alert and we need new ones.

These are both significant problems, but they are 7am problems and not 3am problems. Bleary-eyed, we agree to assess the situation in the morning and go back to bed.

Two days later, we take the boat out for our second sail with baby. We have an in-mast furling system for our main, so as I’m cranking out the sail, I notice that the bottom corner has a small rip. Sucks, but not devastating. As I unfurl it further, I see a rip on the edge of the sail at regular intervals all the way up to the top. WTF??

Turns out, our main halyard wasn’t tight enough at the top, and the weight of the sail had been resting on our battens and our mainsail tore every few feet. I’m kicking myself for not realizing it during the first sail this summer. I had no idea something like that could happen, though. Just when we thought we were kicking butt at this whole newbie sailor thing, too…

So it’s been one thing after another. The good news is that this all happened while Conor was home, instead of when I was alone with baby. Silver linings, right?

Love,

Taylor, Conor, and W

sails — Does this mainsail look trimmed enough to you? That’s because it isn’t. A 4-hr sail like this and it ripped. I feel so dumb I didn’t realize how loose it was when I took this pic.

Celebration Week

Lots to celebrate this week: This stud’s birthday is coming up, and we passed 1 year aboard our boat!

Conor bday

I am such a lucky lady.

But because Conor doesn’t like to make a big deal out of his birthday, the rest of this post will be about our year aboard. This is a random collection of thoughts with contributions from both me and Conor, in no particular order.

Showing off the boat is fun. It’s like bragging about your kid, but people are more impressed.
Parenting is hard whether you are on a boat or in a house. Sleep deprivation is still sleep deprivation.
Sometimes I have no idea what to write on the blog.
It can be hard to focus on work when all you want to do is sail off into the sunset.
All boat work must be done with a beer in hand.
We still haven’t used our dinghy.
Why does the bilge always smell weird after we sail?
Conor keeps accidentally dropping AC filters into the river when he cleans them. We are on #3 now.
Using a cockpit as my writing office is super sweet, until the bugs come out in summer.
I am bad at taking Instagram photos. I don’t have the patience. Usually I look at my phone and say, “Meh, that will work.”
It is hard to get your significant other Christmas/birthday/anniversary presents because you don’t have anywhere to put them.
I have only worn makeup 8 times this year. Hobo boater fashion is going to catch on, I just know it.
Occasionally when the weather is horrible, I envy the people in base housing.
Doing the black water pump out always smells bad. In 4 degrees or 90. The first time or the thirtieth time.
Some friends like to exert their dominance by peeing on the boat, knowing that Conor will have to drag their urine up a hill.
Ice is a novelty.
It is okay to say, “I don’t know why it’s doing that.”
What is ‘personal space’?
The best part of Conor’s day is sliding open the hatch and yelling “Hello girls!” Even when the baby is napping.
We are thankful to be doing this today instead of 30 years from now.

Love,

Taylor, Conor, and W

We will now return to our regularly scheduled programming

Back row. Middle seat. Packed plane. Baby and dog. By myself. Never again.

I got so many stares as I lugged everything through the airport. TSA actually pulled me out of security to put me in a special line because I didn’t have enough hands to bring both dog and baby through the metal detector. To quote, “We’ve never dealt with this before.” Yes, I am a crazy lady. I understand.

In all seriousness, both W and Scout were absolute CHAMPS and I am so proud of them. Such a longgggg travel day, but the fact that Dad was waiting for us on the other end got us through. W definitely remembered the boat– her eyes got huge when her stroller wheels hit the dock, and then she started cracking up when she saw the boat! We had to deal with a few surprises, though, after being gone for over a month.

The first night back on the boat the shore power kept tripping. At 4am Conor figured out the problem: Our power cord was corroded where it hooked up to our boat and we needed to replace both the fitting and the cord. So the next day Conor drove to New Bern to get the parts while W and I made the best of no AC. Then his car decided to die in the West Marine parking lot.

What could we do but laugh? Broken car, broken boat. Both are fixed now, but it was quite the homecoming. He fixed the power cord hookup by removing the old, burned out hookup (easy) and installing the new one (hard). Aligning all the pieces and screwing everything in correctly was challenging, but mostly he was nervous dealing with such an important power source. Tip: make sure ALL power is off on the boat (even batteries) before attempting to replace. Use a digital multimeter to double check that there is 0 electrical current coming from the hookup. Here’s the old versus new piece:

electrical short

In fun news, it was one year ago this weekend that we did the survey for our boat! We had no idea what we were doing or what was in store. I compare that experience to Conor diagnosing and fixing an electrical problem all on his own, and I am so proud. Conor especially has become quite the handyman and DIY expert. He even bought a giant textbook about electrical engineering!

Our to-do list for this summer is a mile long: brightwork, canvas cleaning, anchor chain marking, hull scrubbing…sigh. A little TLC after such a harsh winter. At least we have a year’s worth of experience under our belt now, and it isn’t so overwhelming to tackle it all. Our plan is to FINALLY take her out over Memorial Day weekend and get back into the swing of things. It will be W’s first sail, and I can’t wait to see how she does!

Love,

Taylor, Conor, and W