Articles

Most landlubbers take for granted that making a bed consists of removing linens from the closet (or what-have-you) and spreading them over a rectangular surface. For the salty amongst us, the chore begins the same way but quickly devolves to wrestling rectangular bedding around the odd and unaccommodating shapes that berths tend to come in. In our case the traditional vee-berth came with the added challenge of the affectionately named Chastity Cable. Because of this lovely piece of below decks rigging, we don’t have a need for the little wedge shaped piece the many vee-berths have and we require either two completely independent sets of sheets and covers, or some clever way to work around the obstacle with one. ...

A Friday ritual, inspired by Soule Mama. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you’re inspired to do the same, leave a link to your ‘moment’ in the comments for all to find and see.

I know that our RSS Feed has been broken for some time, but with the move and all I haven’t had time to fix it. Well today I discovered that the little stats program that was supposed to keep an eye on the popularity of the feed, was in fact preventing it from working at all. That’s all gone now so please, if you were a subscriber before, try again now. If you weren’t, its a great way to get your forgeover fix without having to type all those letters :)

A four year old friend of ours wants to know why we live on a boat. Her mom said it was so we could travel around the world. “Planes are faster. In case you maybe didn’t know that.”, she replied. “Is it so nice as all that?” asked the mole, shyly… “Nice? It’s the only thing,” said the Water Rat Solemnly, as he leaned forward for his stroke. “Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.” ...

For the past 9 years I’ve had less than 30 minutes of commute a day, total. Today I commuted a total of 3 hours. The two bike segments home were directly into the wind, with killer traffic, in my lowest gear. I got home and met Vick and the kids in the parking lot and spent nearly an hour searching for food and clothing in the ManVan. Tonight, with winds howling at ~20 knots in the harbor, we finally relented to the worsening head smell in our cabin. It was obvious what needed to be done but with the cold and wind and dark, we were hoping it could wait until morning. Not so. After one aborted attempt for a pump out at the fuel dock (turns out that pump out must have gone away when they relocated the fuel dock) we headed back to our slip to do some reconnaissance on foot. Once I had confirmed that we could get over and back to the Emery Cove pump out we pushed off again and made our way over, did the deed, and got Convivia back into her slip. ...

This is it. As of Monday we are officially live-aboards. To me that means that, starting on Monday, I will come home to the boat, sleep on the boat and wake up on the boat every day for the foreseeable future. This is deeply comforting to me. To Vick it means a week (only a week) of final push to sell everything that we own that doesn’t fit this new life, or doesn’t fit in the boat/manvan/storage unit. Monday is not deeply comforting to Vick. This morning Vick made the brilliant and unexpected decision to call our good friend Katherine in for some professional organizing help. Katherine arrived late in the afternoon and the two of them lit into the piles of stuff that we’ve accumulated over the years and reduced it to a tidy stack of boxes and neatly organized piles. They made it through two rooms. Tomorrow Vick will be flying solo, but she’s already significantly more optimistic. ...

From time to time I am reminded that my culture has no coming of age tradition. Some of the effects of this deficit are subtle, some more obvious. This weekend, as I near my 35th birthday I experienced another Man Making Moment. Man Making Moments are different for everyone. I suspect many are like me and derive some significant part of their manliness ideal from their fathers. For me, the image of my dad under the hood, fixing, tuning and explaining our car’s inner workings, has left a mark. When the AAA guy confirmed my suspicion that the starter had failed on the ManVan I was both anxious and eager. This was going to be a greasy, cramped, and physical repair, but I knew I could do it. Never mind that I had never even heard a story about someone replacing a starter. I grabbed my socket set (thanks again Dad) and crawled under the truck. An hour later I had the starter motor out and Allison and I headed down to Kragen to get a replacement. I was quite surprised when the Nick (the Kragen sales guy) handed me a huge honkin box. Aparently I had only removed part of the starter. The rest of the job was going to be a lot harder than I had anticipated. ...

**** The plan was to meet Allison in Richmond at 9:00 and shuttle the ManVan back to Emeryville where we would pick Jon up and drive back to Richmond. Unfortunately the ManVan had other ideas. Somehow, after hauling a ton of gear over 700 miles, the ManVan decided to give up the ghost right in the Bay Marine parking lot. So, we changed the plan. By 10am everyone was on the boat and by 11 we were pushing off. After a hair raising shove off we headed out the channel and into the Bay. The wind was gentle in the morning and we put up full sails but by the time we were lined up with Racoon Straights it was blowing hard enough to warrant a first reef. By the time we were lining up with the Gut it was howling and a second reef would have been prudent. I was loving the speed (6.5 SOG according to the iPhone) and we were so close to Emeryville that it was nearly time to douse the sails anyway, so we let out a bit and enjoyed the wind. ...

I spent last night on the hard. I’m not sure I can adequately convey how strange it is to be on a boat that isn’t moving. When I’m working on it, its not so noticeable(unless I look up, then I get severe vertigo), but sleeping on it my body demands the gentle rocking. It is very disorienting, and I can’t wait to have her back in the water again. Enough of that, this is a work post, so on to business. ...

If you need to get work done in a yard in the Bay Area, you should definitely check with Kim Dessinger at Bay Marine. Kim has been incredibly attentive to me throughout this process. When I was working on the rig he came out several times to give pointers, and when I was considering work that I would do later (on my own) he was outrageously generous with his time and experience. I’ve found that most yards take a pretty dim view of do-it-yourselfers, and though I am using a good amount of yard time, they have been more accommodating than most when I want to roll up my sleeves. Having the chance to work side by side with guys that have 25+ years of experience is a great way to fast track your education.

This is the first chance I’ve had to sit down at my computer in six days. When in the last 15 years have I been able to say that? This vacation was certainly unique. Since it was a last minute (we decided at lunch two days before departing) decision, the expectations were low. Regardless, none of us were prepared for the highs and lows of this last week. On the high side: Three nights on Convivia. We all loved falling asleep to the ocean sounds, and waking up in a gently rocking home. Bedtimes were serene and several were augmented by the soothing sound of rain on the cabin top and decks. Meals were simple (or had at restaurants), the boat was nearly Baltic cold, we ate meals on the sole, and we couldn’t use the head, but none of that seemed to be a bother. Fun With Friends. We spent almost every free moment (and some busy ones too) while we were in Washington with Sarah and Ricky. Ruby and Olive just loved playing with “Little Blue Eyes” (a.k.a. Kiera). We met some new friends in Oregon who are new to living aboard. We spent an afternoon and evening laughing and comparing notes with Nicole and Brian. And to cap off the trip we finally made it to see Wes and Jen in their (now not so) new digs. Seeing their family there, and sharing mother’s day morning with them was a fantastic way to cap off the trip. ...

Back in our wild youth we had this neighbor (Douglas Robbins) who was getting into producing documentaries. Before he moved on he made this video staring (amongst others) us. In case you don’t know by watching, its farcical… though Vick can make 16 different muffins without processed flour.

On the way to work this morning Victoria suggested that we play the lottery. “Its $166 million today, seems like a good time.” Now understand, we don’t play the lottery to win, that’s just crazy talk. We play for entertainment value. When we were younger we would go out an drop a cool Washington on a ticket and then spend all night talking about our fantasy future. As we got older, and started to live that fantasy, we did this less often. Still, a couple times a year, the mood strikes us and we splurge. ...

Believe it or not this was spontaneous. I have no idea how Olive knew where the pirates are or where Hawaii is. I guess unschooling is working for our family.