Boat Work

I feel like I’ve been moving at light speed for the last five days. We arrived in Cairns on Sunday. Unlike a lot of marinas in Australia, the arrival was really smooth. The marina left keys for us so we could access the showers and be free to come and go at night, and they were very relaxed about check in protocols. After 12 days of passage making (with one trip to shore on Maggie) we were more than eager to grab a familiar burger at Grill’d. It was nice to finally relax and get a full night’s sleep. ...

I’ve always been a pay it forward kind of guy. I love helping my friends out and I love to build community. Every once in a while I ask for help, and every time it’s hard. I don’t fully understand why, but I do know that I am distinctly averse to receiving generosity. This past week has been a learning experience for me. It started, I think, when the lights started to flicker. We nursed our failing batteries all the way across the South Pacific but when we got to Bundaberg we just let it go. By the time we arrived in Brisbane they were near dead. Then a few nights before Christmas, when Ceildyh was over for dinner they died for good. We were eating and making merry and the whole boat went dark and silent. I switched us over to the starter battery and we finished the night with light (but no music). The next morning Evan called to let me know that he could help out with some old (but hopefully not as dead as our batteries). Then the sink fell in… ...

We have been living on dirt for a week now and it’s not as totally weird as I thought it would be. Of course, I have been working on the boat every day, so it’s not like Convivia and I are estranged, but it is strange to watch the kids spread out all over this little house like gas (filling all available space). The boat was supposed to splash on Friday, but they found hundreds of blisters and they had to be dealt with. The yard has been great. Their staff have helped me through countless hardships and even lent me tools (an unheard of generosity in the realm of boatyards). ...

For the last year or so Victoria and I have been harboring a secret desire. We hoped to combine our love of coffee and our new nomadic lifestyle and create from the union a more perfect coffee. Over the last week that dream has slowly become a reality, but it has been a long and trouble fraught journey. The project really took form when I discovered that there was a guy, in Georgia, making a small (4 lb) coffee roasting drum out of 304 stainless steel that was designed to fit into a backyard bbq. I started fantasizing about custom ordering one for my little SeaBQ, but got a little overwhelmed by the details. ...