We've done it again

We sold our boat, again!!

Signing papers at closing....

You may remember last time our boat sold in eight hours and we had to be off of it a week later. Well, this time we thought we had wised up a bit by waiting until the end of boating season, to list it. After all, it was mid-November and just a couple days before Thanksgiving, so we thought maybe, just maybe we could buy a little time and maybe we could have it in the 'for sale' column just a teensy bit longer, while we look for the next boat. Nope, that didn't happen! About two hours after we had listed Irie, we had it under contract....and no, we didn't list it too cheap..We're actually making money off of it! Albeit, not a whole lot, but it's always better to be on this end rather than to be losing money on the deal! The first couple that saw it, put in an offer...that we accepted. The crazy thing {well, one of the crazy things} is, is that our boat listing didn't even populate to the broker's website!! All my staging & photography skills used up and I didn't even get to see the final result.

Needless to say, the search is on to find our next boat!! I have stopped referring to it as our "forever boat" though and am just saying, "our next boat". Our pier at the marina is starting to look more like the 'Bricker Brokerage Pier'  with all our old boats lined up! Haha :)

In the meantime, we have become pros at being squatters!!! I wish I could say I was joking about that, but that's the downside to selling your boat in a couple of hours, during the holidays. Everyplace is either already booked or extremely over priced because of the time of year. The upside however, is the friends we have made at our marina have been outstanding to us in our current situation! We have had many, many offers for us to use their boats, come do laundry at their house or stay in their spare bedroom!! I've said it before, but it bears repeating, our marina friends & neighbors are without a doubt some of the best people and we are so incredibly grateful for their hospitality!!!

I'm hoping by the time I type up my next post, I'll have something to tell you (or show you) on our next boat, but until then, I'm keeping it hush hush on the blog, so nothing is jinxed! ;)

Here's hoping we aren't homeless for too much longer...until next time!

Saturday Sail

A few weeks ago, we did a weekend trip with a few other friends at our marina! We hadn't really planned too much, other than to get away from the dock for a night or two. Friday afternoon we pulled out of our slip and went towards Redfish Island. This was our gorgeous view of the sun setting over Kemah!!

We arrived just after sunset and decided to anchor for the night. There were three other boats there with us, for the night. We all took our dinghy's over to Tom's boat and ate & hung out before heading back to our own boats to go to sleep. 

There's something great about being anchored and feeling the boat move with the water versus feeling little to no movement while being tied to the dock. I miss this more than I can say (at least in the daytime, when I can clearly see that we are not going to hit anything). 

There were no bugs out and the weather was cool, but not too cold, so hubs and I decided to sleep in the cockpit. Around 3:37am the wind picked up more than what was forecasted and at this point I was awake. Mostly, because of the headache that woke me up, but also because I'm always too worried that we we are going to drag anchor, I'm sitting up every few minutes and making sure we are not closer to the surrounding boats and so I can't really get any good sleep. It's like whenever I take a roadtrip with anyone. I cannot fall asleep for nothing, even when I've been awake for thirty-six straight hours, I just can't do it. I feel like I have to be the lookout person, at all times. About three hours later though, I decided Joe could be the lookout person for awhile and I went down below to catch some Zzz's before our day sail! 

We slept in a little bit and then I whipped us up some oven French toast!!! Yum :)

I felt like a real-live cruiser, complete with my collapsible tea kettle, heating the water for my coffee in a pour-over coffee maker and the toast about to go in the propane oven. I think I'm getting the hang of this no electricity needed, way of life!! 

After breakfast and a quick cleanup, we pulled up anchor and radioed over to our friends about the day's plan. We were going to go with one of the boats, that had anchored with us the night before and sail to Galveston for the day, but they decided they wanted to hang out in the bay instead. It's all good, we thought, were still gonna go, because we could, so we did! :)

We stayed just outside the ship channel and sailed all the way down to where the cruise ships come in and out of port. We kept seeing flares shooting up into the sky, followed by a thick cloud of orange smoke.

There were no distress calls heard over the radio, so we figured it had to be some sort of a training or an authorized removal of expired flares. Sure enough, we later realized, that was being done at the Coast Guard Auxillary Station and all was well. 

We cruised around a bit and got up close and personal with World War II history! Seawolf Park is a memorial to USS Seawolf, a United States Navy Sargo-class submarine mistakenly sunk by U.S. Navy forces in 1944 during World War II. It is located on Pelican Island, (29°20′03″N 94°46′45″W) just north of Galveston. You can read more about the submarine and ship here. 

We then sailed back to Kemah...

We went no where in particular and it took us all day to get there and back, but that's just one more thing we can say we did on our boat. Plus, you gain experience each time you take your boat out. And well, isn't that what everyone should do? 

Why we do what we do...

In short? Because it makes us happy!

Still, even after two years of boat life, occasionally, when we tell people we live on a sailboat, we see the look of "why on earth would anyone want to live in such a small space, full time?" Or even when family & friends come see us & check out the boat. Not all, but some look around our tiny home and though they don't say it, you know that's just what they're thinking, by looking at their faces. It's times like these, that sometimes, I myself start to think, "are they on to something?" But then I remember, I'm not doing this to make anyone else happy, I chose to live in a small space because that's what is good for me/us, right now. For years, I lived everyday, for the future. What if this? What if that? Then a series of life events happened and one day I realized, that I not only didn't want to live the so called "normal" but I also wanted to live in the now! Enjoy every moment as they are happening, ergo, we live on a boat!

Yes it's small, yes it's different, maybe it's even weird to you, something that you can't manage to wrap your mind around and that's all fine and dandy because you don't live our life afloat, we do. And guess what? We're not done yet!! 

In fact, we've recently narrowed down our search for our next boat and are really starting to make progress in making a final decision. We are keeping the next boat under wraps a little this time, but that's mainly so you don't have to suffer through all the many, "we made a decision" & "we changed our minds" posts. 

What I will tell you about our next boat is this. It will be:

-->older

-->bigger 

It's okay, you don't have to understand why we do what we do! Having done both, we don't get how you'd want to mow grass for the rest of your lives. Our backyards may look differently, but we enjoy ours just as much as you do, well maybe a little bit more!! ;) 

Our tips for liveaboard newbies:

Being at a marina means we see a lot of peeps come and go! Some are seasoned sailors and some are liveaboard newbies, just like we used to be....though some days, I still feel like a newbie!

When we moved onto our first boat there were two ladies here that welcomed me and taught me everything they knew about living aboard a boat....and trust me, there is so much to learn and know. It goes way beyond just learning to live in a small space! They are out cruising now, but I have tried really hard to pass on what they taught me and things I've figured out that works or doesn't work.

In no particular order....

Remove all most cardboard | I've heard several reasons for this one, like bugs are attracted to the glue that hold the box together and/or bugs like to live in between the folds of the box. In any event, I'm not cool with bugs taking up residence in my tiny home, so I remove almost all cardboard from the boat. And what does remain, gets checked often for any unwanted visitors

While we're on the bug topic: peppermint oil is great for keeping spiders away | I'm not really scared of spiders, but I also don't want to live with them. And because we are living full time at a dock, there are always spiders around. So I use peppermint oil to keep them at bay! I have a couple battery candles in the cockpit and I pour the oil on the tops of the fake candle trays, but you could also use a cotton ball or a small lid to hold the oil. 

Detergent as a head/tank cleaner | when we go to the pump out we like to rinse out the tank with liquid detergent (and water) after pumping out the stuff that needs pumping out. So after you've pumped out your tank, pour a healthy amount of liquid detergent in the tank and then fill with water. Now pump out the soapy water mixture and you're all done! We also pour a little detergent into the head after pumping out to help clean the bowl and keep smells to a minimum. 

Vinegar | this stuff is basically liquid gold when you live in a boat! Ok not really, but it is super versatile and used almost daily! 

Bleach is a big no-no | boats have lots of rubber hoses and bleach will eat away at the hoses and overtime you'll have a much bigger problem than a dirty boat. So when you think of bleach, think only for laundry! As long as you're doing laundry at the marina or laundromat and not in your sink!

Get to know your area | we will be here for a couple more years, at the least, working and saving money towards our cruising departure. So it is important to know the area you're in and where to get the best deals. I cook most every night on the boat, but when we do go out, we like to catch a good deal! Different area restaurants usually have weeknight specials and we know where to go for the $2 tacos or the $6 ribeye steaks!!  So learn your area and figure out where you can eat out on the cheap! 

Free table | the liveaboards at out marina (and several others) usually have a  designated area or table where you can get rid of anything you're not using anymore and in turn, pick up something you may want from the table. Just be sure to find out where said area is, I've heard a few peeps say they didn't know that was a free table, left what they were working on to go grab something from the boat and came back to find their stuff gone. :/ Yeah, not good! 

Cook with pork sausage instead of hamburger meat | on our last boat {baby Irie, if you will} we had the teeniest, tiniest freezer. This is where I made the switch and I began cooking solely with pork sausage. I quickly found out that I was throwing out more hamburger meat than I was using....and that stuffs not cheap. The benefits of using pork sausage are the many different flavors, the cheaper price, the fact that it doesn't have to be frozen & lastly, 9 times out of 10, there's no grease to drain off after cooking it, so less work!! 

Thinking outside the box | living on a boat means you have to get pretty crafty when you need a trash can in the bathroom. Especially when the only flat piece of real estate on the head floor to hold this is approximately, three inches by ten inches. Yeah, inches!!! The good news is, those plastic cereal containers with a lid that includes the flap lid part {where a normal person would pour the cereal from} are usually the perfect size to make into a trash can for a tight spot! Just make sure to always use a small trash bag as a liner and never try to reuse it for food, ever!! 

I know there are so many more, but this is a good start for now! 

So tell me, what are your tips & tricks??

Weekend raft-ups and more!!

My apologies for the super long gap in blog posts, lately! With me going back to work, life has become a bit more hectic than I was used to. Gone are the days where I wasted the day away, lounging by the pool, soaking up the sun and where the only work that was being done was, me, working on my tan!! Truth is, I was ready to go back to work. Not only do I enjoy contributing to the income, I also want a bigger boat and that my friends, is what I work for, everyday...well, three days a week, anyways! What a novel idea?? "If you want something, you work for it!" Someone should clue in the millenials with that fine wisdom!! 

Labor Day weekend was a lot of fun and an extra long weekend for us. I had five days off work & Joe wound up using a vacation day so he could get four consecutive days off and it was like a mini vacation!

That Friday, we slept in, then got the boat ready to go anchor out and met up with new friends. We rafted up with two other boats (we're in the middle)  as you can see we have our "project" dinghy upside down on the bow. We were basically given the inflatable, but it needs a lot of work. But you can't complain when it's free (another piece of advice for those millenials). It's exactly the type of dinghy we have been looking for and we're not afraid of a lil' work so that is why I have affectionately dubbed it as, 'Project'! In fact, that may very well become its name! 

This was our wonderful view for a couple of days!!! We had never really rafted up for more than a few hours before, but this was great!! Being able to just step aboard your friend's boat and hang out was pretty cool!! 

And, I broke my own rule about only swimming in clear water, where I can see what's beneath me. Ahh well, it was worth it and I only felt something brush past me once or twice...it was probably better that I couldn't see what it was. 

We had planned to stay there for two nights but the winds had picked up and I doubt it would have been a comfortable night on the hook, not to mention that we don't have a generator on board, so it would've meant another night with no air conditioning. So, we opted to go sailing and head back to the marina. It was a good sail and we even saw a couple of dolphins! I don't know what it is about those magical creatures, but I never tire of seeing them!! 

On Monday, we headed back out with a different dock neighbor and went and anchored out in a nearby cove. The water there is a lot cleaner and less salty...still can't really see what's lurking beneath, but we did a little swimming there as well! 

All in all, it was a good time and we can't wait to do it again!! 

Last but not least, here's hubs showing off his mad docking skills....yes, he's driving the boat backwards, literally! One of these days I'm going to video how we dock the boat, seriously impressive how good of a job he does with "parking" our thirty-six footer!!! 

Big changes coming our way

So far, the changes are merely thoughts, but I'm sure it's close to being a big change to the way we liveaboard. Anyone who has been following us for even a day, knows that our current boat is not our forever boat! After selling our first boat we had hoped to buy the boat we would stay on forever and go cruising on, but we just didn't find what we were looking for.  And after being homeless for two months and coming along this boat at a great price, we dove head first into our second Catalina. Don't get me wrong, we love our boat, but we knew when we bought her she was merely going to tide us over until we found the one we really wanted. 

What is it that we really want, you ask? Well, the answer is a bit tricky, but I will tell you what qualities we are looking for in our forever boat!

We want a true ocean-going boat. A boat that you could sail around the world in {if we ever decided to do that...way, way down the road or ocean lane} and we want that boat to be paid for by the time we leave, so basically, we need to find a needle in a haystack or a fixer upper. 

The only way to get a well-built boat at a cheap price is to find one that needs a lot of work. Think of it like this:

(*We read somewhere about the above diagram where the three options were: build quality, cheap price & speed of boat. But for my illustration, I'm using move-in ready in place of boat speed.)

Pick any two items that are/would be most important to you. Whatever item you didn't choose is the one you will (most likely) sacrifice, in order to gain the two you don't want to budge on. Lets say you want a move-in ready boat that is well built, chances are, it's not going to be cheap! So in our case, we want a well-built boat at a super cheap price, which means we most certainly are not going to find a boat that doesn't require work to be done. The only good thing about that equation is the fact that we will be doing most, if not all the work ourselves. Yeah, I know what you're  thinking, how is that good? I've thought the same thing! The repairs won't cost us as much, because we won't be paying for someone else's labor. Plus, hubs can do anything and he's good at it, no shortcuts! The downside however, comes when I tell you we will be living on it while we are doing the work. My hopes are that we can find something by fall so that the renovations can begin right around the time winter rolls in, when we are already stuck inside hibernating from the cold air. We are so not cold-weather sailors! 

We've taken on this challenge before, but somehow, I think it is going to be way more different than when we lived in our house while we gutted and reno'd the dining room, living room & kitchen. The good thing is, we both like to have projects to work on...and oh, what a project this will be!! 

At least I won't fall into a lull of blog posts! ;)

New dock lines for Irie

If you remember from my last post, I told you all about the crappy weather we had on our Spring Fling trip to Port Arthur. Well, one line snapped....

And the rest of them look like this, or worse....

So when we returned from our trip we made all new dock lines for the boat! Luckily for us, we had found a bundle of line that was just over 300' long for $60 bucks at the boater's resale shop awhile back. That was way too good of a deal to pass up and we knew we would need it eventually....looks like "our eventually" has showed up! 

Can you believe the marine store wanted twenty-something bucks each, to splice the rope themselves....they said, it was "labor intensive"? Um, no thank-you, we'll do it ourselves!

Ripping the duct tape off my legs wasn't near as eventful as when Joe ripped the pieces off from his legs! Hahaha, if only I would have snapped a photo of his bald spots!! 😂

Getting the line ready to splice it....

Not too shabby for my first attempt....

Joe using his mad-sewing skills...

And viola....the end result!

All new dock lines!!

A closer view....

And, we made up a couple spares....because apparently, you can never have too much rope, I mean line, (but really, it's rope)!! 😉

Our first vacation on our boat!

Last Tuesday we left the marina around 10am or so. Cruised over to the fuel dock and filled up with diesel and headed for the Galveston bay. The winds were pretty minimal, but once we got out there Joe raised the sails in hopes we could do some sailing ....no such luck! We even tried to motor sail, but there still wasn't enough wind, so he dropped the sails and we motored all the way to Laguna Harbor. It was a good lil' trip and we saw quite a few dolphins on the way, which always makes me happy!! (they were too quick for me to snap a picture, but I posted a video I shot of them on our facebook page) 

Once you make it down to Galveston, Laguna Harbor is roughly one mile inside the ICW {Intercoastal Waterway aka 'the ditch'}. When we arrived, there were already six or seven boats docked for the night. To the left there was enough space for 2, maybe 3 boats to fit and then to the right there was an open spot big enough for only one boat, but it was kind of in the corner and would've been difficult to dock there. Naturally, we chose the bigger, easier option and had the fenders out on our starboard and were ready to tie up on that side. Trying to make the most of the limited space, the other tmca'ers radio us and tell us they want us to dock our boat in the spot big enough for only one boat. I don't even parallel park in a car, much less a 36' boat, but lucky for me hubs was at the wheel, so all I had to do was scramble to move the fenders and lines from the starboard side over to our port side. That was fun....I had six people on the dock yelling at me to, "hurry up" "move the fenders lower" "throw me your line".....by the time I had a chance to look up Joe had parallel parked our boat like it was something he'd done a hundred times before!!!

That's Irie tucked right in there between that big, beautiful (& did I mention, very expensive) power boat at our bow and another Catalina sailboat at our stern. Hubs did an excellent job docking our boat!!! Laguna is nice stop if you need to split up your trip, but without a car, there's nothing to do. The good thing is, it's all free of charge while they are still developing the houses. We enjoyed the evening, just hanging out talking to new and old friends. 

We got up the next morning at 5:30, checked the weather and talked to the boaters who were planning to go offshore. The winds were predicted to be 15 knots with 2-4' seas, we automatically added a little to their predictions, because you know, they rarely get it right {meteorologists have the best job security}! I was a little anxious at the thought of going offshore for the first time in our boat, but we both wanted to get out there, so we decided to head out with the three other boats that were going that way. 

We left at 6am and took the ICW back towards Galveston. Wanting to save a little time, we cut through a ship anchorage instead of going all the way over to the ship channel. Let me tell you, our boat becomes incredibly tiny when you come up along side this guy....just wow!

We made it to the jetties shortly after sunrise and that is when our story really begins!!

We've been told, sailing through the Galveston Jetties is like sailing in a washing machine. It was absolutely insane getting through there! The waves were coming at us from every direction (think the agitation mode in the washer) and they were between 10' to 12' high....this went on for awhile. I was sitting at the lowest spot in the cockpit with my back on the companion way doors and facing Joe, who was at the helm. He said, "this is fun!!" so I got up and looked one time and sat back down....looking at those wave motions must've made him delusional. We both thought, I would be the one to get sick so I tried not to watch the waves head on. Once we were past the jetties, the waves were only 6' to 8' high and the wind was 18 with gusts up to 24. Hubs actually was the one who got seasick...poor guy! I kept looking around wondering who was going to captain the boat now, and guess what, it was me, white knuckles and all! But we managed somehow and I'm really proud of how well our boat did in those conditions. It was an incredibly tiring day, and after fourteen long hours at sea we arrived at Pleasure Island in Port Arthur. It was still a bit breezy when we docked at the marina, but with the help from a few people, we got the boat tied up and were thankful we had made it. We both took Benadryl and went to sleep! 

Thursday came with a great news when my doctor called to tell me the biopsy I had had the week before came back benign...Yay, no cancer!!! What a relief!! ...The winds continued to increase so Joe and some other volunteers spent the whole day helping other boaters dock as they came in. 

Friday evening was a Hawaiian themed dinner so we dressed in our best aloha/island looking clothing and despite the rain and cooler temps, enjoyed a nice meal and luau!!!

The winds became increasingly worse all day and by Friday night we had sustained winds of 32 mph. One of the guys down from our boat clocked a gust of 52 mph from the top of his mast. The boat was rocking so much at this point we couldn't even sleep. I heard a loud pop noise on the outside of the boat, jumped out of bed, went and looked to see what it was and found that our spring line had snapped in two. We were lucky that only one line broke, but all of them are so chaffed and worn down, we will have to replace all our dock lines. This is what the snapped line looks like now. 

Joe and I, plus about six other guys from our dock stayed up all night watching the boats, tightening the lines and replacing lines as they broke. By 4am the winds started to shift a little and we were not getting hit as badly. We had triple lines at our bow & stern and one long line from our port beam about 60' across tied to the next pier over. We finally went to bed at 5am and got a little sleep. 

Saturday was pretty uneventful, but we gladly took that after the week we had been having! We actually got to relax a little and start having fun....

The Pirate Picnic was Sunday afternoon after a brief memorial service that morning! Against his will, I convinced Joe to dress up like a pirate with me so we could enter the pirate costume contest. I found a Spanish pirate costume online for me & he agreed to wear a white shirt and a hat...so, I did a little diy'ing and mixed & matched a few things and he took home the 'most authentic pirate' award, while I got the 'sexiest pirate' award!! 

Monday we woke up early to head back home. We left at 6am and decided to go via the ICW this time around so we could experience both routes. It was definitely a slower route, but it gave us time to enjoy the trip and see the sights, which were mainly cows and barges, but hey, we were ok with slow and steady this time around. Our friends captured this photo of us on our boat as the sun was rising behind us....isn't it just gorgeous?!

It was another long day back but we made it safely back to our marina around 8:30 that night and felt relieved to be back home....even though technically our home was with us the whole time! 😉

There's something to be said about a safe, protected harbor and boy, do we ever appreciate it now!!! 

And to think we thought, parallel parking the boat was going to be our big feat of the trip! Now I understand what people mean, when they say they need a vacation from their vacation!! It wasn't the most restful, relaxing vacation, but we did have fun! I'm glad we had the experiences and no, it doesn't make us want to sell the boat and move back to land {sorry moms}! 

It was all going great....until it wasn't.

All last week, when the alarm would go off way too early, I told myself, "we are gonna go anchor out this weekend, you just got to get up & go to work....it'll be worth it come Friday!" So I did. And when the end of the work week was over with, I was so happy because my reward for getting up early every day was about to take place! Anchoring out has become my new happy!! And, hubs is pretty happy about that, because well, it doesn't cost anything....what can I say, I'm a cheap date!! 

We left around 2pm and set out for our overnight stay! We made it out of the channel and into the bay, put up the sails and killed the engine....and then we bobbed around. There was no wind, we weren't going anywhere fast. So we just hung out for awhile, snacked on some veggies and enjoyed life. 

Coast Guard kept flying the same pattern overhead, I guess maybe they were doing a training or something. At one point they got rather close, I asked Joe if one was allowed to take a picture of coast guard all while nonchalantly snapping away!! 

Given the fact that the pilot waved to us, as he flew past our boat, I'm gonna say it was okay I took his picture! ;)

The wind still hadn't picked up, so we dropped the sails and motored over to Red Fish Island. We dropped anchor and started to relax. Around 7:30pm the winds started to pick up and hubs was getting ansy to go sailing. I really wanted to stay overnight, but it's incredibly hard to keep a sailor anchored when there's good wind! He negotiated a deal that meant I was getting new shoes and a dinner out, so....we pulled up anchor and went and did a little sunset/night sailing! It was so fun...

and beautiful...

See what I mean?  We were cruising away, and I was glad Joe talked me into it! I was snapping photos every chance I could! 

Then the winds picked up even more and we were sailing at 6.4 knots with just the jib out....for you land folks reading this, that's a pretty good speed with only one sail up. :)

How lucky are we to live this life and enjoy these views? 

We sailed into the channel and then cranked up the engine to head back to our marina. Only problem was the engine ran for about a minute and then died. Joe started it again, this time it ran for 20 seconds and died again. We still had the sails up so we kept sailing all while trying to figure out what we were going to do. Which basically means I was freaking out and hubs was trying to play it cool so I wouldn't freak out...it didn't work! We sailied into the mouth of the Kemah channel, but then the wind was blocked by the restaurants and with no wind and an outgoing tide we found ourselves bobbing about. It was almost 10pm when we gave in and called for a tow. Everybody has a Towboat walk of shame story and this was ours. We managed to bob close enough to the pilings to tie up and spent the next 30 minutes pushing the boat away from the large bolts protruding out towards our boat. 

A little too up close and personal for my likings! 

TowboatUS showed up...

....and kindly towed us from the boardwalk all the way back into our slip at the marina. This little tow could've easily cost us $600+, but since we were members, it didn't cost us a penny! Buy the $120/year membership....it is totally worth it!!! 

Lesson learned: if you have to be towed back try to have it done well after dark, because apparently everyone was already asleep and there was no chance of an audience standing by laughing.;)

We were safely back into our slip just after 11pm, thanked the captain for the tow and now it was time for Joe to diagnose the issue. Some people might've waited until morning to figure it out, but we are not most people. I turned the cockpit lights on and Joe started emptying the lazarette in order to access the fuel tank. Upon further searching he found that the pick-up tube had broke off and ended about a half of an inch above the fuel line. We did have diesel it just wasn't able to pick anything up....and so the engine thought we were out of fuel and wouldn't run. It was kind of annoying being something so simple, but on the other hand, I'm super grateful that it wasn't anything major and turned out to be a rather inexpensive fix. 

We finally went to bed and spent most of the next day like this:

Hubs at the engine

And me at the helm

After we were done bleeding the lines of any air, the motor was back up and running like nothing had ever happened! And now, it was time to go enjoy a dinner out...a little pre-anniversary celebration and some new shoes!!!