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!!!

 

Our first overnight anchoring!!! :)

For the first time in I can't remember how long, Joe and I found ourself on the cusp of a great weather weekend and we both had off work!!! It was the perfect trifecta!!! 

At about 8pm on Friday, he says to me, "you want to go out on the boat?" To which I reply, "sure! most people probably go out before sunset, but yeah, let's go!!" So, we untied from the dock, motored out into the channel, watched the most amazingly beautiful moonrise and decided to do a little night sailing!! It was perfect! Our first night sailing experience and we were blessed with a gorgeous full moon....it was so incredibly peaceful and I wasn't near as nervous as I always presumed I would be sailing at night!! It was so great out that night that we decided to drop anchor and spend the night out in the bay. 

        Sorry the photos are so grainy. :/

Everything was going great, Joe cooked us some dinner, we watched a movie out in the cockpit and then around 1:30am we decided we were ready for bed. But wait! I was having so much fun on our spur of the moment sail/anchor idea, that I forgot to get in my exercise challenge. (Ugh, why did I wait all day?) Squats are hard enough on land, but there I stood in our salon, trying very hard to keep my balance while at anchor & did all 112 squats for that day....I think I deserve extra credit for pulling that off. Next, it was my daily dose of ab workouts & I was done. I crawled into bed, and thought I was going to get some sleep. But because we just anchored out in the middle we were not protected from the big rolling waves each time a ship would pass by, therefore the trampoline effect began to happen. We laid there for a few minutes and both sat up about the same time and said, "this isn't going to work!" For any non-boaters reading this, sleeping in the vberth usually is not a great idea because the movement of the boat can make you quite nauseous. We thought about sleeping in the aft, but it wasn't much better so we pulled up anchor and motored back to the marina. We got the boat back into our slip at 2:25am and we're finally back in bed at 3am....what a night!!

The next day, we went out in the afternoon. Of course, there was no wind at all on Saturday, so we put down the sails & cranked up the engine and motored all the way out to Redfish Island. 

We made it there about 4 o'clock, dropped anchor and just relaxed a bit. I laid out while Joe took a nap. Then I cooked us up some oven nachos and we watched this incredibly gorgeous sunset take place!! 

I absolutely love how this looks. And     no, it was not photoshopped to be half color/half b&w

Obviously, we were awake in this next photo, but after two attempts with a super bright flash, we decided to show you, how great "sleeping" in the cockpit can be!! 

We took some interior cushions and made a makeshift bed and slept outside! It was an absolute wonderful feeling sleeping under a blanket of stars with the moon shining down on us! It was a little bit of a tight squeeze, but we made it work. And I am so glad that we did because this was the first thing I saw when I woke up:

I jumped up and went and got my fancy-pants camera and spent the next 30 minutes capturing one of the most magical sunrises I've seen in a long, long time! There's just something about a sunrise over water that will make me set an alarm to make sure I'm awake for!! 

These clouds were just phenomenal to look at

We also saw quite a few ships pass by us. Being this close to something so big & mighty, sure makes a person feel small!

And, I wouldn't be my geeky, sailor self, if I didn't get at least one shot that included a winch. I don't know what it is about that big hunk of metal, but man does it ever look good!! :)

We plan to do a lot more night sailing as well as anchor out more often!! After all, that's half the fun of living on a boat and we don't have to spend money on a weekend getaway!!

So you bought the boat, now what's the plan?

As you may have figured out by now, we are not trust fund babies. {I know, shocker!} We work for everything we have and we save for anything we want! So, we are living on the boat and saving in order to take some time off in the near future to go sail, cruise and explore by way of the boat! 

When is this near future departure date? No one knows....not even us! But we do know there are certain things we want to cross of our 'To Do' list before we leave....and let me tell you, the list ain't short! 

This was Joe in the middle of winter starting our to do list. Notice the smirk on his face? Hmm!!

In case you couldn't zoom in enough, here's a closeup shot of our list. 

Of course the first thing he writes in my column is, 'get job' .....um, I had/have a job, I just had't started it yet, when he was first writing out the list! {crazy man} ;)

Sure, we love living on the boat, but that was only the first part of a much bigger dream! And after recently checking out our neighbors boat, Joe got inspired by their 'to do' lists {things they need to do before they leave to go cruising}. 

Now, we have started our own 'to do' list. One major item that's not listed {because it's a no brainier}, is the fact that we need to save up enough money to be able to take off work for (at least) an entire year so we can truly enjoy the cruising lifestyle that so many of our fellow sailor peeps are also doing! This means we need to have enough money saved to pay any ongoing bills that you can't pay off, (insurance, cell phone, etc), any docking fees/boat maintenance, oh and money for food for an entire year! Joe might be living off fish, but anyone who really knows me, knows it's nothing from the sea for me!! I may not look like it, but I actually eat a lot! In fact, just writing this post is making me hungry. 

--->quick break from writing to have some chips & salsa<---

You may have noticed it's been a while since my last post and that's because we've both been working every chance we can get so that we can work at paying off a few things while also saving money, like its going out of style!!

Our list at Christmas looked like this....

As you can see, a few things have actually been crossed off, but at the same time a few things have also been added. I have a feeling this is going to happen quite a bit. :[

Living at the marina we see a lot of people come and go. Some live on their boats for a short time and then sail away but for some, it takes a lot longer before they are ready to leave. We are part of the latter group. Because we chose to live on a boat while saving and prepping for our departure. 

We can now cross off getting the bottom job done & purchasing a dinghy! 

We're getting closer every day, but don't be surprised if you don't see us out cruising next year. While that would be awesome, we are trying to be realistic and not jump the gun, just because we are impatient and want to go now! 

Plus, there's that one other thing we want to do before we go....and that is to sell this boat and buy a more sea-worthy boat!!! 

Welcome to our ever-changing, but truly wonderful, life!!! :)

Until next time....

How did I know this wouldn't be our last boat

I knew this wouldn't be our last boat, I just thought we would live on this one longer than 4 months before hubs started talking about selling it, to buy bigger. All this talk started about a few weeks ago when our broker called Joe and told him about a boat he knew of that was about to come on the market and wanted to know if we were happy with our current boat or were we at all interested in moving up?

Don't get me wrong, we love, love, love our current boat and are very happy with it, but I think we bought her out of a bit of desperation. If I had to break it down, I would say that we bought our current boat based off of the following percentages:

     20% | we love Catalina sailboats

     35% | we got it for an excellent price

     40% | we couldn't find the boat we really wanted

      5%  | we were tired of being "homeless"

Then, if that wasn't enough, hubs had to change out the water pump on our boat the other day, and well, he wasn't too impressed with all the things that had to moved to get to the engine. 

See, with the boat we have now, the engine is under the companionway stairs. So first you remove the stairs, then you move the few galley items that I store back behind the steps, because I can't waste space and leave that empty, like I probably should. Then you remove the shell that covers the engine....and now you can get to the water pump or whatever else you need to get to. 

That's not too terrible, however the harder part comes when you need to access the back of the engine from the aft cabin. 

Now if you can, picture all the things that we already removed before that are taking up temporary residence in the salon area and add to that anything and everything that is being stored in the aft cabin (including the mattresses/cushions). All this just for you to get the the rest of the engine. If you look real close you can see hubs' hand in the top left corner. He's wedged in the aft cabin to reach the back of the engine while I'm in the main area of the boat taking pictures and helping when I can, but mainly trying to stay out of the way and not trip over anything.  

With the boat we want (our dream boat, so to say) he wouldn't have this problem because, it has it's very own engine room and that makes hubs super-duper happy!!! 

We had been mulling it over when our broker stopped by and asked again, if we had any interest. Of course it's enticing because, it's the "dream boat"! But, we would only consider selling ours if:

a) we made money off the sale

b) we ended up with the dream boat

But how often does that happen?

Then the broker says, we could always fly your boat in under the radar at the upcoming boat show, see if we get any bites and if it works out good, then great and if not, you're not out anything. We both nod yes, (I'm thinking because, that could be an option). As our broker walks away though, I look at hubs and ask, "Did I just agree to what I think we just agreed to?" His reply: "Yep!"

In the end, we decided it was just to sudden for us! We want time to enjoy our current boat and we weren't looking to be homeless yet again. That, and the boat that got all this started was already sale-pending a week prior to the boat show. 

Joe has always been a wheelin' & dealin' kinda guy, especially if he can turn a profit! It was always cars in the past, but since we have moved onto a boat, that all stopped. But somewhere in the back of my mind I always knew he'd find his way back to it and I'm wondering now if it's going to be in the form of boats?! 

Just because we didn't put our boat in the boat show doesn't mean we have changed our minds. One day, we will get the forever boat, but first we need to decide which one she is!! 

Another sewing post

I am by no means a professional sewer, but I can usually get the job done, if I really want to. Up until now, the job has mostly been pillows and a few hooded towels for baby gifts.

I have sorta a love/hate relationship to sewing. It's not so much the sewing that I struggle with {although, there are some days I want to strap dynamite to the machine and throw it overboard} rather, it's all the prep work of measuring and cutting out material. If you feel the same way I do, let me suggest to you how I overcame my sewing challenges. 

First & foremost, if you have been using scissors to cut your fabric. Stop it! No seriously. I have always most always enjoyed sewing, but I loathed all the measuring and cutting, so much so that it would deter me from making whatever project I was working on. I would rather wash dishes than cut fabric with scissors. Ugh!

I got a couple gift cards for Christmas so I decided I to buy myself a rotary cutter and mat. Best sewing decision I ever made! 

I bought the material on a whim! I didn't have any projects going at the time, but it was cute and nautical and on sale, so I just got it and thought I'd figure out what to do with it later....that's the kinda sewer I am!! We had some leftover memory foam from our vberth mattress making, so I cut it into a couple squares and two smaller rectangles and thought I'd make some cushion/pillows from it. 

Ahh! That's how I'll use that material!!

Cutting out the material went by quickly and then it was time to start sewing! 

Again, they're not perfect, but I think they turned out pretty good, especially since it was my first time sewing box-style pillows and adding in zippers! 

We have three of these lower windows that I wanted to cover for a little privacy. And I'm sure the neighbors are happy to not have to see us eating dinner & watching tv every night. 

I used up the remaining fabric and made of few window visors. I cut up a car windshield visor and sandwiched it between the two fabrics, so each one is reversible! 

Now, that I've successfully learned how to sew in a zipper, I'll feel like I might be able to accomplish something bigger. I think it's time I attempt to turn this into a quilt....

Wish me luck!!! :)

**If, like me, you are nervous about sewing something with a zipper, check out this simple how-to video! I found it super helpful!!

http://youtu.be/NV0bSkEniQg