Well, my part is done

Did you miss us? We have been remiss in posting because a) not much exciting is going on and b) we've been busy working on the fridge project. Still. We're thinking about contacting Guinness because we might just be setting the record for longest running boat project.

But at least my part is done. ;)

Jason asked me to do the easy part. Install the compressor. The old compressor lived in the cockpit locker but we had big plans for the new one - we wanted it in the cabin because the warm air that it generates will be used to circulate in some of the lockers and prevent mold (so goes the plan anyway - we might be kicking ourselves when we get to Mexico).

Here is the newly completed compressor install:










The fridge saga continues...it'll probably get done just in time to head north to Alaska where the glaciers abound and ice cream can be kept frozen outside.

How to run a messenger line

These past two weeks of (planned) vacation, we've ended up doing too much (unplanned) boat project work. Ugh. But we've gathered a bunch of ideas from some experts on running messenger lines that we thought useful to pass along...here are the big three:

1) Gravity: tie something flexible and heavy to your line at the top of the run and use gravity to do the trick. A bike chain or a line of nuts seems to work pretty well in some applications.

2) Magnet: using (non-stainless) bolts or some other metal tied to your line, get yourself a decently powerful magnet and lead the line where you want it to go from the outside.

3) Vacuum: tape off all other inlets/outlets, use your shop vac to pull a string tied with Kleenex through the run (this worked particularly well on our bow pulpit).

And when you finally get to running your electrical wire, decide on a suitable knot (we use 1-2 rolling hitches) and grab that KY Jelly from the bedroom and put it in your toolbox.

New drink recipe

I'm not one to mix stuff into my beer. This whole clamato-juice-in-beer thing just doesn't do it for me. But tonight, I was convinced to try shandy (thank you Kevin and Nicole). What is shandy you ask? It's very complicated:

1/2 glass lemonade
1/2 glass cheap beer



It's delicious. Very refreshing, and as Kevin pointed out, you can drink it all day and be fine. I plan to attempt this tomorrow while working on boat projects.

graffiti

While in Hot Springs Cove in 2009, we followed the tradition of carving our boat name into the boardwalk. We spent a day working on the board to get it just right. Our friends Aaron and Nicole aboard s/v Bella Star were just in Hot Springs Cove and notified us that our board has been defaced.


Our board.



We just can't have nice things.


(Note: we have come to realize that since not everyone know's Aaron's sense of humor, not everyone realizes that this little practical joke is something Aaron relishes and has been planning for weeks. There was no permanent defacing, just temporary enough to crack us right the hell up.)

Sometimes money does buy happiness

We have a few closely held beliefs on Hello World.

Money doesn’t provide happiness. These days it seems like we’re always after the bigger and better gadget. More stuff. Bigger house. Need more money to get more stuff. Even on the boat, where we can’t fit much of anything, we find that when we’re docked, we accumulate stuff so quickly. I know deep down that it’s just stuff. Stuff and money don’t make us happy (but it’s still hard to get rid of all of those shoes). We know this. It’s what we believe.

We do all of our own work on the boat. There have been exceptions here and there, when we simply don’t have the expertise to do a particular job, but for the most part, we’ve done just about all of the work and upgrades on Hello World. We’ve done this for 2 reasons: we’re always saving for the next trip (it’s so much cheaper to do it ourselves). And it’s really important to us to know the systems on our boat; be able to fix them if (when) they start acting up – especially because we’re likely to be in the middle of nowhere and have no one to rely on.

Last week, in a flurry of boatyard activity, working real jobs, prepping for multiple weekends out of town and fighting with insurance companies, we just couldn’t take it anymore. We could have prepped and painted the bottom (in fact, we started), but the prospect seemed daunting to both of us and we were completely unmotivated. Neither of us wanted to broach the idea, but we both were thinking the same thing; wouldn’t it be nice if we could just pay someone to do this for us?

We justified it to ourselves by saying Jason would have to take off of work to do the painting. That, in the end, the money was about a wash. But the reality was, we just didn’t want to do it. Enter the professionals.

We continually discover ways in which we are not nearly as hard core
as we thought we were. But then, maybe there's a little happiness in
that, too.


(before the brilliant idea to pay someone else to do this...)