Odds and Ins

05 July 2012

This has been a week of little odds and ins.  I'm thinking this is a good sign that biggest projects are behind us.  The KiwiGrip non-skid application was completed as of this morning- it looks and feels great.  

This week he has been all over the engine compartment on both sides, above, behind and in front of our perkins diesel getting it back in good shape.  We ordered a new temperature sender and replaced the old faulty one, flushed the antifreeze, bled the fuel lines, connected the mechanical tachometer, wired the new electric tachometer, installed the raw water alarm, installed the fuel gauge for the new tank, and hooked up the hoses for the fuel tank.

We did a little bit of interior work while we waited on ordered parts to arrive.  In this picture is some bulkhead trim, and the box for our auxiliary DC panel right after it was cut and varnished.  While not pictured (to come in a later post), some other trim work was done around the floor and in the head.

Our GPS and NavPod were mounted onto the pedestal.  The NavPod above the GPS contains our raw water alarm, bilge high water alarm, and our GMI 10.  

On our way back up from Miami a couple weeks ago we made a stop at E-Marine in Ft. Lauderdale.  We picked up two more solar panels for an awesome price- about half of what we paid for the first two.  G had to take off, rearrange, and remount the original two that we bought a year and a half ago to make room for the new ones.  We will have plenty of juice, no doubt.

We have a bunch of mast work to do, including (but not limited to) installing our wind indicator, swapping out the old VHF antenna for a new one, mounting and running new wires for the anchor, steaming, deck, and spreader lights.  Yesterday we began pulling out the old wires (2 out of 4), but a little storm came and rained us out of that job for the day.


After spending the day working hard around the boat, we enjoyed a few cold beers and the firework show put on right in our "back yard."  Johnny got his own beer in hopes that the fireworks wouldn't upset him too much, but it was a lost cause.  He spent the entire thirty minutes growling, barking, howling, and jumping trying to save us all. A big thanks to Johnny for protecting the entire dock from those evil fireworks last night!  Hope that everyone had a fun and safe Fourth celebrating that beautiful thing called freedom.


~ C

Food Day Tuesday: Honey & Whiskey Glazed Salmon

03 July 2012

Since I love sharing and talking about my food and cooking experiences the Captain suggested that I designate a day to post on my favorite recipe of the week.  Hmm.... okay, twist my arm!  You may also notice that I have added a tab to the blog named "Recipes" which will contain a link to every recipe that I post.  For my very first official Food Day Tuesday, I've decided to share another good salmon recipe.  I mix up our meats/proteins throughout the week to get a varied diet, but we eat a LOT of fish since most types of fish are excellent for O blood types.  Jack Daniels is probably not awesome for you, but it DOES taste good!

Ingredients:

• 1 pound salmon
• 3/4 cups Jack Daniels
• 2 tablespoons of honey
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons soy sauce
• Fresh ground pepper
• Cooking spray 

Directions:

1. Combine the Jack, honey, ginger, brown sugar, soy sauce, and pepper in a dish and marinate the fish for at least an hour.
2. Spray a grill pan with cooking spray.  Cook salmon for two minutes on each side.

Easy or what?  While I marinated the salmon, I grated up a carrot, some fresh ginger, and a cucumber all together and spread it out over a spinach and baby spring mix.  I made a light salad dressing with extra virgin olive oil, a quarter teaspoon of ground ginger and a quarter teaspoon of ground turmeric.  Once the salmon was cooked I tossed it on top of the salad and dinner was served!

Enjoy!  

~C

Today's Post Brought to You by the Letter...

02 July 2012

P

P is for PATIENCE

G cutting wood for our bulkhead trim work

Today began with day number 3 of non-skid application.  After lunch we worked on trim and finish work in the head, galley, and chart table areas (I'm going to wait until all of our finish work is complete to  post any of those pictures!).  During the course of today's work a very thick layer of saw dust and grinding/sanding dust was spread across the entire galley, saloon table, settees, book shelves, companionway, head, pantry, and engine room.  There I was, right behind the mess with a shop-vac, dust pan, and fox tail cleaning up.  Finally when everything was clean, there he came walking in through the companionway saying "Honey... I know you just cleaned up but I have another big mess to make."  At this point, 3-years-ago-me would have been very frustrated and perhaps even irritated at the situation.  But today-me just smiled and said "Okay Honey, don't worry... it is a boat.  I'll get the shop-vac back out."

While I was cleaning up the mess for the second time, I thought a lot about patience.  You do not buy a sailboat or make big plans to go cruising if you do not have patience.  Well, perhaps you do, but that has to mean that you are legally insane.  If you lack patience, AND you are also crazy enough to buy a boat- especially a steel boat- then you will either be forced to learn patience very quickly, or you will sell your boat for whatever the first guy has in his pocket shortly after you had a major break down over the realization that you just dumped every penny, every free minute, and every drop of sweat you had into "that stupid boat."

That being said... from time to time I start getting overwhelmed with all the hundreds of projects, big and small, that we have left to do.  I forget to take each day and each project one at a time, and begin thinking about the next twenty projects rather than the one at hand.  I also have to admit that having something unplanned happen around the boat (i.e. something quits working, a horrid mystery smell rises up from the bilge, a new rust spot pops up in an incredibly hard-to-reach area, etc) forcing us to take a detour to immediately attend the unexpected issue before moving on to today's to-do list can get me a bit frustrated as well.  Clutter, mess, things out of place, and sanding/grinding dust all over the galley is also a tad hard to be excited about.  When it's a mess I cannot hide from my hubby that it does not make me happy.

However, the good news is that I am quickly getting much better with my level of patience.  I love our boat, and I can't wait to get her cruising.  She may not be perfectly clean, organized, and in mint condition, but I have yet to see any home that is!  Through the course of my quest for boat patience, I have learned a few things...

1. A lot, if not most of the time, a boat is going to be a mess, and screwdrivers and work dust are going to find their way into the galley several times daily.
2. Every boat is going to always be a work-in-progress, no matter how awesome, fancy, new, beautiful, or perfect it seems to the untrained eye.  
3. Maintenance is just a fact of boat life.  It is a constant battle to keep a boat up, but is a labor of love if you really do love your boat.  
4. Be patient.  Yes, there are tons of other things that need tweaking, fixing, rearranging, painting, sanding, cleaning, tightening, and oiling, but you can only do one thing at a time. 

So relax, man!  Patience makes life easier... especially on a project boat.

~ C

Non-Skid Marks

01 July 2012

We have begun the application of KiwiGrip on the deck.  After doing the research, asking advice, watching tutorials, reading reviews, and analyzing the instructions, we finally got to work on it.  The above tools were what we used to get the job done: frogtape paint tape, a "loopy goopy" roller, a putty knife, a notched spreader, paint brushes just in case, and of course one gallon of white KiwiGrip.

Step 1: 

Wash boat deck

Step 2: 

Towel dry deck

Step 3:

Tape up sections to be painted with non-skid

Step 4:

Round corners to make a smooth edge

G came up with a great, easy way to do this.  We took a quarter and outlined a semi-circle on a strip of painter's tape, and then we cut out the semi-circle.  We then put the tape down to create a round corner, making every corner uniform.

The instructions say to get a helper if you are tackling a large area... This was our volunteer...

Step 5:

Goop the paint on with small putty knife.  

Step 6:

Use notched spreader to evenly distribute the paint. 

This was a tip from the guy who sold us the gallon.  We recommend using this technique before rolling with the ol' loopy goopy because it seems to make it a lot easier to roll.

Step 7:

Use loopy goopy roller to roll over the paint to create the rough texture.

I figured out that it creates a more even texture to go against the lines made by the notches in the spreader.

Step 8:

Pull up paint tape immediately.

We learned the hard way that "Immediately" does in fact mean... IMMEDIATELY!  If you don't do it immediately it will pull up the paint and/or dissolve into the paint and become stuck.

Step 9:

Allow to set up and dry.  KiwiGrip will be dry to the touch within 1-4 hours, but can take up to 14 days to fully cure.

We got a little pissy on day one because we didn't take the "can take up to 14 days to fully cure" part seriously.  A small section of the paint was easily pulled up from the deck and we readily blamed the Kiwi Grip for not sticking like it should, especially for $100 a gallon.  When we remembered reading that little 14-day-cure statement we relaxed a bit.  On day two, we sanded the sections to be painted, even though we were instructed that sanding was only necessary if the deck paint was less than a year old.  Can't hurt to be on the safe side, right?

This is what the texture looks like when painted on the boat.  So far, so good...

~ C

Veggie & Goat Cheese Pasta

01 July 2012

It is HOT here in central Florida right now, and I thought a fresh veggie pasta would be nice and refreshing for dinner last night.  I gathered a bunch of veggies from the produce stand here in town and some mint from my own onboard herb garden.

It took about a half hour to prepare, chop, and cut the ingredients.

Brown rice spiral pasta (gluten free) is a great alternative to use in place of regular white pasta.  They have more flavor, and are much healthier.

The best part is that it made an awesome cold pasta salad for lunch  in the middle of a very warm Sunday!

Want to try it yourself?

Ingredients:

• 12 ounces brown rice spiral pasta
• 1/2 pound sugar snap peas
• 2 medium shredded carrots
• 1 yellow bell pepper
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1 pint cherry tomatoes
• 1/2 cup roughly chopped fresh mint
• 4 ounces goat cheese, crumbled
• 1 teaspoon salt

Directions:

1. Cook pasta according to label in a big pot.
2. Add peas, carrots, and bell pepper to boiling water during the last two minutes of cooking the pasta.
3. Reserve 1/2 cup of the cooking water.  Drain pasta and veggies and return them to the pot.
4. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat.  Add garlic and cook for 30 - 60 seconds.  
5. Add tomatoes and salt and cook until tomatoes begin to wilt.
6. Add reserved water to tomato mix and simmer  for about a minute or two.  Pour the tomato mix into the pot with pasta and veggies. 
7. Add mint and half of the goat cheese and toss all the ingredients together.
8. Season with salt to taste and top with remaining goat cheese and drizzle with a little olive oil.

~C

We Got Gas

30 June 2012

Here is the long awaited final shot of the new double tank propane box mounted on the port side of the aft rail.  I know we promised this last week, but we've been busy taking advantage of the awesome weather the past few days.

These are our two fiberglass propane tanks.  The box had to be built to fit both the main tank and the spare tank to be able to get them both out of the sun and the cockpit.  G took the measurements and got to work building the frame.

Once the frame was built, he measured for the sides and lid.  We cut and built the box, and afterwards we glassed it in with West System (pictures for the glass work were not taken, as it was a little too messy to take pictures).

We sanded the box smooth, and painted on two coats of primer, and three coats of top coat, sanding in between coats.

We used our new dinghy lifts (more on those to come) to hold the box in place while we mounted it to the aft rail.  

And voila, we have our new propane box!

~ C

Cockpit Table

29 June 2012

This is our new teak cockpit table, oiled and mounted!  We got a great deal on the table at Marine Connection Liquidators in Fort Pierce, Florida on our way back up from Miami.  It is a great fit, and we have enjoyed meals from it every chance we have had in the past week.  The cup and binoculars holder shelf is really handy too.

~C

I think I'm Gonna Hurl...

28 June 2012

We finally woke up to beautiful weather, just as we were promised by the weather forecasters.  This is AWESOME news because we were able to get a lot done around the boat today.  Unfortunately there was an unexpected side job that had to be tackled first thing after breakfast.  I heard our bilge pump start pumping water out as I was washing dishes, and quickly realized that the sump pump was not kicking on, and therefore overflowing dirty dish water down to the bilge.  Keeping in mind that Murphy (our gremlin) has been known to flip the switch for the sump pump in the past, I immediately checked the panel.  The panel light for the sump was still on, so I eliminated that possibility.  I pulled up the floor board over the pump to investigate the situation further, and much to my dismay our sump pump was completely disgusting.  To say "filthy" simply does not cut it.  The layer of black and snot-colored slime all through the filter and the entire pump box was honestly... well, completely disgusting.  Hmm... I guess I found the problem.

I think I'm gonna HURL

I nearly lost my cookies at the mere sight of it, and I hadn't even gotten down in there to start cleaning it yet.  To be really honest, I'm almost embarrassed to even show the condition that I found it in.  How does this even happen??  Ahh... the joys of being a boat owner...

I never figured out what in the world managed to get into that little box and create such havoc, but I hope to never see it again.  

More regular cleanings are definitely in order, because I NEVER, EVER want to see, smell, or touch this stuff again.  

I will spare you the gruesome details on what all it took to get it clean again, or how the mystery black slime splashed up in my face, or how the smell made me gag the entire time; all I will tell is that a couple of hours later we had a spic n' span sump pump!

The good news is that we did get a lot done today, but I will save that for the Captain's post that is soon to come.  Stay tuned...


~ C

Going Nuts!

27 June 2012

Looks like Tropical Storm Debbie is finally going to give us a break.  Tonight the rain has stopped and the wind has calmed down after several days of horrible weather, and we are looking forward to some good weather for the rest of the week so we can FINALLY get some boat work done. 

Because the weather has been so nasty for the past few weeks, I'm writing about food (my second favorite topic) instead of boat progress. I've been on a big Turmeric kick over the past few months after doing some research and learning about its amazing benefits (go HERE for a little more info on these benefits).  I have been trying to incorporate it into my cooking as much as possible, so a few nights ago I made an almond crusted salmon dish, starring my two favorite ingredients, ginger and turmeric, that was both delicious and healthy.  I know a few of our readers are health nuts, so I'm going to share this awesome, very simple recipe.

Nutty Salmon with steamed broccoli and brown rice

Nutty Salmon

Ingredients:

• 2 Salmon filets
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon fresh grated ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• sea salt and fresh ground pepper
• 3/4 cup crushed up almonds

Getting the ingredients together

Ready to throw in the oven

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 F (190 C).
2. Heat oil in a skillet over medium heat.  Add in the fresh ginger and all of the dry spices.  Cook for a minute or two and cut off the heat.
3. Season the salmon with salt and pepper.  
4. Dip the fish into the spiced oil, and coat both sides of the fish well.
5. On a big plate, roll the fish into the almonds.
6. Oil a baking sheet, and place salmon filets on the sheet and bake for 10-15 minutes, depending on thickness of fish.  

Try it and let me know what you think!  

~ C

Discovery Hotel, St. Lucia

24 June 2012

Our wedding ceremony and reception dinner were held at DISCOVERY HOTEL at Marigot Bay, St. Lucia.  Trudy helped plan and put the whole thing together for me.  The whole resort was breath taking.

G and I each had our own room to spend the day in to get ready and/or relax.  Mom, Sis, and my handsome little nephew came with me to help me get ready.

G and my brother spent the day drinking beer at the bar while Sis and I spent the day primping.

This is Trudy, to whom I owe many thanks for all of her help in making our wedding a beautiful day.  She made the bouquet in the picture for me to perfectly match my dress.

The Vows & "I do's"

After the ceremony the family enjoyed a five-course dinner to celebrate. 

"You and Me" by Dave Matthews Band

The next morning we received our first "Mr. & Mrs." on paper, accompanied by a breakfast spread and champagne delivered to our room.

Thanks to our family who came and helped to make this week so special for us.  We appreciate all of your support and all that you do for us.  We love you very much!

~ C

Nose to the Grind

23 June 2012


This morning we finally tweaked the teak table enough to be able to fit it into the cockpit.  As you can see someone has already found more than one use for it as a shade.  We promptly oiled it and enjoyed lunch on it later.

Johnny snoozing.

One of the projects that we are gearing up for this week is the deck nonskid.  We have a few places that get slippery as whale sh*#  when it gets wet. Our concern is safety.  We have learned how to move from one place to another, but in reality we have been boating long enough to know that we need to fix it.

The product that we have decided to go with is KiWiGrip.  I have seen this stuff in action and have no doubts about it.  Does anyone have any tribal knowledge on applying it?  I have watched the video, read the nomenclature and spoke with the rep.  Some first hand advice would be appreciated!

KiWi Grip

Moving on to the LP Box.  I plan on putting at least another coat of paint on the box and lid.  The inside is good to go.  This box will hold our two 20 lbs propane bottles, regulator, gauge, solenoid, a wrench and a couple rolls of yellow teflon tape.  I have affectionately named this box Mark 1.  It will be mounted outboard of our Aft rail on the port side.  The grand unveiling will be on Wednesday, but for now here is a teaser of what it will look like.

-G