All Those Colors in One Space

I picked out the colors for the interior of our boat a little while back. "Is this her first time painting?" Whispered the guy behind the Lowes paint counter to Nick as I walked a few feet away..."She's not going to use them all in the same room, is she?" Nick laughed and shrugged, he did after all tell me I could pick whatever colors I wanted...

Yes it is true, we are stepping away from the conventional interior colors (gasp!!), but, we aren't really the conventional type either so I'm sure it's of no surprise. If we're living aboard and traveling in a small space we need to make it our own, and we need color!

The Undertaking of Anti-Fouling Paint

Ahh, finally! The rain cleared out and has left us with a few beautiful Maine days that I've grown to cherish. This weather window also means another thing on Neto Nomad.....it's time to get our Anti-fouling game faces on!

To those of you not familiar with this particular boat paint, it is applied on the lower half of the hull (bottom of the boat) that is submerged when in the water. The idea is to keep barnacles and other sea life from growing on the bottom of your boat which would inhibit smooth sailing.

A Journey to Patience

I can't believe it has been 10 months since we left California and headed back east to make our dream of sailing and simplifying our lives a reality. There has surely been a lot of ups and downs and obstacles to overcome as would be the case for any undertaking of a life style change. If the journey was not a struggle at times would the reward of obtaining your end goal be so sweet to the tongue?

At times our voyage seemed doomed -- had we made a mistake of leaving the comforts of our California lifestyle? The beach a rock kick away, being around our friends whom we had grown to love and enjoy our time with; the sun, always present, pleading it's case with ease to draw you out to play in its warm rays..... Our boat seemed to resist us at every turn, our plight to save her seemed tedious and at times impossible as our list of repairs grew longer and longer with every loosening of a screw.

Aqua repair

If you looked at the freshwater plumbing lines you may get sick. The lines are black with mold, kinked all over and leaking. It was not an option to flush them out and clean them so we decided to replace. We purchased some new FDA approved anti-bacterial water lines for the replacement, figuring better safe than sorry when it comes to water (I'd say a step up from the the old pool hose which was previously installed....).

Sanding for Gold

Over the past month we have had many different projects going on from the rebuilding the bowsprit to cleaning the bilge to preparing the engine compartment for our soon to be here new engine (yay!). However I have to say, one of the simplest and possibly most rewarding so far is bearing witness to the beautiful dark golden hue of the freshly sanded and oiled teak emerge from the weathered and far too long neglected grey that had resided on her deck for far too long -- Ok ok, perhaps seeing the old 500+ lb engine emerge from the companion way leaving the boat structure completely unscathed takes first place, but I'm talking aesthetics here for the time being :)

More Rants

This is a mix of rants and questions that literally keep me up at night. If it isn't clear by now we are not old salts and somethings just don't make sense to us. If you happen to know the answers to any of the below let us know!

Just a list this time to make it easy:

Everything I read is all about using high-strength adhesive for a bedding compound. Whats the point of high strength adhesive over a peel layer like paint or plywood?

If a bolt is to long either put the right one in or cut to length, bending it is not a good alternative. Is there a reason you wouldn't cut bolts to length in boats, or was this just done on our boat?

Don't encapsulate mild steel in fiberglass when you know it is going to get wet! That isn't a question just a statement. If you are using a steel that will rust someday at least make it easy to replace, making a fiberglass pocket for it is just letting it sit in water and makes replacement a lot harder.

Don't use untreated lumber in a vital spot that will get wet and is impossible to reach! That is a straight rant but I understand money pinching is normally the cause.

Take care of expensive wood that is left in the sun and water everyday! So, is oil or varnish better? It seems varnish tends to lure in people with the promise of less consistent maintenance but at least in our case if someone had been checking the wood parts consistently they would have found problems as they occurred and not neglected them for years to come.

Little tranquil Silver Maple to calm down.

Repowering

With mixed feeling we plunged into the re-powering of our boat. Nothing I would like better than to leave well enough alone and have an old trusty engine but we are not that lucky. After a few weeks of one unpleasant surprise after another the removal of the Volvo was not something we were looking forward to.

With five days of rain finally stopping we plunged forward with the task: build something to move the 500lb beast out of the boat. After a day of working, moving heavy steel beams around and fighting off hordes of bugs we had a platform we deemed worthy to lift safely.

Book review: Sailing Alone Around the World

What I came away with from reading this was an odd feeling of, wow how much things have changed but at the same time, wow things haven’t changed all that much. Without giving anything away, this book is about a motivated individual who builds a sailboat and sails around the world alone, which was the first recorded solo trip on record. This was a major feat for a little under a hundred years ago to be the first to do such a trip (especially considering he meets people who still believe the world is flat). I really enjoyed his easy way of telling the story without being too technical or boasting too much about himself which he is rightly entitled to do. The entire book hardly ever mentions how great his accomplishments are and just sticks to small antidotes about how the journey progressed some being funny and others quite interesting. 

DIY: How to spruce up your cabin - recycle your lights!

I had removed the light fixtures back in November before we winterized the boat. The aluminum had become less than desirable from not being up kept so we had to figure out a new plan for them. Since the lights were not broken there was no need to replace them, but just because you aren't buying new, doesn't mean they can't look new!

 

What you need:

• 1 can of High Heat metal adhesive spray paint - I used Rust-Oleum High Heat in white. ($8)
• Your light fixtures  
• a ventilation mask
• a clean space out of the wind

Want a piece of us?

Finally the engine is out and now its ready for you to restore! Available on ebay. Get at it:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/280878415200?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649
Oh and here is the transmission if you want:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/280878421369?item=280878421369&viewitem=&vxp=mtr

What are we doing?

You have read about our projects but what has our day to day been like?

The Bowsprit

As mentioned in the past our bowsprit, the wooden part the juts out of the front and holds the wire rigging which, in turn holds the mast, is in need of repair. Repair is a generous word in this case not even rebuilding or replacing are strong enough words. At first look the wooden piece, 4 feet by 9" by 1.5", is rotted so much only about half is still present, no good at all. It is held down with nine bolts going through the deck and through a large piece of steel underneath the deck to support it all. This piece of steel is completely rusted and has an additional 12 bolts holding it down, pictured below.
Warning this post may be a rant but it is good therapy to write down your feelings, I have been told.

Dinghy Rebuild 3 of 3

The dinghy is about 95% done. Few more little things to add here and there as we go but for now it is usable. Over all we are happy with the result. We stayed within our budget, recycled everything with the exception of resin and built our first dinghy which tested well!

DIY Spear for Fishing

Started building a pair of pole spears so we can catch some fish. Keeping it simple I used some industrial fiberglass rods, surgical tubing, rope, metal rod, metal tubing and epoxy.

Red Wines of California

Pinot Noir, red Zinfandel, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and one famed sommelier Kevin Zraly comprised our night the other week at Kevin Zraly's Windows On the World Wine School, and what a night it was. Mr. Zraly's charismatic delivery of wine, the vine and everything in between was instantly entrancing. I did my best to discern between the aromas - oak definitely oak...oh wait, spiced chocolate? err I mean black cherry...yeah that's it...black cherry!; as well as the the acidity, fruit and tannin levels - the tannins faded...oh it didn't? hmm, what's tannins again? bahh...this is why I came tonight! We laughed and savored our way through this class and Mr. Zraly treated us all at the end with a 1996 Robert Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve (Nappa Valley), simply superb.


I definitely have some learning to do but I did catch the wine bug. My only complaint is that we aren't signed up for the rest of the classes! On the plus side, now I might have a chance of beating Nick at Wine Wars! Game on babe!

Nick and I with sommelier and fellow New Paltzian, Kevin Zraly!