10/27/2007, Scappoose, Oregon
Karyns boyfriend Kyle and I moved the boat over from Caterpillar Island to the house finally. It took us 3 hours to get all the green slime off it and make it look like a boat again. But now she's home where I can continue to work on her upgrades.
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10/08/2007, Scappoose, Oregon
Well, this has certainly been a busy fall and summer for our family. So if you havent heard whats been going on with the Rustens, here goes...weve had some big changes...
I was offered a chance in June of this year to take over a territory in the Portland/Vancouver area with my work. My counterpart who had this territory took a job with one of our manufacturers. We had always planned at sometime in our hectic lives to move up on the Columbia River somewhere in the coming years, but here was an opportunity right in front of me. Right now...
So I accepted the job change (same company) and it involves a lot less driving all over the boonies than the previous area down in the valley It has the chance to see a lot more and larger customers, hence better pay in the future sometime. Work is a short 30 minute (19.7 mile drive) away and I dont have to go anywhere near Interstate-5 or the Interstate bridges.
Nice....
We got to work painting, reroofing, and landscaping the house and put it on the market on August 1st with a realtor. On Sept 12th we received an acceptable offer on it (basically what we were asking for)
and oh my lord, we have to pack and move !!!!
Earlier in the summer we looked at a floating home on the Multnomah channel in the town of Scappoose, Oregon. The channel is a branch of the Columbia
where it winds around Sauvies Island just after the Willamette and Columbia Rivers meet and is about 15 miles Northwest of Portland. We talked to the owners and arranged a lease with an option to buy in the future and now had a place to move into. So off we went. We had lots of help from my mom and
dad and Beckys mom and dad as well as a couple of friends. Its quite an adventure moving from dry land with a yard and garage onto a floating home with 10 feet of water in your basement and no garage or yard. (which can be good thing) So I have retired from mowing the lawn for the rest of my life I
hope...
It is so beautiful up here and so peaceful. We watch the sun rise from our upstairs master bedroom in this 1960 sq ft floating home every morning, watch the geese and ducks play out in the channel. watch the deer across on Sauvies Island play in the fields and get a visit about twice a week from the local river otter family, who romp and play on every single home down here and chirp like birds to everyones delight.
We have a hot tub on our back deck which was left by the previous renter and which I got going abt 2 days after we got here. Its nice to relax in after a
long day, no matter what the weather. Our Catalina 27 sailboat is tied to the back of the house and deck and we have had some great short excursions up and down river since we got here.
The one down side is,that its about 1280 feet to the parking lot where our car is parked. Thats right.... up and back is about a one-half mile walk!
So were getting in shape too. My moving crew announced that they were all going to Europe the next time we even mentioned moving out of here, so here we are.
Happy November to all!
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02/28/2007, Caterpillar Island Marina
When is spring? Will it ever arrive?
Will spring every arrive? My sailboat sits at the marina, tugging at her moorings, growing vast amounts of mildew and waiting for me to arrive and take her out. She has survived the winter quite well and I cant wait to get to work on her for the season. I need to silicone all the window joints and install a new stainless steel mushroom vent in the main cabin. I finally decided to put it over the galley stove, it makes the most sense for ventilation and for cooking on the boat. It should cut the mildew way down. I definately have to start plugging up all the holes the prior owners cut all over the inside and outside of the boat. Its amazing to look at all the open bulkhead areas and try to figure out what they were doing it for.(rat killin?) Ive got a 12x25 incher in the port quarter berth for starters and I have no idea why they would do that. The bad part is that I have an identical one in the starboard cockpit area which is semi-open to the water under sail. The prevous owner just rivited a piece of aluminum over it and tossed on some siliputty to seal it..(it didnt work) AlsoI have to seal off the holes from the old engine controls in the cockpit that I removed last season and build a rubber seal around the control cables on the new one where they go thru the side and back to the engine to keep water out of the boat as well. Got some gelcoat repair on the seats and locker areas in the cockpit to do and I need to put a second ventilator in the engine locker to fill that 3" hole.. wow, thats a long list so far. The mast really needs to be taken down, replace the shives and convert to rope halyards from the wire ones which are breaking down, new coax and antenna, new wind vane, pulleys for burgee's and radar reflector, pulleys for HF antenna, topping lift,and new wire for lights . Roger found a nice asymetrical spinnaker today and also a new 135 Genoa for his Hunter 27. He had it mod'd at North Sails for his new roller fuller and finally unpacked the "mystery sail" we found on his boat in their (NS) loft only to discover it was a 165% Genoa!! It filled the floor at North Sails in three corners!! At that size, you could sneeze in the cockpit and propel the boat 2 miles up river!!! He is having it rigged for the roller furler as well. I really wish I could afford to add a furler to ours and have her rigged for single handed which really would make it easier for the whole family to use under sail instead of just me going forward to raise and lower sails each time... The Marine Exchange has a couple used ones I need to look at before she sells them off.
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