One Year Anniversary
Kirsten has been on my ass to write a blog. Her entire case is that it is �'my turn�'. I didn�'t realize we were taking turns, but since I haven�'t posted anything since I did a number on my thumbnail, I figured what the hell, I�'m probably about due.
Interestingly, I have had a couple inquiries about the thumbnail. It is doing much better, thank you. I can use my thumb normally, and without pain. The thumbnail has endured a couple of clippings since, and the upper part of the dead zone (which is approximately the left third of the nail, extending from the cuticle up) is starting to see the fingernail clippers. It has been interesting to me how many things I use my thumb and thumbnail for, primarily as a scraping tool or prying tool. I am glad it works again, and am now much better about being aware of how I hold my work piece, how I apply force, and, more importantly, where the tool will go if it slips. I would say I am �'somewhat improved�' in applying this awareness to my actual work practices, the application significantly lagging the apprehension. I believe that this is a character trait of mine; it seems to apply fairly generally throughout my life. Sigh.
I noticed recently that it was our First Anniversary living aboard, which got me looking back at logs and stuff. We moved out of our Luakini Street apartment on March 31. April 2 was the last day of work for Kirsten at the Montage and me at PWF. In the next (approximately) 365 days, we sailed (approximately) 5,624 nautical miles, spent (approximately) $59,260.25, consumed (approximately) 46 liters of rum, and flushed the toilet (approximately) 43,800 times.
Of those (approximately) 365 days, we spent (approximately) 96 days at sea. The balance is accounted for thusly: (approximately) 8 days in Slip 73 in Lahaina Harbor, 10 days on the hard at the Phoenician Shipyard at Barbers Point, 83 days in a slip at Ko�'Olina Marina, 112 days at anchor, and 56 days on a mooring at Majuro, Republic of the Marshall Islands, where we still are. (I�'ve included the twelve hours aground at Anse Akapehi in Taiohae Bay as part of the �'at anchor�' time.) We crossed the equator twice, and the International Date Line once: my today is your tomorrow. I can remember this because we arrived here on a Monday, when on the mainland it was Super Bowl Sunday.
The money spent is a little disconcerting, as it outstrips retirement and Social Security, but looking into it a little further, I see that a big fraction of that went to repairing stanchions and bow pulpit from when Lucile walked away from her mooring in Lahaina, and another big fraction went to drydock at the Phoenician, and the wet dock immediately following at Ko�'Olina. Those are the two biggest bumps in spending. You may recall my rant about the $5,000 watermaker. By the way, the watermaker has been a tremendous investment. I�'ve only had to replace the pre-filter a couple of times, and I�'ve made now some 1,600 gallons of pure water. The ability to make our own water is a huge advantage: we don�'t run out of water at sea, and, we don�'t have to rely on re-filling water tanks at the dock. For one thing, this eliminates a lot of trips to the dock for water. For another, you can�'t get fresh water at the dock many, if not most, ports that we call. So, the watermaker keeps making water, and still does not leak. There are other spending bumps representing Taiohae Bay repairs (rigging, alternator, regulator), Pago Pago repairs (anchor windlass), and Majuro (new solar panels). Groceries account for nearly $8,000 in the last year. This includes the rum, which accounted for a little over $1,000 of the grocery budget. If I eliminated the rum from the operating budget, I would fee up enough for about one half of an anchor windlass, or nearly ? of the chain I use for the anchor. Not worth it, right? I agree. I�'ll keep the rum in the budget. Anyway, we keep thinking we�'re getting out of the woods on big ticket repair items, and we�'re expecting the spending graph to smooth out considerably, and stay in the sustainable range for a while. it will be interesting to see where we�'re at come the second anniversary.
A lot of things are different living aboard compared to living ashore. Every day, ordinary things. And for the most part, I�'d say 100%, they are harder aboard than ashore. Going to the bathroom is a case in point. The toilet mods I did in between the Pacific Northwest cruise and the South Pacific cruise were also a good investment. One mod was new toilet seats. Two toilets, so two seats. Not, mind you, the $20 or $30 seats you buy at Home Depot, but the $50 or $60 seats you buy from a marine supplier, or, as I did, direct from the manufacturer, which also means you pay for shipping and handling in addition to the seat. And if you do what I did, which is to order the wrong seat, you might pay for shipping and handling both ways. Or, you might not figure out you have the wrong size until well after the 30-day return period, which is what I did. So I donated the seats to Ocean Discovery or Ocean Quest, I forget, and bought another set of seats, plus shipping and handling. (Postage, shipping, and customs for boat parts during the first year were (approximately) $2,959.97.) But here�'s the thing about these seats: they have dampeners of some sort in the hinges, so that the seat closes slowly and gently. When you consider that the normal, constant, motion of the boat tends to close the toilet seat, and when you consider how difficult it is to train males to sit (and you must consider that one of us is male), and when you consider that the natural reaction of someone standing to pee is to catch the seat before it slams down, then you can appreciate that there is much less to clean up around the toilet on a routine basis, if the toilet seat and lid are not inclined to close on their own. The other mod I made was replace the �'old style�' piston rod seal with the �'new style�' seal. We have fairly traditional (or �'old style�') marine toilets. They are manually operated. There is a handle alongside the toilet bowl, and a valve. You turn the valve handwheel a quarter turn from �'DRY�' to �'FLUSH�', then pump the handle up and down ten to twenty times. When you pump the handle up and down, you are operating a piston within a cylinder. This gets a good flow of seawater, along with whatever else is in the toilet bowl, through the toilet bowl, out through the vented loop, and out through the seacock and back into the ocean. After you have flushed the toilet and associated plumbing, you return the valve handwheel from �'FLUSH�' to �'DRY�', and pump the handle another four or five times. This evacuates any standing water in the toilet bowl, standing water sloshing back and forth and over the rim and onto the deck and into the cabin being the problem you seek to avoid by this pumping dry extra step. If you figure, on average, each person uses the toilet four times per day (which is conservative, considering one of us is female), at 15 strokes per flush (also probably conservative), then that is (approximately) 43,800 flush pump strokes in the year. I would guess that the poor piston rod seal wears out somewhere around 25-30,000 cycles. To replace the �'old style�' seal, you have to completely disassemble the pump piston and cylinder. You must wear gloves and safety glasses to do this, and you must not do this with a hangover. With the �'new style�' seal, you simply disconnect the pump handle, unscrew the seal cartridge assembly, screw in a new one, and re-connect the pump handle. This mod has had a very positive effect on the morale of the maintenance department, so I am very happy I had this done.
Life afloat has not exactly been what we expected, but no regrets. We�'re looking forward to the next year, and the next anniversary.
Aloha nui.
Interestingly, I have had a couple inquiries about the thumbnail. It is doing much better, thank you. I can use my thumb normally, and without pain. The thumbnail has endured a couple of clippings since, and the upper part of the dead zone (which is approximately the left third of the nail, extending from the cuticle up) is starting to see the fingernail clippers. It has been interesting to me how many things I use my thumb and thumbnail for, primarily as a scraping tool or prying tool. I am glad it works again, and am now much better about being aware of how I hold my work piece, how I apply force, and, more importantly, where the tool will go if it slips. I would say I am �'somewhat improved�' in applying this awareness to my actual work practices, the application significantly lagging the apprehension. I believe that this is a character trait of mine; it seems to apply fairly generally throughout my life. Sigh.
I noticed recently that it was our First Anniversary living aboard, which got me looking back at logs and stuff. We moved out of our Luakini Street apartment on March 31. April 2 was the last day of work for Kirsten at the Montage and me at PWF. In the next (approximately) 365 days, we sailed (approximately) 5,624 nautical miles, spent (approximately) $59,260.25, consumed (approximately) 46 liters of rum, and flushed the toilet (approximately) 43,800 times.
Of those (approximately) 365 days, we spent (approximately) 96 days at sea. The balance is accounted for thusly: (approximately) 8 days in Slip 73 in Lahaina Harbor, 10 days on the hard at the Phoenician Shipyard at Barbers Point, 83 days in a slip at Ko�'Olina Marina, 112 days at anchor, and 56 days on a mooring at Majuro, Republic of the Marshall Islands, where we still are. (I�'ve included the twelve hours aground at Anse Akapehi in Taiohae Bay as part of the �'at anchor�' time.) We crossed the equator twice, and the International Date Line once: my today is your tomorrow. I can remember this because we arrived here on a Monday, when on the mainland it was Super Bowl Sunday.
The money spent is a little disconcerting, as it outstrips retirement and Social Security, but looking into it a little further, I see that a big fraction of that went to repairing stanchions and bow pulpit from when Lucile walked away from her mooring in Lahaina, and another big fraction went to drydock at the Phoenician, and the wet dock immediately following at Ko�'Olina. Those are the two biggest bumps in spending. You may recall my rant about the $5,000 watermaker. By the way, the watermaker has been a tremendous investment. I�'ve only had to replace the pre-filter a couple of times, and I�'ve made now some 1,600 gallons of pure water. The ability to make our own water is a huge advantage: we don�'t run out of water at sea, and, we don�'t have to rely on re-filling water tanks at the dock. For one thing, this eliminates a lot of trips to the dock for water. For another, you can�'t get fresh water at the dock many, if not most, ports that we call. So, the watermaker keeps making water, and still does not leak. There are other spending bumps representing Taiohae Bay repairs (rigging, alternator, regulator), Pago Pago repairs (anchor windlass), and Majuro (new solar panels). Groceries account for nearly $8,000 in the last year. This includes the rum, which accounted for a little over $1,000 of the grocery budget. If I eliminated the rum from the operating budget, I would fee up enough for about one half of an anchor windlass, or nearly ? of the chain I use for the anchor. Not worth it, right? I agree. I�'ll keep the rum in the budget. Anyway, we keep thinking we�'re getting out of the woods on big ticket repair items, and we�'re expecting the spending graph to smooth out considerably, and stay in the sustainable range for a while. it will be interesting to see where we�'re at come the second anniversary.
A lot of things are different living aboard compared to living ashore. Every day, ordinary things. And for the most part, I�'d say 100%, they are harder aboard than ashore. Going to the bathroom is a case in point. The toilet mods I did in between the Pacific Northwest cruise and the South Pacific cruise were also a good investment. One mod was new toilet seats. Two toilets, so two seats. Not, mind you, the $20 or $30 seats you buy at Home Depot, but the $50 or $60 seats you buy from a marine supplier, or, as I did, direct from the manufacturer, which also means you pay for shipping and handling in addition to the seat. And if you do what I did, which is to order the wrong seat, you might pay for shipping and handling both ways. Or, you might not figure out you have the wrong size until well after the 30-day return period, which is what I did. So I donated the seats to Ocean Discovery or Ocean Quest, I forget, and bought another set of seats, plus shipping and handling. (Postage, shipping, and customs for boat parts during the first year were (approximately) $2,959.97.) But here�'s the thing about these seats: they have dampeners of some sort in the hinges, so that the seat closes slowly and gently. When you consider that the normal, constant, motion of the boat tends to close the toilet seat, and when you consider how difficult it is to train males to sit (and you must consider that one of us is male), and when you consider that the natural reaction of someone standing to pee is to catch the seat before it slams down, then you can appreciate that there is much less to clean up around the toilet on a routine basis, if the toilet seat and lid are not inclined to close on their own. The other mod I made was replace the �'old style�' piston rod seal with the �'new style�' seal. We have fairly traditional (or �'old style�') marine toilets. They are manually operated. There is a handle alongside the toilet bowl, and a valve. You turn the valve handwheel a quarter turn from �'DRY�' to �'FLUSH�', then pump the handle up and down ten to twenty times. When you pump the handle up and down, you are operating a piston within a cylinder. This gets a good flow of seawater, along with whatever else is in the toilet bowl, through the toilet bowl, out through the vented loop, and out through the seacock and back into the ocean. After you have flushed the toilet and associated plumbing, you return the valve handwheel from �'FLUSH�' to �'DRY�', and pump the handle another four or five times. This evacuates any standing water in the toilet bowl, standing water sloshing back and forth and over the rim and onto the deck and into the cabin being the problem you seek to avoid by this pumping dry extra step. If you figure, on average, each person uses the toilet four times per day (which is conservative, considering one of us is female), at 15 strokes per flush (also probably conservative), then that is (approximately) 43,800 flush pump strokes in the year. I would guess that the poor piston rod seal wears out somewhere around 25-30,000 cycles. To replace the �'old style�' seal, you have to completely disassemble the pump piston and cylinder. You must wear gloves and safety glasses to do this, and you must not do this with a hangover. With the �'new style�' seal, you simply disconnect the pump handle, unscrew the seal cartridge assembly, screw in a new one, and re-connect the pump handle. This mod has had a very positive effect on the morale of the maintenance department, so I am very happy I had this done.
Life afloat has not exactly been what we expected, but no regrets. We�'re looking forward to the next year, and the next anniversary.
Aloha nui.
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