And Then There Was Sound...

So here it is, our first audio post. The way it works is like this: 

first download the audio commentary here (it's a decent size file, so give it a minute)

once downloaded, open the file and get it playing

you should then hear our lovely voices jabbering away about these photos 

the pictures are in the order we looked at them and we don't really say when we move to the next one but it should be at least a little obvious (sometimes). We'll get better at this. It's about 18 min long. 

Enjoy!!

Shifting Winds

    So theoretically we will be in the water this evening, and the mast in tomorrow morning. The boat is starting to really come together and we are currently hoping to finally be out of here by the weekend. 

If you have spoken to any of us over the last week or so you know it has been one delay after another. It has been pretty disheartening at times, and being up on blocks really exacerbates things. 

    That's about as low as I go because the boat is really going to be setup well. The extra time has given us time to address a lot of things that we were simply going to live with until we had time to do it under way. I'm not sure if we ever posted a good photo of the nav station but the previous owner had 7 different pieces of old electronics wired in there. Each of those had at least 3 lines going to it. We have only 2 much smaller units in there now and there was a jungle of old wire keeping us from actually using all the space. Not to mention the one circuit that seemed to be attached to every other circuit causing weird stray voltages and other gremlins depending on what was turned on. Yeah, I cut everything. Ran a new line, and now it is a much more sensible arrangement. Gremlin free, I might add. 

     It is an amazing thing we are getting to do here. Every time we actually start to plan our departure it is an exhilarating feeling. My skin feels thin, like I can feel the cool breeze on the blood in my veins. Exposed, scary, and wonderful. It's a hell of a thing. I hope everyone feels it sometime.

feelin' it

Haikus for yous

Since Don's taking his sweet time writing a post, I thought I'd go ahead and share some haikus I came up with last evening, while doing dishes on the dock at sunset.

Palm tree silhouttes
against Maxfield Parish skies.
Dishes are done, man!

On shit-covered docks 
seagulls stand one-leggedly.
Yogis or showoffs? 

Tall black crane on mast, 
imagine a crew of you
dancing to Thriller!

Brown seagull comes near.
Splat splat splat splat! Go his feet.
He says not a word.

My hands still smell like
freaking Thompson's water seal!
This beer is good though.

It's all rainbows and f*#?ing unicorns here people

Carl:

We're out of the water, up on blocks still, but we're making slow, steady headway toward being ready to take off soon after we're back in.  In the past few days our tentative departure day has evolved from the 17th, to this Tuesday, to 4 days after getting put back in the water which we initially hoped would be Monday, etc etc etc----in other words there's been a lot of "going with the flow".  But that's all you can do in this situation.  If you didn't go with it you'd end up with migraines and an ulcer before the trip even started.  As it is I'd say we're all plugging along quite nicely.

The past couple days were interspersed with wind, chilly temps and rain.  Even with all that, we've managed to want to go at each other's throats only a couple times (Don and me more than most).  Thanks in no small part to Lee's culinary efforts keeping us all going---including our first warm dinner on the boat on a seriously cold & wet night---simple hearty soup of kale, white beans, garlic, shitake mushrooms, vegetable broth, white wine vinegar.  F'ing tasty.  

So what are we doing today?

• Andy's working on the mast when it's off - main halyard shiv, anemometer wiring, etc
• Don's working on the wind generator wiring & charge controller
• Leslie's henkeling the hatches & port holes for leaks
• Lisa is dialing in the galley, food organization & meal planning
• I'm getting up the bimini (cockpit's sun shade) & installing a new knotmeter
• Raleigh is still adjusting to living on blocks out of the water, but has looking good nailed

What this all adds up to is that in the past couple weeks we've truly dug into the guts of this boat----we're understanding it's structure, drilling holes, messing with the electrical systems, messing up the electrical systems, stopping window leaks, emptying out all the useless crap from the previous owner (side note: technically nothing on this boat is useless crap---it's all relative---but we only have so much room and we're bringing on a lot more useless crap so we gotta make room).  And through all of this, we're making Aldebaran ours.  That's a good thing people.  You gotsta recognize.

And we all still have to do our taxes.


P.S. And because we're all actually working, we're not finding time to take photos of each other doing said things.  So here are some photos of other things we're doing.

input: Andy diggin' into the mast step

output: one totally corroded aluminum mast step---can you say replacement?

me.  don't judge, people---these are long days.  and couches can be comfy.

blue eyes under the rain tarp

How low can you go

So in the past I have been accused of being a pessimist and extremely negative in my opinions/blogs.   This has got me thinking and after much thought and debate between my many sparkling personalities I have decided to embrace my negativity and use it to express some real feelings about our little adventure.  I will not can-da-noodle anyone(yes I know this is a made up word but it seems to fit into my present mind set) and try to tell it how I see it.  Enjoy and if you don't like it then bypass these posts every 5 days.  See I even provide easy outs for people.  negativity is underrated.

So life is Cruising along up here.  Being 15 feet off the ground in a 48 foot boat that is weighing around 18 tonnes is not the most settling feeling.  However you do what you do to survive. 

Thursday was Lisa's birthday.  'Best birthday ever' I think was her opinion of the day.  There may have been a mild/severely sarcastic tone along with her response but I am not sure.  She did get a brand new wind turbine and a vegan red velvet cake so I am not sure what possible reason she could have for complaining.  She is 34 though so maybe that has something to do with it.

Carl and Don did a great job on the Wind Turbine and It has been humming along for a good 12 hours now.  Funnily enough it puts me right to sleep.  The electrical has not been hooked up yet.  This means there is a reasonable amount of power moving along the wire and out into nothingness.  I can't wait until Don and Carl start seeing who can hold on the longest and Leslie and I get some real life practise for our EMT/Medical skills.

The mood on the boat has turned decidedly nasty.  Our first real storm and it has nothing to do with the weather.  Everyone is super tired and stressed and this tends to come out like sharp bursts of lighting rather than seeping out like the water inside the boat is currently doing through our keel (yes I know water seeping out is meant to be a good thing but the thing is if it can seep out while we are up on blocks that means it can seep in when the boat goes back in the water).  We always knew personality clashes and general bitchiness would be a problem and we need to learn to deal with it.  We haven't figured that out yet but we will.  I blame Don

The mast step was taken out on Wednesday.  Don and I helped our new friend John smash/rip/pry and burn 4 big bolts and a steel plate from the keel.  It took about 3 hours and my arms hurt so much afterwards.  Hammering a copper wedge under a steel plate with 10 inches of swing room for the hammer is about a pleasant as driving for 3 hours in a seat positioned for a 4 foot 2 midget (not sure if a 4 foot 2 person qualifies as a midget but in my books they do now).  Once the step was out it was power washed and then inspected.  Upon where it was determined that the step was unrecoverable and would cost about a grand and a week to build a new one.  Don released a moment of pure fork lightening while I smiled purely based on the thought that my estimation for how long we would be on blocks was right and Don's was wrong.  Then I thought about the thousand dollars and stopped smiling, But Don's pain got the better of me and I started smiling again.

So that is about where we are at.  The boat leaks, we are oozing money like the keel is oozing water, Everyone wants to smash everyone else in the face on a regular basis, and the actual weather sucks for the first time since we have been here.

I blame Don

The Tao of Murphy

Leslie:  I don't like it when seagulls hover over my head while I type. Back off seagull!

Carl, Lisa and I are sitting in the sun at the marina's fish and chips shop, enjoying some of our favorite beers; Presidente, Anchor Steam, and Sierra Nevada, respectively, waiting for our boat to be hulled out of the water on a giant sling. I can't even see what I'm typing right now, it's so bright. I'm probably writing something completely different from what I'm intending; hopefully something completely better; written by the Tao flowing through me and whatnot. I've been reading The Way of Chuang Tzu every night before bed. I'm really happy to have finally finished the writer's note and introduction, as it was putting me promptly to sleep. But, what I did absorb says that when the Tao is flowing through you, you get all Franciscan and become one with nature and all it's little creatures, and this seems to be so. 

This morning I woke up early to walk past the nasty dredger-output-thing spewing black nastiness into the ocean (it is allegedly just stuff dredged from the bottom of the channel--which, by the way, we could hear happening all night long--but it looks like the black death to me), then past a dead bird seemingly coated in black death, and did yoga on the beach for a hour or so. It was lovely. And right now, as Lisa says, "It's a little Hitchcockian around here," regarding the swarms of birds flocking around the restaurant's garbage can. They actually fly inside of the garbage can and come back out with chunks of fried fish in their beaks. Sickening. Birds are sick. But I am Tao. So, I am sick? I really hope that the Tao in me is actually writing about last night's excitement.

Quantum leap to Latte 101, where Andy and I are now internetting. While Lisa was writing her post about the mast being pulled up, little did we know that our bilge was full of water, and filling. And no, not from the first leaking water tank. Note the "first" there, and hang on a tick. So, as we're packing up to go watch that Valentine's Day classic, Tron: Legacy, for $3 at the local cinema, Don notices water in the space where the mast used to be. "Holy Shit!" says Don. Then he opens up the engine compartment and it's like we have our own secret jacuzzi. Don again invokes the religiosity of excrement. The bilge pump is flicked on and all is well, except for the fact that we miss Tron and all other $3 movies playing at a decent hour, we don't actually have a secret jacuzzi, and what we did have was whatever it was that caused water to seep in in the first place. The common consensus is that the mast, once removed, took pressure off of some loose keel bolts, which then let in water and ruined our lovely night. Aw well. We consoled ourselves by driving around aimlessly, considered going bowling, and then just sat glumly eating our dinner in the car. 

Onward and upward, as always! It was an exciting morning of having Refridgerator Mike come tell it to us true about our refridgeratation system (in a better-than-we-expected-way), then finding a second leaky water tank, turning on all the faucets to drain out the tank before it flooded the bilge, only to find that the galley sink plumbing hadn't been put back together by "Andrew Grant Craig!"...it was a bit of a comedy show. One that I completely missed while doing my afore-mentioned yoga, marathon showering, and laundry. I was there, however, to experience Carl triumphantly motoring us over to the shipyard. While we (for the second time) forgot to unplug our shore power cord, Carl was a featherweight champ at getting her out of our slip and into theirs.

Speaking of Carl, let me just say that this guy is great with families. Alright, this is really just my segue from the events of today and yesterday, to give a shout-out to my family's visit this past weekend. Thanks for coming out, gang! It was a blasterootie! Don't worry about any of those things written above. We're on it! 

Finally to end this on an even more positive note, tonight is Taco Tuesday at Rubio's, where the five of us can all get full on fish tacos for under $25. Yes, more fish tacos. It's all we eat when Lisa isn't cooking for us! [Editor's note: as this was finally posted on Thursday morning, I'd like to point out that we enjoyed MORE fish tacos courtesy of Grant and Lee last night; lightly fried then baked for crunch! Mmmm.] And, we will be trying for another $3 go at Tron, before we come home to our boat-on-blocks to read some more Chuang Tzu, sleep, dream, and wake up to another productive day.

i'm exhausted from all this character building

Lisa:

so it has been a very busy few weeks. leslie and i got here just over 2 weeks ago and i am astonished at the amount of headway i have seen happen. our boat and crew are really coming together. today we brought the boat over to the yard to have the mast pulled. as you've read, docking a 17 ton sail boat with a funny prop walk is quite the mission. just to throw a little more pressure on, carl's mom, dad and two friends were stopping by today to see the boat for the first time. don was at the helm and was guiding the bow in beautifully... then came the call from the dock "stern first". "ok!' gulp. round we go and don brings her in, overshoots just a little but with a little pull here and a tug there the guys on the dock help us stick the landing.  so we all start doing our part to help loosen the forestay, backstay, shrouds, etc.. then the big red crane pulls up and what seems to be a hundred yard hands, with otto taking charge, start prepping our girl to have her mast removed. leslie and i are at the ready with cameras. carl's father is watching knowingly, his mom a little nervously. and away we go! harry, the crane operator, gets her up and off without a problem. for tonight, at least, the mast will stay at the yard and they will check and address the pitting and corroding, but everyone seems optimistic (well, except andy, of course). now we motor back with the entire posse and don just crushes the docking. well done captain ron!
tomorrow we put the boat up on blocks to have the keel bolts checked and the mast step cleaned and repaired.  depending on who you ask (don or andy) we may be leaving as early as sunday or the start of march. but these past 2 weeks have been amazing. stitching cushion covers, measuring the amount of water each tank holds, setting up the galley, watching the boys interact, i am learning new things everyday and loving it. as don said last night "everything we do is because we HAVE to." i think that's pretty cool, but i'm exhausted.

The biz

"the FBI is gonna pay me to learn how to surf?!"

The Grodniks

Otto and the crew

and she's off

oh dear lord

seriously, stop that

Let's hope we never see it like this again

Spaz twins