New Hatch?

Almost New Again

      No...but as close as we're getting. Several years ago we found a couple new hatches for Celebration. But we never could find the exact Gebo replacement for this small one over the head, or at lease not at an affordable price. When the two new large hatches were shipped, one had been damaged. We received an immediate replacement from Great Lakes Skipper and held the damaged one for return. When the claim was settled with the shipper Great Lakes told us to just keep or dispose of the damaged hatch, so we stripped it, recycled the aluminum frame, salvaged the weather seal, hinges, and acrylic pane.


Underside View

35 year old gasket next to the salvaged "New"  replacement

    I'd looked at this 35 year old hatch many times without ideas then just this week, I finally realized how to disassemble it.  Since we're at a dock getting ready to head south out came the router (110 volt power!) to cut the acrylic to size, we replaced the weather seal with our salvaged parts, set the new pane in place with Sikaflex 291i and viola, here it is. A lens we can see through once again and a seal which should actually keep out all the water verses just most of the water. We wound up re-using one rubber gasket which is not a water seal but a spacer between the pane and the frame, and I had to drill out one of the setscrews, re-tap, and replace with new. Not too bad for a 35 year old hatch with more than a couple seawater baths.

 

Our RaftUp topic this month is fear: "This wasn't in the questionnaire but three different people suggested it so I thought that was probably enough interest to include it. What were/are your fears? What was scariest about leaving? Sailing? and even going home? These fears can be boat specific (big waves and rough seas), things close to your heart (family and friends), or even goals unfulfilled that may never be because of this trip."
I think I have all the normal fears associated with sailing: injury or loss of my spouse, equipment failures, running out of butter during lobster season, seasickness, being unable to communicate with the outside world, or probably the thing that makes me shudder hardest: having the last unread book on board be something hideous by Barbara Cartland or Clive Cussler (who I think are actually the same person. I mean, really, have you seen their jacket photos??). 
When I think about it, and I have to admit, I don't like to think about it, the biggest fears I have center around  missing my family. I have a large, pretty close family and thinking that I'm missing things in my daughters lives, or with my parents, brothers and sisters, or my gazillion cousins, really  bothers me. Maybe I'm just a nosy, busybody, but I like my family and I like to be involved.
After almost 10 years on board, I still have a very healthy respect for the sea and all the crap she will throw at us if we get cocky, but not too much actual fear where sailing is involved. But we've worked hard at that. We're safety minded to the extreme, careful about the weather and have provisions to last 3 months. I don't like to be afraid when we're offshore, it makes me anxious, which makes me seasick, which makes everything else worse. So we work on our fears, to figure out exactly what they are and to change things to overcome them.


This month's other writers:

1 Dana svnorthfork.blogspot.com
2 Behan sv-totem.blogspot.com
3 Steph www.sailblogs.com/member/nornabiron
4 Stacey http://sv-bellavita.blogspot.com
5 Tammy ploddingINparadise.blogspot.com
6 Ean morejoyeverywhere.com
7 Lynn sailcelebration.blogspot.com
8 Diane www.maiaaboard.blogspot.com
9
10 Jaye lifeafloatarchives.blogspot.com
11 Verena pacificsailors.com
12 Toast http://blog.toastfloats.com
13
14
15 Dana svnorthfork.blogspot.com

The Never Ending Cat

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 As some of you may notice, the Pita Pata counter on the sidebar is gone.  Our dear little Adjima died yesterday, at the ripe old age of 21.  She was her usual gentle, but extremely persistent self, right up to the end. She had gotten to be so old, that I'd started to refer to her as the 'never ending cat'. I guess all good things really do have to end. It's amazing that a cat who weighed in at just 4 lbs last week, has left such a gigantic hole in our lives.

    In the end her little body just couldn't keep up with her big heart. We'd watched her slow down, made a trip to the vet who tested, confirmed what we already knew, and assured us she was not in pain, just old. So we changed her diet and she'd bounced back for several weeks and many additional deck walks.
                                     

 

Adjima loved her early morning walk abouts on the deck.





    Funny little thing she was. Disliked loud noises and stayed below when the wind blew hard or the rain pelted. Only liked to be out when it was calm, quiet and flat water. Yet if she sensed our anxiety she'd join us in the cockpit on anchor watch in spite of the 40 knot wind and driving rain. Or when I (Steve) was in Iraq she sat with Lynn every night, something she'd never done before and less often since. She loved road trips and we enjoyed having her along this summer for our 8,000 plus mile drive around the U.S. In all she'd been in too many countries to count and most of the US states including Alaska and Hawaii. She'd sailed with us for nearly every mile of our ~25,000. And she was tough, rarely off her beat in spite of all the travel and occasional puking seas. The final tally was 21 years, 1 month, 3 weeks, and 3 days. Wow what a ride. After all those years, we'll surely miss the pita pata of her feet down this companionway and her constant company.

 

OK. So. It's been waaay too long since I've blogged with any regularity.  One would think I'd have had plenty of time to write, since we just spent 3 months on land with unlimited wifi, power, topics.  But one would be wrong! There wasn't enough time to do all the things we wanted or see all the people we wanted to see. There never is. We did our best, though, 8302 miles, 17 states. We  wore out our welcome with lots of relatives and friends.  Special thanks to our parents, who put up with our open ended comings and goings, and our daughters, one of whom got frustrated with our lack of schedule and called us "footloose and fancy free hippies". It was truly a great summer.

We've been back in the water for a week, fixing all the things that dry out and refuse to work after a 3 month vacation.  The head, of course, is one of them.  We're not using a bucket, yet, but it's close.  The electric motor is going and it's only a matter of time until I hear the dreaded silence when I push the flush button.  Can you hear silence? Hmmm. I think you know what I mean. It would be a very loud silence.  Aside from the head motor, nothing too hard or icky to fix, just little things to do and find.

The boat yard in Urbanna.

Sunrise, on the way out of Urbanna.

We've stopped in the Rhode River, south of Annapolis, for the Seven Seas Gam again.  A great opportunity to see old friends and meet more cruisers.  There are seminars worked in around all the socializing, so we may learn something, in spite of ourselves.

Boat Swag

This month's RaftUp revolves around boat 'swag'. The things we have on board with our boat's name, things we wish we had, and things we've seen other owners carrying that we covet.
I'll have to start off by saying that while everything on Celebration says Celebration on it somewhere, we weren't responsible for it. (I do mean EVERYTHING: every piece of wood, all the doors, the picture frames, the carpet pieces, sheets, towels, everything. One of her two previous owners got seriously happy using an engraver and a magic marker.)  Maybe because we see her name on stuff all day, every day, we don't feel the need to add any more. 
I looked into some L.L.Bean totes when we first bought Celebration. I thought they'd be nice to give as gifts to guests who came to stay. Fortunately for me, as they were very expensive, Celebration has one too many letters to fit on the bags. Fortunately, also, because while lots of people say they're going to visit, very few do. My SIL, Patty and my BFF, Kathy would each have half a dozen and the rest would be mouldering under the v berth.

My box of boat cards, arranged alphabetically by boat name.

The only 'swag' item I can think of that we can't do without, are boat cards. For the non-boater, these are business sized cards with our boat name, our names and email and blog addresses. Boaters exchange these as a way to keep in touch since few of us have land addresses and even fewer of us have phones that work in all the countries where we meet.  Boat cards vary from the plain and simple printed on paper, to the custom printed with boat photo kind.  My favorite are the ones that have the boat make and size on them, as Steve and I usually have differing memories of just what was what, especially after a few months.  I like to write on the cards we get, where and when we met, what was going on, kids, pets, an obnoxiousnous rating if required, "red shirt, cute shoes", that kind of thing, just to jog my memory.
I've seen some boat shirts that I really like, with the name and make embroidered on the upper left. I've even priced some. But then I do the mental scales: rum/wine on one side and nifty shirts on the other. The rum always wins.

Adjer-baby turns 21

Most of you probably already know the story of how we came to be the feeders and petters of Adjima the super cat, but, if not, I'll tell it. 
We had just moved to Anchorage AK, Steve was TDY in Korea, it was snowing a foot a week and the girls and I needed something to liven up the winter.  We went to the pound in search of a kitten.  We found one, a fluffy black and white bouncing fur ball.  There was another kitten there, a sneezy, thin weak looking thing.  The lady at the pound leaned over and whispered to me,"You don't want that one, we're going to put her down, she's too sick."  Of course the girls heard her. Of course we had to rescue the kitten. Of course we went from the pound to the vet and $200 later we had another free kitten. What's money anyway? We named the kittens Mickey and Adjima.  'Adjima' (ahh-jim-a) is Korean for older/married woman.  I figured that she looked so old already and was probably on death's door, she could qualify as an 'Adjima'. She was actually only 7 weeks old. This was in October of 1991.  Mickey died in 1996. Adjima's next brother lived with us for 11 years. Adjima is still hanging in there.
So how does a cat spend her 21st birthday?  In Adjima's case: having an all day nap, tucked into the softest place she can find.  And, no, I didn't make her wear her birthday hat this year.

The Blue (and dotted grey) Highway Tour

Steve with Mt Rushmore in the background.

Have you ever looked at the map and noticed the way the different sized highways are colored?  The interstates are red, the two lane roads are blue, unmaintained roads are grey and the gravel ones are dotted or dashed grey.  Thanks to the Air Force, we've been across the country 4 or 5 times, always on the red roads, Cheetos and sunflower seeds at the ready, getting from assignment to assignment as fast as possible. 

This summer we decided to do something really different. We both had family gatherings to get to in the upper Midwest, but we had a lot of time to get there, so: we parked the boat in Virginia, rented a car for 3 months, bought a tent, dug out the sleeping bags, bought an Engle cooler, zipped Adjima in her carrier, and set off on a slow tour of the US.  The goal was to make it to Minneapolis without driving a red road.

The first night we made it to West Virginia, maybe 200 miles from the start.  There are no straight roads in WV. Lots of roads in WV aren't even on the map.

We meandered our way through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and finally into Minnesota. We stopped and saw friends along the way, we read the Historic Information signs. We drove in 5 days what we usually do in 1 1/2.  No schedule, no hurry.





 

We shared the road in the Black Hills.

We got to see Steve's family at his mom's 80th birthday party. We hung out for four days with 70 of my favorite cousins.  We watched fireworks. We stayed with Amanda and her cat. 
We went south out of Douglas WY on a nice 2 lane paved road, after 25 miles it abruptly became gravel. We stopped and checked the map. Our road would finally hit a town in another 50 miles.  We kept going.  The road wound down and around, in and out of a forest,  S-curving around huge boulders, becoming more rutted and narrow the farther we went. I was disappointed when it straightened out and got flatter.  It was spectacular.

A beaver dam off in the distance, somewhere in Wyoming.

We're camping when we stop for the night, but I'm not a good camper.  I like hot showers and real bathrooms. Steve likes the much more primitive stuff.  Our compromise is KOA.  We're still in the tent, freezing at night, but I can get up and walk to the bathroom in the middle of the night without getting lost.

Campsite in Buena Vista, CO.

We're currently in Albuquerque, NM, a place near and dear to our hearts and stomachs. We were stationed here twice and love both the city and the food.  Our daughter, Hannah, stayed here after graduating college and we plan to spend a week or so with her and her SO, Cameron.

Hannah and Cameron have a rather cozy abode, so we're staying with good friend, Bruce.  I shouldn't understate this so badly: we're not just staying with Bruce, we've moved in. We first met Bruce when he and Steve were skydiving together in Alaska. They worked together in the AF over the years and he retired to ABQ. He has a spacious, beautiful home here and we have taken it over.  We don't have many friends we would consider doing this to, (lucky for all of you) but Bruce is definitely the host with the most and we are very grateful. 

We're used to beaches, but this was incredible.

Laundry Day

This month the RaftUp topic is laundry and clothing.  Since we're currently in the process of driving around most of the US and had to pack a suitcase to get through 3 months, I've found that the clothes that I like best on the boat also are my go-to selections for car travel and camping.
We lived aboard in Florida for 5 years after we bought Celebration and before we left to go cruising, so we had lots of time to figure out what we actually would wear in the hot, hot, humid weather and what slowly made it's way to the bottom of the shelf.  We stopped buying cotton anything.  While I love cotton clothes, once cotton gets wet, it takes forever to dry and without a dryer to keep it in shape, it tends to look baggy and saggy. It's been really hard for me to quit buying cotton T shirts. I had quite a collection from around the world, different golf courses, resorts, towns, events, etc. ( My favorite one was from the Great Wall. It cost $1, and the first time I wore it, the entire left sleeve came off in my hand when I took the shirt off. I got what I paid for.)

We started to buy the new polyester/microfiber blend fabrics. They're usually found in sports clothing and work out wear.  Here in the US I usually find good bargains at TJ Maxx and JC Pennys, look in the golf and work out sections. Steve almost always wears microfiber cargo type shorts, the kind with the mesh underwear attached, and a wicking T shirt. He has a few Air Force T shirts left over from when he was in Iraq, and while they're pretty blandly colored, they wash and dry well. He likes a shirt with a collar when we go out so he has a lot of wicking golf shirts, bought for $15 or less at places like TJ Maxx or Burlington Coat Factory.

My clothing requirements and shopping habits have changed drastically since we started sailing.  I have a 'buy one, get rid of one' rule for clothing and I do stick to it, although I don't make Steve follow it.  The first thing I look at are the buttons and zippers. We wash laundry on the boat and run everything through a wringer ( a mangle if you're a Brit), so anything with large buckles or toggles or rivets is a no-go. Ditto for a metal zipper. They get crunched in the wringer and eventually fall apart. Next step is to take a handful of the fabric and do the wrinkle scrunch for 3 seconds. I don't have much clothing storage space but I try to keep things nice and flat but inevitably they end up smushed or rolled up into the corners.  I hate to pull out a clean shirt and have it look like it needs ironing. I don't iron.  Third thing I do is the sweat test. Lick a finger and press it on the fabric to see what it'll look like when it gets wet.  I only do this in the dressing room.  Sweat and water spray while riding in the dinghy are a way of life for us, but I don't want to look wet forever once I get to shore.  (On that note, I did make a dinghy skirt out of Sunbrella to keep my shorts dry when the weather's bad.)  The color is also important, dark is hotter, while white is too easy for me to mess up.  So to summarize: I look for shirts made of poly that don't wrinkle or look sweaty, short or no sleeves, no metal or big beads, in a medium color, maybe a small pattern, not too tight but not mu mu big. I have a fairly small wardrobe. 

To answer some of the other suggested RaftUp questions.  Yes we do all our laundry on board. I have allergies so I try to use All liquid detergent.  I have some nicer sandals and a couple of summer dresses for anything dress up and I store them in 2 gallon zip loc bags. I never use fabric softener. It interferes with the wicking process of the newer fabrics and it gives me a rash.

Scenes from my suitcase.

This month's other bloggers:

1 Dana svnorthfork.blogspot.com
2 Steph www.sailblogs.com/member/nornabiron
3 Diane http://maiaaboard.blogspot.com
4 Lynn www.sailcelebration.com
5 Ean http://morejoyeverywhere.blogspot.com
6 Jessica http://mvfelicity.blogspot.com
7 Behan http://sv-totem.blogspot.com
8 Jaye http://lifeafloatarchives.blogspot.com
9 Tammy http://ploddinginparadise.com
10 Stacey http://sv-bellavita.blogspot.com
11 Verena www.pacificsailors.com
12 Toast http://blog.toastfloats.com
13 
14 
15 Dana svnorthfork.blogspot.com

It's time for another Raft Up Blog.  This month the question is  "Do you think your view on travel and sailing has changed at all since you started? and How does the boat help vs hinder your ability to travel?"  Since I think that Steve and I will have very different takes on this subject, we're going to each have our say in a she says/he says blog. 

She says:  I never sailed until I was 42 years old.  In fact, I was never even on a sail boat until the day we moved aboard Celebration. We bought the boat, moved to Florida and then took sailing lessons. But even after our lessons and taking our own boat our a lot, I was never comfortable and I never felt like I knew exactly what to do or what was going on. Sailing was confusing, loud, scary. For me it was something to be endured to get from point A to point B.  (Point B was always going to be some tropical fantasy land, filled with sun and fun, close to a wonderful grocery store and a clean laundromat.) I used to get so anxious when we were headed off shore, that I would get sick. 
It took me a couple of years to figure out that I was making myself sick.  My anxiety came from a lack of working knowledge about sailing and about the boat in general.  I decided to fix my ignorance and hopefully in the process, get over being sick with worry.  I took a Captains Course and got my 6-Pack license, I spent 2 days going solo down the ICW in Florida, I asked A LOT of questions.  I got some confidence that I really could turn the boat around and get Steve if he fell over (IF he was wearing his life jacket and IF it was a perfectly calm day and IF I felt like it). I have for the majority of the days, gotten over my sea sickness.
So,  to answer the question, my view on travel and sailing has done a 180.  After 9 years I can now enjoy sailing for the ride itself and not just the destination.  Sailing has opened up the travel world for us.  We couldn't afford to go and as we did last year, spend a month in Martinique and then a month in St Lucia and then a couple of months in Grenada and then a month in Trinidad if we were paying for a hotel room every night and eating out every day. Being able to live on Celebration keeps the costs where we can afford them.  It allows us to spend big chunks of time in a country, really get to know the people, explore, and taste the foods.

He says:

Sailing verses Traveling

 SO my thoughts, is this sailing or traveling? Clearly it IS both, but what of our priorities or which do I prefer might be the question.

Sailing: I love the sailing, and even more so when the sailing is great. You know the right wind, low seas, not too hot, or too cold. But the best sailing is usually when there is little in the form of schedule or sailing with several good destination options. To a sailor this should be obvious, but to others less so. Without schedule we can sail off the wind, never having to motor. If we can't get there because the wind is blowing from the wrong direction we have options, more so options that are comfortable, don't overstress the gear or the crew. We can tack(zig-zag) with the wind on our beam (side) taking all day or all week/month perhaps to get there, wherever "there" is. Or without a hard destination or as mentioned several destination options, we simply change "there" to be somewhere we can sail to instead of going toward the wind to reach. Again making it a comfortable, fun sail instead of straining us or the good ship Celebration. Frankly the easiest sailing is when we are far offshore. Bad wind, bad seas become so much less bad with a simple course change they can even become good seas and winds.

Traveling: Yup, love the traveling too. For us however it seems to be more of seeing places in depth over seeing more places. When we arrive in a port we like we tend to stay planted to the bottom for a longer period than most, A month or more is common, allowing us to see more of the place, learn a bit of the culture, how to get around, meet some of the people, and become a regular on the streets and in the markets. There is a comfort for us in spending more time, but trading off the stopping in every port possible as we've moved north/south with the seasons and storms.

I guess in the end the sailing as a way of traveling is a good match for me. No schedule, no return flight, no deadline for seeing what I wish to see then racing off to another land or back "home" for our home is here. If there is work to do, or more to see we simply stay put a bit longer...then move when the wind is forcast as right for our next destination, accepting another if the forcast isn't quite right.

The rest of this month's raft up participants:

1 Dana svnorthfork.blogspot.com

2 Jane morejoyeverywhere.blogspot.com

3 Steph sailblogs.com/member/nornabiron

4 Behan www.sv-totem.com

5 Jessica mvfelicity.blogspot.com

6 Tammy ploddinginparadise.blogspot.com

7 Jaye http://lifeafloatarchives.blogspot.com/

8 Diane http://maiaaboard.blogspot.com.au/

9 Lynn www.sailcelebration.blogspot.com

Land Cruising

      It's been awhile since blogging; Lot's to catch up on so I'll hit a few highlights.  It all begins by taking the boat out of the water. Never comfortable as your home is hanging by a couple straps as it' lifted, washed, then moved over land to some precarious looking stands and blocks to rest out of the water for a while. This time we expect around three months.

The Haul

First stage was a week to prepare her to sit that long without use and do a bit of basic maintenance:

Our Home Away From Home

Cleaning out/defrosting the fridge, changing the solar controller,pulling the prop and sending for a re-pitch, removing all the sails and awnings, marking, and grinding out a few fiberglass blisters.




Next stage roughly two months poking around the US to visit our girls, attend Mom's 80th birthday party, see the rest of our parents, and visit a few friends. The last stage will be returning to Celebration to re-glass in the blisters, install the prop, fix the bent anchor Lynn mentioned, and put on a few new coats of anti fouling bottom paint.

 

Bursing? Adjima Was Very Supportive but No Cash,
 Have to Keep Practicing

     So far so good. The first stage is long done and went without a hitch. Next we spent five days heading west camping along the way. Nice since we took five days to do this trip what we usually do in around two.




Made it to Minnesota by driving all small roads. With the exception of around 25 miles going north from Iowa City we drove no Interstate Highways. All in all a nice, slow trip winding through the Blue ridge Mountains where we saw many deer, a black bear, and across the heartland seeing parts of the country we haven't ever taken the time to see.

Not Sails, But Looking up at the Tent is the Closest We'll Get

We stopped in Iowa City to see our friend Jeff Hazzard who is working there this summer and one of my military brothers (and Dream Team member) from my Mac Dill assignment (now Major) Randy Larson.  Two cool.

Lynn, Me, Mom (Jean Kauffmann), Daughter Amanda

   

On the 4-5th we went into the "Twin Cities" to visit our daughter Amanda and Lynn's brother Tom where we had a BBQ, played a little guitar and got caught up....at least a little after all these years. Now back at my Moms in Glencoe MN and celebrating her 80th birthday which is actually the 10th but the party is on Saturday 7 July. Soon of to Lynn's parents in North Dakota and off to her families reunion. Should be a lot of fun! I'll have to post more updates later.....