To condition? Or not to condition?

Well... I mean the air, of course! Baltimore is in the midst of a serious heat wave. The overnight lows have been in the high 80s all week.

So far I've got a small fan and a big Vornado fan and that's about it. And a lot of hatches. And the occasional merciful breeze.

Now, I could buy one of those air conditioners pictured to the left there... I had one last year. It sits on one of the hatches and hangs inside. I borrowed it from the sailing center I used to work for.

But that is not an option this year -- the borrowing, I mean. Now the pros of one of these is that it's actually liveable in the cabin during the day. The cons? Slightly more numerous. The unit is fairly heavy and difficult to maneuver, which makes sailing a pain. My boat is not big enough to sail with that thing sitting on one of the hatches -- and it's not terribly sturdy, so if the boat was going to heel, I would worry about it falling off. Also, last year the cotton cover that came with it was not the right size/fabric to cover my hatch opening and not have rain come in. Slightly less than awesome.

Up until now I've been working about 50 hours a week and commuting about 16 hours a week and spending some weekends away. So it really hasn't been that bad. The overnight lows have been enough to sustain me.

But in this record heat wave I'm torn. There's to be another heat wave next week.

And can you imagine what will happen to me if it rains and I have to close all my hatches?

Readers, this is a true conundrum. I need your thoughts.

Wordless Wednesday: After the storm...

The neighborhood....

So a couple of weeks ago I set out to leave Oak Harbor Marina in Pasadena and head to Baltimore. Since I'm working in Baltimore full time now, I figured that living there would not only save on gas money since the commute from Oak Harbor sucked, but I'd also get to live in Baltimore, my favorite place on earth.

So I called around to all the marinas in Baltimore and kept a list of pros and cons on each marina. Categories included: Price, Internet access, location of bathrooms/niceness of bathrooms and overall location.

Tidewater Marina won in most categories. They have no Internet, but are significantly cheaper than most and were offering a slip close to the very nice bathhouse. Sold! Dad called Oak Harbor and they easily were able to rent our slip out (which meant we got our deposit for the 2010 season back -- to go straight into the range fund.)

I shanghaied yet another unsuspecting crew -- this time my dad and my boyfriend Jon. That's Jon in the center of the picture... and my dad's rear end off to the left there. Hi dad!

We actually had a beautiful trip. It was warm and the wind was blowing over our beam the whole time, so we were able to reach right into Baltimore. Overall it was exceedingly pleasant.



But now to the point of my post. In addition to being my home, Tidewater is a serious boatyard in a very industrial piece of the harbor. Want to see my new neighbors? Coincidentally, Jon snapped all of the pictures in this post since I left my camera home (well, I took the picture of him and he took the rest):





My other new neighbors? The cruise ships. It's like living in a row house in the middle of mansion-land...