My nest...

Well winter is finally starting to rear it's ugly, cold head. And that means it's really hard to leave my nest bed in the morning.

I sleep in the v-berth of Misty Rose. The v-berth is essentially a compartment in the pointy part of the boat toward the bow.

My v-berth has the holding tank beneath it (there is a wooden platform that acts as the "floor" of the berth completely surrounding the tank, don't worry, you'd never know). On top of the holding tank platform is my bed.

I used to be a simple, one-sheet, one-blanket girl and then I spent my first winter aboard. And then I got an electric blanket during my second winter. And during my second summer I sprained my ankle and acquired a large number of pillows with which I propped my swollen ankle.

And I never got rid of any of it.

So what you see to the right here is my bed currently. Believe it or not, I had a couple more blankets last winter.

I won't apologize for the sheet not being fully tucked in. This is not a regular rectangular bed. You try making a triangular bed with a flat sheet and see how it turns out. So there.

Anyway, I've got in the back there the pink quilt I made in my sophomore year of college, a down comforter I bought in college, five or six pillows, a faux snuggie I carted in from the couch last night (it was cold!), my light cotton summer blanket and my beautiful and wonderful brown fuzzy electric blanket. That's its cord hanging down in the bottom left of the photo. And the cord on the right is very sneakily leading to my lamp/alarm clock. My Kindle is also hanging out on top of the lamp outside the frame. Along with about five half-drunk cups of water. Cause that's how I roll.

So for all you who want to know if it gets cold on the boat -- yes. Yes it does. But I can always just snuggle up in my bed and turn the electric blanket on high...

Expanding the collapsible collection...

It's no secret that I have somewhat limited space. I mean... I live on a boat. That's like the definition of "limited space."

This has brought about a love -- some might call it an obsession -- of all things collapsible. This goes double for kitchen items.

I have been expanding my collection of collapsible kitchen items over the past two years and it's still a pretty small collection. But just last week I added a coveted piece to said collection and couldn't resist sharing with you.

Now, I'm not going to sugar coat this: Collapsible kitchen items are not cheap. You can buy uncollapsible kitchen items for less than half the price of collapsible ones usually. But I value my kitchen space and I just really don't have anyplace to PUT bulky items like collanders and dish racks that do not collapse.

Yes. That's right. I got a collapsible collander. I have seen these before. Target carries them. But they have always been way too large for my needs. My sink is only about 10 inches wide, which makes a traditional collander a bit of a strain. No pun intended.

This beauty I found at the Container Store on a recent trip to buy some bins I could use to organize my refrigerator (which, try as I might, I can't seem to take pictures of. No amount of flash will fix the fact that it's a dark, dark hole.)

Isn't she pretty?

She strains with the best of them. I was even more inspired to stick the collander in the cart since I dumped an entire batch of cooked soba noodles into the sink two weeks ago while I was trying to drain boiling water from the pot using its lid. This is about the third time in two years I have done this. Never again. Never. Ever. Again.

I also wanted to share my collapsible dish rack. My mom found this at BJ's Wholesale a year or so ago and snapped it up for me. It is incredibly sturdy (as you can see by the way I have overloaded it) and it collapses to less than 2 inches high, making it the perfect height to slide into the slot behind my counter and above my fridge. (Pay no attention to the laundry in the background -- it was a chores kind of night.)

I also have collapsible measuring cups. Now THOSE are awesome. A normal-sized cup measure will not fit in my utensil drawer. I got my collapsible one a couple months ago at Target after drooling over them for two years. Yes. I tortured myself over a $15 purchase. What can I say? I'm a freak. Don't be like me. Go forth. Buy collapsible -- your cupboards will thank you!

Next on my list? Collapsible mixing bowls -- if only I could find some that I like! If you have some you love, please share!

Source for measuring cups

Ice Part 2...

Ahoy there, bloggers! Well I've been diligently Dust Busting salt off my cabin floor, drawing up plans for spring work, working on my curtains and working on driving my dad nuts. It's all a lot of work, and it doesn't leave much time for blogging.

However, there was one more grain of wisdom about ice in marinas that I wanted to offer: Leave your swim ladder down.

I was perusing another liveaboard blog the other day and I realized that I am not the only person terrified of falling off the seawall or slipping on ice on the dock and falling in.

People have died falling in the water in winter and being unable to pull themselves out.

This has been a source of terror for me since I fell off the dock at the sailing center one January. At the time I was wearing a full foul weather suit, a fleece, sweatpants, sneakers, hiking socks a lifejacket and gloves. I stepped on a rotten piece of dock, lost my balance and fell straight into the water. With all that clothing on, I couldn't manage to pull myself onto the dock. Luckily, I had been sailing with my cousins and my dad and they pulled me out of the water.

Ever since then I've been scared that it will happen when I'm alone. To the point that I occasionally dream about falling in the water.

The simple solution? Leave your swim ladder down. If you, or someone else, falls in, at least the swim ladder will be there.

Other safety tips for not falling in? Don't pee off the back of your boat or the dock (a couple of years ago someone died that way). Always salt the ice on the dock. Maintain three points of contact on deck.

I guess this is a more serious entry than I normally write, but this is definitely something that freaks me out -- and it hadn't even occurred to me until recently to put my swim ladder down. So, folks, here's hoping you put your swim ladder down and stay safe for the rest of winter.

A merry Christmas for Misty...

Well Christmas has come and gone and Misty got everything she asked for.

A thorough cleaning.

An electric blanket.

A Kindle.

Wait... I think those last two might have been for me.

The only problem I'm having now is getting out from under my electric blanket (where I like to read my Kindle) to actually do anything worth blogging about. I'll get on that. After the new year.

Merry Christmas, readers! And a happy new year!

The social life...

Instead of writing about winterizing, like I probably should, I've decided instead to write about life in the marina. I didn't take any pictures of winterizing the engine anyway. I was too busy trying to remember all the steps.

So life in the marina.

Yesterday I was hanging out and running errands with my friend Andrew. He had some days off left to take before the end of the year and so we decided to get together and run errands, see friends, do some boat work and go climbing. We come back to the marina from West Marine and Costco and lunch with Andrew's brother, Mark, of the famous MarkandChristine duo. And what do we see at the marina? Why, two people sitting at the picnic table, smoking cigarettes and having coffee!

I jump out of the car to introduce myself. The marina staff is on a two-week vacation and I'm a little more starved for human interaction than I usually am.

"Hi! Do you live here? I'm Allie. I live in that little boat," I say, pointing. "I've been just dying to meet some of the other liveaboards here. I knew there were some, but I haven't met any yet."

I said this all in one breath.

It took a moment for the new couple to digest what I had just said and get up to shake hands.

They, too, seemed a little starved for company.

We engaged in a discussion about space heaters. They examined the one I had just purchased from the West Marine. We discussed the relative merits of West Marine-brand space heaters versus hardware store space heaters versus propane heaters.

And then, in the truly attention-starved manner of all liveaboards I've ever met in winter, we exchanged phone numbers and a promise to meet up that night over a bottle of rum.

The social norms in a marina are not complex. They are based mostly in a desire to meet someone -- anyone -- other than whomever lives in the boat with you. And liveaboards like me who live alone? Forget about it. We're all dying for discussion with something other than a duck.

People come in and out all the time because they travel the world, or the Bay, or they're visiting for a week. Whatever it is. So you meet someone in the boat yard and just end up hanging out. There was a guy in my marina this summer who has since gone to the Caribbean. I let him borrow my hose and he, in turn, checked on me during storms and invited me over for wine and chips. Never mind that he had a daughter my age. We had a grand time discussing charts and navigation. Then there was another guy over the summer who liked to sit on his deck chair next to my boat and chit-chat about boat prices. Once, when I went to get my mail, an older couple, despairing of their taxi ever arriving asked me for a ride to the Inner Harbor. When I lived in Washington, D.C., there were always people I'd met in the bathroom or the laundry room dropping by for a drink or a chat.

I'm no sociologist, but I think it's something to do with the prospect of getting to talk about something you love -- with someone who hasn't just spent a long period of time confined to a small space with you.

So what I'm trying to say is that inviting someone you just met to your home isn't strange at all and I eagerly accepted.

Around 8, I got the call and went over.

Now, what I have neglected to mention is that one of my main points of attraction to these people, besides companionship, was the fact that they have pets.

Not just any pets.

They have two cats -- and a pet squirrel.

So we sat up until 2 a.m. playing with their pets and drinking tea with rum and eating cake.

Life in the marina? It's really not so bad.

Tying up...

To preface this post, I would like to state that I am not a self-righteous boater. I don't care if you sail with your fenders in the water. It doesn't bother me if you don't trim your sails exactly right. I think sailing is a learning process. You should be able to make mistakes and learn from them with impunity. I know I make boating mistakes all the time -- and I think everyone else should have the same latitude.

That said, there are some things that are plainly unsafe for your boat that, given any basic sailing instruction, you should know not to do.

As you may or may not have gathered from my Wordless Wednesday post, there was a horrific storm Tuesday night, extending into Wednesday morning. I don't think I am exaggerating when I say that I think it was the worst storm I have ever weathered aboard Misty Rose. I didn't sleep more than 45 minutes all night -- even after I took Dramamine. To put the storm in perspective, one of the guys who works in the boatyard expressed surprise that I didn't go and sit in the bathhouse or sleep in my car to get out of the storm. We're talking 35 mph winds with gusts and flash flooding, here.

Now that we've set the stage, let's talk about the reason for this post: the proper way to tie your boat to a floating dock.

I have noticed that a startling number of boats are tied up in the marina like this:


This disturbs me, readers, as it should you. Things wrong with that illustration: There are no fenders to keep the boat from banging into the dock. There is no spring line. All of the lines are tied so tightly that there is absolutely no slack in them at all.

But why is this wrong?

Well. Let me tell you about laying in bed around 4:30 a.m. and hearing an incredibly loud flapping noise. I was out of bed faster than you can say, "Jack Robinson." I thought my roller furler had come undone and my sail was flapping away. I flung open the hatch and discovered that the noise was coming not from my boat, but a boat across the dock from mine.

I was fuzzy from not sleeping all night. Should I do something? Their sail was already starting to rip. Confused, I texted my father, knowing he'd be up at 5 a.m. Five minutes later, he called, frantic that something was wrong. I explained what was happening.

His response?

"Well, if it was Misty, wouldn't you want whoever saw it to at least try?"

Of course I would.

I pulled on my trusty faux Uggs over my PJ pants and got on my pink Henri Lloyd jacket and an old hat of my dad's I'd found on the boat. I grabbed the sturdiest winch handle I could find and a length of line and set out across the dock.

I was soaked through in seconds. The other boat, tied up like the bad example picture, was bucking violently against the dock. I was a little scared to step aboard in the storm with no lifejacket, but I decided to go for it. The jib sheets must have come undone and wrapped themselves about midway up the sail so that the sail was in a figure eight. I uncleated the furling line and winched it in as tight as it would go, wrapping up the bottom of the sail. Now for the top. I cleated the furling line and uncoiled my line to try and at least tie down the maniacally flogging sail. Unfortunately, the boat was slamming the dock so hard I was afraid to go forward of the mast where there was nothing to hold onto. In the wind, I couldn't do anything for the sail.

Well, I reasoned, the marina staff would be in at 7 a.m. They'd have a solution. I got back into the boat, stripped off my soaked clothing and put on the night's second pair of pajamas.

I heard the guys outside around 7 a.m. retying boats and trying to get the shredded sail tied up. They also failed, but they did tie the boat up properly and they found some fenders.

This leads me to this post.

Things to think about when tying up your boat:
1. Buy good-quality nylon docklines.
2. Buy fenders. Put them between the boat and the dock.
3. Use your boat's cleats. If you don't have cleats, use the toe rail. It's not a good idea to tie up using the stanchions or the shrouds. Too much stress on either of these is not good (i.e. if your shrouds break or the line rubs the cotter pin out, your mast could fall or you could break a stanchion.)

Now. When I tie up my boat, I try to take any stress off the bow line because I can hear it rubbing in the chock and it keeps me awake. That in mind, the first picture I posted is my ideal way to tie up to a floating dock at a t-head (which is how my boat is docked). For the record, you should almost always tie your sailboat up so that the fattest part of the boat, also known as the beam, is the only thing touching the dock. You then put a fender there between the boat and the dock. Voila! No slamming.

It is just a bad idea to tie up any boat with only a bow line and a stern line. I have horrific nightmares about my lines breaking after the time I discovered my bow line worn through to a single fiber. To avoid this, I use a bow line, a stern line, a forward spring and an aft spring. I do not have two bow lines like that picture shows because I don't have a cleat close enough. In an ideal world, I would have that second bow line.

For Misty Rose, I like a bow line with lots of slack, a tight stern line, a tight aft spring and a little bit of slack in the forward spring.

I put fenders anywhere the boat might hit the dock if a wave were to make the boat fishtail.

Above all else, lines should be checked regularly for wear. My lines tend to wear most at the chock on the bowline, so I use a short piece of old garden hose to insulate the line in the chock.

And now you know how to tie up your boat to best keep her steady -- whether it's going to storm or not.

There's no place like home...

Well, folks, I just got back from a gloriously relaxing and rejuvenating weekend with my friends on the beach in Virginia. We actually stayed in a town on the Bay called White Stone. I checked? Three days minimum to sail there. Too bad we didn't have the time! It was a beautiful weekend with perfect perfect weather. Steady, light breeze every day and lots of nice warm sun.

I feel so relaxed right now, but I can't tell you how nice it is to be home. I set out my beach chair when I got here, and I've been sitting on the dock watching the sunset ever since.



I guess it really is like they say. It's very nice to go traveling. But it's oh so nice to come home...

The solution to all my boat problems....

Pack up books. Take them to boat. Read books. Pack books back up. Take them home. Pick out new books. Take them to boat. Read books....

Seriously. That was my life up until recently.

It seemed my car was always filled with books. The boat had them crammed into her shelves willy-nilly, while my canned goods were relegated to a dark and scary cabinet.

It wasn't pretty, readers. It wasn't pretty at all.

But all that changed recently.

No, I didn't stop reading. Oh no. I got an iPod touch. And discovered the Amazon Kindle application.

My mother has had a Kindle for years and for years the darn thing has cramped my style.

"Oh that book?" Mom would say when I inquired after the sixth book in a series we both read. "I read it on the Kindle."

And then my hopes for not having to buy that particular book were dashed.

Now, I can download and read books.

Now I know what you're thinking. I've always been a purist, too. I love the feel of paper in my hands and the flutter of the pages.

But the eBook? It rocks for liveaboards. It's the perfect solution.

I can have hundreds of books in a space that isn't even 6 inches square. Romances, mysteries, fiction, non-fiction, Shakespeare... it's all there for my reading pleasure.

And if there's nothing that meets my reading whims? I can download something else.

It's amazing.

Of course the screen my iPod is pretty small, so I won't lie, I'm holding out for one of these:


But we can't have everything can we? Oh well... Christmas is coming, right? All joking aside, this is a great solution to the age-old entertainment problem. You're cooped up in a tiny boat with no TV and limited Internet and you're running out of books... the eBook comes to the rescue.

It's also great because you can have a newspaper delivered. Any other liveaboards out there miss having a paper delivered every morning? Now you can have papers delivered to your eBook and you can read from the comfort of your vee-berth without arguing with the newspaper delivery people at The Sun over why they should toss a paper 100 yards from the production plant and into the boat. Not that I've done that. Lately.

Now, I think I'll dial up a vampire mystery. I mean, why not?

Forgive me....

Well, as Steve at Condor once put it: "Forgive me Blogger, for I have sinned."

Yep. It's been a looooong time since my last blog post. What can I say? I've been sailing. It happens. Work and sailing, sailing at work... shoot. They're kind of the same thing, I guess. And I've been thinking a lot about that recently.

This time two years ago I was living in a cute apartment in Hyattsville, working on my master's degree in journalism and working at The Examiner in Baltimore. I wore high heels at least four days a week.

These days I find myself living on a boat and working at a sailing center and thinking about sailing 24-7. I spend more time on boats and docks than I do anywhere else and I wear shorts to work every day.

I guess it's funny how these things happen.

Now I don't mean to turn this blog in to a philosophical soliloquy about my life. I've just been thinking about how sailing and boats have taken over my life.

And about how I kind of like it.

Look for more posts soon, I've got lots to tell you all. I've got posts planned on titling my dinghy, jury rigging Mark and Christine's heat exchanger, living without air conditioning and becoming a real-deal boat owner... It's been a very exciting spring on the Misty Rose.

The nerve...

So I dropped home today in the middle of the day to get something I forgot. It's pretty nice to be living so close to work, I must admit.

And I'm walking down the dock and I see a new boat next to me. I say hey and nod at the guy working on her and I keep walking.

As soon as I set foot on my boat, the guy goes, "Oh, I'm using your hose."

I look over and darn if he hasn't gotten my hose all uncoiled from the tower and connected it to his own hose to make it long enough to reach his boat. And his hose didn't look like the nicest hose on the block either. I don't know about the rest of the world, but I DRINK the water out of my hose. I don't want it connected all willy nilly to suspect hoses that may or may not have the plague.

"Sorry," he says completely in a completely unapologetic tone.

"Um, it's OK, I guess," I say. "Please be careful with it, it's my only hose and I need it for my water."

OK, so maybe that was a dumb thing to say. "I need it for water"? Really? What else do people use hoses for?

And in a totally bombastic tone, he goes, "I'm just filling my tank, I'll be done in a second."

What? Excuse me? You are using my hose and you're not even going to be polite about that fact that you're using my personal hose from my tower without permission?

I tell ya, the nerve of these sailors. Bold as brass.

And he didn't even coil it back up right.

This is a great example of my the principle of liveaboard life in a marina. The liveaboard is exponentially more likely to have gear used without permission or borrowed because the liveaboard, in fact, lives aboard and is exponentially more likely to have stuff for other marina denizens to steal or borrow. The more stuff, the greater the chances of having it beggared away. The more time you spend on a boat, the greater the chances of having more stuff.

See where I'm going with this?

I'll tell you where I'm going with this. I'm going to Wal Mart to get a lock for my damn hose!

It's all about getting ahead...

Oh yes. It's every boat owner's nightmare. A broken head. This spring, upon opening the seacock for the seawater intake that provides the water for flushing, I discovered, much to my horror that something -- and I'm sure only God knows exactly what -- had somehow broken in the head.

Oh it would pump dry. But water would not come in. I died a little inside. When the dial was turned to "flush," the handle would become almost impossible to push down and no water would appear in the bowl. I almost cried a little bit. Almost. OK, maybe one tear. Don't judge.

Anyway, once my serious panic had subsided, my dad mentioned that some guy in the boatyard had said that pump repair kits could be bought and that it would likely solve my problem.

Pump repair kits? Yeah, they cost $75 for a Raritan head -- which is, of course, what I have. Just so you know. And the Golden Anchor coupon I'd gotten from US SAILING and had been saving? It was expired.

So I gritted my teeth and paid full price. When I finally got the courage to open the little plastic box on Saturday, I was relieved to find instructions. And I was not so relieved to discover a large amount of strange parts never mentioned in the instructions.



That's the box, sitting on the head. See that red thing? I never used it. No clue what it's for. But you can bet that at $75 I saved the darn thing.


The first thing you do is close the seacock and take the handle arm apart. The instructions are very specific that before beginning work you should CLOSE THE SEACOCK. No sweat. Then it gets scary. It involved a 7/8" deep well socket (don't even bother going to Wal Mart, all they have is metric.) It involved taking a cap off and putting in new rubber and plastic bits.



It involved a new black rubber ball, the function of which I can only guess at.

And finally it included "Raritan Super Lube." Get your mind out of the gutter. I smeared that stuff all over the part of the pump that moves (I'm pushing on it in the second picture) , reattached the handle, opened the seacock again and pumped -- and darned if it didn't start flushing like a champ!

I may not know a thing about marine electronics, but I can sure do some plumbing with the right tools and a well-thought-out chart. First the seaweed and now the head pump? I'm unstoppable.

At least until something else breaks.

And then spend an inordinate amount of time sewing them....

OK, so I can't find my little point-and-shoot camera. And that has all the pictures I took of the curtain making process. So while I look for it, we'll talk about moving back to the boat.

As I mentioned before, I chickened out in the winter weather and moved home for a couple of months. What can I say? Blizzards on a boat are no fun. At least, I imagine they aren't. I wasn't there for either of the ones we had this year.

At any rate, I moved back to the boat this weekend, after moving it to Baltimore. When the weather finally dries out I'll do a photo tour of the new marina.

I'm excited to be back aboard. Even if I have one side of the cabin in new curtains and the other side in the old curtains. Even if I broke my lamp and had to buy a new one. Even if I think I might have to buy a new hose because the water spigot is a bit farther away.

It just feels good. It feels calming.

And now I have a Verizon MiFi, so get ready for a deluge of posts including: the curtains, the head rebuild, the move to Baltimore and much, much more! For only $29.95....

Wait.

You don't have to pay. This blog is free. Free as a fish! So enjoy. Bookmark. Comment. And get ready to read about my first spring aboard.

You gotta respect these people...

Check out this article about the Annapolis liveaboards: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bal-md.boat11feb11,0,195495.story

You have to respect people who stick it out through blizzards on their boats.

Me? Well... I'm home with my parents. But I was super sick too and I needed my mommy. Yes. I was that sick. So... yeah. I need to go and shovel off the boat and check on her as soon as I get my car dug out. Really I should check her once a week, but it's averaging out way less and I'm just counting on the marina owners to check on her. It is not a short trip out there and there's not enough daylight to do it after work anymore.

Excuses, excuses, right?

Ida know... do you?

Well, it's that time of year. Hurricane season. We don't usually get them too bad up here in the Chesapeake Bay, but every once in a while you get something like the 2003 season when Hurricane Isabel came to call. Raise your hand if you remember Baltimore's Inner Harbor being underwater. Anyone? (Bueller? Bueller?)

Well, I do. Now we're awaiting the coming of Hurricane Ida -- or already feeling her effects, depending on whether you watch NOAA's weather reports or weather.com's.

Normally, I sit snug in my apartment and shake my fist at these puny little hurricanes. Now, I wish I'd never baited them. It's been raining gorillas and taxicabs (to quote my favorite charter boat captain) since last night and the wind and the waves are kicking up even in sheltered D.C. harbor. The boat is rocking to such a degree that I'm drinking bottled water because my cup would have fallen over by now. Freaky. I am, right now, watching the liquid in my bottle of water jiggle. The wind is howling and something outside (I'm guessing on the boat next door -- if it was mine, it'd sound much louder) is flapping against their hull. Walking around is almost like being underway, so much is the boat being rocked by the wind.

I, however, am secure in the fact that I have checked my dock lines (three times), my galoshes are ready to go and so is my foul weather jacket. (OK, so in a lack of preparedness moment I left the pants in the car. Sue me.) My heater is running full blast. I think I'll make it through the storm. Plus, I don't have to walk all the way to the bathroom ashore for a shower -- I can just step outside with my shampoo. (That was a joke. Please do not attempt to shower in the rain. Your hair will never be the same.)

I just wish the darn boat would stop rocking!

Doesn't this storm realize that I'm trying to get some work done in here? Jeez, Ida.

Can it...

Man am I tired. This past week has been like swimming in jeans. Slow and squelchy. And tiring. I'm not sure if it's the fact that we just had Daylight Saving Time start and it's dark early or the fact that I'm not getting good-quality sleep.

It seems anymore that the wind howling through the rigging wakes me up almost every night. For some reason, DC harbor has been getting gale-strength-sounding winds hit around 3 a.m. Not conducive to good sleep.

At any rate, even for being tired, I got a good amount done this weekend. Being that I don't have a refrigerator or a freezer, I've had to get creative with my food storage techniques. Rather than eat a lot of store-bought canned food (yick!) or have to go to the supermarket every day (over the summer, I went to the fish market every day and ate grilled fish with tomato slices and corn almost every night) I turned to home canning. This weekend, I drove out to a farm in Frederick and got a half bushel of Granny Smith apples and a bag of orchard seconds (apples with small bruises or imperfections) and canned it all. I yielded 6 quarts of applesauce, and 12 half-pints of apple preserves and apple butter. I saved a few apples to eat this week too. Trust me, they're waaaay better without the wax from the store.

So how did I get started on the path to 1950s Suzy Homemaker with my canning? Last year I decided to can applesauce just for a lark -- seriously, I can't remember why I decided it was a good idea to put applesauce in jars. I remember the furtive search all over Baltimore for the actual jars (I got started mid fall when Wally World had already put theirs away for the year), but not what drove me to can. In any case, this struck me as a great idea for this year.

So far, (and I think I may be finished -- unless I feel called to make marmalade for my boyfriend when citrus season rolls around) I've canned:

Applesauce
Apple preserves
Apple butter
Tomato sauce (plain -- contents? Tomatoes and a teaspoon of lemon juice per jar. Nothing else.)
Tomato chunks (I mix this tomato-basil chunk mix with sauce for spaghetti)
Tomato salsa
Raspberry jam

In my life Before Boat, I made huge pots of food -- chili, soup, tomato sauce, applesauce -- and froze it into portion-size packages. Now I can ingredients to make life easier. Next year I'll get a pressure canner and I'll be able to do beef stew, soups and vegetables.

Canning's other benefits? It's economical (I picked all the produce myself and the jars are reusable) but it's also locally grown food, I know exactly what's in it and, well... it just TASTES better.

Who can argue with that?

NOTE: Pictures to follow when I get back to my camera -- and get some sleep!

When company comes calling...

The most amusing part of liveaboard life is having people visit. And I'm not talking about my dad or my sailing friends (though I enjoy having them) I'm talking about the vast majority of my friends -- the landlubbers. You know, the non-boat people. The ones convinced that living on a boat must be something akin to camping. Yes, dear reader, I actually talk to non-boat people, God love 'em!

They come a-calling decked out in sweaters and thick socks, ready to brave the cold to spend some time visiting the boat.

Sadly, being the unevolved human that I am, I take a sort of perverse delight in watching the apprehensive come over for a drink or some company in their winter finery only to discover that -- it's just like a teeny-tiny apartment! Go figure.

A couple of weeks ago, I had a girlfriend stay a couple of nights while interviewing for graduate school at Georgetown. Incredulous upon arrival, she said, "Oh this is cozy, I thought it would be like camping!"

Last night, I had a friend over who'd read my blog. Focusing on the phrase, "haven't winterized yet," in an earlier entry, he dressed for cold weather -- which ended up to his advantage walking back to the metro at 11 p.m., but which I am afraid left him rather warm sitting in the salon. "My this really is warm. I'm surprised."

OK, so I definitely talk a good game about sleeping in my fleece pajamas with a down comforter, but that's mostly due to the fact that if I leave the space heater on too high it gets boiling hot, so I turn it very very low and the heat doesn't reach well into the v-berth, which is where I sleep. So I don't have well-placed vents as a house does -- but to me, my Misty is as good as... well... home!

Waging War (Or How Allie Vanquished the Thousands... of Spores)...

When I first decided to move onto Misty Rose, I took a trip down to Pasadena, Md., (where we kept her until I moved her to Washington). Misty hadn't been used all winter, and upon entering it was crystal clear to me that work would need to be done. Intense, hard, back-breaking work.

The largest problem, aside from an incredible amount of collected junk, was mold. And a gross mold smell. But mostly mold. I figured the smell would go away once the mold was dealt with. Ha. Sure it would.

Once I got the collected junk dispatched to Daddy dearest (whose junk -- excuse me, very important stuff -- it was) and to the marina Dumpster (where it belonged) I set in to researching the mold problem.

The first thing I did was take a shop vac and give everything a seriously good vacuuming, clearing the way for cleaning. I then removed the cushions from the v-berth and laid them in the sun for the day. The covers went home with me, where I washed them three times. Yes, you read that correctly, three times. After the first time the covers still smelled musty. The second time I went out and bought bleach substitute (I was worried bleach would ruin the color -- next time I will use regular bleach. The cushions are stained anyway). Slightly better. The third time with bleach substitute got them almost scent free. Then I laid them in the sun to dry and, hopefully, continue to air out.

The skipper whose charter boat I work on had an ozone generator. Upon hearing tales of hard-fought battles against the spores, he suggested that this would kill mold and eliminate stench. More deadly to mold than bleach, he promised. Great! I turned it to "high" and let it run in the boat, completely closed in, for the five hours it took me to scrub the outside of the boat. For this, I enlisted my ever-helpful boyfriend Jon, who was just delighted to help me. Ahem.

The ozone generator, as far as I could tell didn't help so much -- that or the mold decided to mount a counterstrike. I returned it to its owner and researched. Not so deadly as he thought, apparently, and possibly bad for the environment and my health. Great.

Onward and upward to bleach! Ahh the sweet smell of bleach. Yum.

Bleach cleaner mostly eradicated the mold on the pleather ceiling and wall surfaces and the head floor. On the rest of the floor I used Murphy's Oil Soap after the bleach and a stiff brush. And Clorox wipes (well, Wal Mart brand Clorox wipes) and swiffers and much pumping of the bilge. By hand. (We'll talk about the lack of electric bilge pump later.)

Finally, I covered all plush surfaces, cushions, etc. with baking soda vacuum powder, let it sit and absorb (or whatever it does) and vacuumed it up and made sure everything was bone dry.

The scent of mold lingers still, but the spores have been vanquished unto death!

Until I find places like this hidden away in the boat's recesses. Where's my bleach? This war will be won!

Touring the manse...

This is where I sleep, the v-berth. Note the down comforter. I have only one space heater so far, but I went to college in the Pennsylvania mountains. Down comforter it is!



Even though I live on a boat, a girl's gotta have her shoes. That pink bunny in the bottom right corner? My foot. A down comforter isn't enough. I need fleece pajamas. Don't judge me by my pink fleece footie pajamas. They're warm, OK?



The head. I cleaned it today and added "the blue stuff" since I was just pumped out. Moving on...



The center on my morning universe.



The galley! Note the absence of a stove. I have a single burner propane tank until my father finishes making a teak cabinet for a camp stove or until I save $2,000 to have a propane stove and enclosed tank put in. It's a draw on which will happen first...



My closet, aka the quarterberth. Funny story about how I used to keep my clothes in a cabinet that the head pumpout line ran through... good times. Now I keep them here.



The guest bedroom. The clothes hanging on the wall are hanging over a clock. My dad says the clock is worth a lot of money. It ticks. Loudly. Now it is an expensive coat rack. You can see my galoshes peeking out from underneath the coats.



The dining room/tv area/study area/place-I-spend-the-majority-of-my-time.



Lest you forget that I live on a boat, here is the backup propulsion system for when the wind fails me.



And that's my Misty Rose! (This last picture by my Mom.)

Not your typical liveaboard...

Ever seen the movie "The Money Pit"? It's about a young couple. The pair buy a dream house only to discover that it needs work. A lot of work.

When I first proposed living aboard my boat at the marina where I worked (I have been a sailing instructor since I was 15,) my boss, who I didn't know very well at the time, said, "Why?" in a very incredulous tone. It was almost the summer, and, having tasted freedom, I didn't want to move back home, was fed up with communiting and ready for the simple life. He asked questions: Did I know there was no electricity, that I would have to carry all my water? Did I know how unbearably hot Baltimore was going to be in August?

Of course I knew. I grew up in Baltimore without air conditioning. It stayed light until 8 p.m. and I had a lantern. Of course I could do it. And if not, maybe I would just move home. No harm done.

Through my first storm trapped inside a stifling boat to the harrowing storm-filled trip from Baltimore to Washington, D.C., I was able to live with it and even enjoy it.

Fast forward to November. Today. It is cold in Washington. And I don't have a fridge, don't have a stove, haven't winterized and can't seem to make my battery charger work well enough to allow me to use the cabin lights. But you know what? I still love it. How do I manage? Well you'll just have to keep reading, won't you?