The end of procrastination...

Well I finally did it. I stopped putting off winterization. (Isn't that a weird word? One of the thousands of strange boat-isms)

Anyway. After attending my grandfather's funeral and wake on Saturday, Greg and I stopped by the boat to grab a couple of things and I happened to see Captain Phil of the Pintita, former boss and teacher of the USCG Captain's Course I took a couple winters ago. Capt. Phil is a STICKLER for early winterization, though to be honest it's only barely frozen overnight a couple of times this season. And with my boat in the water, it's not likely to freeze hard enough to crack the engine block anytime soon. But I'd purchased the antifreeze and I figured it was about well on time to get the antifreeze pumped through. And seeing the good Skipper lit a fire under me to be a prudent boater.

Luckily, winterizing my engine is a short procedure.

My engine, being an inboard diesel, is seawater cooled. It sucks water directly from the Bay, through a filter, and then around the engine to cool it when it is running. In the wintertime, if you don't replace this water with antifreeze, the water inside your engine can freeze and expand and crack your engine block. If you're keeping your boat in the water, you can wait a lot longer to winterize your engine because the water holds heat and until the water starts freezing, you don't really have to worry about this. If you store your boat on land in winter, you need to winterize for sure before removing your boat from the water.

Most boaters, including me, use potable antifreeze (which is pink, as opposed to antifreeze you use in your car, which is usually scarily green) for winterizing because you end up pouring an entire gallon of it directly into the Bay. On Misty, to winterize the engine, all I needed to do was fill a bucket with the pink stuff, unscrew the band holding the hose to the intake seacock (which I closed, thank you very much), pull the hose off, place the hose in the bucket 'o' antifreeze, and start the engine. Greg was quite helpful at this juncture. It's VERY difficult to get into and out of the engine access hole on Misty, so he was kind enough to fulfill my tool requests and watch the exhaust water to make sure it was turning fully pink.

And that's it! After the engine has sucked up a whole gallon of antifreeze and spat it out the back, all you need to do is reattach the hose.

Come spring (or a suitably warm winter day!) all you need to do is open the seawater intake seacock and start the engine and voila! Seawater cooling and antifreeze feeding the fishes.

Now if I could just muster the desire to fill my water tank so I can do some dishes tonight...

The arrival of an old friend...

Well, folks, today is the first day of spring, and I could not be any more giddy. (Well, maybe if it was 70 degrees outside and I had an old-fashioned Baltimore snowball in my hand...)

This was my first real winter aboard. I made it through the entire winter (with an occasional night at my parents' house or a friend's house) on Misty Rose -- and I lived to tell the tale! Last winter I wussed out and spent almost two months at my parents' house with blizzards and sickness. But this year, I managed to make it through. I didn't fall in and become a victim of the dreaded ice. No, readers, I made it with an electric blanket, two West Marine heaters, a down blaket, a faux Snuggie, some hiking socks and fleece pants, countless cups of tea and the kindness of the staff at Tidewater, who moved me to the sheltered dock close to the bathrooms for the duration.

Baltimore is starting to get warm, and you boaters out there know what that means -- work time!

Projects planned for my spring haulout include: replacing the floor inside the cabin salon, painting the bottom, painting the non-skid portions of the deck, re-varnishing the door boards, caulking the port holes, replacing some lines and cleats that aren't working well and, of course, going sailing!

Jeez, I'm tired just thinking about it all. Maybe we should stay with this whole winter thing for a couple more weeks...

Winter's quiet night...

There's something I love about the marina at night in the wintertime. There's no one around -- no one I can see anyway. If anyone is here, they're hiding inside their boats, snug against the early winter breeze that takes your breath away. It's still and silent save the usual evening sounds.

There's the bell-like ringing of lines. The rhythmic thumping of halyards and the hollow echo of masts. The gurgle of water slapping the sides of the boats, the groan of compressed fenders and the ever-so quiet noise of lines stretching against their cleats. The quiet humming of rigging in the wind is louder than the traffic of the city half a mile away.

Then there's the noise of a working port. The occasional whistle of a tug or blast of a ship's horn as she prepares to leave port. That's the comforting promise that everything is running as it should, ticking away reliably in the background, bringing salt for the snowstorms, bananas and cars and potash and a million other things.

Of course there's also the long, almost harmonious, purr of rail cars blowing horns as they carry goods away from Baltimore. It is quiet and it's nice.

There's something quiet and comforting about the marina at night -- but it's most comforting from the warm, comfortable inside of a boat that has weathered more winters in her life than I...

In the spirit of Thanksgiving...

I feel like I've been complaining a lot recently. It's cold. There's no range yet. I need X, Y and Z. I don't know how to dooooo thissssss...

Yep.

I've been a whiner.

I'm not sure if it's the cold or if I'm just scared for winter aboard. Winter on the boat can be a little bit miserable sometimes, as I have detailed in earlier posts.

So instead of complaining and being bratty, I'm going to list the 10 things I'm most thankful for on the boat:

1. My West Marine space heater. This thing works like a champ, I tell you.

2. My tea kettle. I drink more hot drinks in a day than most eight-person families drink in a week.

3. Internet access.

4. A marina with nice bathrooms and kind staff.

5. Really nice warm clothing and blankets. (I'm betting that most girls graduating master's programs don't get long underwear and hiking socks as graduation presents, but I did -- thanks Mom and Dad!)

6. A great set of advisers on all things nautical who will take my phone calls and answer the most ridiculous questions (Wait, you connect that to WHAT?!?)

7. A dock box! The marina installed my dock box and now the boat is much more clutter-free.

8. A refrigerator that keeps my food cold and doesn't fill my bilge with water like my ice box did.

9. Thick rubber gloves. If you battled as much mold and icky bilge nastiness as I did, you'd be thankful for them, too.

Annnnnnddd....

10. I own half of a freaking BOAT. Who wouldn't be thankful for that?

Happy (belated) Thanksgiving, readers!

Last day: The final frontier...

OK, so I'll admit. It's freezing in Baltimore and I'm taking two months off to live at my parents' home where there's central heat. So it's been tough to motivate myself to write in my blog about living aboard when I'm not, in fact, living aboard.

Anyway, I'm at a sailing convention stuck on hold with the airline, so let's talk about my last day.

Yep, you heard that right. Last day. But, you say, there were supposed to be four days! You've talked about only two!

Well, dear friends, I mentioned the increasingly scary forecast. That forecast started to foretell a possible blizzard the morning of the third day. Blizzard? No thank you. So I made an executive decision. We'd do the last two days in just one marathon day.

We woke up that morning and discovered small, dinner plate-sized sheets of ice floating next to the boat. Bad sign. I'm not ashamed to admit I said a little prayer before we started the engine that day. Thankfully it started and we puttered over to the fuel dock to drop Peter off, pick up Andrew and wait for the attendant. We fueled up and the nice fuel dock man found a way for us to get some water (there's not much in the shop at the fuel dock in Solomons).

Then we were on our way. Having learned our lesson from Cobb Island, and being a little freaked out about the coming blizzard, we turned on the GPS and I obsessively listened to the weather radio every time I was off. Between Andrew and I we did some pretty fancy-pants navigation to cut miles off our trip (Andrew races a lot, so he knew some nice tricks from his Annapolis to Solomons racing experience).

Once we got close to Baltimore though, past the Bay Bridge, the trip was cake. No one removes navigation markers in Baltimore harbor for cold weather (stupid Cobb Island). It was dark, but we had it covered. This was easily the part of the trip I knew the best and was most comfortable with.

At any rate, we made in to Oak Harbor marina in Pasadena -- right by White Rocks -- two hours before the snow started to fall.

I was so eager to get off the boat, I just left everything aboard. Tossed off my boots and foulies, put on a baseball cap and sneakers and Dad and I took Sam and Andrew to Little Havana's for a cheeseburger since we had to drop Andrew with his car at the sailing center. I have to say though, I was starving and wanted a Coke really badly, but I felt awful at dinner. All shivery and achy.

I spent about 45 minutes in the hot shower when I got home and slept until about 12 hours straight and felt right as rain the next day. We ended up being snowed in, so I took a couple nice naps the next day too. It was the perfect time to come home, really -- nowhere to go.

We'd left two huge light bulbs on in the engine compartment and left instructions for the marina to winterize, so as far as I was concerned, I was good to go.

Getting the stuff (extra food, all my clothes, bedding, etc.) off the boat to wash and put away was another story. It took a couple weeks to get rid of the snow, get time to go down (I was beset by a multitude of serious car problems).

But it's all off now and I can't wait to move the boat to Baltimore to live in March.

Next up? Some thoughts from the National Sailing Programs Symposium -- aka, how I am now obsessed with Stand Up Paddling.

Trip planning...

Well, it's almost time for me to ship out to Baltimore. I've been living in Washington, D.C., on Misty Rose since August. The trip back to Baltimore is going to be a four day trip, stopping at different places overnight. We're planning to leave next Wednesday, and I'm deep in preparations for the trip.

When we took the boat to Baltimore, my friends Sam, Mark, Christine and I, it was August. Mostly we hung out in our swimming suits and got sunburns, swimming at night, grilling off the back of the boat for dinner. One day Mark, Sam and I ate half of a watermelon on deck (Christine wasn't there that day). It was really, really nice, despite some too-exciting-for-me-thank-you storms.

This time, we'll be heading out mid-December. Somehow I don't think swimming suits and watermelons will fit into the picture.

Last time I planned the majority of the trip while I was on vacation in Las Vegas with some girlfriends, which just added to the stress, especially since I was having trouble coordinating crew and I was having even more difficulty plotting our course.

This time should be smoother navigation-wise at least. I'm planning simply to reverse our August trip. We'll start in D.C. on Wednesday at the break of dawn (yeah, so not kidding). Hopefully I'll be able to find someone to go with me Monday or Tuesday to help me fuel up before the trip. Night one will be spent in the first anchorage acceptable for sailboats, Cobb Island. The next day we'll head to Solomons Island, followed by Galesville and, finally, Baltimore.

Since it will be so cold, and since it is, as of now, supposed to SNOW on Wednesday, I still need to go buy gloves since I lost mine in Iceland and some other miscellaneous items... like a hat... I'm also obsessively checking the 10-day forecast every few hours.

I still need to coordinate cars since not everyone will be coming for the entire trip, but this is also looking simpler than the last time. I guess what worries me most of all is the cold. I hate being cold. Like, really really hate being cold.

I think with three people aboard (though I'm HOPING for a fourth) there need to be two people on deck and one off. Hopefully it'll be nice and toasty warm below with the engine running. I've got tons of blankets and will be bringing a second Fuggie (faux snuggie) and my big down comforter so I can leave one with the v-berth and one with me (or whoever wants it).

Annnnnd... I also need to figure out what we're going to eat and bake what I need to bake and make ahead what I can. So that needs to be done too.

And I'm having people to the boat Saturday and I don't want anyone on it without a deep-cleaning, which I started tonight.... soooo.... I better get cracking. Sigh.

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!