Winter is coming and I get a new skylight

The leaves on the trees in my area are turning, falling and piling in drifts in my gutters.  Fall must be here.

    The roofers have been working on the house over the last couple of days.  See the photo for my newest addition to my bedroom ceiling.  At least no one was hurt.  I felt bad for the guys as the sun was going down and it was getting chilly out.  All they wanted to do was drag the equipment off the roof and tarp it and go home.  Instead one of them fell off the deck onto the ceiling.  S@#t does indeed happen and usually at the most inopportune times.

So as you can tell we did get the financing in order finally, even with the selling agent dumping the roof issues on us at the last possible second.  We knew there were issues with the roof as well as the attic from the home inspection.  Colonies of white mold had taken up residence all over the attic and due to the tiny size of the space, really the only way to resolve this was to take the roof deck off completely and re-mediate it in that fashion.  The selling agent knew this and had a bid from a roofer the day after we looked at the house back in August, but wouldn't tell us what they were going to do about it until after we had agreed to purchase the home.  Their decision was simply to drop the price of the house by the amount of the bid.  Pushed us from a streamlined 203k loan to the more complex full 203k loan.  The difference is in how the money is administered.  In the streamlined you can get a few draws on the total to get you started.  With this full one I and my general contractor have to bear the brunt of the project and finance it until the HUD inspector comes out and approves the work.  Slows things dramatically I can tell you that.

  I was concerned about the possible reasons for the mold issues in the attic until I got a good look at the roof with my contractor.  The attic has no ventilation at all, it is just a sealed space.  Yeah that is not a good idea here in the humid Northeast.  So now I have holes in my fascia boards and will have a nice ridge vent.  All my trusses have been coated in anti-fungal and 14 inches of all new insulation has been blown in after the old stuff was shoveled out, all 4 inches of it.

  This house is evidently a California design that was not modified to take into account the differences in climate from California to Virginia.  The front half of the house, which has a eye catching open beam design, has a roofing material that has a total insulation value of R-4.  Thanks 70's builders.  Explains the cast iron stove in the front room.

   Meanwhile Betty and I have been busy in the interior.  We purchased a new dishwasher and 5 burner range.  I installed those last week.  Kudos to Robert my plumber friend from Denver (Quick Drain) who walked me through the modification to my plumbing so that it is a standard install rather than a cobbled together homeowner shortcut.  There is plenty of that in this house.  Painted the back three bedrooms, primer and a few coats of cover paint, a very pale green, so pale you can barely even tell it is there.  I still need to crawl around and do the trim painting, high gloss white.  We liked that from our Texas house.

  Tore out the carpets in the back three bedrooms and hallway while the roll off dumpster was here for the roofing materials.  Hard on our old out of shape bodies, but we are getting better and fitter as the renovation continues.  And hey we saved $335.00 by doing it ourselves.  Of course had to make a trip to Home Depot for breath masks so we weren't breathing the embedded gorp.

  We are still wading through boxes and packing materials.  But have unpacked enough of the kitchen to survive.  Wish I could find my slippers though.

New discoveries:

• Found this house at one time was entirely covered in startlingly blue carpets.  Yeah loads of drugs in the 70's.  
• The front bathroom does indeed have white octagonal ceramic tiles, laid over 4 layers of linoleum.
• House has aluminum wiring.  

New decisions:

• Hardwood floors will extend all the way up the three stairs and through the main hallway.  
• The three stairs will be eventually skinned with solid oak.

Next project:

• Heavy up!  Increase my current 100 amp electrical service to 250 amps.  Replace scary electrical panel with one that doesn't randomly burn your house down.  But of course no recall was ever issued for this panel and breaker system.  
• Leave room for extension to eventually install hot tub next to my main party deck.  

Outstanding major projects

• Carpet replacement in bedrooms
• Hardwood floor install in front of house
• New Refrigerator
• Removal of false wall around kitchen
• Total gutting and replacement of kitchen

On hold

As I stated in my last posting there ain't gonna be no boat this year.  But we are making some positive steps in that general direction, well maybe.  The DC area is pretty hostile to live aboards so we are knuckling under and buying a house.  Maybe hostile is to strong of a word, it is more along the lines of complete apathy actually.  As I mentioned before it is only allowed in possibly two marinas, one of which is a private club and the other one has a waiting list as long as my wished for 65.

We are in Baltimore for a few days this week.  Went to the prospective house yesterday afternoon to codify the list of things we need to do.  We are taking a special construction loan on top of the house loan so we can spruce it up and possibly get some equity built quickly.  Then in 5 to 10 years maybe we can sell it and go buy the boat we really want.  Of course I will be to old and decrepit to actually sail it anywhere, but Betty can enjoy sitting in the cockpit and spinning the wheel.

I guess this is going to morph into a "guy fixes his house while thumbing through the sail boat listings and bemoaning the lack of a boat" blog.  Thrills.  

Till we meet again...

No boat this year

Well crap, no boat this year, or next for that matter.  We get to move to Washington DC in an unfunded relocation instead.  Quite a thrill let me tell you.  I think DC has to be traffic central and the population density is rather extreme.  But it beats having zero income at all.

The last boat trip we took is still lingering in my mind as quite a lessons learned cruise.  So far that weekend has cost more than three months of normal living.  Just remember, don't park your car on Deal Island unless you are in somebodies front yard.  So far there is $1800.00 worth of damage to the car from some miscreants attempt to break into the car.  Auto body guy said the marks on the windows were caused by someone tossing red bricks at them.

Anyway got to do some homework today.  Computer aided statistics.  Mainly playing with Excel.

Till next infrequent update.

Washington DC

Did you know that Washington D.C. hates people that want to live on their sailboat?  There is only one place in Washington that takes live a boards and they are booked basically forever...

Looking for either a house or a boat to live on, either would be great and both are going to cost a ton.

Lessons Learned

Nice relaxing time last weekend.  Betty and I spent some quality time with Jeff's 424 Pearson Gypsy.  We found out that Betty can indeed live on board, at least for a few days as long as the water is smooth.  She would probably get used to it completely if we had enough time.  So we learned some lessons about maintenance, cooking, watching tide charts, anchoring and handling the sheets.

More Sailing!

More thanks and kudos go to Captain Jeff!  He invited us to a complete weekend of sailing!  As I mentioned previously he has a Pearson 424 stashed away and he has kindly invited Betty and I aboard for the weekend with a few of his friends and son.  Betty is tickled pink and frankly so am I.  Not sure where we are headed to, Capt. Jeff indicated some island Betty couldn't remember but even if we really go nowhere we will still be introduced to a couple more new things.  Anchoring, docking, navigation, what it is like to live aboard, things like that.  Woohoo even!

I did some more boat searching last night and found a couple of pretty nice sub 100K boats.  All these boat names are click-able links and I have visited each of them.  An interesting looking Gulfstar, a 424 Morgan, except it is in Panama, not a real great location for me.  A Downeast Ketch, a pretty nice Mayflower 48.

Anyway I could keep posting links till I run out of space on my page.  But then there was this girl.  She is a Pearson 424, 1981 down in New Orleans currently.  So yeah she was in the water when Katrina came ashore.  They say she rode it out and ended the storm still floating.  I am leery of this sort of thing I have to tell you.  It is 2010 after all, if she was in such great shape why is she still for sale 5 years later?  Nothing above deck works, the through hulls would all need to be replaced.  And of course all the cushions and what not would need to be replaced.  I am way more concerned with standing rigging and masts as well as hull integrity.  Wonder what has landed in the tanks.  The survey says she has some issues with her electrical.  So basically I am thinking this would be buying a hull and everything would need to be replaced.  That can run to a bunch I know that!  And frankly for the cash they are asking I could buy this Morgan Classic.  And it would require a great deal less work!  So what offer 10K for the wreck?

Anyway it just goes to show that yes you can spend till you can't spend anymore on a boat, and of course the more you spend the more you get.  But there are a ton of boats out there and the worse the economy gets the more become available.  Is the economy improving?  Not for me it isn't.  Has it improved for you?  There are some pretty nice boats available in the San Diego area as well, but really I can't see spending an additional 5K or more on shipping.  That 5K could really buy some nice stainless steel rigging, or a new toy for the nav. station.

And on a side note, if you are going to include pictures of your boat on the sales page, and you should, the more the merrier, make sure they are in focus ok?  If you are listing the giant aft owners cabin as a high level selling point, then maybe you should include a few pictures of it don't you think?  Yes thank you for the pictures of the heads, it is always nice to see they are not swimming in filth, but if you are only going to post 10 pictures, I could totally skip the 2 heads and show the other more interesting parts of the boat.

See you on the other side!

Which way to Tahiti?

Evidently you can get there from here, just takes a while.  


Getting out of a large town on a Friday night when you most want to be somewhere else is the same no matter what town you happen to be leaving.  Getting out of Baltimore requires a bridge, Denver's requirement is I70.  Traffic, cars, plenty of people, and just where did they all come from and can't they get out of my way?


Four some hours later we pulled into our hosts lawn outside Chance MD.  Good thing that was where he parked his cars as well.  Jeff and Margarette were kind enough to offer us the use of their efficiency while we were in town as the nearest hotel is back at the cross roads I think.  A room, a nice steak dinner with salad from  the garden and that made for quite a nice evening.  We sat around and drank and chatted till it was quite past time to get some sleep.  


The next morning we imbibed a bit of coffee and made plans for the day.  The wind was still up a bit for us beginners so we wandered around looking at Jeff's boats and getting a bit of a lesson about lines, sheets, and sailing in general. After a while the wind calmed enough that we could embark.  After a bit of a fuss getting away from dock we sailed out of Scotts Cove.  It was interesting to say the least.  Of course we didn't bring our camera, yeah we always forget the camera.  But then again there wasn't anything to really take pictures of, well except for my giant grin as I found out that steering a sailboat certainly isn't like steering a car down the highway.  Not that I expected it to be mind you, but there are a great number of new things to think about.  The 21' Freedom Cat we were in is indeed quite nimble and could I am sure be pretty quick, under the proper hand.  But it was still a great time.  Betty and I shared helm duties, Jeff did Captain crap.  Mainly sitting downwind and regaling us with stories from the day.  Occasionally peering about, about his only comment on sailing was "Pointing a bit close to the wind."  He has quite a long and storied past.  His first sailboat was one he built himself back in the early 70's.  A 45' ferro concrete hull they built in his backyard.  He currently has a few sailboats, the 21' Cat Boat he took us out in, a smaller 12' (?) and then his baby a 424 Pierson.


So we really didn't go anywhere just out into the bay, dinked around out there till Betty got tired and we turned around and headed back.  Total time under sail?  I don't know, 5 minutes or 4 hours.  It went by pretty darn fast.  Turned it around and blew back to dock.  Had a great time.  Can't wait to go do it again.


Mighty thanks to Betty, a greater woman you will never meet, it is a great joy to have her in my life.  Thanks for the years love, here is to many more.  Best birthday ever!

It's not far down to paradise
At least it's not for me
And if the wind is right you can sail away
And find tranquility
The canvas can do miracles
Just you wait and see
Believe me

Sailing!

Such excellent news!  Betty took me out for dinner last night @ Lewnes' Steak House.  Absolutely fabulous I have to say, probably one of the finest steaks I have ever had the pleasure to devour.  We started with a 1/2 dozen chop tank oysters on the half shell, yummy, continued on with a tomato and onion salad with a lite little vinaigrette and blue cheese crumbles.  We then continued on to the main course, Betty had a slab of Prime while I defaulted to my usual Rib Eye.  We shared a baked potato the size of Rhode Island and an equally large plate of sautéed asparagus.  A fine bottle of red accompanied.  The reason for this little excursion?  My birthday is coming up this Saturday and Betty could no longer hold onto my birthday present.  Betty has always had an issue with keeping secrets and has been alluding to the blast we will be having this upcoming Saturday for a couple weeks now.  So between salad and the main course she started handing over envelopes.  Ah a nice little card with a shell on it, then a rather fat little packet.  I opened that and imagine my surprise when I saw this, reproduced from Betty's hand made card...

"Captain Jeff Wilson, a USCG Captain 100 ton, has 30 years living and working on the water.  His love for sailing is apparent through a Craig's List ad and many telephone conversations.  He is willing to share his expertise and abundant knowledge of boats, living aboard and seamanship in a private sailing lesson arranged for your edification and pleasure."

So Friday night I am packing up the hotel room grabbing Betty and we are running down to Chance, MD for the weekend, well at least till Saturday afternoon!

As Betty states in her little card, "After our 1/2 day sailing lesson the rest of the day we will spend either planning our life in the live aboard community or cleaning up my puke and revising our plans."  I plan on getting her a few Dramamine patches, well maybe more than a few, I think I could just cover her in them and might stand a chance.  =)

So we finally get to go out  on something a little smaller than a ferry boat.  She has indicated that it might be as small as a 21', but freely admits she could be completely incorrect.  Whatever.  As long as it has a sail I think I will be quite happy.

So in the mean time I have some assignments to do to fulfill my obligations to my academic group.  Been going to college online for the last few years off and on.  I earned my ASIT from an online school that way and after a hiatus last year decided to return to complete my studies and receive my BSIT.  Not terribly sure if I will live long enough to ever repay the loans, but it beats sitting and moldering in either the various extended stay rooms we seem to live in these days or the apartment in Hatboro.  I am currently taking a class in Distributed Systems and have a big project paper due Friday evening.  Thankfully the guys in my class accepted my pushing and shoving to get things done a little faster than usual so I will be turning in our paper a day early.  Thanks guys!

"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea."
– Antoine de Saint Exupéry

Slacking!

I am totally slacking here.  We have been commuting from our home base, in Hatboro to Baltimore every week and I am going to school online so there just doesn't seem to be enough time in the day to get anything done anymore.  Anyway I have a paper due Monday, yeah go figure, online schools don't care about holidays.  I had a paper due Christmas day as well, which was just a stupid as the one due on Thanksgiving.  But you know it's "all about the Student" at my school.  Except it is a for profit university, so I am always thinking, "it's all about the Student ('s federal loans and grants)".  Who me cynical?

Oh and as to the real reason there doesn't appear to be enough hours in the day?  I love Desktop Tower Defense type games and I been hooked on this one for the last few weeks, http://www.kongregate.com/games/gameinabottle/gemcraft?acomplete=gem

Peace and Love and plug the damn hole in the bottom of the ocean ya corporate bastards.

Tools to learn

This is a fun little thing to play with sail settings.
http://www.nauticed.org/sailing-instructor

I ordered the Americas Boating Course to get started on certificates as well as the learning process.  It maybe a while until I can actually step on a boat so I might as well get some book time under the belt.

Just got back from Baltimore last night, headed to Austin today.  Taking the train to the airport.  Saves a little cash for parking and hey the train is going that way anyway, might as well get on it.

I also started using Pandora.  Here if you care to indulge just a bunch of top 40 stuff from the 70's and 80's and anybody that has caught my ear since.

See ya on the other side.

A few books I am interested in

Starbound


Advanced Bluewater Cruising


The Essentials of Living Aboard a Boat


Just keeping notes...


Ah financing, damn reality...

Total Lust

I should have an Associates agreement with Yacht World.  Well if I was actually driving any business in that direction.

Went to Liberty Marina last night and saw the 45' that I was interested in as a project boat.

http://www.sailboatlistings.com/cgi-bin/saildata/db.cgi?db=default&uid=default&view_records=1&ID=12566&mh=1

Yeah it was a bit of a clunker and needed some TLC.  But my rationale for getting into this particular boat was that it was inexpensive, made of wood so no real "special" tools would be needed and so far I wouldn't need to learn to weld.  By starting off with an older boat I get the chance to learn her by the inch as I restore her.  Of course there is always the possibility that I would just get sick and tired of looking at her before she got done, or run out of time and or money.  Always a problem with this sort of untried endeavor.  We still need to see if Betty can actually handle going to sea for an extended period of time and keep herself inside herself.

In looking at it Betty seemed a bit dismayed at her size.  Do please remember that the only information we have so far is from a couple that lived on a 65'.  20' less makes for quite a bit smaller of an experience.  She has grave concerns about living in such a tiny space, manly doing stuff like getting ready to go to work, having enough room for her work clothes, that sort of thing.  And really I can't see her getting up, wedging herself into a 2 x 2 head and coming out all primped and prettied and heading to work.  I on the other hand am much more accustomed to living in very tight quarters, but then again if we bought this particular boat my "job" would be to overhaul the thing and get her off the hard and blue water ready as soon as possible.  But I digress, because I am excellent at doing that.  But really take a look at this beauty!

http://www.yachtworld.com/boats/1982/Ta-Chiao-Ct-54-2014192/Ft.-Lauderdale/FL/United-States

Whoops, got the above boat confused with the following boat..

http://yachts.apolloduck.com/feature.phtml?id=116411

OMG!  I am speechless.

Oh yes I want that boat.  I am drooling all down the front of my shirt over that saloon, the nav station!  The custom work is incredible!  I can see Betty and I living in that one for a few years.  Pant, Pant!

Gathering information

So I made some calls today to check some prices on marinas.  Learned new stuff, I love learning new stuff.  There are 3 types of docks or slips you can get, Regular, Floating, and T-Head, $4750.00, $5250.00 and $9000.00 some odd respectively.  I quit listening to the T-Head at the first $9----.  That is for a year long commitment.  There is also a fee for using the facilities, they have a pool, showers, laundry facility, etc.  Oh and a great restaurant as well.   Unfortunately they do not allow live aboard while your boat is out on the hard.  Not to surprising, I think it would be difficult to deal with water, waste and other things.  Not to mention fire.  Anyway Betty and I will head out tonight for dinner and a wander, then tomorrow when I have a bit more time I will wander down and take a tour of the place.

Other news, Betty and I took the Cape May Lewes Ferry from, well Cape Mays to Lewes Sunday afternoon.  Was fun to get back on a good sized vessel that heaved and moved, well a little bit at least.  Betty didn't heave and that was nice.  She was a bit uncomfortable.  Oddly enough she liked being on the high decks better than the lower ones.  Saw a tiny glimpse of a dolphin, just a real quick peek as it looked the ferry over then left in a hurry.  I would have as well if this giant clanking white thing was bearing down on me.  So watched the sea gulls and missed the flying fish, but only ever saw those very much further to the south and on the other side of the world.  It was amazing how much I enjoyed going to sea.  The trip lasted about an hour and I throughly loved the salt breeze blasting my face and the movement of the deck under foot.  Stumbled around like a sailor on the downside of a three day bender.  Certainly didn't have any sea legs left over from my last foray onto the ocean blue.  Lets see that was, hang on while I slip my shoes off so I can count, had to have been um 1989?  Took a ride on the USS Nimitz up north to play with the TU-97 Russian Bears.  That was a cold trip, the Bearing Sea is never a warm and inviting place to be.  We exited Bremerton Washington and transited the Puget Sound then went north and played peek a boo.  One the way out we saw a pod of killer whales.  We pulled into Anchorage for Fourth of July that year.  That was fun as well.  I wonder if the Bush Club is still open up there.  I think that is all I am going to say about my experience there.

Anyway was also turned on to a good place to learn how to sail, ah something I am surely going to need to learn how to do pretty darn soon.  I would hate to go and sink my baby before we even cleared the mouth of the harbor.

OK add this to your list

And then there is this poor dude.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63R1SV20100428?loomia_ow=t0:s0:a49:g43:r2:c0.105684:b33473152:z0

Reminder to self, make sure you have navigation equipment on board and look at it.  Other things, when you are circling something the shadows on the deck slowly rotate.

Looking Looking Looking

So what did I do today to advance my dream of going "far foreign"?  First I learned to spell foreign.  Looked for boats, found a cool old wood hull ketch.  http://www.sailboatlistings.com/cgi-bin/saildata/db.cgi?db=default&uid=default&view_records=1&ID=12566&mh=1

I communicated with Russ who also agreed with my assessment of sailboat hull style, full hull with a strong strip of bronze.  He also agreed with my rig type, ketch rigging, makes it easier for us to manage the sails alone if needs be.

I joined Cruisers Forum.  Now I need to learn some basics about sailing.

"Hello World"

   "Hello World"  That was first thing I programmed and all it did was to get a computer to display "Hello World". So this entry is my blog based "Hello World".  This blog is set up to be a place for me to record the heroic struggles that I am sure I am going to have to go through in order to one day step aboard my own boat in the United States and then drop anchor somewhere "far foreign" as Patrick O'Brian has Jack Aubrey say in one of his many wonderful books on turn of the century sailing. Oh god I want to escape from this life of toil and broken dreams and take my chances on the ocean blue!

   A little bit about myself.  It is the end of April 2010 and I am 49 years old and will be 50 in June.  I am currently sitting staring out a window into the courtyard of a hotel outside Baltimore while my wife works at her super secret day job.  I have been unemployed since September 2009 and am now despairing of ever finding another job.  I have read a number of sailing books, Two Years Before the Mast by Dana, the entire Aubrey Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian may he rest in peace.  Most recently I found a great book that really stoked the fire in my belly Deep Water Cruising by Gordon and Nina Stuermer.  More about that later.  

   I can not say that it has been my life long dream to own a sailboat and sail the world ocean, that is my wife Betty's fault.

   We used to live in Colorado then moved from Denver to Austin, TX to follow my job, then on to Hatboro, PA to follow HER job.  While she was in Hatboro we had an opportunity to go to the Baltimore area for an extended period due to her work in mid 2009.  As you may be aware Annapolis is in that area and totally by chance one evening we ended up in downtown Annapolis to have dinner and ended the evening walking the pier area.  If you have ever been there you know that they dock some nice large boats right in the middle of downtown.  She totally fell head over heels in love with the idea of deep ocean sailing as a way of life.  The most amusing thing about this is that she gets motion sick in an elevator.  Okay that is a bit of an exaggeration but you get the idea.  I kind of poo poo'ed the idea as we were supposed to be motorcycle people and the elderly Gold Wing I own is enough of a hole to be tossing money into.  But after a few books and some conversations and another visit to Annapolis in 2010 the bug had bit me and I think I am pretty much totally lost.

  It isn't like I have never been overseas before. I already have one full circumnavigation under my belt and enough sea miles to have done it at least one more time, probably twice, from my ten years in the US Navy. I was in service from 1985 to 1995 and was stationed on the USS Kitty Hawk and USS Nimitz first as part of VAW-112, an E2-C Squadron out of NAS Miramar in San Diego CA, then as part of the AIMD Group out of the same Air Station.  NAS Miramar has since fallen to that reorg axe and is now a Marine base.  Whatever, it was a long time ago and I have grown up a little since then. I have tried to never be that guy that served for a few years then talks about it for the rest of his life because he never did anything else that was worth a tinkers damn.  I have been to sea in big boats, aircraft carriers actually, and have seen a number of interesting places and done some interesting things.  But you know I have never broke out a chart and selected a port of call and weighed anchor, raised sail and went there!  And now Betty has infected me with this wander lust again.  I have always had fiddle feet, but had pretty much been able to batten it down and stop it from infecting my life.  I had settled down got married, joined the Navy, had kids, got out of the Navy, got divorced, got married again, moved a bunch and had figured, well that my time in the Navy was the adventure of my life.  I do hope I am wrong.

   I am not sure how much I will post to this blog, and will try not to let it become my political ravings page, but I do want to post frequently.  My hero of blogging is Jeff Atwood with his Coding Horror blog which actually has enough readers to support him and his family.  I doubt that will happen here, in fact if anyone ever reads it I will be amazed.

   I will leave you with the latest sailboat that I have been admiring.  This is the S/V JOSS and I would love to own her.