Our Little Pirate

Finally getting around to posting again. Life has been very busy.

Our daughter had a pirate day at school. Of course, who could be better prepared than a kid who lives on a boat? Complete with a "Captain Feathersword" sword (from the Wiggles) and an appropriate amount of attidtude.

Fair warning, me hearty's, you should be scared!

(oh, and there's skulls with crossbones all over her leggings! Teehee!!!)

Big Girl Room

It has been a while since I last posted. I have been very busy with new endeavors. But I have a moment today and thought I should update the posts. Our big girl has graduated from the tiny bed(room) to the actual big girl room - aft cabin - complete with bed, shelves, cupboards, and even a little bit of floor space! Wow, it was way past time. I wish we had done this a year ago. We can actually leave lights on and watch the television at audible levels after our darling is asleep. Something we haven't done in over 3 years! Living aboard has always been great but it just got better! We have our living room back :)
First shot - the old 'room'. She's as long as the bed!

Second shot - the new room. So girlie!!
Third shot - one happy girl!

"Racing" stripes

Got kicked off while I was posting the other day. So here's the last in the painting series. The stripes. After we completed the water line stripe, we decided the top stripe didn't need to be as wide as previous. She looks so beautiful now with the water reflecting from her hull. Something we had never seen before, with the old oxidized paint. When it stops raining (one day) we will try to get a shot from the dinghy as Atlantic Grace floats at the dock.

Antifouling

Antifouling done. Yes, that is a red patch on the bottom starboard. But it's all antifouling. Who's looking except the fish?

White hull

When she was all white, we thought we were finished. But we had a bit of time, so we kept going.

Painting... painting... painting

Next came the full coat of gray. We painted from the bottom up past the water line then from the top down past the water line, thus ensuring extra coats where

needed. And, man, did she ever look like a battleship all in gray.

Incredible.

Painting

Here's the bottom first with the clear sealer over the steel then with the first coat of white

primer. You can see the yellowing of the sealer as it went over the older paint above the water line.

Scraping

When Cos first saw what he was going to have to do, he was a bit discouraged. But hard work paid off and in just over a week, he had the bottom clean and ready for painting. Long, hard days.

Haul Out

There she is, getting lifted from the water. It's just an unnatural sensation, seeing your boat floating... on air.














There was a bit of ice damage at the water line but for the most part, even the anti-fouling held up very well. The black you see is the last coat we put on 7.5 years ago before launching.














She's a heavy boat. at 44,000 lbs, it looked almost as though the wheels on the travel lift were going to bust.

Working Vacation

We were 'on the hard' for a couple weeks and just relaunched this past Monday. It was time (way past time) for some bottom maintenance and we had yet to put our own paintjob on the hull above the water line. So out it came. While toddler and I spent just over a week at the cottage, dear Cos scraped the bottom of the boat down to bare steel. Then, once grandparents were available to stay with our princess, I joined Cos for the painting portion of the project. It was quite a job. On bare steel, Cos applied an epoxy sealer. Then it was three coats of epoxy primer on the bottom and two coats of epoxy primer on the sides. We overlapped the top and bottom coats to thicken it up at the water line. Then we applied a two part epoxy finish coat from the water line up. Antifouling went on the bottom next, with a double coat near sensors and at the water line. Finally, we used a one part finish paint to add back the 'racing stripe' (LMAO) and an additional stripe just above the water line. We always thought she was a pretty boat. But, my goodness, what a fresh coat of paint can do! Just beautiful. It's like falling in love all over again.

I'll post some pictures of the work from haul-out to completion.

Storm Beauty

Last night, we "raced" (no we didn't speed... we can't afford the gas these days) down the 400 with the threat of a major storm visible to the west of us for the entire journey. Extreme thunderstorm warnings were issued as well as tornado watches for the entire area. To the west of us, 'tornadic' activity had been spotted. We just wanted to get home, and unload the car, before the skies opened up. We saw downed and uprooted trees along the way. It didn't look promising. But true liveaboards never run from a storm. In fact, most liveaboards WILL race home when a storm is coming, just to tie an extra line or to make sure everything is battened down. While most people will jump at the chance to leave their home when bad weather is coming, a liveaboard will cancel plans in order to stay home. That doesn't mean I like to stay in when the boat is tossing and turning on a nasty day. Quite the opposite. I've explained to my dear man that when other people cosy up at home with their children because they would never think of taking them out in this weather, that is when I take my toddler to the closest mall. Nothing like unsteady, rolling, tossing floors to upset a toddlers fine sense of 'balance'. But we don't venture far.

Well, we got home and unloaded the car with big fat drops of rain falling slowly around us. The kind of raindrops you can almost dodge, if you're stealthy enough, but will blind you temporarily if one gets you in the eye. It was a race, or so we thought. Got everything inside and even managed to set up the air conditioner (supposed to be some humid day today), with no big rainfall. Then it stopped. Nothing. No rain. No thunder. No storm. I'm not complaining. Quite the opposite. What happened next was just one of God's great gifts to us. And I got pictures. I brightened up a couple of them so you could see the colours better. But I left one darker so you could better appreciate how it really looked. The rainbow seemed to appear in the midst of a very dark and turbulent sky. True beauty.

Funny of the day

We moved our boat from our winter slip to our gorgeous summer slip with a view. We were tying everything in place and Christina, who MUST help whenever possible, was holding the line for a bumper while daddy moved some dock lines around.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as Christina dropped the extra large bumper into the lake with a big splash. It was between the boat and the dock so no big panic.
While I continued what I was doing I called out to her and said that she shouldn't drop it in the lake because it might float away.
Suddenly I felt a comforting hand on my back and I heard her gently say,
"It's okay Mommy. We have more clean ones on the boat."

Spring

Spring, for us, has officially sprung.
The plastic cover came down in record time this past Friday. C made some minor alterations to the frame for next years cover. Then the lumber came down on Saturday. It feels so different, now that we're out of our plastic bubble. A little vulnerable, I guess. Definitely more aware of what I'm wearing as I wander around near the big pilot house windows.
We had one almost mishap with the cover coming down.
When the cover goes up, one of the stays gets moved in order to make a bigger doorway. When C went to move it back to it's proper location, he forgot to tie off the triatic. I was inside cooking supper when I heard a loud and urgent sounding bang on the cabin side. I quickly ran up the ladder to hear C saying, "grab that blue line, quick". That's when I realized that our mizzen mast was slowing lowering itself down, rotating on it's pedestal. Oops! I quickly grabbed the line and easily righted the mast. Seems the whole process of self-lowering our mizzen is even easier than we thought it might be.
Considering C got off of nightshift that morning and had not slept in well over 24 hours, I think we can let the little error go. Whew!
Oh, and need I say, we had a little audience for this. A couple of racers who NEVER make mistakes, of course. Does anyone else find that whenever something goes amiss, there's is always an audience?
Anyway... yeah!!!!! Cover is down!!!!
Now if only that guy would move out of our summer spot so we could go back to our million dollar view at the end of the dock.

Tears of Joy

Our little girl is a liveaboard baby. If I had any doubt in my mind, she cleared it for me.

We came home from the cottage, after an extended stay. When we arrived, I took her out of the car and said, "Look, there's your boat!". All was quiet. We walked down the dock and as we got closer I repeated, using words she will often use, "Look, there's boaty!". Again, quiet.

I put her on board and turned to see what hubby was carrying. When I turned back, she had her head down on the cabin top and she was sobbing loudly, with tears streaming down her face. I instantly thought she must have hurt herself and ran to her asking what was wrong.

Through her sobs, and after many repeats, I finally understood what she was so emotional about. She said, "I missed boaty for such a long, long, long time" and she continued to sob. I carried her inside and we cuddled. I sat on her bed with her and she suddenly perked up and asked if I would like to see her treasures. Then she proceeded to show me every little toy or nick nack that surrounded her bed, piling it all up in the centre, telling me all about each piece. She was so incredibly happy to be home.

A drama queen, for certain. But with all the comments about how happy she is to have all that space at the cottage, we begin to question if we are providing enough for her. Thank you, baby girl, for answering the question.