A little less camping out

Well, as it says, we are doing a little less camping out on our boat and have been adding a little more comfort. Scott and I started with a bare bones boat! NO water, NO electricity, NO engine, NO rigging, NO bed, and with a list to long to mention here, the worst was NO FRIDGE! Imagine no cold drinks when you wanted them or food going to waste because you hadn't used it up before going back. There is always the 50 pounds of ice carried back to the boat over the years, now even more difficult because it's 300 feet to the pier plus a mile to the store to get just the most expensive ice. For our latest creature comfort, it was time to tackle putting in the fridge. Scott and I rebuilt the ice box 3 years ago, and did a great job. During a heat wave several years ago, she held 100 pounds of ice for 10 days while the air temp was somewhere around 100 degrees F. The first part was picking a compressor and plate. The box we made was for 100 pounds of ice with food storage on the shelf above it. The shelf above is deep enough for a bottle of wine to stand upright and still close the lid. That's pretty big. When cleaning I can barely reach the bottom and I've got fairly long arms. Scott, after doing tons of research, decided on a water cooled system. The water cooled system is better for the tropics, the water around the boat is almost always cooling than the air, which air cooled was the alternative. Listening to other boaters who've gone south, the water cooled should cut down on how often the compressor runs. For my non-boater friends, the fridge is the biggest energy draw on a boat. It was tense getting the plate in place and not brake anything, we'd already accidentally broken the first one they sent us, bad instructions on where to bend a tube. Scott absolutely hates doing plumbing on a boat, and I have to agree that it is not easy under the best of circumstances. It usually involves spending a day going to Lowes, Home Depot, and several specialty plumbing & hardware stores to find all the parts we need. This plumbing job was no different. After several days of installation, we can have cold food and drinks! A nice cold glass of white wine after a long day really beats the warm glasses we were having.

A couple of other projects checked off of what we are calling the lifestyle list: a fresh coat of paint under the cockpit, our battery bank locker has been cleaned out and freshened up, the cabinets in the galley are going in (keeping things from flying around underway is a much better), cushions cut of both settees in the main salon, thicker mattress for our bunk, a new locker forward of the head for extra storage, and we finally decided where to put an extra water tank to bring us up to about 50 gallons of water on board. We are in the home stretch now and are both thinking about moving on again.

The weather has been great here. While my heart goes out to all of our friends suffering through the heatwave, we've been enjoying 70 to 75. It's been a little over cast in the morning and sunny in the afternoon. Sorry to rub it in, but it's been a long time since we've enjoyed the summer, we are usually working our backsides off on the boat. Now we can just take our time and enjoy where we are for a little while. It's really nice to be here and Scott and I notice the reasonable priced mooring balls for sell. Tempting, a little bit, but then we hear from friends south and know we are only at the beginning of our adventure....