Summarizing our Summerizing

 

Wilbur has to burrow under his pillows if his clueless parents don't cover him up when he's obviously quite chilly

 

When we arrived back at our marina after our Shake Up Cruise we knew we'd better get a start on readying the Knotty Cat for another brutal Florida summer. This will be our third full summer here and we're finally getting a grip on ways to survive the tropical heat. And I just want you to know, I'm not the one who came up with the term 'tropical' for Florida. I read somewhere that the 'South' ends somewhere in Georgia; after that it's tropical all the way.

Now that we have many systems in place to combat the heat I cringe when I remember how unequipped we were our first year here.

We now have:

A phifertex sunscreen around our dead lights (or wind shield if you think of us as a car) which faces east. It's snapped in place and doesn't have to be removed when we sail.

A phifertex sunscreen dead astern (at our rear end and it can be unzipped and put away when we set sail) which faces west and keeps us from baking during the afternoon.

We can now sit in the cockpit (back porch) in the afternoon without getting fried.

 

A close up picture of Phifertex. Look at all the colors!!

(this picture is from Sailmaker's Supply)

 

Home Depot patio curtains (they are very porous and allow the wind to blow through without trouble) tented over our boom and the bow. While they look pretty feeble, they keep out a lot of UV rays and also deflect some of the heavier rains we get during the summer.

 

What a mishmash of crap. But it works!

 

Air conditioners. I could write a thesis on this particular subject. Well, maybe not, but almost.

We don't have built in air conditioners and most likely never will so while we sit here in our slip we use A/C window units. Back in August of 2011 we set sail from Indiantown (in central Florida) where the Knotty Cat had sat on the hard since May of the same year. We were going to transit the Okeechobee and there was no way we could do this without A/C. This was because we were going to have to dock every night. I can't even remember if there are any anchorages in this waterway but it was August and unless you've experienced it you wouldn't believe the size and volume of mosquitos there. They arrive like angry B-52 bombers as soon as the sun sets.

So we went and bought a horribly expensive (and we found out horribly inefficient) West Marine air conditioner. Each evening after docking we had to heave that sucker atop the Knotty Cat since it wasn't stable enough to stay in place while we moved during the day. We then had to sleep in the salon since it only (slightly) cooled this area. After we arrived at our Marina here on the gulf coast we were able to leave the air conditioner in place. However, we were still sweating 24/7. We finally draped tarps over the windshield (anchoring them with our fenders) and since we lacked hatch covers I would lay our cockpit cushions over them during the day to keep out the sun.

First summer. Tarp covered windows and up on top and to the right; the West Marine air conditioner. Pretty!

 

Luckily we paid for the extended warranty because our deluxe air conditioner broke down within about 3 months. Its replacement and its replacement's replacement also broke down within 3 months. We finally got smart, sold the last unit on Craigslist before it could break down, and the following summer bought 2 window units for about a 10th of the cost. BTW, we made sure the new owner knew about the extended warranty should anything go wrong with it. We've never heard anything from him so maybe he finally got a good unit.

Summer number two is when we bought two 5,000 BTU units and with one over the salon and one over our berth we were a lot more comfortable and I was quite happy that I no longer had to re-convert the salon from a berth back to a settee every day. Also that second summer we had the sunscreen for the windshield made and I sewed some hatch covers. We tried several methods at the stern where the western sun drilled its rays through our cockpit door. This included some straw-like roll up curtains we salvaged from the dumpster but they just didn't do the job. We ended up having that sunscreen made too and it made a huge difference. Some marina friends had draped their boat in Home Depot patio curtains so of course we hustled off to buy some for ourselves.

From the stern looking toward the bow: on the left you can see our phifertex windshield cover; it wraps all the way around to the other side. Straight ahead is the box that covers our berth air conditioner. Over head are our Home Depot curtains.

 

Every additional layer of systems helped but guess what? During the hottest part of the day our poor Knotty Cat was still uncomfortable. Trying to do anything; sewing, cleaning... would bring on a sweat storm.

So now, in this our third summer, we replaced the 5,000 BTU unit over the salon with an 8,000 unit and kept a 5,000 BTU for our berth.

Wilbur is the true barometer of whether the Knotty Cat is now set for summer. When he does 'the tuck', which involves lying on his pillows with his paws all drawn up under his body and gives us his poor-me-winky-blinky-eye look, we know to grab his blanket and cover him up. Only then does he relax, stretch out, heave a huge sigh, and go to sleep.

The fact that has happened now that summer is here...

Dare I say, "By jove I think we've got it!" ? Because I think we do.

 

Is that a blanket on Wilbur? Is this June in Florida?

YES!!

 

I don't even want to think about having to take all this stuff down when we get our first hurricane threat.

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

The Sweating Season

Hans and I, both very much northerners (during those years we never did enjoy the more than 9 months of cloud cover at a time), are now entering our third summer as liveaboards here on the hot, sunny, and steamy western coast of Florida.  We are either becoming a bit more accustomed to the heat or we've just given up any hope of ever knowing what it's like to not sweat for 24 hours a day.

I'm still amazed at the destructive rays of the sun and we are only now feeling like we have a small handle on its power. After suffering through our first summer here we covered the dead lights (or windows that don't open) that surround our salon area with a sunscreen that snaps onto the outside of our boat. 

Then last summer we had a sun shade made for our western facing stern. It very conveniently zips into our bimini and means that we can now sit in relative comfort during the early evening hours and not feel like a couple of sizzling eggs in a skillet. In the very near future we'll be draping the Knotty Cat in her Home Depot patio curtains that supposedly block an additional 15% of the sun.  And last week we installed two air conditioners. 

Before: closed hatch with a sunbrella cover.

Open hatch.

After: we cut a hole in a Rubbermaid container, stuffed an air conditioner  into the opening and dropped it over the open hatch. It was a perfect fit.

Who'd think there was an air conditioner behind that box?

What a difference. 

I had enjoyed our open-hatch-fresh-air winter so much that I dreaded having to deal with another hot and closed up summer. But thanks to Hans' ingenuity we now have cool dry air down below and I think I may even be able to sew in comfort.

Hans was away on business last week and here's Wilbur watching for him during his evening ritual.

It's been a while since I've posted and needless to say life at the marina continues to be interesting.  I'll catch up on all the doings here on my next post.

A year or so later...

We just realized that a year ago in August we gave up our apartment and with both our vehicles loaded to the point of bursting (Wilbur rode with me), we made the two day trip from Pennsylvania to Florida.  We then moved our Knotty Cat through the Okeechobee Waterway to our new stomping grounds (that wouldn't have happened this summer as the one fixed bridge in the Okeechobee is now at 49' and we have a 50' mast).  I still can't call us cruisers at this time because we're living in limbo at a marina which is basically a trailer park on the water, but we're thankful that if we have to be stuck anywhere, at least we're on our boat.

Even though it's still hotter than hell.

We were just a bit more prepared for the heat this year though; we had a sun shield type of thingy made for the Knotty Cat that covers her wrap-around windows, we bought some outdoor curtain panels from Home Depot and draped them over our boom and over a rope strung from the mast to the jib so the boat ended up looking  like a giant tent (all were removed for Isaac the No Show Hurricane),  I made hatch covers, and best of all we now have a cheap Wal Mart air conditioner** sitting over our berth hatch. Speaking of air conditioners, please don't ever waste your money on one of those horribly expensive units from West Marine.  When we suddenly headed out last year and knew we would be in mosquito territory while crossing the Okeechobee, we panicked and without doing the proper research (my job) we bought one.
We are now on our third unit.
Number one lasted from August through September (2011).
Number two from Memorial Day to the end of July (2012).
Number three from July until.... we're just waiting.  The control knobs on all of them broke within the first couple of weeks, they are noisier than hell, inefficient, expensive to run, and the first two gave a hideous last gasp before expiring.  The only reason we're still stuck with one is because West Marine won't give us our money back.  So we continue to take advantage of the extended warranty which will hopefully allow us to replace it for the rest of our lives, or until we get totally sick and tired of it.

So then our refrigerator decided (as would I ) that August would be a delightful time to go on vacation. I discovered this only after a grocery shopping trip which of course involved many items that don't do well in the heat.  I was a bit puzzled when I realized that the frost build up on the freezer compartment had diminished quite a bit and I grew alarmed when it was obvious that the inside of the fridge was as warm as the outside.
This was on a Thursday.
I defrosted the whole thing in a weak attempt to jump start it but by Friday I knew we were up that proverbial creek.

I guess that hair dryer may as well be used for something!

So while Hans was at work and I was Kravitzing around the marina, I whined about our plight to anyone who would listen.  I know one of my last posts put a 'not so nice' slant on the topic of neighbors and I now feel it necessary to post about the ever so elusive 'good neighbor'. And one of these people would be Brian from the Blue Moose. Brian is a natural born Mr. Fix-it and he volunteered in a heart-beat to check out our system. This was after he'd spent the day insulating the attic of a friend's mother and most likely would have preferred relaxing with a beer. But before I knew it he was sweating in our engine room and replaced both of our refrigerator fans that were no longer working (we never even knew they existed!) (and at a fraction of the cost if we'd gone with the West Marine model) and when we still weren't cooling by the next day he charged up our freon. A couple of tweaks later (he even consulted with Mike from Zero to Cruising) and a very cheap visit ($40.00) from Captain Ron the refrigerator guy (who verified we didn't have a a leak) we were back in business and I spent the next few days lifting the lid of our refrigerator just so I could enjoy the feeling of dry, cold air***.
I just wish we could have helped Brian a few days later when he discovered his air conditioner had broken down at the end of a long hot day. He was able to fix it but only after climbing over the engine, removing and cleaning the filter for the 'nth time, disconnecting and cleaning too many hoses of too many barnacles....

When Brian and his wife Sally leave here after Hurricane season we'll miss them (that is if we don't follow them). They are super nice people.  But then again, they are sailors.

...and then the Baby Bear said...

Last month we enjoyed a cook out at the marina and another one is scheduled for this weekend.

And here I am in the middle, doing what I do best...
...talking.

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** I no sooner wrote about how wonderful our Wal Mart air conditioner was when it too crapped out on us.  We took it back and since it was under warranty we could have received one in exchange.  Except they didn't have any (they're now stocking electric heat logs!) and we're now back to camping out in our salon area on our 'just slightly smaller than a double bed'.  Remember this includes Wilbur the Amazing Expanding Pit Bull.

***After yet another provisioning type of trip to the grocery store I discovered that the fridge had enjoyed its vacation so much the first time that it skipped out on us yet once again without any kind of prior notice!  This time it was our freezer 'plate'. It was leaking freon like no one's business and of course needed to be replaced.
We now have a whole new refrigeration system.

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I find it a bit strange though that three boats here at the marina suffered from 'fridge failure' within the same week, not to mention those with air conditioner issues. And last week we saw at least three toilets in the dumpster! You can't tell me that appliances don't belong to some sort of union because I'm convinced they all conspire to kick the bucket at the same time.  We no longer discuss our outages while on our boats and instead huddle in the parking lot in order to compare notes of failing systems.  Having once belonged to a union (and there is strength in numbers) I feel it's best to keep our appliances in the dark as much as possible.

When I have time...

... I plan on posting about living aboard a boat in a marina.

But, just when I think I have a minute I realize there's something I forgot to take care of. Like filling our water tanks, and considering that we use the bath house for most of our showers we still manage to go through about 70 gallons of water in less than a week.

I've finally decided to save myself about a half hour of time by just waiting for Hans to get home from work and handing me the hose from the dock while I grab it with a boat hook. This is way more simple than me trying to get it in the boat without dropping it in the water (and dock water is gross!). This week after filling the tanks I couldn't help but notice how dirty our cockpit was and decided to hose it out. I'll give it a good cleaning some other day I told Hans, but then I decided to take advantage of the cooler temps and ended up scrubbing the whole thing. And then I saw grease spots on the outer deck that had dripped from our grill, and what is that stain up at the bow... ? I think I now have scrubbing elbow and sadly this will all have to be done again next week.

I'll think of something that makes our life interesting but remember I need to get to the office for ice and since Wilbur needs to take a walk I'll kill two birds with one stone and take him with me. And with Junior along that little job is guaranteed to take twice as long (I'm pretty sure a lusty blood hound once took unfair advantage of one of Wilbur's ancestors because there's not a blade of grass that goes un-sniffed during these excursions). Our mailbox is also over at the office but do I ever remember to take my key with me? And there goes another trip.

I'll go to sit down at the computer and remember I need to do my daily creative shuffling of our refrigerator's interior. We have a wonderful Adler Barber refrigerator with freezer. But everything on the bottom of the fridge ends up freezing and the stuff on the shelves up and away from the freezer don't get as cold as they probably should. This isn't a defect, it's just the way it is. So everyday I swap thawed out ice packs with frozen ones. I also have a couple of pliable sheets of stuff that look like bubble wrap and I lay our eggs and butter, sour cream etc... on these. I sit our milk and things like potato salad right on top of the freezer, they don't freeze but they stay very cold.

I take our bunk apart and convert it back to a sitting area (something we do everyday since it's too hot to sleep in our berth) and think, today I'll start a post but then notice our carpet is dirty again which is what happens when your carpet is one tone and you have a dog and feather pillows and you live on a boat! Not that sweeping these small areas is so time consuming but in order to get to the sweeper, I have to crawl over the obstacle course that's taken over our port berth to the locker where the sweeper resides.

I decide I don't feel like collecting all my shower stuff and then trek all the way to the bath house so I shower on the boat. Aha! with all the time I saved I'm going to take it easy and upload pictures that have been sitting on my camera for over a week. But then I realize I can't remember the last time I cleaned out the shower filter and after venturing into the engine room to dismantle it I'm completely grossed out over how filthy it is. And while I'm at it I should probably see if I can figure out why the sink is draining so slowly.

I swear I go to the grocery store every day. It's not that I buy tons of stuff but I try to watch for sales and now that we're within a stones throw of a lot of stores I don't need to keep tons of provisions on board and can actually use the cupboards in our berth for our clothes and not ten boxes of tuna helper.



Isn't this lovely?

We had to use tarps to cover the dead lights (or windows) in our cockpit in order to keep out the hot Florida sun. We've also re-purposed our cockpit cushions by covering our hatches with them. This also keeps out the sun and who cares if it seems like we're living in a cave? It's better than living in an oven.








Just try to get some sewing done with a pit bull lying at your feet. I pray he doesn't knock that support out from under my table. And the other day I had a heart stopping moment and nearly sent for a priest when my sewing machine started sewing all by itself. Then I realized Wilbur had flopped down on the foot peddle. He's mommy's little helper.

Now that Hans is gone all day long, someone misses his daddy!

This past Sunday we spent the day at the beach with some very new friends and watched speed boat races. This is the first time we've left Wilbur alone for more than a couple of hours and right before we left the boat we were a bit puzzled about the air conditioner. It didn't seem to be blowing cold air. But the day was very cool and the unit was very new so surely we were imagining things.

When we got home eight hours later we were horrified to realize we could smell our head from the dock and were even more horrified to enter a very stuffy and very warm boat!

Yes, our air conditioner was indeed on the fritz and our holding tank took advantage of the situation and developed a bizarre case of the vapors.

I'm just very thankful that it had to happen on the coolest day we've experienced since we've been here and never again will we leave Wilbur alone for this long unless the promised highs for the day won't go above the 70's!

I spent the next day getting a new unit (covered under warranty), calling our dentist's office in Pittsburgh (for the third time) and asking why they're still sending their bill to our old address, and making sure to buy a bottle of bourbon.

You see, after finally moving the now defunct air conditioner to our vehicle (which required said vehicle to be emptied of our winter stuff and ramming it all into our already overflowing port berth and now I'll never find that damn sweeper!), feeding and walking our neglected and bewildered baby, we sat down (in our very smelly boat) to a crappily thrown together dinner of tortilla chips, nacho cheese, and the tiny amount of salsa I was able to scrape out of the bottom of what I had thought was a full jar! I was looking forward to a well deserved drink, and realized I was out of bourbon! Talk about the straw that broke the camel's back!

So anyway, if and when I get some time, I fully intend to post about what it's like to live on a boat in a marina!