Category Archives: What?

Anything related to gear or boat items.

God’s Whisper

I don’t know why I happened to browse our local RV dealer’s web page a few weeks ago. It’s not something I’ve been prone to do. Spend hours every day searching Yachtworld waiting for new listings or price drops on a boat that could replace Eagle Too? Yep. But surf RV listings? Nope, not really a thing for me. Perhaps it was out of discouragement after our recent boat-hunting trip to central Florida, where everything we saw was either stupidly overpriced or so sadly neglected that we wanted to call the authorities to relieve the owners of their parental rights so the poor thing could seek care at a shelter for abused boats. Regardless of the reason, one bright Thursday morning in late January, I decided to take a quick look at local RV listings just to see what might be available. And up popped this—good price, pretty low mileage, and darned handsome, as such things go.

Terra Aquila

On Saturday, Rhonda said “Let’s go into town and run some errands.” I said, “OK dear, and while we’re out, let’s pop into Carpenter’s Campers and take a quick look at this motorhome I saw on their web page.” After 41 years of marriage, she’s pretty used to my just dropping idea bombs out of thin air into her lap. So off we went.

A hour or so later, we were sitting on the sofa of a 300+ square foot land yacht, marveling at the creature comforts. Things like dual gas furnaces and gas/electric hot water, which would mean no more shivering while underway. An onboard generator to run the dual air conditioning units in the summer. An ample number of cabinets and lockers on both the inside and the outside that would devour all the “stuff” we like to travel with. A bed that takes regular sheets and a shower that actually looked like a shower instead of a weirdly shaped phone booth, and a toilet that flushed without having to be hand pumped. This was a level of comfort leagues beyond anything we had lived with in our waterborne life.

The conversation went a little like this: “What do you think?” I asked. “This is really nice,” Rhonda replied. “I guess if the idea seems appealing, we could start looking around more,” I said. “After all, this is the first RV we’ve looked at seriously.” But then I added, “I can’t imagine finding anything else though that would suit us better.” “I think you’re right,” she replied. The coach just exuded quality and showed the care the previous owners had given it. And I’m pretty sure Rhonda said it hugged her.

We talked about the things we could go see while cruising in a land yacht. I did a little research into the make and model and how much it would cost to insure. We slept on it. And the following Monday, we bought it. We’ve named her Terra Aquila. And now that she’s a part of the family, we’ll be charting a quite different course. Too many people know us as Life On The Hook, and I don’t really want to part with the name. But rather than writing about the cruising life, we’ll now be focusing on learning to RV from a sailor’s perspective. I’ve already had a few “well on a boat, it would have been done this way,” moments, with I’m sure more to come. I’m hoping some people will find insights into the transition from water to land cruising informative.

Which brings me to the title for this post. We’d soul-searched for months about trying to figure out our next step after losing our beloved Eagle Too. I’ve said in the past that at certain critical moments in our lives, we’ve been very lucky, as the right opportunity has seemed to present itself at just the right time. And I’ve written about how I believe that luck is actually the result of opportunity meeting hard work and adequate preparation. In this particular case, I have no idea what prompted me to look at RVs on the internet that day. It could be a crazy coincidence that someone had just traded in what is probably the perfect motorhome for us at this moment in our lives, so that I could see it when I looked. Or just maybe, God whispered in our ear that this was the path that we’re supposed to now take. In any event, I hope the friends we’ve made along the way continue to follow along as we embark on this next chapter of our lives.

Waiting On COVID-19

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I’d say that we are within two, maybe three days of having Eagle Too ready to go wherever we might like to take her. Fill up some fuel cans, top off the propane tanks, load some provisions, and we’ll be set to go. The plan has been to try and be ready in late March to seize a weather window and head south—maybe to the Keys, maybe back to the Bahamas. The destination has been a little vague, only the intent to voyage was somewhat certain. But then, that’s the way we’ve tended to travel. We point the bow southward and see where we end up. After arriving, we look around, pick some people’s brains, and decide where we might like to go next. Some may find this lack of a specific plan, and especially our casualness regarding arrival and departure dates, somewhat unsettling. But in the immortal words of that great sage Jimmy Buffet, “I don’t want that much organization in my life.” (Fruitcakes)

So the weather was starting to look pretty good. We put the word out to friends and relatives that we were getting ready to depart. And then this crazy Coronavirus thing happened. And now we’re not sure what to do. The flu comes every year, and we frankly don’t give it any mind. We certainly wouldn’t let it affect our desire to cruise. But this just seems…different. And we don’t know enough to determine if this is just another type of flu, or if it really is the “OMG we’re all going to die!” affliction that many media reports suggest.

Here’s our concern in a nutshell. Having a bad case of flu sucks. But dealing with it from the comfort of a centrally heated and cooled home while lying in a stable, king sized bed with a Walgreens nearby and quality medical care a mere 911 call away seems preferable to dealing with the same affliction while traveling on a boat. You can’t put on hold things like dealing with a dragging anchor or thunderstorm preparations or setting up and running the water maker until you feel better. What would normally be a gentle, sleep-inducing rocking could become an agonizing torment if you’re wracked by fever and muscle aches. Climbing over the stern and into a pitching dinghy to take a wet and bumpy ride ashore to look for medical assistance may not just be difficult, it might become impossible. And as for finding that assistance, well, in our experience, you wouldn’t want to be sick and need help in most of the Bahamian out-islands. You’re lucky if you can find a small clinic, and if you do, it’s probably only open a few hours a week, and that’s if the traveling nurse didn’t miss the mailboat that day. We’ve actually seen fellow cruisers who were injured or sick have better results by reaching out to other boats, quite a few of which have a retired nurse or doctor onboard.

There seems to be advantage in social distancing. Being offshore would put a lot of space between us and anyone infected. But as much as we hate to admit it, Rhonda and I have both crossed the line into that category where the CDC says “you should be very cautious if you are this age or older.”

So what to do? In situations where the path ahead is not clear, we’ll often resort to the time-tested ‘pros-and-cons’ list. But here’s what happened when we thought through both sides:

Pro: If we go, we’ll be effectively self-quarantining, which reduces our chance of infection.

Con: If we get sick, we could die.

Insert loud tires-squealing, needle-dragging-across-a-record-album noise here. All stop. It’s hard to imagine anything we could add to the Pro list that would offset that glaring red flashing Con.

Is the concern overblown? Yes, I’m sure it is. But people die of the flu every year, and the CDC is saying that Covid-19 is about 10 times more contagious and 10 times more deadly.

Even with that, we were still leaning just a little toward going. And then the President announced that all travel by non-citizens from Europe was being suspended. Never in our entire lives have we seen that happen before. And suddenly, the whole world seemed like a much more dangerous place.

So now we feel paralyzed by a lack of information. Maybe this will be really bad. Maybe it will turn the corner in a few weeks and everything will be fine. Only time will tell if this is another 1918 Spanish Flu or just a case of media hysteria. And for that reason, I think we’ll just stay in standby for the next few weeks. Take the boat out locally, do a shakedown cruise, and keep watching the news. If things take a turn for the better, we’ll still be able to squeeze in two or three months of cruising. If not, well, I guess there’s always next year…

For now, stay safe and keep washing those hands!

Bloodwork For Your Engine

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Oil analysis. You get such a comprehensive amount of information from such a simple test that I don’t know why we haven’t done it before. We’re well into our preparations for taking Eagle Too back to the Bahamas for a spring cruise, and one of my concerns is that she’s spent most of the last 18 months gently resting in her slip. Before heading out across the Gulf again, I wanted to make sure that we can totally rely on her propulsion system. So I decided to do an oil analysis on her engine.

Wearing rings, a leaking head gasket, tired bearings: all these problems and more can be identified by analyzing the trace elements in the engine’s oil. Just as routine bloodwork can help you understand what’s happening inside your body, a chemical analysis of your engine’s oil can indicate imminent problems lurking below the surface, waiting to blow up in your face at the most inopportune time.

The process consists of nothing more than running the engine to warm it up, and then drawing out a couple of ounces of oil to send to a lab for analysis. After doing some research online, I decided to use Blackstone Labs. Their standard analysis included all the tests I wanted to have run, their reviews were pretty good, and their price of $28 seemed very fair.

One of the things I liked about Blackstone is that they provide a free sample return kit. Just hit their site and fill in your info, and a few days later a package shows up with everything you need to ship back your oil for analysis. When I opened the package, I found a small white poly bottle for the sample, a plastic bag to put the filled bottle in along with a provided absorbent pad, and then a mailable black plastic bottle to contain it all, with a pre-paid postage label already applied.

The package that arrived from Blackstone Labs

Inside the package. White sample bottle, plastic bag and absorbent pad, black shipping bottle with pre-paid mailing label, instructions.

I know that the Post Office can have an issue with mailing liquids, and Blackstone’s ‘bottle inside a bag with an absorbent pad inside another sealed bottle’ is supposed to mollify their concerns. They even provide a form you can download and take to the Post Office with you that explains the law regarding mailing engine oil, just in case the Postmaster still doesn’t want to accept the shipment. But after reading that it could still sometimes take several weeks for the samples to make it back to Blackstone due to the Post Office treating them as hazardous material, I decided to go a little rogue in order to beat the system. After taking samples of both our engine oil and transmission fluid and bottling them in the provided containers, I then packed them in a well-padded Priority Mail box with tracking for return shipment. This meant that unfortunately I couldn’t take advantage of the pre-paid return shipment labels Blackstone had provided, but it also meant that by conveniently forgetting what was inside the box and saying “no” when asked if I was shipping anything liquid or hazardous, they would quickly make their way to their destination.

Bottled up, ready for return

Less than a week after dropping the samples in the mail, I received an email with our completed oil analysis results. I was delighted with the findings. Everything looked perfectly normal. No coolant in the oil, no excessive metal wear products. Just the readings you’d expect from a healthy, happy little diesel engine. And so for a little bit of effort and a minor expense, we’ve received a great deal of reassurance that our trusty little Yanmar has a long life ahead of it.

Your Papers, Please

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For the last year, most of our attention has been focused on getting our new house in order. Consequently, we’ve been a bit lax on tending to boat chores. With the holidays behind us though, our thoughts have turned to preparing Eagle Too for a possible trip to the Bahamas this spring.

One of the first items on our list was to go over all our documentation and paperwork to make sure everything’s up to date for travel. We normally keep a three-ring binder in the chart table on Eagle Too, our ‘boat book,’ that has all our essential documentation. In one easy to grab package, we have everything we think we will or might need to go ashore and check in with Customs and Immigration or reserve a slip in a marina. What’s in the book? It’s a list of things that we’ve curated through four years of travel, and we think everyone who intends to cruise, particularly to other countries, should have something similar. So here’s what we keep in Eagle Too’s book:

USCG Certificate of Documentation. This is basically our Federal title that shows that we are the legal owners of the vessel. We always get asked for this when checking into a new country, so we keep it right up front. It has to be renewed annually (longer renewal options just became available though), usually on or around the date that you originally purchased the vessel. Note—the Coast Guard is having a major issue with their computer systems at present, and it’s currently taking four to six months to renew a COD rather than the usual week to ten days. Current Coast Guard direction is to keep your expired COD along with a copy of your application for renewal, which will supposedly make you legal. Our copy is in the same pocket as our COD.
US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) DTOPS decal. This decal displays a registration number that you’ll need for CBP when clearing back into the US. It’s basically a tax stamp, because you pay a fee to obtain the decal every year, and then you don’t have to pay a clearance fee when returning to the US from international travel. It expires on 31 December each year, you need a new decal each year, and if you obtain your first one at some point during the year, it’s only good for the remainder of that year, even though they don’t prorate the fee. So if you’re gearing up for your first season of cruising, and you don’t purchase your DTOPS decal until November, it’s only going to be good for two months, even though you paid the entire amount. We’re currently waiting for our 2020 decal to arrive, so we keep the receipt from our online renewal order in the pocket. Note—the directions say that the decal is void if it’s not attached to your vessel near the companionway entrance. But we’ve never applied ours to our boat. We just keep it in the envelope in which it arrives, filed in our boat book. It’s never been a problem, because whenever we’ve checked in to the US, we’ve either visited a CBP office, or used the CBP ROAM app to do it online. We’ve had to supply our decal number, but no one has ever asked whether it’s stuck to the boat.
Our boat insurance policy and several additional copies of our declarations page. We’ve never been asked (that I can recall) by a Customs officer to show proof of insurance, but marinas often ask for it. We have additional copies of the declarations page (which shows what our policy covers and for how much) because on occasion a marina will want a copy of the page for their records, but they sometimes don’t have a working copier.
Our passports, along with additional full color copies of each passport open to the ID page. This one is self-explanatory. If you’re traveling to other countries, you’re going to need your passports. The copies come in handy in some instances. The Customs officers will always want to see your original documents, but I remember in Mexico the official seemed quite pleased when we said “and you can have a copy if you wish” and presented him with color copies. They really seem to love paperwork in Mexico, particularly when you give them lots of things to stamp.
Our state fishing licenses. Just in case we’re ever visited by Florida Fish and Wildlife while we’re trolling a few lines while making a coastal passage. These get renewed annually.
Several copies of our crew list. It’s just a simple document we generated that includes the names, crew positions, date of birth, passport number and country of citizenship for every member of the crew. Which is just Rhonda and I. But sometimes bureaucrats gotta bureaucrat, and they want to apply a requirement that’s meant for ocean-going cargo ships to a small sailboat as well, and ask you to fill out a crew list. Whatever. We’re ready.
Our Federal Communications Commission Form 605-S, Radio Station Authorization. This is the document that issues the official FCC call sign to your vessel. It’s good for ten years. No one has ever asked for it and I really don’t know what purpose it serves. If someone wants to hail us on the VHF, they’re going to call for Eagle Too and not WDH8994, not that we’d answer them if they did. But apparently it’s an international requirement to have this license to legally operate a VHF radio, so we have it just in case, even though it’s a rule that the FCC pretty much ignores within the US. One less thing to trip us up in the event that we ever encounter a Customs officer who’s having a really bad day and wants to try and make our lives difficult.
Our World Health Organization certificates of vaccination. Basically, our shot records. Many countries require proof of certain shots to be allowed entry. But truthfully, no one has ever asked for these either. Our health examination has generally consisted of a Customs officer asking us how we feel and whether anyone has been sick onboard, sometimes accompanied by a small self-certification form for us to fill out. Clearing into Cuba was the only time we actually received a visit from a Doctor before being allowed to clear in, and even he didn’t ask to see our records. But they’re still great to have, because if nothing else, they give us something tangible to turn to when we start asking ourselves questions like “So when do our tetanus shots expire?”
Copies of all current prescriptions. Because we don’t want to have to rely on the bottle labels to prove the drugs we carry are ours, since they tend to get smudgy and hard to read after a while onboard.
NOAA SARSAT Beacon Registration. This is the document that comes with the registration sticker for our Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB), which has to be re-registered every two years. It’s not something anyone is probably going to ask for, but it has all the contact information for NOAA and registration data for our EPIRB in case we need it, and reminds us when renewal is coming up.
Home marina slip contract. Because if we ever have any reason to have to refer to our marina contract, say to look up whether something like grilling onboard is or isn’t prohibited, we know exactly where we can find it.
And finally, we have a separate pocket for each country we’ve visited, in which we place any official documentation we receive when clearing into or out of that country. Sometimes a cruising permit is good for longer than the few weeks or months we’re visiting, and if we return, the document might still be valid. Or a good example is the Temporary Import Permit that Mexico required us to obtain in order to bring our boat into the country. It’s good for 10 years, so if we go back, we’ll know where to find our TIP from our previous visit and not have to pay for another one.

Believe it or not, everything fits in a 1” binder, so it’s no problem to tuck into the chart table, and easy to grab when going ashore to check in. So, do you have a boat book? If so, what’s in it?

By the way, some of the documents we carry are things we applied for over five years ago, and the process to obtain them may have either changed (almost everything can be done online now) or have become lost to the mists of time. So please don’t ask for guidance on how to acquire this or that particular document. Just Google it and I’m sure you’ll find a better answer than one I could give you. Cheers!

It’s Our Liveaboard-iversary!

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It was December 27^th, 2014 when Rhonda and I checked out of the extended stay hotel we’d moved into after selling our house, and settled into our new life onboard Eagle Too. That makes today the 4^th anniversary of our embarking on our full time liveaboard life.

So here we are, four years later, deep in the midst of a transition back to life ashore. A friend of ours said we’re going to be CLODs. I guess it means Cruisers Living On Dirt. Will we still be considered cruisers once we have a permanent address ashore? Perhaps not. I’ve often said that someone shouldn’t claim membership in the cruising tribe who spends more nights sleeping in a bed ashore each year than in a berth afloat. For the last four years we’ve felt a strong affiliation with the tribe because we could literally count on one hand the number of nights we spent sleeping ashore in a year. But next year? Probably not. We do still hope to venture out in the future, but it will most likely be for weeks rather than months at a time. I guess maybe we’ll become part of the Cruiser’s Reserve? (that should totally be a thing!)

We’ll probably have more to say in the future about our thoughts on this transition. But for now, just know that while there are parts of this liveaboard life that we’re going to miss, there are also some pretty definite plusses to moving back ashore that we’re anxiously anticipating. For example, after four years, I think Rhonda and I have both gotten pretty weary of marina showers and restrooms. And there is absolutely nothing I think we’ll miss about trying to wash clothes in a marina washer or at a laundromat. And I really didn’t appreciate how much we missed having a car until we recently bought another one. Traveling around is now quite easy again.

And then there are days like today. A strong cold front is approaching the area, and we’re being buffeted at the dock by 30 knot winds, as the boat dances about, rolling, swaying and creaking. It will be a pleasant change on days like this to be under a sturdy roof surrounded by four brick walls, sleeping in a bed that isn’t tilting and rocking.

We’re supposed to be closing on our house in a little over two weeks, and we’ve starting thinking about the things we’ll need for a life ashore that we at one time owned, but got rid of in the great downsizing after selling our house. Our life today is filled with chartbooks and binoculars and lifejackets and VHF radios. But we’ll soon need things like small kitchen appliances and an iron and a broom and mop and towels for the guest bath. Meanwhile we have a mover scheduled to transport the contents of our 10×20 storage unit to our new home. We’re referring to it as Christmas in January, because we have boxes full of things that we packed away four years ago, and we really can’t recall exactly what might be in them.

But we don’t have a Christmas tree. Or at least, not a proper house-sized one. But since it looks like we’ll be CLODs soon, we used the Everything Must Go! day-after-Christmas blow-out sale to pick up what we’ll need for next year’s holiday decorating.

So I guess that means we’re really on our way…

Hurricane Michael—The Aftermath

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Hurricane Michael grew to be the third most powerful hurricane to ever make landfall in the US, But being on the “good” side of the storm made all the difference in the world for us. The conditions we saw pretty much matched my expectations. Winds topped out at 35 knots (40 mph), a bit of rain, but nothing too unsettling. For once, the worst of it came during daylight hours instead of in the middle of the night, which was a pleasant change from the usual state of affairs.

Now that the storm has passed, I think I did just the right amount of boat preparation for the conditions encountered. The only “hardship” I experienced was that the dockmaster cut the power to the marina at about 9PM last night, because he was afraid that the storm-surge-driven rising water would reach the marina power distribution boxes and flood them. So I had to spend the night without air conditioning. Oh the humanity!!!

It’s only been a few hours since the storm passed, but already the sun is peeking out and the wind has dropped to a gentle breeze. It won’t take long at all to have everything back in its proper place, and the forecast says this weekend is supposed to be beautiful, which means we might spend it out on the hook somewhere. Hopefully we’ll hear soon from others we know who were (or may yet still be) closer to the center of the storm. Meanwhile, the airport is supposed to be reopening tonight, which means Rhonda should be returning tomorrow from her trip out of town. I have to compliment her on her timing. It was a good week to be someplace other than the Gulf coast of Florida.

What’s That Sound?

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I didn’t know propane regulators could potentially sink your boat. Well, I suppose I probably would have realized they could if I stopped to think about it. I just never gave it much thought. Whenever I have to go into our propane locker, I usually give the solenoid a quick glance, make sure the locker drain is clear, and check the pressure on the gauge. But I never think much about the regulator itself.

So let’s back up a little. Rhonda and I have been retired for several years now, and our life generally moves at a leisurely pace. But this summer, we’ve taken a couple new to life afloat, Beth and Stephen on S/V Cattywampus, under our wings to help them develop their skills and confidence. The nice thing is that they’re pleasant people to hang with, and are eager to learn. Oh, and they give us beer, which is no small thing. The not so nice thing is that they both have full time, Monday thru Friday jobs. That means if we’re going to take them out and show them a thing or two, we’re back to having to cram everything into a Friday afternoon to Sunday window. That hasn’t been our modus operandi for quite a while here on the good ship Eagle Too. We’re much more likely to head to that one particular anchorage during the week when no one is there, and head back just when everyone starts showing up Friday evening. That’s just the way we roll.

Anyway, there we were preparing for a Friday afternoon departure from the marina, headed for our favorite anchorage at Pensacola Beach. The plan was to show the crew of Cattywampus the somewhat tricky entrance to Little Sabine Bay. Actually, it’s probably about a 2 on a 10 point scale of trickiness, but I know we were a little intimidated the first time we attempted it seven or eight years ago, so it’s nice to have someone to follow in your first time.

We were almost finished with our underway preps and about to start unplugging shore power and start the engine. As I headed up the ladder to the cockpit, I suddenly thought I heard a new and unusual sound. A hissing sound that I couldn’t immediately locate and isolate. Was it us? Was it someone else? It wasn’t there just a few minutes ago when I went below to flip on our instruments. But it was definitely there now. And then I smelled it. The distinctive and pungent odor of propane. We keep our small green 1 pound propane bottle that we use for our barbecue grill in the stern propane locker where our big 10 pound tanks live. My first thought was that maybe it started leaking? I know those little green bottles aren’t the most reliable things.

I climbed onto our stern and popped open the lid to the locker. I found the source of the hissing sound. It was the regulator. A jet of gas was shooting out a tiny hole in its side. I lifted the tank with regulator attached to look closer. The hole the propane was leaking from was labeled “vent.” Suddenly it all became clear. The diaphragm in the regulator had ruptured. Propane at 150 PSI was blowing out the regulator vent into our locker. No warning or indication. Everything was working fine and then it just apparently blew.

So why did I say that this could have sank the boat? Because while the propane locker lid closes with a gasket and vents out the bottom to the outside of the boat, it was designed to control and contain the type of low pressure, gradual leak you get when a fitting is a little lose or a gas line develops a small crack. But what we had here was the full 150 PSI gas pressure of the 10 lb propane bottle blowing out the regulator vent, leaking right past the locker lid gasket and enveloping the stern of Eagle Too in a cloud of propane. One errant spark could have produced a fireball, the likes of which would have been detrimental both to Eagle Too’s stern, and me standing there in the middle of it.

Some thoughts: How lucky we were that we just happened to catch it as it started. It wasn’t leaking, I went below for a few minutes, and then when I went back up topside, it was. If it had happened in the middle of the night, or while we were away from the boat, the entire tank would have vented. Maybe things would have still turned out OK, but I’m glad we didn’t have to find out. Also, I’m glad it happened here, where we have easy access to West Marine to pick up a replacement. If this had happened down in the islands somewhere, there’s no telling how long we might have wandered around without the ability to use our stove or oven, looking for a replacement regulator.

As it was, I was able to borrow Stephen’s car, pop up to West Marine, grab the only regulator they had in stock, rush back to the boat, and swap out the bad one for the new one. I even had a roll of the special purpose yellow Teflon tape onboard that’s safe for use in gas and fuel systems. Never use the white Teflon tape for gas and fuel lines, only the petroleum approved yellow stuff.

An hour later, we were on our way, with no harm done (except to our bank account) and a good story to tell. We even still managed to get anchored down before sunset. But tell me, does anyone think to carry a spare propane regulator onboard? We certainly never have. We carry one for the grill, but not for the main gas system.

So if you’re a cruiser, and your boat is approaching early middle age like ours, you might just want to think about adding an extra regulator to your list of onboard spares. Or potentially spend time eating cold Beanie Weenies while trying to source a new one down in the islands.

Hope That Checked the Box

Our Hypalon Anniversary

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Yesterday was our 39th wedding anniversary. Checking online, there seems to be some disagreement as to whether or not there is a specific gift associated with 3.9 decades of matrimony. While there are a few mentions of lace being appropriate, there are more references that basically say that once you hit 25 years, you’ve been married long enough that you need to quit taking it so seriously and only shop for gifts every five years. Thirty-five years is jade, and 40 years is ruby. Thirty-nine years? You’re on your own. So it seems to us that since there are no rules, we’re free to do whatever we want, and damn the social consequences! So from now till forever, we’ve decided that the appropriate gift for 39 years of marriage is Hypalon and aluminum. Preferably something in a nice boat shape.

Unwrapping our anniversary gift—a West Marine aluminum hull Hypalon RIB. Man that’s a lot of plastic! Makes you wonder why everyone gets so worked up about plastic straws. Be free little dinghy!

Pumping up our new baby. It’s Florida, it’s August, so yes, I’m sweating. But did you notice I’m pumping up the boat with the leg I broke back in January? Yay me!

So light, clean and shiny! I’ll bet this thing is fast!

It just fits on the foredeck with no room to spare. A half inch longer and we wouldn’t be able to open the anchor locker. Thank you, West Marine, for your special 39th anniversary edition RIB!

Just like parking a new car in the driveway. The neighbors stop by to see the shiny new boat.

Old and new. After almost eight years, we’ll miss our old dinghy Eaglet. We had a lot of good trips together. But we just ran out of patience with crappy Mercury high pressure air decks. It’s a solid aluminum double hull for us from now on!

So just a few specifics for those who care. As we wrote about in our previous post providing a long term review of our Mercury air deck dinghy, we were just really tired of having to buy new air decks every year or two. We wanted a Rigid Inflatable Boat, or RIB, with a solid, deep V hull so that we’d never have to worry about a soggy floor again. Plus we can go faster. We learned down in the Bahamas that you really need a go-fast boat if you want to get around. With the long distances to cover, anything else is just a waste of time. But we wanted a RIB with a flat interior floor and a covered bilge so that all our belongings wouldn’t be sloshing around in two inches of water constantly. That meant a double hull. Fiberglass double hull RIBs are heavy. Since we lift our dinghy onto our foredeck for passages, weight was definitely an issue. Then we found out about aluminum hulled RIBs. The double hull models are quite a bit lighter than fiberglass ones. When West Marine marked all their boats down 30% in a recent one-day sale, and we saw we could save an entire boat buck ($1000) on a double hull aluminum RIB that was the perfect size for our foredeck, well, we jumped at it. It was our anniversary after all!

By the way, we’re currently looking for a good home for Eaglet, our old dinghy. Please tell us if you know of anyone who may be interested in adopting a loved but well worn inflatable boat with special needs. 🙂

Galley Notes—Stove Topper

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Anyone who owns a boat knows that anything with the word “marine” associated with it commands a premium price. But did you know that a lot of the pieces and parts onboard are actually the same as the ones used in motor homes and travel trailers? It makes sense, since we tell people that our boat is basically an RV that floats to help them understand what it’s like to be a liveaboard cruiser. From water pumps and plumbing parts to locker latches and tank level gauges, power cables and hoses to LED lights and galley items, there’s a wide range of components that you can save a bundle on if you shop for them at your local RV store rather than at West Marine.

For example, the Seaward Princess propane stove on our Hunter 376 was also used in motor homes. So when we went looking for a stove top cutting board (which Rhonda won’t let me under any circumstances do any cutting on!), we found one at our local RV dealer for less than $40 that was custom made to fit.

I might not be allowed to chop and slice on it, but it does really extend the counter surface while we’re doing prep and cleanup, and it just looks great. So if you haven’t tried it yet, take a run down to your local RV dealer and wander around their parts department for a while. I think you’ll be amazed at all the things you’ll see that you’ll recognize and/or could use onboard, and you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the cost compared to marine store pricing.