Life on the Boat

7 Jan 2016

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Merry Christmas from Kemah

The longest day of the year has passed. Do you know what that means? That means everyday from here to the 21st of June the day light hours get longer. Now don't you feel better?!

We were pleased when we found that our dock neighbors decorated their boats for Christmas. It was fun to see how they did that so we decided that we would join in.
Our first Christmas!

Christmas Boat

The decorating crew
Taken by Jon Duffendack

We spent Christmas back in Kansas with the kids and other parts of our family. It was great to see them all and I have to admit it was nice to get away from the boat for awhile. Being away from the boat was good as we had hit the ground running when we got here so it was nice to catch our breath.

While it may be thought that we sit around the boat enjoying the floating lifestyle there are a few dues to pay before we get there. I read on another site that "It isn't all cocktails and sunsets." We ran out of little umbrellas for our fruity drinks so we suffered for a few days.

We have been working hard fixing, adding improvements and cleaning. This is the part you have to do to earn those umbrella drinks. And man do we feel like we earn them. It always seems like it takes a lot longer to get something done than it would on a house. We spent 3 days scrubbing all the spaces to get rid of 30 years of dirt and mildew.

Yes we are having fun.

We had to rebuild several pumps, yes it is important that your pumps work as the water needs to stay on the outside of the boat. Again something we have never done and yes it was a huge relief when the bilge pump worked!

Rebuilding the bilge pump.

And then I decided to put in a new impeller for the man engine cooling water. I thought I knew how to do this but it still took 5 1/2 hours and many trips down the dock to ask the old salt how the heck you do that. And this was something we should have been able to do.

In the end it was a spot of LockTite and a socket as a tool to set the pump. Again a huge sign of relief when it did work and we have cooling water to the engine. 1/2 hour next time.

Taking the pump apart.

But we are also adding things to the boat that will make it a little nicer. The first was some materials to help keep the mattresses dry and surrounded by air.

New Dry Deck for the aft bunk

The next one taken on by the great carpenter Joan was adding shelves in our bunk area. She did this by creating a pattern and then cutting the wood to fit. You have to do this as the boat is curved in two directions. Just have to love it when you increase the storage place by 6 fold.

The before with the pattern

The building

The Almost done

And yes we do get off the boat once in awhile, not including the trips to the marine store.

We went on the League City Historic homes tour. This place has quite the history and was on the main train line between Galveston and Houston. I can tell you there is no love lost between the Islanders (Galveston) and Houstonians!