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What do you do when spring is getting close but still it is rainy, gray and cold?
It has been a long winter so when the sun came out today and it was somewhat warm, the kids wanted to go outside to get some sun and play.
K-5 found the washtub full of water and wanted to play in it, but of course the water was too cold, so we dumped it out, washed it out and filled it with warm water for him and the other little ones to play in.
.jpg "February Sun")
A nice respite from the long winter.
It is amazing what a little sun on the body can do for one after months of gray, cloudy, rainy skies! The kids went from being so–so as far as being interested in anything to fully charged and excited and ready to go. They have not been overly interested in much lately and not seemed to have as much energy as they normally would in summer. K-5 often is a bit fussy and tires easily but today he is raring to go! after he had been playing out in the sunshine for an hour or so, it was as if he had been supercharged.
.jpg "February Sun")
Now, don’t get me wrong – – excessive sun can do damage. But some sunshine is vital to health and well being. Here in the Pacific Northwest, we don’t seem to have strong sunshine most of the time and in the winter time, it is low in the sky so there is not as much energy from the sunshine as there in in the latitudes further south.
.jpg "February Sun")
In their book, “Into the Light”, Dave and Jaja Martin speak of the effect of weak sunshine in the far north latitudes and how it is common when the sun does shine that people sit in the sun to absorb the energy that they can from it. It really does work.
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We spent two solid days working on Seven C’s to get her finished and ready to list with a broker. Seven C’s is our Bluewater Yachts Ingrid 38 cutter sailboat that we love to sail in the ocean when we can.
Our kids really love the Ingrid!
We will be listing her with Duncan at
The Project Boat Company. Now, I don’t know for sure that she would really be a project boat or a ready to go boat. I guess that depends on what you are looking for. Really, is any boat – sailboat or power boat – ever really “finished” ? I have never had one yet that didn’t have some project to do on her.
We love to be able to anchor out and go ashore with the dinghy so teh kids can play on the beach!
Well, Seven C’s is looking pretty good, but there will still be some small things left to do on her. We hate to sell her in some ways but in other ways we are excited about the prospect of selling her to get a boat with a bit more cockpit space so that we can all fit in the cockpit while out sailing.
No matter what, it is always beautiful watching the sun slowly sink into the sea while on passage.
Granted, there is plenty of deck space for the kids and always something for them to to keep occupied! What better playground could there be?
Might this have something to do with the coining of the phrase, “deck apes”?
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He LOVES sailing and the sailboat! He is often asking me, “Can we go to the boat today?” if the answer is yes, he is excited. If we go to the boat and we are not out sailing he asks, “Can we go out today?” If the answer is yes, he is excited. If the answer is no, he is a bit disappointed, but not too much. He is still happy to be at the boat regardless.
He has so much fun sailing whether it is out in the ocean on the big boat or just in the marina in the little dinghy.
Hopefully, he will keep his love of sailing and the water.I know that I have!
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The migratory path of whales take them past the Oregon coast so there are times of the year when you can see quite a number of whales such as the Humpback whales. We had the pleasure of seeing a number of them when we came south from Washington.
Whales are such amazing creatures! I would like to print here more information about them, but I don’t have that much time.
wikipedia has some great information on them Here
Please be careful not to get too close to them to avoid accidental injury to them or to yourself! They are beautiful, amazing, peaceful creatures!
.jpg "Whale (4)")
Sometimes it is so hard to catch them when they are actually visible on the surface:
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.jpg "Whale (3)")
We even saw one Orca but it was too far away to get a picture of it!
It is odd how the water behaves after a whale surfaces. The water calms down right in a large circle and stays like that for several minutes.
It was a wonderful sail down the coast even if we motored more than we sailed. The ocean was so calm on the last day! It is so rare to get a warm, calm windless day on the water here in Oregon!
Whale sounds are used with permission of Bradley Rice & Tamara Rice who produced the cd
“Voices of the Humpback Whales – Alaska”
“Thank you, Bradley and Tamara!”
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With the cold weather that we have been having, a nice indoor project seemed in order. We decided to make soap again. This time using Olive Pomace oil. I did not know that Pomace oil was extracted with a chemical solvent technique when I bought it. That is what I get when I buy it because it is “cheap”! But it should still make great soap! (I think).
The kids love soap making – this is the second time that they have done this. The first time was using reclaimed bacon grease. That turned out great! The kids used it in the shower today even though it still has a week to cure before it is really ready. They proclaimed it “fantastic!”
This batch that they made is much softer than the first batch but hopefully it will harden as it cures more.
The two oldest girls made this second batch almost entirely themselves – but they were closely supervised! Still some nasty lye that they are working with.
They worked quite well together on this batch and got it done in a great manner. It “traced” much quicker than the bacon grease soap did, but perhaps that was because the pomace oil was cold rather than hot.
Well, it is great to know how to do this – the kids are really excited to learn new things like this.
I am sure proud of them for their thirst for knowledge like this.
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So is it cold yet?
A resounding, “Yes!”
With temps down to 14F it has been quite cold here for the last three or four days. Normally, it rarely gets below freezing here but this year it has really out done itself with the cold stuff.
It must be global warming…..
So far, we froze the pipes going into the house once, but since I installed bypasses in the lines, I just bypassed the reservoir so we weren’t out of water. The filter itself has self destructed in a mess of broken plastic around a solid lump of frozen sand and water. We will have to buy a new liner for the pool in the spring since we kicked a hole in it when the kids were ice skating on the frozen pool. Odd – I thought swimming pools were to swim in, not ice skate on. But they were ice skating on the pool for the last three days.
It must be global warming…..
When we went outside, there was a coating of ice on the sidewalk last night and icicles hanging from the gutters. That just doesn’t happen here in this part of Oregon often. The ground is frozen so hard that the roads are dusty again. You know that it is cold when that happens.
It must be global warming…..
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.jpg "Smoked Lexan (2)")
.jpg "Smoked Lexan (3)")
.jpg "Cal 2-29 (2)")
The old windows in our old Cal 2-29 that I was refitting were old and cracked and needed replacing. I did that job myself using a technique that new boat manufacturers use.
There is a great article in “The Coastal Passage” magazine on how to do this and achieve this look. I had to admit I was a bit skeptical at first, but by the time I was done installing these windows, I am a firm believer in this technique.
At first I thought, “Tape and glue windows on my boat? You must be crazy!” Bu the more I read about it and checked with others who had done it, the more I warmed up to the idea.
The double stick tape that is used is some of the stickiest stuff I have ever seen! If you do this project, bu ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that you place the windows EXACTLY where you want therm the first time! Once the tape is on the window properly and it touches the prepared surface of the boat, there is no removing it without taking a serious risk of breaking the window. I had this problem when I put the window in. I had the first window off by less than 1/8″ from where I really wanted it and touched about one square inch of the tape to the surface. In trying to remove that small bit of tape, I had serious concerns about damaging something. I ended up just installing the window where it was. It was just fine and I doubt that anyone else would have been concerned with the very slight misalignment of the window.
In the end, they were all installed this way, and if I were to do it over again, I would do it just the same! It turned out beautiful! The windows don’t leak nor will they ever fall out as I has first thought they might.
The best of all, this was FAR less expensive to do than buying replacement bolt in (or screw in) windows if I could have even found any.
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It has been a long project between all of the other projects and trying to fit it in between the weather. Originally, our Ingrid had a split cabin. A forward cabin and the main cabin. It was difficult to get from the main cabin to the forward cabin as you had to duck down and go through an area that was only about 4 1/2′ high to reach the forward cabin. It also severely limited the ventilation and heat to the forward cabin. The worst part of all is that nearly every time I would go through, I would whack my head when I would stand up too quickly. That got old in a hurry and it didn’t take long before O got out the skill saw and the sawzall and went to work. There really was some planning before I tore into it. But once I decided to do the job, I went for it.
Now there is full head room fore and aft. The heat from the Dickinson Newport heater goes clear into the v-berth with no problem. That is important when you are sailing here in the Pacific North West.
With the limited clearance between the two cabins, it was not conducive to wanting to go into the forward cabin for any reason. I didn’t feel that this made for a comfortable boat anyway.
After nearly a year of working on it off and on, I am finally done with it. I put the paint on it over the weekend when we had a bit of sun. I am so pleased to be finished with that part of the project!
Really, we made a good bit of progress over the weekend. I finished completely the cabin sole plywood and stringers. Now it is ready to lay down the finish material which I think I will use Bamboo for it.
I finished the cabin top inside and outside with the exception of some trim in the inside.
I replaced the propane fitting through the cabin top. It is really starting to take shape now. Only one or two more major parts of the rebuild and then I can start on the cosmetics to make the boat look a bit nicer!
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.jpg "Icebound (2)")
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.jpg "Smoked Lexan (2)")
.jpg "Smoked Lexan (3)")
.jpg "Cal 2-29 (2)")
