For the
first time in two months, or so, none of us is sick. And the weather is
gorgeous. So to celebrate we’re doing boat chores…
Sure we
have plenty of big things to do: we still want to replace one rudder (one was
replaced in French Polynesia); the new (Fiji) dagger board requires some
finishing work; and we have a few wooden beam covers we want to replace in
fibreglass. But this week’s chores were more about making our home, homey.
 |
| new pillow covers and wetlocker curtains with the lovely fabric Meri (Hotspur) gave me |
Back in the
old British navy era make and mend days gave the sailors a chance to pull out
their sewing kits and keep their uniforms from turning to rags. If you live on
a boat full time—where your one living space is dining room table, family room,
living room, workshop and home office—make and mend days fill the same role.
It’s the day (week) where we replace cushion zippers, sew new pillow covers, hang
up masks that have been hanging around since Fiji and find a way to mount
(again) a Milagro that doesn’t involve screws.
Cruising
boats are an interesting mix of adventure craft and home. For us (me) it’s a
constant balance between wanting the things that make my home feel like a home
and keeping it sparse and light enough that we can sail in rough weather and
not have knick knacks turn to projectiles.
Our
solution is to limit our collecting to things we can use (our super cool
Tahitian Ukes for example), or to fabric that we can sew into cushions (turning
the previous ones to rags), or to occasionally add to the mask collection we
started 25 years ago.
We also
discovered foam-backed photos a while ago. Light weight and easy to hang with
double sided sticky tape we’ve chosen a few favourites from our trip to date to
hang on the galley bulkhead.
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| TV antenna--for our first television in viewing in years. Some assembly required... Okay--it's not pretty--but we wanted to watch the Olympics. |
Soon enough
we’ll get back to real chores (I need to tell Evan that the head pump seems to
be leaking, and his list for while Maia and I are in North America is growing
lengthy…) but for now there’s something kind of fun about simply making things
look nice. Especially because boat chores usually have the opposite effect.
4 comments:
Happy to hear that you are all happy and healthy. And, I think it is wonderful that you have the opportunity to spiff up the boat. Much more fun than working on the head or the bilge or the engine, etc. PS: Maia is beautiful!
We use the 3M Command products all over our boat because they hang on anything, they come off easily, and don't make any marks in our (abundant) teak. We even use them in the head to hang washcloths. They recently added a line of picture hangars that are the best. Take a look at them here.
Deb
S/V Kintala
www.theretirementproject.blogspot.com
Oooh--Thanks, Deb. Adding to my shopping list! The stuff we get excited about;-)
You need to put an Amazon widget on your blog. There's a bunch of cruisers and/or prepping cruisers that have all been helping each other out by using each other's Amazon links when they have to buy something. It's not a lot of money, but hey, every penny counts when you're cruising...
Deb
S/V Kintala
www.theretirementproject.blogspot.com
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