Tom and Jessi's Big Bad Boat Blog

Big Bad Boat Blog - Home Edition!

2007-12-06T11:43:00.000-08:00

Ok, well, so we can't rightfully have the Big Bad Boat Blog anymore. Having a boat blog is hard when you don't have a boat. But we're back in the Blogosphere and just liked the old blog name too much (or we aren't creative enough to to think up a new one.) So we've started a new blog to go along with our new adventure...

We've created Tom and Jessi's Big Bad Boat Blog - Home Edition! Please come join us over there for some more stories about how we don't know what we are doing...

Anyway, here's the deal. As the previous post indicates the boat went up for sale last year. Well, we sold it and moved into a house that felt cavernous. But alas, at 1000sqft we outgrew it in only a year. Now you may ask, "You survived on a 300sqft boat for 2.5 years, how did you outgrow a house so quickly?" Well, without the novelty of living on a boat, it's a lot easier to give up more quickly. On the boat we would say, "Sure it's small, but it's a boat, it's supposed to be small."

That excuse no longer cuts it.

So, Jessi and I started going to open houses and dreaming of our "someday house." One such Sunday an idea that started out as a joke, turned into a very generous offer for help. And since we were given this huge opportunity to upgrade from our current small house to a nicer bigger house - we couldn't resist.

I'll go into more detail on the new blog, but essentially when we couldn't really find exactly what we wanted, we decided to buy a house with an awesome layout in a great neighborhood, and re-finish the inside. That way we can turn it into exactly what we want.

Since we've never remodeled a house before we figured we'd blog about it since it probably won't go smoothly. And honestly I'm already way behind. We just closed last week, construction is starting as I write, and we've already had plenty of ups and downs.

I'll get into the details in the first post over at the Big Bad Boat Blog - Home Edition! But for now.... We're back!

-Tom

For Sale

2006-10-14T10:41:00.000-07:00

Well, we never thought the time would come, but we've decided to make the move back to land. Sea Change has treated us very well and we've had a blast living on her for the last 2 years. But Tom recently took a job that requires him to work from home, and although Sea Change is very spacious, there's just not quite enough room for a home office!

CLICK HERE FOR TONS OF PHOTOS AND MORE INFO

Here's just some of the great things about Sea Change:

Transferable, hard-to-find liveaboard slip in downtown Seattle
Two staterooms, two heads – sleeps 6 (walkaround bed in master stateroom)
Freshly tuned, efficient twin GMC diesels and new engine room sound insulation (installed in ’05
Includes Boston Whaler dinghy w/freshly tuned motor (’05)
Hauled, surveyed,& painted stem to stern in ‘04, including professional hull and bottom paint. Freshly painted decks (’06).
Numerous recent improvements, including: rennovated master bath (’06), new refridgerator (’05), newly rebuilt Webasto heater (’05), newly rebuilt fore and aft heads (’05), new portlights (’04)
Great amenities such as washer/dryer, shower tub/stall, marine grill

Don't hesitate to email or comment if you have any questions, and don't forget to check out the complete listing here.

Time Flies...

2006-10-05T22:15:00.000-07:00

...When you aren't blogging.
Well, we're going to try to get a few posts up here to update friends and family.

So remember how excited I was that Jessi was going to be around this summer and it was going to be a huge boating summer... I was going to do SO much to the boat and we were going to cruise all around. Well, instead I got a new job and Jessi has become a triathlete. I'm in the training phase of the job, so I'm putting a lot of my free hours into studying. And when I say Jessi has become a triathlete... I don't mean she is training to try to finish a triathlon sometime next year... I mean she has already trained so hard that after her second triathlon ever, she qualified for Nationals! (Go Jessi Go!)

So what that means is that we've only taken the boat out a few times. (Actually we have a post written and sitting in the queue about the last time we took her out.)

And, all that work I wanted to do? I put it off.

But finally, after getting frustrated at the condition of the boat I called around to some places to see about paying someone else to do some of the work. I wanted the work done, but didn't have the time to dedicate.

HA!

I had obviously forgotten about the boat unit. And the days of pain and anguish having the heater fixed and the fridge replaced have all faded to happy memories. 1000 bucks to have the bilge cleaned, 75 dollars an hour for touch up paint (probably 1000-2000 total), and 100 bucks to have the boat washed... not detailed, washed. Um, did I mention I'm in the training phase of my job? - I'm not even earning my full salary yet. Perhaps I thought I had become rich in the last few months, and just had so much cash lying around I could pay someone to do my work while I sit around and drink margaritas. So much for the dream.

What actually brought me down to earth was talking to Seattle Yacht Service. They were nice enough to come out the the boat for free and take a look at what touch up had to be done. After talking with Jeff from SYS for half an hour, he convinced me that it would be a waste of money to have SYS come down and do the work, and that I should just get off my butt and do it. And I thank him for that, he could have easily just taken the work and the money and been on his way. But instead he took the time to explain some things to me, talk to me about how to get it done, and just shook my hand and left. So thanks to Jeff and Seattle Yacht Service.

And because of him, I got off my butt and started filling in cracks in the paint. I remembered that I actually enjoy boat projects. It's really nice to have some mindless labor to clear the head. One of my wood boat neighbors actually came over and we had a nice conversation (another benefit to working outside). We talked about all the work we had to do on our boats, and how there were much worse things in life than putting a few hours into the boat out in the sun. It made me realize how lucky I am to have the boat and the lifestyle. So, no more getting frustrated at the boat (yeah right). It is time to do some work!

Hooray boating!

-Tom

July 4th

2006-07-08T20:09:00.000-07:00

Believe it or not, this is the first July 4th we have spent in Seattle. We were going to invite a bunch of friends over for a Par-Tay, but instead we decided to have a simple 4th, and spend it just the two of us. It was really fun.

Before dinner we decided to hop in the dinghy and cruise the lake just to see what the hub-bub was all about. I was a little nervous because we have a small dinghy and there were a lot of big boats out there. Plus, we haven't really run the dinghy motor very much. (By the way, thanks to our neighbor Sig for giving us the dinghy motor, and Mom and Pops for fixing it for us - You made our July 4th!)

Getting ready to go... We certainly won't need these oars, but we'll bring them anyway.

Heading away from the dock into the thick of it.

MOTORIN!!!! WHAT'S YOUR PRICE FOR.... Ok enough.

After getting out into the melee we realized that although we were in a small dinghy, we certainly weren't the most ridiculous. We saw several "clown boats" out on the water.

The water was actually washing up over the bow as they motored along.

Paddle? Why would I need to paddle?

This one was an actual clown boat...

In addition to clown boats there were pirate ships too... YARRR!

But to keep all those pirates in line, Seattle finest were patrolling the waters.

As were Seattle's bravest.

We cruised (putt-putted) north to see the crowds up at Gas Works Park, thankful the whole time that we were not in the middle of it.

Wow, look at that crowd.

Lady Liberty came to visit. Tweet!! Hey Lady! The fireworks are going to be over here!!!

I prefer Lady Jessica though!

Motoring around the lake was really great. Not only did we get to see a whole bunch of different boats, and give thanks that we weren't smack in the middle of a huge crowd, but we also got too see some great scenery.

Hooray rainbows!

Hooray America!

Hooray Seattle!

After touring around for an hour or so, we decided to head back to the dock to have some dinner before the fireworks started. Hilariously, on the way home we ran out of gas. This is extra funny because before we left the dock, Jessi asked if we would have enough fuel, and I assured her we'd be fine. To add to her comfort our boat neighbor Greg assured her that "these small motors use like a tablespoon of gas an hour." Apparently, we had a teaspoon in there. But, if you recall, we brought our oars, just in case the motor broke... or just in case the operator was an idiot.

Well, to make up for it, I rowed us home.

Grinning and bearing it. It turns out I was happy to have practiced rowing while on the river.

Eventually we made it back home. We rowed up to the dock to the cheers and jeers of our dockmates, who were grilling on the dock and had watched us motor out an hour earlier. It was a proud moment for us. We'll show them that we're not young and inexperienced!

We did, however, manage to recover from our bruised egos and fire up the grill.

Jessi worked her magic and POOF dinner was ready!

Just as we were wrapping up dinner, night had fallen and the fireworks began. It was a spectacular show set to music. We turned on our radio, sat on the bow, and enjoyed the festivities.

Oooooooooh!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

I hope your Fourth was as fun as ours!

-Tom

Still in Seattle

2006-07-04T14:38:00.000-07:00

The weather here has been sooo good lately, I was starting to think we had accidentally moved to California. Every day I'd check the weather and it would say sunny and in the 60s or 70s, perfect! Because it's been so nice, we set up our "air conditioner" Which is just a fan pointing inboard on our bow skylight, and a fan pointing outboard in our pilothouse. It actually makes quite a nice little breeze through the boat keeping us cool on all but the hottest days.

This morning we were reminded that yes in fact we do live in Seattle. Jessi woke up and was getting ready to do some triathlon training. "Is it raining?" she asked. Just then a drop of water hit me square in the forehead. Oh crap! I hopped out of bed (so much for sleeping in) and ran out onto the bow to pull in the fan and close up the skylight. Plus I dabbed up all the drips and drops seeping in. What the hell happened to sunny, Mr. Weatherman? I think you need to come down to my boat and dry out my carpet for me...

Anyway, some good did come of all of this. I was discussing with our neighbor Chris how leaky everything was this morning. Especially when the wood in our boats has been dry for the last few weeks and therefore shrunken (is that a word?) up. Nothing seats tightly, so when it sprinkles the water just marches right in. He was telling me he's been using this stuff called Boatlife Life-Calk because it's flexible and rubbery, but can still be sanded and painted. Amazing!! I had been using a fairing epoxy to fill every little crack and crevice that appears as a result of the wood expanding, contracting and moving. Then, the wood would just separate from the epoxy. I was getting very frustrated because cracks I filled last year are back this year. "Yeah, no kidding epoxy doesn't work well for that." Chris told me, "But this stuff seems to work great!" Man, I can't wait to try it out!

Is it weird that I'm excited about caulk?

-Tom

Summer is here

2006-07-02T19:27:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we squeezed in some of our favorite summertime activities... Grilling, swimming, drinking a few beers, and BOATING! Hooray!

Jessi came up with the great idea to take the boat out on Sunday for some fun in the sun. It was Jessi and I, Jamie and Amy, Andy, Beth and Mike, and Frankie. We set sail at about 4pm and cruised up to Juanita Bay on Lake Washington. It was an absoultely gorgeous day. No clouds and about 85. The only problem: the wind was a blowing at 12 knots. Gulp. Oh well, I gotta learn sometime...

It's not so much driving in the wind as it is docking in the wind. No one wants to be the young guy with a big boat, making a pathetic attempt at docking right in front of a crowded restaurant (we live in front of a popular lakeside restaurant). I could just hear the screams and see the fingers pointing. I'm pretty sure I would have had no problem at the end of the season last year, but with not much experience under my belt the skills decay is huge! But alas, I sucked it up and we went.

I'm so glad we did.

The ride up Lake Union was no big deal, although it was crowded.

We weren't the only ones enjoying the day.

When we got out to Lake Washington, it was choppy! We rocked and rolled a bit, and I was wondering if we'd be able to find a good spot to drop anchor, but Juanita Bay didn't disappoint. Along the way we got in touch with one of Frankie's friends who was on a boat up in the bay and told us it was great.

I realized I was getting old when we arrived in Juanita Bay to find tons of boats rafted up to each other partying hard. Lot's of booze, loud music, and scantily clad women. It was like the French Riviera! But believe it or not, I just wanted to find a little calm spot to anchor, swim and enjoy ourselves, without the raucus parties around us. Yeah, I'm definitely getting old. So we cruised over to the other side of the bay to the "family" area and set up shop. We threw some burgers, brats and turkey legs on the grill and got to relaxing.

Must... grill... meat!

Andy working hard to keep the chair from blowing off the boat.

Mike holding Duncan. He's only sitting still because he's being petted... normally underway he whines. (Duncan, not Mike)

Frankie maxin' and relaxin'.

The ladies, chillin' on the bow. From left to right: Beth, Jessi, and Amy.

Jamie, Amy's husband. Despite appearances he's actually not color blind.

We're sinking!!! Oh wait no, we're OK, you guys can come back now.

Welcome aboard!

At about 8 o'clock we wrapped things up, futzed around with the anchor (I'm still only half sure how to use that damn thing) for 20 minutes or so, and headed home.

The sunset was gorgeous! I love Seattle.

Luckily by 830 the wind had died down to about 0 knots and pulling in was no problem. Whew, I can put off learning that skill until some other day!

-Tom

Boating returns!

2006-06-25T21:38:00.000-07:00

We said we'd start writing about boating again, so here goes...

Only instead of wood, the boats were made of rubber. And instead of Lake Washington, it was the Colorado River. And instead of Seattle, we were in the Grand Canyon... But it's close enough.

Rafting the Grand Canyon

It was a lot of fun, and rather than tell stories, we're just gonna show a bunch of pictures. No one reads the text anyway right? As always, click on any photo to enlarge it.

Jessi and her brother (Eli) looking so fresh and so clean. This was taken at the rim of the Canyon, the night before we started our trip.

The hike down.

Every night we camped in a different spot along the river's edge.

We made it our mission to find the Penthouse/Honeymoon Suite at each camp site. Not too shabby!

Jessi's Dad (Peter) and Eli taking a ride in the duckies.

Tom relaxing in a raft.

Along the way we went for some "Easy Hikes." They often lead to some amazing scenery.

This picture shows how blue the water is in some of the side canyons.

Tom wading through a side canyon

Fellow rafter Dana shows her tough side on a day hike.

One hike lead us to the throne room... ah to be queen for a day!
(From left to right: Kelly, Sullivan, and Elizabeth)

Kelly shows Jessi how to navigate the rocks.

Jessi catchin' big air. Siiiick. (In all honesty, it was pretty exhilirating - big enough that you had time to think "When am I actually gonna hit the water?")

They days were filled with "Bigs..." Big water (Lava Falls, just like Lake Washington!)

Peter and Eli, with Win (another guide) at the helm, dive into Lava Falls.

Big Scenery

Big Falls

Big Reflections

Even though the days were long and tiring, camp was usually fun. Here's Eli chattin' up Kelly before the No-Talent Show.
Nothing but good clean fun on this river trip.

This can't end well... Tom bellyflops onto a makeshift "Slip N Slide" at camp one evening.

Win lookin' hot doing dishes at camp.

It was an incredible trip. We highly recommend it, and we highly recommend Canyon Explorations, the company we went with.

These are all of our fearless guides. They made the trip what it was! Thanks to Kelly, Susan, Geoff, Kristin, Win and Kent!!

It really was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. DO IT!

Bye Bye River!!

-Tom and Jessi

Whew, we're back!

2006-05-10T22:08:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was opening day in Seattle. Boating opening day, that is. So that means it's boat blogging opening day too!

It's going to be a big summer this year. Jessi isn't going up to the San Juan Islands for the whole summer (for the first time since we started dating!!! YAY!), and I'm planning to put some more elbow grease into the boat.

As the weather gets nicer, I'm dying to take our tarp down, correct the leaking windows, finish the bathroom I started ages ago, repair a little rotten wood I recently found and do some serious touch up paint. In addition it's time to re-organize the engine room, maybe varnish the outside wood trim. Oooh, I'm getting exciting just writing about it! Hopefully we will be able to take a few little trips this year too. Maybe visit some local islands for an overnight, and definitely do some afternoon anchoring, grilling and swimming!

Anyway, I just wanted to post a quick note to say we are gearing up for the boating season, and wake up, the vacations photos are done.

-Tom

Last stop

2006-05-06T18:14:00.000-07:00

Finally. We are finally on the last travel post. We promise to return to being a boat blog after this...

We returned to Bangkok for the last few days of our trip. Since we had a taste of the good life in Koh Chang, we were in no mood to hostel it any more. So we stayed in the Asia Hotel, a real live hotel near the Skytrain so we could tour the city easily.

Bangkok is a city like many US cities. It's big, lots of shops, businesses, malls, towering buildings... so honestly we didn't take a lot of pictures. But we do have a few...

Lots of traffic... Still with lots of bikes... See the red number 79 on the left? That's the coolest thing. It counts down to the grren light, so you know just how impatient you have to be. And the big concrete elevated structures are the sky train "rails" that go all over the city.

This is the mall where we did some shopping... and saw The Chonicles of Narnia with Thai subtitles.

One of the things we did was take a water taxi up the river... just to see what there was to see.

Where's Waldo? Errr... I mean Tom... Where's Tom? (one hint: He's the white guy) It turns out lots of people commute by Water Taxi, so we weren't alone.

That's a pretty nice commute!

Lastly, we went to a few markets for some last minute souvenir shopping... I love markets.

This was my favorite souvenir. Unfortunately I had to return it before we left because it wouldn't fit in my backpack... oh well.

Trust me, I tried to get it in there...

Nope, she didn't have room either. It's OK though, we were just happy to be heading home. I mean honestly, after lugging those bags around for a month, wouldn't you be ready to go home?
Whew...

-Tom

Beautiful Koh Chang

2006-05-05T19:07:00.000-07:00

OK folks. We are winding down. There's only one stop left after Koh Chang, so here's our picture dump... Have Fun!

We decided to break the bank and spend a few days at a resort (instead of our usual backpacker's hostel). It was amazing!

This is where we ate breakfast every morning... not too shabby huh?

We'd go play out in the water...

Here's Sweetie enjoying a little shade...

I "drove" the princess around...

This was our bungalow. Oh my god there's a ghost on our porch!!

In the evenings we'd sit and have drinks...

This is where we had our New's Year Eve dinner... no that's not a typo.

See, that's how it goes in Thailand. They celebrate New's Year Eve with karaoke bands...

...And sad clowns...

...And they launch these really cool burning paper lanterns into the air, convincing naive tipsy foreigners that they are seeing aliens. SEE, ALIENS!! (Click to enlarge)

... And FIREWORKS!! Only they accidentally start setting them off at about 10 minutes before midnight... which leads to a group sing-a-long of Auld Lang Syne at about 5 minutes til midnight. Ah well...

...We just rolled with it!

It was really perfect. Exactly what we wanted. A little pampering, a little relaxing, a little celebrating... And the sunsets!! I still dream of these scenes.

So gorgeous!

Sweet dreams!!

-Tom

Planes Trains and Automobiles - Siem Reap to Koh Chang in 24 hours

2006-05-03T21:07:00.000-07:00

After touring Angkor Wat, we woke up the next morning and took a flight - yes, a flight! on a plane! it was a huge splurge! - to Bangkok. From the Bangkok airport we caught a taxi to the Skytrain. We hopped on the Skytrain and got off at the bus station. Then we took a 6 hour bus ride to a ferry terminal. Tired yet? Yeah, so were we. By that point it was 8 pm, so we crashed for the night at a cheap hostel near the ferry port. The next morning at 6 a.m. we caught another taxi from the hostel to the ferry terminal, and then finally we got on the ferry to Koh Chang. It was a long 24 hours, but imagine how long it would've taken us if we hadn't flown from Siem Reap to Bangkok. Or if we'd simply flown direct from Siem Reap all the way to Koh Chang. Actually, let's not imagine that last option.

Pictures of Koh Chang coming soon!

- Jessi

Anchor What?

2006-05-01T21:22:00.000-07:00

So that's not that clever. It's on a lot of T-shirts in Cambodia. But I like it.

Angkor Wat was gorgeous. It turns out when you say you are going to see Angkor Wat, you aren't going to see just one temple. There are tons of temples spread across the countryside. The largest and most restored is Angkor Wat. But, honestly, it wasn't the most gorgeous.

Anyway, we walked/tuk-tuked around the grounds and saw many many many temples. Here are some pictures. Enjoy.

The first evening we decided to see the sunset from one of the temples...

We weren't the only ones with that idea.

Not exactly a romantic sunset.

There were SO MANY people it kind of ruined the whole "mystical" feel we were hoping for. So we decided to get up really early the next morning to beat the crowds...

We got up "headlamp" early. But it worked, no crowds...

It was amazing. So quiet and peaceful. This is the Bayon Temple.

As the sun came up, the faces carved into the temple emerged from the mist.

From there we started hopping from temple to temple soaking in as much as we could.

Whoa!! Watch out Sweetie! These temples' gigantic steps weren't made for touring...

But tour we did... Even though the temples were gigantic, they were decorated all over with the most intricate deatil work.

Nature was fighting hard to reclaim her place...

But the temples fought back even harder. They stayed pretty well intact over the last 700 years.

Well, not all of them... The sun streaming down over the ruins was amazing.

And of course we had to visit the actual Ankgor Wat. There it is behind us.

It was by far the largest of the temples. JESSI!! WAIT FOR ME!!!!

We wrapped up the evening chillin' by a lake in the temple complex, watching the sun go down. A perfect end to the day.

-Tom

Phnom Penh: The sequel

2006-04-28T18:01:00.000-07:00

The next day we arranged for a Tuk Tuk to take us around and see some more sights. We really wanted to go see the Genocide Museum and the Killing Fields, so we hired a driver to stay with us all day taking us where we wanted to go. Ah luxury!

It's really hard to describe these places. It's difficult to imagine such terror in the recent past. You should go see it for yourself, it's pretty haunting.

The Genocide Museum. It used to be a school, then it was used for torture.

The rules to be followed.

Just a few of the approximately 2 million people killed during the Pol Pot regime... young, old, male, female... it didn't matter at all.

A monument at the Killing Fields filled with recovered skulls.

The skulls in the tower.

These are some of the mass graves from where the skulls were recovered.

In the paths between the graves, you can see bones protruding from the dirt.

Occasionally there were piles of bones and clothes. So disturbing.

Despite the gruesome and somber feelings surrounding these sites, we managed to see some real beauty on the way home. The countryside was just gorgeous.

Phnom Penh countryside.

We headed back to the hotel to rest up for the next day's trip north to see Angkor Wat.

-Tom

Phnom Penh

2006-04-13T22:23:00.000-07:00

After 4 days in Sihanoukville, we were ready for a change of pace. We were actually getting kinda bored with the beach. So we headed north, back to Phnom Penh.

We'd spent a night in Phnom Penh on our way to Sihanoukville, but didn't get a chance to do much exploring. So we went back to check out the city. And what a great city it is. Scenic, river-front, friendly people, elephants in the street - all the things that make a city great.

The view from our hotel.

The elephant. Of course. Every city needs one.

Phnom Penh also has some beautiful temples.

A temple downtown.

Another temple downtown...

Our favorite part of Phnom Penh, if not one of our favorite parts of the trip, was wandering through the temples and universities, chatting with the monks. At first we were intimidated by them, but after initiating a conversation with one monk, we realized that monks are typically friendly, well-educated, and very eager to practice their English. As we were walking around looking for and interacting with the monks we came up with some monk-centric slang... it went like this....

"Quick! Don't miss the monk-ortunity to take their picture"

"Let's go take pictures of them at Monk-iversity, sitting on their Monk-ercycle..."

In all seriousness, we had a great respect for the Monks. It turns out every Buddhist male has only one opportunity in their life to live as a Monk. Some do it for a long time, some for only a year or so. But once you have given it up, you may not go back.

After a day wandering around the city, we made arrangements with a tuk-tuk driver to pick us up the next morning for a tour of the surrounding areas, including the Genocide Museum, the Killing Fields and the countryside. As depressing as it sounds, we were really looking forward to learning more about the fascinating history of this area. But that's for the next entry.

-Tom and Jessi

But what are you doing NOW?

2006-03-27T16:56:00.000-08:00

The SE Asia posts are getting to me... We've been back for over two months but we've only documented half our trip! We still have to write about Phnom Penh, Angkor Wat, Koh Chang, and Bangkok. I want to start posting about the present, but I think it might get too confusing.

Enough whining. We could have worse problems, right?

Since we're so far back-logged in our posting, we'll rely on our friends John and Kamie to tell you about our latest trip to Whistler.

That's us hiking in the first picture, and that might be us in front of the Guest Satisfacton Center as well...

- Jessi

Sihanoukville, Cambodia - Gitcher motor runnin'!

2006-03-21T22:10:00.000-08:00

On our last day in Sihanoukville, we decided to rent a motoscooter and check out the nearby National Park and some of the surrounding beaches. It's possible to do a tour that includes all these activities, and our last couple tours had actually been pretty good - but we were still ready for some independence.

So we rented a scooter and took off (don't worry Dad - unlike almost everyone else, we always wore helmets! I prefer to enjoy my vacation without brain damage, thank you very much.)

We had a SWEET moto scooter and Tom got to wear the most X-TREME helmet. It was SICK!

On the way to the park we passed some water buffalo.

We thought the buffalo were super cool, but they weren't nearly as interested in us.

We soon found the entrance to the park.

The park ranger was very uptight.

Once inside the park we stumbled across yet another gorgeous beach.

We veered off the paved road and followed a dirt road along the water, through a grove of palm trees.

We were very happy to be doing some exploring on our own! With a moto as a means of transport, the world was truly our oyster!

As we were driving along I noticed movement in one of the trees. Turns out it was a guy climbing one of the trees - with no rope, no harness, no tools. Nothing but his bare hands. Scary and amazing! He seemed perfectly comfortable (as with all photos, click to enlarge).

We cruised past an oceanfront fishing village.

More shots of the fishing village.

Eventually we came to a bridge. Although we were feeling very independent and X-TREME , we decided that crossing this bridge on a scooter was a little too X-TREME for us.

So we got off, stretched our legs, and then headed back into town.

But you know what they say - it's not a real adventure until something goes wrong! Ten minutes from our guesthouse, we got a flat tire. Luckily it was fairly easy to find a roadside shop, and this guy took care of us right away.

- Jessi

Sihanoukville - Christmas in Cambodia

2006-03-20T12:38:00.000-08:00

Although Cambodia is a Buddhist country, most of the backpackers traveling through the country are not, and so Christmas Eve is actually a pretty big deal in Sihanoukville. By "big deal," I mean that all the beach-front bars have special Christmas Eve dinners, and people in Santa hats shoot off fireworks over the ocean. Hardly typical, but definitely fun.

We met Nashib and Maria at an all-you-can-eat buffet which was absolutely packed. No surprise there - you've got a beach full of backpackers trying to live on $20/day, and for $5 they can eat til they're stuffed? Let's just say all-you-can-eat buffets are a rarity, and that's because no restaurant would be able to stay in business if they offered them nightly.

We watched another gorgeous sunset, and then feasted on a Christmas Eve dinner of Khmer curries and rice, with Angkor beer to wash it all down.

Christmas in Cambodia - not bad!

Tom, myself, Maria, and Nashib

During dinner a fire-twirler put on a show right at the water's edge. Very cool.

After dinner we decided to head over to the Snake House restaurant, which was exactly what it sounds like. A restaurant and bar filled with snakes and other reptiles. We'd been told it was not to be missed.

It was very difficult to take pictures of the creatures because they were all in glass cages, but believe us when we tell you that there were some crazy critters there. Huge boa constrictors, cobras, and even a croccodile.

In the center of every table was a snake enclosed in a glass cage.

By far our most exotic Christmas yet!

- Jessi

Sihanoukville, Cambodia - Islands

2006-03-18T11:56:00.000-08:00

Our first night in Sihanoukville we met a really cool Canadian couple named Nashib and Maria. We had a few drinks with them, and decided to join them the next day for a tour of the islands lying off the coast.

We took this boat to reach the islands.

Once there, we spent the morning doing a whole lotta nothing.

Happy campers

For lunch, our guide cooked us up some FRESH barracuda he had just caught that morning.

We ate lunch with our group around a little palapa on the beach. It was one of the best meals I had on the entire trip!

In the afternoon Tom, Nashib, Maria and I wandered off down a trail that led through the center of the island, to another beach.

And then we wandered around on that beach too.

Like I said, busy days. Busy busy days.

There was even a little palapa bar on the beach, so we had a couple beers before heading back to the mainland.

We heart Cambodia!

- Jessi

Sihanoukville, Cambodia - Doing Nothing

2006-03-17T12:57:00.000-08:00

I know. I know. We've been so bad about blogging! The problem is, we've still got so many Southeast Asia pics and stories to tell that it's downright overwhelming. And really, as much as we want to share it all with you, we want to get back to blogging in the present! But we can't, until we finish all the vacation pics. But there are so many pics left to post...

You can see the vicious cycle. I have to admit, I'm kinda shocked. I'm a big fan of making lists and getting stuff done. Typically, the more I have to do, the harder I work. I never really understood how people could be overwhelmed into inaction - it just didn't make sense to me. But that is what has happened.

And I'm procrastinating even as I write this post! Let's get down to business:

After crossing the border into Cambodia, we spent one night in Phnom Penh and then headed straight for Sihanoukville. Sihanoukville is a beach town in southern Cambodia, aptly pronounced "Scenicville."

Woohoo! A new map, finally!

As you know, rain had been chasing us down the coast of Vietnam and it was a real treat to find warm weather and sunshine waiting for us in Sihanoukville.

We wandered around for awhile, searching for cheap but nice rooms. Turns out there's no such thing in Sihanoukville - at least, not around Christmas! We wanted to actually enjoy our beach time, so we ended up going with something a little higher end ($30/night):

After we'd dropped our bags at our hotel, we walked 5 ft down a path to the beach, where we did.... nothing. All day. It was great.

The cool thing about Sihanoukville is that it's not totally built up. Although there are plenty of backpackers and tourist activities, there aren't a bunch of high-rise condos. It's still possible to eat dinner right on the beach (like, with your feet in the sand), which is exactly what we did.

Blue skies, gorgeous sunsets, friendly people... this is what we'd been looking for!

-Jessi

Into Cambodia

2006-02-21T20:41:00.000-08:00

I realized that it's taking WAY longer to blog about our trip than to actully go on it, so I decided to get off my ass and write a little.

We came back into Saigon from the Mekong and started planning our escape to Cambodia. We were ready to move on. Vientnam was good, but we were searching for the sun, and word on the street was that Cambodia had it.

We decided to head out for our last dinner in Vietnam, which honestly I don't remember. What I do remember is we ended up at a Frenchman's bar eating delicious crepes for dessert, and having a few drinks. Or maybe a few more than a few drinks... still can't remember. Come on, we were kinda celebrating leaving Vietnam.

Yup, a Black Russian with a straw... that's how they roll in Vietnam.

And even though we had had a few drinks we still weren't as bad as this guy.
(WARNING: that's a 3MB video file for those of you with slow connections, or low patience)

So, it was a good last night in Vietnam. We decided we'd take a bus trip to the border the next day, cross the border into Cambodia, and start our adventure there.

We took a bus from Saigon to Phnom Penh, crossing the border at Moc Bai.

We were ready to be somewhere different... try something new. It was kind of nice getting on the bus. We had plenty of room and the trip to the border wasn't bad at all. We met this really nice couple from New Zealand, and this really nice (although a little clingy) man from Canada. They all made it a much nicer trip, we had good conversations and generally joked around. We were actually a little surprised at how well it was going. But, of course, Vietnam didn't disappoint... or I guess it did, depending on how you look at it.

While crossing the border into Cambodia we had to go through several Vietnamese checkpoints: Checking our bags, checking our passports, clearing customs, etc... at the last Vietnamese checkpoint, the guard took our Vietnamese visas out of our passports and kept the visas. We really wanted them as souvenirs, so we asked repeatedly if we could have them back. He kept saying, "NO, just go!" and waving his hand...

There comes a point when you think, "Is it worth getting shot at the Vietnamese border for a souvenier?" Obviously the answer is, "No," so we moved on disappointedly. When we arrived at the Cambodian border, it was all smiles. The guards were very nice and helpful, and they even taught us some Khmer.

The best thing they told us was, "You can't come into Cambodia without an exit visa stamp on a Vietnamese visa." Oh, shit. When we told them that a Vietnamese guard had taken our visas, they all kinda chuckled, looked at each other knowingly, and sent us back towards Vietnam.

Now we were pissed, and a little worried. The prospect of spending the rest of our lives in the buffer zone between Vietnam and Cambodia wasn't exciting. We sped back over to the guard, afraid he might not still be there, and said, "They won't let us into Cambodia without our visas!" At which point he reached into his pocket, pulled them out, gave them to us with a pissed look on his face and dismissed us with a grunt and a wave. He was gonna steal our visas and sell them on the black market!! Ah, Vietnam!

On the other side of the border we caught up with our group and awaited the bus ride to Phnom Penh. We had a nice little lunch at a street side cafe, and told our border crossing story to our new friends.

Me, the Canadian, and the Kiwi couple enjoying some lunch.

Not too much later a guide came up and told us the bus had arrived, so we hoisted our packs and wandered over to board the bus. When we got on the bus, it was already almost full. Luckily, the five of us got some of the last seats on the bus. And, of course, everyone's luggage was piled up in the aisle.

But then more people started getting on the bus...with more luggage. Turns out, there are several tour busses that get you from Saigon to the Vietnamese border, but only one that takes you from the border to Phnom Penh. So this bus was crammed with like 4 different tour groups. And, of course no one had thought far enough ahead to realize there wasn't gonna be enough room for everyone. So they got creative...

That's right... plastic kiddy chairs in the aisle.

We couldn't believe it. We thought it was gonna be Vietnam all over again... Especially since part of the trip involved stopping to wait for a ferry. When the bus stopped, these ladies approached the bus.

Peddling their wares to the bus riders...

But the touts weren't really aggressive. It was refreshing. The ladies just stood there with smiles on their faces. If they caught your eye, they'd offer something up... but there was no yelling or begging, and everything was done with a smile. Ah, Cambodia. After about a 10 minute wait we loaded onto the ferry. Keep in mind, these ferries aren't quite Washington State Ferries...

A view out of the bus on the ferry. Look closely at the back of the motorcycle (click to enlarge).

Hanging out on the ferry

Soon after we drove off the ferry, we pulled off to the side of the road. At first I wasn't quite sure why. But our Kiwi friends were on the other side of the bus and told us we were "filling up." I didn't understand, we were just at the side of some dusty road. They said, "Give us your camera..."

Texaco - Cambodian style.

After the refueling operations were complete, it was an uneventful journey into Phnom Penh.
So nice to be out of Vietnam and into Cambodia!

-Tom

Mekong - Photo Essay Part 2

2006-02-13T19:35:00.000-08:00

As promised, here are some more pics of the Mekong:

What comes after lunch? Dessert, of course! After lunch they took us to a place that makes coconut candy. This is a pic of a guy doing just that. First step: heat coconut, butter, and sugar in a pan. The woman next to us said "Well, it can't be that bad for you, it's all-natural." Yes, just keep telling yourself that.

Then they wrap the candies in rice paper and package them up. We were suckers and bought a package of candy.

We were also suckers and took a shot of coconut wine. No pics of our faces after the shot, but let's just say it didn't taste good.

Once we'd gorged ourselves on coconut candy (which honestly didn't take long because the stuff was so rich), we got on smaller boats which would take us on the winding canals that branch off of the Mekong.

More views of the canal boats.

View to the bow: this is the woman who paddled us down the canal.

Tom held the camera up and took a picture towards the stern. Something tells me the woman behind him didn't know he was taking a picture.

We passed several boats along the canal.

Some villagers standing on a bridge, watching the tourists watch them.

Yay, Mekong!

-Jessi

Mekong - Photo Essay Part 1

2006-02-07T10:28:00.000-08:00

On our second day in Saigon, we decided to take a tour of the Mekong Delta. (Yes, we'd said we'd never take a tour again, but we just didn't have time to do the Mekong independently.) It started with a bus ride from Saigon to the Delta:

On the bus ride, our tour guide introduced himself and started giving us a little info about the area. He was a very friendly, knowledgeable guide and we instantly felt better about taking yet another tour. The Mekong showed us the up side of tours: if you have a good guide and a good group, you can learn a lot about the area while meeting other cool travelers. In fact, our guide was such a nice guy that we couldn't help but forgive him when he tried to lead the bus in a round of the "Coconut Song." What's that? You don't know how the Coconut Song goes? Well, first of all, cocount must be pronounced "conk-o-nut."

C-O-C-O-N-Uuuu-T
Conkonut! (high pitched)
Conkonut! (low pitched)
Conkonut! (high pitched)
Conkonut! (low pitched)
C-O-C-O-N-Uuuu-T

Repeat ad nauseum. Now you understand just how nice he was - we were able to forgive him even after that.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, the Mekong. It's an incredible area, and at risk of seeming lazy, pictures really are the best way to describe it. No one ever really reads the text anyway, right?

So, what follows are A LOT of pictures of the Mekong, with a few informative captions interspersed. In fact, so many pics that we'll do this in two installments. Here's the first. Enjoy.

A line-up of the Mekong tour boats. We were hoping we didn't end up on the boat third from the left. (And we thought Sea Change had a list!)

Side view of one of the tour boats.

Tom talking to our conkonutty tour guide.

Some houses along the Mekong.

As you might guess, boats are a very important part of life on the Mekong. All of the boats have very loud 2-stroke motors that sound exactly like the THWAP THWAP THWAP of a helicopter. Interesting background noise for our tour of the Mekong.

Two ferries passing under overcast skies - just like home!

There were a lot of people living on their boats, which they covered with tarps to keep the rain out. Again, just like home!

Many of the boats had giant eyes painted on the bow - apparently these are dragon eyes that are meant to scare off sea monsters.

Our first stop on the Mekong was a small town with a fruit market. Although we were just as sick of exploring markets as you are of seeing pics of them, it was neat to see all the Vietnamese flags flying in honor of a national holiday (unfortunately, I can't remember which holiday!).

Villagers loading up their boats to shuttle goods down the Mekong.

After the market we stopped on an island for lunch. It had been pouring all morning, but there was a miraculous break in the rain after lunch, so Tom and I wandered off down a path to do some exploring. The tour group was a good bunch of people, but it's still nice to exercise your independence every once in awhile!

Tom crossing a rickety bridge, wearing the ubiquitous and highly fashionable plastic bag rain jacket - totally waterproof! (Until you rip it after owning it for 2 minutes).

More Mekong pics coming soon...

- Jessi

Saigon

2006-02-05T15:35:00.000-08:00

Two days were about all we needed in Nha Trang, especially since the weather never did get better. So after the hot springs we packed up our bags and continued south on a night train to Saigon.

At 8 hours, it was our shortest train ride yet, which was good and bad. Good because it was a short train ride. Bad because we left Nha Trang at 8 pm, which meant that we arrived in Saigon at 4 am.

We caught a taxi from the train station into Saigon and plopped down at a street cafe to drink tea and watch the city wake up. Saigon... what a great city. There is something about it that I really like. It somehow feels more open, youthful, and brighter than Hanoi.

Anyway, by 6 am most of the guesthouses had opened their doors, so we began searching for a room in earnest, and after wandering around for a couple hours we finally found a place we liked. As they say, there are two kinds of travelers: Bag-Ditchers and Room-Searchers. You'd think that because we rarely stay in a place for more than couple nights, we'd be Bag-Ditchers (find a room - any room - drop the heavy bags and start exploring). You'd think wrong. I refuse to settle! I want that great room: $10 for a balcony and A/C and hot water, and yep, even clean sheets.

After we dropped off our bags and showered, we headed out to explore. Our first stop was the War Museum. As an American, it was a tough place to visit. But I'm glad we experienced it. The War Museum is very well-done, with numerous artifacts and some chilling re-creations.

This is a wax figure inside a re-creation of a POW cell

Another wax figure inside a cell.

War artifact

After the War Museum we felt like something a little more upbeat, so we headed to the huge market. On our way we passed a Christmas display of the sort I only thought I'd see on a lawn in Wisconsin (I can say that because I grew up there).

Yay, presents!

Frosty and Tom didn't hit it off

After tearing ourselves away from the tasteful lawn decorations, we entered the Market. It was chaos. For some reason the women selling t-shirts were especially aggressive towards Tom, in a pseudo-charming kind of way. They'd grab Tom's arm with huge smiles on their faces, grinning and laughing and saying "You buy t-shirt! You buy t-shirt!" It was funny for the first couple minutes, but then it got a little weird. At one point I was literally playing tug-o-war for Tom with a Vietnamese shop girl. Let go of my man!

Tom makes a run for it

I guess this would be a good time to explain that almost all stores in Vietnam are organized in districts: there will be a bunch of stores right next to each other that all sell t-shirts. Then suddenly the t-shirt district ends and you find yourself walking by shop after shop that only sells ceiling fans. Then the cabinet district. Then the Tupperware district.

Candy district

Flower district

Silk district

The silk was gorgeous

Fruit district

Once we tired of the market, we decided to head across town to find a pagoda in Chinatown. A woman at our guesthouse told us about a bus we could take to the pagoda, and we were immediately turned off. Tour bus? No thank you! But it turned out it was a public bus. A local public bus. Perfect! So we headed for the bus station and on our very first try we got on the right bus!

Unfortunately, once we got off the bus we had no idea where were going. Although Lonely Planet books are great for giving you a general orientation to a city, their maps are crap for navigating. We finally just walked into an office building and asked for directions. It was a good move. The businesspeople in the office building were incredibly nice. After sitting us down in plush armchairs, they proceeded to make 15 minutes of phone calls and poll almost everyone in the office before one man was finally able to draw us a map that lead us right to the pagoda. It turns out the pagoda was just a few blocks away, but we couldn't find it because the street names change every 2 blocks. Oh, of course.

The pagoda was really cool. Similar to the one in Nha Trang, it was an active temple, not a tourist site. There was a constant stream of people filing in to worship, so we didn't take too many pictures because we didn't want to offend anyone.

The red cone swirls are hanging incense

After the pagoda, we hopped on a bus and headed back to the hotel. We'd been going strong since 4 am and were pretty tired by this point. Drinking beers on the balcony had become something of a ritual by that time, so we opened a couple of cold Tigers and enjoyed the view.

Streets of Saigon

Yum, Tiger beer!

City sunset from our balcony

- Jessi

Nha Trang - Thap Ba Hot Springs

2006-02-03T15:33:00.000-08:00

After Monkey Island and our experiences with Wolf, we decided that tours weren't for us. Not enough freedom - in terms of both what you do and who you're with.

So the next day, even though our guesthouse offered a "special package tour" to Thap Ba Hotsprings, we decided to do it ourselves. We were looking forward to some relaxing hot springs, mud baths, and maybe even a massage. We caught a taxi to the hotsprings and bought our tickets upon arrival, for the same price we would've paid had we done the "special package tour." (Our guesthouse had sworn we'd pay 5 times as much if we tried to do it independently...) Although Thap Ba was a little more touristy and less organic than I was hoping, overall it did not disappoint.

Tom in the mud bath

Jessi relaxing

View from the tub

Argh! Turn it off, quick!

Kidding. The "hydrotherapy" showers were actually really nice.

It was a fun relaxing day, just the two of us. Just what we were after.

- Jessi

Nha Trang - Temples and Locals and Wolf, Oh my!

2006-01-29T20:41:00.000-08:00

Yes, believe it or not I did go on the trip too... It's just that Jessi has had more time to write about it than I have. But as she keeps reminding me, "We gotta finish this so we can start writing about the present again."

So where were we? Oh, right Nha Trang.

So Monkey Island sucked. But that was just one part of our day tour. There was plenty more in store for us. If you recall, our tour also included a temple and a waterfall.

The temple was awesome. I don't think it was a tourist site - it seemed like it was an actual active hilltop temple. It was really nice to momentarily be in a local setting, seeing local life. It was one of my favorite spots in Vietnam.

The temple. I love the intricate designs.

A Vietnamese Bhudda in front of the temple. He had a view of a valley full of rice paddies.

View from the Buddha (above pic).

These were some local kids who live and worship at the temple.

This is the Bhudda inside the temple. We thought it was funny that it was outlined in flourescent lights. Then we realized that it was just intended to make the Bhudda look more glorious. Kind of like stained glass.

The temple was especially nice because we got to step quietly away from the only other guy on our tour - a Finnish man named Wolf. This guy was just about the worst tour mate for us. We are generally wide-eyed travelers who like to see and experience new things. Wolf, on the other hand, likes to spend his time talking about how many snowmobiles he owns back in Finland. When he's not doing that, he likes to talk about how many houses he owns back in Finland. Occasionally, when he stops talking about Finland, he likes to talk about how many times he's been to Vietnam. And no, he never completely stops talking.

The next stop was a waterfall near the city. This one Jessi and I were particulary excited about, because we wanted to see a little untouched nature to balance out all of the city we had been seeing. We were driving up to the trailhead when a local called out "You can't keep driving, it's washed out." But we didn't want the rain to ruin another piece of our vacation. So we asked the guide if we could make it by walking. We were told it would be a 2k walk down a muddy road. No problem, we think, it'll be worth it to see some Vietnamese countryside and a nice waterfall. So we all set out walking; Jessi and I, and our guide and Wolf. Along the way we saw some great stuff. Local farms, local people... It was a nice walk.

Farmhouse on the side of road. Gorgeous countryside.

Vietnamese woman carrying goods on the road to the waterfall.

Two friendly Vietnamese women with no ulterior motives. None at all.

The local ladies in the picture above were really nice to us. They helped Jessi out through some slippery parts of the walk, they chit chatted, smiled, and laughed. Boy, we were really impressed with their English too! How did two villagers learn English so well? Well, turns out a lot of tourists come through there. They all speak English, and if you wanna hawk sodas to tourists, ya gotta speak English. That's right. After being soooo nice to us on the walk to the falls, they spent the whole walk back telling us "you HAVE to buy sodas, since we helped you out." Ah, Vietnam.

Anyway, back to the waterfall. Actually, through all of this, we never got to see the waterfall. We walked 2k on the dirt road, listening to Wolf bitch and moan about how stupid it was, and how the car should have been able to make it, and how come he had to walk so far, and why had the locals lied to us about the road being washed out (did you see the pictures above? he must not have), before we finally arrived at the trailhead. The guy who owns the waterfall (so much for untouched nature) refused to let us see it because it had been washed out by the rain. We tried bargaining with him, but eventually realized it wasn't going to happen... and honestly, it probably wouldn't have been all that nice. Look how muddy the river was!

Is there water in there too, or just dirt?

It looked like it was glowing brown...

So we left, a little disappointed that we didn't see the waterfall, but satisfied that at least we'd had an adventure. Wolf, on the other hand, was just plain unhappy. He hadn't wanted to walk to the waterfall, and he sure as hell wasn't going to walk back. So he handed his bag to our tour guide, hopped on the back of a passing scooter, and was carted all the way back to the car. Rural Vietnam was a little too much for him. He was much happier and felt "closer to nature" (a direct quote) on Monkey Island. To each his own.

-Tom

Nha Trang - Monkey Island

2006-01-25T20:23:00.000-08:00

Although Hoi An was definitely a great town, we just didn’t feel like hanging out in the pouring rain, especially since one of the goals of our vacation was to escape from the Seattle weather. Vietnam is similar to California (Ha! Never thought I’d see those words together!) in that the further south you go, the more likely it is you’ll get some good weather. The north is usually cool, grey and rainy, whereas the south is typically warm, sunny and dry. So we headed south to Santa Barbara – I mean, Nha Trang:

The best way to describe Nha Trang is to tell you it is known for one thing: booze cruises. And also lying on the beach and partying, which is basically just a booze cruise on land. (See? Just like Santa Barabara.) We had yet to see the sun, so we couldn’t wait to get to Nha Trang and laze around on the beach.

Famous last words. When we arrived in Nha Trang it was raining, the wind was howling and the ocean was a silty, brownish color. So much for Santa Barbara. Actually, it was a lot like SB – in an El Nino year.

Nha Trang beach

We decided to make the best of it and started looking into things to do in the area. Our guesthouse offered one tour that looked great: it included a visit to Monkey Island, a trip to a pagoda, and a hike to some waterfalls. The description of Monkey Island promised us a "monkey show and thousands of wild monkeys.” We were a little apprehensive about the "monkey show" part, but we found a review in the Lonely Planet online travel forum that said Monkey Island was “top class” so we decided to check it out.

Don't I know you can't believe everything you read online? If “top class” means depressing and disturbing, then they were right on. But I’m getting ahead of myself: The journey to the island was actually kinda nice (if only the journey had been the destination). The boat departed from a wind-swept fishing port surrounded by gorgeous scenery.

No, no, that's not the boat we took to the island. That's just a very cool round bamboo boat.

None of these are the boat we took to the island either - these are some of the fishing boats moored near the departure point for Monkey Island.

Even when we saw the dilapidated pier on Monkey Island, we weren’t really worried. Missing a few boards? Who cares, that’s what makes this a fun adventure!

No dock? No problem! (And yes, the boat in the background is the boat we took the island.)

The entrance to Monkey Island

As soon as we set foot on the island we were lead to a makeshift circus ring, and that’s where things got bad. The show involved a bunch of monkeys and dogs trained to do “amusing” things like count to five and roll a barrel around the ring. This wouldn’t have been that bad, except that the only unleashed monkey in the show kept trying to make a run for it. The first couple times that he ran off they’d re-capture him, swat him once on the belly, and then continue the show. It wasn’t fun to watch, and honestly I don’t know why we didn’t leave the ring right then. When the monkey ran off for the third time, upon recapturing him they took him straight backstage. We didn’t see anything, but we heard loud repeated THWACKS, followed by equally loud, pained squawks from the monkey. It was really disturbing. At this point, we got up and left the ring. “Top class” indeed.

Monkey Island is a truly bizarre place. Other than the trainers and a few caretakers, it’s uninhabited except for thousands of monkeys. I hesitate to call them wild monkeys because they are totally accustomed to people and clearly expect you to feed them. That said, they are free to roam wherever they choose – no fences or restrictions (except for the ones in the show, of course). Tom fed a couple of the "wild" monkeys right from his hand, which was fun to watch, although looking back I wish we’d just boycotted the whole place.

Who's the monkey?

Monkeys everywhere

Mom and babe

To be honest, the island was a bit creepy. It’s hard to explain. Part of it is that the monkeys follow you everywhere. They're probably only hoping for some handouts, but it was eerie to turn around and find a dozen monkeys trailing you closely. Not all of them are cute and cuddly either – many of them were pretty aggressive and would grab at any loose items including hats, cameras, bags, and fingers. It was almost as if the whole island was on the verge of a Monkey Mutiny. And you really couldn’t blame them. After watching how the trained monkeys were treated, you sort of wished that they would all revolt. Just not while you were there.

- Jessi

Ahoy! A Hoi An!

2006-01-23T21:05:00.000-08:00

First of all, my deepest apologies for the title of this entry. Tom insisted on it. Anyway! After our train trip down the coast to Danang, we caught a taxi from Danang to Hoi An:

The ride to Hoi An was hilarious - our taxi driver was absolutely wacko, in a good way. He started every single sentence with "Excuse me..." and often threw in the phrase "Same same, but different" which we would soon learn is a very common phrase in SE Asia. Who knows why.

When we arrived in Hoi An, despite the pouring rain we were totally charmed by the riverside town. Old Town Hoi An is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and is full of historic pagodas, covered bridges, art stores, and tailor shops. Dozens of tailor shops. Hoi An is known for being the place to get custom-tailored clothes. Apparently you can get a custom-made wool coat for less than $30! I say apparently because Tom and I did not get any clothes made. We really didn't need anything, and we especially didn't want to haul extra clothes around with us for another 3.5 weeks. (Did you hear that Dad? I didn't buy any clothes because I didn't need them!)

Charming Hoi An

Hoi An also has a great market, and since it was raining hard and the market is covered (for the most part), that's where we headed.

Hoi An's Old Town Market

These are surgical masks that everyone wears while riding their scooters in traffic - the masks provide protection against air pollution. We'll never forget the guy who pulled down his mask and promptly stuck a cigarette in his mouth.

Many of the market vendors in Hoi An were older women who crouched on platforms next to their goods.

Fresh fruit

Fresh fish

It wasn't until we were in the market that we realized how much the heavy rains had affected the town. The river had overflowed it's banks and flooded the market. Although we weren't that eager to go sludging through the murky brown water, it didn't seem to stop many other people.

There's a road under there somewhere.

The blurry boat (it's tough to take photos in the rain!) was actually an impromptu taxi, shuttling people from dry land to a bar that had been isolated due to the flooding.

We ended our day in Hoi An with a visit to a restaurant where we tried a couple of the local delicacies: Cao Lau, which is a pork, noodle, and bean sprout dish that can only be found in Hoi An because it requires water from a particular Hoi An well, as well as White Rose, which is a plate full of shrimp/pork purses arranged in the shape of a rose. Yum!

- Jessi

We interrupt this program...

2006-01-22T11:28:00.000-08:00

...with a post about the present. You will be returned to our vacation pictures shortly. Thank you!

Jessi and I talk a lot about volunteering. We talked about trying to do some service over in Southeast Asia, but we just didn't have time. So when we returned, Jessi stopped talking about volunteering and signed us up for a project this past weekend. We signed up with a group called Seattle Works to work with an organization called Northwest Harvest.

Northwest Harvest is an amazing organization that collects, organizes and distributes about 18 million lbs. of food to roughly 300 foodbanks in the Northwest every year. This is equivalent to assisting a half a million people... and they don't charge fees of any kind. They have only 10 paid employees, so they rely on voluteers to help get a lot of work done. That's where we came in!

We showed up at their warehouse at about 9 AM to start working. First thing we did was get trained. We had to sort donations into 5 categories: Canned goods, dry goods, baby food, glass and plastics, and non-food items. One of the full time employees, Bill, was our instructor. It turns out there are lots of rules to sorting food. Mostly we had to check expiration dates and the condition of the packaging.

Bill teaching us how to properly sort food.

I said there are lots of rules to sorting food, and that's because there are lots of potential problems: Food without labels, expired food, damaged food and leaking food (yuk) all of which could be hazardous to the people you are trying to help. Turns out a can of tomatoes dented the wrong way can kill someone (something about the toxins in rotten tomatoes) - talk about a backfire!

Our class listening intently to Bill. That's me on the right. I'm standing there not wanting to kill anyone.

While sorting through the food, Jessi and I started to realize two things: 1.) There are a lot of generous people out there donating items. We sorted through a ton of food! (Actually 6 tons to be exact.) And 2.) There are also some inconsiderate people out there donating items. I mean, you wouldn't believe some of the food we found. People will just clean out their pantries and donate it to a food bank. They go home thinking "I have done good today," and pat themselves on the back. But what they don't realize (and we didn't either until we volunteered) is that places like Northwest Harvest spend many, many man-hours sorting through donations, and when Northwest Harvest has to throw food away, they have to pay for it. So donating expired green beans not only doesn't help anyone, but it actually hurts the organization who is trying to help. If you are reading this, please donate to a local food bank, they do a lot of good. But only donate recently purchased items and/or items that other people will want to use!

Here, look at some of the things people donated.

A bag of Halloween candy that some trick or treater started picking through. There are actually empty wrappers in the bag as evidence.

While there's no expiration date on this one, we suspect that's because it was made before they were required. The packaging was straight out of the sixties.

Seriously. Are you kidding? That's the top of a jar. We didn't write it there, it was donated that way.

This is a bag of Christmas chocolates that had been opened with scissors, sampled, and then donated.

They have to pay to throw all that stuff away.

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't mean to be negative. Not everything was bad. In fact, despite the few bad apples (we didn't sort through any apples really) there were a lot of great donations.

Now that's more like it!

Along with all the great donations, the facility was so impressive. There were groups of volunteers scurrying around, forklifts running about, pallettes of boxed food stacked neatly and truckloads and truckloads of food awaiting delivery. You definitely got a good sense of just how many people are affected by Northwest Harvest's efforts.

Look at all that food!

Stacks and stacks of packed boxes of food.

Here we are sorting all the food.

Trucks lined up ready to deliver food.

Now that's getting into your work!

Stacking up the full ones.

We had such a great time that we think we'll be doing this every month. (Don't worry we won't make you look at a hundred pictures every time we volunteer.) But if you wanna do something to help too, get out and voluteer with Seattle Works, Northwest Harvest, or at least donate some (good) food to a food bank.

-Tom

Midnight Train to... Danang?

2006-01-15T18:57:00.000-08:00

Upon arriving back in Hanoi from Halong Bay, we headed straight for the train station. We had purchased two tickets for the night train from Hanoi to Danang. Once in Danang, we would make our way to Hoi An, a quaint and charming little town and another World Heritage site. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First, the train ride. Actually, first the map to remind you where Hanoi is (northern Vietnam), and show you where Danang and Hoi An are (central Vietnam):

Now, the train ride:
Traveling by train actually turned out to be one of the highlights of our time in Vietnam. Vietnam is a tough country to travel in. Before I get into this, I want to be careful to explain that we entered Vietnam with an open mind and no preconceived notions. But once there we were disappointed to find that it was difficult to trust people. More often than not, if a local was being nice to us they wanted us to buy something (or simply give them our money). It's very easy to feel like a walking dollar sign in Vietnam. We also found that many of the guides, vendors, and taxi drivers weren't particularly honest, and that we had to be extra alert and assertive.

But it was different on the trains. For starters, the trains were free of touts, which was so nice. Saying "NO, thank you!" 30 times an hour can get exhausting. We also found that the Vietnamese we met on the trains were incredibly nice, helpful, and generous. For example, on our trip to Danang we met a group of young Vietnamese lecturers traveling on business. They admired the scenery with us and taught us how to say "It's beautiful" (about the scenery) in Vietnamese. We would have taught them phrases in English but there wasn't much to teach them - their English was excellent. They had a bag of fruit with them and offered us a little yellow fruit that tasted like a sweet lemon, and another fruit that looked like a crabapple but tasted like a bland pear. They were friendly and fun and made the last couple hours of the train ride fly by. To top it all off, when we arrived in Danang they helped us figure out the fastest and cheapest way to get to Hoi An.

The caption of this picture should be "It's beautiful" in Vietnamese, but I forgot how to say it. Stupid American.

View of the train, from the train.

The seas were much bigger than we expected, and certain parts of the coastline (like this) reminded me of Big Sur.

The lecturers weren't the only great people we met on the trains. On another trip further down the coast, we walked into our cabin to find we shared it with 2 Vietnamese businessmen relaxing over a beer. We had barely set our bags on our bunks before they offered us a beer too! It turned out their English was as good as our Vietnamese, so Tom busted out the handy "Southeast Asia phrasebook" and we spent almost an hour laughing and stumbling through conversational basics.

Along with good company, the trains offered surprisingly comfortable berths. We traveled by soft-sleeper, which is the priciest option but still downright affordable at about $30 for a 770 km train ride, especially considering that was our lodging for the night!

We made our beds...

And lay in them.

The one downfall to the trains: the food. Ugh. It was disgusting. Every meal came with a pile of white rice, and that was really the only edible part. The other stuff smelled like feet, or looked like feet, or tasted like feet. Or all three. We quickly learned that if you're going to be on the train (or any form of public transport) for more than 4 hours, you've gotta bring snacks. Our snack of choice was mini loaves of bread that you could buy from street vendors for about 1000 dong (Vietnamese currency), or approximately 7 cents/loaf.

Tom attempting to eat the train food.

Mmmm, bread and beer... backpackers' staples!

-Jessi

Halong Bay

2006-01-11T13:25:00.000-08:00

After one day in Hanoi, we decided to head east to Halong Bay. If it seems like we were moving fast, it's because we were. We had one month of vacation time, which sounds like a lot until you realize we needed to travel down the coast of Vietnam, through Cambodia, and end up in Bangkok by Jan 6. To be honest, although the constant travel got exhausting at times, overall I think both of us are pretty happy with how it all worked out.

Here's the map to show you where Halong Bay is:

Anyway, as I was saying, our next stop was Halong Bay, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. And once you visit Halong Bay, it's easy to see why. Even under misty grey skies the water was emerald green, and there are thousands of little islands with steep, dramatic cliffs.

Halong Bay - UNESCO World Heritage Site

We left Hanoi on a mini-bus early in the morning, and 3 hours later pulled into the port where all of the boats depart for Halong Bay. Almost every boat is an old Chinese junk boat. "Junk" is meant to describe the type of boat, but could also probably be used to describe the condition of the boats... (We'd be the pot, shouting out "Black!") We had opted for a 2-day tour of Halong Bay, with an overnight on the junk.

The port, similar to the roads, was craziness. The captains don't actually dock their boats - they just sort of drift towards the pier, and call it good when they gently (or not-so-gently) bump into it. The port was packed with boats pulling in and out, and we noticed that when a boat is reversing, it just keeps going until another boat honks to let the captain know he's getting close. Of course, when the captain hears the horn of another boat, rather than change direction, he simply eases up on the throttle a bit and continues to reverse.

Port traffic

Another thing that water and land traffic have in common is the presence of touts. Even on a boat, you can't escape the touts. The picture below shows a small boat approaching one of the tourist junks, trying to sell snacks and fruit. If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you can see that the vendor has actually crawled up onto the junk in attempt to sell goods to the passengers at the windows.

No escaping the touts!

We pulled out of port without hitting anything (other than the dock and the boat moored next to us), and made our way to some caves in Halong Bay. The caves were pretty cool, and although sometimes the formations that the guides pointed out were a bit of a stretch ("See how that rock there looks like the arm of a woman petting a pig eating corn?"), others were dead-on:

Feet overhanging.

After the caves the boat headed for a beach. It wasn't really beach weather (cool and grey) so instead of getting in the water we climbed a hill behind the beach and caught some great views. Yep, we also had a couple beers. Hey, we were on vacation!

Views from above the beach

More views of Halong Bay

Around 5 pm we left the beach for a bay where numerous other junks were anchored for the night. It turns out that all the tourist junks drop anchor in the same bay because there used to be problems with pirates! We spent the evening drinking more beer and playing Gin Rummy with a very nice French couple named Michael and Fanny. Fanny was particularly impressive because she spoke very little English but still managed to pick up Gin Rummy in a matter of minutes.

We slept relatively well that night, although Tom tells me he had to get up at one point to stamp his feet on the ground to scare off a rat. I remained blissfully asleep for that encounter.

The next day was pretty mellow, and we mainly just puttered around a bit before heading back to port.

Chillin' on the junk

As we puttered around, I noticed what a cool, yet strangely hungry, masthead our boat had!

Dragon masthead

Oh my god, it's eating that boat!

Oh no, it's got Tom's hand!

Yeah, it's probably a good thing we pulled into port an hour later...

-Jessi

Hanoi

2006-01-09T06:52:00.000-08:00

On Dec 10 we flew from Seattle to Hanoi, Vietnam. (See the map below for the location of Hanoi. Yes, yes, I've shamelessly stolen the map from Lonely Planet. My hope is that they won't really mind, because I've also linked their website. )

As with all images posted on this blog, click to enlarge.

We landed in Hanoi at 10:30 pm, and because we didn't want to deal with wandering around a foreign city at night, jetlagged and exhausted, searching for budget accomodations, we had booked a room in advance. We paid $17/night, which we quickly realized was far too much and so we changed rooms the next day. Despite being overpriced, our first room was on the 6th floor of an old hotel and gave us a great view of the city.

View from our first hotel room over the rooftops in the Old Quarter of Hanoi.

The next morning, I woke up early to go running and headed for Hoan Kiem Lake in the center of the Old Quarter. (The Old Quarter is a neighborhood of Hanoi, popular with the backpacking crowd because it has lots of budget accommodation.) I was slightly nervous because I wasn't sure how safe it was, but I needn't have worried. At 6 am, although it was still dark outside, the lake was bustling with activity. Groups of locals gathered for tai chi, while other used park benches to perform stretching exercises. Running around the Lake in the early morning is one of my fondest memories of Hanoi.

Hoan Kiem Lake in Hanoi's Old Quarter.

After my run, we hit the streets of Hanoi. Our first mission was a new hotel room, and after a bit of searching we found a clean, spacious, bright room with a lovely balcony for only $10/night.
OK, it smelled faintly of sewage, but at that price we didn't mind.

New hotel room: now that's more like it!

We dropped our packs at our new digs and headed back out to wander wide-eyed around Hanoi. One of the things that struck us right away is that the streets are packed with touts that won't leave you alone. It seems as though there is always someone trying to sell you something: fruit, a hotel room, bread, fish, chicken claws, a tour, something, anything.

Street vendor selling vegetables

Fish sold from the back of a bicycle

I honestly don't even know what these items are.

Another notable thing about Hanoi was the traffic. It was absolute madness. The streets are packed with motorscooters because cars are too expensive for most Vietnamese, thanks to an outrageous 200% government tax. In some ways this is a good thing, because if you replaced every scooter with a car, traffic would never move. There just wouldn't be enough room on the road.

Hanoi street madness

But it wasn't just the sheer quantity of scooters - it was also the fact that there appear to be no traffic laws. Lanes, if they are even indicated on the pavement, are just an approximation. One-way streets mean that most of the traffic on that street goes in the given direction. At an intersection, there's no need to stop. Just slow down, honk your horn a bit, and barrel through. And speaking of horns - they were constant. From 6 am til midnight the honking of horns literally never stopped.

So picture all of this, and then imagine crossing the street. You've gotta do it if you want to explore, but the traffic is dense and ceaseless. So what do you do? You slowly and deliberately step off the curb and directly into traffic. The first time you do it seems like pure insanity, and as you look up to see a scooter heading right for you, you definitely have to quell the urge to start running for the opposite curb. But you must stand your ground. Move slowly! Don't show fear! And without fail (most of the time, anyway) the scooter will swerve around you at the last minute.

Tom getting ready to step into traffic.

After a long day of dodging scooters and touts, by 4 pm we were ready for some relaxation. So we grabbed a couple Tiger beers and headed to our balcony to chill out for a bit and write in our journals, every once in a while looking up and saying to one another in exhausted amazement "Holy crap. We're on a balcony in Hanoi, Vietnam."

-Jessi

Legitimate Excuse

2006-01-07T17:03:00.000-08:00

Sorry we've been gone for so long! We actually have a legitimate excuse this time (unlike the other times). We've spent the past month in Southeast Asia, traveling through Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand. But now we're back in the states and we have plenty to blog about, so stay tuned for lots of travel stories accompanied by more pics than you'll ever want to see!

-Tom and Jessi

Diva Dash

2005-12-05T12:10:00.000-08:00

This past Saturday I participated in the Diva Dash. The Diva Dash is a womens-only 5k run/walk (plus a 1k walk for little Divas) that raises money for a great organization called Girls on the Run. In addition to the entry fee I made a small donation, and along with a warm fuzzy feeling I also got the title "Fairy Godmother" and a fancy foam tiara to wear on my head while I ran:

Nope, it's not the Statue of Liberty - it's me, in a tiara!

It was a fun way to spend a Saturday morning, and there's something really cool about running with a bunch of women, and only women. I hate to sound cliched, but it was empowering.

So fast the camera couldn't catch me! Or, so fast that Tom's crappy cell phone camera couldn't focus. One of the two.

An interesting sight: all the men on the sideline, and all the women participating.

The Diva Dash was so successful that our local paper even covered it. I can't wait to participate next year!

-Jessi

Brrr!

2005-11-28T08:58:00.001-08:00

It has been FREEZING here lately! As evidenced by our dock, which was an interesting combination of a layer of ice covered by a layer of frost (wheeeeee........):

And you know it's cold when you can make an abstract art sculpture from your frozen lines:

What I want to know is why it wasn't cold like this last winter, when we had season passes to Stevens Pass? But no, the year we decide to skip the season passes and instead spend our money on a trip to the tropics (more on that later) is the year that all the resorts open before Thanksgiving. Stupid Murphy.

-Jessi

But I Regress

2005-11-15T12:27:00.000-08:00

I've gotten a little ahead of myself by writing about the engagement before I posted about the cruise, even though they actually happened in reverse order. Can you blame me? But the cruise was pretty cool, so I wanted to be sure and give a quick synopsis:

On October 16 we set sail from Seattle in the Thompson (really, how many times can I link that ship?) The plan was to cruise down the west coast to San Diego, conducting habitat, bathymetry, fish and invertebrate surveys at different sites along the way. It was my first time on a boat that big, and I was pretty damn impressed. Lots of room for research and even a little recreation: the ship has a ping pong table, movie room, and library.

More impressive than the ship were the scientists aboard. Lots of brilliant people from UW, MIT, Oregon State, and NOAA. And not only were they great scientists, but they were also a lot of fun. Everyone was friendly and upbeat - even when we hit the inevitable bumps in the road that come with field work.

The science crew

I'll try not to go into too much boring detail, but we used some very cool technology to conduct surveys. And everything had an acronym. It's just not official unless it's all caps. Right?

Here's the CTD, which stands for Conductivity, Temperature, and Depth. It's a tool that measures, well... conductivity, temperature, and depth.

CTD

Here's the AUV, which stands for Autonomous Underwater Vehicle. It's basically a robot that can be programmed with "missions." For instance, you can program it to swim ashore and grab some fresh veggies and meat that's not made of ham. OK, not really, but wouldn't that be nice? What it does do is descend to the bottom and take pictures of the seafloor and any marine life that happens to be around.

Deploying the AUV.

The beauty of the AUV is that once it's deployed, it is not attached to the ship by any cables. So you drop it overboard and then it does it's thing while you go do important scientific stuff, like playing Monopoly or watch the sunset.

Hard at work

While I was on the cruise I missed Tom terribly and it's awfully good to be back home, but it was a huge learning opportunity for me, and I'm glad I could go.

One final picture to leave you with - the directions for donning a survival suit:

I don't know about you, but I find that telling someone to just relax usually has the opposite effect...

-Jessi

Otherwise Engaged

2005-11-07T13:35:00.000-08:00

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile. As you know from Tom's posts, I was away on a research cruise for the last two weeks of October. But on October 30, the Thompson finally pulled into shore. I was standing at the rail, eager to get on dry land after 2 weeks at sea, and guess who I saw:

It was Tom! He had surprised me by flying into LA to meet the ship as we pulled into port. Just as the ship pulled up to the dock he rolled up in a convertible (behind the white truck in the picture above) with a huge smile on his face. I was so excited to see him and I ran off the ship to give him a hug and a smooch and say hi.

But he had much more to say than hi. After hugging me, he got down on one knee and proposed! Right there on the dock, with his knee in bird poop and all the scientists and crew watching. Right where the red X is in the picture above. It was terribly romantic. Of course I said yes, and then proceeded to fan my face with my hand (Who DOES that? Me, apparently, when I'm very excited) and tell him I thought I was going to pass out. Unfortunately we don't have any pictures of the proposal because, well, we were just too happy to think about anything as practical as pictures.

After the proposal, we got into the convertible and drove off down the Pacific Coast Highway. It was a beautiful sunny day, I was with my fiance! and life couldn't have been better. We stopped for lunch on the beach in Malibu:

And then continued south, catching the sunset in Venice:

And then we spent the night at the Four Seasons in San Diego, where our main job was to relax and get pampered . It was an amazingly perfect 24 hours.

Tom put so much thought into planning the proposal and making sure everything was perfect. (And this was in addition to all the hard work he did on the bathroom while I was gone - wait til we put up the After pictures!)

Honey, thank you for everything. For working hard to make our home gorgeous, for deciding you want to put up with me for the rest of your life and then planning an absolutely incredible proposal, and most of all for being you: thoughtful and generous and smart and funny and caring and I would go on, but I bet most of our readers are already getting sick in the corner. :)

-Jessi

Progress

2005-10-25T21:37:00.000-07:00

Look, I haven't been just sitting on my ass being sad because Jessi's not here... I've made progress!! (Sweetie, I'm posting this so you can see how home is changing)

I installed the new countertop... it's hard to see but it's grey formica.

New Countertop!

Remember the old one?

Old Countertop!

It was a huge pain in the butt. The previous owner had glued the old countertop in place instead of screwing it in, like most normal folks would. So I had to mount my new countertop on top of the old one, instead of just replacing it. And, we didn't buy a pre-fabricated coutertop, so I actually had to cut and glue the laminate down myself. Turns out cutting laminate is harder than I thought... it's very difficult not to chip it. So, I'm building the trim pieces to cover the chips! Shhhhhh, don't tell anyone.

Oh, and the sink is only in there temporarily so I can have some running water. The clips that hold it in place have rusted out totally, so it's just kind of balancing in there right now. But at least I can brush my teeth! This means I have to buy and install a new sink. This is coming shortly.

Next, I removed all the doors and hardware, taped up the ceiling and mirrors and got it ready for paint. We will be painting it an off-white grey, as opposed to the off-white nasty, stained looking yellow it is now.

Taped and ready to go!

After paint, the trim pieces go back on, as do the doors and the new stainless hardware, and the tile backsplash goes back up. Finally, we are gonna drop in a new piece of linoleum floor. It's really going to look great! I can't wait to finish it off...

-Tom

A taste of my own medicine

2005-10-22T21:12:00.000-07:00

I'm so glad I'm not going to sea anymore. They were tough times. I remember back when I went on patrol, all the wives and girlfriends dropped off their crewmembers with tearful goodbyes. There were pierside hugs and kisses, and promises of quick returns. They were such sad days. After the farewells, all of the wives and girlfriends would go to a nearby park and watch the submarine go to sea. Some would even take pictures of the boat leaving.

That's me all the way on the left.

See... Hi Tom!

Well, things change, but somehow they also stay the same. This past Sunday I dropped Jessi off at the Thomas G. Thompson so she could go on a 2 week research cruise. Booooooooooo!!! And although going to sea is tough, this time I got to see the crappy side of the coin. I tell you, it sucks being left behind. I'm bummed and she's only going to sea for 2 weeks! (And then she's flying to AZ to celebrate her stepmom's retirement, so I don't get to see her for 3 weeks total!) I can really feel for the Navy families whose significant others leave for 3 to 6 MONTHS!

After I dropped her off, I went to go take some pictures.

Thomas G. Thompson pierside.

Tooooooooooooot!!!! The ship is underway.

Passing through Lake Union on her way out to Puget Sound. If you click on the picture, you can actually see Jessi between two buildings near the bow of the ship.

The Thompson pulling into the Ballard Locks.

She's a sailor!

She's a scientist too!

Wait... where am I?

Time to leave the Locks....

Bye my Sweetie! There she is on the second deck. Have fun!

So, almost a week has gone by and I've been able to email or talk to her almost every day, but it's just not the same. 10 minutes a day isn't enough. She's doing well, getting work done (as always) but can't wait to come home. Well Sweetie, I love you and I can't wait for you to come home too.

I just can't wait to see that smiling face again in person.

-Tom

It's about time!

2005-10-19T21:18:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago Jessi and I travelled to Bretton Woods, NH for my brother Rob's wedding. First off, I'd like to offer the first internet congratulations to my brother and his new wife, Zandra. And I'd like to add, it's about f#$% time. I know you have probably heard it a million times Rob, but I feel it's my duty as your brother to say it again. (For those who don't know, Rob and Z had been dating for 12 years.)

We started out with a small bachelor party for Rob. The plan was to meet 2 of his buddies (Jim and Sven) in Boston, have a few drinks, go on a private yacht charter tour of Boston Harbor with light appetizers and more drinks, then hit a steakhouse for dinner and finally paint the town. I really wanted to charter a sailboat, but alas, October in Boston isn't high season for sailing, and most of the charter boats had migrated south for the winter. However, I found a fine substitute in the M/V Integrity. I figured since Rob and Z hadn't yet come out to Seattle to see our boat, I'd use this as a short term substitute. It was a lot of fun. The captain was a stitch. If you look up "salty sea dog" in the dictionary - there he is. He even told us stories of using a flare gun to fight off pirates off the coast of Guatemala. Crazy.

The next morning, Rob and I woke up in a hotel in downtown Boston. That's right, couldn't even make it 30 min home the night before. Wheeee! And being the excellent planners that we are, Rob and I left plenty of time to get all of the final errands done, pick up Jessi, and drive 3 hours to NH for the first official wedding event. And when I say "plenty of time," what I mean is, we wouldn't have made it had we stopped to go to the bathroom. My only job was to get Rob to NH "on time" not "early." We had 15 minutes to shower, change into our suits and meet our families. No problem.

Saturday morning was the cermony. It was really great. The setting was gorgeous. I mean really, New Hampshire in the fall, does it get better? It went off without a hitch, but of course even if the ceremony hadn't been perfect (which it was) they still would have ended up married, so no matter what it would have had a happy ending.

The ceremony.

Cousin Ryan, the ring bearer.

The wedding party.

Rob and I at the Reception.

I've never seen Rob as smooth as when he's dancing the salsa with Z. (Yes, his bowtie matches her dress)

Jessi and I at the reception.

Again, congratulations to Rob and Z, and thanks for the wonderful weekend!

-Tom

Gloomy Season

2005-10-02T15:54:00.000-07:00

It's gloomy season again. It's grey outside - cool and rainy. Everything is wet. We ran out to West Marine and tried to buy up all the dessicant they had... but everyone else had that idea too. So, I guess I'll have to go back after they re-stock!

One thing I decided I wanted to do was start my leak patrols... I wander the boat when it rains and look for leaks. I was wandering around today, and I didn't see much in the way of leaks... but I did see this tucked away in a corner, hidden behind our speakers.

Mmmm tasty!

That's right. Mushrooms. Growing in our boat. Obviously I should have done the leak patrols a little earlier.

-Tom

Extreme Makeover: Boat Edition

2005-09-25T20:16:00.000-07:00

After living on our boat for almost a year, we finally decided we can't stand the interior anymore. As my step-mom would say, "It's fine." And it is - if you like 1970s yellowing off-white paint and grungy tan tiles. But we're ready to truly make the boat look nice, both inside and out. We're not talking a full-blown remodel - at least, not the type of remodeling that includes granite counters and all-new kitchen appliances. I'm still a grad student, which brings down our average income considerably!

However, we decided it was time to at least replace the tile with new laminate countertops (surprisingly inexpensive) and paint the walls white (one of the bonuses of living in a relatively small space - not much square footage to paint).

We're starting in the master bathroom. Our plan is to complete the bathroom and see how much time and money it takes. If it's not too outrageous, we'll move on to the master stateroom.

We shopped for tools and paint at Lowes today, and tonight we took our frustration at the idiotic Lowes employees out on our bathroom tile.

No turning back now!

With a hammer and chisel, the tiles just pop right out. It's surprisingly gratifying. The bathroom is so small that removing tiles is a one-person job, and Tom and I were both fighting for the opportunity. In all honesty, partly it's because we enjoyed it, but also because we know that the next step - removing the gunk underneath the tiles - is gonna be hard. ("No way, that's your job! I popped out the tiles, you're the one who has to remove the cement adhesive!")

In just under 45 minutes, you can do a lot of damage!

One thing that kills us about this boat: originally, all of the walls were a beautiful dark wood. The previous owners decided it was best to cover this wood with a number of ugly materials, such as tiles, paint, and horrendous wallpaper.

In the words of Nancy Kerrigan, Why? WHY?

-Jessi

A Weekend at the Office

2005-09-19T21:55:00.000-07:00

As I've mentioned a couple times, I spend June through Spetember working in the San Juan Islands. I'm a graduate student and that's where I conduct my field work (if you really want to know more about that, send me an email! :)
For those of you who don't know where the San Juans are, hopefully the map below will help. The upper left hand corner is a regional map of the Pacific Northwest - Vancouver Island in the top left, and the Olympic Peninsula below that. The San Juan Islands are enclosed in the very small box on the left, with an enlarged view on the right:

Anyway, I usually head back to Seattle every weekend because it's nice to get off the island, and because that's where Tom and Duncan are. But sometimes Tom comes up to visit me - the San Juans are gorgeous and not a bad place to spend the weekend.

The summer office

A couple weeks ago Tom came up and we decided to go scuba diving. I dive 4-5 days/week for my research, so I'm not always keen to spend my weekends underwater too. However, Tom got certified over a year ago and we STILL hadn't been diving together, so we decided it was about time! And yknow, I forget that there really is a big difference between research diving and recreational diving. When you're diving for fun you can just cruise around and go where you want to (not only where the transect dictates), and you don't have to carry a clipboard or transect pole or any other research equipment. How liberating!

My research dive buddy Pema joined us, along with her friend Jess. (Yes, another one!)

Pema is ready to go!

Jess gearing up. I wouldn't be smiling either, if I had to dive a wetsuit!

Tom, heading into the water

It was Tom's first dive since he'd been certified, and he did great. I can't wait to go diving with him again!

Tom underwater

Tom and I tried to give each other a smooch underwater, but it didn't work out so well.

After diving, we warmed up and then went to enjoy the scenery at the Pingrees. Just as we arrived, a bald eagle swooshed down and landed on a tree directly above us! Very cool!

The eagle has landed (sorry, couldn't help myself)

Screaming at us... somehow much less annoying than our marina "bird"

The eagle flew away, but before we could be disappointed, we were already distracted by the sunset.

Such a nice relaxing weekend in the San Juans!

-Jessi

Tom's 'rents

2005-09-14T21:48:00.000-07:00

So my parents came to town to spend some time with Jessi and I. We had a great weekend, hanging out, doing some nothing...

Ahhhh... nothing.

Actually my dad and I worked on the boat a little, replacing the forward toilet, and Jessi and my mom did some shopping and manicuring (tough work!). But one thing my dad really wanted to do was take the boat out for a little cruise.

And cruise we did. I'd rank the little trip we took in the top 10 trips we've taken... well, that's not fair, we've probably only taken 10 trips, so I'll put it in the top 2.

Pops helping get underway.

All we really did was hit Lake Washington, no big deal. But, the sun was shining, it was late summer, we had meat on board. All the conditions were right. My buddies Matt and Megan (who are sadly leaving the area soon-ish - damn Navy!) came over and the 6 of us went for a BBQ/swim trip.

We headed north on Lake Washington to Juanita Bay, found a good spot to drop anchor and set up the grill. We sat out on the bow for an hour or so enjoing beers, brats and chit chats.

Tom and Matt on the bow.

After eating, and waiting the appropriate amount of time (safety first!), we decided to jump off the boat.

Let's go that way!

Tom jumps off the roof!

Jessi hovering 10 feet above the water! She's MAGIC!

Matt, Ma and Jessi. The water was AWESOME!

Even Duncan got in on it!!

But he didn't like it, so we put him back on the boat.

After we finished swimming, we pulled the anchor and started heading home. Jessi decided she wanted to practice maneuvering the boat so she jumped in and got us underway.

Tom and the Captain

After she got her fill of playing with the boat, she resumed her primary job... Having fun.

Megan and Jessi chillin

Ma and Jessi

Megan and Matt

We pulled back into our slip with no problems, a very very successful trip. Thanks to my Ma and Pops for coming out and spending the weekend with us!

-Tom

No more Pre's

2005-09-06T16:39:00.000-07:00

And finally... the famed Jessi's-parents-trip. I was damn nervous about this one.

Intimidating huh? Jessi's dad is almost as tall as that tree! And, look how huge his hand is!

Just kidding, but I did want everything to be perfect. I mean, talk about pressure. I just HAD to do it right. I could just see the breakup happening, "Tom, I love you, but... I mean, you sank our home with my parents on board. And did you have to scream like a girl while being the first one to jump from the burning wreckage?" I played pretty much every scenario in my head. I just didn't want to look like a fool... ramming other boats, or forgetting things like how to start the engines. What boyfriend doesn't want to impress his girlfriend's family? But it went off without a (significant) hitch. Pretty much smooth like butter.

We spent one night in Seattle before taking off early the next morning. Sea Change can sleep 4 in two staterooms, plus we have a big inflatable mattress. We could probably sleep more, but it was fairly comfortable with 5 of us (Jessi and I, her parents Peter and Meredith, and her brother Eli). Of course that's easy for me to say, since I get one of the real beds...

Eli sleeping in the topside stateroom.

We set off early the next morning for the San Juans. Unfortunately, out of the past 4 times I've crossed the Straits of Juan de Fuca, this one was the worst. We had 4-5 foot seas and moderately heavy winds from the west. The whole time we were in the Straits (2 hours) was one big exercise in keeping things from falling off of shelves. It sucked. Cabinets slamming, dogs whining (not a "sea dog" remember), the boat bobbing like a cork, getting knocked 30 degrees off course... Everyone was a really good sport though. Even at his worst, Jessi's brother Eli insisted everything was fine... and then 10 minutes later he officially christened the boat by yakking off the stern. (Sorry Eli!) Other than that and the mild fog at the entrance to the San Juan Channel, we had no issues.

That night was the first of 3 parties (1 birthday, 1 wedding vow renewal, and 1 retirement - all for the same family). It was a great weekend filled with great company and great times.

Left to Right, bottom to top: Peter, Jessi, Tom, Meredith, Eli, and Suzy (the hostess, birthday girl, bride, and retiree!)

After partying and relaxing for the weekend we got underway for Seattle. The trip home was much smoother in terms of wind and waves, but boy was it foggy. I had to sound the fog horn for about an hour through the Straits. Nerve wracking. But, we made it home safely and I was finally able to relax! Of course, I knew that in a few weeks MY parents were coming to town, and that they'd want to cruise Lake Washington for a day. But I was a lot less nervous about impressing them... I mean I have known them for 28 years!

-Tom

p.s. Tom wasn't going to post this pic but I absolutely love it, and I'm sneaking it in. It was taken the night of the wedding. Check out Tom's Navy dress uniform and Eli's all-denim Levi's suit (interesting formal attire was greatly encouraged):

Also, Tom's a guy and so he doesn't understand the importance of including a pic of the gorgeous bridal party - not to mention the fabulous scenery! Here's a photo of Suzy and Hawk renewing their vows at their property on the west side of San Juan Island:

And finally, it should be mentioned that most of the pictures for this entry were blatantly stolen from Ray's website. Ray is Suzy and Hawk's son, and a great photographer as well!

-Jessi

Jess and Eric come to town

2005-09-03T13:25:00.000-07:00

For our next trip - our pre-Jessi's-parents-trip - Jessi's best friend Jess (confusing, I know) and her boyfriend Eric (at least his name's not Tom) came up to visit from California.

Eric and Jess

The plan was to head north to the San Juans and cruise around for 3 days before coming back. It was wonderful! No boat issues, and the crossing was very smooth. We caught the tides right (a must, going from Seattle to SJIs). The only rough patch we hit was near Foulweather Bluff where Hood Canal dumps into Puget Sound. The boat would rock fairly violently when taking seas to beam... but it didn't last too long. I had the helm most of the way but I did have some help from time to time.

Help! I'm lost!

Actually, he's on my lap because my lap and Jessi's lap are about the only places he's somewhat happy when the boat is rocking. He's a better "port dog" than he is a "sea dog," but overall he did just fine.

Friday Harbor was the first stop. We got a slip on the inside of the breakwater, which was nice, but it involved parallel parking... not as nice. I almost bumped into the boat behind me while pulling in, but escaped with inches to spare! We had fun in Friday Harbor getting some mexican food and walking the downtown area.

Duncan guards the boat while we go have fun.

Next we cruised up north of Orcas island to Sucia Island. It's a small secluded island accessible only by boat or float plane, and it's shaped kind of like a hand. The little fingers are islands that make awesome places to anchor and chill. We were originally gonna go and swim and hike, but ran low on time. Eric did manage to jump in for a quick dip, but the frigid water prevented real relaxation. It's a gorgeous area and I'd love to go back and spend some time there.

Who wouldn't want to come back?!?

The fingers of Sucia Island.

As I said, we were running low on time so we just continued on south around Orcas, through Obstruction Pass and into the mouth of Orcas Island to Rosario Resort. When you get moorage at Rosario, you are considered a resort guest and get to use the hot tub and pool, and you can lounge at the outdoor bar! Very nice, and not bad for 75 bucks for 4 people!

Ahhh, boat life!

The next morning we started heading home. We decided to break the trip back into two legs so we cruised south to Port Townsed to spend the night there. That's a fun town, a bit of a walk from the marina into downtown, but well worth it. It was Sunday and lots of the shops were closing, so we just grabbed some grub and walked back to the boat.

Monday morning, and the rest of the return to Seattle leg, was a windy one! Pt Townsend marina does not have a lot of maneuvering room, and on departure morning, waking up to 10-15 knot winds made me very very very nervous. AND to add to the stress there was a Coast Guard vessel there running some drills for training, so I had an audience too! But through some very tense button pushing, lever pulling, and a little bit of "TOM, YOU ARE GETTING CLOSE!" we managed to get out of the marina without a scratch!

Duncan: "I'm just gonna hide up here for the trip home!"

A few hours later, and a countless number of games of Boggle later we arrived back in Seattle. All in all another very successful trip!

-Tom

July 4th

2005-09-01T21:41:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know... it's an odd title given that it's Sept. 1st... but we are playing catch up remember?

So, the first boating trip didn't really involve Jessi or Sea Change. It was July 4th weekend, and my buddies Matt and Megan were going up to the San Juans in their First Child so I tagged along. It was to be my pre-pre-Jessi's-parents-trip. That's right, two "pre's" - I had a lot of learning to do.

Matt and I started in Kingston and sailed up to Port Townsend on that Friday. It was an 8ish hour day filled with salty sea stories, laughing, chips, a bunch of beers and even some sailing. We met up with Megan in Port Townsend, had some dinner and hit the rack. We woke up early Saturday morning and took off for Friday Harbor. A little rough out off Point Wilson where the tides tend to rip, but smooth sailing (and some motoring) most of the rest of way. The only snag we hit was working our way around Smith Island. It's a tiny island with a bunch of shoal water in the middle of the Straits of Juan de Fuca. Looking at a chart you may barely notice it, but of course, the winds were such that we had to tack north and south for an hour just to get around her to the west. Such is the life of a sailboat. We arrived at Friday Harbor, rafted up in the port and went into town. For the rest of the weekend, I hung out with Jessi (she was already up there for work) and Matt and Megan did some cruising. We all met up to watch the fireworks from the boat, which turned out to be spectacular. They next morning we set sail for Port Townsend again, although this time we mostly motored. I learned a lot on that trip, it was really a great experience, and thanks to Matt and Megan for showing me the way. Now to put some of that learnin' to use on our own boat!

(pics will be posted soon, so check back)

-Tom

And we're stickin' to it

2005-08-29T11:56:00.000-07:00

I never would have believed it to be true, but it is. Aliens DO exist and they DO abduct people. Jessi, Duncan and I are living proof.

We have spent the last month God knows where in outer space, with these huge ugly aliens. They were very nice and didn't do any science experiments on us or anything... really they just like our blog. But see, although they have wifi on their planet, they have no internet access on their space ships, and therefore they couldn't stay updated on our blog as they flew their missions. They decided to abduct us so we could tell them all of our stories in person. And of course, since we were on a spaceship with no internet access, we weren't able to blog.

Now that their mission is complete (interstellar recycling program of old busted sattellites) and everyone is safely back at home, we have a little catching up to do. They had bad timing - right before they took us we'd been using the boat weekly! I mean here we are a boat blog, we go on a bunch of boat trips, and just as we are about to blog about them... ZAP!! Oh well, such is life.

Anyway, for the next couple entries we'll be playing catch-up...

-Tom

World's Worst Bloggers

2005-07-18T12:58:00.000-07:00

That's us!

Please forgive us for our absence, but the laptop is still broken and won't be fixed for another couple weeks. I'm blogging from a computer at work, but I can't access any pics to write a real entry - and to be honest, I don't really have time to! But we promise to write as soon the laptop is working again.

-Jessi

POS OS

2005-07-02T10:38:00.000-07:00

So I realize that a post about Israel is long overdue. Unfortunately, most of my digital pictures are currently MIA, and after losing the pics (temporarily, I hope) I'm kinda bummed and just not that motivated to blog about Israel.

What happened to the pics? Well, we dumped them from my camera onto the laptop, and then, like a good little girl, I started to move the pics from the laptop to Shutterfly (online storage/back-up). In the middle of the transfer, the laptop crashed and now refuses to restart. The error message reads something like "Operating System Unavailable" or maybe "Idiots! You thought you could trust Windows!" ...I can't remember which.

Luckily, all the other files on the laptop are backed up to an external hard drive. And there's still some hope for the Israel pics: Tom gave the laptop hard drive to a friend at work who might be able to recover them (gotta love those Navy nerds), and if that doesn't work apparently there's software that will pull them off the camera memory card. Keep your fingers crossed!

-Jessi

Whew

2005-06-23T21:41:00.000-07:00

Sorry it's been so long since we posted last. Jessi's been in Israel for almost 2 weeks traveling (come home now please!) , and so I haven't really been in a blog mood. But I decided I should post anyway.

Don't worry though, I have been keeping myself busy while she's been gone. Check it out.

I know I know... It looks like an open window. To you. But to me, it looks like success. Considering last week it looked like...

And it leaked... And it was stuck shut because there was a moss forest growing in the window track. (Some people call the "pilothouse" the "greenhouse" because it gets so hot... and apparently things grow quite well in there) So last weekend I "popped" out the windows, pulled out the old track, replaced it with new track, and put the window back in. Now it works swimmingly.

No window.

Replacing the track.

Taking all of that into account I'd say it looks more like success.

Oh, and did you notice that blue sky two pictures up? I think summer might be here. It keeps trying to arrive officially, but 2 days after every sunny day, it rains. Looking at the weather forecast, summer might finally win out. We had another gorgeous day like that today, and instead of boiling up some pasta for dinner I celebrated by throwing a filet mignon (Thanks Rob!) on the ole grill (Thanks 'Rents!) poured myself a glass of wine (Thanks Jessi!) and sat my ass out on the bow with the puppy and enjoyed the boat life.

See, I've been keeping myself busy.

-Tom

Climb to Fight Breast Cancer

2005-06-14T17:27:00.000-07:00

What a weekend! Some of you may remember that Tom and I were raising money for the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center Climb to Fight Breast Cancer. After raising $3000 (Tom) and $2500 (me), on June 11-12 we attempted to summit Mt Hood. Thanks again to all of our generous donors!

On Friday we drove to Timberline Lodge at the base of Mt Hood and spent a windy night camped in their parking lot. At times the wind was so strong it made the truck shake! It did not bode well for the weekend...

On Saturday we woke up early and met the rest of the group for a day of snow school. We hiked up to a snowy patch on the lower mountain and got down to business. We learned a lot of very cool things, such as how to stop yourself from sliding down an icy slope head first and upside down (and yep, we got to practice that)! We learned that the pointy end of an ice axe is called the pick, and the blunt end is called an adz, and the hole in the adz that rope goes through is an adz hole. Heh, heh.

Snow school, with Hood lurking in the background (upper right)

Doug, our guide, is in the green pants

After snow school ended around 3 pm, we headed back to the Timberline Lodge for an early dinner and then hit the sack by 6:30 pm. Why so early to bed? Because we needed to wake up at 10:30 pm (you read that right) in order to start the climb!

Part of the climb involves a snowcat ride to the top of the ski lifts at 8500 ft. From there, you climb an additional 2700 ft to the top of Mt Hood. Or at least, that's the plan.

Our snowcat was scheduled to depart at midnight, and there was another group leaving at 2 am. Nine of us piled into the snowcat and headed up the mountain. It was snowing and blowing heavily. In short, the weather didn't look good. We arrived at 8500 ft, got out of the snowcat, and were immediately pummeled by winds and blowing snow.

Doug, the lead guide, gathered us all around and told us that although he didn't think there were any safety issues, it would be an uncomfortable climb and there were no guarantees we would summit. If people did not want to climb, they didn't have to. Four of the 9 climbers in our group got back in the snowcat and headed down without ever really setting foot on the mountain. The remaining 7 of us (5 climbers and 2 guides) headed out into the blizzard.

Gearing up in the blizzard

And we're off!

Why did we bother to climb in nasty weather? Well, first of all, we were there to climb. Even if there wasn't a chance at the summit, Tom and I didn't have any mountaineering experience and we wanted to see what it was actually like up there. But that's not all: the night before, 2 guides had summitted. Upon returning, they said that although the lower half of the mountain was stormy, once they hit 9500 ft they punched through the cloud layer and it was clear to the summit. We hoped we'd have the same luck.

The climbing was tough and we almost immediately put on crampons because the winds had blown most of the snow off the surface of the mountain, leaving behind an icy slope. One member of our group was particularly scared and uncomfortable (and honestly, I don't blame her). She kept hinting at wanting to head down, but never actually said she was done.

We continued to plod up the slope. We hit 9200 ft, and the clouds hadn't cleared. We pressed on to 9500 ft, where groups normally rope up (put on climbing harnesses and rope together for safety). And wouldn't ya know it, at 9500 ft, the sky miraculously opened up. Although the winds were still gusting up to 40 mph, we could see stars and the summit of Mt Hood. Things were looking good!

Doug gathered us around him again and spoke loudly, so we were sure to hear him over the howling wind. "I have something important to say and you all need to listen carefully. That edge over there that looks like it drops into the abyss? It does. Nobody go near it." We all squinted into the blowing snow and took note of the area Doug was talking about. Then we started to put on our harnesses.

As we roped up I looked around and noticed one of our guides was throwing up. He was so quiet about it that I wouldn't have noticed except that his headlamp was turned on, creating an inadvertent spotlight on his sickness. Once he finished, it was decided: the sick guide needed to head down, and he would take the scared girl with him. That left 5 of us: Tom and I, Tim (a guy from CO who had raised over $40,000!), Denise (a quietly determined mother of 3), and Doug, our guide.

And then there were 5 (4 + the photographer)

We started heading up towards Crater Rock. After ascending another 500 ft, the clouds moved in again. One second we could clearly make out the Big Dipper, and in another second the stars and summit were obscured. Doug shouted down the rope that it was time to turn back. Until that point, the wind and snow and lack of visibility had been uncomfortable, but not dangerous. And when the sky cleared briefly at 9500 ft, summitting had actually seemed possible. However, we were reaching a height on the mountain where white-out conditions could be very dangerous, and the worsening weather meant we had to head back. (Later we learned that the 2 a.m. snowcat ride was cancelled altogether. The snowcat driver said conditions were just too nasty to get the snowcat up, let alone drop off a group of climbers.)

We made it to Crater Rock at 10,000 ft. Click the image to enlarge.

Tom and I heading down.

We had brought along prayer flags signed by climbers in the group. Many climbers dedicated a flag to someone they know who had breast cancer. Ideally, we would have brought these flags to the summit. Although we never made it to the top, we stopped around 6 am as the sun attempted to break through the clouds, and took a picture with the prayer flags.

It was a good reminder of why we were doing this climb. Although we didn't summit, we are proud to have raised so much money for breast cancer research, and we are proud to have stuck with the climb until weather turned us back.

-Jessi

p.s. Of course, the very next day around 11 a.m., here's what the mountain looked like:

Where were those clear skies when we needed 'em?

What's in a name?

2005-06-08T07:25:00.000-07:00

I was looking back through our old posts, and I realized that about a year ago, I promised to explain how we chose "Sea Change" for our name - but then I never did. Just in case anyone thinks we're trying to make a clever reference to money (not at all), I want to clarify the meaning of Sea Change. Be forewarned, I'm about to geek out. What else do you expect from a girl who dates a Navy nerd?

Anyway, Sea Change is the name of a book by Sylvia Earle. Earle is one of the best, and best-known, female marine biologists in the world. I first read Sea Change at the age of 12, just after taking a trip to Sea World. That book, along with the trip to Sea World, pretty much sealed the deal for me: I was going to be a marine biologist.

The book isn't what we named the boat after, though. It's just what made me familiar with the term "sea change:"

sea change
n.

A change caused by the sea: “Nothing of him that doth fade,/But doth suffer a sea change” (Shakespeare).
A marked or profound transformation: “The script suffered considerable sea changes, particularly in structure” (Harold Pinter).

In her book, Earle explains that a sea change is needed in terms of the health of the world's oceans, and that these changes can't be made without also changing the world-view about aquatic conservation issues. In other words, Earle believes that ignorance is a major threat to the sea and the future of mankind. So go buy the book and educate yourself!

And now I'll step down off my soap box and get back to the name of the boat. For us, the boat is a sea change in several ways: First of all, moving on to the boat was our first time moving in together. (Crazy, aren't we? That's why we have a 48' boat! Anything smaller might have been relationship suicide!:) So moving in together in itself was a marked transformation in our lives.

"Making the break" from land to sea was also a big change. Although living on a boat seems normal now, I remember how frustratingly different everything was at the beginning (What do you mean we have to fill up the water tanks to run laundry? What's that smell? And what the hell is dripping on my head?... Did I say in the beginning? OK, it can still be frustratingly different at times.). Not only was moving aboard a boat a profound lifestyle change, but in a way it was also a change brought about by the sea. Perfect!

And finally, we'd like to think that the boat itself is undergoing a transformation. No, we have not completely restored it. But, we are making changes one step at a time. In a few years, we hope it will look dramatically different.

So there you have it: the story behind the name.

But I can't end this entry without mentioning one more reference to "sea change" that is also quoted in the definition above. From Shakespeare:

"Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made:
Those pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange."

-Jessi

Happy Anniversary!

2005-06-07T12:03:00.000-07:00

YAY! We've been blogging for exactly one year! Happy birthday to us!

And it took me all that time to finally get the name of the boat actually put onto the boat.

We decided on Sea Change in July of last year, ordered signs a couple of months ago, I varnished them for about a month, and now... (dramatic music)

Ta Da!

A close up

Finally, other boaters can hail us to let us know we are about to collide with them, and they can use our real name!

-Tom

14:59

2005-06-04T20:41:00.000-07:00

Look, we're famous:

In the May issue of Sea Magazine, our blog was quoted for the cover article about marina security. They used quotes and stories from our "There goes the neigborhood" posting. Yay us!

Here's a sneak peek of where we are quoted. If you wanna read the rest, go to your news stand and buy it now (it's still available)! Click on the pics below to view larger versions.

-Tom

Cover

Page 2

Page 5

Ghost Sailor

2005-06-02T14:45:00.000-07:00

This is why I love the liveaboard community.

Last night we visited another liveaboard couple here in Seattle. They are leaving today for a 2 week trip up to the San Juans, yet even though we barely know each other, they still took time out of prepping for their trip to host us for dessert and answer all of our "We have no clue what we are doing" questions... . It was wonderful! We had a really nice time with Scott and Angela and their two adorable kids (Zak and Ellie - the "swabbies" according to their website). We were treated like family, just for our common interest.

Scott, Angela, Zak and Ellie

The Swabbies

We chit chatted about our boats, our jobs, ate some cake and then got down to business. Scott pulled out the charts and started gushing information. This is their favorite anchorage in the San Juans, and beware of the Admiralty Inlet ripping tides, and you have to go here, and have to go there! 5 years of cruising covered in one night. I know I remembered and wrote down about a quarter of that info (I guess we'll just have to get together again sometime!). They were so amazingly hospitable and helpful.

So, thank you Ghost Sailors and have fun in the San Juans... Bon Voyage!

Ghost Sailor on the way to the SJIs

-Tom

The dog days of summer

2005-05-28T18:56:00.000-07:00

It's been in the 80s and even touched the 90s here over the last few days. And while it makes for good cruises... in general, it's too damn hot. How do we know it's too hot? Duncan told us.

Someone get me a glass of ice water please!

Ahhh, much better!

-Tom and Jessi

Playing hookie

2005-05-27T09:53:00.000-07:00

So THIS is why we live aboard:

It was a record breaking day in Seattle yesterday. Perfect weather: sunny, warm with a slight breeze. The only problem - it was Thursday, so how could we possibly we enjoy it? Solution: skip work/school and take the boat out.

I "convinced" a couple of my friends to skip work early and come out with me and Jessi to enjoy the day. Matt and Steve came over at about 230 to cruise lake Washington. We set out along the Montlake cut and perused the charts for a spot to anchor. We decided on Cozy Cove on the eastern shore.

The little red boat is home, the blue X is Cozy Cove.

Rainier on the way to Cozy Cove

Jessi chillin' in Cozy Cove

In keeping with my desire to practice things by just doing it, we tried a few firsts on this voyage.

Our first anchoring:

Nice work

Our first swim off the swim step (It was very cold!):

Get in the damn water, wussy boy.

Refreshed

Our first time deploying the sattelite ship (a.k.a. dinghy):

How romantic!

Big Bad Boat

Our first grilling session away from homeport

At about 6 we decided to haul in the anchor and head home. The next day when Steve was describing the trip to our buddy he said, "It was like a commercial. It started out awesome, and then kept getting awesomer." Um, thanks Steve.

-Tom

I'm a big wimp

2005-05-26T21:52:00.000-07:00

The weekend before my birthday bash I invited a few friends over to help take the boat out and practice. I figured I might as well get good at this, and the only way to do it is to do it. I'm getting fairly competent (I think?) but I want to start going out with fewer and fewer people on board. The plan was to have Nate, Matt and Megan come over and take the boat out just to play with the twin diesels and get good at slow speed maneuvering. We were getting ready to go, but the American Flag standing straight out convinced me otherwise.

Storm's a brewin'

Sure, I know I need to know how to maneuver in wind too, but why press my luck now? I should probably be pretty damn good before going out in the gusts. When you have 12 feet of freeboard and 4 feet of draft, the wind is not kind. So I called it off. But my buddies had already come over to Seattle, so we had to do SOMEthing. And what makes any bad day better? Grilled meat.

So, we walked down to West Marine and bought a new Magma Grill. (Thanks to my Mom and Pops for the B-Day present!!) According to Megan, grilled food tastes better grilled on a boat than anywhere else. Matt and Megan are boat owners too, so you gotta believe her, but I needed to test it out for myself.

If you don't own a grill for your boat, go get one. It's part of the lifestyle. In fact, I didn't really consider myself a boat owner until that weekend. But brace yourself, because 1) Not only do you have to buy a grill, but you have to buy the hardware to mount it, and 2) As simple as it may seem to attach a piece of metal to a railing, it will take you a long time. Why? Because the grill mounting device is a piece of crap. About zero seconds of thought were put into the design. When Matt installed his on First Child, he actually ended up rigging the mount on his boat with a fishing rod holder and a piece of string. You'd think for the 50 bucks they charge you just for the mounting hardware it would be simple to do, but no.

Anyway, we finally got the grill mounted and started cooking. We had pork loin, sausage, asparagus and roasted red peppers... mmmm. A great innaugural feast! And dessert was grilled pineapple rings... Deee-lish!

Safety first!

Yum!

The chef

Matt and Megan

Ya know how I said West Marine charges 50 bucks for mounting hardware? They also charge 50 bucks for a Magma cover. So instead of buying it there, I ordered one online. In the mean time I installed the Hefty brand cover after we finished up.

Hefty brand grill cover

So, all in all the day was salvaged. Although we didn't get underway, we did fill up on meat. And Megan was right, there is something terribly good about grilled meat on a boat. Now that the theory has been tested and proven, let the summer begin!

-Tom

P.S. I found the pictures.

MISSION: BIRTHDAY BLAST

2005-05-24T20:18:00.000-07:00

It started with an email titled MISSION: BIRTHDAY BLAST. "Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to have a blast on your birthday. (Yay!) The first component of your mission: Speak to your superiors and obtain permission to leave work early on Friday, May 20."

Tom's birthday was fast approaching, and I wanted to do it right. He's keeps outdoing himself on birthdays/anniversaries/Valentine's Day (a diamond nose stud, Tiffany earrings, the backcountry backpack of my dreams...) and it was my turn to do something special. I figured a surprise getaway weekend was the way to go, and the MISSION:IMPOSSIBLE theme could only make it more amusing.

A few weeks later, I sent a second email with a packing list that included, among other things, a passport, long underwear, and a swimsuit. He had no idea what he was in for, which is exactly how I wanted it!

My plan was this: Friday afternoon drive up to British Columbia and camp just outside of Squamish, BC. Then, wake up Saturday morning and go whitewater rafting on the Elaho (the long underwear was for under the wetsuit - it's a glacial river!). After a fun but cold day on the river, I was sure Tom would assume we were camping Saturday night as well. The surprises would keep coming - instead of driving to another campground Saturday night, I'd take him to a cozy bed & breakfast with a hot tub! Then Sunday, wake up and give him his choice of activities: hiking, horsebackriding, a ferry trip across Howe Sound? Whatever he wanted!

We left town Friday afternoon and arrived at Paradise Valley Campground around 7 pm. Unfortunately, although I'd requested a more remote campsite, the site we were assigned wasn't quite what I was hoping for. Fortunately, the owners (Pat and Lynn - incredible people!) were quick to make it up to us. Pat walked us across the road to the Paradise Valley B&B, and gave us a room at the B&B for the price of a campsite! What a wonderful woman, and what a wonderful B&B!

Paradise Bath

Paradise bed

Happy Birthday Boy in Paradise!

Of course, the only problem with staying at a B&B Friday night was that it ruined the "special surprise" of staying at a B&B Saturday night. But you know what? I wasn't complaining. Especially as we lay snug in our bed listening to the rain hit the roof Friday night.

Saturday morning we woke up warm and well-rested, and headed off to the Elaho River to become just the opposite. The Elaho is a fun class III river, but on a typical rainy Pacific Northwest day the 35 degree water can get pretty chilly! Still, it was a great time, and I think Tom really enjoyed himself.

We got off the river and had a yummy BBQ lunch courtesy of the rafting company (let's give 'em a plug, since they did a great job of taking us down the river: Canadian Outback Adventures). While we were eating, the other people in our rafting group kept talking about going back to warm up in their hotel hot tub. Tom never said anything, but I knew he wouldn't mind a soak in a hot tub... and I also knew he assumed we were camping.

It was so much fun to drive him from rafting to another B&B! The Hummingbird B&B was another great place to stay, owned by another incredibly nice couple (Abe and Yoko). The Hummingbird is a beautiful combination of Canadian log cabin and Japanese landscaping.
After a long day on the river, the Japanese-style hot tub was just what we were looking for.

Hummingbird B&B

Japanese style hot tub

Cozy fireplace

It rained Saturday night and into Sunday morning, and although we had originally planned to take a ferry across Howe Sound and go on a hike from there, we decided to skip the hike. Yes, we'll admit it. We were feeling lazy, it was raining hard, and a ferry ride sounded like just the right speed for us.

Ferry

The ferry ride was gorgeous, despite the rain: the clouds were constantly shifting across Howe Sound, giving us great views of the Stawamus Chief one minute, then concealing the Chief the next minute but revealing the mouth of the Sound several miles away.

The Stawamus Chief, from the stern of the ferry

Howe Sound

Us

After the ferry ride, we got back in the truck and headed home. All in all, a fun birthday surprise weekend for Tom!
MISSION: ACCOMPLISHED!

One final note - speaking of gifts, all the pictures for this blog were taken with a spiffy new camera Meredith gave me! The camera is so cool! Thanks again Meredith!

-Jessi

Opening Day

2005-05-22T16:58:00.000-07:00

Opening day for boating season was May 7. In Seattle, this is a big deal. Lots of pomp and circumstance, a huge boat parade, and a lot of drunk boaters:

Like all good boaters, we hit the water:

Forgive us, but we really didn't want to deal with Opening Day. The lake gets ridiculously crowded, and we didn't feel like entering our boat (read: home) in the drunken pinball game of cruising Lake Union. So we left Sea Change safely tied to the dock, packed way too much crap into the truck, and headed for higher ground.

We found a perfect campsite right by the river and Tom got down to the task of making a fire.

Campsite

"Me make fire!"

It was so nice to get away from the city and the crowded lake, and I think even our rugged little puppy had a good time. Of course, just as we were packing up to leave, it started to rain, at which point he ran for cover.

OK, so he's more of a city dog. That's alright, we love him anyway!

-Jessi

Haiku

2005-05-19T21:14:00.000-07:00

Courtesy of my friend Brian:

mechanical birds
screech above the bloggers boat
shotgun blasts quiet

-Jessi

It's not a bird or a monkey

2005-05-18T21:47:00.000-07:00

It's a recording.

Can you believe it? That bird I posted about last week is a recording! So much for hunting.

Apparently, the pigeons in the area have done thousands of dollars of damage to the marina building with their poop. They poop everywhere, and supposedly their poop contains an outrageous amount of toxic blech that makes it unhealthy to have sitting around (in addition to the general gross-ness of lots of bird poop.) The marina has tried everything, wires, spikes, fake owls... but nothing has worked. Now they are trying to talk to the birds. I imagine they found some sort of bird translator, and they are broadcasting in bird language "Please do not land here. We do not like your poop. Please go elsewhere to poop. Thank you for your cooperation. Please do not land here..."

It's working great. It drives birds (and people) absolutely bonkers. They are still experimenting with frequency and volume, trying to figure out how often they have to play it and how loudly to keep the birds away. I've given my input to the marina office... but my guess is zero volume won't really be effective at keeping way the birds. They have turned it off at night, which is nice, and really, knowing the purpose makes it a little more bearable.

I mean, at least I don't have much bird poop to clean.

-Tom

Real Men Varnish

2005-05-14T12:47:00.000-07:00

I've started my first ever varnishing project. I'm pretty excited about it... there's something about shiny wood that makes me happy.

We ordered quarterboards for the boat so we can finally be identified. I mean really... we've had the boat almost a year, and have yet to actually put the name on the outside. We figured it was about time. When they arrived they had a thin wimpy coat of spray-on varnish, hardly something that'll stand up to the sun and water on a boat. So we decided they needed a few more manly coats.

I took them to the garage at my rental house and set up shop. Every day at lunch time I run over there and throw a coat on. Even after just the first coat they started to look better. I learned something important, though. The can of varnish says lightly sand between coats. Note: you should actually do this. I debated this for a half hour. Standing there looking at the brand new slick clean coat of varnish I had just put on the day before, with a piece of sandpaper designed to scratch things, in my hand. Even though it is heart wrenching to take that sheet of sandpaper to the nice shiny surface, it is for the better. It may look like you just ruined it (that's what I thought on day two) but day three just looks so great. The varnish really has something to hold on to, and the next coat goes on so smooth.

The one on the left looks ruined I know... but that's just because it's in the process of being sanded. Soon it'll look more like the one on the right.

So next week, after I've finished four coats front and back, we'll hang them up and officially be "Sea Change." Very exciting.

-Tom

Down in front!

2005-05-12T20:58:00.001-07:00

As we've mentioned before, we have a view of the Seattle skyline, but only from our upper deck. Otherwise, the view is blocked by the boat across the way:

The good news is, we've been told that our dock basically empties out come summertime. Apparently, a lot of boats around here can actually afford to maintain TWO slips simultaneously - one for winter moorage (our marina) and one for summer moorage (usually up in the San Juans). What a rough life.

Why do we care? Well, the boat across from us took a day trip the other day, and gave us a teaser of the view we'll get when they take off for the summer:

We like our neighbors, but can you blame us for looking forward to summertime?

-Jessi

It's a jungle out there.

2005-05-10T10:19:00.000-07:00

I love nature. Jessi and I go on hikes all the time and we love the outdoors. We have a little doggie, and we like most animals in general. I've never been hunting; I've never really had the desire.

But now it's on.

There is this bird. It sits on top of our marina building and screams. It doesn't "chirp" or "sing," or even "squawk". It screams. All day. All night. When I first heard it, I thought it sounded like a monkey. I thought, "Cool, it sounds like we live in a jungle." It really did sound like the stereotypical movie jungle monkey sound. But it never went away. Never. And he added this screaming on top of the monkey sound. I mean really, I just want to shoot it.

-Tom

Farewell and Abyssinia!

2005-05-06T09:49:00.000-07:00

Kim and Eric, co-captains of Abyssinia, departed for Alaska a few days ago. Their blog was part of the inspiration for starting ours (the other inspiration was Steve and Jocelyn, who have blogged about their adventures in Central America since before the word "blog" existed).

Anyway! Where was I? Oh, right, Kim and Eric are on their way! They cruise the Inside Passage every summer and blog about it via satellite phone. Pretty damn cool. When we make our trip up to AK, we plan on either furtively or not-so-furtively following them the whole way up, because they definitely know what they're doing. And we definitely don't.

-Jessi

BBBRRRIIIIIIIINNNNGGG!!!!!!!

2005-04-25T20:20:00.000-07:00

That's how a stereotypical alarm clock sounds.

Last Saturday, ours sounded like "drip, drip." I awoke to the sound (and feeling) of water dripping onto my pillow. Turns out I had forgotten to replace our Security System after having removed it for the fuel cruise... and, of course, it rained. So instead of planning ahead and putting the plastic back up on one of the nice sunny days we had the week before, I was left to stand on the edge of the boat in the freezing cold rain. Not what I really wanted to do at 8am Saturday morning, especially since we wanted to sleep in, because the night before was the Submarine Officer's Birthday Ball.

We were trying to sleep in after getting all dressed up and partying with a bunch of nerds through the night. That's right, Submarine Officers are nerds, and I'm one of them so I can say that. Some of us are lucky nerds, though, because we got to bring gorgeous dates with us to the ball.

Me and my Sweetie!!

And here are some of my nerd buddies (they are lucky too, but not as lucky as me)

Look at all the nerds!

It was a lot of fun. It was our last Submarine Ball on active duty. We drank and danced, and listened to speeches and toasted everyone under the sun. There were a bunch of formalities, and then a bunch of silliness, including a centerpiece competition. And by centerpiece, I don't mean floral arrangement. Some of the centerpieces were full working models of submarines with water flowing freely around them. We tried to win the "most poorly executed idea" prize with our submarine that transforms (poorly) into an Officer, but we couldn't even manage that. It had moving arms, a bottle of a rum for a body, and a working propeller that blew bubbles. I think we would've won if we'd been able to show the judges all the "cool" features, but we were at the bar when the judges came by. Ah well, perhaps we'll win when we come back as reservists.

See... we're nerds.

-Tom

Got gas?

2005-04-16T22:23:00.000-07:00

Well, I guess it's technically diesel, not gas... but either way we were running low. We used diesel all winter to keep ourselves toasty and so it was time to fill 'er up. Of course it's not quite like hopping in the car and running down to the 76... its more like getting 11 friends together, planning a day, and pushing out to the Chevron. Really... we fill up at a Chevron.

It was a good day. I'd love to say we pushed off without incident, but... I can't lie to you all. I forgot to take our freshwater hose off the boat while getting underway. It was wrapped around a cleat on the boat, and hooked up to the spigot on the pier. I stretched it taut and it started pulling me towards another boat. Oooops! Matt and I noticed, and he ran aft and untied it and threw it towards the dock. Safe, for now. We'll worry about that one later. We cruised up to Morrison's Northstar Marine for the fill up. I guessed we'd need 200 gallons of fuel to re-stock from the winter, but I was wrong. We only needed 198 gallons. 0.6 BUs. Wheee! Actually it cost a lot less than I thought.

After fueling up we set sail to cruise lake Wasington. What a great afternoon. It was a little chilly, but still nice to be out.

Cap'n Tom and Ken

Brandon enjoying the chilly bow.

Nate, Steve, Aileen and Paul

I love just cruisin around, watching the world go by, hangin out with friends. And the pilothouse is fun, but I do like to go out on the bow myself and enjoy the breeze, which is why it's nice to have another competent boater aboard to take the helm.

Cap'n Matt and Cabin Boy Nate.

After cruisin around for a few hours we headed back in to meet up with Jessi and hit Buca Di Beppo for dinner, leading to a night on the town.

Heading home. That flag sometimes means you need a tow, but I fly it because it's a nautical "T" for Tom! Yay ego!

Thank god Jessi and Megan met us at the dock. They pulled the fresh water hose out of the lake so it didn't get tangled in the screws, and they received our lines, making the landing very smooth!

Another great day, making me look forward to many more this spring and summer.

-Tom

p.s. Note from Jessi: If you're wondering where I was... ahem, well... I was getting my haircut. I had an appointment with this stylist who's always booked, and so I couldn't cancel, because who knew when I'd get another appointment! What was that about me not being that kind of girl?

All's quiet on the western front

2005-04-08T20:05:00.000-07:00

This might be hard to believe, but things around here have been relatively quiet lately. Nothing has broken, or leaked, or fallen off. School has been keeping me very busy during the week, so on the weekends we've just been relaxing and - gasp! - enjoying life on the boat. More specifically, on the couch, on the boat.

Nap time

-Jessi

Radar (that's radar spelled backwards)

2005-03-31T20:09:00.000-08:00

We spend a lot of time complaining about the boat. The heater broke, the fridge broke, shit's always leaking... and it always costs a lot of money to have it fixed. Every once in a while, I jump in and do the work myself and it really makes me feel good. In fact I just had a moment like that when our toilet started leaking (for the second time). I purchased a new pump unit and installed it myself. Now, any long-time boat owner out there knows this is not a difficult task, but hey you gotta start somewhere, and I'm happy with myself.

Sometimes, though, it's not at all the boat's fault when something breaks. Everyone note the date - sometimes it is MY fault. I know, I know, I'm shattering your perfect image of me, but yes, it's true: sometimes I make mistakes. Let me explain.

Last summer as we were getting ready to paint the boat I was prepping the top of the pilothouse around the radar. As you might know, radars have a cable that runs from the array (the spinning thing on the top of the boat) into the boat... well I didn't want to sand and paint the cable, so I wrapped it up onto the radar array to keep it out of the way. (My guess is you all just sucked air in through your clenched teeth as you can see where this is going.) Weeks later, when it was time to use the radar, I flicked it on and HMMMM, BZZZZZ... BEEEEEEP (that trusty beep again) Aw crap. Turns out I had never unwrapped the cable. When I turned on the radar the cable got tangled in the array, preventing it from rotating and throwing the radar into a noisy fit. I had just screwed up the radar. Fantastic. In one stupid second I broke the boat. How much is THIS one gonna cost!?!

Thousands. It would take thousands to replace it with a similar radar system. Not only would we need a new array but a new display too. Damn it. I was convinced I had just lived the most expensive single second of my life (maybe 2nd only to the day I closed on the boat). I tried to figure it out myself. Hey, maybe it was something simple. I thought I had slipped a gear in the motor (nope) or maybe I could open it up and see a burned wire (nope). Since replacement was so expensive, we decided repair was the only option and budgeted 1 or 2 BUs to take care of it... but of course we put this off till the spring.

Guess what. It's spring.

I called The Offshore Store, as I have heard they are the experts, to see if they service Ratheon Radars. "Yes, at $85 an hour. But we give free advice, what happened?" So I told my story, and he laughed at me but assured me I wasn't the first. The he said (with choirs of angels in the background) "Did you check the fuse in the back of the display?" I didn't know there was a fuse back there... but 0.0025 BUs later the radar works. Sometimes it just works out that way.

- Tom

When the Lights Go Out in the City

2005-03-12T21:19:00.000-08:00

Another reason we like living on a boat: the city just lost power, and all we had to do was turn on the generator. Of course, that reminds us our generator needs a new hose! Luckily, we can also run the main diesels. While houses about town scramble for flashlights and candles, we kicked back to watch TV. The only downfall - you've gotta turn the volume up LOUD TO HEAR IT OVER THE ENGINE!

-Jessi

Better than ADT

2005-03-07T10:05:00.000-08:00

So, in light of some recent events I've installed a home security system. It looks a little like this...

This boat protected by GhettoCover(tm)

This system was developed to deter would-be thieves from coming on board and being disappointed. I wouldn't want anyone to expend that much effort sneaking around, breaking and entering, just for a 15 year old microwave and a bunch of books.

Actually, that window has been leaking, so the "privacy glass" is a temporary fix until it stops raining. That plastic sheeting can work short term miracles! (I call them short term, but if you ask Jessi, I bet she says they've been up there too long.) We have the plastic in several places on the boat - I guess it's a multi zone security system. I love using it, it does a great job keeping us dry, but it has one odd characteristic. No matter how small a piece you cut out of the roll, the remaining piece hanging off the roll will be too small for your next project. Of course you don't want to throw away that seemingly useful piece of plastic, so you cut it off the roll and store it. Eventually your storage spot gets so crammed with leftover sheets that you get fed up and throw them all away. That day... a new leak... which (of course) requires a piece of plastic to cover it. And (of course) you HAD a piece that would've worked perfectly. So, you cut a new piece, and the cycle continues. It's almost as if the plastic sheet manufacturer has a side deal with the "leak gods" to keep themselves in business.

So I guess its purpose is two-fold. We feel dryer, and at the same time more secure! But I must admit it is kind of ugly. However, we do feel better when we talk to other boaters who either have their whole boat covered in plastic, or use it like we do, to cover up incomplete projects.

That's a lot of plastic.

And, if if you recall, that blue tape is actually an "effort indicator." People see blue tape and think, "Well, it may be ugly, but at least he's working on it!" And now that the weather is getting nicer, I may actually have to work on it...

-Tom

Hot and Cold

2005-02-25T11:23:00.000-08:00

As soon as we get the heater working, guess what breaks next? The refrigerator. One second our boat is too cold, and the next we’re worried about too much heat. Can the porridge ever be just right?

Tom called numerous fridge mechanics who – can you believe this – don’t do house calls! They wanted us to take our fridge off the boat and bring it in to the shop. Um, excuse me, but our fridge doesn’t even fit through the door. We’d literally have to remove windows to get it out. When we finally found a company that would make house calls, they informed us that our fridge is installed illegally because it uses propane as a back-up power source, and therefore they couldn’t help us. Argh (and, uh oh!). Finally, we found a repair guy who agreed to come over and check things out. After two hours of poking around, he told us what we feared: it would cost almost as much to repair our 20 yr. old fridge as it would to buy a new one.

Here’s where we’re also running hot and cold… Part of us is pretty excited for a new refrigerator. Our old one was a Norcold (a.k.a. No-Cold) made of 1970’s off-white plastic with flimsy rusted shelves in all the wrong places.

Disco-era old fridge

When we fantasize about renovating the interior of the boat, we always talk about re-doing the galley first, and a new fridge would be a huge step in the right direction. But the key word in that sentence is "fantasize." We really can't afford a new fridge. The cost of fridge plus installation is going to be about 2 b.u.'s. And that’s when we start to run cold... It really is one thing after another with this boat, and the credit card debt isn’t getting any smaller. Unfortunately, there’s not much we can do about it. Let’s say, worst-case-scenario, we decide we simply can’t afford the boat anymore. We’d still have to replace the fridge before we tried to sell it.

So for now, it’s time to go fridge shopping! We’ve got a model picked out, and the good news is that when you’re paying 2 b.u.’s, it’s no longer your job to worry about removing windows and moving large appliances – that’s all part of the installation fee.

Fancy new fridge

Almost full-size, and no rusty shelves!

-Jessi

The heat is on (soon!)

2005-02-16T11:57:00.000-08:00

So, back in December, out heater stopped working. Since it was just getting into winter and we were tired of seeing the steam from our food mingle with the vapor from our breath, we decided to have it fixed. A guy from "Undisclosed Heater Fixing Company #1" came down and took a look and estimated 1500 bucks to fix it. I was willing to shell out for a little comfort.

He should have applied our time estimation rule, because 2.3 bu's later he left. The heater seemed to be working great (as it should be after 2300 dollars are poured into it.) It was my impression that he had removed part of our heater, rebuilt it, and then reinstalled it. But six weeks later we come to find out that he actually put a brand new heater in there! We used to have a "Webasto Heater." I'd say most everyone in the boating community knows them to be pretty darn good heaters. Apparently, though, he replaced it with a brand I'd never heard of before. It's a "Gahdamm Heater."

This "Gahdamm Heater" has a couple of features I really don't like. First of all, and the biggest pain, is that it has a "Gahdamm Leak (tm)" in the coolant system. While it's really a great "self flushing" feature, it gets expensive and dirty. It turns out he installed this "Gahdamm Leak (tm)" right below the coolant expansion tank, which happens to be above our bed. So, now, as it flushes itself clean we get "Gahdamm Coolant" everywhere, including dripping onto my pillow. The second feature is the ignition system. I guess they outsourced that part, because Gahdamm doesn't seem to do ignition. It does save you a lot of fuel, which is really nice, but it's only because the "Friggin Ignition" only lights off 1 of every 5 tries. I think in this case I'd trade reliability for fuel savings.

So we called "Undisclosed Heater Fixing Company #1" to ask them if they could maybe put our Webasto back in there, and remove the "Gahdamm Leak (tm)" and make sure the "Friggin Ignition" is removed and replaced with a more reliable one. "Undisclosed Heater Fixing Company #1" was very apologetic, and has been extremely accomodating, even lending us a different heater while they repair our Webasto. And actually they should be on the boat right now removing the "Gohdamm Leak (tm)." Hopefully it'll all be done soon and we can enjoy our heater again.

-Tom

There goes the neighborhood

2005-02-09T13:21:00.000-08:00

Other than an old Chris Craft in the midst of restoration, we are the cheap house on the block. We’re the ones with tarp covering a leaky window and a do-it-yourself epoxy job on the transom. We’re not exactly ghetto, but we’re not nearly as nice as some of the luxury yachts nearby.

And for the first time ever, we’re kinda glad that we aren’t a luxury yacht with all the latest toys. There are thieves about, and these are thieves with expensive tastes. In the past couple weeks, there have been 8 burglaries on luxury yachts on Lake Union. The only things stolen are plasma screen TVs. Several flat-screens were stolen from display boats during Boats Afloat, another TV was stolen from the boat moored just across the dock from us, and two more at different docks in our marina. Apparently, the TVs aren’t the biggest loss – it’s the woodwork that the thieves rip up when they’re removing the TVs, and the damage they do when they break in. Some yachts estimate over 60K in damage.

I’m sure I’m preaching to the choir, but theft just makes me sick – it’s a personal violation and I hate it. Along with being infuriated, I’m also a little scared. We don't have anything these thieves would want, but do they know that? Hopefully they're smart enough to realize the exterior of our boat is a good representation of the interior. But suddenly, living behind the locked gate of the marina doesn’t seem so safe. The thieves come by water, which is especially creepy (and also makes me wonder what exactly caused our boat to rock and roll that one night). I try to reassure myself that we’re not a good target because we liveaboard full-time, but that just makes me more creeped out: if they know we're full-time liveaboards, it's because they've been watching us.

On the plus side, last night we heard a motor outside, and when Tom got up to check he saw exactly what we were hoping for: a police boat cruising the area.

-Jessi

Boats Afloat

2005-01-29T15:07:00.000-08:00

So, last weekend, while the Northeast got 3 feet of snow (jealous) we got 60 degrees and wet. We have a season pass to a ski mountain that is closed. In fact, it’s only been open for a total of 3 weeks this year. (rrrrr) So, what does a bored snowboarder do when it’s 60 degrees out in the middle of January? Go to the Seattle Boats Afloat Show of course!

Drool.

It’s a dangerous place. Very very dangerous. You find yourself uttering words like “on our next boat” and “how come WE don’t have a…” You can get in trouble very quickly. But it’s a lot of fun! There were a ton of boats there, and you can board most of them. There was everything from dinghies to 160 foot condo complexes and Jessi and I wandered around with wide eyes. We had two goals. 1. See what’s out there in our size range and compare. 2. See if living on a boat is something we could do for a while. In other words, what might we be able to afford in 5 years as “our next boat.”

We learned a bunch of things:

Most boats at Boats Afloat were way nicer than ours… And way more expensive. I don’t think there was a boat at the show that was even half our size for what we paid. So for the money that we had to spend, and the features that we wanted, we feel like we made a good decision purchasing our boat.

The gadgets you can get for your boat are outrageous… for a gadget freak it was like heaven. Two of my favorites:
- The pilot house of one boat had 3 flat screens, one had a radar display, one had a navigation display and one had a camera view of the stern so you could see yourself backing up! Plus it had a systems status board with indicator lights placed on a diagram of the boat. So cool. It was like being in the Navy, only at home! Wait, not so cool.
- The yachtub, a floating hot tub that you tie up to your boat (or the dock, or whatever). A MUST before heading up to Alaska. Nothing would be better than soaking in a hot tub at the base of a glacier!

Yachtub!

We also learned that new boats in our size range are a lot nicer, but they don’t have a layout like ours - and we love our layout. On Sea Change, the salon and galley are on the same level, making a sort of great room that feels pretty spacious. It’s like a trawler, except that we don’t have a steering station in one corner of the room. We didn’t see any other boats like this.

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule. There was a Silverton 39’ that seemed like it has twice as much room as our 48’. Very nice. Very expensive, but very nice.

39 feet? Wow!

All told it was a fun and humbling experience. Even though it’s easy to “get the fever” while looking at the brand new, gorgeous, expensive, large yachts, we realized that for the money, Sea Change was the best boat we could’ve gotten. We love our home. But we'd love it more with a Yachtub.

- Tom

An evening with Rod Serling

2005-01-22T20:19:00.000-08:00

Friday night. I awoke with a start. I didn't know why, but I threw my blanket off and started to get out of bed. The fog cleared from my head and I realized that I had woken up because the boat was rocking. A lot. I had never felt it rock like that, not even at sea, not even with a heavy wind blowing. It was 1:30 in the morning. The boat was rolling so much I had to hold onto my bedside table to stand up. I tried to find my glasses so I could run out to the bow to see what was going on. By the time I got upstairs there was nothing to see. A few normal waves, and the boat was barely moving. Really bizzarre. I swore Nessie would be out there nuzzling up to the boat in some Scottish mating ritual.

I hopped back in bed, told Jessi (who had also been woken up by the rolling boat) there was nothing out there, and tried to go back to sleep. But I couldn't shake the bizzare rocking of the boat. As I was lying there in bed I noticed some sirens wailing. Then some more, and they didn't go away. Wierd. Then we heard a helicopter. I had the sinking feeling in my stomach that the world around me was changing rapidly - like something big was happening out there. I got up, Jessi joined me, and we went out to the bow to look. We saw some police lights zip by across the lake, and a helicopter circling overhead. But no indication of what was going on. Still no Nessie, and everything seemed normal. After about 10 minutes the helicopter left and there were no more sirens.

So, we went to bed. Nothing on the news, nothing on the internet, no fuzzy photos or anything. Even today, no indication of what happened. We thought maybe an earthquake... but I guess it was just a (BIG) boat zipping by causing waves, (coincidentally) followed by crooks zipping by causing sirens. But if anyone out there has any other ideas, we'd love to hear 'em.

-Tom

Entry of Shameless Solicitation

2005-01-16T18:18:00.000-08:00

Tom and I have decided to participate in a very cool charity event called The Climb to Fight Breast Cancer. We'll be climbing Mt Hood June 11-12 2005 in an effort to raise money for the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. We've committed to raise $2500 each.

Mt Hood

We know, we know, $2500 each is a huge fundraising commitment - but that's a good thing because it means that our climbing and fundraising efforts will make a real difference. Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer and the second most common cause of cancer death among women in the United States. One out of every eight women will get breast cancer in their lifetime, and a woman dies of breast cancer every 12 minutes. Those are some scary stats.

The money raised in the climb will go to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, WA. The Center is on the forefront of breast cancer research. The broad range of research at the center includes work on the basic cellular mechanisms of cancer development, risk factors, genetics, diagnosis, early detection, prognosis, prevention, counseling and treatment. Center researchers also develop and evaluate aggressive treatment strategies for breast cancer, including therapies to prevent the reoccurrence of cancer after a bone-marrow or stem-cell transplant.

Please consider sponsoring us in the Climb to Fight Breast Cancer. It really is an important cause.

To make a tax-deductible donation online, click on the link below and select either Kelley or Hayden-Spear from the pull-down menu (if you don't have a preference, split the donation between us!):

https://ssl.charityweb.net/fhcrc/climb/index.htm

We truly appreciate any donation you're able to offer and please remember that any amount helps!

Thank you!
Jessi and Tom

Happy (Belated) New Year!

2005-01-07T08:07:00.000-08:00

Christmas is not the only time it's great to liveaboard in downtown Seattle. If you live at the right marina, New Year's Eve can be pretty spectacular as well. Although our bow faces away from the skyline, when you climb up onto our second-level deck and look aft, you have a beautiful view of downtown Seattle and more importantly - for New Years Eve, anyway - the Space Needle.

Every NYE, they shoot fireworks out of the Space Needle. That's right: not over the Space Needle, or near the Space Needle, but directly out of the Space Needle. It's pretty cool. So last Friday night Anne, Danny, Beth and Mike came over to the boat for celebrations.

Danny and Anne

Mike and Beth

We started out with a few drinks, and then walked 1/4 mile around the lake to Daniels Broiler for dinner (another reason we love our marina - close proximity to the best steak in Seattle). Then we came back to the boat and drank just enough so that by midnight, heading out into the cold and wet to watch fireworks sounded like a good idea.

Fireworks shot directly out of the Space Needle.

This would be a cool picture if Tom had meant to capture the image this way. Unfortunately, I think it's more a work of alchohol, and less a work of art.

-Jessi

The small things

2005-01-05T13:24:00.000-08:00

Today was the best day ever! Forgive me if I'm a little excited, but listen to this: I woke up this morning, and instead of turning on the boat heater after I went to the gym, I turned it on before I went to the gym. And wouldn't ya know, when I got back from the gym and got in the shower, I had FIFTEEN SOLID MINUTES OF HOT WATER. This is in comparison to the 5 minutes of lukewarm water I usually get. This morning I had enough time to wash my hair and shave my legs. Usually I have to split those two tasks up into two separate shower sessions, one before school and one after. Sorry if this is too much information, but I'm too ecstatic not to share.
Apparently our boat heater somehow heats up the hotwater tank as well. I'm not sure how it works, and I don't care. I'm just glad it does.

-Jessi

It's all relative

2004-12-31T16:24:00.000-08:00

Today, Tom got the bilge pumps working! (Did we mention that one was broken? And when he went to fix that one, we discovered the second bilge pump had kicked the bucket as well?) And it only cost $200 in parts and materials to do it!

As we’ve written before, at this point anything under $1000 seems pretty damn cheap. Kim and Eric over at Ship's Blog even have a name for it: a “boat unit,” or b.u. One b.u. = $1000. Anything under 1 b.u. is relatively inexpensive. Not to make you think we have thousands to throw around. A b.u. is not based on how much the boat owner can actually afford, but rather how much it costs to fix things - whether you like it or not. The idea is, once you buy a boat (at least one big enough to liveaboard) you should get used to thinking in thousands, not hundreds of dollars. Getting the heater fixed cost 2.5 b.u.'s. Painting the boat cost 4 b.u.'s. Replacing the portlights cost 3 b.u.'s. You get the picture.

But today, thanks to Tom’s hard work, we didn't even have to spend ½ b.u. and the oh-so-critical bilge pumps are working perfectly.

Tom's not afraid to get his hands dirty.

-Jessi

Lessons Learned Part 2

2004-12-27T21:37:00.000-08:00

Continued from Lessons Learned Part 1. We do it the hard way, so you don't have to:

-When you put your wooden boat back in the water, pull up the carpets, make sure all of your bilge pumps are working properly, and get the shop-vac ready. Then go buy another manual bilge pump just in case.

-Diesel engines make the whole boat smell like… well, diesel. Glade Plug-Ins, drawer sachets, and open windows are your friends.

-Painting the grey decks white makes them look about ten times better. And then they get dirty about ten times faster.

-Add two hours to every project time estimate for every 3 minutes you think it will take to complete.

-Clean up dog pee ASAP. Then dry it out again. And again. Then make sure it is dry. That way your girlfriend doesn't step in it in her socks.

-If you buy walkie-talkies so the captain and first mate can communicate while docking, make sure the radios include headsets. No one ever has a free hand to hold onto a radio.

-When you twist up the radar cable to get it out of the way so you can paint the roof, be sure to untwist it before you turn on the radar. (Recommendations for a good Seattle-area radar technician are welcome; leave contact info in the comments section.)

Intermission

2004-12-21T10:05:00.000-08:00

Doo, do do, do doo doo da do.... (that's our pathetic attempt at intermission music).

We're traveling. Right now we're in Utah, where we spent the last few days snowboarding. Today we leave for New Joisey, where we'll spend Christmas with Tom's family. Yes, we know, this would be a great time to take some pictures and write about our adventures as we go.
Too bad we forgot the camera at home.

So our apologies, but it looks like we're in the midst of a long intermission. Real blogging will commence after the holidays. And now, back to the music.

Do, da do da doo doo doo....

Only in Seattle

2004-12-02T16:55:00.000-08:00

Only when you liveaboard in Seattle can you step out onto the bow of your boat and see this:

The Christmas Ship Parade began yesterday on South Lake Union.

The Parade involves dozens of boats decorated in Christmas lights. Every evening from December 1 - 23 they cruise to a different spot on Lake Union, Lake Washington, or Puget Sound.

The lights are only half the show. The Spirit of Seattle (above) is the lead boat and carries the Seattle Girls Choir, singing Christmas carols broadcast through speakers. A pretty amazing event.

No Excuses

2004-11-29T14:50:00.000-08:00

If we were lame, this next entry would start off with a bunch of excuses about why we haven't blogged in awhile. We'd tell you how we spent the last week with my family, and it would've been rude to excuse ourselves from Thanksgiving dinner so we could update the blog. We'd explain that even if we decided to go ahead and be rude, the only internet access we had was dial-up. We'd tell you how before the holiday Tom was away on business and I was absolutely swamped with school work. If we were lame, we'd give you all those excuses and more. But we won't, 'cause we're not.

Instead of a bunch of excuses, I'll give you a bunch of pictures that some of you may find just as uninteresting as the excuses.

That's right, a couple weeks ago we had a pierside party. Pierside, meaning we didn't leave the dock (because it's already tough enough to dock the boat when we're sober). Here are a bunch of pictures from the party, in no particular order. This pointless entry will hopefully compensate for the entries chock full of useful knowledge and helpful tips. Oh wait, we never write any of those. Well, enjoy the pictures anyway!

Full house

Danny didn't have any fun.

The Late-Night Crew, from left to right: Tom, Jessi, Anne, Danny, Jon and Nate.

Duncan the Vicious Guard Dog, protecting us from all the strangers in our home.

Despite appearances, Matt is the competent skipper of First Child, a 27' sailboat. The slip next to us just happened to be empty, so Matt and his wife Megan sailed First Child across Puget Sound and hung out for the night.

The Morning After - Bye First Child!

-Jessi

These are the days

2004-11-11T21:03:00.000-08:00

As you might have gathered from our last few entries, we’ve faced our share of challenges as we settle into the liveaboard life. Or, to put it more bluntly, things seem to keep going wrong. Rotten wood, leaky plumbing – and we haven’t even told you about the heater fiasco. But that’s for another blog entry.

This entry is about the good stuff. And last weekend was some good stuff (I’ll refrain from saying “good shit” because I think we’ve had enough of that. The head is fixed, by the way).

Even though it was supposed to be overcast, we decided Sunday was as good a day as any to untie the dock lines and get out on the water. It’d been way too long since we’d gone anywhere, and besides, we wanted to top off the diesel tanks. We invited a bunch of friends over, including Brooklyn Frankie, a union ogahnizah; Matt and Megan, sailboat owners themselves; and Andy, just back from Uzbekistan. It was fun to get everyone together - and also, it’s always nice to have a few extra hands when you’re still learning to dock a 48’ beast!

The crew, from left to right: Megan, Matt, Andy, Frankie

Around 1 pm the sun came out, and surprised us all by turning a gloomy November Sunday into a crisp, sunny, fall day. Perfect. First stop, the fuel dock. This was the first time we’d ever fueled up Sea Change, and at $215 for a quarter-tank (yep, 1/4 tank), it wasn’t cheap. The scary thing is, $215 doesn’t really seem like that much anymore. Not because we recently inherited millions, but because when you compare a few hundred dollars to the thousands it cost to paint the boat, or make a down payment... you get the picture.

Frankie helps fuel up...

... while Matt watches the fuel level rise in the engine room, with a walkie-talkie nearby. One of the many "charming quirks" about our boat is that it doesn't have a fuel gauge, so there needs to be someone in the engine room watching the tanks fill, ready to radio the fueler when to STOP!

After successfully fueling up, we headed up the Montlake Cut and into Lake Washington. For those unfamiliar with the Seattle area, we live on Lake Union, a small lake in downtown Seattle. Lake Union is connected to Puget Sound via the locks, and to Lake Washington via the Cut.

We headed east, to Lake Washington.

The Sleepless in Seattle house, which is just down the lake from us - because you know you were curious.

Cruising the lakes was just what we needed. After the last couple weeks of struggling with repairs, and heavy-duty cleaning, and emptying of bank accounts, it reminded us why we’re doing all this. Because there is nothing like living on a boat in Puget Sound!

-Jessi

Oh shit

2004-11-07T20:43:00.000-08:00

I've lost count of how many times I've said that since I bought the boat. But this is the first time I meant it literally.

I'm learning that sounds are very important. "Beep Beep" and "drip drip" I've got figured out... but "Splash splash" had me confused... especially coming from the engine room, and only when you pump the toilet. Hmmm...

I opened the aft access to the engine room and pumped the toilet, and that's when the shit hit the fan. Or rather, when it hit the engine room deck. Ew. Turns out one of the sewage pipes in the engine room had sprung a leak. Before I could even think about climbing in to fix it, we had to clean up the mess. I grabbed the hose from the pier, turned off the bilge pumps to avoid accidentally pumping waste overboard, and sprayed down the engine room deck into the bilge.

Necessities: Air Freshener and Hose.
I pretty much just blasted the place clean. Next I took the Shop Vac and sucked the bilge clean. We then (very carefully) carted the ShopVac to the marina toilet, and flushed the contents. On the way back we threw out the ShopVac. It was old and shitty anyway.

The last known picture of our old Shop Vac

After cleaning the engine room, I finally dared to check out the leak. Unfortunately, I’m a shitty plumber, and I couldn’t fix the problem myself, so I had to call in the pros. Marine Sanitation will be here Monday. In the meantime, we have another head in the forepeak, so don't worry - we’re not completely shit outta luck.

-Tom

That Kind of Girl

2004-10-24T18:36:00.001-07:00

I never thought I’d be that kind of girl… you know, the one who gets her nails done every other day, the girl that has a “colorist,” the type that has a different pair of sunglasses for each outfit. But today I did something that put me dangerously close to being the kind of girl my friend Brian calls an HMB (the H and M stand for High-Maintenance).

I bought Duncan clothes. And not something purely functional like a life jacket. He now has a cable knit sweater, and a cute little fleece hoodie. We just couldn’t help it!

Duncan in his Search and Rescue hoodie, which is perfectly appropriate - he looks just like a rugged mountain dog that would assist in avalanche rescues, don't you think? Squint your eyes, nod politely, and play along, please.

Little Blue Riding Hood

In our defense, it’s getting colder and although the boat has heat, the heater runs on diesel, so we don’t like to leave it on while we’re gone. However, poor little Duncan is on the boat all day. At the coldest it gets down to the 50’s, which isn’t so bad… but we still feel a bit guilty.

So instead of suffering through the chill, Duncan has to suffer through the indignity of being dressed up like a doll. But a very cute and well-dressed doll!

We've said it before: It's a rough life being a boat dog.

Sleep with one eye open

2004-10-21T19:44:00.000-07:00

Boat owners, beware. There’s a monster out there, lurking under every piece of carpet, next to every shower, under every hose, near every skylight. You can lock the doors, seal the seams, and close the windows tight. But the Rotten Wood Monster will still get in. We’ve never actually seen him, but this is what his footprint looks like:

The beautiful teak on the left is what Tom used to repair the damage. To the right of the teak is classic Monster tracks. Note how the wood is dark and, well, rotten-looking.

He left his first mark on the stern, and Tom had to dig into the freshly painted transom. Then, when the winter rains started last week, the Monster snuck in through unzipped canvas, and crept into the lazarette. Just when you think you’ve taken care of the last bit of rotten wood, you throw your clothes in a corner, and the next morning notice that the edge of your t-shirt is wet… as is the carpet… as is the wood underneath the carpet.

In reality, we haven’t discovered that much rotten wood. Just enough to keep us busy for the next few weekends. Even so, we feel it’s our duty to warn other boatowners. Don’t ever assume you’re safe. Unless of course, you own an aluminum or fiberglass boat, in which case you can go to hell.

-Jessi and Tom

A night at the theater

2004-10-17T20:23:00.000-07:00

My parents are in town. We went to Teatro ZinZanni. It's like dinner theater, but they encourage audience participation.

Wheee!!

I was chosen to be her... his... no, her boyfriend for the night. I was surrounded by 200 people trying to eat dinner. I'll go ahead and apologize to them all now.

-Tom

FAQ

2004-10-09T13:28:00.000-07:00

When friends and family find out we’re living on a boat, there’s often a standard set of questions we get. Here they are, complete with answers:

Q: Do you have electricity and water?
A: Yes, we are moored at a marina (not floating out in the middle of the lake). Shore power, water, and even cable for TV and internet are available.

Q: Doesn’t it get cold on the boat?
A: Yes, but we have heat. There’s a small diesel heater that heats hot water and sends it to four different zones throughout the boat (salon, aft stateroom, forward stateroom, pilothouse) each of which are thermostatically controlled.

Q: How close are you to other boats at the marina?
A: Very close. Probably a few feet between us and the next boat. Makes docking interesting. However, as far as we can tell we’re the only full-time liveaboard on our dock, which means despite the proximity of neighbors, it’s actually a very quiet neighborhood.

Q: Isn’t it creepy living on a dock? Don’t bad things happen “down by the docks?”
A: It’s not an industrial dock. It’s well-lit, small (about 150’ long), and full of yachts, not scary warehouses.

Q: Don’t you get sick of keeping your food in an icebox?
A: We actually have a real refrigerator. Not full-size, but better than an icebox.

Q: What about laundry?
A: We also have a washer/dryer. A little luxurious for a boat, but this is our home, after all...

Q: Can we come with you to Alaska?
A: Of course! All we ask is for a little help with sanding, scraping, applying epoxy, painting, pressure-washing, polishing, pumping septic tanks, vacuuming, scrubbing, fueling, provisioning, navigating, standing watch, filling water tanks, fixing leaks, paying slip fees, anchoring, cleaning off bird poop, docking, bailing, washing windows, hosing decks, and varnishing.

-Jessi and Tom

Weekends

2004-10-01T11:38:00.001-07:00

As mentioned before, we’ve finally finished most of the big projects, but we still have a lot of little projects left to complete. Luckily, the little projects are kinda fun, and not nearly as time-consuming or urgent as, for example, getting the boat painted before winter hits. Therefore, we can put off little projects until the weekend. And even then, we usually spend one weekend day doing fun stuff, and the other day working on the boat.

Last weekend was a perfect example. Saturday we slept in, ate breakfast at CJ’s (best breakfast in Belltown), and then headed out to the Gorge to see G-Love and Jack Johnson. The show was great, made even better by the location. The Gorge Amphitheatre is in central WA, 20 minutes from the nearest town, perched on the cliffs overlooking the Columbia River. An amazing venue:

Sunday was chore day - Tom cleaned the outside of the boat while I cleaned the inside. Stereotypical assignment of chores, sure. But I can't help it! Little does Tom know (although I guess I'm about to blow my cover) I actually like cleaning the inside of the boat. Or rather, I like the results, which makes the chore not so bad. Here’s a pic of the pilothouse, gleaming after a good Pledge polish. Note the yacht log, a great boat-warming gift from Tom’s parents:

Meanwhile, Tom was outside scrubbing all the bird poop off the decks (see why I like to clean the inside?) Ah, the romantic life of living on a boat…

As soon as he finished, I quickly took a picture. Who knows how soon the little birdies will show up to poop all over it again.

Tom is also the one who tucks and smooths our couch slipcover, because he seems to have a flair for making it look perfect. He ties the bow on the corners just so:

Once he’s done smoothing the slipcover, Tom quickly turns on ESPN2, gets his power tools from the engine room, and then goes outside to rev his motorcycle a few times. I can’t imagine why...

-Jessi

Lessons Learned

2004-09-23T17:31:00.000-07:00

I'm sure we'll be adding to this repeatedly, but here's a little list of what we've learned so far, in no particular order:

-Don’t do 5 loads of wash Sunday evening, or you won’t have any water left in the tanks for a shower Monday morning. Not a good way to start the week.

-Desiccant, desiccant, desiccant.

-If you hire someone to paint a stripe on your boat, make them physically show you exactly where they are going to paint it.

-When people say wooden boats are a lot of work, they mean it. No, really. More than you could ever comprehend.

-Dust the blinds weekly.

-There’s a big difference between operating a 20’ work skiff, and operating a 48’ twin diesel motor yacht that happens to be carrying all your worldly possessions.

-Making a “few small changes” to the interior is never quite as cheap and easy as you think it’ll be.

-Don't panic. Take a deep breath and figure out how to do what you want to do. Just don't freak out about every little thing.

-Leave a nice note on the boat you just hit.

-When people say a boat is just a hole in the water that you pour money into, they mean it. No, really. More than you could ever comprehend.

-Jessi and Tom

Getting comfortable

2004-09-22T08:37:00.000-07:00

Field season is over and I’ve officially moved onto the boat, which is pretty great. Great because I get to see Tom every day instead of only on weekends, great because I don’t have to commute to San Juan Island every week (5 hour trip including the ferry line), great because my suitcase might just stay unpacked for more than a month… and great because I’m living on a boat! What a cool experience, especially in an area like Puget Sound!

I’m not the only one who’s getting comfortable on the boat. Duncan is also turning into a salty old sea dog.

Of course, we wouldn’t be good parents if we didn’t ruin his cool by making him wear a lifejacket when the boat is underway. Judging by the way he splays his legs out and hugs the ground whenever he gets near the edge of the boat, I think he’s secretly glad we make him wear it. Anyway, here’s Duncan’s latest outfit:

Doesn't the yellow look lovely?

Obviously, wearing the life jacket totally freaks him out and he just can’t relax when it’s on:

It's a rough life being a boat dog.

-Jessi