The Barrels

You may remember early in our launching that we were down on the forward port side, and that it turned out that we were missing a barrel bung and that one of the forward barrels was leaking due to a cross threaded one.

Well now we have a different issue.  Two of the barrels on the same side have begun to deform, becoming flat on the bottom and losing floatation.  I'm at a bit of a loss.  So today at some point I'll go in the water, see if any of them have taken on water, and see what's going on with the #2 and #4 barrels on the Port side.

Sigh, always something....

but it beats the hell out of faculty meetings.

M

Busy Day

Been a busy day here on the Floating Empire after two days of solid rain, deafening thunder, lightning....did i mention the rain?  Yeesh.

But today was pretty and a bit cool and we could actually get some things done.  First we ventured to the wilds of Ikea to get some folding chairs for the dining area.  We had bought some lovely faux wicker chairs before we started this thing.  They're great, comfy, durable, stylish......the only thing we failed to ask was: is there any door or window in this boat through which these chairs will fit?

If you're curious, the answer to that one was "No".

So they sit stylishly stacked on the bow.  We're probably giving them to a friend.  So we went to IKEA and snagged some lovely, equally stylish, black wood folding chairs for the dining area that we can make disappear if need be.

Then we tied into our major project for the day, which was the new aft stairs.  We had been using a ladder....I mean Lowes fibreglass painter's ladder....to get up and down to the sleeping loft.  Not only did it take up too much freaking room, the elderly cat couldn't manage it, so either she got upstairs somehow and couldn't get down (so she just pee'd in place) or stayed downstairs and sulked.

So in my right mind and in possession of multiple power tools, I built a new set of steps in front of our power system to help us ALL access the loft.

They take up less room, aren't in danger of falling over, and are much wider in the tread department....unfortunately, though

Kallisti, though a beautiful cat, is not the brightest crayon in the pack, and has yet to figure them out without either needing help or hurting herself...

sigh....

Dinners have been wonderful.  yesterday, we caught our first crabs and made them into a great little meal.

And then today, after a lovely lunch at Shultz's of lump crabcake, we found some small fillets and had them with a monster salad and fresh bread for dinner.

(apologies for the low light levels)

We hated it as you can see....

My point is, we're living rather large in our new and simplified lifestyle.

We ordered the edgestar fridge today, 3.1 cubic feet that runs at a massive 35 watts when it's on.  Full review when we get it installed and running.

Comment, damn ye.

and check out Morgainne's blog, lifeartwater.blogspot.com

M

Explorations and the Shantyboat Lifestyle

One of the things that has really jumped out at us lately is how wonderfully different this lifestyle is from even that of long time cruisers.  Cruisers touch in many ports, and get to see a lot of the world.  Moving only occasionally in Floating Empire, we get to experience each of our locales in depth, and perhaps to see things that we might have missed on a more cursory visit.

Middle River from the 150 Bridge, close to the headwaters.

As an example, within walking distance of this place, we found a lovely park, an amazing grocery store, an amazingly CHEAP grocery store, a restaurant claiming that it has "the Planet's best Crabcakes" (from the reviews that might not be too far off), a decent pizza parlor, a good wine merchant.  The list goes on.  Every couple of days we pick a new direction and just go see what's there.

You see the good and the bad:  Too much of the Chesapeake's coastline is being transformed into condos.

I don't know who they expect to live in, let alone afford, all these places, and most of the griping about the "Rain Tax" here in Maryland (politicalspinspeak for the runoff abatement fees assessed on those with large, impermeable surfaces in the Chesapeake watershed) seems mostly rich landowners with large parking lots griping about being billed for amelioration of the pollution they're causing.

But even in the shadow of all this development, there are little gems.  Next to the development is a disused and abandoned road, obviously part of someone's homestead at one time.  Its lined with the most amazing raspberries, ripe at the moment, and mad with color and flavor.

There were also some amazing and rather ancient grape vines, all caught up in old trees.

Sooner or later some contractor will get around to spraying all this with roundup and putting in pruned, shaped, boxwood hedges or somesuchwhat.  But for now, today I'll put on some heavy jeans (they're prickly little bushes) and go harvest some for dessert.

So we'll stay here a while and explore, then when we move, they'll be new roads to wander down, new restaurants and pubs to sample, new things to see, new folks to meet.

We're liking this.

Stay tuned

M

The Body in Question

The body in question is mine.

I felt I would be remiss if I didn’t discuss, albeit briefly, the tolls and benefits of such a project on your personal Soma (the Psyche part we’ll get to later).

Beginning this project, I was in relatively good shape for a 60 something American.  Through a lifelong, low level practice of yoga and from teaching mime and stage combat in my acting classes, I was relatively flexible.  I was no stranger to hard work, especially in sieges of great intensity during theatrical productions.  I was slightly overweight, though not grossly so.  My BP was slightly higher than I’d wish it, though nothing as to curry alarm.  I was, in general…well…okay.

Our plans were pretty simple, and fairly well (ahem) thought out.  Morgainne would continue to work retail and to teach while I worked part time at a big box lumber store, bringing in a bit of cash and getting a discount on our supplies, working the rest of the time on the boat with her helping as she could.  The boat would take us a little over three months, we figured.  During the last of those, we would downsize, move out of our apartment and onto the boat, and then sail away scot free.

The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men Gang aft agley.

The weather in the spring of ’14 was horrible:  snow and snow and ice and snow and then rain and rain and rain.  Glues don’t set in cold temperatures.  Paint won’t stay on when it’s raining.  We kept getting delayed.  The upshot was that over the last month, we worked ourselves half to death, having to move out of our apartment, finish the boat, and move it all at once.

So here’s a few things I’ve learned on this.  Caveat.  This could be you.

 1) If you work while exhausted, you will injure yourself.  Don’t believe me?  Scroll back on this blog and look for the collection of splints, hand braces, 2nd degree burns and the like.....

During the course of construction, I burned myself, drove screws into my fingers, damaged a tendon in my right hand, did something unfortunate to my right knee getting up and down and up and down ladders, obtained innumerable slivers, nicks, small cuts, destroyed fingernails, bruises, and contusions, and sorely overtaxed my muscles.  By the end of construction, I was moving like a 90 year old, having to lever myself up and down to my knees to work on flooring and wiring because everything hurt.

Give yourself the time, be present in the moment you’re building, and I doubt this will happen to you.

2)  Get some freaking sleep.  I found—as is my want—that I couldn’t turn my head off at the end of the day.  I would spend half the night building and rebuilding and unbuilding and reengineering parts of the boat in my head.  Admittedly, some of these virtual construction sessions were fruitful and resulted in a better and simpler build, but the same thing could have been accomplished by just giving ourselves more time.  The upshot was, I would wake up….sorta…..dazed and confused and under slept, which led to mistakes, which led to my having to undo said mistakes which led to even more work.

3)  Eat:  There were times I was just too tired.  I would start without breakfast, work through meals, and when time came for dinner all I wanted to do was take a hot bath and go to bed.  God knows what that did to my blood sugar levels, concentration, and endurance.  You can solve this by….wait for it…..giving yourself more time.  Are you starting to see a pattern here?

4)  Take care of yourself.  This is not a contest.  The object is the successful completion of the project.  Once that happens, no one will ask how many extra days it took.  You will gain nothing by proving you can work yourself to insensibility.  When the work has been challenging, give your body the chance to recover before you launch back into things.  Again, give yourself more time.

That is not to say that the project hasn’t had its positive effects.  Being a performer, I love the praise we’ve received for the boat and its concepts.  Adulation is one of my favorite drugs.  Of course there were other benefits as well.  Over the course of this thing, I lost at least 15 pounds and gained a good deal of muscle strength and definition.  My schedule before was haphazard, and included a good deal of…well….frankly crappy food.  Needing to support the work load meant that I had to eat, and to eat healthy things that would actually fuel what i was doing.  We’ve continued with that, getting three squares a day, no seconds, not a lot of ethanol, and precious little junk food.  

The upshot of having done the project….despite minimal scarring ……is that I look and feel better than I have in some time.  Not having to deal with corporate retail or academic infighting has dropped my stress levels massively, and just having the freedom to sleep when I want, to eat when I need to, and to stop working when I feel like it has made me feel human again.

Summary:  This sort of project can be a wonderful, life changing experience….if you don’t kill yourself doing it.  This isn’t a contest, and playing superman will not get you a better project or more respect, it will just get you tired and hurt.  

Give yourself the one thing this society does’t want you to have :  Time.  Enjoy the ride.

later

M

Art and the snake farm...

So two projects today in my rather short post.  The first:  I finally tore into and sorted out our battery wiring.  We had two problems:  First, we were pulling power off the end of the parallel chain of batteries, not off the center as was recommended, and, second, we had a ton of unused wiring from the original drive system, relays we wound up not using, inadequate power leads to the rear motor....you get the picture.

So, equipping myself with crimper and wire cutters and pliers and socket sets and bandaids, I squatted down on a milking stool and started trying to make orderly chaos out of chaotic chaos, so to speak, taking out all the unused wiring, making things more compact, and wiring the charging lines from the solar controller and the output lines to the inverter into the center of the stack where they belonged.

It may not look it, but trust me, it's a huge improvement.

While I was at this, Morgainne was continuing with her embellishment of the deckhouse.

Cool, hunh?

We progress.

Be sure to check out Morgainne's companion blog lifeartwater.blogspot.com


Stay tuned.

M

Ice Capades

In Pursuit of Cold

Refrigeration is always an issue off the grid.  Our original thought was to use ice chests until we could build a big, superinsulated ice box for the boat, then run on block ice every week or so.  

We did come up with some decent techniques for keeping things in the coolers from getting sodden, using cut down cat litter containers--the plastic ones--as bins to contain the ice and keep water out of the food.

The trouble is, it’s hot here, with some days veering toward 100 F and 92% humidity.  The ice melted fast.  Worse, we wanted ice in our drinks, ice to make frozen desserts (we can make great lassi and milkshakes using the stick blender), ice just for cooling down.

The marina has ice, but in small bags at a premium price.  So, on virtually a daily basis, we were forced to drive to a local grocery to get a 15# bag of ice, or all the way down to Baltimore Boat Center (the only place we’ve found locally that sells block ice) for a couple of giant cubes.

This was proving to be neither practical nor economical, and in terms of environmental impact, between the driving and whatever energy sources the ice company was using to make the ice, its hardly green.  Even with a superinsulated ice cabinet, the problem would still exist.

So we determined that the best course would be to see if our solar system--which we are hardly taxing--would carry a small fridge.  We wouldn’t be running out and burning gas to get environmentally questionable ice every five minutes, and the milk would stay much happier.

So here’s the deal:  “coolers”, the kind sold to work in your truck or car, utilize Peltier effect to cool (or heat) the inside of an insulated box.  It works, but only to about 30 degrees below ambient temperature, and they’re wildly inefficient.  Fine if you’re on the road and have 12V power coming off the alternator to burn, lousy if you use solar and batteries for power.  

Refrigerators using compressors and evaporation cycle are far, far more efficient while running, but they do have one drawback:  They take a sizable surge of power--often as much as 10 times their running wattage--when then start up.  So all we needed to know to make an informed selection was the running and the startup voltage of the compact fridges we were considering.  There was a time when this was all posted either on the website or on the documentation for the appliance.

.....go ahead.  Try to find it now.  This has proven and incredibly complex to do for some reason.  Wattage is rarely posted (though yearly energy consumption is REQUIRED to be posted in the US). When it is, you don’t know if its maximum wattage drawn (the startup wattage), operating wattage, or, rather bizarrely, an average of the two.

So after multiple Emails, chats, forums, and snarling efforts restraining myself from throwing the computer out the window, we have finally narrowed the choice down to a couple of compacts in the 3.3-4.0 CU foot range. The leading contender is a 3.1 made by Edgestar.

Stay tuned.

M 

Fun and Games....no, really

Its amazing how many wonderful things can open up to you if you just change your life a bit.  Floating Empire has been a lot of things over the last few weeks:  A home, a magnet for meeting new folks, an ongoing art project, an adventure.....

Sometime just sitting on the front deck and reading can bring the world to your door.

Here's a video of us cruising in some VERY unpredictable wind in our new friend Lee's Columbia 24 in the inlet from Middle River into the Chesapeake Bay.  Pretty rough from all the boat wakes, as you can see, but then it was Fourth of July Weekend.

Sometimes the opportunity for local produce offers itself.

I love local farm stand stuff that hasn't been on a truck for three weeks before you get it.

As Floating Empire is an Art project as well, we finally got to a point we could embellish.

Here's a bit of Celtic/Vardo nicery going on.

First Stencil.

Then paint

Nice Hunh?

                                     

Of course the scary thing is that, on one level, BOTH the sides of Floating Empire are nothing but a collection of picture frames......hmmmmmmm.

Stay tuned while things get out of hand.

M

Access to Tools

In response to a couple of questions, I thought I would list here the tools we found useful in putting the project together.  Your mileage may vary, but I’d strongly recommend you consider finding yourself in possession of most of these before beginning:

Small Stuff:

Speed Square

Large carpenter’s square

Chalk line (we used this a LOT with the plywood)

722 carpenter’s pencils (because I can never put one down in the same place)

sharpie (permanent marking pen) for marking tufftex and metal

Swiss Army Knife (used for Lots of things, especially cutting the membrane and removing splinters)

Tape Measure

Carpenter’s folding rule

Straight edge

Surform plane

Japanese (pull)double sided saw (UTTERLY INVALUABLE!  These things have razor thin blades and virtually no kerf, and cut on the pull stroke.  You can get them at most box hardware stores with replaceable blades for under $30.  They are fast, silent, accurate, and can get in to trim things most other saws can’t get near.)

Hammer (well, duh)

Wood Chisel

Nailset

Tinsnips (great for both corrugated metal and tuftex)

Crimper (for electrical work)

Socket set (for nuts, bolts, and lag screws)

Pocket hole drill set (not only utterly useful, but we used the two diameter bit for setting screws into thick lumber)

Pipe (monkey) wrenches (2) both for working with the pipe and for pulling warped wood into place.

Pliers (for lotsa stuff)

Staple gun (mechanical)

Power tools:

Heavy (7 Amp) variable speed drill (Don’t make yourself crazy when trying to drill the holes for the pipe in the stringers, get hold of a drill strong enough to do it)

Heavy Circular Saw (we used my elderly 7 amp Craftsman.  Worked fine)

Rechargeable cordless drill (for most other applications, spare battery recommended)

Jigsaw (quick release blades recommended)

Air Compressor and Staple Gun (really made quick work of panelling, decking, and trim)

Angle Grinder (used mostly as a sander in this application, but also as a cutoff for angle iron)

Soldering Iron (just a simple 30W pencil iron for wiring)

Bladerunner: (this critter is a Rockwell invention, an inverted stationary jigsaw table with a pressure foot to stop vibration.  Will cut about anything up to 2”.  We used this heavily in cutting the Medallions and used it as a motorized mitre box for framing and cutting trim.  A really wonderful tool to have.  Check it out)

We used star drive screws pretty much exclusively when we could.  They don’t strip out easily and are available in non-rusting versions.  The problem is, they aren’t always available.  I wound up using t20 and t25 star drive screws, phillips screws (#2) and box head screws (#2) and spent half my time looking for the appropriate bit.  You can save yourself some effort by buying a good supply of screws using the same bit at the beginning of the build.  

We used aluminum ring roofing nails with plastic washers (most of the ones I’ve seen are an obnoxious blue) for the initial attachment of the membrane, then followed that up by screwing down trim and our medallions over the edges to hold it firmly in place.

For Glues we used both Gorilla Glue and Titebond III.  We used the Gorilla Glue for treated wood (the glue is hydrophilic and can be used on lumber with a high moisture content) and where there were gaps to be filled, and the Titebond III for everything else where we could use screws or clamps to apply clamping pressure.  Both work well.  The Gorilla Glue is easier to use but foams on contact with moisture and can create a mess which you have to cut away.  It also does NOT come off of things...including your hands.  I looked like a leper for two days or so.

The Titebond is cleaner and strong, and uses water cleanup, but you have to have a clean joint and adequate spread of the glue and clamping pressure for it to work.  

Other Stuff:

Sawhorses....made the mistake of getting some inexpensive plastic ones that rapidly disassembled themselves.  Get wood or steel.

Plate Vise:  (Really simple tool that can help you cut very long pieces of wood on site.  It’s just a square of metal that locks wood into itself by wedging it in at an angle.  Something we carry on the boat as well.)

Face Shield (If you wear glasses, these are faster and less likely to fog)

Safety glasses (for when my contacts are in )

Gloves (my poor hands have taken a beating through this.  Get a pair of heavy canvas work gloves for moving lumber and block and a pair of mechanics gloves to save your fingers when doing finer work.  You’ll be very glad you did.)

Knee Pads (no foolin, get a pair.  Putting in flooring, putting on floor trim, working on wiring or cabinets, tying and removing and retying the barrels (on gravel....on your knees...get the idea?)

We didn’t use a level.  The ground we were on was so uneven it was of little use, but if we had a better, more level space, a level could have been invaluable.

Disposable gloves (for working with spar varnish and glues)

Wished We’d had to Use:

(but made do anyway)

Table Saw (much better for plywood and paneling) or Panel Saw

Radial Arm Saw 

Indentured servants or the modern equivalent:  Interns.

PS please check out our companion blog lifeartwater@blogspot.com......You'll be glad you did.
Life Art Water

What works, what doesn't....

So at this stage of the project, I find it appropriate to do a little reckoning about what worked, what didn’t, what we could have done better....or much much worse...in the construction and use of this critter.  All of the construction is pretty much documented in this blog (go to “older entries” for the early stuff), so feel free to use those entries as a reference.

In terms of the design, as cited before, the boat is too large by about a foot.  If I had to do it again I would opt for a slightly longer vessel--assuming I felt I needed the room--and keep to an 8’ width.  There are three reasons for this:  First is expense.  In America, things like plywood and dimensional lumber tend to be only easily available in specific lengths.  So, if I want to cover over a 4’ X 8’ floor, I get a 4’ X 8’ sheet of plywood.  If I want to cover a 4’ X 8’ 1/2” space, I have to buy TWO sheets of 4’ X 8’ plywood to make up for the additional lumber.  Hyperbole, but you get the idea.  Second is, of course, the additional labor.  That additional 1/2” has to have structure to support it, has to have paint and glue and fasteners.  We built Floating Empire with 9’ 6” interior floors to accommodate the aft studio space.  I could have probably saved nearly 1/3 of the expense and building time by losing that 1’ 6”.  I’m not at all sure we’d miss it.

Third is transport.  Most countries have a limitation of width for transport (here in Maryland its 8’ 6”).  Go over that and there are special permits, limitations on transit times and roads that can be used, and, of course, more expense.

The roofline is a similar issue.  While we love the sleeping loft, making it a permanent structure meant that the boat was in excess of the 13’ 6” allowed on the highways when placed on a trailer.  This meant we had to remove all of the flotation, store it in the boat for transit (which meant we couldn’t finish the interior walls before the move) then re-attach the floats before it goes to the water.  Tedious.  Some Vardo designs (bow top) built recently have the ability to hinge down the top of the vardo for transit, which would have greatly facilitated transport (and might also have been useful in limiting the amount   of wind resistance when the vessel is on the water.)

Our choice of construction spaces was driven by expense and convenience.  In balance, the choice was questionable.  We built in back of the house, on an alley which did allow for easy access, but the ground was unlevel, causing multiple problems in keeping the build square and resulting in a nearly three hour ordeal to get the boat onto the trailer for the move.  Building in a boatyard, or a rented garage near the water, would have eliminated the considerable expense of transit, and would, despite the transit time to the build site, have made construction easier and more accurate.

The outdoor build also meant that we were interrupted frequently by weather until we finally got the boat enclosed, which, in aggregate,  put our construction back at least a month.

So in summary of the above:  8’ width, collapsable roofline, and rent a garage or warehouse space for the build, hopefully something much nearer the water which would save the nearly two grand we wound up spending on transit, prep, and launch.

The membrane roof, leftovers from the construction of a sports stadium obtained from billboardtarps.com, was a great choice.  The surface is highly reflective, and even in direct sun on hot days transmits a surprisingly small amount of heat to the interior of the boat.  It is also extremely tough, having weathered not only several heavy rains and thunderstorms, but also 50mph wind equivalents in the nearly two hour transit by truck to the water.  Good choice, especially for a price of about $60 including shipping (which was half of the expense).  Would do it again.  The lovely curve of the roof, the adequate headroom in the sleeping loft, and the inherent stability of the pontoons in easy water make for a great sleeping space.

The use of pipe to secure the barrels also is a great idea, and here many thanks to the Illinois group from which we borrowed the idea.  It saved many hours of construction, and during the aborted fork lift effort at the marina, even though one of our stringers broke, the pipe never varied.  They hold the barrels securely and evenly, without allowing them to pop up against the flooring (a problem cited on some other barrel barge construction blogs).

The barrels themselves seem fine.  Very little seems inclined to stick to them, including barnacles and algae.  During the move and launch, we had one to leak due to a cross threaded plug and one to virtually sink due to a MISSING plug.  Both were remedied quickly and simply with a quick swim and a small hand pump, though such experiences may be far less pleasant in, say, the depth of winter.  I highly recommend getting a barrel wrench, which greatly facilitates getting the inset bung plugs on and off.

I needed more flotation.  Adding a barrel to the bow helped, but if I were rebuilding, I would add a third line of floats all the way down the middle.

The vote is still out on the stressed skin floor.  The thing creaks and flexes but still seems to be holding solidly, save over the stringer that was broken.  I suspect at some point I will wind up reenforcing the floor, but for now, its fine.

The sort of theatre set construction of the walls, making them essentially non load bearing curtains hanging from the cross members and king posts, seems to be working fine.  It certainly saved quite a bit of weight and expense.  We should have framed in the windows first and THEN inserted them into the walls rather than trying to build in the framing as we went.  This made for some rather out of square construction, which we’re now fighting.

The solar system from WindyNation works really well.  Even during the transit overwater, running two electric motors, we didn’t deplete the system, and it’s more than enough to meet our needs for small appliance use and charging our electronics.  I’m unsure if the system as configured (200 watts of panels, 6 35 AH deep cycle batteries, and a PPL charge controller) would be adequate for refrigeration, especially in the near 100 degree F. temperatures we’ve experienced over the last few days, but for now it more than meets our needs, cheerfully operating computers, power tools, blenders, coffee grinders, and fans without complaint.  If I did feel the need to upgrade the system, my first buy would be to get a newer charge controller, which would increase greatly the efficiency of our battery charging.

While I’m on the subject of appliances, may I sing the praises of the humble stick blender.  We have a little silver unit from KitchenAide that takes up probably a quarter of the room of a countertop blender, and has happily made smoothies, soups, milkshakes, and the like.  As a useful space saver, it’s rather become a must-have.  Frozen drinks may be next.

The galley set up has been one of the stars of this show.  We use river water to wash with, we rinse with the same, albeit disinfected with a bit of chlorine bleach (a practice left over from our restaurant days, and we’re careful about it.  We also use bleach water to wipe down countertops and tools), and have suffered no ill effects.  The galley is rather a pleasure in which to work, it looks great, the magnetic knife rack saves lots of counter space.....in general: do it like this.  I’ve had kitchens in houses and apartments that weren’t this functional.

The water filter from Monolithic works just fine, as does our filter set up.  In addition to river water, we also filter our melt water from cooler ice.  We keep it filled and filtering so there’s always plenty of drinking water.

The composting toilet works beautifully.  Early on, my kind of gonzo urine separator....um....separated from the toilet, and we’ve discovered we didn’t need it.  We’ve used several things as biomass, including sawdust from the construction (NOT from treated wood!!! It’ll stop a lot of the composting process and it’s fairly toxic), pine based cat litter, and, lately, wood stove pellets.  The hardwood pellets are pressure compressed sawdust which expand when they get wet.  It appears to be an inexpensive and compact way to keep biomass on hand.  

And, no, the toilet does not smell at all.  The trick is to get a good 2” bed of biomass in the bottom of the container before you start, use an adequate amount to cover and absorb urine and feces, and keep the lid shut.  We’ve had no problems whatsoever.

Our matchstick blind wall partitions are really pretty, allow for air flow, and went together easily.  It remains to be seen how we like living with them, but for now, its a plus.

Our electric motors are woefully, hideously, horribly underpowered.  Between the bow thruster and the 55 lb thruster at the stern, we only amount to about a horsepower, and I’m figuring the boat needs at least three to pilot it happily under even very favorable conditions.  Still hoping for the paddlewheel, but in the interim, we’re doing research.

There are still a few things undone.  I need to finish out the door onto the aft deck, the weatherstripping on the windows, we haven’t finished the bathing area yet, and we have yet to install the graywater filter and are at the moment using a bladder and hauling the graywater ashore.  On the whole, though, the boat functions and is a cozy and happy space in which to live.  I’ve started writing again, and Morgainne is working in her unfinished studio today.  All’s well.

While we haven’t done a tally, the construction of the boat probably ran us somewhere around $4000 US to get us an entirely livable space.

More later

M

Settling in

Spent a rather quiet day getting used to our new surroundings.  We are proceeding with doing the finish and trim stuff that went undone before we launched.

 We got most of the trim in place in the galley, including the tin ceiling backsplash.  Cool, hunh?

And here's a bit of a tour of the new space here at Middle River Landing

All in all a pleasant space.  So over the next few days we'll proceed with finishing the interior, solving some of the problems with the electric drive....more on this later....and in general learning how to live on what is proving to be a very comfortable little space.

More shortly.

M