I’ve had several days off this month, so I’ve been able to spend a good bit of time at the boat. The tricky part is that each time, I’ve only had a few days here and there; not long enough to undertake any major projects or go exploring, but too long to accomplish nothing.
Enter the list of Quick Wins.
I, with the help of a nice man from True North Yacht Services, finally got to the root of the clogged forward head (“head” being boat speak for “toilet”) last week. It seems as though there were some stray globs of sawdust clogging up the discharge line. I assume–hope, even–they were left over from when we demolished the counters and installed the granite last spring.
In the cleaning/organizing department, a trip to the Container Store a week or two ago led to the purchase of all kinds of wall mounted baskets and such. We identified the aft wall of the galley as a wasted space zone and the ELFA line of stuff from the Container Store fit perfectly.
It also helped that everything was 30% off.
It looks like we’ll be able to keep the Keurig on the counter for the foreseeable future, as well as the vacuum sealer I got for Christmas. Allison has her sights on moving them, but I’m holding my ground until she comes up with another solution…I love those things.
Randy and I had issues during our crossing a few months ago with the refrigerator and freezer doors opening randomly when we hit waves. I knew this would be an issue, but I didn’t have time to fix it before we left, so we hacked together a bungee cord solution to get by. I finally sprung for a few clasps at West Marine and installed them to keep the doors from flying open during passage.
Something that almost knocked Randy out when it went flying across the boat was a large hunk of butcher block that we’d picked up from IKEA to cover the Force10 cooktop. It fit snuggly enough that I didn’t think about it until it became a projectile. So I grabbed a drill bit and a cotter pin and took care of it.
I also replaced a broken fan in the galley and added one to the nav station.
One of the downfalls of the Brewer 42 is that there is no good cockpit table that would allow me to comfortably sit outside while typing away at my first New York Times Bestseller. I’ve had this boat for over 2 years, and I hadn’t yet made a good office space for me to do computer things that didn’t involve awkwardly using a boat cushion as a lap desk.
The nav station, until now, had been used for anything but “nav”ing. Mostly it was a place to dump random charging cables and pile up various pieces of luggage and spare parts. It was also the home of the stupid basket of random crap that we all end up with for one reason or another. Most of you have a random crap drawer. We have a basket.
But you’ll be glad to know, the basket has been moved and the nav station is now a proper desk space. I’m actually typing this post from there now! I know this doesn’t sound like a big thing to you, but believe me, it is. The newly installed fan just makes it sweeter.
Remember how a few months ago I installed 10 new batteries where there used to only be 2? Well, the additional batteries ate up a lot of spare parts storage. At the time, I just stuffed all those spares in any nook and cranny I could in the aft cabin, including the closet.
That’s probably where they would have remained for a while if it weren’t for the whole girl thing. She apparently has big plans for those particular areas.
I located a suitable spot (storage compartment #21 if you’re following along at home), vacuum sealing everything possible. I can hear the cries of joy from Allison in Atlanta now, as her nooks and crannies are now ready to be filled with linens and delicates, or whatever girls put in places like that.
Done and dusted, as she would say.
(Just don’t tell her one of those crannies leaks a little. She wouldn’t like that.)