Photo of the Week; 2/13/12

Oh, the things we share our living spaces with.  Boats are notorious for serving as storage sheds – storage for all the things you’ve accumulated over the years, but that serve no purpose, and you can’t get rid of.  So throw them in the boat.  And when you head out to the marina to go sailing, you can just move it out of the way or ignore it.
Liveaboards are on the other end of the “accumulated things” spectrum.  The boats are storage areas, but only for the few things that we have room for, because it’s also our living space.

I was eating lunch with my two new anchors at my side, staring at my sailmaking machine, and thought to myself “hmm, I never thought I’d share my living room/dining room with two anchors and a sewing machine.”   I was obligated to take a picture of the scenario.

The anchors are new, to replace the one twenty-pounder that came with the boat, and I’ll be writing a post about replacing all of my ground tackle once that process is complete.

32mm, ISO800, f4.0, 1/15 sec, bounce flash off the cabin top.

AC/DC

Under Executive Order, and in keeping faith with my latest decree of being disciplined about my boat projects, I have declared March to be Electrical Systems Month.  This means I have 12 days to figure out how I’ll tackle my electrical projects throughout March, projects that need to be accomplished if I’m going to be a successful cruising photographer.  These projects include: an inverter, new electrical distribution panel, batteries, solar panels, and rewiring.  Let’s start with selecting an inverter. Continue reading

Photo of the Week; 2/6/12

Am I really recycling photos?

Well, yes, and no.

Reality has again hit me and I was unable to get a photo worth sharing this week.  I’m not 100% perfect – but close – and now I must adapt.  I have been going through old previously unpublished photos, and found some worth breathing some life into.  So that’s what I’ll be doing if I can’t snap a good one during the week.

This photo is from a pizzeria in Rome.  This pigeon thought it could get away with stealing a sliced tomato from this pizza until I stuck my camera lens in its face.  Sorry buddy, there’s plenty of tomatoes in Rome.  105mm, ISO800, f5.6, 1/250sec.

Eyes on the Prize!

Rewriting the big list!

This “living aboard” thing has been going better than I planned…I’m surviving my first winter (albeit a mild one) and am thoroughly enjoying life on the dock.  My whole reason for ditching life “on the hard” one year before setting out on my “Big Trip” was to work on projects and get Saoirse ready just as much as getting myself ready.  But right now my checklist doesn’t have very many checks next to anything. Continue reading

Lifelines

Bets on how much longer that would have lasted?

Get five sailors together to figure out a problem and you’ll get eight exclusively correct solutions.  Fighter pilots are no different.  This has helped me realize that if I am going to work on my boat myself, I need to do some research and collect all of the facts & opinions before going a certain route, and I need to be able to justify my course of action.  This was the process I faced while trying to decide how to repair my lifelines – those strands of wire designed to keep you from falling off your boat.
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Photo of the Week; 1/30/12

Just a day late getting this out for the week of 1/30/12.  There’s really no story behind this one.  I was walking the dock one night, the sky was a spectacular color, the water was amazingly calm, and the reflections were unreal.

You’re looking at the bow of a sailboat reflected in the water, with the dock lines coming off the side.  The anchor is visible at top and the furling jib at the bottom.  200mm, ISO400, f/5.6, 1/10 sec.

Photo of the Week; 1/23/12

I had good intentions, I really did.  I’m talking about my self-imposed weekly photography assignments.  It sounded like a great idea, one that I’ll hang on to.  But the reality of my current situation is that I don’t have the time to stalk these assignments every week and come out with something that I’m proud of.  For example, last week’s assignment was to create something with an exposure longer than one second.  My availability did not lend to finding compositions that would require exposures that long.  I’ll definitely be keeping up with the photo of the week, but after the above excuses, I’ll just be looking for targets of opportunity.  Like what Monday’s fog presented.

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Man-Sewing

I think I can figure this thing out...

I don’t know which of the following was more difficult: buying a sewing machine, using a sewing machine, or admitting that I have/use a sewing machine.  Just wait til the guys at work hear about this.  Don’t worry, I was able to justify it.  It’s a semi-industrial sailmaking sewing machine (a Sailrite LSZ-1), weighs nearly 50 pounds, and is blue.  Blue is a man’s color.  And a recent article in Good Old Boat magazine was titled “Real sailors sew”.  It should, in theory, save me thousands of dollars over a few years.  Assuming I can get past figuring out how to thread it. Continue reading

Engine Woes

They make it look so easy!

It’s a sailboat, right?  So what’s with the engine?

Yeah, I wish it was that easy.  Not having an engine would save a lot of headaches and money.  It’d create a lot more storage room.  And it’d make me a better sailor by not having my engine to rely on in tough situations.  But it’s slightly complicated…and I haven’t quite taken the plunge of engine-less sailing. Continue reading

Photo of the Week; 1/9/12

I decided to step a little bit out of my “norms” for this week’s (really last week’s) photo-of-the-week assignment.  I wanted to walk around Washington’s historic Harbor District and find some interesting windows.  Some of the buildings date back to the 18th century, and almost all of them have an interesting character about them.  This week’s photo is of the Fowle Warehouse.

The Fowle Warehouse was built in the early-to-mid 1800s and survived a brutal Civil War battle. Washington, NC

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