Second Best Shower of My Life

A little over a week ago, I got a little more stimulation from my morning shower than I had planned... no hot water!

Bruce!  There's NO HOT WATER! So I rushed through my shower as Bruce sprung to the boat's electrical panel, he searched frantically for the cause... Nothing!  It should be working!

Fast forward to my arrival home from work.  Bruce is washing dishes with water heated on the stove.  He tells me "there's been a miracle".  I'm skeptical...

Suddenly the water heater is working again?  I head for the aft cabin to change.  Walking past the electrical panel I smell "that burning smell".  Bruce rushes over and flips off the switch to the power.  We sniff around and finally locate the source of the smell.

Pretty sure this is it!  I've never seen one of these gadgets.  The best we can figure is that there was once a problem and the previous owner had to make repairs with whatever was available.  This little gadget has obviously decided to give it up.  Thoughts of what might have happened are pushed out of our minds as we begin the process of figuring out what could have caused this.

Bruce spent the better part of the past week (while I had cold showers) thinking about the best plan of attack.  Sources say that a poor connection could cause this type of burnout.  Other sources say that the connection could have been stressed by a dying heating element.

We ordered a new element and before it even arrived, we made the decision to replace the entire heater.  The Kuuma 6 gallon water heater we have has been a good one, but upon closer inspection, we discovered that it is leaking.  (could this be the cause of our water pump going off periodically?)

Bruce picked up a new one at West Marine.  While it sat in the car for two or three days... I listened to Bruce's ever growing plan for installation of the new heater.  It involved raising the platform that holds our Xantrex inverter and ..... WHAT!???  Why the *&%$ would we do THAT?!!

I had to take matters into my own hands and get this party started...  We re-evaluated the issues at hand and decided... if it ain't broke, don't move the thing!  The problem was raising the Xantrex which rests upon the heater.  We devised a way to lift the board using a strap (seen at the top right corner of this next pic).

Securing the engine coolant return hose McGyver style

Problem solved... we got to work disconnecting the hoses and wiring from the old heater...

I am such a back-seat-driver, it's usually better if Bruce just let's me do it.  So I climbed in and with the instruction booklet on my lap, I began unhooking hoses.

All hoses disconnected, ready for removal

Everything had to be labeled according to it's purpose so that I could hook it all up to the new heater with no extra parts.






I had a bit of panic when I disconnected the first big black hose and found antifreeze running out.  I stuck my finger in the hole and stared at Bruce...  What do we have that can plug these hoses so that the antifreeze doesn't all run out into the bilge???

I think for a second... bring me some saran wrap and a paper towel, quick! I wadded the paper towel into a plug shape, then wrapped it in the saran wrap and voila!  I've got my plug.  I stuffed into the hose and taped it securely around the end.  It wasn't the BEST fix but it did the trick until we could remove the heater and get the new one in place.

Once everything was disconnected, Bruce came in from the other side and I helped guide the box out through the wiring, no sweat!  It came out beautifully!

We had a discussion about changing how the hoses were configured to make it more easy to remove the heater should we ever need the space for generator repairs... We decided that we would cross that bridge when we come to it and just resumed with putting the new box in exactly as the old one came out.

Bruce had the honor of unwrapping our new heater.  I love shiny things!  We breathed a sigh of relief as we inspected the new unit and found it as closely identical to the old one as we could expect.  One of my fears was that there would be changes that would make plug-and-play impossible.  We lucked out today and it was the same size with all the fixtures in the same spots.  We were SET!

We slid the heater into it's new home and I hooked up all the hoses.  They went on much more easily that I anticipated.  Bruce hooked up the wiring and we opened the water valves.

Pssssssss  OH NO!  There was one tiny spray of water coming out of one of the hoses.  I KNEW that one was not tight enough!  Well, it was late and the place was a mess... Tomorrow is Monday and I have to go to work!

So... we put off tightening that one hose until morning.  Bruce dealt with the fallout while I went to bed... only mildly disappointed.

Monday morning, I talked Bruce into  tightening that hose while I ironed my work clothes.  (yes I iron my work clothes... for four more weeks)

Lo and behold... it held tight and after a short wait... I disrobed and climbed into the tub.  Ahhh the happy noises coming from the aft head could be heard all down the dock!  It was the SECOND BEST shower of my life!

Graduation Day

Finally, after years of being a "blur"... Brittney can finally (for a little while) slow down and catch her breath.  She has done it!  She has her Bachelor's Degree.

Right out of high school, Brittney attended community college in San Antonio.  Lets just say she wasn't putting her best effort into it and leave it at that, shall we?

She moved back to Corpus Christi and rededicated herself to getting her education at Texas A&M Corpus Christi.  She got to work in a most singleminded way.  She studied, she volunteered, she networked, she interned... all in an effort to prepare herself for her chosen career in Accounting.

Many times these past few years, Bruce and I have marveled at her resolve to be the best she can at everything that she endeavours and WHERE has all of this energy come from???

How could she ever have doubted herself and her ability to pull off a Summa Cum Laude ranking?  We'll never have to answer that... pull it off she DID!

Here it is in PRINT!  That special little symbol next to her name designates her as graduating with highest honors!

It was easy!  Well, for US it was anyway!  We just sat back and watched her go...

Today, we sat in the stands with family and waited to catch a glimpse of our baby as she takes that proud walk...  THERE SHE IS!  That smile on her face lit us all up as we each locked our eyes on our girl.

We waited patiently as the faculty was introduced and the Mayor gave her speech... for the moment!  Here she is poised to accept her diploma, waiting those last few seconds for her name to be called, hoping desperately that she wouldn't trip in those shoes with the sticky bottoms I talked her into wearing just before we left the house earlier today...

We cheered furiously as we heard them say "Brittney LeighAnn Honeycutt, Summa Cum Laude"!  Time stood still for me as I felt like a poser, stifling the lurking pride while reminding myself that I really had nothing to do with it myself.

All of her accomplishments, all of her successes, all of her progress was made while we were living our lives.  We worked, we played... Brittney studied.  This is all Brittney.  I can take no credit for any of it.

But still... the pride comes.  It envelopes me, it overwhelms me, it lifts me up and carries me along with her as she walks that stage... What a grand moment!

Then time resumes, as we strain our eyes to get our next look at her... the Graduate!  There she is, following along in the line, toting her prize and wearing a HUGE grin!













The rest of the ceremony was fast forward it seems...  Suddenly, we were all outside in the wind on the Corpus Christi Bayfront, searching the crowd of square hats to find our Grad.

We congratulated her and beamed as others did too.  We were in a sea of joy as families and friends all around posed for pictures and hugged proud kids.

We posed for our fair share of photo ops, some even made their way to the University website!  What a great day this is!

OMG look at the time!  We have people coming to the house for a party!  We have to get HOME! We headed for the cars and joined the procession of thousands heading out to all points away from the Convention Center... we thought we would NEVER get out!

Luckily, back at the house, most of the stuff for the party was already done.  We popped the brisket into the oven and mashed avocados just as our first guests began to arrive.

Brittney has such a warm and supportive group of friends.  The house was filled with well wishers, all people who have been there for her and had their own part in making this happen.  See the rest of the pictures here.

Whew!  It's done.  Brittney has landed a great job.  She will join the fracas that is life and I know she will rise to the top of her profession as she takes the next step in getting her Master's degree... but for now... have some CAKE!

  

Six Months In

People keep asking me (with suspicious looks in their eyes) "Are you still enjoying living on your boat?".  My automatic answer is "YES!".  But let me think about the real answer for a moment...

Still "YES!".  Do we miss living in our townhouse? Not really.  Are we tired of doing laundry at a public facility?  Not a deal breaker.  What about all the things that need to be fixed all the time?  Now that one is kind of getting to Bruce.

Six months ago, we moved aboard so that we could test all of our systems before we leave.  Well, test them we have, and as the saying goes... cruising is just fixing your boat in exotic places.  We just aren't traveling to those exotic places yet...  Maybe that's why Bruce is grumpy about all of the fixing of things going on.  The constant repair jobs haven't yet begun to wear on me, largely because I still go to work every weekday leaving Bruce to tend to the piddly little things.  Rest assured we are saving the big jobs for the time when I can help him.

We tore into projects with vigor in the beginning.  The winter months were perfect for doing projects.  There was nothing else to do!  But as time has passed, our vigor has waned.  We have begun putting things off... making an ever growing list of things to fix or improve once I quit working and have more time.  That's OK with me though.  I (still) enjoy doing boat projects and welcome the learning experience.  Ask me that one again in a year...

The weather has been a bit of a challenge since we moved aboard.  Has it always been this crazy or is it just that we notice it more now?  No, it has really been crazy.  We have had constant "winter" for six months.  (If the temperature falls below 80˚ for more than two days, it's winter!) We usually lose winter in about February and here it is May and the temperatures are STILL in the 70s most days!  Not acceptable!  It also seems as if we have had some hellish winds along with the cool fronts that have me doubting my ability to leave the boat some mornings...  At least we are living at the dock for all of this...  I lie in bed at night and try to imagine how it will be with similar weather conditions when we are "out there".  I guess we'll hunker down and get some reading done...

One thing we've discovered about living on the boat that we hadn't expected, is that we are always "home" instead of "away".  Most of our time on the boat was previously for play... but not now.  There are chores to do that somehow seem to take up a lot of our play time.  I'm not sure how this happens but it does.  Poor Bruce wants to run and play evenings and weekends...  But I'm tired from work or need to get some things done that were normally done at the townhouse.  Friends come to their boats and we hardly find the time to hang out.  I really have to remind myself that Bruce is here all of the time and needs a bit of fun.  There will be time for boat projects soon, and we need to spend some quality time with our friends and family before we leave.

It really amazes me at how comfortable I am here.  It's like being inside a cozy protective womb where I know I'm safe.  The winds can howl and the temperature can drop... but it's all good inside Dos Libras.  Slowly I'm beginning to trust that she will take care of us.  Bruce says it's like having your home and your car and your boat all rolled into one... but it's more than that.  We count ourselves as lucky every day that we have been able to make this happen.  We can't wait for to see what the next six months holds for us.  Six months down... let the new life begin!