Monthly Archives: November 2014
Downsizing ~ The Hardest Part?
Many a blog post has been written about how to downsize your home and prepare to live on a boat. There are countless ways to go about sorting, selling, donating, trashing, etc the “things” you have accumulated over a lifetime.
However, in my opinion, the single, most time consuming and emotional “THING” is photographs.
I have many friends who sorted, fringed, fabriced and themed their photos into beautiful albums as they raised their children. Me, not so much.
Now I get to pay the price of disorganized photos. I apologize up front to my kids – I am not suddenly going to become a scrap-booking mamma and I will not have boxes of albums beautifully prepared for each of them.
I’ll cull a few favorites, organize the others by year and allow the kids to determine how many generations of pictures they want to keep.
Personally, I would rather my kids focus forward, remember the past with fondness and retain the lessons we tried to teach. If some day they want to dig into old photos, I’ll have plenty of boxes in storage!
Boat Show Wrap Up ~ Part 2
I interrupted our Annapolis Boat Show posts with news about the all female crew who sailed Let It Be for a week, but I wanted to share some additional thoughts from the boat show.
Some of the things we found at the boat show are practical and fun, like SeaSucker. Fountaine Pajot did a great job designing the Helia, but they missed out on some little details; like drink holders! SeaSucker, a company that makes suction cup accessories, to the rescue.
SeaSucker ~ these suckers really suc ~ tion that is!
Last year we bought some SeaSucker cup holders that can be moved to any flat surface on the boat. We have a set we leave at our helm station and they are constantly in use. We like SeaSucker products so well that we go by their Annapolis booth because they always have cool new stuff.
This year SeaSucker had a GoPro/camera mount that I decided we really needed:
SeaSucker Camera Mount
The camera in this picture is way more sophisticated than the one I currently have, but at least I know that if I buy a heavier camera, my SeaSucker is up to the task of holding it. I am hoping that we will get some great photos and group shots using this mount. SeaSucker has other cool stuff, like a mount to hold your Ipad or Kindle. The possibilities are endless!
Play time for us includes kiteboarding and sometimes that means we must communicate in a very wet environment. We want to make sure that when kiteboarding we can send a message for help or transmit a location beacon back to the boat without calling in the Coast Guard. DeLorme had a booth at the show and we were able to learn a bit about their InReach system. However, because technology changes so quickly, we are waiting as long as we can to make our decision about this satellite driven communication.
DeLorm InReach
We were impressed with the reviews of these Spinlock PFDs so we searched out that booth as well. After trying on the PFDs and learning firsthand about features and maintenance, we decided the Spinlocks are comfortable and unobtrusive enough that we will wear them… essential when we get to the point of offshore/overnight passages.
Spinlock PFD.
That pretty much wraps up the “big” decisions from this years Boat Show for us. I was sad to leave the show and once again say goodbye to all the pretty new boats and shiny toys available. However, my credit card was happy to return to my wallet and get some rest as it had more use than usual!
