One down, 149 to go!

What has it been? Two months from the inception of this project? Holding tank project finished. Check. You would think I would be pleased, but alas, another leak was found at the ball valve, replacing that will be a b!tch. It took about an hour to get all of the hoses on. David was awesome; there is no way I could have done it without him, thank you, brute force. After we got the holding tank in, David installed the sump pump for the shower in the aft head. While he was in there, he found a pump that was not attached to anything! An extra pump! I bet you can sense the excitement we must have felt. In reality, David was pissed cause we spent $150 on the pump he just installed.

We finished off a lot of boat projects this weekend. Worked about 8 hours total. West Marine was visited only once ($200), although another visit is planned for next weekend. Chelsea and I worked on sanding and cetoling (again) the teak railings and such. I ambitiously started this task in August, but didn’t finish, so I had to start all over again. I got two coats of cetol light on and will, hopefully get some high gloss on this weekend. I high glossed the hatch boards again, but they got dew on them and turned milky (have to start over now). David gave up on the light problem (circuit 2 is bad) and just installed the non-working lights. It is aesthetically pleasing, if nothing else. David put in a couple of fans, one in the kitchen and one in our cabin. The kitchen one works if you hold it… just right. I think he finally got the other one working. We carefully installed the battery operated LED velcro/sticky light in the aft cabin. We purchased a Serta 4″ memory foam for our cabin, cut it to fit the mattress, installed and tested it (we didn’t even spill the wine). I organized all of OUR tools, David was overjoyed (actually he told me to never touch his tools again). I laughed and continued what he called “hiding his tools”. I am sure I am missing some of the small, but incredibly time consuming projects we accomplished, but you will just have to use your imagination.

Lesson Learned:
Working with David with hangover means find something to do on the outside of the boat and talk as little as possible.

Attending a wine/food pairing doesn’t mean you have to finish all of the leftover wine.

Messina Hoff Paulo Double Reserve Port is damn good.

More Cowbell adventure – Take One

This is a long rendition of our weekend. It’s for me to use later for planning purposes. Hope you enjoy the pics. I had some technical difficulties cropping and resizing (after cropping and resizing all of them, I realized they were still too big, argh) I am tired, so you get thumbnails, sucks for you.

Saturday
0730 wake up, figure out who’s doing what, make coffee.
0830-David to the boat to do boat stuff, Dana to pack the food stuffs, missing safety items, Sam, etc.
1030-To the boat, unload the car, get coffee/hot cocoa from club, one last bathroom break.
1125-Pulling out of the slip, lost another fender, wind out of the NE – 20-25kts, 51 degrees F, sails up and pulling going 6-7kts over ground, feeling excited and happy.
1230 – getting close to Redfish Island in the ship channel, Dave’s getting nervous, wants to helm when passing ships, it is pretty cold

1330 – David lets me helm, he’s getting more comfy, it is still cold, Sam is drawing and reading down below and gets a little quesy, come up for fresh air and falls asleep under the sleeping bag for a hour.

1500 – turning into Pelican’s cut, I’m helming, David’s navigating with GPS. No issues, but nerve racking the first time, still sailing (awesome).
1630 – get to the railroad bridge, David communicates via VHS after practicing a couple of times, the operator says we need to wait for two barges to come through east bound and that we can’t go through with our sails up. Ok, we wait, motor on and circling. I get frustrated and want to chance going in after the first barge (they are incredibly slow) and get my nose in there before Dave says no, we have to wait cause we told the bridge we would. Bummer. We wait….finally we go through and as soon as we do the bridge starts closing for a train. Whew.
1715 – Me driving, David navigating through the tight channel to Offats bayou. Communication is good. Sam is happy, we’re still cold.
1730 – David docks the boat with help from some guys taking a sailing class. We have no fenders so we hang out our spare life jackets, not very chic, we like to call it “old school”.
1800 – plug in, heat on, relax….

1900 – Chili cookin’, watching Season one of “24”. Drinkin’ White Russians.

2200 – Bed time, heater to 65, earplugs in.
Sunday
0700 – Wake up, call Chelsea a million times, go for a walk,
0830 – Chelsea goes to Harbour house rather than Moody Gardens and is in a foul mood when finally arrives (go figure), make pancakes and plan the day.
1000 – Kids wanted to go to Moody Gardens, David and I wanted to go on the ocean, compromised and took a tour of Galveston via boat.
1100 – Another successful bridge pass, David’s getting good at talking to the operators.
1230 – We get to the Galveston – Pelican Cut draw bridge, David calls them up and they are most accomodating.

1400 – fuel up at Galveston Yacht basin, rest a little, kids getting hungry, feed them cruising caviar and off we go back to Offats. (picture of Chelsea reading)
1500 – Dolphins everywhere, sail to draw bridge, I decide to have a go at the radio. I do a fair job, after they let us though they called us back to get the name of the boat, I giggled and expressed triumphantly “More Cowbell”. I swear I heard them giggle too.

1700-2030 – back at offats, shower, make a drink and go out to eat at Tortugas with ice cream afterwards.
2100 – 2200 – more “24”, a game of Broad Sword (David and I practically sleeping) and then bedtime.
Monday
0700 – after a restless night, big breeze, creaking lines, we decided to get a reliable forcast prior to heading back, cruised the Moody Gardens Hotel and picked up some fruit from the buffet. Forecast was 20-25kts ESE high of 55 degrees, not the best forecast, but Tuesday was worse with 5-10 kts SE-N and fog with a cold front. We decided to let the kids off the hook and go home in the car.
0930 – David and I were off in 25-30kts of breeze. We were going directly upwind through pelican’s cut, passed a barge on the 2s, and then we were able to turn downwind in the ship channel.
1100 – We were only making 3kts with the engine so we decided to put up the main. I put on my life jacket and jumped the sail at the mast as the boat was pitching and rolling. Here is a photo of us afterwards.

The seagulls were flying in the lee of our main so they could rest in the heavy breeze.
The main was a huge asset and for the rest of the trip the motion of the boat was much more stable. There were dolphins popping up every once and a while. I thought it was quite enjoyable.
1330 – called the kids to give them heads up of our arrival,
1420 – they met us to assist us in docking.

Dock to dock it took us 5 hours. We were getting 5 kts with the motor, going directly upwind and 7 kts with the sail up going downwind. We all had a great time.

Lessons learned:
How to address the bridge operators.
What overtaking on the 2 means – passing the barge on their port our starboard.
Our diesel fuel gauge doesn’t work – more intense calculations will be needed.
Always have a ditch plan for if the motor stops or you run out of fuel. This really gave us peace of mind.

Telling my boss

Some people (mainly David) think you should exercise discretion in telling your boss that you are leaving in 7 months and 14 days to go on a cruise with husband and child, having never cruised before. I beg to differ. Two days ago, my boss called me for a one-on-one (stop the creepy thoughts) to discuss our plans to take over the world. I felt compelled….Nay! honor bound to inform him of my plans to cruise with husband and son in September. After learning of my plans his face went slack, his eyes glazed and he suddenly left to attend a “meeting”.

I wanted him to say “awesome Dana, I wish I could do that.”, but he did not say that. He did not say anything. I drove home and shared with my family. My husband’s initial comment was, if you were my employee, I would just fire you. My daughter said, “Mom, you love this job, you’re stupid for even doing this, I can understand if you were old or something, but this is the best job you have ever had.” My son from the bath called out “Chelsea, stop dissing sailing”.

I slept fitfully, worrying about the concequences of my outpouring of honesty. The next day more one-on-on and basically told me he supported my decision. Yipee. I really do love this job and am very sad to leave it, but I will find something else that will satisfy me. I love my family and want to do this adventure with them, before I get “old”. We started racing to get experience to cruise. We are now well equipt to do what we want to do. Let the adventure begin.

Lesson learned: Be yourself and trust your instincts.

Coast Guard Captain’s license and correspondence from a friend

We are debating on whether or not to get our Captain’s license. We have read that it may be important to have this documentation when in other countries and it allows you to charter boats with less difficulty. It also forces you to learn the stuff you need to know when cruising.

David thought it would be nifty to form a study group for the Captain’s license test. We called on some friends to join us.

One of these friends emailed us today and I had to share it.

“Hey dude, I started looking a little deeper into this Coast Guard license book (page 8 of the introduction). It says:

The references listed below are those recommended by the Coast Guard in preparation for exams. The books in bold type are available during the exam. Supposedly, answers to all of the more than 6,000 questions can be found in the books listed. Whether it is worth your time to read all of the books is doubtful. Better to read “Bowditch” (reference 2) two or three times than all books once.
Our recommendation is:
1. Become familiar with the books in the bold so that you can quickly find answers during the exam.
2. Read Chapman entirely at least twice.
3. Read the chapters in this book at least twice.
4. Read all of the questions and answers.
5. Take AutoExams until you consistently make grades well above passing.

That said….there at 31 books listed as references – 10 of which are in bold. One of them is Bowditch – which is available online as a PDF – 880 pages (I printed a copy yesterday at work). I figure that’ll take me a while to breeze through. Then I’ll read it twice again to get my three times in. Then I’ll start with my Chapman’s and read it 3 times. Then I’ll start with the Coast Guard Book (which is probably 25% reference material, 75% questions) but still another 800 pages.

880 x 3 = 2640 pages of Bowditch reading
633 x 3 = 1899 pages of Chapman’s
826 x 3 = 2478 pages of the Coast Guard Study Guide

Total of 7,017 pages to be read at 3 pages per minute so I can understand all the drawings = 21,051 minutes or 350.85 hours or 175.425 days at 2 hours per day.

My husband says we should just read the Bible.”

House for sale.

p1060697.jpg
We went to a party last weekend and someone showed interest in buying our house. Serious interest. I am trying not to get my hopes up, but man would it be nice to sell our house to our friends. We would make sure to have visitation rights. I will add pics later. We have a very small view of the bay from our lanai, ie back patio that David and I have spent many mornings sipping coffee, discussing our total world domination plans. We love this house so much that when we sat down to design a cabin/retirement home up in Michigan we drew up very similar plans. We will be putting it on the market in March, but if you would like more info email me at dana(dot)bethancourt(at sign here)gmail.com.

Home/boat schooling

Does anyone know of a great home schooling program?

We are concerned with getting Sam back into public school, eventually, with the least complications. He is already in advanced placement (GT) classes here and we are desperately afraid that he will lose that status. I will continue researching the programs online. Calvert seems to be ahead of the game at present.

Thanks.

OD vs. ID

Starting from the beginning, I had taken on the repairing/replacing the heads/holding tank responsibility. I am trying to contribute to the overall boat prep and thought this project was well suited to my talents – dealing with sh!t. We decided to replace the heads and holding tank rather than repairing the heads. Dave ordered the heads and I ordered the holding tank. I found the plasticmart website talked to the guy regarding the dimensions of the new holding tank. I filled out the drawing of the new holding tank and gave the dimensions. David thought the drawing looked good and was very pleased with my rendition of the tank. I faxed the drawing and the guy called me to clarify the hole sizes. I told him that it was difficult to measure the hole size since there were immovable fittings there, but the hose was 2 inches in diameter for the intake and output and the vent was 1/2 in hose. It was then he asked the dreaded question, “OD or ID”, I said huh? He repeated with explanation outer diameter or inner diameter. Wow, hadn’t thought of that. So I guessed OD. Needless to say, the holding tank arrived and the holes were too big, huge in fact, they don’t even carry fittings that big at West Marine. I called the Plasticmart guy to see if they could fabricate something, he laughed and said “go to Home Depot”. Dave and I went to Home Depot on Friday night and managed to rearrange all of the fittings in the little boxes. We took about an hour in there on the floor trying to make these crazy combinations until finally we found something that might work. They even sent someone over to help us, nobody helps you at home depot (I think they thought we were drunk). Now we still needed the smaller fittings at West Marine (closed). Went back on Sunday, spent another 30 minutes finding they fittings. The assimilated tank is very Borg-like. We still need teflon tape and PVC cement (forgot to buy at Home Depot). When walking the dock to install my new creation, the paper bag ripped and I dropped the bag with the elusive fittings in the water. David dropped what he was doing and dove for it, while I was holding onto the dock and the next boat trying not to go in the water. His heroic efforts were successful and I didn’t get wet. I bashed my finger trying to get the darn holding tank in last night to see if it would fit. It does, sort of, thank goodness. Now to install, one more trip to the friggin’ store. Another weekend down the drain….

Lessons learned:
1. Outer diameter (OD) vs. Inner diameter (ID) very important.
2. Paper bags rip.

The masses ask for more!

Ok so it was just one guy named Zen, but I wanted to post some pics anyway.

This is my daughter and her friend/boatboy Ryan.

This is Sam climbing the anchor line.

More cowbell – FAQs

Why did you name your boat More Cowbell?
Long story – In the beginning, we agreed on Firefly after one of our favorite sci-fi series among other reasons. But, alas, before we got the boat to HYC (Houston Yacht Club) from Ft. Lauderdale, a new boat moved into the harbor named Firefly. We quickly befriended these lovely people hoping we could come to some sort of arrangement, but to no avail, they had more impetus to keep the name than we did. Then, we tossed around More Cowbell, Conundrum, and Dogpile. In the end, More Cowbell was the only name we could agree on. The name conveys the very essence of the Bethancourt family.

What does More Cowbell mean?
To me it means with panache, with gusto, obnoxious, loud, hard, strong, unwavering, but more of it.
Here is the link to the famous Will Ferrell and my favorite Christopher Walken’s SNL skit that made the words “More Cowbell” famous. http://www.funnyhub.com/videos/pages/videos/snl-more-cowbell.html

Do you own a cowbell?
Yes, I do. Patricia, the crazy Mexican, gave me one for my birthday.

Do you have any real cowbell skills?
As a matter of fact, I do. I have been on stage with many (2) bands playing the cowbell exclusively.

What are your favorite cowbell songs?
Beastie Boys -“Hey Ladies”
Grand Funk – “We’re an American Band”
Tone Loc – “Funky Cold Medina”
Nazareth – “Hair of the Dog”
Rolling Stones – “Honky Tonk Woman”
Prince – “U Got the Look”
War – “Low Rider”
Blue Oyster Cult – “Don’t Fear the Reaper”
Motley Crue – “Livewire”
Joan Jett – “I love Rock n Roll”
B-52s – “Love Shack”
Just to name a few…..

If there are any questions that I haven’t covered, please email support and I will get back to you as soon as possible.

Fortune cookie x 2

Ok, so I am dieting again (along with everyone else in the world). I don’t like calling it dieting, so I call it eating less and exercising more. Anyway, after my small bowl of shredded lettuce and grilled fish pattie with gargonzola cheese, I decided to give myself a treat and have a fortune cookie, it read “Welcome the change coming soon into your life”. I thought, cool, maybe its referring to the cruising thing or something in bed, all good. Then, just minutes afterward, I decided to treat myself again and got “An unexpected event will soon make your life more exciting”, now I am starting to get scared. I may be welcoming an exciting, unexpected change. Last time I had to welcome an exciting, unexpected change, I was married with a baby. I am not sure what is going to happen next. All I know is that I can no longer concentrate (hence the blog) with this impending drama unfolding. It may be time for yet another fortune cookie to resolve the issue. I will keep you updated.

Addendum 1/3/08: two more cookies were eaten and fortunes were read with mixed results. I will find a new challenge this week and will always be surrounded by true friends. I am disapointed with the always surrounded fortune, I am starting to feel claustrophobic. The challenge thingy does jive with the exciting, unexpected change. We’ll see.