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Old 02-17-2019, 05:40 AM
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Graspher Graspher is offline
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Join Date: May 2018
Location: Doesn't matter - it's gated you can't get in.
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You fine folks are so wonderful - thank all of you for taking the time to ping in. Extremely helpful and most appreciated!

Your balanced insights removed the fog allowing me to land on the side of going with the textured surfaces. Frank D anchored it with his stats (many thanks for that ping Frank D).

Your input saved me $5k -seems reasonable to invite all of you over to my place (once created or obtained) for a party!

Love the wall color shown in your photo graciegirl - well done!

Hehehe....yes Carla B...even though we are solid with our new path we continue to have moments of hesitation. “Living the dream” (a common phrase among boaters) comes with a huge amount of work.

Our boat/home is somewhat like a floating city. We have a watermaker to create fresh water - a complete sewage system - a significant battery bank with dual inverters to convert 12 volts to 120 - two 12 kilowat generators to make the electricity and charge the battery bank (they also drive a hydraulic systems that stabilizes the boat while underway - controls the anchor windless - drives the watermaker - powers all the electrical requirements when not plugged into shore power) - a 64,000 btu chiller system (like air conditioning but more complex) - a main propolsion engine and a small dingy engine - refrigeration....and there’s a ton more.

Those are just some of the onboard systems that require constant maintenance, monitoring, repair and understanding.

On top of all that we (well really my wife) have to have a deeper understanding of weather - how to read charts that one never sees on TV - how to read the sky for a “deck forecast” - knowing what weather programs and applications to monitor.

Our top speed is 12 mph - we usually meader along at 7 mph. The boat is 50’ long - 16’ wide - 30’ high and weighs 99 tons. It’s super solid - capable of crossing oceans - but slow. We can’t outrun bad weather so it’s a part time job for my wife to keep us safe. Plus...she is also responsible for understanding/programming all the navigation equipment...radar, charts, piloting, etc.

I sort of got off my point....which was to say that while there is a huge amount of joy and adventure living/cruising on a boat full time....there is a super huge amount of real work involved. And....one must be a contortionist to fit into some odd shaped spaces to facilitate repairs!

Regardless - we love the life and will be sad when we step off the boat for the very last time.

Life is a book with lots of chapters - we heard about this strange bubble concept that we want to explore in our next chapter!

I’ve dronned on to long about the whole boat thing - but one last tidbit. We can comfortably live for weeks and weeks without touching land and we can travel up to 3,000 miles on one fill up of fuel!

Thanks again everyone for all the insights.
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