Eight months after selling The Sea Shanti, we’re living in Morehead City, on a small strip of land on the coast of North Carolina. The water is less than six blocks in either direction. We’re as barely on land as we could be in some ways. Sometimes it feels like we’re shipwrecked in a strange land the indigenous people call Suburban America. These are a proud people with strange customs, a friendly, generous people. We’re doing our best to fit in. [caption id="attachment_2194" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Bogue Sound, five blocks from our current home on land.[/caption] As is the local custom we have a fine little house, complete with a white picket fence and a lawn to mow on the weekends. Autumn is still prospering with Aware Copywriting and Fain is starting school in a week or so to study Aquaculture at the local, well respected community college. As for me, I’m working as an Electrician’s Helper at Jarrett Bay Boatworks. [caption id="attachment_2195" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Our home (for now) in Morehead City, which Autumn has named Fisher's Folly.[/caption] Jarrett Bay Boatworks is a prestigious, locally owned company that builds 60-80’ sport fishing boats. These are luxury yachts in every sense. The company has been around for over 30 years, and working there has some status. Jarrett Bay is a source of pride in both the community and the state. It’s a world of quarter million dollar SeaKeepers and imported Indonesian teak decking. A far cry from the scrappy sailboat world of the liveaboard. The pay isn’t great, but the people are. I’m trying to find someone to give me a skiff that I can fix up and use to commute to work by water. From Calico Bay a couple blocks behind us, I could take the Newport River to work and get there in about half the time as driving. Prior to the bridges being built, skiffs were the family car around here. At least I’d be on the water every day, and on weekends, we could go out as a family and explore the little inlets and bays around here. [caption id="attachment_2196" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Calico Creek, surrounded by salt marshes, empties into Calico Bay, about a block from Fisher's Folly.[/caption] As it is now, I can see the water most of the time. I’m around boats all day, and going over the bridge to work, looking through Beaufort Inlet, I can see the horizon off in the distance. The horizon seems impossibly far away now. It isn’t, but it seems that way sometimes. We’re trying to put money aside for another sailboat in a year or two, but terrestrial life is expensive. Still, in other ways not much has changed. We still function like a crew as much as a family. We still plan and scheme like we always have. We’re happy, and healthy and….generally optimistic. All the important boxes are checked. And at the end of the day I remind myself that all we have to do is stay smart, stay tough, and stay lucky and it will all work out.

Money is an almost universal worry of modern life, and we're no different (for now). Autumn wrote about this beautifully about a year ago, and I mean to extend those thoughts. The thing she glosses over in her post is the cost of working on the boat. That has been our biggest expense by far. Ultimately, it'll lead to the need for less money in the future, but we have survive long enough for that to be a reality. So, I'd like to go over some of the things we're doing and not doing to survive long enough. What we're not doing Go Fund Me: this one comes up often. The people that generally would donate to such a thing are family and friends. Family, in our case, helps us out generously already so prompting more from them seems greedy. And as for our friends, well, they're struggling as much if not more than us with money so this would only put them in a position of contributing when they really can't afford to or feeling bad that they can't help. Beyond that, it's a one way transaction and that just doesn't feel right. YouTube Channel: this one may be even more common than GFM. We've seriously considered it, but there are some problems with it. First, the market is flooded. I can literally name dozens of sailing channels. Then, there's the capital investment. The gear is expensive to do it well and with so much competition not doing it well get's us nowhere. And finally time. The editing process is slow, and the filming process significantly slows down work actually getting done. What we are doing Aware Copywriting : this is Autumn's company and our primary source of income. She's enormously talented and hard working. Unfortunately, work can be inconsistent and actually getting paid can be elusive at times. If you think you might need some work done, check out her Services Page and get in touch. Novel Writing: Autumn has been working on a book series and has the first already out and more on the way in the very near future. We're hoping these will catch on, and people will enjoy reading them. That will take time. In the mean time check, out her Perilous and Sparks website or order directly from Amazon . Schwagg: this is our new project. We just got started this week. We're making available clothing, stickers, and some other really interesting things with logos, art, etc. on it (hats will be a different provider). We're just getting it together and figuring it all out so watch for updates in the near future. In the mean time Check It Out! Amazon Lists* : This is the safety list I've made for the Sea Shanti. It is the minimum safety gear we'd need to actually get underway. The list includes all the things the Coast Guard requires plus a handful of things that just make sense. The list totals around $800 and most of it is one-time purchase stuff. So if you feel inclined to stop in and purchase something for us that would be great, and if not, don't worry, we won't leave until we get everything. Here's the link. *my mother has been especially inquisitive about this safety list so I figure others may be curious as well. Summary Most of these efforts are Autumn-based because she insists I focus on the boat work. But recently, I've been looking into some other things like Upwork, Mechanical Turk, and working on other people's boats. We'll see if any of these things work out. Either way, we'll keep exploring more opportunities. The strategy is to have many small revenue streams. If you have any ideas, please let us know. And if you're out there, commuting to work every day, stressed out about money, know that you aren't alone. We sincerely appreciate you taking the time to visit our site.

Quick Update Ahoy, faithful readers. We're just off the July 4th holiday still in port here in New Orleans. We've not been good about posting here - but for good reason. See, the idea of this blog was originally to share boat work progress. It turns out, that's not as simple as it sounds since boat progress is inconsistent. We're not sitting on a pirate's chest of money to do this refit so sometimes there's money to do work, and other times we struggle to meet our more terrestrial obligations. When boat work stalls, morale drops considerably amongst the crew. Without obvious progress it can all just feel pointless. All this is to say sometimes there's no boat progress to report so I don't post out of embarrassment. Going Forward So I'm going another route that I hope will be interesting and more consistent. I'm going to share more of the challenges that this plucky band of would-be sailors work around to maintain our happiness and fortitude. I'd been resistant to this approach until recently because it could easily be seen as whining, despite my best efforts to keep things upbeat. We never expected this to be easy: we expected it to be an adventure and adventures aren't always pretty. We knew that going in. The Sea Shanti wasn't a seaworthy boat. At the same time, we didn't spend the next 20 years saving up for a seaworthy boat as so many do. Life's too short and absent of guarantees for that kind of optimism. This brings me to what's changed and how I can be sure this won't be seen as whining? The fact is nothing changed and I can't be sure of anything. Most of my friends and all of my family still live more traditional lives on land and I've noticed some interesting things about what they think life on the Sea Shanti is like. Some worry, some are vaguely envious, and all of them are inaccurate to some degree. The idea of living on a boat is alien enough, but rebuilding a boat you're living on makes it almost unimaginable. That is not to say you and I don't share some of the same hardships and concerns. I suspect they just show themselves differently to you and I. Maybe seeing what we have in common can calm some of the worry and temper the envy. If there's one thing to remember about all of this its that, yeah, maybe things aren't great all the time, but when they are great you get to feed a duck by hand. That, along with a whole host of other little things, make it all worthwhile.

It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him. J.R.R. Tolkien I've become very fond of the word 'contraption' while sitting in the engine compartment, hunched over, with the grease all over me. I've been tracing wires and tubes for what seems like forever. There are at least 5 isolated systems in any marine diesel engine. Not one of them is all that exciting, but together, they are capable of an amazing thing: freedom. The original plan for this year was to motor up to Chattanooga, Tennessee for hurricane season back in May/June. Hurricane season ends later this month, so we're about 5 months behind schedule. And keep in mind this is the most recent schedule of about half a dozen in the last 18 months. I have yet to meet a self-imposed deadline. The trip from New Orleans to Chattanooga, as it turns out, is a little over 700 nautical miles and about a 19 day trip. This does not make for an ideal maiden voyage. In fact, it's likely foolhardy (which does sound like a pirate word, right?). I feel like a solid 100 hours of testing of the motor and steerage would be necessary for a trip like that. So that's what we're going to do: Test, test, and test some more. Essentially, the original plan was a good one so we're just going to do it next year instead of this year. This was a little disappointing at first, but then I remembered: I didn't move onto this contraption to be in a hurry.

The government hasn't significantly reinvested in American infrastructure in several decades. Maintenance of the existing infrastructure has been underfunded and at times seems more cosmetic than anything a la the old painting rule in the Navy: Once over dust; twice over rust. New Orleans, Louisiana, USA can give us some insights as to the effects of that neglect. January 2018 is especially telling. In the space of a couple of weeks, electricity has been out across much of the city, a boil water advisory has been issued, some roads were flooded (water main breaks) and then promptly froze, schools were closed, etc, etc, etc. Fact is, the city was unable to provide for the infrastructure it's population required. Meanwhile, those living on boats were relatively unaffected by these issues. When you're a "liveaboard," you treat your boat like a house. There are certain things that need to be done for this to work: Comfy beds (bunks), a workable kitchen (galley), a nice bathroom (head) to name just a few. But you also treat your house like a city: you have complete control over (and responsibility for) electricity, water, and other resources that are handled (if you're lucky) by the city for land-lubbers. What if we turned that around and decided to treat a house like a boat? What kind of accommodations would need to be made for that to work? Electricity If you ever wanted to know precisely how fragile modern society is, turn off the electricity for a few hours. Things break down remarkably fast. In cold weather, people are miserable while in very warm weather people are equally uncomfortable. Cooking becomes difficult if not impossible. Communication devices die and can't be recharged. In more extreme situations (Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, 2005; Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico, 2017), power outages can impact cell phone towers, water purification systems, and even medical facilities. So what can you do? Solar and wind power on your property could eliminate the impact of city power outages, and while whole house solar is ideal, even smaller solar panels to charge cell phones and emergency radios would at least help. Generators (which can be wired directly to the main house panel but don't have to be) are another alternative. This would provide a couple of outlets to keep the refrigerator, and heating and air conditioning on. You can't do anything if the power outage is too extreme, but you can keep yourself sane while the city infrastructure is repaired. Water As of June 2016, CNN reported "5,300 US water systems are in violation of lead rules," and it doesn't seem that the situation has improved since then. But lead isn't the only concern. New Orleans' current boil water advisory is a biological risk, and it's not restricted to cold weather. Anecdotally, this happens half a dozen or more times a year in Orleans Parish. Nationwide, I imagine it's much less common, but still a problem when it does occur. Building a water tower in your backyard, although an epic idea and I'd encourage everyone to do it, may not be practical but a good filtration system is. You could invest in multi-filter systems that are permanently installed and need little routine maintenance. Even if there were no known problems, the peace of mind of knowing your water is clean seems like it would be worth a modest investment. Then, there's rain barrels for watering lawns which is very easy and takes the load off the municipal system. Not to mention 'grey water systems' for the more advanced hippies in the group. Food Most American kitchens have food that needs preparation, and that's great most all the time. But it does make sense to have some things like canned tuna (or canned just about anything), dried milk, dried fruit, etc. which doesn't go bad and will be there for you in a pinch. Also, if you've taken care of electricity and water, you could prepare things like rice, dried beans and other staples that basically never go bad - again, it's there when you need it. And remember, hard liquor never goes bad - just sayin'. My adorable wife is starting to offer some suggestions for cooking under our more Oregon Trails-esque conditions. You can follow her "kinda recipes" here . Books and Games I'm a huge fan of reading books on my ipad, but I have to admit there's something nice about an actual book. Repeated hurricanes and flooding have somewhat decimated many personal book collections (my own included) here in New Orleans. But the XO has insisted that books be on board to improve and maintain quality of life, and she's right. Read to your kids! Read to each other! There's something really comforting about it. Card games and board games are also popular among liveaboards and get traded around. Take this idea in your own direction, the point is to have some analog entertainment around. Something that doesn't require electricity. Something that can be played together as a family or group. Sitting around a board game is very different than playing Minecraft together online. And if you don't care for board games, well, that's why you have hard liquor around. Conclusion, sort of I'm not suggesting go full 'prepper.' That's easily discounted as irrational. But there are rational things that can be done to preserve your quality of life and safety when municipal infrastructure fails. Sure, it would be great if the country made several massive infrastructure investment in the next few years, but maybe that's an old way of thinking. Maybe a better approach is for individuals to use commercially available technology to provide some of their own infrastructure. There are even some proposing small community infrastructure where a condo, or a city block pool resources to establish a more stable collective infrastructure (build that water tower!) to reap a small economy of scale from the investment. Fact is, "trusting the government" any more than is absolutely necessary may not be as appealing as it once was. I, for one, like the idea of knowing when the filter has been changed and the solar panels cleaned. The government can then focus on roads, bridges, waterways, and parks where individuals have less autonomy. This is in no way a complete list. Feel free to add any other suggestions in the comments.

Jack, Author at The Sea Shanti

Q: Your Transmission: A 100lb Problem

Here's something I could have gone my whole life without knowing: The transmission on a 1974 Perkins diesel engine has a "breather" that prevents pressure from building up and blowing out the front gasket. But I do know that now and there's really only one way I would: It happened. A little $0.11 nut was missing, so I replaced it. This allowed a $16.00 valve to fail, building up pressure and blowing out a gasket where the transmission attaches to the engine. This means I have to pull out the 100lb transmission from a very small space to a slightly less small space to replace that gasket. The thing about pulling out the transmission is, once you do, you may as well replace everything on it that could make you have to pull it out again any time soon. This includes replacing several gaskets and the dozen or so clutch plates. I give myself a potential failure rate on this project of well over 70%, but hey, that's never stopped me before. I'll give it a shot and worst case is I replace the gaskets causing the problem and deal with the rest of it later. So break out the JuJu bags and send some good stuff my way. So, to summarize, an 11 cent nut has led to a $250 transmission rebuild. I'll let you know how it went when it's all over.

Q: High Hopes for Hurricane Season

All work on the boat was stopped for the last 6 weeks owing to me nearly cutting off my thumb with the table saw. It's nearly better now, and work is resuming. The delay got us well into better weather so we're turning our attention back to the topside. There's hardware to re-bed, teak to repair, and more sanding, priming, and painting. The mizzen mast has to be painted, repaired, and installed (hopefully with new WiFi and VHF antenna). And if all that goes well, the 40hp Perkins Diesel needs more than a little love to get it going. As far as we know, it hasn't run in at least 6 years. Also, there's the small detail of needing a propeller. The timeline to have all the above done (and many other smaller projects) is June 1st, which is the start of hurricane season. After two hurricanes barely missed us and another weaker hurricane caused a lot of (undue) stress aboard the Shanti last year, we have no interest in pressing our luck. We're going to try and motor over to Mobile Bay and then up the Tombigbee River to the Tennessee River towards Chattanooga, TN, where we plan to hide out and continue working on the boat through the end of hurricane season. It's a beautiful area, and we have family up there to visit. There's a lot to do, and we intend to be very busy, so that means lots of pictures and lots of updates. Eventually.

About Jack

Jack Ware is the captain of the Sea Shanti. Before he started renovating the derelict sailboat, Jack spent his time playing sax in several New Orleans bands and running a tech solutions company.