Liveaboards, we are…

Morgan beat me to my first post since we moved aboard.  Let’s see, how did we get here from home….

Rolling back….   After getting our working boat back to home port on Saturday the 27th, we spent all Memorial Day Weekend emptying the house, packaging items for storage, taking bins, bins, and more bins to the boat—and bags, and more bags—and food, and more food.   Oh wait, there was alcohol too…  Way too much alcohol.

As we packed said alcohol on board I was reminded of the song Posse on Broadway by Sir Mix-a-lot in which he rapped eloquently, “We tried to pick em up but we had no room inside, We put em on the trunk, we put em on the hood, some sat up with the driver, they made him feel good”.   We have bottles under the floor in several places of the bilge, packed in the custom wine cabinet, and a ton more just out on the counters still.

Devon’s parents helped immensely getting stuff moved between the house and boat, as well as packing and organizing everything inside the boat.  Once the girls’ beds were set up well enough that they could sleep aboard we brought them down, which happened to be Tuesday the 30^th.  The boat itself was still in complete disarray however, with bags all over the floor, galley, cockpit, beds, and cabinets, full of stuff that needed to be organized and stowed logically somewhere in the boat.

Some of you may know that Devon really wanted a keyboard (the musical version) on the boat, but not just any keyboard.  It needed to be full 88-keys and it needed to have fully weighted keys so it feels like a real piano.   We purchased a new Yamaha P-45 digital piano from American Music in Seattle with no real clue as to where it would fit on the boat.   I had some ideas as to where it could fit and it turned out even better than I thought.  Also, the Yamaha only uses 6 watts so no problem powering it on the boat.

Somewhere in the middle of packing, I removed the Jabsco Twist ‘n’ Lock manual toilet from the aft head and installed our brand new electric Masterflush Orbit toilet.  Luckily, Miller and Miller had pre-run the electrical power from the panel for the toilet, so I only had to handle the plumbing, mounting, and hookup of the new toilet.   The kids seem happy to use the new toilet that they can flush with just a push of a button, and let’s just say our forward head is jealous.

On Wednesday, the 31^st, our plan was to move s/v Mobert from her home port of Kirkland out through the Lake Washington Ship Canal and into Elliott Bay for a week pretending to be tourists in our home city.  Devon’s cousin Jana joined us for our canal cruise which turned out to be a very nice day.  We made it through the four Seattle bridges quickly and only waited for the locks for a short time.  The fishing vessel ahead of us in the locks needed to have the railroad bridge raised so we didn’t even have to wait for that.

Out in Puget Sound we headed into the bay, around the luxury cruise ship moored at Pier 66, and into our reserved slip at Bell Harbor Marina, located directly in downtown Seattle, near Pike Place Market, the Seattle Aquarium, and much more.

During our transit, the engine ran perfectly, the weather was beautiful, and we made our first voyage as a liveaboard family.  So much more to come!!!