loading

the time has come to start loading the boat! time to move the mounting piles stashed about the house and miraculously pack them onto Rafiki. time to wonder: can it be done?!

we would be nothing without this wheelbarrow

yesterday we had a heaping truck load of stuff to shuttle to the boat - to be fair, a large part of the "heap" was bedding stuffed into massive garbage bags... but a heap it undoubtedly was. i forgot to take a photo, as we were in a hurry to get aaron back up the mast while it wasn't raining, but it was a solid three wheelbarrows and a couple of armloads worth of gear.

this is load number 5 - and i was being stubborn; this probably should have been two!

much of it was food. my thoughts were to load up on food now for several reasons:

1. food will be more expensive once we get north of here

2. even though we are going south first, i wanted to get it mostly done so i wouldn't have to do it later

3. starting with this much food, i can keep track during the first leg of our journey to see how much we use and therefore how much i will need to restock on our way back through

all in all i probably put six medium-sized totes of food onto the boat - around a thousand dollars worth of food, i'd say.

i went back early this morning to stash the food and get the bed put together. turns out, it was an actual game of tetris. when i got to the boat it looked like this:

does it make your heart palpitate?!

to be fair, at the end of the day yesterday, i did tell aaron to just shove everything on the boat... it was a bit hectic - what could i do but leap in and start shuffling?

i was trying to accomplish several things: stow food away in the order in which it would be needed (including putting extra supplies in harder-to-reach places), collapse the non-stowed food into only three totes, and to organize the v-berth. believe you me, i made a lot more mess before i made it tidy! > > >

the first thing i did (after shuttling all the foodstuff onto the boat) was to put all the spices into the gorgeous custom spice racks aaron installed. they looked so colourful and delicious and safely snug in their little racks - not to mention easily accessible! we used to keep all the spices in one of the little shelves behind the sink, which was silly because you could never see them. this is much more practical and visually appealing - makes the galley look oh-so-homey.

taadaa! and yum! so beautiful, thanks aaron!

after that it was shuffle and stuff, shuffle and stuff, stop, ponder, shuffle and stuff. i started by stashing items in the holds under the v-berth cushions. that was stuff for later on: multiples of things, canned milk, etc. and our formal wear (for the weddings we are sailing to! fingers crossed nothing explodes/they don't just stink like diesel by the time we arrive). then it was loading extra crackers and kitchen goods into the secret sub-pantry hold, filling up the baking hold behind the seat cushion (that one is admittedly brimming, but to be fair it's nearly vertical), and tucking our stash of oat mylk under the floor.

it feels weirdly intimate to share photos of what we eat...

i filled the pantry in a temporary manner - one can only squirrel so much without getting a bit addled on the subject of organization. but no matter! the pantry will be our daily working storage space, so it is bound to see many forms.

while doing this, i was removing and reorganizing the totes that live in the port side quarter berth (henceforth known as "the food hole" - just kidding, but not really). i managed to get it down to three bins. that way i could stow the aft-most one sideways, have the other two longways, and then be able to stand the oat and flour buckets in alongside. this layout should make it *relatively* easy for us/me to access the bins without having to pull everything out - which is great because those bins are heavy AF.

finally the food situation was dealt with (dear lord let me remember what i put where!) and it was time to move on to the v-berth. this was a big piece of the puzzle too, as the bulky bedding bags were looming large wherever they landed. also the long, awkwardly triangular v-berth cushions are an absolute pain if they are anywhere but in their place, so it was nice to get them out of the way.

it was satisfying to clear up all that space in the boat. it was also very satisfying to see the custom sheet we made fit so nicely! we will be a snug family of bugs up there this summer.

after that was all wrapped up, i cleaned the whole interior of the boat. i vacuumed all the shelves and hatches and holds and berths, wiped down the hanging locker, the head (bathroom, for you non-nautical folk), all the walls, the cupboard doors... basically i wanted to start shiny clean! and i think i did a bang-up job.

a far cry from the chaos i started with! so satisfying

at the end of it all, i did marvel at how much space there actually as on this little boat. ultimately we won't have a ton of wiggle room, but there are still empty hatches - most of which have plans to be filled, but everything will be nicely stowed and the living space should be pretty free. that is, until the kids are onboard........

aaaand then it was time to zip home and throw a mini pre-birthday for sid! why do i do this to myself? because i thrive on deadlines - HA! regardless, Rafiki is well-stocked, shiny-clean, and ready for more stuff.

more?!

more!!