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April 2006
24th-Still in New Olreans
(Katie)Can you believe it, we are still in New Orleans!! It seems as though we will get no further west than where we are now. We were going to leave a week after we got back from working with Four Directions. So the week of the the 3rd, we spent our days working on the boat and practicing our sailing out on the lake. Three days before we were to set sail, a boat dweller down the dock, whom we had become friendly with, offered us all work. Seeing as how we were getting low on our funds, we decided to stay for three weeks and work to make enough money to get back home. The other incentive was that Jazz Fest, a two weekend world-class music festival, was kicking off on April 28th and the three of us wanted to go. The past couple of weeks we have taken time out of the project so that we can sustain ourselves. We have been doing some good hard work (like ripping up floors and redoing pluming in a basement), reminding us of all the people in this world that do this on a day by day basis, which often turns into a lifetime. It is hard work, but we have fun. There is a satisfaction at the end of the day and you feel totally ready to relax.
We hope to make it back to the garden before we go to see how things are growing. However, it’s quite hard to get there without a car. In fact, it’s quite hard to get anywhere because we are so far away from everything. New Orleans has treated us really well, even in the face of her devastation. She still wants to survive. This past weekend was the French Quarter Festival, which showcased over 600 different local musicians. We had the honor of seeing Wynton Marsallis perform. He and many musicians started off by parading down the street in the second line brass band. They procceded towards Congo Square (also known as Louis Armstrong Park), where Mr. Marsallis was to direct the jazz ensemble at the world premier of Congo Square with an 80 min composition he wrote. The composition is named after the Park, and it was inspired by the history that transpired there. New Orleans was the only place in the south where Black slaves could gather in public. Every Sunday, the slaves were allowed to come to this place known as Congo Square. This was the birthplace of Jazz and Blues. Congo Square was a place that the Black slaves could play music, talk, sing, and yes, sometimes practice Voodoo (which is still very strong). The composition that Mr. Marsallis wrote brought in all of this, including a traditional Ghanaian group led Yacub Addy. It was an incredible and moving performance.
P.S. We did make it back to the garden and things were lush!!
26th-Little Dink
(Britt)As Katie mentioned in the April 24 log, we’ve been living, working, and spending most of our time at the marina since the start of this month to save money for our impending upriver trip. We’ve been without a car for this duration and thus, have come up things to do for fun while we’re not working.
One of the favorite pastimes when the wind is favorable, the sun is still up, and we aren’t too tired, is to rig up the dinghy for sailing. Eric and his dad built this perfect little boat that diligently trails behind us wherever we go. We call it affectionately, “Little Dink.” Sometimes people walk by admiring our dinghy, saying, “It’s really a beautifully shaped boat, looks like it has good displacement, etc.” I’ve heard Katie look at it with a mother’s pride and reply, “Yes, she is a beautiful boat, we love it.” We’ve all developed quite a love of both the Broadened Horizons and Lil’ Dink.
For those of you sailing fanatics, you might really enjoy this description of how to prepare the rigging for the dinghy, the rest of you will probably just wonder what the heck I’m talking about. To tell you the truth, this is really just practice for me to get the order right when I’m trying to set it up! (I find it quite confusing sometimes trying to rig it in the small space of the deck)
It works like this: Take the stern painter and lash it through both eyeholes off the transom to secure the oar as a steering oar. Tie a clove hitch and two half hitches around the steering oar. The oar sits right smack in the center of the transom and acts as the rudder and tiller (steering oar). Next, lay the other oar down as flat as possible on the sole of the boat (the sailor has to sit next to it, depending on the tack). Next, tie the foot and head of the sail onto the main and lug booms. Run the halyard from the top of the lug boom (since the sail has no grommet at its peak) through the hole in the top of the mast, and secure it on the finely crafted wooden cleat that Eric made at the base of the mast. Then tie the block over the tiller and attach the sheet to the clue of the sail (actually, we tie the sheet to the clue end of the main boom) and through the block. Secure the sheet with a stopper knot. Lastly, you set the booms and sail for the desired tack and hoist the sail.
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Britt Sailing little dink |
It usually starts with a leap if the wind is blowing hard. It’s a lot of fun and the best way to practice sailing as the sailor can really feel the wind move the boat. One time, when I was setting it up, battling mosquitoes and noseeums, I went to raise the sail and stepped a little too hard to port and fell in with a loud splash fully clothed. At least I felt cooler when I got out!
29th-Solar tube Shower
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Eric taking a Solar tube shower |
(eric) When traveling on the sailboat, the simple act of taking a shower becomes an incredible luxury. We carry 40 gallons of fresh water; precious water that has to sustain us for weeks at a time until we get to our next port. Fuel and electricity are also precious commodities, and living aboard really puts a person in touch with how much they use. Having a shower aboard is like having a Jacuzzi on land. How to do this has been a question I have pondered since we began this journey.
Before the trip started, we bought a Sunshower. This is basically a black plastic bag with a tube coming out the bottom. While this helped, it was only 2.5 gallons and didn’t have enough pressure to wash the soap off easily. The nice thing about it is that it can be rolled up and stored out of the way when not in use, an important quality on a 30 ft “island”. It wasn’t nearly enough for the 3 of us, and was rarely used.
After building the 150 gallon solar showers for Four Directions Solidarity Network, I had a 5 ft piece of 4” pvc pipe left over. I also had an extra end cap left, and thought that if I put the cap on one end, a shower head on the other end, and painted it black, we would have a solar shower. It seemed like it would work, so that is what I did. After getting it all assembled and hung in the rigging above my head, I had my first shower, and it worked!
Next came the continued R&D. Our friend Jack, a fellow inventor, wanted to refine it a step further. As a contribution to our project and our hygiene(we had been jumping in the shower on his boat after work to wash off the day’s sweat), he bought all the components for all three of us to have our own solar tube shower. We made a few changes in these new improved models.
First, we started with black tubing, eliminating the need to paint it black. We made them 7 feet, the maximum length that would fit on deck. Every foot equals one gallon of water, so each one holds 7 gallons. Next, we made our own showerhead out of a ½” pvc cap with holes drilled in it. This way we can fill it from either end, depending on the circumstance. We also added a small vent screw in the end so that we didn’t have to open the cap to allow the water to flow freely. After building three of these new and improved solar tube showers, we now had 20 gallons of shower waiting for us. We even got a volunteer to test them on, and they worked great. We have a line tied to both ends, and when we are ready to take a shower we attach the peak halyard to the end of the tube and hoist it up above our heads, securing the other line to the shroud so it stays in position. When we are done, we lower it down and fasten it securely on the deck amidship. When we are underway for extended periods, we can refill them with rainwater, and they take no electricity or fuel to operate. After a long day in the sun at the tiller, being cleansed by fresh water feels so good. Ahhh