Pink Versus Blue

David's been expressing his blue view every once in awhile and I thought I'd elaborate a bit on pink versus blue chores aboard. After you've lived with someone awhile, you tend to assume that certain tasks at home will be your responsibility and your partner will assume others. Some you handle together or as needed or as time allows. You tend to migrate towards your individual areas of expertise or interests and work at getting everything done. Being on a boat is no different. We often refer to them as pink and blue chores. It's the age old girl-boy thing, although there's sometimes a bit of cross-over.

As you'd probably surmise, I'm in charge of most pink things aboard. That would include cooking, cleaning, food shopping, laundry … all the typical things you think of when you think pink. David certainly helps out when asked and the same applies when he's up to his eyeballs in “blue” tasks. I can hold a flashlight or find the right wrench (spanner) and am happy to do so, when asked.

I do 95% of the cooking, but David's “the pizza and bread man”. I usually wash the dishes though. I handle all the provisioning requirements and write up the shopping lists although David comes shopping with me to help carry everything back to the boat and more importantly, to make sure I buy enough cookies.

I handle most of the sewing chores although he's very handy with a needle and a palm for hand stitching and quick repairs. Anything to be done with the sewing machine, I handle. David is very handy with pattern-making and also repairs the sewing machine.

David's responsibilities include all systems on the boat. Whew! He maintains and/or repairs the engine, the plumbing, the electrical, the electronics, the fridge, the watermaker, the rigging...the list is endless and definitely more demanding than my day-to-day stuff. Who knows what will break next?

We tend to share jobs like sanding and varnishing and stainless polishing. We alternate plotting courses and checking each other's work, just in case one overlooks something critical. I do not change the oil, but I can bleed the engine if necessary. David does not pay bills, remember holidays or birthdays, update the website or monitor bank accounts, but he certainly knows how to. We stand watches equally and get seasick equally. In an emergency, we can rely on each other without reserve to do whatever is necessary to make sure we're safe and sound.

Pink versus blue extends beyond the actual performance of a chore... part of it is mindset, preference and part of it is sheer physical strength. I have a hard time lowering and hoisting the 46 pound dinghy engine, so I don't. I can hoist the dinghy using the winch though. I think about new placemats or polishing the tea kettle and things that make Nine of Cups comfortable and homey. David is all about the systems and keeping the boat in good condition and afloat. Don't get me wrong. We're both concerned with the boat and with our creature comforts. The chores just tend to migrate in the direction of the person who's most concerned at the time. We find that staying happy aboard, as in any household, has lots to do with fair contributions to the workload. We've worked out what we think is fair to each of us.

I was asked once if I felt badly about not being able to do everything on the boat myself. Could I handle the boat if something happened to David? I always felt very confident of my own abilities on land. If I couldn't handle something in the house, I'll find someone who could. That's not as easy on the boat. For sure, David is better equipped and much more knowledgeable about the boat than I am. I'm sure I could get us and Cups to safety in a pinch. I am, however, more confident that our combined pink and blue activities (does that make lavender?) keep us happily afloat and content.

Look for more Blue View posts in the future. David's getting into this blog thing.

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Days and Ways to Celebrate

A daily list of mostly obscure holidays and fun ways to celebrate them.

World Hypnotism Day celebrates bringing the power of hypnosis to the world. Its intent is to educate folks about the positive aspects of hypnosis e.g. quitting smoking, losing weight. Check out their website. You're getting sleepy, very sleepy!

Unwanted Critters Aboard

Whether we like to admit it or not, we all have problems from time to time with unwanted critters aboard. I'm not talking the domestic variety; I'm talking the 4 or 6+ legged variety. An occasional spider (small) is tolerable. You can't do much about the errant fly that comes in through the open companionway. Mozzies we don't like, so our screens are always in use when they're around. No, I'm talking about any critter that invades and gets out of hand aboard. I'm talking about the other creepy-crawlie varieties like roaches and rats, for instance. Eeewwww! We've never had a rat aboard, but if you tie up to a waterfront dock, the chances increase significantly that one will get aboard. We've certainly seen them up close, dead and alive. There are rat guards that some folks put on their docklines which at least give the rats something to think about as they're figuring out how to get around them. Once aboard, they eat and gnaw at everything including wood, wiring and foodstuffs. It ain't pretty and they're hard to get rid of. Traditional rat traps eventually do the trick, we're told, but it takes awhile and you have to hope they die in the trap and not get away wounded to die in some obscure place on the boat.

I remember friends in Ecuador who hailed the fleet about 8pm one night when a boa (no legs) crawled up their anchor chain, came down through their open forward hatch and settled comfortably in their head. Maureen nearly had a heart attack when she went forward to do her business that evening. A local guy finally went out to help them and, we're told, had the boa for dinner the next night. Rest assured, we never eat what we catch if it's been living on board!

When Jelly was aboard, she was great at bringing critters in as opposed to keeping them out. Huge moths (usually with a bite out of their wings) and small birds were her specialty. They were always deposited on my side of the bed and never truly appreciated.

We've been inundated by flies on occasion. One time in particular in Gloucester, Massachusetts, they about drove us crazy. David sat in the cockpit like the Mad Swatter, gloating and laughing maniacally each time another body was added to his growing pile of carcasses. He wanted to mount their little dead bodies on toothpicks as an example to the other flies, but I had to stop him.

Roaches are probably the biggest worry aboard. In the colder climates like here in Tassie, we'd never seen one ... that is until we tied up to the Elizabeth Street Pier. Roaches seem to like the undersides of pilings and piers. David spotted a few at low tide when our view of the underside of the pier was best. We hadn't seen any aboard and we sprayed the lines which we think deterred them from making any forays onto Cups. At least, we haven't seen any yet. What's the gestation period for roaches? Three weeks maybe. We're still on the look-out.

In the tropics, it was hard to avoid roaches. When you buy groceries, they're in the plastic bags. If you set your backpack down for minute on the floor, they crawl in. They lie in wait in packaged cardboard boxes of macaroni or crackers. They crawl inside bunches of bananas. We began leaving all of our groceries on the dock or in the dinghy, removing every item from its bag, box or over-wrap and inspecting it carefully before allowing it aboard. A hassle for sure, but much easier than trying to get rid of a whole herd of undesirables later.

Weevils present another issue in the tropics. They seem to come as an extra added protein bonus with your flour and grain purchases. You know how flour usually comes in heavy-duty paper bags? The tops are just folded over and glued shut...always a little flour loose at the top? Weevils seem to thrive in that floury environment and the poor packaging does nothing to deter them. I add bay leaves to all my dry goods canisters as a deterrent to unwanted bugs. I spread a few bay leaves around in our food lockers, too. It seems to work.

We've had bees and wasps aboard in great numbers especially in the tropics when we've had hands of bananas hanging from the boom crutch. We learned quickly to move the fruit elsewhere on the boat and never bring it down below until we're actually using it. We watched in dismay as an entire swarm of bees invaded the boatyard in New Zealand and visited Nine of Cups for a half hour or so. We were off the boat as we watched them land and were very, very relieved when they decided there was nothing there to warrant their attention any longer.

Ants were the bane of my existence for awhile. First, flying ants which came in swarms aboard the hardstand boats in Ecuador. It lasted for just a few days, but man were they ever thick. I fought with tiny little ants from Panama to Chile and they nearly drove us nuts. We watched one day at Shelter Bay Marina while we were on the hard. They marched determinedly up the hull and onto the deck and of course, found their way below into my galley. We sprayed them; we tried to drown them; we stepped on them; we used ant cups. Nothing seemed to work until we got to Chile's cooler weather.

We thought we'd share a recipe for Roach Cookies that has been effective for roaches and other creepy crawlers in the past. Obviously, keep them out of reach of children and pets.

Roach Cookies:

3 parts boric acid powder

1 part flour

1 part sugar

milk

Mix dry ingredients with enough milk to form a thick paste. Roll out or put teaspoon size dollops on wax paper. Let them air dry. When dry, cut into roach-size servings. Actually, we put a teaspoon full of paste in used plastic bottle caps and to let them air dry. We then distributed the caps throughout the boat. The roaches munch and then take some home to their kiddies. It works wonders without using toxic sprays.

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Days and Ways to Celebrate

A daily list of mostly obscure holidays and fun ways to celebrate them.

Sci-Fi Day

Isaac Asimov's birthday (1920-1992). His most famous work is the Foundation Trilogy.

Try reading or watching some sci-fi to celebrate.

Swiss Cheese Day

Not only eat Swiss cheese, but if you're up to your eyeballs in projects, consider the Swiss cheese scheduling approach...leave a few holes in your schedule.

Sitting Pretty

With our penchant for frugality, when we finished the Franken-mattress, we thought perhaps we'd use the old mattress foam to replace the foam in the current settee cushions as they were suffering from the same proverbial sag and fatigue. Read that: they were as flat as pancakes and hard on the butt. We thought there would be at least a little foam life left in the bed mattress foam. And being the packrat that I am, I figured I'd not only have the foam to work with, I'd also have a nice long zipper and a big chunk of heavy cloth.

Ah, the rude awakening. The zipper on the mattress cover was so frozen shut, we finally had to break it to get at the foam. When it finally burst open, the foam spewed forth in a shower of black dust and disintegrated all over the saloon floor. The fabric was not fit for any purpose I could imagine. Quite the mess and probably a strong signal that despite our frugal tendencies, this foam mattress was doomed to the trash bin. That did not address the problem with the flat settee cushions, however.

Foamland up the hill on Murray Street in Hobart is an interesting shop. Its ad reads “More than just foam!” and so there was. There was wadding, faux-leather toy horses, non-skid material, rope and brightly colored thread. But mostly … there was lots of foam...mattresses, cushions, pretty much all sorts of foam stuff . The people are pleasant and helpful. They let me take pictures though they thought it was weird.

We did a recon trip first to get a quote and an idea of how much work this would be ... cutting foam to size and gluing pieces together to get a snug fit. We found it was cheaper to bring the zippered cushion covers to them and have them cut the foam to size and stuff it in, than to do it ourselves. Hallelujah! They promised they could do it in a day and though it was not the norm, they'd happily deliver the cushions back to the boat for us. We were relieved that we wouldn't be walking a couple of miles with four big foam settee cushions under our arms...not heavy, but certainly unwieldy and very bulky.

I might add that this was yet another chore that was NOT on the “to-do list”; nor were the screens, of course; nor the mattress, come to think of it. This is why we keep busy on the boat and never get bored. There are endless tasks to amuse us and assuage our never-ending search for creature comforts.

Well, the cushions came back at the end of the day and all was good. We're sitting pretty now ...a couple inches higher than before. It's easier to shovel food into our mouths, now that we're closer to the table.