The Two Things I Will Not Live Without

As an adventuresome, intrepid gal, I consider myself to be well above the feminine average in terms of ability to tolerate (and even enjoy) radical living conditions. For instance, I was thrilled to give up the landlubber existence for the slightly lunatic undertaking of living on a boat. I’m happy to sleep under a dripping tarp on a cold, foggy hillside in the name of rescuing poor souls lost in our local mountains. I don’t even mind the fact that there is an occasional drip into my ear when I’m asleep on the boat.

HOWEVER.

When Greg and I first agreed to move aboard, I made it abundantly clear that I cannot, will not, and absolutely refuse to live without 1) heat and 2) Internet access.

So, as you may remember, dear reader, we left off our most recent installment with Natalie and I alone on the boat for the first time, hoping all would be well. Alas, a few short hours after that post was written, the adventure began. It started, as all great adventures do, with a loud bang. Only on a boat, it gets better – the bang is followed immediately by alarms going off throughout the ship.

I am nothing if not a calming mother; panic is not part of my repertoire. So I managed to troubleshoot the system and figured out that a) it’s just the heater and b) we’re not sinking or on fire, all the while remaining calm and reassuring for my darling daughter’s benefit. She followed this up in true Warrior Goddess fashion by telling me that “It’s OK, Mama, I don’t need heat this weekend.”

Of course, fate would have it that we were entering the first cold snap of the season. When we awoke on Saturday morning, it was a balmy 51 degrees. (The troubleshooting did not, in fact, involve “fixing.” While I did diagnose correctly that there was air in the fuel line to the diesel heater, I was unable to bleed that air out of the system). She and I managed to survive reasonably comfortably by creating a Puppy Pile of Two under our down comforters. A couple of space heaters, accompanied by a short learning curve about what 30 amps will and will not get you, cheerful attitudes and we had the makings of a decent weekend, despite the fact that it never got above 56 degrees.

The best part, I think, was when Greg got home and he couldn’t fix the system either. There would have been a significant loss of face for me had he just flipped a couple of switches and restored comfort to our lives. As it was, I happily learned a few tricks from the Ocean Alexander repair guy and we are back to a happy existence on the water.

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