Newlyweds on Boat – Week One…Marital Bliss…and Two is a Crowd!

This is a post from our old blog, July 13, 2017. Some of these things we don’t even think about anymore…but some of these things make me laugh…because 11 years later…they are still a pain in the butt! Can you guess which ones?

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We are married now and living aboard!

13 July 2007 | Sakonnet Brewers Marina
Rebecca Childress

Sorry I havent written for a while…a lot has been happening!

Patrick and I got married on the 4th of July. Everything went just the way we planned it, and it was a beautifull memorable day in every way…From walking down the aisle (dock) with my dad, to stopping the progression to have my picture taken with dad by Ian- Patricks brother in law that managed to make it to the wedding despite a death in his family, to almost losing my vail every 60 seconds… Patrick was an unbelievable groom holding my hands through much of the ceremony, and shedding a tear or two during our vows! He made the most eloquent, complimentary toast after the wedding that I will remember forover. Married on the front of the bow, Patrick and I will celebrate every 4th of July for a while, wherever we are in the world, right where we got married- on the bow of our Brick House! The fireworks at the end of the evening on a neighboring tour boat – The Gansett, a beautiful boat from Maine, were fantastic – we were up very close, and despite the pouring rain, we were comfortable, dry , well fed and well lubricated!!It was truly a wonderful day!

Two days after the wedding, we had to prepare our house for our tenants, and for our move on to Brick House.

A couple of thoughts about the process so far ( We have been officially onboard now for 3 days and 2 nights…this being our 3rd.)

1. We are ALWAYS in eachothers way- it takes repacing oneself to just wait for the person to finish what they are doing so you can pass by them. It seems to take Patrick less getting used to than me…maybe he just has more patience. I LOVE being with him all the time and having him so close to me, but it does get annoying to always have to stop dead in my tracks to wait for him to move!! I suppose I will either get used to that, or get more aggravated by it!

2.The refrigeration is COMPLETELY broken now…Once in a while we buy something cold and a package of icecubes, but for the most part we are just eating things that either don’t have to be refridgerated, or are taking chances with things that are SUPPOSE to be refridgerated but arent. For example…I have discovered today that MILK will help with constipation if left out of the refridgrator for 24 hours.. Not enough to make you sick, just enough to be medicinal!

3.The stove/oven is somewhat on its last legs…We are down to just 2 working burners. We havent tried the oven yet, but assume that it works. We are trying to find a deeply discounted one, or slightly used one to replace the old one with, since most of the parts arent made for that stove any more.

4.The fresh water – well both tanks had more wildlife in them than water. We think one tank is leaking although we arent sure if it’s a tank, a fitting or a hose yet. The baffle ( a wall diving the tank in half so large amounts of water don’t wildly move from side to side while in waves) was completely broken in one of the tanks. This was allowing the huge amount of water in the tank, along with the huge metal baffled to slosh around the tank…Always wondered what that loud crashing noise coming from that tank was all about…We have found a paint to put inside the tanks to hopefully buy some more life from the tanks. We know sister-ships who have since replaced their water tanks – so we know we are on borrowed time with these 30+ year old tanks. So the tanks are clean at least now…but we still have to find out if the glue we used (3M 5200) to put the baffle backtogether will always be a source of poison for us to drink or not. Someone says it has arsenic in it to help it cure…

5.I have WAY to many clothes, and we have way too many books. The next several weeks will be spent further paring things down, in addition to getting the boat ready to depart! Patrick has about 6 tshirts, 3 of which he says he will throw out when they get dirty. I must have 50 t-shirts…so far I’ve been able to part with 3 of them.

6.We have a nice boat! Despite many systems still needing TLC I look around our boat and are so pleased with the progress since the boat came out of the water 3 years ago. She is our home, and both of us have spent hours lounging at night, beaming about how nice our home is coming along!

We are happy to be aboard, and feel so fortunate to be with another person that is as equally excited about this whole thing11…We can’t believe we found eachother, and that our whole adventure has begun!! 6-8 more weeks at the dock, and then we cut the cords, and take off!!

We hope you will follow our adventures on this web site! I will try to update it a little sooner next time!!! Stay tuned!