My "other" job - Sale Rack

My momma always told me, "Idol hands are the Devil's workshop." Hence the fact that I can't stand to be without a project! When my friend Ali, owner of Sale Rack, an awesome Buy*Sell*Trade Recycled Clothing Boutique in Coconut Grove(my 'hood) told me she had an opening I jumped at the chance to work alongside her. The "Rack" is a collection of unique pieces including clothing, shoes, hats, bags, & other accessories that run the gamut from vintage threads to designer duds.

I find that when I am passionate about something I will go above and beyond in order to make my cause known. Since I first became a customer I have been telling everyone about this place! Working with Sale Rack has not only given me a better wardrobe but it has given me some real fashion knowledge. When we sold San San in Guatemala I gave up almost all of my clothes. Living in Miami, if you are working in the "real" world you have got to keep up the pace. Sale Rack has been key in helping me stick to me budget while still sticking to my style, "hobo boater chic."

 GO THERE & TELL THEM Jessica SENT YOU!!

Not only that I have made some true friends, I love the girls I work with! I'm going to miss them sooo much! I decided to write this blog to give them an opportunity to shine on this platform because I know a few of my girlfriends that live on boats still love to shop for clothes and occasionally have to part with some as well. If this is the case, stop by and make an appointment to meet with Ali. She will inspect the clean, gently used clothing you have and give you cold hard cash or store credit for them! Sounds too good to be true right? Well it's not! Sale Rack has become a go to store for unique patterns, colors and trends for women of all ages!

Sale Rack

3444 Main Hwy., Suite 20
Coconut Grove, Florida 33133
(305) 537-6078

Rare Occasions

I don't mind saying that I love painting bilges! Crawling into and hanging upside down in cramped spaces in order to brighten up the darkest place in the boat sounds fun. For me, there is nothing better than going to sleep to the smell of good, old fashioned hard work on your floating dream home!

Generally speaking we moved aboard in one fell swoop and got straight at replenishing the cruising kitty. We are longing for a quick break to the Bahamas in Summer. Right now. Today, I am quite content smelling paint fumes;)

Really, Refrigerator?

After living for the past 3 years without refrigeration we have slipped into the world of comfort pretty easily. Currently we have a household fridge on board. It came with the boat, it's old but it worked fine. But, suddenly the fridge lost her cool. Just to give you all a quick update we kicked off Project Galley a few weeks ago by ordering a new 20" range. Isn't it just fitting that the fridge would go on us? This is how one chore turns into a bunch of little ones.

It's almost as if she knew we were getting new appliances and wanted a replacement herself! My first clue  came on Monday morning, (of course not on the weekend) when I noticed the milk wasn't very cold. I mentioned something to G and he said to call the repair man (since he was at work). Here is where is gets interesting. Repair man arrives, he takes one look at the fridge and says, " You need a new one." Really? "That will be $20," and with that he is gone.

Now I have the magnitude of finding a fridge bearing down on me. Have you ever had to replace a broken refrigerator or other major appliance? It's not a quick and easy job. Typically, you would drive around to various appliance stores in search of the right fit, design and price. For us, we don't drive so getting to a couple of places in one night between 5pm and closing was just not going to happen. We set out to our local Home Depot and were told they had no stock, anything we wanted would be a special order. Booo! We stopped to grab a bite to eat and while we sat, we thought... if we are going to have to order something we might as well get something perfect. The Home Depot salesman was searching through inventory on the Home Depot website, I mean, we could do that! So back home we went, sort of befuddled.

Meanwhile, the freezer is still going strong and now has all of the perishables like milk and yogurt inside. GR gets to thinking, if the freezer is still working something must be able to be repaired to cool the refrigerator part. So we sleep on it, work all day and voila! When GR finally gets home from an extra long day at work at 9:30pm he tears into the fridge! I pulled up a parts breakdown of the current GE model we have and GR took a quick peak into where certain items were before he started dis-assembly. After removing the housing and fan we came up with the lazy culprit causing all the fuss! The motor that runs the fan was not running.

Seventy five dollars later we have the part on order and expect it Friday! 'Til then we keep our fingers crossed. I'm so happy we were not forced into buying another household fridge as the goal here to be more self reliant. A 12 volt system would be better in that way, but we sure would lose a lot of space, so we are torn. One thing is for sure, we will not take our luxury for granted! We should have a running fridge and a brand new range this weekend! Woo hoo! Hurray for handymen!

We got 'em, so now what?

Don't let this face fool you, she isn't having a hard time holding these incredibly light tanks. Granted they haven't been filled with propane yet, however, these babies are so light even Gia could carry them to be refilled. (Commence evil laughter) Mwah ha ha ha ha. All part of our plan to get our kid to work for us! No, but seriously though we are really happy with our purchase from Backcountry.com. Check them out for some of their other great boater friendly items without the "marine" price tag!

Now that we have the tanks the next step is finding out how to install them into a spot that

1. we don't have to look at, like a box or storage hold.
2. that we can easily run the hoses down into the galley.
3. that doesn't require a bunch of hassle/re-designing/cutting of fiberglass.

Like any boat project, "Project Galley" not just cut and dry usually one project opens a door to another and so on hence the reason every boat is still under some kind of construction/repair/re-design. Also another reason why so many projects get left undone. These projects are going to have to be done on the weekends as time does not permit on the weekday and two days just doesn't seem like enough but we are going to give it H-E-double-hockey-sticks for sure!

In the meantime, we are trying to come up with a good font for our transom. We have been searching the net and wanted to reach out to you all. Show us your transom. Go to our facebook page, "like" us if you haven't already and upload a photo  of your transom, or a font you like for our boat name. Can't wait to see what you come up with!

Fuel for the Fire

Backcountry.com Best Price @ 89.95 no shipping

Here she is, take a look! Fiberglass propane tanks are the coolest new invention! We have been dreaming of getting fiberglass tanks since the day we first saw them on the stern railing of another boat. The idea is that you can see the level of propane and never have to guess again! Believe me those propane gauges never work anyway so just save yourself the time and money and buy these! They are actually cheaper than stainless tanks. Since having a propane stove is all I have know for the past few boats I'm a bit spoiled. When it comes to cooking with propane the benefits are seemingly endless. The only downside would be Sunday morning pancakes interrupted by having to switch tanks or worse, lug the only tank you have into town for a refill. Not anymore!

Time Saver - Cooking with gas ranges allow you to begin cooking right away as there is not waiting for burners to heat up like with electric units.

Safety -  Propane burners cool just as quickly as they heat. Turning off the propane from the tank also saves fuel and keeps from gas leaking into your living space.

Consistency - Propane allows for even heat distribution across the bottom of the pots and pans, so forget about hot spots!

Precision - Temperature control like quickly changing from boil to simmer allows even the newest chef to look like a seasoned professional!

Propane is a great resource supplying 3 to 4 percent of our nation's total energy needs. Almost 11 billion gallons of propane are consumed by 60 million Americans every year to heat, cool, cook and light up their homes! Propane is universal and is also used in countries around the world so when you need a refill in Bahamas or Jamaica it can be simple. For us, living outside the box and relying more on self preservation to live leaves us seeking out new technologies and methods to spend more time at sea and less time at the dock and with our new galley set up we can do just that!

How will you get set up to stay longer out at sea? Are you relying to much on America's electricity? Cut the cord and seek out our renewable energy alternatives, you just may find a new hobby!

Until next time...;)

*We got our tanks (2, 20 lb. vertical) from Backcountry.com, they were available in a variety of colors including red, blue and green. We chose white;)

Stove Options

When we bought Felicity one of the exciting things for us was the ability to turn a boat that was originally set up to stay put, at a dock, into a boat that could thrive "unplugged". Today, as we ordered our brand new 20" gas range we made a big step in that direction! This will be the first of many Project Motor Boat PROJECTS. It wasn't easy making the final decision and there were a couple of hangups along the way. Here is a short list of the things we were confronted with in making our choice. 

1. Ordering - Once we found the model we liked we looked up dealers in our area. The dealer would not take our credit card over the phone and wanted us to mail a check or deliver one personally to his showroom. Well that was totally inconvenient, so the online ordering began.While I haven't minded buying parts or books online I had a few reservations about buying such a big ticket item through a company that I didn't know and wasn't sure I could trust. I made sure to shop around looking carefully at each website for secure looking features. I even called each website that was a possibility just to hear their customer service and policy information.

2. Shipping Costs - I thought shipping a stove that weighs 110 lbs would be astronomical but I was wrong. Thankfully, the cost was about 18% of the cost of the unit. One company estimated just $26 for shipping and a red flag flew up for me with them, I figured the end result would not be good. Reasonable rates for shipping portray some semblance of legitimacy, for me anyway.

3. Style - Basically, there are 3 colors black, white or stainless and I feel strongly about each. In our galley we already have a white fridge so if we were to go stainless the fridge would feel a bit out of place. Black is dark and would totally not match with our cabinetry, our wooden walls or our small open space. So that left white and simple.


After I felt confident with our choice we pulled the trigger and expect delivery by March 25th. The two main brands we were interested in were Danby and Avanti. We went with the Danby DR2099WGLP as seen above! Before we put in the new stove we need to also install some 20 lb propane tanks as well as sand and varnish the floor! Hip, hip hooray for projects! Projects inevitably lead to more blog posts!

Until next time...

Felicity's Five Favorite Items to Drool Over

"Good plans shape good decisions. That's why good planning helps to make elusive dreams come true." - Lester Robert Bittel

To say that we look at West Marine or Lewis Marine catalogs very often would be an understatement. I venture to say we are not the only ones though. I mean who doesn't love scanning through the pages of all that fancy gear and dreaming of having it on their own boat? Why not dream big, right?

Since it's Miami Boat Show weekend, I see it only fitting to mention our five favorite items to drool over:


12' Livingston Dinghy w/ a 30 hp Yamaha - Yes, we will absolutely get another Livingston dinghy! We had so much fun with our last one we can't think of a reason not to! We are excited to go a size up because the 10' was great for the three of us or even another full size human, but if we had two extra adults along for a ride we weren't able to plane. Since we plan to have more guests along in our now bigger boat we plan to be able to get up on a plane and hit the beach in style!


Tecma Silence Plus Heads - Sure two heads are better than one, but we've got three and only one is operable. GR was exposed to these bad boys through the current yacht he works on and he is sold! The design is easy on the eyes with clean lines, keeping all the hose under wraps. They are affordably priced at under $1,000 and operate electronically so none of that hand operated pump action. Guests will feel right at home when they just push a button to quickly and silently flush. The system has programmable flush cycles that even prevent flushing when the tank is full.


Northern Lights 10KW Generator - The difference in the technology of models built in the 1960's and today is enough to want to replace the generator not to mention the difficulty in getting parts that dated. The Northern Lights 10KW weighs less than half of what our current generator does and would offer double the fuel efficiency. The goal of Project Motor Boat is to create a live aboard motor yacht that can be as efficient as a live aboard sailboat. We don't plan on staying at the dock forever and the sooner we get to self sufficiency the sooner we can get cruising!


Magnum MS4024 Inverter Charger - Basically we will need this unit to operate the reefer; something we have grown to depend on! Although, we currently have a household refrigerator I would love to eventually have an RV style counter depth unit that would be more efficient. Our boat is currently on a 32 volt operating system which makes this unit perfect for us to slowly make the switch to a 24 volt system.


Ocean LED Underwater Lighting - You've seen them, those boats that light up the night making their own personal anchorage aquarium show! WE WANT TO BE THAT GUY! I can't tell you how long we have pined over hauling out and installing these incredibly efficient LED lighting systems. To be precise
we need to 2010 HD flush mount model. These models are easily accessible from inside the hull for maintenance and even offer color changing abilities depending on the type of water you are in! It's so cool!

So, tomorrow I will finally get the chance to make my rounds at the 2012 Miami International Boat Show and hope to make stops at these booths for more information and more drooling! See you there!

Boat Show Gear!

The 2012 Progressive Insurance® Miami International Boat Show and Strictly Sail is happening! This week begins the move-in of thousands of boats to the Miami Beach Convention Center and Sea Isle Marina & Yachting Center. Some boats are still shrink wrapped and are brought in by crane, while still others like the one GR is on will be driven in and parked into tight spaces where they will show off their goods for the next week to dreamers and buyers from around the world!

GR brought home our first bit of boat show gear last night!

I'm so stoked to rock this hat! IAG Yachts are the manufacturer of the current yacht GR is working with. EARLY this morning, I drove G up to  Ft. Lauderdale so he could get on the brand new 127' model and bring it down to South Beach to get prepared for the show. If you get a chance to check out the Mega-Yachts at Sea Isle and look for him! Tell him you heard about it on Project Motor Boat!

The little things

Yes, why yes I did take a photo of the pour spout on our syrup container. "Good Morning, Hungry Jack!" I'm a sucker for the little things and have always bee amazed by attention to detail. So when I saw this on a typical blueberry pancake Saturday morning all I could do was smile. Then later I researched...

Skip the Drip is what Hungry Jack is calling this ingenious little idea of a No Drip Cap happy face pour spout. I have always loved this brand of syrup because the small containers are the perfect fit in boat sized cabinets. I have to admit, if I bought an industrial sized syrup in the madness that is provisioning for a big trip it was only so that I could refill this little guy!

So kudos to the person who came up with this idea! In fact I'm going to post this post on their Facebook page and show them will see how much we appreciate it! 

Yes it is simple but I guess I'm a simple girl!

GR's Five Favorite Products

Fridays are fun days right? Everyone is excited about the weekend, including us. I decided that on the blog Fridays will be Favorite Days! We will talk about some of our favorite things like anchorages, products, companies, and foods.

In my opinion, GR is a "Mr. Fix It" like no other I have ever seen before. He really takes pride in every job he does and that shows. There are a few products he uses on a regular basis that help tremendously and we wouldn't consider leaving the dock without them on board. I just LOVE telling everyone about the little tricks we have learned about certain products. So without further delay, here we go! While most of my posts are pretty basic this one gets down right technical! (Well, for me anyway!)


Super Lube - It's a great multipurpose grease and can be used as a dialectric grease for electrical connections. When applied to rubber gaskets it can keep them from dry rotting. It performs well in high temperature areas. The secret ingredient, Syncolon® (PTFE) a replacement for Teflon. It creates a better barrier between moving parts.


PB Blaster -  Penitrating oil can that break free many rusty things including Master-Locks, screws, bolts and any other fastener you may need to break loose. You can spray it on bike parts after the evil rust monkeys get to it.

Ultra Tef Gel - Creates a barrier between two dissimilar metals. Every screw, nut, bolt and rivet get a bit of Tef Gel.

Sea Foam - GR adds this to fuel, diesel, gasoline and oil. When added to oil at oil changes it keeps the valves clean and working freely. GR has also been known to soak carburetors in it to clean out all the junk that builds up. Cleans injection systems and engine parts.

Sno Bowl* - Sno Bowl is the best at getting that brown brow off the hull that every boat gets from the ride down the ICW. It works in the head getting all that calcification off the bowl.

Have you used these products? Do you have any other uses for them? Please share them with us in the comments section. Today being Friday, I'm sure GR has a list of projects for us to do this weekend. I'll be sure upload anything good we get done!!

*This stuff is seriously bad for the environment and contains Hydrochloric Acid. So handling this should be done very carefully and sparingly.