Step right up 🎪 🎵 to Inner Banks Canvas a custom marine upholstery loft in the small yachting center of oriental, NC. Former dirtbag, bare bones sailors / cruisers Breena & Spencer Litzenberger have really classed up as the new owners of INNER BANKS CUSTOM CANVAS
Earth Intruder
A surveyor wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole (I know this because my friend’s a surveyor and said so), but that’s a legit home made 12-volt lithium battery for $300 vs. the $700-1000 you’ll pay for a “marine” one.
Each cell is about three volts and that little red box is a battery management system (BMS), which keeps it all distributed evenly. The wires off the BMS are soldered to the positive end of each cell . There’s even a fuse on the battery to limit risk of fire in case the battery shorts out. Plus, it’s lithium ion vs. lithium iron. Lithium iron is apparently the more dangerous one, and if one cell melts or gets too hot it can start to burn any cell that is next to it.
It’s the way of the future, and lithium 12-volt batteries are way more efficient and longer lasting than lead acid. But of course like anything it comes with risks and consequences.
Where did the lithium in my batteries come from? Probably some horrible mining practice. I’ll look into that. It seems we just can’t escape the environmental impacts that come with being a human and consumer.
In the meantime I’ll be getting lots of work done on my computer because I can finally plug it in on board. This is the first time ever I’m able to have sufficient power on a boat I’ve owned. I even have a food processor. Hummus anyone? Plenty of solar aboard to charge everything and this battery can easily be disconnected and brought to land to charge! They’re also so much lighter than lead acid, and if you’re really clever you can swap them back and forth with your electric bicycle which is all these cells are anyway. Electric bike batteries.
I am not that type of clever, however, so just leave me to some basic carpentry and fiberglassing. This addition to Sohund is definitely not my creation, but I’ll take it!
Hang in there folks. Spring is almost here. I came out of the boat and I didn’t see my shadow, so– I’m sure of it.Â
A short note: Please sign up for email updates below! My subscribers all got deleted! All that’s left are 13 randoms and one of them has already sent me hate mail saying I am deranged and to take him off the mailing list. Sorry, but I don’t even know how you got ON the mailing list let alone how to get off it . So I guess he’s out of luck.[email-subscribers-form id="1"]
Pocket full of food
I don’t know what’s fuller, my heart or my belly. All of the jobs to make my little boat “seaworthy” are done. All that’s left is some cosmetic work and I’m splashed. But I’m not ready to leave this little boatyard community.
My French neighbor, John, with the Pearson 35 that he’s sailed to the Bahamas and back with his wife Gaby, reckons if I were here all alone I’d have figured it out. I can’t help but feel though that I couldn’t have done it without him and all the others who have helped me and my little boat get this far.
I’ve always secretly resented people who “forget to eat.” If I meet up with a friend around dinner time and they say they’ve had a “big lunch” I seethe silently. But it’s been happening to me. I’ve been forgetting to eat. It’s so hot during the day and the boat’s such a mess that the thought of cooking something and having to clean it up deters me and then I get caught up doing something else. I’ve managed to get a stock of some quick and easy stuff to make in a pinch (avocado and tuna tortillas anyone)? and I’m in no way too broke or cheap to buy food–it’s just sort of been slipping my mind.
The onslaught of wonderful humans feeding me started with the waitress at the marina cafe refusing to let me pay for my lunch when we went out. A few days later her boyfriend helped me install my bilge pump, a four hour job over the course of two days, and then invited me back to dinner at their house. They sent me home with a plastic bag full of chicken breast in my pocket. Yesterday morning I was having coffee with Josie, another female solo sailor, when I ran into Renee who had bought me a bag of fruit. Just because. “I thought you could use some fruit.” I ate the mangos like a ravenous beast in my cockpit underneath the sun. It reminded me of the tropics. I can smell the melon ripening as it hangs in my food hammock beside sweet potatoes I’ve yet to cook.
Last night a huge storm came through. I could see it building on the lake, marching towards the boatyard. My starboard chainplate, which is what keeps my mast attached to the boat, was removed for a bulkhead repair I was working on. Then the storm hit. I had two halyards tied down supporting the mast, so it wasn’t going anywhere in theory, but the wind blew hard and my mast leaned to the side in a way I never want to see again. The sound of the mast leaning from inside the boat had me sure the whole thing was going to come down any second. But sounds are always amplified inside the boat. Fellow boatyard neighbors Michael and Peter saw my commotion and came to help. When the storm passed they invited me for wine and snacks. After a couple of glasses Peter said, “Come with us to the restaurant, I’ll buy you dinner. The least I could do for a fellow hungry sailor.”
Today while I was helping another sailor tighten down his stanchions, Renee said, “Are you hungry?” and gave me ribs, corn and potatoes he had leftover from lunch. Then he invited me to a picnic dinner with a few other sailors where we ate pizza and salad. Julie and Alex are going to be sailing their Beneteau to the Bahamas this year. Julie had just baked a cake in their galley. She wrapped a piece up in some tin foil and I put it in my pocket.
“Everybody will help you. Some people are very kind.” -Bob Dylan
Log Book: Day 2
Met sailor Jon from the Catalina 25. He’s been sailing for forty years. He helped me rig up the main sail. I think that he thinks I know nothing, but that’s okay because I absorbed everything and wound up rigging it by myself. He gave me a shackle for my furler. He’s bringing me a 3.5 inch hole saw to install my manual bilge pump, which is excellent. He also made fiberglassing sound easy, and I’m a little less intimidated to glass in the block on the starboard chainplate.
Gina basically prepped the whole bottom. I have weak arms and am not flexible. She’s a strong yogi. It was a good job for her. We took freezing hose showers after being covered in what was probably illegal and definitely toxic paint dust.
Quinoa and veggies for dinner. She’s still surprised I can cook. I guess it’s been a while since we were roommates in college. Raising the sail in the boatyard was bizarre. It felt like we’d just take off flying into space.
Boat buying tips from an idiot
The universe loves me! Then it hates me. I send a text to my friend the local bay constable. He’s got a shed full of marine junk. He gave me a piece of teak I’m going to cut and use as a block for my bow roller, so it sits flush on deck. It’s a shot in the dark, “have any old life jackets laying around you want to sell me?”
I’ve recruited my cousin to come out with me on a test row of the $100 inflatable dinghy next nice day we both have off, and I need two life jackets before we can do that.
I’m at the DMV legally making the boat mine. I got the signed contract from the seller weeks ago and just signed it the other day. It felt weird, signing it. No turning back now. I get a text about the life jackets. Yes, he has some I can have. Have. Surely I’ll throw him a couple of bucks, but there’s no need. He gets a big box each year at work, and gives them out to people. I walk out of the DMV, sure that my number won’t be called anytime soon, and he’s there in a police truck. It’s funny. I always just assume cops won’t like me. Like they can sense my anti-authority demeanor from the way I dress, or walk or something. But this cop likes me. He’s a sailor.
Two brand new life jackets and I’m on top of the world! My faith in humanity restored, as it so often is on this journey. I thank him profusely. We chit chat about bottom paint and the splice I’m going to use on my ground tackle, which is arriving today!
The line at the DMV moves fast. It’s the best day ever. I know my new anchor is going to be on the stoop when I get home. I just got two free coast guard approved life jackets. I actually have all the correct paper work to get the boat put into my name. I see my number come up on the screen and jump to my feet before it’s even called.
A few cracks on the stapler later and she gives me the total. Still smiling, I hear her say, “That’ll be 300 and something dollars.”
WHAT. My jaw drops. I’m confused. Registration isn’t that much!
Tax. Bloody sales tax. I forgot the old buying a used car trick. Put a lower number on the bill of sale.
File it under boat buying tips from an idiot.
First world problems
My biggest problem the past few months has been when my mom bought a new brand of pretzels, but that’s all about to change. It’s raining here today and even though the temperature sits at a nice 50 degrees I refuse to go outside. This weather is a cold reminder that my boat doesn’t have heat.
I plan to live at anchor because I can’t afford to pay the exorbitant cost of a summer slip and there’s quite a long waiting list to even get one. While I’d love to be out cruising and exploring all season the truth is I’ll have to be holed up in a secure place, row to shore everyday, get on my bike and ride to work.
The journey to bring my boat back to salt, which is set to take place in late summer/early fall, has anchorages along the way, but a lot of the time I’ll be forced to pay for a night’s moorage. Add in the fees for going through locks, fuel, stepping and unstepping the mast for bridge and lock clearance, and it’s going to be an expensive adventure. On top of that I need to have enough money tucked away in case I need to hang the boat up next winter, and pay first month’s rent in whatever place I decide to hang my hat and refill the sailing kitty until the following Spring. In order for all of this to come to fruition, I’m going to need a job during the summer, as all of the money I have now will go into outfitting Anam Cara.
The town where I was hoping to live anchored off of might turn out to be a big no go. My research has taught me that somehow the designated anchorage area is governed by the town, as it exists within a breakwater, and you must acquire a permit to anchor there and not exceed your stay longer than three days. A fellow sailor who cruised these waters ten years ago seemed to disagree, because how can the town govern the water, right? But what I read was an official government document.
As a sailor, flexibility is key, so I moved on to my plan B which is to anchor in a large bay which has varying degrees of protection, 10 miles south. On shore is a large, working shipyard and marina which I hope takes kindly to a liveaboard sailor girl that wants to grab a shower, tie up her dinghy, and lock up her bicycle. I thought about calling them and asking, but thought better of it as not to draw attention to myself. Unfortunately, liveaboards often get a bad reputation as the marine industry has a growing agenda that caters to rich yachters. I’ve yet to come up with a plan C.
Aside from the usual maintenance like washing and waxing the hull and top sides, woodwork, an array of latches and hose clamps that need replacing, I might need to drop the mast right away and assess an issue with the step. Her interior needs a fresh coat of paint, the cabin floor needs a revamp, I need to come up with a plan for cooking in the galley (as there’s no stove), and should probably consider some kind of portable heat system like an alcohol heater for those grey, rainy days. I’m only touching the surface here of what all needs to be done in order to get her ship shape. I certainly have my work cut out for me. 
I’ve got navigation squared away, and while I suss out equipment for my anchoring system I’m looking for a dinghy. I want to buy a second hand inflatable like the old Avon I used to row, but craigslist this time of year is a barren, desolate wasteland. My efforts to find a soft bottom inflatable on ebay have also proved fruitless, as it costs as much as the dinghy to have it shipped. I have a backup plan to buy a reasonably affordable Sea Eagle inflatable (not the prettiest or most rugged, but it’ll do for now), until the dinghy of my wallet’s dreams comes rowing my way.
Navigation for small sailboats
If it ain’t broke don’t fix it, but what if a system can be improved? Part of the satisfaction that comes from messing about in boats is maintaining and fixing things onboard yourself. Personally I can’t wait to be arm deep in some epoxy, scraping old bits of bottom paint off, careening the aisles of hardware stores looking for the perfect screw. I’m also really excited to make improvements, which is where I think a great chunk of this supposed gratification will come from.
I can’t move aboard my boat until May, when she’s finally defrosted, and I’m currently dwelling, working, and saving money for her outfit hundreds of miles away from where she lay. While I eagerly wait for the season to be conducive I’m gathering tools, materials, and ideas for when I begin. I’ve put navigation at the top of the list (anchoring is second, but more on that later).
When I lived aboard and sailed on a 22-foot-sailboat in the Pacific Northwest for over a year, I got the lesson of a lifetime in keeping things simple, and I’ve held on to that with a fierce grip. For navigation in inland waters we used good old classic paper charts, and as our secondary system (okay, maybe it was the primary sometimes) we used a handheld GPS. It was beyond adequate.
Charts were used for route planning and as a point of reference when sailing from point to point. The GPS was used to double check we weren’t heading straight for any rocks, were entering harbors the right way, to check speed, and sometimes to help when we were, for lack of a better word, lost, and had trouble determining which island was which.
I’ve reached out to a few sailing mates and all have had really excellent advice on what kind of equipment to use, and both recommended using a device like an Ipad and a software like Navionics, which you apparently don’t have to be connected to data in order to use.
I’m not so convinced though. In the future I want to outfit my boat with solar, but for now she runs on a 12V system that can only be charged by the alternator on the outboard engine. I like that the handheld GPS runs on disposable batteries. I like that it has a tiny screen that I can barely see, which forces me to reference my charts more often.
I’d like to update to a more modern navigation system in the future, but when I move aboard my boat everything will be new and this simple system of navigation will be familiar. I like that, too.