Month: October 2017

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Halloween Decorations on “No Tan Lines” and BRRRR!!!

If you’re just tuning in, CLICK HERE to start at the beginning. 🙂

We’ve been anxiously awaiting our first real cold front while living aboard “No Tan Lines.” (“Tanny” for short.) And, we’ve been blessed with a whopper just before Halloween! It’s almost noon as I’m writing this and it’s sunny and only 64 degrees. The wind is blowing 20 mph so it’s quite crisp outside indeed…for Florida anyway!

Last night, when we were sitting in the cockpit, I realized that every one of my sweaters was in storage. So, I grabbed a blanket. Since nobody in the marina is running their air conditioners right now, we could hear everything…and I mean EVERYTHING our neighbors are saying on their boat. Ahem…. Learning from others’ mistakes, we spent the evening whispering.

At bedtime, Max took his blanket and pillow outside, and fell asleep in the cockpit. We had all our ports and hatches open and it was lovely curled up under the comforter! Rambo (Max’s cat) carouses the neighborhood after dark, and always returns around 2 a.m., crawls in our bed, begs for scratches, and curls up by my head.

When the tide or wind pushes the boat too far from the finger dock, Rambo lies and waits for the boat to get closer so he can jump back onboard.

 

I woke up around 3:00 a.m., and didn’t see Rambo on our bed. I assumed he was out in the cockpit with Max so I wasn’t too worried. Just then, I turned over in bed, and just so happened to open my eyes, glancing through the hatch above our bed. Two glowing eyes were staring back at me! After I sucked in my breath and woke up Richard with a yelp, I realized the eyeball glow belonged to Rambo. He was standing there above me, creepily staring at me as I slept. I pulled out the hatch screen, and pulled him into bed. He begged for scratches, purred really loudly, and then finally fell asleep.

This morning, we woke up freezing but we didn’t mind because it sure feels like Fall!

While it’s quite chilly, I’m glad because this weekend we’re attending our first outdoor Murder Mystery Dinner. My female gangster costume includes a dress, a blazer, and knee-high boots. I was NOT looking forward to wearing a blazer and boots in 88-degree heat!

The boats are “decked” for our favorite holiday of the year – Halloween! Here are some photos:

Our salty, sailing skeletons definitely don’t have any tan lines!
Captain Brian P. Whiddon‘s special friend, Matilda. She looks awesome at night because her eyes and face light up. And, the way he strung her up makes her appear to be flying madly through the strong salty breeze. Small children don’t want to walk past Brian’s boat right now. 😉
If you pass to close to our bow, John John might eat your face.

NEXT: TAKING CLASSES AT THE BOAT SHOW

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Angela Hoy is a publisher, a blogger, and the author of 19 books. She lived on dirt her entire life before her family gave away almost everything they owned, and moved onto a 52-foot Irwin Center Cockpit Ketch. They all live, work, and play on board full-time.

Angela is the publisher of WritersWeekly.com, a free source of paying markets for freelance writers and photographers. If you want to write for magazines, websites, businesses, or others, check it out. It’s free! Her publishing services company, BookLocker.com, has published more than 9,000 books over the past 18 years. If you want to publish a book, she’d love to hear from you! Abuzz Press is BookLocker’s hybrid publishing company. And, PubPreppers.com offers services to authors who are having their books published elsewhere.

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Amberjack Rampage!

If you’re just tuning in, CLICK HERE to start at the beginning. 🙂

One day last week, I was quietly working on my laptop on the boat when I heard our captain, Brian Whiddon, holler for me to come look at something. I, in turn, told the boys something was going on and they dropped their schoolbooks and followed me through the companionway.

In front of No Tan Lines, a large area of water appeared to be boiling. At first glance, from the back of the boat peering that far ahead, I seriously thought somebody had dumped some sort of chemical in the water. Only after I quickly walked to the bow did I notice it was a huge school of large fish.

The boiling water effect was moving toward our boat, and beside it. We could hear the fish slapping our boat, and see them slapping the boats on both sides of us. They moved behind us, which is when I was able to catch THIS VIDEO…which, I know, turns sideways at the end. Sorry about that.

We originally thought the hunters were dolphins but we never saw any surface. We then thought it might be sharks corralling the fish. Another idea was tarpon because we have HUGE ones in the marina right now. One that was hanging out under the pier awhile back was at least seven feet long.

The show continued for another 45 minutes or so with the school moving all over the marina. One neighbor said it was sharks forcing the school closer to shore for an easier meal.

Brian, who’s also a diver, was scheduled to dive under No Tan Lines that afternoon for some maintenance. Needless to say, he rescheduled…

NEXT:  Halloween Decorations on “No Tan Lines” and BRRRR!!!

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Angela Hoy is a publisher, a blogger, and the author of 19 books. She lived on dirt her entire life before her family gave away almost everything they owned, and moved onto a 52-foot Irwin Center Cockpit Ketch. They all live, work, and play on board full-time.

Angela is the publisher of WritersWeekly.com, a free source of paying markets for freelance writers and photographers. If you want to write for magazines, websites, businesses, or others, check it out. It’s free! Her publishing services company, BookLocker.com, has published more than 9,000 books over the past 18 years. If you want to publish a book, she’d love to hear from you! Abuzz Press is BookLocker’s hybrid publishing company. And, PubPreppers.com offers services to authors who are having their books published elsewhere.

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HOW DO YOU DECORATE A BOAT FOR HALLOWEEN?

If you’re just tuning in, CLICK HERE to start at the beginning. 🙂

It’s no secret that Halloween is our favorite holiday of the year! Since we moved onto a boat, holiday decorating has become a challenge. We have gone from 3600 square feet (our old house in Maine), to 2400 square feet (in Port Charlotte, FL), to 1800 square feet (in Bradenton, FL), to a 2-bedroom apartment in St. Petersburg, FL (while we shopped for a boat), to a 52-foot Irwin Center Cockpit Ketch.

When we moved to the apartment, and then to the boat, we became minimalists, getting rid of most of our belongings, almost all of which were things we rarely, if ever, used. I wrote more about that HERE.

We previously had seven large containers of Christmas decorations. Now, we have one. We used to have far more Halloween decorations than Christmas ones. Not anymore. We now have one container of Halloween decorations as well. Richard is picking up our Halloween container today so the boys can decorate the boat. The life-sized skeleton will probably end up on near the anchor because that’s closest to the dock. The boys want to buy orange lights to string on the masts and booms, and along the lifelines and stanchions. We have a few other scary goodies that the boys will put outside as well. If you have any cool Halloween boat decorating ideas, please let me know! 🙂

On the Saturday before Halloween, we’ll be attending a murder mystery dinner with a 20’s mobster theme here at the dock. We were all assigned mobster characters except Mason. He will be an actor. We all have to email other specific characters with pre-written statements and questions, which will be fun! We’ve never been to a murder mystery dinner before so we’re pretty intrigued! Richard, who is Gourmet Rick here on the dock, will be doing a lot of the cooking, which he loves.

Richard was going to buy wing-tip shoes for his costume but, in the spirit of minimalism, I told him that’s not a good idea. Why buy a pair of shoes that you’re only going to wear one time? I told him nobody will be looking at his feet. They’ll be looking at his big (plastic) machine gun! Yeah, we’ll only use that one time as well but it was a LOT cheaper than wing-tip shoes! I have fun shopping for my female gangster outfit. I already own a pair of high-heeled boots, and will need to get those out of storage. No need to buy new shoes for me, either!

And, to save money (of course), we’ll be wearing our mystery dinner costumes on Halloween, too, when we attend our daughter and son-in-law’s annual Halloween party.

We are so excited!!! 🙂

NEXT: AMBERJACK RAMPAGE!

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Angela Hoy is a publisher, a blogger, and the author of 19 books. She lived on dirt her entire life before her family gave away almost everything they owned, and moved onto a 52-foot Irwin Center Cockpit Ketch. They all live, work, and play on board full-time.

Angela is the publisher of WritersWeekly.com, a free source of paying markets for freelance writers and photographers. If you want to write for magazines, websites, businesses, or others, check it out. It’s free! Her publishing services company, BookLocker.com, has published more than 9,000 books over the past 18 years. If you want to publish a book, she’d love to hear from you! Abuzz Press is BookLocker’s hybrid publishing company. And, PubPreppers.com offers services to authors who are having their books published elsewhere.

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A COOL FRONT TURNS OUR FLOATING HOME INTO A CARNIVAL RIDE! (includes video)

If you’re just tuning in, CLICK HERE to start at the beginning. 🙂

Last week, I wrote about an unknown source that created havoc in the marina. All of the sudden, all the boats started pitching violently for no apparent reason. After speaking to dock neighbors, we learned that the most likely culprit was a wake from a tanker in the ship channel that met little resistance on its way to shore. What a fun mystery that was! We’re still not sure that’s what it was but it makes the most sense.

Four days ago, the wind started blowing HARD here…and it hasn’t stopped. As I’m writing this, I’m listening to a high wind warning for the Skyway Bridge on the radio. Winds are sustained at 28 mph this morning.

With winds blowing steady at 25-38 mph for four days now, our floating home has become a never-ending carnival ride! WE are having sooooo much fun!! Well…except when the boat pitches when you’re in the shower and you whack your head on the wall, or when the boat flies upward when you’re taking a step and you whack your toe on the bathroom door, or when you have to go to the head (bathroom) at 3:00 a.m. and you tumble out of bed onto the floor, or when you realize the entire family, including the kids, look wildly drunk when walking through the salon, or when you step outside to head to an appointment and discover a quadruple coating of hairspray is NO match for Mother Nature!

Click HERE for a video from “No Tan Lines.”

We are LOVING living on Tanny!

And, the excitement continues! A tropical storm or category one hurricane is predicted to hit north of us this weekend but, since those monsters are so unpredictable, Richard is stocking up on water today and Capt. Brian Whiddon (also the Managing Editor of WritersWeekly and the Operations Manager of BookLocker) filled up all the gas containers this morning. We’re still stocked up on everything else from Hurricane Irma so we’re prepared.

After Irma, we are now confident staying onboard Tanny in a Cat 1 or Cat 2 hurricane, and will only evacuate for something stronger. However, Max (age 16) and Mason (age 11) will go to their sister’s house. We would not feel comfortable having them on board in a hurricane. Mason is VERY upset with our decision (he’s an adrenaline junky like his mommy!) but he understands.

NEXT: HOW DO YOU DECORATE A BOAT FOR HALLOWEEN?

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Angela Hoy is a publisher, a blogger, and the author of 19 books. She lived on dirt her entire life before her family gave away almost everything they owned, and moved onto a 52-foot Irwin Center Cockpit Ketch. They all live, work, and play on board full-time.

Angela is the publisher of WritersWeekly.com, a free source of paying markets for freelance writers and photographers. If you want to write for magazines, websites, businesses, or others, check it out. It’s free! Her publishing services company, BookLocker.com, has published more than 9,000 books over the past 18 years. If you want to publish a book, she’d love to hear from you! Abuzz Press is BookLocker’s hybrid publishing company. And, PubPreppers.com offers services to authors who are having their books published elsewhere.