If you’re just tuning in, CLICK HERE to start at the beginning. 🙂
No Tan Lines is our office and our home. We live there but we also run BookLocker.com and WritersWeekly.com from her salon. Our employees and contractors all work out of their homes, too, because it’s very important to us that they are able to be with their children as much as possible.
During the past two years, since we sold our house, we’ve been spending way too much money on storage for our business equipment and files. A few weeks ago, we decided to rent a “satellite office” for all of those, as well as a quiet place where we can work when the boat is noisy, for employee meetings, and for training since we really don’t have a table suitable for more than one person on the boat.
In most cases, when you have repairs made to a house, or even an office, you can usually stay there when they’re being done.
When you’re having repairs that require pulling your boat (office) out of the water, you have to find another place to work.
No Tan Lines has been on the hard for three weeks now. We’re having drive shaft work done, and getting new spurs. We wanted to have a new thru hull put in for the kitchen sink (it currently goes into the sump pump) but the sink is too low in the boat.
During Hurricane Irma, we spent $4500 staying at the Hilton. It wasn’t just us staying there. We had some of our adult kiddos and our new grandson there, too. Assuming we’ll have more hurricanes in the future, and that we’ll need a haul-out every year or so, we realized we could bunk at the “satellite office” if we need to, and furnished it accordingly. And, only two months after we got it all set up, here we are!
There are only two rooms (offices) and one bathroom, along with a tiny kitchenette in the front office. The desk in the front office has a regular chair but the other chairs fold out into small beds.
The shower only runs lukewarm. There are two window air conditioner units but they work pretty good.
It’s on 4th Street and, apparently, this is the route all the ambulances take to the hospital. So, we hear ear shattering sirens all day and all night. There is constant traffic and a traffic light right out front. Twenty-four hours a day of VROOM! VROOM!! RUMBLE! RUMBLE!!
And, rap music! It’s really nice outside so lots of folks are driving with their windows down. BOOM! BOOM!! BOOM-CHICK-A-BOOM!!!
Lots of people walk in St. Petersburg and, unfortunately, there are lots of late night walkers (and partiers) on the sidewalk out front, all hours of the night. Loud talking, laughter, and even yelling.
I call the lady upstairs “clogs.” I think she has insomnia. She is constantly clomp, clomp, clomping up there on the wooden floors.
The biggest problem has been that our dog, Coco, absolutely refuses to go potty here. We’ve tried walking around the block, walking around two blocks, and even walking to the dog park at the high rise we used to live in. She won’t pee anywhere except at the marina. Thankfully, Capt. Brian Whiddon has been keeping her on his boat most nights so Richard doesn’t have to drive her there late a night, and early in the morning.
We were ABSOLUTELY THRILLED to learn today that Tanny can be picked up on Friday. Only two more nights of sirens, traffic, rap music, clogs, and the like. Yea!!! While it’s nice to have an affordable place to stay when we need it, we can’t WAIT to get back home!!
Well, it’s late now so I have to turn off my laptop…and find my earplugs.
NEXT: WE’RE TAKING ON WATER!
Don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter. We’ll alert you to new posts and we’ll be having book give-aways! 🙂
* * *
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.