Shilshole Blog

Hi friends and neighbors, I’m writing a story for Pacific Yachting magazine about “liveaboard lessons” – those handy things you have discovered from living aboard your boat that might not be immediately obvious to non-liveaboard boaters, or might take them longer to figure out. I’ve had some great suggestions from those of you I’ve harrassed on the dock, but thought I’d also put the question out to the Shilshole blogosphere and would really love to get your input.

What are some things you’ve learned the hard way (or the damp way or the cold way!) that help make your boat a more comfortable place to spend your time? It could be ideas about storage, climate control, life in close quarters, easier docking, maintenance issues, sleeping configuration, pets onboard, grocery shopping, weather preparedness, the marina environment, stretching your boating dollar futher – pretty much anything you can think of that has improved your liveaboard lifestyle in some way.

Please share your thoughts either via the Shilshole Community blog or you can email me directly: charlotte at charlottefranklin dot net (I’ve written it in words rather than traditional email format to stop my address being bot-harvested, but you know what to do to turn it into an email address).

Many thanks for your participation. Happy to leave out names to protect the innocent so if you’d rather share anonymously just let me know.

Cheers,

Charlotte

S/V Pacific Orca, K-dock (soon to be J-dock!)

The Washington Liveaboard Association is putting on a First Aid/CPR course on Saturday February 23, from 8:30 am to 1:30 pm in the Shilshole Marina Office Conference Room. Providing the training will be Dana Atchison, a Certified Medic First Aid Instructor. Weather permitting, an outside demonstration of CPR in the cockpit of a sailboat is planned to simulate an offshore incident. Participants will receive a Basic First Aid and CPR certification card good for 2 years. The course is $40. Please reserve in advance by calling Eric Thoman at (206) 719-0976 or emailing kimeric@gocarefully.com.

Since December 11, 2007, there is a new blog in Ballard. I like it a lot: it looks like a great website to get the pulse of the neighborhood, talking about all the little things that happen around here, including the weather, with just enough user debates and gossip to make it interesting, without degenerating into mud slinging common on other blogs. It also has a pleasant design, no frills, no ads, and plenty of pretty or humorous pictures. The only other features are many good links, some traffic webcams and a map.

The photos mostly come from the “Ballard photo pool” on flickr, so anyone contributing to that pool could potentially see their photos end up on the site (not sure that’s their actual policy, but I’m assuming it is). That’s also something I envisioned for the Shilshole Blog, back in the day when our photo album was working a bit better.

For now the owners are anonymous, although they say they are “a Scandinavian couple, and one of us works in the information industry.”

That’s basically what I had hoped this blog would become, but maybe there just isn’t all that much to talk about at Shilshole? The Shilshole Blog has been lying a bit dormant lately, and that’s mostly because I don’t live at Shilshole anymore since I moved to Stimson Marina. But I’m keeping it alive, in case anyone feels up to using it.

http://myballard.com