Pictures speak. Some more than others.
There’s one of me taken midway into my sailing life, vacuuming a salon with a wand attached to a central vac system. I look really happy, like I love vacuuming, which I do. And, being able to vacuum a boat so easily was heavenly.
At the time, I was scouring Trinidadian marinas and yards in search of a boat with which to have a year-long sailing adventure with my teenage sons. Anything that fit the budget was dirty, moldy, and needed a lot of work. An acquaintance had made his large Hylas available to me and a friend to return to after long, sweaty days of climbing ladders, crawling around dank cabins, and pulling up floorboards revealing neglect. This boat had all the generator-facilitated creature comforts — AC, overflowing ice maker, galley appliances — even a bread machine. But, the single most exciting thing was discovering it also had central vacuuming. I used it over and over again, every evening erasing memories of another day’s worth of grime and disappointment.
The right boat ended up being much cleaner, found in Sint Maarten several months later. But still, the Hylas picture became a tease preceding the adventure on my own 36-foot boat, crossing the Caribbean and Pacific with the sons, sand, hair, spills, grit, and a lame, old-school, battery-operated dust buster.
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