Financing the Armada and Other News

It's been a bit too long since the captain's log has had a new entry!  As well as school being particularly busy lately, I've been working on how to finance this little venture. 

First off, I've added a donate button on the site, so if you feel like donating out of the kindness of your heart, feel free!  Also, I plan on opening a new page on this blog that will feature pieces of "knotical" macrame art that I've made by hand.  I will try to have that new site up and running soon.  I'm also considering adding ads to the site, but I'm not sure about that yet.  At this point, I don't think my viewership is quite large enough to garner much from advertisements (however the few that I do have are quite loyal and greatly appreciated :-)  ).

Viewership runs hand in hand with money when you're trying to get a blog started, so if you have any friends you think might enjoy what I have to write about, please get them to become followers of the site.

Monetarily, I'm aiming to raise $800 for this first project.  I've settled on an 8 foot, strip-planked dinghy that I think would be a great, sturdy starting point for the armada.  More on all this in a later post!

Finally, I would like to welcome a new crew member aboard!  She may not be able to help with construction too much, but she is quite aerodynamic.  Her name is Tink, and she is a Southern Flying Squirrel.  My girlfriend Ivette and I just got her last week, and she's a very chipper little pecan pirate!

Term of the Day: Leeward/Windward
This is a very important concept to understand when sailing.  The windward side of a boat is the side the wind hits first.  The leeward (pronounced loo'erd) side of a boat is (surprise!) the other side of the boat.  For example, if you're sailing along and the wind is moving from left to right (port to starboard), then the port side of the boat is windward and the right side is leeward.  This can apply to anything on the water (ie. docks can have windward and leeward sides as well).  Although its fairly simple, this concept doesn't come naturally to most of us landlubbers and requires a bit of practice to develop the windward/leeward sixth sense.