"Extras add" up very quickly!

It's been said by many, many people - mainly boaters I suspect, that "boat" stands for  'bring out another thousand"...

I can now see why - we've been looking at ways to get extra light into the boat as only having 10 portholes in total, we're both a bit concerned it may be a bit dark and dingy... especially in the lounge area, where reaslitsally, we'll spend most of our time when not chugging along.

There are various ways to achieve this;  'Pigeon Boxes'

Ignoring the décor (it's not our taste) these sit on the roof of the boat and can be opened for ventilation or simply left closed to let light enter the cabin from above...  we both like them but they can leak and stain the lining badly...  on the extras list, they cost about £700 quid with the glass.

Another option are  'Houdini' hatches

We're not keen on the look of these.

'Prisms' on the other hand DO appeal - the downside being you probably need a few scattered about which involved cutting MORE holes in your roof... whilst I like the subtly of them, I don't like the idea of lots of holes, weakening the structure.

Having given this much consideration - the answer was obvious really... We're already having 2 side hatches in the lounge area - mainly so we can fling them open and look up and down the cut to be nosey.  The down side of the standard ones though is they are lined with wood and thus when closed (due to wind/rain/snow/frost/gales) you can't see out.  SO - back to the "extras" again and we find the option to add glazed interior windows for £600 extra - each...

It's a lot of money (again) but a dear friend has offered to help towards the cost as a 'boat warming' present so we're going to ask the builder to add them to the order.  We're  debating whether to do BOTH sides or wait and see how we get on with 1 set for now... well when I say "We're" debating - what I mean is I want 1 set for fiscal reasons but Andy wants 2... time will tell who wins this battle lol.

Until next time...