A lot of people wonder what our day to day life is like on our boat. It's pretty simple really. So here's, more or less, how our days go by at anchor:
We (well, Scott more than I) wake up almost every day at 6:30am to listen to Caribbean weather guru Chris Parker who gives cruisers a pretty detailed weather report every day on the SSB. From there, we usually pool over our chart and guide books to plan for days activities. While we're doing that, I throw on the kettle for tea (the French press for coffee was a HUGE pain to clean, so we are straight-up tea drinkers now) and make a breakfast. Typically we have a half of a bagel with peanut butter - but I have been known to whip up scones or muffins on occasion to change it up. I water our plants and put them out in the sun.
After breakfast, we usually switch on our radio to 78A - the channel that has become a phone for our little flotilla. We make jokes - some clean, some dirty - talk smack, and make our plans for the day. Sometimes it involves a snorkel or lounging on the beach, sometimes spearfishing or a hike and pretty much always involves a group meal at the end of the day. Those are some of the best times.
After our excursion of choice, we retire back to our boats. Scott and I will take quick aft-deck showers* with Joy dish soap (yes, I bathe in dish soap now) and have a siesta of sorts. Sometimes this is time for boat projects (there is always, and I mean always something to maintain or fix), sometimes a nap and often time for reading. If there is Internet, I will crank out a blog or two - if not, I'll just write. In the middle of all this we do boat tidying. A place for everything, and everything in it's place. We run a tight ship over here!
All the while we are monitoring 78A to hear from our friends. Around 4pm we usually all get on to chat and plan for dinner. This almost always occurs on Rasmus because we have the bigger boat of the fleet and our little enclosed cock-pit with the Christmas lights has become the group living room. Everyone brings a dish and their own dinnerware (plates, silverware, drinks - makes clean-up MUCH easier). Sometimes, if I'm feeling dangerous I whip up a killer sangria** which pretty much means we all miss Chris Parker the next morning. We all retire between 9pm and 11pm (unless I make multiple batches of sangria) and we do our dishes, hang out the dish towels, batten down the hatches and rock to sleep like babies with the sound of waves gently lapping against the hull.
Then, we wake up and do it all again.
It's a good life, for sure. One that I do not think we will ever tire of. I've never felt more at home.
Love,
Brittany & Scott
*The aft-deck fresh-water shower we installed is one of the best systems on our boat. We love it. Being able to rinse our gear and ourselves before we get into our boat makes life much, much more comfortable and a lot less salty.
** My sangria recipe was given to me by Brian and Lara, and then I made it 'killer'. Here it is:
- 1 bottle of wine
- Very hefty pour of flavored rum (so far we have used mango, coconut and pineapple)
- Generous scoop of country-time lemonade and some water
- 1 can of mixed fruit cocktail in lite syrup.
Beware, this drink packs a punch!
7 comments:
So glad you all are enjoying the cruising life! Thanks for sharing your sangria recipe...I didn't know that you could mix rum and wine!!! Ok, that is dangerous knowledge for sure!
Thought I would direct you to my favorite aboard method of coffee making...The Aeropress! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AeroPress The great thing about it is that you can buy a years worth of filters - they are just little discs - and when you pitch the grounds it completely cleans the syringe and you just push them into the trash...so there are none going down the drain. I LOVE it! If you miss your coffee enough it might be worth ordering one general delivery when you are in a port long enough to receive it.
Thanks for your posts! It is getting me through the end of February in Carolina, and fun with contact cement as I reglue the headliner in our first boat getting her ready for sale! ;0)
Take care!
Sounds absolutely amazing! Especially as we haven't seen above 20 degrees here in New Hampshire for a week!
I was wondering if y'all ever considered using a different soap than Joy for your bathing/dishes? Something like a Dr. Bronner's organic hemp oil soap or a 7th Generation soap that is naturally derived...I only ask because I did a bunch of research before we went on a 3 month camping trip about dish soaps since I knew we'd be using them for dishes and bathing in the rivers. And Joy/Dawn have a chemical called Triclosan which has been proved to be toxic to some aquatic species like algae, invertebrates and some small fish species. The organic soaps are not as sudsy but are just as effective and since they are naturally derived they dissolve naturally without putting any chemicals into the water. Not at all trying to be preachy just wanted to share the knowledge I gained as we were exploring the art of bathing with dish soap! HA! Not even sure y'all can find Dr. B's down there but here is a link: http://www.drbronner.com/
Love these posts about your young flotilla I only hope that when we cast our lines in 3 years y'all are still out there or there's another group of young cruisers we can meet...sounds so fun! THANK YOU!
-Jill
@ anonymous - thanks! i'll check that out, however i have always been more partial to tea being that my mom is british and i've been drinking it since i was 6. but - i do love some good coffee though! glad you enjoy the blog...and hey, it could be worse - you could be in Chicago! At least the carolina winters seem more mild :)
@JIll - actually, we do use dr. bronners and love it...we have a huge thing of it...been using it forever. joy just is so easy because it suds up in salt water and makes you smell nice...but knowing that it's harmful now will change our tune. dr. bronners it is! thank you very much! and glad you are enjoying - we will probably be out here *somewhere* in three years, but either way, i'm sure you'll find a great group...it's not very hard out here :)
That sounds like such a great day, with a great group of friends! Thanks for the tip/gear of the aft deck shower. How much fresh water are you guys using per day, and how is the WM keeping up?
Hey Phillipe - thanks for the previous comment about the bread - we will DEFINITELY try that as french bread is my FAVORITE! as for the water, we use about 5-8 gallons a day depending on if we shower or not...mostly around 5. We run the water maker every other day to top off our tanks and it works great, though we need to run our engine to do it. The most we run it for is 2 hours and then we also charge all our computers and stuff...so not so bad. Best if we do it underway, but there are times we have to at anchor. We're looking into a generator. We love our shower and LOVE the watermaker. :)
So glad you're enjoying the cruising life! We know there's work involved, but when some cruisers say it's a tough life cause they have to dinghy in the laundry and groceries... well, still doesn't sound too bad to us! Also, we can't wait to have only one boat to maintain instead of boat plus house, lawnmower, motorcycles, and on and on ...
Great tip about the shower, and we've got to try that sangria recipe! Would be perfect for our upcoming Mardi Gras... cheers!
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