Catching up: Daily Life

Sorry I have been so remiss about blogging. It's not easy to find time to write, particularly if we can't get a decent wifi signal on the boat and I need to go ashore to get online (we use a Rogue Wave wifi booster which works amazing when there are open signals, but these days most are password protected). As such, most of my "updating" has been via cellular data to our Facebook Page (point for smart phones!). Luckily, I have decent boat-based wifi at the moment, and instead of spending hours I do not have on all the wonderful individual posts I want to write, I'll just post a bunch of pictures and a mini-cram-style-missive to show you what we have been up to. A photo is worth a thousand words, right? This will be much more efficient I think, and it will get the point across. In the meantime, I will work on more detailed posts offline on a variety of subjects to post in the coming days and weeks.

So where are we now? Well, we made the upwind slog to Virgin Gorda from St. John. Winds have been unusually high these past few weeks - ranging from 20 to 30 knots every minute of every day - so it was indeed a "slog" taking us a rather pathetic three days of tacking back and forth to make this meager twenty-five mile "passage". We came here for Scott to race on the super yacht Parsifal.  Note that I said "super" and not "mega". Apparently there is a difference and though I cannot be sure, I think it amounts to another trifecta of zeros on a given bank account. It's not every day you get asked to crew on a 180 foot luxury sailboat and Scott could not pass up the opportunity, even if it did mean leaving me to be a single boat mom for five days. Though I gave him a hard time for abandoning me to go play both in truth and (mostly) in jest, I couldn't deny him this chance. Being former racing sailors has it's perks, that's for sure. We have so many sailing friends and several who work in the yachting industry that every now and then we get some opportunities to do things and meet people other people only dream of. I'll write more about the super yacht experience in a later post, but I must give a big shout out to our good buddy, Gonzo, for always thinking of us and inviting Scott to participate. It was pretty awesome, even from my vantage point from the deck of our boat. More to come...

As for other goings ons, we continue to get the opportunity to meet great blog followers and friends alike as this area is positively teeming with boating enthusiasts and blog readers. Paul and Sheryl Shard, of the television show Distant Shores, are here as well and got some great footage of our family to use in an upcoming episode for their show. That was fun and it was great to catch up with them again after seeing them at the Chicago Boat Show last year. We'll keep you posted on that interview and when it airs you can see for yourself if things are going as well as we allude to on this blog, or if it's all a ruse and we are teetering on the brink of insanity. Or maybe it's a little bit of both. You decide (wink).

Life on a boat continues with ups and downs and non-stop projects. We are always chasing up issues, from diaper blow outs and tantrums to battery problems and gear that has fallen into disrepair. Each morning before racing Scott fixed a new leak that would spring up. The first two were from faulty hoses from our sink faucets; easy, quick, fixes. The last leak, from our manual head pump (aka the way we flush our toilet), was more difficult. We are still dealing with it and while it's not bad enough to be considered urgent, it is a (pretty gross) nuisance to have seawater slowly trickling in from a blown seal on your toilet. Walking into a bathroom (or "head" as we call it) with a wet floor has always been one thing that has made my skin crawl. Even as a child I would tip toe into the stalls at the pools - their floors all slimy and wet - so disgusted at the thought that what I was stepping in might actually be pee and not pool water. As I even type that sentence my face is contorted into a disgusted grimace. Shudder. Not looking forward to the final fix as it will no doubt result in fecal matter getting on our skin. We'll just keep putting it off until we can't.

We have lots of fun stuff coming up to that does not involve poop or faulty hoses, not the least of which is the fact that many friends are coming to charter in the area (including AJ, who helped us out earlier this season) and my amazing, beautiful and crazy talented sister, Chelsea, who made a last minute decision to spend her spring break with us. Cannot wait for her arrival. And for all the goodies she will be bringing. Because if you ever visit people living on a cruising boat in the islands, you will be bringing them stuff from the homeland. Be warned.

So that is that. We are loving life and feel very much at home down here on our boat. I think we are past the "beta test" stage and I can say with resounding confidence that this is actually working, despite what most people - and even I, in my darkest moments - thought. Talk has now turned to how to make this viable in the long-term (aka operation "make money" in the islands), which is a complicated matter for sure. For now, we'll just keep on keeping on and letting the Universe guide us where she will. So far, so good. I'll let the pictures do the talking for now...