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life aboard

Adios winter.

Mar 20th, 2011
by Sara.
1 comment

It’s official: we have survived living aboard an entire Pacific Northwest winter and all her glory. It was dark, it was windy, it was wet, it was bone-chilling cold but we have lived to tell the tale! Today is the first day of spring and it marks the start of our last full season at the dock.

In all honesty, while we just about lost our marbles a number of times this past winter, it really wasn’t all that bad. Or maybe that’s just hindsight or the fact that the sun actually was shining when we woke up this morning and we are still feeling a little sundrunk. Of course, the clouds rolled in by 1100 but we so enjoyed the forgotten warmth the sun can bring. It’s been a while. Last night we even slept with the porthole above our bunk open and breathed deep the sweetly scented warmer night air drifting in above us.

Living aboard with kids, or just living with kids period, means that there is always plenty to do so boredom rarely set in. Cabin fever, yes, but there was rarely an empty hour this past winter. Of course, not all of it is of the mentally simulating variety (i.e. washing another sinkload of dishes, hauling laundry up the dock in the rain, scraping dried mac & cheese off the cabin floor) but the dark damp days just flew by and now here we are, welcoming spring.

Already the not-so-lovely memories of Winter are fading as they tend to do. The good ones will come along with us: the luscious sound of the rain pattering on Wondertime’s decks, bowling bits of ice across the frozen watertop, the pure silence of snow falling on the docks in the morning, 40 knot gusts of wind gripping the boat and straining her docklines, the oven warming the cabin with it’s smell of fresh cookies. Maybe it wasn’t a matter of surviving winter after all, but savoring it.

Guest posting on Foodista.com

Mar 1st, 2011
by Sara.
3 comments

I was invited recently to write a guest blog on Foodista.com, a unique food and cooking website created and edited by users, and my first article has been posted this morning! It’s about the fun and (mostly) challenge of galley cooking, but these ideas can be applied to cooking in any small space (my first apartment after college had less counter space than Wondertime’s galley). Read it here!

Contentment. Afloat.

Feb 24th, 2011
by Sara.
8 comments

Last night, I had to pause for a moment to wonder if I had lost my mind. I was returning in the dark from the shower up at the top of our dock ramp, wearing flipflops, in — I kid you not — the snow. And I didn’t even feel cranky about it.

Maybe I haven’t gone crazy. Maybe I’ve just grown kind of fond of this life.

If you had asked me a year ago, when we first launched the idea of moving onboard Wondertime in anticipation for our departure the following year (this year), I would have told you that while living aboard in the Northwest again was not my least favorite thing, it was still right up there. When we moved off our boat Rivendell in 2006 I declared that I was never going to live aboard again, not unless we are actively cruising. Somewhere sunny, hot and dry.

Here in the Northwest, Summer is two months long. The rest of the year, you have to walk through the sleet and snow to take a shower (if, that is, your boat’s shower is full of laundry and coats and cat litter like ours is). There are pools of water on the insides of lockers that are exposed to the cold hull and the walls have been drip drip dripping for months. Our head (bathroom) sink drains into our head (toilet) and I have to pump the water out of the bowl while I brush my teeth. The cat paces the floor, yowls endlessly, pissed off that it’s too cold to go outside. Children bounce off the too-close walls and I hide in the tiny head (bathroom) sometimes just to get a few moments of quiet. Until they find me (it’s not hard) and start pounding on the door….

But recently I began thinking about the future, thinking about what we’re going to do after our cruising kitty runs out in about two years. Of course we’ll still live on the boat while we work a year or two (or better yet, work as we cruise). What about when the girls are teenagers and need more space?

The thought of moving off the boat one day made me panic a little. I realized: I don’t ever want to move off of our lovely, simple home. The cold and wet are temporary. But even with them, this winter has been a joy. The girls and I baked sun bread inside our tiny galley oven yesterday while snowflakes fell silently on deck. It was cozy and special. I realized that I like living with the true essentials, that every time I need to buy something new it just feels like adding clutter to my life. Having a simple wardrobe and a handful of pairs of really good shoes that I replace when one wears out is fine by me. I like living with the weather so close: we rock like a giant cradle when the wind blows and the blue sky is right there above our hatches when the sun does come peeking out. The girls’ art hangs everywhere around the cabin and I change our beautiful gallery constantly. There is no need for any other wall decorations. I love sleeping just feet away from my growing girls, so close that I can hear them breathing at night.

I am 35 years old. Every one of my post-toddler years I’ve had this feeling, this thought, that someday, my real life would start. Maybe once I had finished nursing school, or signed that book deal, or sailed across my 360th degree of longitude. I always had the sense that I was preparing for something, only I was never really quite sure what. Troubling, really, as years are passing quickly by.

Michael and I, our life has zigged and zagged around with boats and trips and houses, but the one common thread has been our love of the sea. We tried a comfortable “secure” life ashore but the longing was always there, no matter how hard we tried to bury it and tell ourselves that we loved land life. We realized we were living someone else’s dream, still beautiful, but all we truly wanted to do was get back on the water. So we did, and started planning the next Big Trip. But over the past seven months of living back onboard both of us came to realize that it wasn’t just the trip we loved, it was all of it. The planning, the getting ready, and just simply living on a boat. The trip, we look forward to sure, but it’s just part of the whole adventure of our life.

Recently, a few weeks ago, I had a moment. It truly was a moment of revelation, a defined piece of time with thoughts suddenly clear as ice, like you read about in books sometimes. I was standing in the center of our boat and realized that the unfinished feeling that has always haunted me was, completely, gone.

This is my life.

This is all I ever wanted.

It’s been years in coming but I can finally say that I’m content. Afloat.

Coffee Afloat

Feb 16th, 2011
by Sara.
5 comments

We’ve been trying to cut back on our coffee consumption, we really have. There have been a few too many trips through the Starbucks drive-though lately (and Starbucks for four is totally not in the Budget). We also have a habit of drinking a little too much coffee on the weekends which ends up with Michael and I snarling and sniping at each other for no real reason other than over-caffeinated nerves. We are also thinking ahead: unless things have changed the only coffee available in Mexico is typically Folgers and that just is not going to do. During our last cruise in Mexico we stopped drinking coffee altogether; truthfully I can’t remember if it’s that all the extra sunshine helped get us off the caffeine habit or if it’s just that we couldn’t stomach the taste of the “coffee” sold pre-ground in cans.

But anyway, we are here in the Northwest and coffee is just a necessity. We can’t even get out of bed in the dark damp mornings without downing at least one cup of thick, black brew. However, for the reasons above we’ve been doing our best to cut back. For quite a long time now we’ve been mixing regular and decaf beans to reduce our caffeine intake. But this doesn’t really help with the mid-day lattes when we are out and about.

Wondertime's Coffee Shop

Recently, we found the perfect solution: we purchased a Capresso frothPRO with some gift cards leftover from Christmas. We grind our beans fresh, then use our AeroPress to make up to 4 shots of perfectly rich and smooth espresso. [A quick note on the AeroPress: this is the best coffee maker ever invented. Just add some additional hot water to your espresso shots and you'll have the smoothest, richest, best tasting cup of coffee you've ever had. I mean it.] The frothPRO heats and froths our soymilk up just perfectly; with a few squirts of chocolate or caramel sauce, or, my favorite, vanilla syrup we now drink lattes regularly that rival any from one of our local coffee shops. Now we are able to drink even MORE coffee, with delicious creamy lattes right on the boat!

Hmm.

Well, if nothing else our trips through the Starbucks drive-though have been noticeably reduced now that I know that if I can just wait to get home after running errands I can whip up a latte myself for just pennies. Now, the only problem is that we will almost certainly have to fill the bilges with beans from Trader Joes because it appears the frothPRO is happy frothing up cold lattes too. On second thought, I think the coffee is still winning, but I can live with that:

Provisioning

Jan 4th, 2011
by Sara.
3 comments

Just in case you were starting to think I was making life on a boat sound all easypeasy, I wanted to share what it’s like to perform one of the most basic of family duties: getting groceries into the cupboards. Just the other week, I collapsed on the floor in exhaustion after the hours-long process of loading food onto Wondertime with two small children in tow was finally complete. I wondered why I was so tired after completing such a menial task, but then I began to mentally replay the morning spent gathering foodstuffs at Costco:

fix breakfast for two small giddy children
clean up breakfast mess
get kids dressed
brush their teeth
gather raincoats and boots
put them on the children
get myself dressed
brush my teeth, wash face, moisturize, clip hair up
find and put on my coat
gather the raincoats and boots back up that the children have shed already
re-coat and re-boot children
turn off all lights and turn down heaters
help everyone up the companionway and into the cockpit
fetch boot that has fallen off the smallest child’s foot on her way up the ladder
go back below to find my own shoes and put them on
put lifejacket on each girl
go back below to find the umbrella
once back outside, search cockpit for hatch padlocks
lock hatches
notice cat sitting next to hatch
unlock hatch
drop cat inside
re-lock hatch
help girls onto the dock
trek up the dock and ramp to parking lot
find car
take off lifejackets and stow in back of station wagon
load both girls into car
take off sopping wet raincoats
fasten Holly in her carseat
tighten Leah in her carseat
run the car for 3 minutes to defog windows
argue compromise with Leah over which album to play on ipod
drive car in direction of Costco
hand out mints to children pleading for them in the backseat
arrive at Costco
search for spot close to doors to minimize walk in the rain
release girls from carseats
help them put raincoats and boots back on
help them out of car
run to cart storage area in rain
select cart
fasten Holly in and lift Leah into main cart to ride
enter store and commence gathering food
make trip to the restroom
gather food
checkout
run back to car in the rain
load both girls into car
take off sopping wet raincoats
fasten Holly in her carseat
tighten Leah in her carseat
load food into car, stacking items around all passengers because back of station wagon is full of boat stuff
run shopping cart to cart depository
run back to car and jump in
drive back to marina
listen to complaints about hunger pains from the backseat
reach for and open package of goldfish and hand it back
find parking spot in marina parking lot
run to the gate and grab a dock cart
run back to car
load groceries into cart
release girls from carseats
help them put raincoats and boots back on
help them out of car
run holding on to both girls and cart to dock gate
unlock gate and shove girls and overloaded cart inside under cover
put lifejacket back on each girl
walk down ramp, hanging on to dock cart for dear life since it’s the lowest tide in weeks
back at boat, help girls into cockpit
take off lifejackets
unlock hatches
put girls down below where they shed raincoats, boots, sweaters, pants and socks
turn lights on and heaters back up
go back outside and load food from dock cart into cockpit
dash the cart back up the dock and up the ramp to the storage area by the gate
dash back to boat and quickly check below to make sure girls are not torturing the cat
load food down into the boat
pile perishables into the refrigerator box
unload perishables from refrigerator box as still is a pile on the floor and the box is full
reload perishables into the refrigerator box carefully so it all fits with not an inch to spare
toss rest of perishables into the cockpit since it’s winter thankfully and cold enough outside for the rest
remove cans, boxes and bags from growing pile of excess Costco packaging
load cans, boxes and bags beneath and behind settee cushions, moving children and cat as needed
toss recyclable packaging into cockpit
collapse
…but only for 5 seconds as the children are now standing overhead begging for lunch.

Cracking down

Dec 12th, 2010
by Sara.
Comments are off for this post

FestiveSo far, December has consisted of mainly three activities:

  1. gearing up for the big Christmas holiday ahead
  2. staying dry
  3. cracking down.

On the staying dry front we have to say that we could not do it without our trusty old Kenmore dehumidifier. Now, this monstrosity, which lives balanced precariously on a battery box in our engine room is obnoxiously loud and creates so much heat that we don’t need to run our other space heaters. This is a good thing of course as it’s typically been 40 degrees outside. We also dump out a gallon and a half of water after a day of running it. This is water that is no longer free to drip steadily off our cold bronze ports and down the uninsulated parts of the hull inside of lockers soaking everything not in tupperware. Also a good thing. Our Shade Tree has also been performing marvelously as a Rain Tree and lets us leave and enter the boat in relative dryness.

With two weeks left until Christmas the girls are as excited as can be about Santa coming for a visit. Since having children, we have been given a whole new appreciation for all that our parents went through to give us the wonderful holidays of our childhood. Which is to say, this holiday is freaking stressful. We are aware that we are on a bit of a teeter-totter with this, our last Christmas in the U.S. for a while. We are happy to see our girls so excited about this holiday, but at the same time we don’t want to build it up too much, for fear that they’ll be disappointed when the next few Christmases are celebrated under palm trees and Santa is a little (lot) more stingy with gifts.

What Michael and I are most excited about this year is New Years; when the clock ticks over to 2011 we will be able to say that we are going cruising “this year.” Not five years from now, not in two years. THIS year. It’s fairly mind-blowing since we’ve been scheming this for so many years. But this also means that we’ll officially have six months left until the dock lines are permanently stored in the bilge. Which means that we need to find that List we’ve got buried around here somewhere and get cracking.

Which brings me back to our Christmas prep; all of this shopping has made me realize that it’s time to crack down on that too. While we’ve always been conscious of what we are spending each month, truthfully certain frivolous expenses have slipped through: a trip through the Starbucks drive-through (Starbucks for four=$ouch!), the random things that find their way into my Target cart, that great deal on a toy at the Goodwill I can’t pass up. We are not going crazy on gifts this year, both because I don’t want Christmas to be about the material stuff to the girls, but also because we’ve realized that our list of “stuff” we need to go cruising just continues to grow (and I’m talking about gear like good tethers and harnesses for all — not negotiable).

What the New Year will bring is a new intensity in our prep to leave next June; whether it’s time spent or something to be purchased, if it doesn’t get us one step closer to leaving then it’s got to be forgotten. This part is difficult, but with the reward actually in sight it’s pretty exciting and come January we’ll attack that List with renewed vigor.

In the meantime, we’ll sit back and watch the joy on the faces of our little girls as small gifts appear under our sparkling boat tree, holiday music cranked up so as to be heard over the humming dehumidifier and raindrops splashing on Wondertime’s decks.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Dec 5th, 2010
by Sara.
1 comment

Leah asked us a few days ago if we were going to the same Christmas tree farm this year as last, the one where we would get to feed the goats and ride in the red wagon out into the fields to cut our tree down. She was a little disappointed when we told her, sorry, we were just driving over to the storage unit to dig out our plastic tree. We returned to the boat with the little fake tree that we’ve been carting around for over 10 years and our two boxes of our most prized Christmas ornaments and decorations. The excitement of decorating for Christmas took over and she quickly forgot about the towering, fragrant trees of years past.

“This is our best tree ever!” Leah declared when she saw it adorned with colorful lights and our favorite ornaments.

We agree. It always is.

Life is the same as always…but a little bit different

Nov 16th, 2010
by Sara.
Comments are off for this post

Leah, off to school

I was walking out of the library the other day after picking up a couple of books I’d had on hold.  One of the books was my favorite book of children’s knitting patterns. It was then that I realized that now that we’ve settled into life aboard it’s pretty much back to the same old for the time being: Michael walks to work in the early morning light as I wake up with a hot cup of coffee. The girls soon wake also and I fix them breakfast; then we dress, brush teeth and are off to do errands or drive Leah to preschool or go to library storytime or to the park if the rain has taken a break.

And yet. I realized walking out of the library that life is still a little bit different than our life on land had been.

For starters, I have been itching to knit the girls some mittens now that the weather has gotten noticeably chillier. It will be my last chance for a couple of years after all. In our storage unit, tucked away underneath stacks of crates is my box stuffed full with my favorite books and in them this book that contains the perfect knitting pattern for children’s mittens. I knew it would be far too much work to dig out just this one book so I checked the library and lo and behold! It was on the shelf waiting for me to reserve. Easy peasy. And now I had the library’s copy tucked under my arm because actually finding my own was not worth an afternoon.

A few days ago Leah got out her markers to do a little doodling when I noticed that she was having trouble keeping them next to her. It wasn’t that she was dropping them on the floor (well, she was but that always happens), it was that the markers kept rolling across the table to the other side. The downward side. Wondertime has two 100-gallon water tanks; ideally these heavy tanks would be deep in the keel but in order to accommodate such roomy tanks on our small boat the two tanks lie outboard, a port and a starboard tank. What happens is that when one tank is full and we’re draining the other tank, the boat heels over quite noticeably to the side with the fuller tank. When we catch ourselves gripping on when walking down the hallway or markers rolling across the table it’s time to switch to the other tank for a day or two. Which is what I did.

And then just this morning I stuck my head into our refrigerated box to grab a carton of soy milk out for Holly to drink with breakfast when I saw that there wasn’t any in there. So I walked up forward into the head and reached into the shower where we store our Costco carton of soy milk boxes and grabbed a fresh one. It was just because I’d been thinking about ways that our life was a little different that I realized that we didn’t used to store soy milk in our shower.

We’ve truly enjoyed adapting to our new (again) way of life. While much of what is different is not so great (hauling laundry up the dock in the rain to the laundry room, hauling ourselves up the dock in the rain to the showers, hauling two cranky girls in the rain up the dock to the car….you get the idea) much of what is different truly just makes life interesting right now.

Happy Halloween!

Nov 1st, 2010
by Sara.
Comments are off for this post

Happy Halloween from s/v Wondertime!

Dock Chalk

Oct 1st, 2010
by Sara.
1 comment

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