Author Archives: Tanya

Back to (Boat)School

by on in General

Back to (Boat)School

The beginning of a school year can be a lonely time for homeschooling moms.  Several friends echoed my melancholy sentiments and said it wasn’t just because I moved away—I would be lonely even in my old environment. Some of the children’s friends go back to school and are no longer available to get together at convenient times, and the moms are either running the kids to and from school and various lessons and practices, or, like me, are hitting the books with their own kids and have time for little else. Of course, unlike me, they tend to live in regular neighborhoods in houses that stay put, with friends that mostly stay put. I am learning to be content to have Jay and the kids as my only daily companions—we have become a very close family (in more ways than one!).

Aside from a few moments of missing my friends and what used to be normal routines, I am really happy here, and our school year is going really well. Last year, we were constantly coming and going, packing and unpacking, so to have entire uninterrupted weeks and months to focus on our unit studies, I feel like we are making up for lost time this fall. Sam is a little older, too, so he can sit still on my lap while I read, and can be given things to do on his own while I teach the older kids and help them stay on task.

We just finished a unit study entitled, “Myths, Legends, and Fables” which introduced Ancient Greece and covered everything from Hercules to Aesop.  That morphed into an additional month of astronomy, of course, with almost all the heavenly bodies in some way related to the ancient names and stories. I learned so much—I was a good student, but I feel like there were things missing in my education that I am now learning as I teach my children.

It makes perfect sense for us to homeschool our children—what school would tolerate our schedule? Who would give a five year-old second grade work? Since when is tree climbing part of the P.E. curriculum? And aside from my objections to public school in general, the main reasons we homeschool our children have nothing to do with escaping negative things, but rather being drawn to all the positives.

I love homeschooling my children. It is not always easy (actually, it is rarely easy), but I do love spending my days adventuring through books, through history, and through nature with these interesting, intelligent, and funny people. I would hate to miss out on all their successes and failures; I want to be the one to see the mental light bulbs switch on, and to help them to persevere through disappointments.

I also have the insider’s view on the developing relationships between siblings, which brings both joy and frustration. I spend a lot of time teaching conflict resolution, but there are also precious moments. Last night I taught Sam and Sarah the art of snuggling; we climbed into Sarah’s bunk and sang songs and told stories, wiggled and tickled. The only way I could get Sam to climb down and go to sleep in his own berth was to promise more tomorrow! I frequently have to hush the boys at night as their storytelling gets out of hand with sound effects and fits of laughter. I have often wondered if the relationships in my own family growing up would have been closer without the pressures of a school schedule and social strata. I see that although it is nice to have other families with whom we can get together for play time, we are a pretty self-sufficient unit. I am very glad we have four children as they provide plenty of social interaction for each other (and us!).

I love that we don’t have to rush. We can go at whatever pace is necessary; slow down to savor the good stuff, speed up when things are going smoothly, or take time off when we need it. Because we opted to live on a boat and forgo the “normal” life, we also don’t have lots of running in different directions like headless chickens. I apologize to any of you who may read this and take offense—there’s nothing wrong with being on a schedule or being busy, it’s just that we’d rather be on “island time.”

I love the planning part of teaching perhaps more than the implementation, and that fun is doubled in homeschooling because I can draw on such a wide variety of resources: field trips relevant to our unit of study, cultural events, art exhibits, local parks and nature preserves, the public library, and anything else that you can imagine. Things seem to providentially fall into place, making the synthesis easy. Pertinent library books practically jump off the shelves into my hands, the museum of which we are members hosts exhibits that coincide with our studies as if on command and everything flows very naturally from school to real life.  

Last, but perhaps greatest, I know that I am doing something meaningful and enduring with my life. Not only can I infuse my children’s education with cohesive, interconnected and meaningful studies, but I will be simultaneously learning and expanding my own understanding. I will never regret the time and energy investment as we will all be reaping the rewards, perhaps for a few generations. Our closeness as a family is worth every difficulty we may face in this journey.

I can’t say whether anyone else should or should not homeschool their children. I only know that there is nothing else I would rather be doing with my life. I have my dream job: mother-teacher- baker-writer-sailor. Lucky, lucky me.

Heroic Husband

by on in General

I try to tell him often how thankful I am for all he does, but I’d like to brag about Jay publicly for a moment. Over the past year, he has shown me again and again why he is not only the perfect husband for me, but also why there’s no one else I’d rather go adventuring with. I mean, the dude can fix anything. You name it, he’s done it: plumbing toilets and sinks, water tanks, electrical, water heater, air conditioning, engine repair—even epoxy and Awl Grip are no match for Jay.

It is true he is not the most romantic or communicative man around, and we all have our areas of weakness, but he is so good at plodding along, one foot in front of the other, toward a goal. I admire his ability to detach emotionally from a problem and find a way to solve it.  (Maybe that’s why he’s no Romeo—I am a bit like a problem that needs solving, sometimes…) I know it is hard for him to balance work, projects, and family time, not to mention selling a house, traveling cross-country and trying to enjoy a little time on the water.

The tasks Jay takes on are often Herculean, but with his sensible nature, he reminds us all that slow and steady wins the race. (Can you tell we are studying Ancient Greece in our homeschool right now, with a focus on myths and fables?) Someday, our home will sail into the distance because he, little by little, discovered what makes this boat tick and repaired the things that don’t tick quite right. I just love that man.

Sibyl

by on in General

Today I mark the passing of a friend. Sibyl was someone we met here, a friend of a friend on our dock. I will miss her greatly. I wrote this poem in tribute; she was a bird lover, an ornithologist as well as marine biologist. Her two cockatoos, Scout and Spike, were favorites with my kids. 

 

For Sibyl


I hope it doesn’t sound absurd
To say my friend was like a bird:

Often fussy, known to preen,
But sensitive to things unseen.

Sometimes silly, sometimes wise,
She had the knowing kind of eyes.

Always friendly and gregarious,
Loved to cackle, often hilarious.

Ruffled or flustered, would sometimes brood,
Needed some coaxing to alter her mood.

Had a gentle and caring way about her—
I can’t imagine the world without her.

Sometimes she tired of her earthly cage
And flapped and battered clipped wings in rage.

I wished for nothing more than this: that she
Could fly from her troubles and be free.

Fly free, my friend, fly free.

Moving Day

by on in General

We always move the first week of August—it’s tradition.  So I wasn’t really surprised when Jay, upon reflecting that the summer was almost gone and we weren’t making any forward progress, declared that it was time to move.  Sunday, August 2nd (our twelfth anniversary, incidentally) marked the last time we packed up our things after visiting the boat. Monday we made it home. Although there are logistical challenges to making this kind of move, the real test is a mental one. Yesterday the house on dirt was called “home,” and today the floating house is called “home.”  We drove back and forth all week, loading and unloading the boat, and the house, and made frequent slips, saying, “I’m going home to get such-and-such, I mean, I’m going to the house…” Or, the kids, asking, “Are we going home yet?” and I unsure how to answer. 

All that confusion has now come to an end. After a year of flying between two nests, the mama bird has come home to roost. I write from my now-tidied and organized, cozy, little salon. The galley is crammed with kitchen gadgets I have learned to live without, and now appreciate more than ever, and the bookshelves are loaded with my most prized possessions, the few that are left after a savage culling. I have given away 15 boxes of books, so far, and will have to store the leather-bound volumes an old friend left to me when she no longer needed them. I brought only what I considered “necessities” but Jay’s condemning look as he loaded my homeschool boxes was almost more than I could bear. What have I weighed us down with that I really could do without?  I don’t know the answer to that question, because I’ve never done this before.

What is really mortifying is how much stuff we have left over. Anyone who knows me knows I seek to live a “simple” life—we don’t even know the Joneses, let alone try to keep up with them. We moved back to Florida to downsize, donating everything from our Atlanta basement, and have continued to make regular trips to drop things off at the Hospice Thrift Shop and Salvation Army. So it is truly shocking to see what is left after I have been hard at work for two months giving things away. Now that we are out of the house, I have been ruthless, but still, every time I open a closet or kitchen drawer, more stuff grins out at me. Where did it come from? Did we really think we needed it?  I feel that I am a great hypocrite (which I surely am): I who profess to be un-materialistic, have amassed a quantity of material things.  Many of these things are gifts which we graciously received, or duplicate sets of things from living in two places at once, but many were purchased frivolously, lumped into the “grocery” budget because Costco sells oh-so-much-more than food.  You know how I love a good sermon, so here’s one for me, “But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.” 1 Timothy 6:8.  Only in trying to get rid of it have I seen how much more we possess than we need.

My one great joy in this cleansing process has been that so many have come into our lives needing exactly the things I am giving away.  That has made it easy to part with things which I would otherwise begrudgingly donate. We have all made small sacrifices to pursue this dream—giving away toys and books is hard for our children, too. The only “things” we haven’t yet parted with: Sugar and Spice, the family cats. I don’t think they want to spend their golden years surrounded by water, but we won’t be satisfied with less than a happy home to which to send them. Maybe someone out there is lonely for a pair of spinster cat sisters—I just hope we find that person soon!

FAQ: What do your children think about moving aboard?

by on in Frequently Asked Questions

Our family, unlike many we see in our culture these days, is a together family. That means we do everything together—school, work, play, church, outings, meals, happiness, misery—you name it, and we do it together. When we went to meet Take Two for the first time, we drove the five hours to Fort Lauderdale together. The kids were aged 6, 5, 4 and almost 1. Although we’re not running a democracy (it’s more like a monarchy), we wanted their input. If everyone looked at the boat and said, “No way!” that would have figured into our decision-making. We want happy subjects in our little kingdom. But everyone thought it would be a great adventure, and the boys thought the boat would be their own personal playground, complete with climbing apparatus and trampolines. They still think so.

Now, since that time, a bit of the romanticism of that first day has disappeared. We’ve had rainy, leaky weekends, uncomfortable conditions at sea, cabin fever, loneliness, malfunctions, mischief, broken toilets, spills, frustration, and a toddler.  But life is life wherever you are, with good and bad all mixed together. So we all feel ambivalent. Sometimes moving aboard seems like a great idea, and at others, we pine for our stable life on dirt.

Although we won’t have to yank our kids out of school, they are still leaving an established group of friends among neighbors and other home-school families we see regularly. That part is hard, because we can’t promise them a stable social environment where we’re going. Do they have cub scouts in the Caribbean? We will meet other families afloat, but to call it “regular” would be misleading. It makes us happy we have four—they are an established social group in and of themselves.

They express nervousness about all the normal things: shipwreck, storms, sharks, seasickness, boredom (hahaha), and discomfort. They look forward to visiting places we read about, to exploring and climbing and snorkeling and finding interesting creatures. Sometimes they miss being at the house, but they are the first to brag to people we meet that they are moving onto our boat. I think I know how they feel.

 

Book Review: First You Have to Row a Little Boat

by on in Book Review

You know you’re reading a good book if the first sentence chokes you up. Richard Bode’s memoir of his youth spent learning to sail does just that. “When I was a young man I made a solemn vow. I swore I would teach my children to sail. It was a promise I never kept.” So begins First You Have to Row a Little Boat, a series of life lessons recorded by a father to his grown children, his attempt to atone for “sins of omission.” Not only does he pass on the beautiful metaphor of sailing for navigating life to his children, but to the grateful reader as well.

Though an expanded metaphor could become tedious or sentimental, Bode usually avoids this temptation by couching his lessons in stories both honest and poignant. Orphaned at a young age and raised by an aunt and uncle, Bode finds his security in a self-sufficiency learned sailing a boat in a shallow bay. It is to some degree a coming-of-age tale, but also serves as reflection and advice from a seasoned sailor. Chapter titles include “The Shortest Distance Between Two Points is a Zigzag Line,” “Unfounded Fears”, “Fogbound,” and “Like a Boat Without a Rudder”. My favorite chapter was possibly “Of Knots, Loops, Bends, and Hitches” in which knot-tying becomes a metaphor for romantic relationships.

The best part, probably, is that you don’t have to be a sailor or be familiar with sailing terms to enjoy the book. You might learn some of the lingo, but it is not a prerequisite. All of us have to learn how to enter uncharted waters, go with the flow, and stay afloat because life isn’t always smooth sailing.

FAQ: What do you eat on the boat?

by on in Frequently Asked Questions

People always ask me this, but I’m not sure why. Um, we eat…food, just like you. That may be a bit sarcastic, but, seriously, we cook on the boat just like we do at home. If you have been aboard, or seen interior pictures, you know that I have a gargantuan galley. For a boat “kitchen” it is unbelievably large and well-stocked. I mean, it has a dishwasher. I’ve never used it, and it’s going bye-bye to make space for a clothes washer someday, but still, who ever heard of a dishwasher on a boat?

Cooking over the last year or so has been its own adventure. The ancient electric BOSCH stovetop and oven are power hogs, and require running the generator. The stovetop does not work properly—it only works on the “high” setting and only one burner at a time. For “low” or “medium” heat, you just manually switch it on and off a few dozen times, and pray you don’t get distracted.  I’ve almost mastered it. The oven is fine, but it heats the whole boat up and seems to be very inefficient, taking forever to warm up and forever to cool down. To compensate, I use a toaster oven for warming things up, and an electric skillet or crock-pot for cooking off of battery power. (I’m the anti-microwave oven type.) We also have a great little gas grill which is perfect for cooking al fresco.

We are in the process of replacing old and broken fridge and freezer units, which forced us, for awhile, to use a cooler for a refrigerator. That works okay for weekends, but not long-term.  Food storage is a subject of its own, but that is definitely a challenge for a family of six. My friends have jokingly called me the Little Red Hen, since I started grinding grain and baking bread a few years ago, but it’s a skill that will serve me well on the boat. Whole grains, if kept dry and well-sealed will store for several years. We can carry a few hundred pounds of grain and I can make bread, tortillas, pancakes, breakfast cereals, pasta—you name it. Beans and brown rice are also easily stored and easily prepared, but meats have to be frozen or dried, fish have to be caught, and things like dairy, eggs and fresh produce have short life-spans. Canned goods are the old stand-by, but I try to use them as a last resort. Basically, we are very old-fashioned, and make everything from scratch. That doesn’t mean we don’t eat pizzas or hamburgers, it just means that we made the crust and the buns!
 
We’ll carry as much food as we can, to be self-sufficient for several months, if necessary, but everywhere we go in the world, people have to eat, so although we may not have as many (or the same) choices, we will still be able to find food. We are trying to raise kids that are not picky eaters, knowing that one day they may have to eat octopus and be thankful for it!


Tools of the trade:

Vita-Mix Super Blender, dry blade for grinding, wet blade for juicing
Family Grain Mill, manual grain grinder and oat roller
KT Oil-Core 12” Stainless Electric Skillet (makes great popcorn, too)
Rival Crockpot
Bodum Stainless Steel Coffee Press
Dehydrator
Toaster Oven with convection
Marcato Atlas 150 Pasta Machine, manual crank
Electric tea kettle

Favorite Cook Books:

Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon
Joy of Cooking by Irma S. Rombauer
Gourmet Under Way by Robbie Johnson
The Care and Feeding of a Sailing Crew by Lin and Larry Pardy

Some Favorite Ingredients:

Rapadura sugar (a truly raw and unrefined sugar from Rapunzel)
Bronze Chief and Prairie Gold Wheat Berries, whole oat groats (Wheat Montana)
Extra Virgin Coconut Oil (Tropical Traditions)
“Really Raw Honey” (expensive, so used sparingly)
Bulk Herbs, Teas, Essential Oils (bulkherbstore.com)

FAQ: How do you get rid of your stuff?

by on in Frequently Asked Questions

Little by little. That’s the short answer. Here’s a shorter one: arson. For a few days after returning from the month-long live-aboard experiment, I felt completely overwhelmed. It seemed an impossible task—I was surrounded by so much STUFF, and I had to actually deal with each object. For about a week I had this niggling thought that it would be a relief if the house caught fire and I wouldn’t have to think about what to do with everything. When I vented to Jay, he basically said he didn’t want to join my stress fest and he wasn’t too worried about it. He has bigger fish to fry.

Emotionally, I started to let go of my stuff about a year ago. I started with my tea-pot collection because it means the most to me and I can’t take it; besides, tea-pots and cups make the best gifts to friends and family with whom I have shared a cuppa’ over the years. We can still share a cup of tea halfway across the world from each other if they think of me while pouring.

I now have lengthy lists of every item in every room, with a little mark next to each item indicating where it goes: B for boat, S for storage and D/S for donate/sell. I packed up all the home-school stuff once we finished our year, getting rid of all excess packaging and making everything fit into small bins. Clothes are easy: everyone gets 10 changes and the rest get donated. That allows for a week’s worth of laundry to build up, which is a lot, and usually laundry day comes every four days, and has to be done by hand until we do a renovation of the navigation table and put a compact electric washer/dryer beneath it. We’re not that fond of any of our furniture, so it will be sold. Kitchen gadgets are a toughie, because I’m really attached to things like my Italian pasta-maker, waffle iron, and vacuum sealer. Kids’ toys might be tough, as they will have to say good-by to their stuff, too. Some of the toys will go to cousins, but the smaller, more versatile toys get to come with us: Eli and Aaron need little besides their bin of Legos, Sarah has some magnet dolls (like paper dolls), a baby and a small horse barn, and Sam is happy with a few train tracks and Duplos. They spend a lot of time in and around the water, collecting and observing interesting specimens from the sea, and inside reading, playing games, or doing puzzles and art projects, so I’m not too worried about keeping them busy when we’re not doing school. Besides, there’s always laundry they can help with if they get bored!

Book sorting was actually the hardest task, as Jay and I are both avid readers and book-lovers. I donated 8 boxes to the local Friends of the Library Book Store, 3 boxes to various friends, and a box to the marina laundry-room book swap. Photo albums will go into storage, and we’ll just have to enjoy the occasional digital trip down memory lane. Several boxes of leather-bound books will go into storage, and several boxes of books I deem necessary for boat-schooling will—hopefully—fit on the boat. I guess I’ll pack in as many books and kitchen gadgets as I can and whatever doesn’t fit will go into storage.

Of course, I keep remembering how little I seem to need when we are afloat. There’s just no way to squeeze our land-life onto the boat, so why try? It’s almost better to pack it all into a storage unit, empty the boat, and then only bring aboard what is absolutely necessary. Start from scratch. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Can We Hack It?

by on in Recipes

We’re in the middle of a homeschooling unit about the scientific method. Conveniently, we’re also in the middle of a big family experiment. So here’s our lab write-up, of sorts.

Question: Are we ready to move aboard full-time?


Research:  

  1. We know how to live on the boat for short periods.
  2. We love being on the water.
  3. We’re tired of packing and unpacking all the time.
  4. We can’t seem to maintain both a house and a boat.
  5. We’re not that attached to our land life.

Hypothesis: We think we’re ready.

Experiment: Move aboard for one month, bringing the cats. See if we can work, do school and live without all our normal stuff and routines. 

Results/Analysis:
1. I can’t take it all with me.
That I already knew. But after unloading all the stuff I packed for a month, I realized that I can’t take even a fraction of the stuff I thought I could. I brought ten changes of clothes for each person (that would be maximum allowable based on storage space) which allows for laundry flexibility. I brought a few days’ worth of fresh food stores and a 9×13” dish (which the boat didn’t have) but none of my “necessary” kitchen gadgets like the Vita-Mix or Food Saver. I brought everything I thought I would need for a month of boat-school, but left most of the math manipulatives, art supplies and other “necessary” homeschool items at home. The kids did not bring any extra toys or activities, and I did not pack very many books. Our large library at home may be the hardest thing to leave behind.

2. Living aboard is different than visiting.
We’ve been doing the weekend thing for a year now, but this really feels different. The first Monday morning was the worst, but it improved to better-than-normal after that. Since the boat is a weekend/play place for the kids and a relaxing place for the adults, it was hard at first to get into a normal working routine. Getting children to do handwriting when they’d rather be crabbing is like pulling teeth.  And never-mind about keeping the two-year-old out of trouble while the others are doing schoolwork. Play-Doh and Duplo blocks only go so far. The trampolines and fishing rods are much more interesting, but could lead to an un-intended swim for the toddler (and whichever adult hears the splash first). And while I have always appreciated how easy a smaller space is to clean, I never realized how tidy it must be kept in order to keep it safe and chaos-free. One of the more pleasant realizations is that we are extremely comfortable and cozy here, and it’s so nice not to have to pack/unpack every few days. And the constant awareness of sea, sky, wind and wildlife adds patterns of beauty and wonder to every day.

3. It’s going to be a long time before the boat is “ready.”
Some people never leave for an extended cruise because the boat is never quite ready enough, but there are a few essential systems that must be operational before one goes out on the open ocean.  Freshwater storage is one (we’re currently able to store 50 gallons instead of the usual 200, while Jay searches for the best liner/bladder for the newly epoxied tanks). Engines are another (time to figure out if they need repairing or replacing). Food preparation must not be forgotten—a cooler and freezer full of ice bottles work fine for the time being, but the system itself is both broken and inefficient (Jay has to build a fridge from scratch to do it well), and the stove/oven are ancient and must be replaced. Part of our experiment here is to see if we are able to go about our daily business surrounded by the mess of projects large and small. Like replacing hoses or pumps on the single working head, just to name one. This endeavor requires longsuffering and heroic patience.

4. We don’t need that much to be happy.
We have always striven to live simply, but living on a boat takes it to a new level. And we’re not even on the minimalist end of the spectrum. There are some (like Lin and Larry Pardy) who cruise the oceans of the world sans electricity, engines, pressured water or refrigeration. Granted, we don’t have a working fridge at the moment, but we have many, many comforts. We are quickly acclimatizing to not using the A/C (ask me again in August). I don’t miss my washer and dryer—doing laundry at the dock house isn’t that hard or inconvenient, and buying an electric washer for the boat adds up to a LOT of quarters, so we won’t do that until we get ready to leave leave. The kids need very few toys to keep them entertained. Books, games, puzzles, legos, cars, dolls and other small toys seem to do the trick quite well. Not that homeschooled children have that much play time anyway—there are always schoolwork and chores, not to mention spending time outside. Rainy days are tricky, and the occasional movie on the laptop saves the day. But I might go so far as to postulate that the less stuff we have, the happier we are.

5. It was hard to come home.
This is especially true as I began to feel confused about where home is. It was unexpectedly hard to come back to the house. The experiment was a success, for the most part. We still have a dilemma about the cats because they don’t fit into our long-term plans, but there’s no dilemma about us. We are happy on the water, living on the boat, at anchor or at the dock. I won’t go so far as to say we are ready, because that invites trouble, but we are as ready as we ever will be, and definitely willing.  I found that I need very little to be happy, so coming home to a house full of things was, as one friend put it, like culture shock. We have so much stuff—and I have no idea how to sort through all of it and reduce it to what we can bring with us or store in a small unit. And even though I began months ago to give to friends some treasured items, I have yet to weed through every item in every room and decide where it goes. That is a daunting task. Furthermore, I miss seeing the sunset, feeling the gentle motion of the boat beneath me, being outside. We feel so alive on Take Two—it is a sensory feast to be on the water—so many sights and smells and feelings, so that I feel a bit closed in at the house. I can’t even tell you from which direction the wind is blowing. 

Conclusion:

We have come a long way in a year: from our first sleepless night aboard exactly a year ago last Friday (we celebrated with root-beer floats) to feeling like strangers in our own house!  I guess this means we are no longer dirt-dwellers and sea fever has truly infected us. Even though it’s going to be hard to say good-bye to our life here—to friends and family and to some treasured items (i.e. books), we will all be happy to move more permanently to our home on the water. If anybody out there is looking for a four-bedroom house in Clearwater, drop us a line…

A Day in the Life

by on in Recipes

We’ve been spending more time on the boat recently, trying to see what “regular” life is like here, not just week-end retreats. For anyone interested, here is the outline of a typical day on the boat, which resembles our life on land, only with the chaos stuffed into a smaller space that moves (and breaks).

6:00 AM Tanya’s watch alarm goes off. Mom and Dad snooze when they’re too tired to get up, or rouse themselves anyway for coffee and early morning quiet time and head start on work.
7:00 AM Kids are awake and hungry. Bananas all around. Eli and Aaron enjoy an early morning wrestle in their full-size bunk. Loud banging and thumping. Sam takes himself to the potty. Sarah says good morning to the cats. All dress and make beds. Jay gets to work at his makeshift desk in our cabin.
8:00 AM Breakfast in progress, kids get out math workbooks. Breakfast takes twice as long to prepare because mom has to keep coming over to answer math questions and scold Sam for trying to escape from the cockpit.
9:00 AM Breakfast over, mom reads a chapter from the Bible and kids answer comprehension questions. If there’s any left-over patience, devotional, song or memory verse is added.
9:30 AM Chore time (swabbing the decks, etc.) If there’s any free time, kids go out and jump on the trampoline (a net on the foredeck strung on one side with bungee), climb in the rigging, or take their nets and hunt for interesting sea life for the observation bucket. At anchor, everyone fishes whenever given a moment of free time. Mom does dishes and gets school stuff ready.
10:00 AM Read-Aloud (chapter book in progress, history, science, library books on unit study topic, board books for Sam, etc.)
11:00 AM More schoolwork: handwriting, spelling, science, art, extra math lessons, individual reading lessons, and so forth and so on.
12:00 PM Mom starts lunch prep while kids finish their work and put away school stuff.
1:00 PM Some kind of outdoor activity (swimming, tree-climbing. taking the dinghy to the island to explore, walking to the laundry facilities to put a load in, going to the park or walking to the museum for the 1:30 planetarium show.
2:00 PM Read and rest for everyone, except Jay, who gets a Coke from the cooler to make it through the afternoon. Short read-aloud, individual reading lessons, nap time for some, quiet time for others and Lego time for yet others.
4:00 PM Tea-time. Mom puts water on to boil and picks reading material (often poetry or something related to unity study). Eli finishes any written work from the morning or draws/writes in his journal.
5:00 PM More outside time, sailing if possible. Jay emerges to work on boat projects. Tanya starts dinner preparations, gets interrupted a dozen times and generally takes forever getting it to the table.
6:30 PM Dinner, sometimes eaten on the way to the anchorage.
7:30 PM Kids start clean-up and get ready for bed. If they do an exceptional job, they may get to watch a video on the laptop before bed.
8:00 PM Story-time. If on the “hook,” cuddle time on the trampolines to watch the stars come out and tell stories.
8:30 PM Lights out. Mom finishes any cleaning and gets to spend time with Jay. Jay and Tanya work on small projects or look through encyclopedic boat catalogues.
10:00 PM Jay and Tanya head to bed, reading a few pages of some book about boating before collapsing.

Reading back over this list, I realize that this is not a typical day, but an ideal day. There are often so many other things that intrude, like housework, laundry processing, bread-baking, visiting with friends, shopping and field trips, that it’s hard to say what a typical day is like. All of these things do happen, but not necessarily in this order or with such neat organization. Life sort of just happens, and maybe that’s better anyway.