One of the joys of our adventurous lifestyle is meeting new and interesting people. That usually occurs in the local Laundromat. I met Roe, Emma and Owen just after their arrival at the marina. They had come through a bit of nasty weather and landed at our peaceful doorstep with a lot of laundry. The laundry room here is air conditioned, and thus conducive to long conversations while folding clothes.

We have a soft spot in our hearts for people who ditch Normal and live dangerously. These three “Kiwis” as we dubbed them—although only Owen is a native of New Zealand—are just that. Owen, owner and captain of s/v Dulcinea, is an experienced sailor, but Roe (pronounced “Roo”) and Emma are just along for the wild ride. They’re still on the part of the learning curve where you call the specialized gear on a boat “that thing-a-ma-jigger.” But they’re learning fast, and they can keep an eye on the horizon, GPS and the autopilot. What else do you need from crew?

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They became friends partly because our children lack age-appropriate playmates in the marina and rely on adults that still act like children to toss them into the pool and other such nonsense. But in the times I caught up with them sans children, we had long conversations about life on planet earth, maps, tectonic plates, racism, religion, politics, child-rearing, and other more serious topics. It’s so refreshing to get another perspective on America; sometimes we can’t see ourselves unless we step back and see the reflection from another perspective. I hope the time we spent together was mutually beneficial.

Today, after a couple of false starts, the three Kiwis and a spare crewmember sailed off into the horizon. They are headed toward Mexico at the moment, but ultimately home to New Zealand via the Panama Canal. We will be following their progress at www.milkrun.co.nz and living vicariously as they cross the great Pacific with their gnome Gary in tow. We will all miss their company, but perhaps the children more than anyone. Good playmates are few and far between. 

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To Owen, Emma and Roe: we wish you fair winds and following seas. We’ll be praying for your safety at sea and look forward to watching the documentary that will make you all millionaires!  Maybe we’ll see you in New Zealand someday…

We brought Rachel home this week to the boat on Thursday, and she took her first dinghy ride today (we visited friends on our old dock). We are happily settling into a “new normal” and the children have welcomed the new sibling with ease and grace. All are eager to help and think that baby sneezes are about the funniest thing they’ve ever seen. Who doesn’t? She definitely adds a sweetness to our home—and is such a calm and peaceful baby. Maybe we will have a low-key kid yet. There’s always hope.

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There are a few moms I’d like to thank this week for making it happen. Many thanks go to my mom, for giving birth to me and, consequently, her grandchildren—what a miracle that inside the tiny body of a baby girl is not one, but potentially two generations. Also, Mom came up for a quick visit and gave me a lift home to the boat. To my mother-in-law, who made my “babymoon” possible. We escaped to the quiet and peaceful environs of her house to recuperate and enjoy snuggling, learning to nurse and sleep at night, resting, visiting with old friends, and luxuriating in long baths (a rare treat). Also, she had been to the store and bought all of my favorite foods. To my good friends, Susan, Tarin and Vicki, who spent a long 24 hours waiting for Rachel to show up. They provided companionship and support when I needed it, and I couldn’t ask for a better group of women to pray a baby into this world! To my midwife Harmony, a mom herself, who went above and beyond the call of duty and let me labor the way I needed to in a relaxed environment, and even cooked me breakfast the morning after. To my sisters, Sascha, Tennille, and Robin, who are right there with me in the trenches of motherhood, slogging through all the difficulties from diapering to disciplining. To my favorite grandma, Pearl, who passed away several years ago, and gave my daughter a good name-sake. To all the moms in my life: I love you all and wish you a very happy Mother’s Day.

It’s hard to believe we’ve been back at the dock for a month now. I must say that it hasn’t been a hard one, either. The comforts of land life mitigate the losses of beauty and freedom inherent to cruising. Of course we miss seeing the sunrise and sunset over a clear horizon, the quiet of an anchorage, the daily treks to the beach for “recess” and a hundred other small things that make cruising such a pleasure. But being able to step off the boat (eight months pregnant, mind you) and drive an air-conditioned vehicle to Publix to load up on relatively-inexpensive organic food somehow makes up for it. We have enjoyed visits with all the family that we haven’t seen since last spring and almost got caught up with all our friends. When it gets hot on the boat in the afternoons, I take the children to the local Planetarium or the Public Library across the street (insert sigh of happiness here). Plus there are our favorite local hangouts that give the chef a night off, which she seems to need more and more as the due date approaches.

That said, there are some subtle changes that make me pause in my reflections. Why, for example, do we suddenly live by a clock-imposed schedule instead of a natural schedule? We used to be up (and down) with the sun, eat when we were hungry and never feel guilty if we were “late” for some daily activity. All of a sudden, we are staying up late, waking up late, and feeling some kind of pressure about it, especially after daylight savings kicked in and made everything an hour “late.” Really, who cares if breakfast is at 8:30 or 9:30? All the normal things are happening in the normal order, but that clock suddenly has the power to make me feel stressed out. I barely even looked at the clock when we were cruising.

And then, last night, it started raining cats and dogs in the middle of the night and I woke up feeling confused. It took me a few dazed moments to realize that that booming sound was thunder, and the sparkles on the window were raindrops, and that the wind was causing us to actually move in our slip. That got me thinking, when is the last time we looked at a weather forecast? We used to live and die by them.

While doing the dishes the other night, it occurred to me that we take a lot of other things for granted, too, like unlimited hot water. At anchor, I would never have wasted the amount of water doing dishes that I do now, because it comes straight out of a hose from the city water supply. I should still conserve water, but I really don’t.  And who has even looked at the battery monitor lately, let alone run the generator or kept an eye on the solar output?  All discussions about wind generators have been replaced by consultations on carpentry and upholstery. We are really getting soft. When we got hot this weekend, Jay even turned on the air-conditioner. We are officially living in a “dockominium,” insulated from the raw realities of wind and weather, the awareness of our dependence on water and power, and the sometimes frustrating experiences of daily survival. The transition to living at the dock may have been easy, but less seamless than it might seem.

Part of the charm—and the challenge—of our family is that we really don’t let anyone tell us what we should or should not do. With children, we expect immediate obedience (often for their own safety) but allow them to ask “why?” later. They also attempt difficult things and daring feats that other kids might not because someone is always telling them that they shouldn’t. Jay and I have our own rebellious streak. Without it, we would never have made it this far. The unsolicited advice we receive includes things like how we should not have five children (far too many in this day and age), and how we should not sell our house in this market, but we should be building our careers and retirement savings and not gallivanting around the planet in a boat blowing those resources.

The same goes for advice on pregnancy. Everyone has an opinion about what is appropriate behavior for a woman in my “delicate condition.” Someone stopped me in Georgetown and said they were happy to see that my being pregnant didn’t stop me from cruising. He was just trying to be nice, so I refrained from using the comeback that came to mind—that I was glad that his being old didn’t stop him!  Other activities I have been either stared at or scolded for include loading groceries into the dinghy, kayaking, hiking, snorkeling, riding my bike, sitting on a picnic table, moving a lawn chair and having half of a glass of wine.

Anyone who knows me knows there’s not much delicate about me. It doesn’t mean I don’t have limitations, or that I don’t occasionally pay for that can-do attitude. But I feel great. I have even been known to say that I like being pregnant. I can think of nothing better than this lifestyle for growing healthy babies: we eat almost everything from scratch, get plenty of sunshine and fresh air, exercise even when we’re not trying to, and generally pursue happiness and harmony. Some people just can’t handle it and feel the need to put a stop to such reckless joy. Good thing we know how to ignore good intentions.

February 20, 2011

If you can imagine the perfect day after being gone from home for a long time, that was my day yesterday. We reunited with good friends at the House of Pancakes in Marathon, spent the morning with them, then went out for pizza at our favorite local joint, the Hurricane. Jay and the kids went back to play and do laundry at our friends’ house while I headed to Publix. I nearly wept to see cantaloupes 2/$3.00, not to mention fresh berries! I didn’t even try to control myself. While we’re traveling, I try to keep everyone happy and comfortable, so I filled all requests, from animal crackers to Haagen-Dazs ice-cream bars. I even bought a couple of boxes of Kraft Mac-n-Cheese (gasp!). We can go back to our home-made, organic diet in a couple of days. It was a fun day.

After living in France for half a year during college, I know about reverse culture shock. I appreciate certain things about my homeland because I’ve been away from it, and I am likewise appalled by certain things, whether I’ve been away or not. We already know what we will miss about cruising, and what we will appreciate before we go “back out.” There’s nothing like a life of self-deprivation to make you really thankful.

Over the last few weeks as we’ve made our plans to return to Florida, I began talking to the kids about what’s coming next. Every time I mentioned the prospect of coming “home” they corrected me—“you are home!”  I guess we have really convinced them that this boat, and where their family is, is home. I had a hard time explaining what I meant by “home,” chiefly because I mean different things by it. That made me reflect on what that word really means.

In returning “home” from the Bahamas, I meant to our homeland, the U.S. “Home” in Florida for me means friends and family, the Gulf Coast where Jay and I grew up together, and even “home” to the marina where we kept our boat for two years. Yet, coming to Marathon felt like a homecoming, too. We lived there for six months, getting our feet wet, so to speak, in the cruising lifestyle. Our friends there make it feel like “home” to us. In a previous blog I talked about always feeling homesick for somewhere. They say that home is where the heart is, so if we leave a little piece of our hearts everywhere we go, then we are also always at home. That’s no small comfort in a world where so many feel disconnected.

What is planet Earth like? Imagine for a moment what it would be like to come here from another galaxy for the first time. All the movies about extraterrestrial landings here are about Martian invasions of New York City or rendez-vous in the desert. Sure, we have mountains and valleys, vast plains and deserts, huge rainforests and swamps, continents and islands. But most of planet Earth looks like the view out my galley window for the last two days. Liquid water for hundreds of miles in all directions.

I’ve begun to think it likely that if anyone ever did come here to investigate, they would arrive somewhere in the middle of an ocean and get the impression that the planet is a vast wet wasteland. Or, better, they would make the acquaintance of dolphins or whales and never even see a human city.

There are folks who never leave their hometowns, people who have never seen a beach, much less open ocean. There are scientists who know more about outer space than about what’s below the surface of 75% of their home planet. As for this sailor, I don’t think you can say that you’ve seen what the Earth is like unless you’ve been out here in the middle of liquid nowhere. It’s an immense, eerie, beautiful, mercurial world, and a very humbling experience to explore it.

This has been the most boring passage we have ever made, and I mean that in the most positive way possible. (Our kids are not actually allowed to use that word—they actually think that boring is the “b—“ word.) But the opposite, “exciting,” we had on the first day out of Georgetown and none of us wants that kind of excitement again any time soon. At the moment, we are motoring at about 4.5 knots across a glassy Gulf of Mexico about 20 miles from the entrance to Tampa Bay. It’s so smooth I can’t tell the difference between the reflected starlight and the phosphorescent sparkles in the water.

Just out of Key West yesterday morning, a motor yacht passed us at a shocking speed and left us rocking in its wake. Jay and I laughed about his gas bill, as we sailed gently (for free) with spinnaker flying. Jay said they’d probably be in Sarasota in time for lunch. Here we are, still at it, a day and a half later, and I’m thinking there’s something to be said for just getting there. Of course, that guy didn’t get to see the spectacular vermilion moon rise last night, or hear the dolphins puffing and blowing around the boat at four this morning, and he definitely did not have time to play Scrabble, Dominoes, Number Factory, the Allowance Game and Candyland with four charming children. Not to mention baking cookies and doing art projects. We’re definitely taking the slow, scenic route, and there are advantages to that as well.

Typically, travel days represent a break from regular routines—the kids know they can expect around-the-clock snacks and a break from schoolwork and most chores. But the last 36 hours have been so calm and, well, boring, we really could have done all the regular things. I’ve never arrived after being at sea with the dishes done and the cabin tidied and even swept. It’s kind of nice to be coming into port without the usual chaos.

So, what is passage-making like? We get this question all the time. If it’s turbulent, then I try to prepare ahead—plenty of ready food like nuts and fruit and cheese and crackers Usually at least one of us feels the effects of mal de mer and spends most of the time lying around. I, thankfully, rarely succumb even to queasiness, so that explains why I take more night watches. For some reason, the disorientation of darkness irritates Jay’s symptoms, but I find it to be pleasant, even when the boat is moving a lot. But really, unless something exciting is happening (like reefing the mainsail in the rain in 20 knots of wind), passage-making is really boring.

For grown-ups this is not really a problem. Jay and I, swapping shifts at night, are tired during the day, so we alternate between reading, napping, and snacking. The older boys usually keep themselves busy with Lego creations and reading, but occasionally get in trouble for boyish mischief. It is hard to be cooped up in a boat with your family for days on end, so I can understand it, but it doesn’t really make it less annoying. They like to play “boat soccer” a game that uses the companionways down into the hulls as goals and has several convoluted rules and intricate scoring, but that usually ends in arguing, and we have to confiscate the ball. Sarah occupies herself well, and sometimes Sam, too, but they seem to need more attention and guidance to stay busy. So I read aloud, and we play lots of games and put on movies and pop popcorn.

What I have come to realize is that although I dread the long passages—the fatigue inherent with only getting cat-naps and the challenge of keeping everyone comfortable and busy—I also look forward to them, and really appreciate the sense of our own self-sufficiency and the accomplishment of covering all those miles.  Sure, you could hop on an airplane and be in Georgetown, Bahamas tomorrow, and it took us ten days to cover the same distance. But where’s the fun in that?

“Now it is a strange thing, but things that are good to have and days that are good to spend are soon told about, and not much to listen to; while things that are uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome, may make a good tale, and take a deal of telling anyway.” –from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit

We seem to be having no shortage of adventures on this trip back to Florida. I thought it might be too much to ask that we would have as uneventful a trip home as we did on the way to the Bahamas in the fall. But, of course, nice days do not make for very good stories.

Today’s adventure involved three mishaps: a broken shackle, a brand-new jib halyard made five feet too short, and damage to the top of the jib. We were headed straight for New Providence, our jumping off point for the leg across the Gulf Stream, sailing along nicely, when a loud noise and sudden flapping got our attention. I thought the jib sheet had broken, or that the jib itself had blown. Quickly we realized that it was actually the top of the jib that was hanging limp; our minds jumped to the conclusion that the brand-new, $500 jib halyard (which we replaced for this trip) had broken.

We got the sail down as quickly as possible, diverted to a quiet anchorage off of Wardrick Wells, and sent Eli up the mast. Upon further inspection, it appeared that it was actually a piece of faulty hardware that had snapped, and Eli was able to bring the halyard down with ease. A little too much ease, it appears, because the end of the halyard disappeared like a rabbit into its hole! Where was that stopper knot they teach you in sailing school? It turns out that the halyard is just a tad too short, and without the figure-8 knot in place, it just goes bye-bye. To top it all off, so to speak, the top of the jib where it slides into the roller-furling track was beginning to suffer some damage, and looked as if it might tear all the way down the sail without some attention.

If you’re going to be stuck somewhere making repairs, I can’t think of a nicer place to be than Emerald Rock on a sunny day. As Jay fed the kids and rummaged for a spare shackle the right size, I sat on the foredeck with sail tape and needle and thread repairing the head of the sail. I don’t know if I did it “right,” but it was, all the same, a very satisfying job, and it made me feel like a real sailor. I hope it holds until we can get the jib to a loft, and I hope the sailmaker doesn’t laugh at my awkward stitches! Jay then used the spare jib halyard, which was damaged recently due to over-use as the kids’ swinging halyard, to run the new one back up inside the mast. With new hardware in place, halyard running smoothly (complete with stopper knot), and sail repaired, we hoisted the jib in a stiff breeze—putting that repair to the test—and furled it as quickly as possible. It was just after noon, so we weighed anchor and pressed on toward home.

The upshot of this diversion is that we stopped about forty miles short of our goal for the day, and anchored at the southern tip of Shroud Cay. This is someplace I had wanted to go kayaking when I had read about it in the guide book, but we had passed it by on our way South. It’s in the Exumas Land and Sea Park, and is a far lovelier a place than any of us imagined. I was picturing the miles of mangrove estuary and intertwining creeks as they would appear in Florida—cool, dark, murky places, but this was mangrove forest at its most beautiful—clear aquamarine water in wide, easily navigable ribbons leading to snowy ocean beaches on the other side of the Cay. I could easily spend a week here with my kayak and never get bored. We took the dinghy and went on an Explore, thoroughly enjoying ourselves.

As we returned to the boat, the sun was preparing itself for bed and the waxing moon was just waking up for the night watch. With a glass of wine in hand, Jay and I toasted our “last day in paradise” as the sun went down in fiery glory. I felt so happy to be alive—to be soaking up days like these to remember years down the road. And when I thought about why were so lucky to be here, I realized we owed the pleasure of this happy ending to our three-month cruise in the Bahamas to a broken shackle. Isn’t life funny?

Part of traveling is the anticipation of leaving, the other, of coming home. Pithy, I know. But what that really means is that you’re always homesick for somewhere.

I have so missed my family and close friends on this trip; I probably seemed a bit overzealous when we finally met some other young families here in Georgetown. I nearly attacked poor Helene on the beach one day, and then abandoned her mid-conversation another day when introduced to Carla. The former is here with her husband and two boys (our older boys’ ages) for five months in a rental, escaping predictable life and winter in North Carolina. The latter is the first mate on a catamaran called Begonia, taking an ambitious year-long journey with her husband and two kids (a girl and a boy near Sarah and Sam’s ages). The three families together formed some kind of perfect chemistry, where everyone felt instantly comfortable, and the kids each had an age-matched playmate. That’s a rare concoction. Rare, and short-lived in this lifestyle. That brings me to the second cause of homesickness. The first thing we’ll do when we get back to Florida is get together with our families, but we will all the while be missing the people we have met on this trip. We just can’t win. Or, as Jay put it, there’s always something to look forward to.

We are waxing nostalgic about our trip through the Bahamas and we haven’t even left yet. What will we miss about cruising here? Aside from the people we have met, we will also miss the atmosphere. For example, the quiet. Almost never do we hear airplanes zooming by overhead or sirens or car motors. There is the occasional passing dinghy, it is true, but that is only in crowded anchorages like those near George Town. The dark sky is another thing I have begun to take for granted. I can look up at any time of night and spy an old friend in a constellation; I don’t even bother to get out my star chart and binoculars anymore. There are millions of visible stars here, not that I’ve counted, but it is hard to get a sky like this near civilization, since civilization means electricity, and, consequently, light pollution. The crystal-clear cerulean water, which we never get tired of looking at or jumping into, will be another thing missed, perhaps most by the children, who swim almost every day. The freedom and independence of this lifestyle appeal to me and Jay, so we are reluctant to come back to a dock, and the things on land that seem to draw us in and keep us tied up. I hope we remember how much we love being “out here” and don’t get stuck for very long. We have a plan for getting away again, and a feeling of success about this trip that will hopefully combat the complacency that comes with living near shore.

Of course, the other side of the coin is that there are things for which I can’t wait to get back. I am looking forward to happy reunions with friends and family, as are the kids, who can’t wait to see their grandparents, playmates and cousins. The other day, I noticed that the shopping carts at Exuma Markets are old “Publix” carts, and I had a good chuckle—I’m positively drooling for a real grocery store, and even, gasp! A health food store. It’s hard to find things that are not pre-packaged or canned or inexpensive enough to buy fresh (I just splurged on an $8 pineapple). I also can’t wait to get some things ready for the impending birth of our baby girl in the spring—meeting with my midwife in Sarasota, building a crib, buying a few necessities, and general nesting. And, I’m ashamed to admit, the hot showers, electric washers and dryers and swimming pool at our marina are also calling my name from afar.

Even as I long for the creature comforts of a familiar environment, I know I will miss going exploring in new places with our children, and no sooner will we be tied up to the dock than we will begin discussions about the next cruise. That is as it should be—a natural ebb and flow—we go out, have a great time, come back, touch base and regroup, and then do it again when we’re ready. Jay is right with his glass half-full analysis, but I am still feeling a little melancholy, knowing I will always be missing something.  That sweet fellowship we found here with the family on Begonia and the family staying at February Point is made all the more precious because we all share that bittersweet appreciation for the temporary nature of our adventures. This is a trip we will never forget, but also never duplicate.

I realize we’ve been out of touch for several days, but that’s what “remote” and “rugged” mean, two words that describe very well the island chain we are now exploring. Other words that might describe the Exumas are “unpredictable” and “lumpy.” We were looking for a bit more of a challenge and it seems we have found one—it is a challenge to get a good night’s sleep here, between planning for wind shifts, currents and waves that wrap themselves around islands to hit you just as the sun sets and you can’t see where they’re coming from. It feels as if the elements are conspiring against us. It started with the trip over, when we had seas as high as our cabin top at times (10 feet from trough to crest), and our first night, when we had similar motion in the lee of an island. We like to find our own place to anchor and tend to avoid crowded anchorages, but here even the boats in the designated anchorages seem to be experiencing similar, or worse, discomfort. We have not been here long enough to ascertain whether this is normal for winter in the Bahamas or just a fluke. We’ll keep you posted.

Here’s a run down of what we’ve been up to for the last week or so:

December 17 In transit to Little Harbor. Stopped to investigate conditions at Sandy Cay (third time’s a charm), where we snorkeled in the “Coral Gardens,” part of the Pelican Cays Land and Sea Park. It was spectacular, if a bit chilly. In the afternoon, upon arrival at Little Harbour, we toured the foundry where Pete Johnston does beautiful lost wax sculptures in bronze, enjoyed the fare (again) at Pete’s Pub and had a great time talking with locals and fellow cruisers.
December 18  Rainy day, Little Harbor. Perfect day for movie and popcorn, in this case, the classic George C. Scott version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, which we had finished reading aloud the day before.
December 19 Little Harbor.  This is one of the few places we have visited more than once and loved better. We delayed our trip south to the Exumas to wait for a better ride (hoping for a downwind sail to Eleuthera) and spent the day exploring the Bight of Old Robinson. We had been told by a local where to find a blue hole, a deep underwater passageway connected to the ocean and carved prehistorically out of limestone. He also mentioned that there were lionfish (a beautiful, though venomous and invasive species) on a reef insight the bight. We split up, with Mom, Sarah and Aaron taking the kayak to look through the shallows for the blue hole, and Dad, Eli and Sam looking for good snorkeling by dinghy. Found said blue hole—it was bottomless and beautiful, and found said good snorkeling, complete with lionfish.

December 20 Northeast Providence Channel to Royal Island. We left the Abacos at dawn with calm and beautiful weather, wind and waves behind us. Seas large, but not too uncomfortable as they were following most of the day. Anchored in the afternoon and baked pineapple upside-down cake for my birthday.

December 21 Spanish Wells. Anchored outside harbor, explored by dinghy. Went ashore to buy provisions for Christmas dinner. Found quiet and peaceful anchorage near Meeks Patch, and an uninhabited island. Brought picnic dinner ashore and built small fire to roast marshmallows for S’mores. Children ran around with colored lights (thank you, Grandma Mary) and had a great time.
December 22 Current Cut to Bush Cay. Got up early to make Current Cut at near-high tide. They don’t call it that for nothing—we had 3 knots of current sweeping us through to the other side; in some places it looked like river rapids. Anchored, safely, if uncomfortably, at Bush Cay. Made sugar cookies and had a fun, messy time decorating them after dinner.

December 23 Allen’s Cay/Leaf Cay. As soon as the sun was up, we headed to Allen’s Cay and passed through a cut between Allen’s and SW Allen’s Cay to anchor on the lee side of Leaf Cay. The anchorage in the lee of Allen’s was crowded and looked rolly. We were much happier to have a small space of our own, and spent a much more comfortable night. Met some other folks with children at the beach on Leaf Cay. Rested and relaxed.
December 24 Norman’s Cay. Again, found the anchorage in Norman’s Cay crowded and uncomfortable, so we anchored all by ourselves on the west side of the island. A peaceful Christmas Eve.
December 25 Ate cinnamon rolls and read the Christmas story from Luke. Snorkeled in the Octopus’ Garden at Highbourne Cay. Worked on jigsaw puzzle and ate Christmas chocolate. A fun day…

That about sums it up so far. We are missing our friends and family, but obviously enjoying ourselves. This is the best Christmas present we’ve ever given our children. They knew not to expect anything wrapped under the tree (heck, we don’t even have a tree!), but to take the lesson the Grinch learned: Christmas doesn’t come from a store. We wish you all a (belated, by now) very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!