Most of my posts have been updates on our general day to day journey. This is a little different.

Recently we laid anchor to some unforgiving harbors where the boat was flung to and fro by northerly swells (Northerly swells brought on by strong storms in the North). Those sleepless nights allowed me to contemplate our cruising life, it’s difficulties, and differences to land life. Here’s my general list of boat life hassles.

1. Gravity is a pain. Lobbing waves that smack against your hull lifting your entire home at odd angles, suddenly propelling the wine bottle across the table or water jug onto the floor. At anchor, sometimes you get a great big wake at 5 or 6 am and all you can think about is that full glass of water on the counter you left overnight. And you will the glass of water to fight against the urge to topple over splashing to the floor. Sometimes it works other times….. you hear a clamoring of pots and pans that crumble about the drying area. My favorite was when we were sailing, healed far over en route to Gaudeloupe and the latch to our pantry cupboard flew open. In this unforeseen event the BBQ sauce bottle decided to leap out hit the other side of the wall and spray all over the salon (living room).

2. Cumbersome dinghies- houses have a front door and boats have a transom (the butt of a boat). Gaia has a flat high transom with two flat latches that provide a “foot hold”. For all you climbers, it’s a V0 move. Dropping your feet onto a moving bouncing target can make grocery runs a little difficult. That said, grocery runs are a 4 part process, complete with balance, water, and squats. 1. Lock the boat climb into dinghy, dinghy to land and lock up dinghy. 2. Walk to the grocery store and grocery shop. 3. Carry groceries into dinghy, unlock dinghy, and dinghy back home. 4. Lift the groceries on deck, secure dinghy unlock the boat and put the food away. Big unsmiley face for dropping a grocery bag or having it tear while hoisting the bag on deck.

3. Salt. Ah yes, good ole NaCl. On a boat, no matter how much rice you put in your salt shaker, the salt always builds up and clumps due to the moisture in the air,
   preventing it from coming out. Every time I go to a restaurant I continually make the same mistake of shaking salt out like it’s not really going to fall out.

 

4. Cleaning & Chores – If you assume, it’s a small area, not much cleaning required. Think again my severely disillusioned friend. Dust, sand, and dirt coat the floor maddeningly quickly. Moving one or two things out of place seems to clutter the entire boat. Above all, boat chores also consist of filling up the water tanks, refilling propane tanks, topping off diesel for the engine, and filling up gas for the dinghy. Entire days have been dedicated to finding and ferrying laundry back and forth and refilling water. This week in St. Maartin, we plan on scrubbing algae and seaweed from the waterline (because clean bottoms haul @ss), varnishing 2 coats (full 2 day process L), fixing the genoa sheet blocks, painting the V-drive and shaft, and sewing screens and resewing the bimini. Then we can go to Maho beach in St. Martin…

5. Rolling Anchorages – an exposed anchorage can make or break a location for us. I LOVED Montserrat but couldn’t handle the swells. We spent two sleepless nights in Montserrat and the morning we left, I laid in the Vbirth my entire body being swung from side to side just waiting for the sun to rise so we could leave. In St. Eustatius (Statia), I was feeling a little nauseous from the constant rolling. We put out a stern anchor so our bow would cut through the oncoming waves. Thankfully the swells lessened over the next two nights.

6. Fear of bugs. Like all homes we fear infestation from cockroaches and ants. They’re damn sneaky and very common. Even in buying toilet paper and carrying it aboard you may be inviting unwanted friends. If anything is wrapped in cardboard, we leave that on land.
7. Unfamiliar noises. Listening on a boat is really important. It’s often times, the first telltale of some greater issue at hand. Like when I awoke at 5 AM in Deshaies to a light THUD. It wasn’t the low crumbling of anchor chain, and the boat moved oddly. I poked my head up to see a light and a bow of another boat at our beam! We were slowly dancing around and had inevitably bumped into our steal-hull boat neighbor. The wind had died and in a cramped anchorage the boats were dancing around at odd angles. We both jumped up turned the engine on and moved away from the other boat.

In a nutshell, the hardships of a boat: At any given moment something will break and consequences can range from life threatening to a simple ‘crud’, you may be sleep deprived from a “rolly” anchorage, your home will be a mess half the time, your food may come flying out of the pantry while under way (sailing) or at anchor, and salt shakers don’t work. BUT for those days and nights where food and water isn’t propelled across the room, when you have full water, propane, fuel, and gas, and the seas are calm and the anchorage flat…. The saltshaker still doesn’t work…. (true) aaaand it’s really heavenly. Lastly, to meet other sailors with their own stories is a real treat.

I stole this from Lisa on fb (the designated national geographic photographer). Hope you don’t mind 😉