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March, 2011:

A little bit of earth

Mar 30th, 2011
by Sara.
1 comment

I’m going to admit something to the whole wide world (well, at least the teensy corner that reads this blog): I. Hate. Gardening.

Seriously, I can’t think of anything I’d rather not be doing than getting dirt under my fingernails pulling weeds, planting bulbs, and basically doing whatever it is gardeners love to do that requires knee pads and rubber shoes. The weeds in the last two places we lived ashore completely took over the yard each and every summer. Embarrassing, really, but not enough so to overcome each excuse I was able to come up with to avoid pulling them. I really do think this is the biggest reason I love living on a boat: no need to touch dirt with my hands, ever.

However, let me be clear: I LOVE the idea of gardening. I love visiting gardens, lounging in gardens, enjoying fruits and vegetables grown in a small garden, and admiring my friends’ green thumb handiwork. I drool over the lovely landscapes in Sunset magazine. I even had a number of houseplants when we lived ashore and I enjoyed them as long as they didn’t outgrow their pots and just asked for a cup of water every month or two.

Our oldest daughter, Leah, on the other hand, loves dirt just about as much as I dislike it. She adores digging in it, planting things in it, finding worms in it, burying — shudder — her hands and feet in it. She relishes the feeling of cool gritty earth on her skin and under her nails. I suspect she has a bit of a green thumb.

From the time she was two she has begged me to plant things and since she has been the one to do the actual digging I have happily obliged. Last summer, Leah began drawing up plans to plant all sorts of crops on board our boat: tomatoes, basil, strawberries. This time, I had to patiently explain that we just are not able to cover our decks with pots of growing food as it is difficult to, well, sail with dirt flying around and stuff.

So with the arrival of spring recently her requests to grow things began to crop up again: one day she asked me if we could plant some chives. That I agreed to: I felt I could handle a small pot of greens, especially since they go so nicely with hot baked potatoes and butter. After procuring some seeds, we re-purposed a small plastic container (me having gleefully given away all our lovely empty ceramic pots last summer before moving aboard) and I, armed with a large spoon, headed up to the marina parking lot gardens to dig up some dirt. Back on the boat, I described to Leah how to sprinkle the seeds over the dirt and cover them up with a light blanket of soil.

Sadly, nearly a month had gone by and nothing seemed to be happening in this little pot of earth. I chalked it up to yet another of my failed attempts to grow something edible. But then, just the other day I glanced over at the little pot that has been living under our dodger and noticed something green growing in there. Either weeds are sprouting up from our borrowed marina dirt or we may actually have some chives soon.

I am now feeling quite buoyed by our gardening attempt and am ready to embark on yet another food-growing goal: sprouts! I found a delightful old book on sprouting while cleaning out my late mother’s cookbook collection last year and saved it, having heard about sprouts being the perfect thing to grow on a boat. With no dirt required(!) I think fresh crisp greens grown in a jar may be just the crop for us. I’ll keep you posted.

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.

Floating somewhere between elation and panic

Mar 15th, 2011
by Sara.
10 comments

Joy ride

In a few days, that counter you see on the right-hand side of our site, the one counting down the days until our cast-off from Olympia will be in the double digits. Which means only three months until we are outta here. Oh my.

This sends chills down my spine for two completely separate, distinct reasons. One, I am so freaking excited. I mean, New Years was practically yesterday and that was nearly three months ago. I have a sneaking suspicion that the next three crazy busy months will fly by even faster. Spring officially starts next week and will whiz by until Summer comes sneaking in and then we are off, off and away for two years of bliss and terror. We will at last be off cruising with our children, a dream that truly hatched the last time we were cruising in Mexico when we saw the joy older cruisers were having with their delightfully bright sailing kids. We are so so close and barring any major catastrophes (and it’s got to be a big one) we will be officially cruising in 106 days. Chills.

On the other hand:  that leaves a mere 106 days left to get ready. Oh [insert favorite expletive here]. There’s quite a lot to do and my head swims with all that I must get done in the next months: passports, homeschooling materials, HAM radio license renewal, mailing address change, rigging splicing, another storage unit cleanout and move, first aid kit stocking, clearing out winter clothes and storing summer duds, sunscreen hoarding, car selling, on and on.

Michael has been steadily ticking away on the boat’s List, working on at least one thing daily. Our #1 must-dos are getting checked off one by one and we are truly at the point where we could leave now and get the rest of the items done underway (which is how I suspect a few will be completed anyhow). At this point, we have finally whittled down the big stuff: new lifelines=yes, new refrigerator=later, watermaker=much later. The dinghy we purchased for $400 on clearance at Costco (yes, Costco!) two years ago seems to be hanging in there just fine so it’s the one we are leaving with. We’ll keep the money to replace these items in our cruising kitty for now and replace them when a great deal appears in the future, or as needed.

Most days, I am so entrenched in the regular details of our life (laundry, cooking, grocery shopping, chauffeuring Leah to preschool) that I feel like it’s impossible that I’ll even make a dent in my list and I feel our departure date looming, instead of looking forward to it. But bit by bit it’s getting done. Each week I part with even more stuff that’s been hiding in our storage locker (we are whittling it down to fit in a 5×5 unit), getting things cleared out via ebay and Craigslist. I tuck away books for our endlessly curious students of the sea. I whip the end of a fraying sheet, hoping my fraying nerves will stay in check too. I try not to panic. I know the list will never be all done anyway. It never is, no matter what you’re doing in life.

Besides, I only have 106 more days to worry about “getting ready” anyway. After that, we’ll be cruising. Chills.

Pirates: not so cute anymore

Mar 7th, 2011
by Sara.
6 comments

It was inevitable I think: having kids who live on a boat must automatically mean that pirate gear comes along too. Truthfully, the simple fact that we have girls means that our pirate paraphernalia is fairly limited. But I’ve been surprised a number of times at the bounty of pink pirate adornments out there. And of course whenever I come across a rose-colored skull-and-bones it comes home with me each and every time. There’s just something adorable, slightly sassy, about a 2-year-old in a pink pirate bib, no?

“Mom, what’s a pirate?” Leah asked me one day after we had just finished reading one of our favorite pirate tales.

That one was a toughie, actually. Do I go with the Wikipedia definition, that “piracy is a war-like act committed by private parties (not affiliated with any government) that engage in acts of robbery and/or criminal violence at sea?” Or do I go with the version more preferred by children, that pirates bury their treasure chests on deserted islands or hide it in drippy caves, leaving mysterious maps behind for treasure-hunters to decipher?

Not wanting to add to the nightmares of my 5-year-old’s extremely active imagination, I went with the fully G-rated version. Nothing wrong with a little pirate fun, right? It’s everywhere, after all. We have pirate books (friendly ones, of course), socks, bibs, cat collars. We even have a copy of Dora’s Pirate Adventure on board.

My girls are perfectly happy with Jolly Old Pirates. Myself, however, hasn’t always been so sure. I mean, I think I know where Leah gets her active imagination from. I can’t help but picture David Shannon’s sneering cartoon pirates doing what they really do: attacking ships, killing the crew and taking the spoils. I welcomed our friendly childhood pirates onboard, but with my conscience a little irritated, wondering if it’s right to make such terrible criminals, well, cute.

And then the worst real-life thing happened: two weeks ago Real Pirates took four Americans hostage on their yacht off Somalia, hoping for the millions in ransom those in the West are naturally willing to pay for the return of their families and friends. When Navy forces tried to rescue the hostages, all four Americans were killed by the ruthless thugs. Even worse, not a week later, Pirates took a Danish cruising family hostage, including their three teenaged children.

Children.

I cannot stop thinking of these children, the terror they must be feeling at this very moment is unfathomable to me. Held captive by brutal thugs who will not think twice about shooting them and their parents dead if it means avoiding their own capture. Or if the payment doesn’t come.

It’s made me think long and hard about adorning my own precious children with the symbols of piracy.

Pirates are not the stuff of cutesy fairy tales. They are not swashbuckling heroes, only out to steal the fair maiden’s heart. Pirates still exist, they are real and they are terrifying, murderous criminals.

They are walking our plank, for good.

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!