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Interview with a (soon to be) cruiser: Leah

May 23rd, 2011
by Sara.
4 comments

In case you haven’t seen the Interview With a Cruiser Project website do head over there (after reading this post of course!) and check it out. Livia of Estrellita 5.10b maintains this collection of interviews with cruisers who have/had been out there for at least two years with a new interview posted each Monday. It is fascinating; what strikes me is how differently we all do the same thing.

Another family, currently on the east coast but setting out any day on a looong drive to their new-to-them boat Del Viento down south  in Mexico, posted a couple of interviews with their soon-to-be-cruising two daughters. To add to the little collection of soon-to-be-cruiser interviews, here’s Leah’s take on our whole endeavor:

How old are you?

Five.

What is the name of your boat?

Wondertime

What are you going to be doing this summer?

Hmmm….sailing?

What is your favorite part about living on a boat?

Looking for sea creatures.

What is your favorite thing to do on the boat?

Playing horse!

Is there anything you are afraid of about being on the boat?

The dark.

What don’t you like about living on the boat?

There’s nothing I don’t like.

What are you going to do when we get to Mexico?

I would like to go ashore and look for sea creatures. But I don’t know because I haven’t been there yet.

What is school going to be like next year?

I don’t know.

What are some of the rules that you need to follow on the boat?

Don’t go on the deck without a life jacket. No playing on the steps!

What is your room like?

Lots of stuffed animals. And anchor chain.

What will you do when you are bored?

Play with My Little Ponies.

What are you most excited about traveling on the boat?

Snorkeling!

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.

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.

A Field Trip to the Seattle Boat Show

Jan 24th, 2011
by Sara.
1 comment

Look at that concentration! How can the fish say no to these cuties?

Early last Saturday morning we packed everyone up into our perpetually overloaded Subaru wagon and drove north to Seattle, the Northwest’s mecca of boating. “We’re having a field trip today, girls! Get ready for an exciting day at the Seattle Boat Show!” we announced.

“Boat show!” Holly repeated with 2-year-old glee.

“Ugh, the boat show?” Leah moaned, her 5-year-old self channeling her future teenager.

“Yes!” we replied in excitement. “It’s going to be really cool.”

“I don’t want to go to the boat show!” Leah replied. “How boring.”

“There will be fishing there!” I said trying to keep my happy voice on. Thankfully, the promise of spending time trying to hook a river trout in a big smelly tub of water was what did the trick. Leah was on board.

Arriving at the show around 11 am our first stop was, of course, the promised trout pond. The trout keepers must have made an error that morning though and fed the fish a hearty breakfast because after 20 minutes there was nary a bite among the hoards of children surrounding the “pond.” Thankfully, like most fishing fans, our girls were not disappointed and were satisfied with just the challenge of attempting to hook a real fish.

Our dream dinghy, found.

At noon, we filled the girls’ fists with goldfish crackers and string cheese and pointed the bright orange BOB stroller towards the actual marine gear. We admired many lovely things and left our drool marks on a number of dinghies and watermakers. We were particularly fond of the AB UltraLight aluminum bottom RIB; but priced at $3k a new one is definitely on our “dream” list.

After walking around the main floor for about an hour and a half we were ready to rest our legs and meandered over to the Red Stage where John Neal and Amanda Swan Neal were about to give their presentation “South Pacific: Seattle to New Zealand” which we thought could be fairly useful. We settled in the very back of the seminar hall and handed out more snacks to the girls. Of course, they were not hungry at all due to their steady stream of crackers and thought it would be fun to crawl across the freshly abandoned rows of chairs around us. By the fifth slide we started to notice that people were throwing looks in our direction and thought it best to move on.

We sought out the elevator and travelled upstairs, where we’d saved the very best stuff for last: the Real cruising gear. Captain’s Nautical Supply’s booth was the first to greet us and I enjoyed chatting with Janna Cawrse Esarey a bit. She and her husband had cruised Mexico the season after we did, continuing on to the South Pacific, then on to Hong Kong and she wrote an excellent book about it. Ironically, she and Graeme also returned from cruising to have two daughters now the exact same age as ours; they also plan on heading south again in another couple of years.

Our prized boat show purchase...red/white dual color LED bulbs!

We continued our stroll, admiring all of the shiny boat gear: electronics and watermaker and refrigeration systems. We found one of our favorite blogging authors, the hilarious Rich Boren of s/v Third Day at his Cruise RO Watermakers booth. We talked at length about all of the amazing times ahead cruising Mexico with our kids as he has done the past three years; Rich is as funny and friendly in person as in his blog. Next time we’ll have to ask him about his watermakers!

We then found ourselves staring dreamily at all the sparkly LED lights at the Fisheries Supply display. In chatting with one of the Fisheries reps, we discovered brand-new LED marine bulb technology: a replacement disc-type LED bulb that will fit in our existing fixtures that – wait for it – is both red AND white in the same bulb! When you first switch on the bulb it is red, but if you switch it off/on again within three seconds it is white. Very cool! We have been slowly replacing our incandescent bulbs in our old Seadog type fixures with LED bulbs as the power-hogging bulbs blow out. However, all our fixtures are only on/off without a red/white light feature that is so nice when sailing at night. Now with a replacement bulb under $20 we not only have a highly efficient LED light but it’s red and white to boot! We are so excited about this simple purchase that it made the whole show for us.

Lastly, we purchased discounted copies of Shawn and Heather’s stunning “Sea of Cortez” and “Pacific Mexico” guidebooks. Not only that, we got to meet these terrific cruisers and authors and have them sign our new books. Good travels ahead indeed!

All in all, I count this as one of our most exciting and fun field trips ever, and I think I can say that all the crew agrees. We looked at a ton of amazing gear and even brought home a little bit. Our favorite part of all: along with visiting loads of old boating friends, we met many new and interesting boat people at the show which is, after all, what makes this lifestyle the best.

So much stuff, so little to do

Jan 19th, 2011
by Sara.
2 comments

Our craft cubby

I’m always worrying about something; this past week I’ve been worrying about stuff. News flash, I know. Depending on the moment, I’ve been worried about having too much stuff and then the next, not having enough stuff. (Sorry about that coffee on your keyboard, Michael. Here’s a wipie.)

In particular, I’ve been worrying about having enough stuff for the girls to do. Now, when it’s nice outside I’m not as concerned about this so much as we love to get out in the sun and just run around outside. But it’s been raining here for weeks and weeks. The really wet kind, that will soak you right through your boots and raincoat accompanied by wind that turns your umbrella inside out. So other than going to the Children’s Museum, grocery shopping and preschool (for Leah) we’ve been stuck inside the boat. A lot.

I remind myself that this too shall pass, that we are already one month into winter and there’s only two to go until Spring. Each day brings with it several more minutes of light. Still, every January seems endless. Just cold and gray and wet. I don’t want to spend another hour scrubbing black mildew out of the back of our storage lockers. The girls are restless, literally bouncing off the cabin walls. They beg for projects to do and I bring out our little box of craft supplies. They are bored with this within 20 minutes and I search frantically for something else to keep them busy. You know, so I can get back to scrubbing the blackening walls.

It is then that I start to think about what on earth I am going to do when we are “out there;” what am I going to do when Joann’s is nowhere near by and all I have is Elmer’s glue, seashells, paper and sand? Will that satisfy their creative urges? People in houses have entire cabinets filled with craft supplies. Can my creative girls possibly be happy with the little bits and bobs I can tuck away onboard?

As with most worries, I had to set it aside as the girls were already tugging at my sleeves, begging me to get the cornstarch, water and food coloring out to play with. It was then that I realized: maybe we really do already have enough.

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