Category Archives: Cruising Life

Shakedown 2023

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Welp, we left the dock at close-enough to slack tide on August 1, as planned. Not one for tempting the gods of docking or undocking (?)  on the first day of the trip, I was fairly insistent that we wait until the currents were not gnarly before we pulled out. Michael is, if not amenable, at least resigned at this point, so we were in agreement. It was a good move anyway as it gave us time to take the car up to the house, do one last pass through the old place to see if we had missed anything and give our daughter one last squeeze goodbye. These are the cuts that are the deepest, these leavings of loved ones.

Walking to the marina we gave a wave to Left Bank; the French pastry place on our corner. I imagine they’ll still be there when we come back, judging by the lines of customers that are always out the door and sometimes around the corner. Down the hill to the marina, stopping at the marina office to turn in our keys and parking pass. They will mail us a check for our deposit. That was a little bit of a surprise, considering we had automatic payments. I guess they want to keep that money as long as possible.

On the dock, Richard from S/V Firefly and the other Richard from S/V Soirse were on the dock waiting to cast us off and wave us bon voyage. We’ve come to love this dock community and all the sharing of tools and information, even gossip, if you will,  that goes back and forth in such places. We have a special place in our hearts for young couples like Richard and Ashley on Firefly who are living aboard, working, and making their bigger plans. Firefly Richard got certified as a marine electrician and recently started his own business. He is already really busy. We are thrilled for him. Hit us up if you are down Olympia way and need the contact info of a good, local marine electrician.

Headsets on, Michael gave the boat a little push to get the stern going in the right direction, I gave the engine a tiny bump of reverse, and we floated out of the slip one last time. I always breathe a big sigh of relief when the stern is in the right direction and the current is low enough to manage. We still had enough current to need to finesse the leaving; floating back, cranking the wheel, moving forward, cranking the wheel, floating back again with more cranking. Then Mike said the bow was clear of Richard’s Hunter 50 and we were off, steering clear of the marina and into the fairway with the lowest water under the keel that we have ever had in Olympia. At times the depth meter read 3 feet under the keel. Yikes.

Farewell, for now, Olympia.

All the way through the channel, we commented on how low the water was and how easy it would be to run aground. In my own mind I harkened back to the days when I would have literally been panicking about this. How far I have come in managing that dreaded anxiety. Now, in a muddy area like Olympia, I am just thinking; ‘Welp, if we hit mud we will just get more coffee and wait it out’.  To be clear, rocks are another issue altogether.

As I write this, I am connected to Wifi via our nifty new Starlink system. This has been working great so far and has been a real treat to have aboard. Except for the power draw. Although it’s not really that much, it’s enough that we unplug it at night, and if we don’t have sunshine to keep the batteries topped off, we can’t really afford to use it without charging the batteries with the engine. This was not an issue until I brought out my brand new crockpot to make some carnitas.

You scoff.  Surely she doesn’t use an electric device to cook on a boat? Yes, she surely does and has done forever since we have had this boat. I love my little crockpot and bought a brand new small one with a locking lid so that we would not have a repeat of the famous sweet-potatoe-stew-on-the-floor fiasco that occurred at the beginning of the passage to Hawaii. You haven’t lived until you have been on your hands and knees in large swells and decent wind cleaning up tomato-based inedible stew.

Anyhoo, we were going to entertain Andrew and Jill and my sister, Amy, in the cockpit with some of my world class and probably famous carnitas tacos and my plan had been expertly thwarted by Michael who said we didn’t have enough battery power for that. We had been sitting in Gig Harbor at anchor for a day and a half and the batteries were not keeping up due to the insidious trickle of juice being used by the Starlink. Out came the pressure cooker, but this was surely information that is now recorded as part of this shake down part of the cruise. Can we manage this draw on our precious electrical power? Sure. Do I want to manage that? I do not. We need to put on more solar, something we talked about before we left. Where to put another panel is the issue, but we may have a plan for that. We’ll see, but it’s possible we need to add “bring solar panels currently residing in the basement” to our list of items the kids will bring us at some point before we head south.

Two of my favorite people in the cockpit eating yummy carnitas tacos.

The other thing we’ve discovered, although the only proof I needed for this was the way water pools in the forward port corner of the cockpit settees, is that we need more weight in the starboard stern. Our boat has always been a bit bow heavy, mostly because we carry 300 feet of 3/8” chain and a big anchor. When we put a new engine aboard all those years ago, we lost weight toward the back of the boat because we put in a smaller Beta Marine engine to replace the really big Ford Lehman that was in there. At one point this boat also had a genset in the engine room and I imagine that also weighed something significant. Once we took the mizzen mast and all of its bits off and stored them at home, we lost more weight aft. Adding the radar pole helped some, but not nearly enough. So I have observed our boot stripe with, as they say, a gimlet eye.

We had no idea how much weight we needed to add. So we did a small experiment while at anchor in calm Gig Harbor. We let out all of our chain and watched the bow. Yep. The bow was significantly higher without all that chain. This gave us a rough calculation that adding 300 pounds would be enough to balance her out so that her nose is high enough to not plow into the waves. When we add the 80 pounds worth of Liferaft that is currently living in the forepeak and will live on the aft deck during ocean transits, we figure we will be fine. We are currently at anchor in Bellingham and while here we are going to work on solving this problem. We hope to end up buying additional chain and storing it in the aft lazarette. The sailboat wrecking yard also sells buckets of lead shot from recycled boat keels that we could get in a pinch. But extra anchor chain would not come amiss. Yesterday, crossing the Strait of Juan de Fu*^ You, we experienced proof of concept that our bow is, indeed, too low to be plowing into rough seas. Enough about that. It was not fun for anyone. Fortunately, the north end of Whidby Island sported smoother water.

Galapagos, with her boom to one side to take advantage of all the sun power hitting the solar panels (making the boom appear short). With no chain left in the chain locker, she looks almost right. Not quite, but almost.

As shakedown cruises go, this one is definitely working to reveal potential issues. We had the hydraulic steering rebuilt this year and while that is working fine, if a little stiff, we have had a couple of hiccups with the autopilot. To be brief, twice during the trip up here it has briefly stopped working, giving us an error message that said the motor for the unit had stalled. It’s a Raymarine Smart Pilot, which has a heavy duty motor and has worked for these years without even a hitch in its giddyup. So we are a little flumoxed about what might be happening now. Raymarine has an article on their site that Michael is referencing in terms of what might be going on and we’ll go through those possibilities to see if Michael can get it sorted. We do not know if it is related to the rebuild of the steering. Perhaps not. But whatever it is, we would like that sorted before going to ocean sailing again. Although we use our Hydrovane almost exclusively on passages, we use the autopilot on inland waters anytime we have to motor and would rather fix that while in the US than try to fix it in Mexico.

Yesterday we noticed yet another little issue that, while irritating, we know how to address. We got in about 30 full seconds of sailing via headsail today before two things happened: the wind died, and the bolt rope on the headsail started coming out of the track on the furler. Honestly we didn’t even have time to tweak the sail shape. This was dead irritating because that bolt rope has always been just small enough to do this and cause irritation. Of course, we sailed for years with it like that and Michael had worked a fix at the foot of the sail to keep it close enough to the furler that it wouldn’t pull away. It was just one more thing to keep track of and watch carefully. But we just had that sail up at Ballard Sails in Seattle to be looked over and that would have been the perfect time to have that bolt rope replaced with something just a little larger where this would not be an issue. Had we recalled this was a problem. Which we did not. We were reminded today when as soon as the sail was unfurled it started coming loose at the bottom. Curses. Many curses.

Michael and I are getting in the groove out here. We are already playing our favorite games of cruising: Log Dodge (whereby you steer clear of anything that might be a log in the water), What’s That Noise? (whereby you get irritated by a repetitive noise and try to locate the source), Wind/NoWind (whereby Mike gets excited because we still haven’t sailed yet and he believes he has felt wind and gets the headsail ready to deploy only to be thwarted because it was only someone exhaling somewhere), Kill the Fly (self explanatory) and Hot, Then Cold. This last one is the game that comes up after you’ve put away your cold weather clothing because you inconveniently forgot that you are actually moving north first, not south, and a cold front is coming in. Also, Pacific Northwest. Meh.

Our new radar pole and engine lifting system. Works great! This added some weight in the back, but not enough.

We will be here in Bellingham for another few days while I work from the boat and Michael locates more anchor chain. Bellingham is a really fun place to visit by boat. Great dinghy dock and the anchorage is close to all the fun things Fairhaven has to offer.

Where we anchored off the south end of Marrowstone Island. It was a peaceful night. No, this is not in the guidebooks. Remember, you saw it here first. The bottom is smallish rocks and sand with the occasional kelp. We dug in and held fast in about 20 feet under the keel.

 

S/V Galapagos, standing by on Channel 16a.

 

Afternoon Gin (and Tonic)

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If I’m going to have posts, plural,  named Afternoon Gin, I suppose I need to write more than one.  Lately I’ve been monitoring my gin intake and have decided that I need to cut back. This is a sentence I never thought I would need to write. But the delicious nature of the gin and tonic as a beverage, and the subtle yet real pain relief I get in my upper back from having one at the end of the day conspire to make me understand, for the first time ever, how a person might become accustomed to a drink every day. Not to worry. I will not be sliding into the unconscious medicinal use of alcohol. I’m just saying that for the first time ever I understand how such a thing might be possible for people.

I’ve been doing a lot of walking lately. We have only one car, and we like it that way. Overall, cars are not only expensive, they’re a pain in the ass. In fact, the car we have is the same old Mazda van we drove down to Mexico a few years ago and left to languish in a field during the hot Mexican summer one year. That may have been an unfortunate choice for the car, which has always felt delicate since then. Lately we have been planning a road trip of some length and the car needs some work, so I have been carless while it is in the shop.

View from a bridge in Olympia. If you drive this bridge, you don’t see the rainbow railroad tracks.

Did you know that the average car payment is now over 700$? I read that on NPR so it must be true. All I can think is, “Oh, hell no.”

Here’s an interesting result of being carless: when I dropped the car off a couple of days ago, I locked the door and handed over the keys to the mechanic, put on my hat and sunglasses, and set off to walk the 3 miles back to the boat, doing errands along the way. I felt positively free. That’s right. In a city of cars, in a culture where one is actually judged by the type of car they drive, I felt free as I walked away from our old Mazda van with the “You are a God Damn Magical Unicorn” sticker on the bumper and the plastic dashboard Jesus in the cabin. It occurred to me to wonder if I would still feel that way if it were over 100 degrees outside. Probably not. Walking three miles in 65 degrees is easy. In the heat, it’s a long way. I may enjoy walking, but I’m not unAmerican about it.

You do see a lot more of city life when you walk places. This is a mixed blessing. I avoid grown looking men on tiny bicycles. Sometimes this means I cross the street more often than is strictly necessary.

Also, there are three excellent bakeries within two miles of Galapagos. Three. One of them French. Two of them are uphill on the way, but downhill as you are eating your fattening (I mean flakey..) pastry.

Enjoying other people’s gardens on a walk.

Then there are people in cars doing questionable things. No, not that kind of questionable thing, although once in California I saw something going on in a car that I absolutely wish I had not seen. I mean, could they not have waited? Was having middle aged people walking close by the car part of their excitement? Was it a shock value thing? Or were they just so narcissistic that they thought people would enjoy watching them exhibit themselves? Maybe they thought we were too old to know what they were doing. We weren’t, more’s the pity. Or maybe they were just so, again, narcissistic that they felt like their exhibitionism was their right.  These were people I did not wish to know. I am glad to have left them in California.

And that makes me think about the time I was in another grocery store parking lot and came upon a man quite thoroughly enjoying himself with his pants down and his car door wide open. I’m pretty sure he was not targeting me with his need to have people witness his pathetic self. But I happened to be there. It’s one of those times I thought, later of course, of all the cutting things I wanted to say to him right in the moment. But the moment passed, fragile with shock, filled with disgust,  and I went away wishing I had passed by 5 minutes later. Or maybe 20 minutes. He seemed to be having trouble.

And they smelled good, too.

No, this was a different kind of questionable thing. I was standing at the crosswalk outside the Thriftway and yacht club down by the water, waiting to cross the street. I noticed the traffic coming out of the parking lot was stopped, even though the light was green. Then I noticed why. The first car in line, a white 4 door Jeep of late-ish vintage, was being driven by a man in his early 40’s or so. He had dark hair, looked like he was well groomed, kind of sporty looking, and had a big golden retriever, or maybe it was a yellow lab. I got confused about the dog because I was distracted by the fact that he was pointing his phone directly at me and taking my photo. WTF, dude? Why are you taking a photo of an older woman in a blue hat and sunglasses,  pulling a little grocery cart packed with the gleanings of her errands, and walking back to her boat? I am not a tourist attraction, mister. It was…unsettling. I mean, why? What’s he going to do with that photo? Do I want to know? And if he makes money off it, should I not be offered my cut? Is he a fricking weirdo? I gestured wildly at him as he put his foot on the pedal and turned left. I hope he saw me. Or maybe I hope he didn’t. I’m not sure, actually. I don’t carry a gun. Maybe I should. No. I definitely should not.

I think it’s important to note that I don’t believe for a moment that any of these experiences were targeted at me personally. I mean, walking through the fields of life, you’re bound to step in a few cow patties along the way. They’re there. You can’t always see them before you step in them. These men in cars? They are just cow pies to me. I rinse off my shoes and carry on. It’s not my job to take care of their karmic debts.

I’m continuing to work on refinishing the teak dodger. Five years from now I’m probably still going to be working on that because I can only do about an hour or so at a time before I start hurting. At this point, all the wood is at an angle, most of it above my shoulders. Part of me wonders if I can just go to sea and let the old paint and varnish  wear off naturally, sanded away by salt and wind. The outside looks good. Just don’t come aboard and we’ll both be happy.

Mike removed the windlass from the aft deck. It’s a great windlass but we have only used it twice and during one of those times we determined that it was too dangerous for us to use it regularly. We were anchored off one of the islands at the mouth of the Sea of Cortez and we engaged in what is commonly known as a ‘shit show’ with that windlass. It was dark. It was windy. It was not pretty or safe. We are having to make a lot of decisions about how this boat is outfitted so we can move forward with phase two of the cunning plan. I am glad we have some experience using the boat the way we, personally, use it. The removal of the windlass is one of those decisions I hope we don’t regret, but if we do, so be it. We have other ways of setting a stern anchor if we absolutely want one, and removing it makes way for a radar pole. You can’t have everything on any boat.

We  found a really nice radar pole set up at Longship Marine, the used marine goods chandlery in Poulsbo, WA. It cost us easily less than a third of a new aluminum pole and it came with a stout davit we can use to lift the outboard. I am thrilled that it’s made of aluminum and doesn’t require polishing.  The davit is another one of those modifications we hope will allow us to sail more gracefully into our older years. See what I did there?

We got out of Poulsbo’s Longship Marine for less than 1000$. For that we got: the aluminum pole/davit system, a set of Magma Rock and Roll stainless steel stabilizers for all those rolly anchorages where other people throw out a stern anchor, a dinghy swim ladder, a personal locator beacon, some mahogany for finishing out the hatch in the galley, a huge EasyStow inflatable fender (10$! I was so excited!), and a hefty stainless receiver piece to sit that aluminum pole into (after we isolate the two metals, or course). We felt positively smug. Then we went for celebratory ice cream.

What a haul! And our Mexico van came through for us again. The pole just barely fit inside.

The removal of the windlass revealed some wet core in that area, probably as a result of the time we were docking this beast down in Astoria and the transmission stuck in reverse, causing us to hit a big steel fishing boat behind us. That was a very bad day. Anyway, Mike cut the fiberglass (it’s really thick, you guys) and scraped out the rotted wood. We’ve had some gentle heat on it since then, drying everything out really well. He’s going to replace the wood with a piece of Divinycell core material and epoxy. They had some Divinycell at the local chandlery, in their new consignment section. I hope that place takes off. It’s easy walking distance to the boat.

Oh, by the way… that bid we got for replacing the whole exhaust pipe? 1700$.  Um. Yet another “Hell No!”  from Team Galapagos. We were supposed to get two bids: one for replacing the flexible coupling and one for an entire new exhaust pipe. We got one bid, for the new pipe, then had to ask for the other bid. 450$ to replace the O’Reilly coupling. We opted to replace the O’Reilly because the pipe was still in good enough condition that we don’t actually need a new one. Seriously, do we look like people who just throw money at a problem? I mean, did he SEE our van? 2002, baby! Even our plastic dashboard Jesus is showing wear.

Scene that cannot be appreciated via automobile.

Lately my Facebook feed has been filled with ads that include recipes for yummy looking mixed drinks. It’s like the algorithm finally, after all these years, got it right.

Michael is cursing from the shower, where he is changing out a faucet. I heard banging before the many very specific words. This doesn’t sound good. I need to run.

I leave you with this dock friend.

 

S/V Galapagos, standing by. Sort of. I mean, our radio isn’t actually hooked up right now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Afternoon Gin

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I’m sure there’s a name for the drink I’m having here in the cockpit, watching the Terns hunting small fry in the fairway. A delicious concoction of pineapple juice, gin, and TopoChico, shaken, not stirred, it’s a fine way to end the day. Heavy on the gin, please.

I’m sprinkling this post with photos of the remodeled house. Because I don’t want to do a whole post on that.

Back in the day when Paul Bryan wrote his blog about life aboard S/V Kelly Nicole, he used to write these posts he called Morning Tea. I stole the idea, except called mine Morning Coffee. But unfortunately, I still have a job for a couple more weeks and I don’t have time to write in the morning while I drink my Nescafe’. So Afternoon Gin will have to do. These are going to be posts where the mind wanders with little restraint. It’s hard to tell what will come up but I will try to manage a loose theme. Maybe there will be some mild ranting and expressing of opinions. We’ll see. If I get to the point where stomping around and spitting is called for, I’ll try to dial it back.  It’s a little like dreaming on paper; a way to get back into the swing of writing. And I really need that.

Get yourself a drink of some kind and sit back for this post. Relax a little.  I feel the spirit moving in my hands so here goes.

Do you ever wonder how living aboard a sailboat, sailing from port to port and across the wild blue sea would change a person? I tell you what: it’s hard to explain. There’s a longing to be away from all people, from all land, from all the telenovelas of life. There’s a bone deep, visceral feeling that to not ever sail on the open sea again is to die a poor death, with a life truly unfulfilled. I have stopped expecting anyone to understand that if they’ve never found themselves drifting through a high pressure zone, sails down, just loving the flat, clear water. I know I personally did not understand it when other people talked about their experiences, until I, too, had been across the ocean on a smallish boat. It’s so far outside most people’s boxes of life that people just cannot relate to it. And that’s just fine. In the end, this experience is deeply personal anyhow.

A different view of the living room. Want to see what the house looked like before? Go Here.

As a rule I feel like if I ever die at sea, so be it. I’m not predicting it will happen, and I will do everything I can to mitigate that, but at the end of the day, if it does I hope people will shout for joy that I didn’t die in a hospital bed hooked up to all kinds of shenanigans. When you are in your 60’s you start thinking seriously about your own mortality as it stares you in the face from the bottom of the hill you’ve crossed over. And when you are on a long voyage, you have a lot of time to think while staring sightless into the deep turquoise of the water. Maybe too much time.

The kitchen was a complete tear down. I salvaged the original fir floors in here. We love a kitchen with workable spaces that are small enough to keep clean; another thing learned while living on a boat. For more on Edison House, go HERE.

Here’s another thing: after our years of cruising, and there were not even that many of them so I imagine this will only get worse after our next go around, my bullshit meter has a hair trigger. Office drama? I do not have the bandwidth for it. People looking to gain a little power in their otherwise powerless existences by lording it over me or my kin and/or coworkers? Sorry. Go bother someone else. Just get the heck out of my energy field. Be gone.  Personal drama? It weighs me down in a way that makes me wonder if I’m just over drama of all kinds.

Honestly, the finesse with which I used to put up with interpersonal BS on all levels is now replaced by a zero tolerance zone. As I type that last line I realize it’s a lie. I have never put up with that stuff willingly. I learned at my father’s knee to call bull crap when I saw it. And the idea that I would have some finesse at dealing with small but power hungry people in a work situation is kind of laughable, actually. So maybe it’s just that I had a little more tolerance for it before but now, I absolutely do not. I understand what drives it, and I ‘get it’ why some folks need to exert control over others. But I simply don’t have the bandwidth to tolerate it anymore in my own life. I think it’s kind of related to the dying at sea theme (again, not throwing down any gauntlets for the Universe here. Just making a point.)  If I have X number of decent years left on this planet, being around people whose way of being in the world doesn’t align with mine is not how I want to spend that time.

This has made it sometimes very hard to work for a corporation that contracts with a school district. (Read: Two huge layers of expectations and needs, not to mention the layer of the school itself.)  But all corporations are the same under the skin. They are made up of people. And I am so appreciative of my supervisors and colleagues during this arduous time of having an extremely easy job for which I am very grateful but also for which I am completely unsuited. This is the only job I have ever had where I threatened to quit more than one time and I actually meant it and would have been relieved had it come to pass.

The last time I offered to quit my team lead didn’t even respond to my impulsively scribbled email offering my head on the proverbial platter. She knew to give me time for that bullshit meter to cool down. She’s great.  I learned a lot during my tenure at this job. Mostly I learned that I am still living the emotional trauma of my military upbringing. I thought I was a bit more resolved about that. Not totally, but a bit.  Apparently I was wrong.  I think it’s hardwired into me. That’s kind of unsettling. I believe in reincarnation, so I hope I can get that resolved before I die. I really don’t want to repeat that lesson again.  Maybe cruising will help.

I have two more weeks to work and as easy as this job has been on the actual ‘work’ level, I’ll be glad when this part is over. My only caveat is that I really loved working with the high school students. I can take or leave the middle school (mostly leave, if I’m honest), but I feel like many of the high school students I counseled really benefitted from our relationship and that makes me glad. I am proud of them. Most of them are personally courageous and as a group they know way more about life than ever did at that age.

On another note, newly back in land life I quickly discovered that shopping for clothing is almost the most boring and absurd thing on the planet. I cannot believe I ever loved it as much as I did. What a lot of wasted time and money. The buying of clothing is WAY over rated. And this is a shame because at the tender age of 63 I can wear clothes I could only dream of wearing in my 40’s, even in my 30’s. It should be true that I dress for the geriatric runway each and every day possible but I feel really resentful that I even have to wear clothes, much less that they would need to somehow be pleasing to others. This entire year of working I have worn maybe 4 outfits. A year of in-person work. 4 outfits. Just let that sink in, all you clothes horses. It’s possible 4 is an exaggeration. I can’t be bothered to really count. I could go cruising for at least a year on the money I have literally thrown away on useless clothing, most of which I wore only a few times.

And don’t even mention makeup to me. I have discovered tinted mineral based sunscreen. Hoo Rah! SPF 50, baby, and an evenly toned complexion. Moving on.

View of the living room from the kitchen. The plant’s name is Fred and he has lived with me for decades.

When I got my current job, I immediately hit the Goodwill  to find stylish over-priced used clothing. I am always amazed at what people get rid of.  I bought some really cute skirts and envisioned myself being the cool counselor, dressed for secondary school success. I would be fashionable and kicky and fun. I would wear skirts and leggings and arty looking flats. I would look French, but I would not necessarily BE French. The students wouldn’t be able to wait to see what I wore that week. I would be both professional and approachable, which, as a woman, is damned hard to pull off at any age, much less the age where your bullshit meter shows on your face, with or without a mask. That plan did not work out. The skirts still have the tags on them. Glad I didn’t pay retail. (As if I ever would.)

Before we went sailing you could not have pried me away from my vast wardrobe. It filled the closet AND the chest of drawers!  I tell you what: that is not the case at this time. I have one shelf of clothing and one drawer. I have one smallish basket of overflow because the clothes we wear in cold weather take up more room and God knows we may not even have summer this year so I have to keep those handy. I have, I think, 6 pairs of shoes, including tennis shoes, everyday winter shoes, and a few pairs of sandals. That is way too many shoes and I look forward to ditching at least half of them. I’ve already started. I probably have too many socks as well. Those will be going. Laundry is not how I want to spend my time. While some people may pity me, I assure you I absolutely do not miss having a lot of clothes. I do not want to take care of lots of clothes. It bores me and wastes vasts amounts of what time I have left on this planet. These kinds of belongings that I have to care for day to day weigh me down.

The little dining room off the kitchen.

Also, why do people wash their clothes after wearing them one time? Is it just easier than putting them away? Try wearing the same clothes each day for a week. I bet it reduces your stress. It’s ok. Just throw them on the floor at night and put them on the next day. I guarantee you that no one is going to say, ‘Hey there, Bill. Did you just throw that shirt on the floor and put it on again? Are those the same exact grey pants you wore yesterday?’. I mean use common sense. You don’t actually have to go feral.  If you’ve soiled your clothing in some way, go for the washing machine. But as a rule, I bet you are over washing your clothing and wearing it out faster. Oh wait! Then you have to go shopping sooner! I see how that works now. That’s very clever! I wonder if the washing powder people and clothing manufacturers are in cahoots somehow?

And in that same vein, how many showers does the average person actually need? The amount of time and resources wasted taking daily showers is tremendous! If you smell bad after one day there is something wrong (unless you have a physically laborious  job, of course).  Maybe you have too much stress and the stress hormones are leaking out. Maybe your diet is wrong for you. If you constantly feel dirty, maybe that’s a mind over matter issue you need to speak to a therapist about. (I’ll probably be taking your insurance soon. Everything is confidential, you know, and, quite frankly, we’ve heard it all.)  Anyway, living on a boat at sea or even at anchor will quickly recalibrate your need for everyday long showers (brought to you by the folks who manufacture and sell body products). It’s possible to be both clean and frugal with water. We know this. Fight the machine! Question authority! Be clean and tidy but not fastidious! Challenge the expectations of the Society of Beige! You’ll never go back.

Tiny downstairs bathroom. Just don’t splash around in the tiny sink and get soap all over the Italian plaster and all is well.

I roll with things a lot better than I used to (except see above re: interpersonal and work drama). This is how I survived the renovations of Edison House over the last year. Meh. All things must pass. I still get my knickers in a twist with big transitions, like moving and having a chaotic space kind of stresses me out, but overall I do much better with that than I used to pre-cruising. I’m, if not content, then certainly accepting of waiting to see what happens next rather than perseverating on controlling the future, which I have learned from hard experience is not actually a thing that is possible. Occasionally I catch myself in a rabbit den of worry and the old anxious brain starts taking over, but overall that’s way better than it used to be. I think the weather systems over the years of cruising taught me that. And all the break downs we had. The dramatic breakage of the boom. The potentially deadly backstay failure. The unfortunate hitting of the charted rock in the Sea of Cortez. Those things are lessons you will never learn in a book. I look back at those  times and feel proud of how we handled them. What’s a little hole under the boat? If we aren’t sinking, we keep going. I’m ready. Let’s go.

I could sit and watch these Terns hunting for hours. Scratch that. Cruising didn’t change that in me. It’s one of the reasons I went in the first place. It was never about the people, or the cultures. Sorry. I know it’s polite to say that I want to visit other cultures and learn new languages. And sure, those things are interesting to me. But the languages I’m really most interested in are those of the octopus, the fish, the whales and dolphins and tiny creatures. The culture I am interested in mostly is the culture of the coral reef and the reefy rocks. I’ve spent my entire adult life studying humanity.  It was, and forever will be, about the animals in these travels.

People said it couldn’t be done, adding a complete bathroom upstairs. Um. We did it.

Tiny Japanese Soaking tub. Actually a perfect size.

Cruising brings into focus that age is not just a number. It’s a real measure of how long we’ve been on the planet and the wear and tear on all our systems. Boats age. People age. Boats need to have parts maintained and replaced. So do people, apparently starting in their 60’s. When you turn 60, all systems seem to begin failing. We have been grateful for our very good medical insurance through Michael’s job with the State Patrol. We’ve used it a lot. We’re trying to get as many body parts fixed,  healed, repaired, and replaced as possible before we cut the dock lines again.

The breakdown of body parts creates a feeling of urgency about the next trip. It surely does. I remind myself that people get good healthcare (and way cheaper) most places in the world. Mexico taught us that.

People who say a person is (insert number here) years ‘young’ are going to get an eye roll from me so hard a 13 year old would go blind. When, exactly, do we start saying someone is ‘years young’ instead of ‘years old’? (Uh oh. There goes the bullshit meter!)  I’ll tell you when: it’s when we don’t want to call attention to the fact they are getting old. That’s also when mature women begin being called ‘young lady’ in grocery stores by random men. (Just stop. Don’t do it. You mean well, but you take your life in your hands. If you don’t believe women are witchy enough to curse your very soul, just call any woman over 50 ‘young lady’ and then look directly into her eyes. I’m warning you only because you are probably a nice person overall.) To be old in our country’s youth culture is a bad thing. So basically we condescend by saying so-and-so is 75 years young! When we do that, we pander to a culture that would pretend people do not get old or who would dismiss them when they do.

Bodies age and boat life will bring that into focus in ways that land life will not. There is no sense in denying it by inserting one word for another with a little wink of the eye. That kind of marketing just doesn’t work.

We cannot afford to pretend we are in our 40’s out there on the ocean. We must have systems that will accommodate our aging selves and this is entirely doable on a sailboat . We will be re-rigging the boat this season with our aging bodies firmly in mind. We may be getting older but we are  not going to be going quietly into anyone’s dark, still, night or whatever. We’re just going to need a longer winch handle. And maybe a beefier block and tackle. We’ll let you know.

Edison House, built in 1926

Seeing the Neowise comet from the middle of the Pacific on a clear night, just the two of us, is worth all the money and all the work and all the discomfort. All of it. Whales looking us in the eye as they keep pace with the boat, all of us moving north together. Also totally worth it. Being called ‘Adventure couple’ by the Chinese captain of a large ship in the middle of the sea. Worth it. The soft calling and cooing of Elephant Seals echoing off cliff faces in the dark of night. Worth it. Swimming surrounded by Mobula Rays in the Sea of Cortez, in the dusk of a long day. Totally worth it. Coming face to face with a quiet Monk Seal in crystal clear water. So very worth it. Swimming with dozens of Green Sea Turtles on Mike’s 60’s birthday in Hawaii. Totally worth it.  Having a seahorse swim into my face mask to say hello. Incredibly worth it. Even losing a backstay and ending a perfect, idyllic sail home. Worth it.  Uncomfortable , sleepless nights. Worth it. Scary water. Also worth it.  Let’s go.

The gin is long gone, the rain is coming. My friends the Terns are going home for their long sleep. We’ve got a seal in the fairway. Everything is peaceful and filled with gratitude for another day aboard the boat.

S/V Galapagos, Standing by.