Boat Living - Part 1

We’ve been asked a bunch of questions about how things work and what we do with our time so I thought I would put the token blog entry out here (everyone has one) about how we live on a boat…keep in mind, we’ve only been out four months.  My answers are subject to change with time and experience.  I’m dividing it into a few entries so as not to overwhelm everyone at one time.  This first two entries will deal with the less technical questions.  The third entry will get into engines and watermakers and the like.

How do you spend all that free time?  Somehow it gets filled pretty easily.  When we’re not cooking, cleaning, washing, repairing things or making water, we’re snorkeling, exploring the beaches, fishing or diving.  If we’ve pulled in some place where there’s a store or a town, we always check that out.  Since we’re walking everywhere, that usually takes the whole day.  Everyone loves a good movie and I’ve read a lot more books than usual lately (that’s a good thing).  If we’re around other boats we socialize a good bit.  I manage to fit in a bit of "school" a few times a week.  We’ve also been known to waste away a good hour sitting on the front, drinking beer, looking through the binoculars, marveling at how boobie birds don't break their necks as they dive into the water for food.  You never know what you’re going to see.

Don’t you get tired of each other?  Well, sure.  But we have one thing going for us…we like each other J.   I’ve spent several years by myself (off and on) with Andy in the military so I’m sure there are a lot of people wondering how this was going to work out seeing as we've never "lived together" more than a few months at a time.  But no need to worry.  Andy has been very good at noticing when I’m about to crack and taking Jake snorkeling or whatever to give me some time alone.  I try to reciprocate as well.  If anything we have become much closer as a family.  For instance, I’m at my parents house in CA as I write this and I miss Andy after 3 days worse than I ever did when he was in the Navy.  And Jake is wanting to spend every waking minute with me while we’re here.

What do you do with your garbage?  We separate our cans/paper (bio-degradables)  from plastics.  When we’re out to sea, we dump our bio-degradables over the side and save our plastics for throwing away at port or for burning on the beach (which is the way the locals do it).  We’ve only had one trash “incident” and it was promptly taken care of by the captain.  I won’t go into it but I was extremely grossed out.  When we do get stinky trash or it’s just full and we’re nowhere where we can dispose of it, we use our large coolers up top as our trash cans.

How do you shower?  We don’t...much - always worried about saving water.  We have hot and cold water outside in the cockpit.  This one worried me at first, but now I chose it over many marina showers.  If we’re in a busy area, Andy and I just wear our bathing suits while we shower.  The location of the shower makes it where you have to sit down anyway, so most of the time, there’s nothing to see.  We had plans to put up a shower curtain on pvc pipe so there would be some privacy but so far we haven’t had the need.

Jake, waiting on clean clothes!

How do you do laundry?  Most people do laundry in a five gallon bucket with a plunger.  I happen to have a handy dandy Wonder Wash (see previous post) which still proves to be very useful.  Either way, washing by hand can get old real quick (especially in 95+ degree heat).  I try to wash while underway since there’s usually a breeze and everything will dry before we get to anchor and the bees will stay away a bit longer.   Towels are a pain to wash (beach towels are impossible) so I usually wait until we get to a dock with laundry facilities to do those.  They tend to be more expensive than in the states… at Puerto Escondido, I paid 33 pesos for one wash (no dry).  Roughly, $2.60.  So I’ve gotten better at doing laundry on the boat and not waiting until the dock.

If you have any questions you want included in future posts, things you're just dying to know, let me know.