Life on a Boat

Well, here we go again.  We have moved onto the boat, again, but this time we have no plans to return to land life.  AND we are attempting to move, or get rid of, ALL our stuff.  Where as before we had a large storage unit, and then a move into an apartment and garage, we now only have the contents of the garage left to go!

Our aim is to STUFF our stuff into every available space on the boat, or get rid of it.  We have been purging, purging, purging for the last nearly 18 months, but we STILL have STUFF to get rid of!  We have made two trips to the Goodwill trailer in the past two weeks.  And we have begun to identify MORE things that we can pass on to the kids.

So, I guess the first lesson of life on a boat, is:  there is LIMITED space!  And things can be difficult to reach again once they have been STUFFED.  This means things take a lot longer to do on a boat.  Making coffee was pretty simple to do when both the grinder and the drip maker were on the counter.  But now, I must pull out the grinder from the bottom shelf, grind the coffee, and then put the grinder away.  And actually the drip maker is out, on top of the fridge, but in future has a space to be stowed while underway.   Usually the thing you want (say, the jar of mayonnaise) is behind or under several other things.  The fridge must be unpacked and repacked several times at each meal.

And while there is an adequate space to store clothing (after a purging involving laying out our entire wardrobe on the bed for evaluation), there is NOT a lot of room for DIRTY clothing.  This means that we tend to wear the same items over and over a lot.

Actually, a change in the weather could change the items we are choosing to wear!  Please, warmer weather would be welcome!

Another aspect of life on a boat:  we are closer to nature!  The bird life is abundant.  We see swallows, ducks, geese, herons, eagles, finches, sparrows, blackbirds, starlings, hawks, osprey.  We have seen both gosslings and ducklings this Spring.  Though we have yet to see fish onboard Viking Star, Al saw a seal or sea lion IN THE FAIRWAY of our marina, eating a salmon.

Closer to nature also means closer to the weather.  And that has been COLD lately.  We have been running a small electric heater in the main cabin when we are 'at home'.  And we have been using the many throw blankets draped through out the cabin.  And we snuggle up in the smallest bed we have shared since we got married.

Another aspect of boat life that I have been enjoying is an improved quality and quantity of sleep.  The rocking motion and fresh air really helps!  The jet planes do not!  I am looking forward to moving away from the end of the runway.  But you never know--we may be trading airplane noise for train whistles, traffic, bridge horns, etc.

Well, I am sure I will be adding  as more lessons are learned or aspects discovered.  For now, here is the duck family that swam by this week: