Day 57 - New Records
Today we celebrate a milestone. Day 57. According to my baby blog from last year we were out for 56 days. I know I counted our transition days in those numbers last year and this year I have attempted to only blog when pertinent to the trip. So today is a record! We have been living aboard for two months! Captain and I have just a little under a month to go before our major summer adventure comes to a close. Last year I remember feeling that I was just coming into living aboard and wasn’t ready to be done. This year I am for sure feeling a little home/land sickness. I think mostly I am day dreaming about a bed without sand and sleeping in a clean bed while being clean myself. Otherwise, Captain and I are feeling very settled in. I am feeling flexible and strong. Sore muscles that bother me all year are gone. I’m very tan, although the elusive “brown boobies” still don’t exist. (A joke about birds and also things sailors like to do when out at sea 😉). Ciara needs a good deep cleaning from all the sand and memories that have been made so far. It is hard to describe how empty my head is, which for me, is a blessing. This is a good life, full of good people, amazing opportunities, learning and growth. Life at sea really shows how much the rush of land takes away from the simplicity of living.
Today was almost a rinse and repeat of yesterday. I allowed myself to sleep in until 8am as we had high winds again over night which didn’t let us sleep well and the air finally cooled to comfortable around 3am. We had Cory and Bert along to check out the Toy Museum, Whiskey Point Lighthouse and of course ice cream. Captain and I had a nice chat with Mary, the owner of the Toy Museum. She had fascinating stories of growing up in Washington DC and said LBJ used to visit her house and many other names of that generation that have already alluded me.
After Ice Cream we let the kids go feral to go shopping for souvenirs for their friends and themselves and then they went to enjoy the wi-fi and semi cooler boaters’ lounge. Captain and I took Kona back to Ciara to take care of some chores I had neglected (moving the ice to the ice box!) and some general cleaning up. It wasn’t as hot today but still uncomfortable so I took the opportunity to jump in the water to cool off. Kona played ball off the boat for a few hours after while Captain and I talked about our plans and dreams with Ciara. We may or may not have a place to store her this winter as our boat yard has been threatening, and now being evasive about addressing, not to renew our contract. It is all corporate politics and not really anything to do with us. Regardless, the rumor is that even if they do take us back for winter storage this year they are not taking any sailboats at all after this winter so we are scrambling to find a solution that works for us. Dreams of buying our own drop trailer and semi-truck and putting her in our own heated shed seem to be coming to light. At least we would have full control of when we can work on her and what work we can do on her without jumping through all the hoops. Funny thoughts of “what would the neighbors think if we park that on the street for a few days” crept in as well. Ha! We also said if we have her on a semi and he gets his CDL we could take her to Florida in the winter and sail the Caribbean! That would also be fun to pull into gas stations and rest stops along the way and get all the looks. For now, we wait and see what the yard tells us for this winter but we start making plans regardless.
I forgot to mention yesterday that Captain got a text from Dr. Mark whom we met in Garden last month. He sent him pictures of Ciara sitting in Beaver Island. He had flown in for breakfast and saw our boat! We missed him as we were out with Dani exploring and he needed to get going, but I find it interesting that we have friends that we run into not just by boat, but now, plane! One thing about having a one-of-a-kind sailboat is people really don’t forget us! Good thing we are an unforgettable crew as well!
The afternoon quickly turned into diner time so we made some Korma Curry and then our friends on Merging Waters came over to socialize until the Milky Way came out. They came in earlier today and we realized we have seen them at least four times on this trip, leap frogging them here and there. There wasn’t a lot of new pictures today but we had a nice relaxed day before another long pull tomorrow to Fayette.
