"It is a boat, after all.”
I spend the entire winter dreaming about the relaxing and calm the living aboard lifestyle. I spend every spring working really hard to prepare to not work hard. Then sailing comes around and I realize that I spend the entire summer doing way more then what my memory recalls! Living on a boat is like a real-life Tetris game. Everything needs to be packed in and organized and every time you move something you have to keep up on the organization. Otherwise, it starts to act like level 10 really quickly! I can even hear the music get faster in my head as the boat falls into disarray. That alone keeps me busy day in and day out! Living on a boat is also like that game where there 8 small squares in a frame with one spot to move around. In order to get to one place, you have to move another around. Now just do that with people…
In the early season I find myself highly aware of how many boat chores are compulsory to me now. And the list of items that it takes to keep a boat tidy and safe is remarkably long. Maybe one day I’ll strap a GoPro to myself and take a video of me doing all these things.
After a full day yesterday, we had to awake pretty early to get going. We needed to get home so that meant returning our guests to shore, sailing across the bay, preparing the boat to leave and then a three-hour drive home. These epic days…
We were up by 7am. The waters were so calm that Claire had decided to use their kayak they had brought and return herself across the bay to their car while Peter, Captain and I hauled anchor and followed. I returned Peter to shore in the dinghy while Captain heaved to nearby, no need to drop anchor. We said our goodbye’s and commented how perfect of weather they had for early June. I’m glad they were able to come and visit. I realize now they did not get their T-Shirts. I will set two aside…
After I returned to Ciara, we stowed the dinghy and lifted sails. Captain was hopeful, but the winds were light. When the sails went up, we found we were moving around 3.5 knots. That’s a little slow for our timing, but the day was so nice and the sail was so smooth that we felt fine with the pace, even if it meant coming in a little later. I wrote my blog underway. Then I started doing all my shore chores to make up for the later time we were getting in. I got all those done and still had time to reheat our leftovers for lunch and do dishes just as we were arriving in Cedar River. The sail had picked up to a lovely 4.5-5 knot sail so we arrived “home” around noon. That had to be one of the loveliest sails I can remember. Both Captain and I wished we could have just sailed like that for another five hours.
After we got our pump out and docked, we only had a short list of things to do before we could head home. It was at this point that Captain showed that he too had been kept up at night thinking about the leaking we had in the storm and had decided not to leave without at least giving the deck a good looksee. That led to a three-hour epoxy and caulking job. In his nice clothes too! ☹ By the end, frustrations were running high, hands were black with thick caulk and we had a dog stuck below that would now need to somehow get off the boat without getting caulk on her paws (spoiler alert, we were unsuccessful). I knew there wasn’t much I could do but I helped where I could by pre-taping and just re-assuring Captain that I was sympathetic. He just kept saying “it’s a boat after all! Keeping water out from all directions never stops.” While he was working our friends Matt and Betsy came in from their sail and as they were passing Captain told them that the storm had showed us all her leaks. Matt responded “My boat has no leaks!” As he proceeded to take his hand, touched his nose and indicated it growing very long! We are not alone.
Finally, around 4pm we were able to leave Cedar River. Captain did all of her varnish work very early last fall. He thinks that the wood didn’t have time to adjust to being indoors and settle and now that she is expanding by being outside again the varnish and such isn’t holding as well. Maybe putting off those jobs in the winter going forward will be good idea. And she wood on top, its just part of the game. We spent the car ride home chatting, noticing we had gotten some sun over the weekend, that we are sore and old but grateful we can still do these things.
We pulled home just shy of 8pm. Just in time to take a call from our friends in Canada Karl and Lilly. I told Karl how much I LOVE Carl and we spent time planning our rendezvous in July.
We have a short and busy stay here at home and then we are back at it later this week for our official start of the summer. It has been nice to have an “early season” this year. Last year we put in so late that we started “Day 1” right away and left as soon as she was in. It seems late, but the school year ran late and will start late in the fall, giving us a week more in August then we normally get. I am ready. I am hopeful for a safe and peaceful summer.
