Some of the ugly.

We used up some phone minutes in the past few days, calling friends back in Madison. They were really enthusiastic about our “huge adventure,” and wanted to know all the details of whatever exciting thing we’d done that day. At that particular moment, the answer was “grocery shopping.”

So, I feel bad. After all of those pics of idyllic life in Guna Yala, while the northern US is struggling through Mud Season, I’m thinking some of you might be feeling a bit jealous of our current situation. Sailing blogs and cruising magazines rarely show the down sides of this lifestyle. This is to ease your pain:

  • We are often all very greasy. We’re a budget boat, folks, and we don’t have the luxury of unlimited water and pressure water systems. We don’t even have a water heater. For everyday clean-up, we use our solar shower off the stern steps. Occasionally, we heat up some water on the stove and do a bucket bath sitting on the floor of the cockpit. We ladies generally wash our hair in the sink. We are fine with all of this, but it’s not as simple as jumping in the shower every morning.
  • I am always in your face.
    I am always in your face.

    We are always together. Always. Tonight, after dinner, I told Michu to “suck it.” I wasn’t pissed, it totally fell under the category of playful banter, but it’s the kind of phrase I would never have used in front of my kids in my past life. The problem here is, there is no place that’s not in front of my kids. They even go to bed later, and we go to bed earlier, so there’s only about an hour every day when I can tell Michu to “suck it” without them hearing. That’s clearly just not enough.

  • Our social life is really, really weird. Sometimes, we’re in a place where it’s easy to meet like-minded cruisers and families; sometimes, we even get a bit close with locals. But sometimes, we’re in a place where people just don’t hang out with each other. Being a family boat in an area of retirees doesn’t always work out—we’re often invited for boat drinks right when I need to be starting something for dinner. Mornings usually need to be school, or we’ll fall really behind. Our kids will generally start to get pissy hanging out on a stranger’s boat past eight. Even when we find simpatico boats, we know from the start that our time together is limited. Guna Yala has been short on family boats—most folks are already through the Canal and off to the Pacific by now—and we’re anticipating a drought until we reach Mexico.

    Additional hazard: jellyfish sting
    Additional hazard: jellyfish sting
  • We worry about money every day. Maybe “worry” isn’t the right word, and I know there are plenty of people in the world much more worried about money than we are, but the fact remains that we are always calculating costs, always weighing our budget options, in ways we didn’t back in our “before” lives. We’re still solidly within our two-year financial plan, but money is never far from our minds. We also worry about the boat hitting stuff, things breaking in a catastrophic manner, theft, chikununya, unexpected weather, and a whole world of things that are not on your land-based radar.
  • School is frequently the worst. Sometimes, I think we would have done best to just have purchased a school-in-a-box curriculum like Calvert. Expectations would be really clear, and our kids both enjoy getting stuff done and checking off the respective boxes; the responsibility for deciding what needs to be done every day would be out of our hands. Of course, we’ve seen the Calvert curriculum, and it is deadly dull. We are super-happy with our math program, and we’re working well through spelling, grammar and Spanish; but getting my kids to do any kind of writing is like a cage match—painful for everyone.

    Hey, look-fresh basil! The sail loft at Shelter Bay keeps an herb garden, open to cruisers. This is the first fresh herb I've seen in six months.
    Hey, look-fresh basil! The sail loft at Shelter Bay keeps an herb garden, open to cruisers. This is the first fresh herb I’ve seen in six months.
  • Normal daily chores frequently take all day. There is no dishwasher. There is no microwave. There is no pizza delivery—pretty much all our food is cooked right here on the boat. Getting groceries requires a dinghy, backpacks and a long walk; once back at the boat, there remains the challenge of repackaging into bug- and moisture-proof storage, finding a home for stuff, and off-loading extra packaging. The laundry situation is…grim, involving either a couple buckets of water in the cockpit, or a dinghy ride and walk to the laundromat; in practical terms, when traveling to remote spots like Guna Yala, that means bucket-washing all the underwear and a couple of additional key items maybe three times over a month, and then arriving in port needing to wash everything. Laundry that’s been sitting at the bottom of the bag for a month does not smell good.
  • Not putting things away properly has really painful consequences. I know, if your kid leaves their bike in the driveway, it’ll get rained on or run over when you back out in the morning. Consequences, right. But here, not putting things away results in: ruination by rain or saltwater; theft in the night; injury to someone tripping over stuff; or hideous breakage, as whatever it is flies across the room after an unexpected wind shift or powerboat wake. Much of our gear cannot easily be replaced, so the death of a Kindle will probably mean no Kindle for a couple of months.

    Rain: not messing around.
    Rain: not messing around.
  • It is the rainy season in a tropical country. Hey, we knew what we were getting into, and there will be no crisp, fall days in our near future; but that doesn’t make things easier. The humidity in our boat is so high at the moment, it might actually rain in there. The windscoop works great at anchor, but we’re at a marina—not only is being protected from the wind an advertised benefit of marinas, we’re generally facing the wrong way for the windscoop to work in the first place. Open a hatch, and it rains. The fans are running 24/7, but they’re really just pushing around a hot cloud. The laptop is threatening a literal meltdown.

We will not discuss: the smells emanating from the head; the challenges of finding things in the small, top-loading fridge; slow, always wet dinghy rides; mosquitos and no-see-ums; sunburn; and boat projects that remain unfinished. Still, all in all: worth it. The cruising life is often not what you’re thinking…but sometimes, it is.DSC_2199

One Comment on “Some of the ugly.

  1. TC, Emmet and Nic will be there for you! We are looking forward to arriving on the 13th and getting to meet y’all in person!

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