November 4th 2007

Hello family and friends!

This is a special edition trip report! For the past year Bill has been writing the daily trip reports, and I have been the editor. We thought it might be interesting if I wrote a “One Year Reflection” of our adventure, just for a change of pace.

Wow, I don’t even know where to begin. As most of you know, we sold pretty much everything and moved aboard on November 4th 2006. Selling everything was traumatic and a tremendous relief and I guess that sort of set the tone for the rest of the year. I have found that moving aboard and living on a sailboat has been a mixture of extremes. There was definitely a big adjustment period after we first moved aboard. In our experience, we bought the boat in May of 2005 and sailed her from May till October. We hauled Veranda out for the winter in October 2005 but didn’t relaunch until the middle of August 2006. Even after we were in the water we still had so many boat projects/improvements/repairs to do, that we really didn’t get to sail her at all. So the day we moved aboard and sailed away, I felt really out of sync with the boat, that plus, the understandable trepidation that is normal when you are doing something so crazy! I truly remember thinking that we must be “CRAZY”! Saying “Goodbye” to our family & friends was very emotional and I thought that they felt like they might never see us again! Add to that, I didn’t remember how the systems worked, how things should sound and feel, and I felt really disconnected with the boat. During that time, I thought that if we had a dollar for every time we said, “What was that….sound, smell, noise etc?” we would have been rich! It took a while till I started feeling more comfortable with the boat, I think that was right about the time we had our first big breakdown! Well, welcome to boating! We have survived several incidents and the truth is that, it is a way of life, and you just have to roll with the flow and adjust to the circumstances. We have met some really nice people while we were making repairs, some of whom we would not have had the chance to meet otherwise.

So on to the Good, the Bad and the Ugly……………………………

The number one question that I have been asked by those who know me is “How do you sleep on the boat?” I admit that I am a light sleeper and this was a big concern of Bill’s when we were getting ready to leave. Would I ever sleep again? OK, I was concerned too! I am happy to report that there is good news, I have developed a very successful program which I call, “Plugs & Drugs” Of course, this is not to be used every night, but I must sleep some nights! First, the plugs. Do not even bother with the silly little foam ear plugs. They are useless. They do not block the sounds and they make your ears itch like crazy. Even if you were lucky enough to fall asleep, you would wake up scratching as if you had ear mites. Instead, buy the wax ear plugs. You can use them many more times then the package suggests, actually until they stop “sticking” in your ears. They are fabulous and really block the slapping waves, the banging halyards, the bouncing dinghy, the flapping flags/pennants and the neighbors. BTW, you can use these every night safely, without addiction.
Next, the drugs. I am not talking about prescription drugs, just regular OTC drugs. My preference is Benedryl. Just 1 tablet of 25mg will usually allow me to fall asleep and stay asleep. BLISS. I have had a few nights when I took more then 1 Benedryl, but that is not usually necessary. I have also adjusted, a lot, to the pitching and rolling that you inevitability encounter while living on a boat. Who ever thought that I would be able to sleep while riding a roller coaster? LOL

I guess that the other big adjustment would be to the loss of modern conveniences and easy access to the things most people take for granted. Laundry is a biggie. We now save quarters like you did in college, and do our laundry when we have run out of clothes or we can not stand to use the towels or sleep on the sheets one more day! Grocery shopping can be interesting, whether we are walking or riding bikes, we have walked out of a grocery store more then once wondering how we will get everything we just bought back to the boat!

We quickly learned that we can only plan one chore per day. If we do laundry, that might take the whole day. Same thing with shopping. When we lived on land and had a day to do errands we might have a list of 8-12 stops….groceries, west marine, lowes, post office, bank, gas station etc. Now, we only plan to do one thing a day, if we accomplish more that is great!

On the other hand, we now have lots of time to sit back and take in the sorts of things that most people never notice. Seeing the country from the ICW and other waterways is a lot different then driving down to Florida via I-95. This country is so beautiful and I am amazed every day by how undeveloped it is in many areas. So far we have traveled from Newport RI to Marathon FL and everyday we have seen something new, different and interesting. It has been an amazing adventure.

The other most frequently asked question is: What is the best & worst part of cruising?
The hardest part, without a doubt, is missing our family and friends. Luckily, we have been able to stay in contact via cell phone, email and through our blog (Veranda422.blogspot.com), but it is still hard to be so far away. We have been fortunate enough to have my parents, my brother and his wife and the kids fly down to spend some time with us and that has been a lot of fun.
I would say that the next most stressful element is the weather, which you have no control over, and it totally controls you. There is no escaping the fact that we will encounter storms, fronts, squalls etc. and we will have some sleepless nights, but hopefully they will be few and far between. We have found that we are much more comfortable if we have no schedule and have no place that we have to be. But on the other hand, if we need to be some place at a certain time or date, the weather can be a very big factor.
The next big stressor is breakdowns. It is part of the cruising life and the more you use XYZ….be it the generator, windlass, refrigerator, water pump or VHF, sooner or later they will breakdown. So, it is a constant series of fixing stuff that breaks down, usually when you least expect it and don’t have the parts! The definition of a cruiser is “Fixing your boat in exotic and remote places without the proper parts!”

The absolutely BEST part of cruising is the people that you meet along the way. Sure, there are great ports, beautiful islands, tons of interesting history, serene beaches etc, but what makes cruising so great is the people that you meet. Whether they are the locals that you encounter or the other cruisers that you meet, that is what it is really all about. The cruising community is a very tight knit bunch that really looks out for one another and is a great source of support and friendship.

So, back to my previous comment, about making the move to a cruising life being traumatic and a tremendous relief. It really has been both, always varying and to different degrees. The funny thing is that I have found every aspect to be more than I had expected. Cruising has been MORE interesting, boring, exciting, scary, fun, dull, terrifying, crazy, LONG, beautiful and much funnier then I ever expected!

All things said, I wouldn’t change a thing, I know that we are ridiculously lucky to be living the life that we are living and everyday is a new adventure with a new sunrise and an even more spectacular sunset.