Getting on a Schedule

It's amazing how quickly we fall into a schedule whenever we're in a place for more than a couple of days. It's chilly in the early mornings and evenings here in Lüderitz, so we tend to stay aboard till it warms up a bit. It gets light about 0645 and the sunset is 1730, or so. We just found out, after being here for several days, that we're in a different time zone: West South Africa +1 hour GMT. Hmm … we gained an hour and didn't even know it. Time and dates are so irrelevant.

Anyhow, morning till about 1000  is reserved for cleaning up the galley and last night's dishes, writing, emails, blog posting, planning and general lazy type things like chatting that involve drinking copious amounts of coffee and/or tea. Around 1000, David is usually rooting around for something to go with his coffee and I get around to fixing something for breakfast. If I'm ambitious, it's eggs and toast or an omelet. If I'm not, it's yogurt with granola or maybe leftover pizza from last night. He's never fussy, God love him. During breakfast, we plan the rest of our day:  sightseeing, tackling a few chores, a trip to the grocery store for tonight's dinner and maybe a walk around town to stretch our legs and see what we can see.

We head into town around 11ish when the wind is calm and the day is warming up. A note about  Lüderitz weather: there's no rain, the sky is blue and it warms up into the 70s (20s) most every day. We tie up at the floating dock, take in our daily bag of trash and head to wherever we've planned. The security guys all say good morning. The local souvenir vendors have already laid out their wares on tarps in the big open plaza on the waterfront. Each day they ask us if we're interested in buying something and each day we decline, but they're friendly anyway.

The Seabreeze coffee shop is always open and folks are coming and going with their coffees and snacks or sitting at picnic tables enjoying the view.

The aroma of  fresh bread baking and cinnamon rolls hits us as soon as we pass near the OK Grocery. Being a German town, we expected to find several good bakeries, but so far we're struck out other than the grocery store. We'll keep looking. I wish I had a “smell chip” for the blog post, so you could get a whiff of the bread and rolls though … it's wonderful.

We do our business in town which usually takes a couple of hours. We might stop for a coffee or a snack by mid-afternoon or stick our heads into the yacht club. We head back to the boat before the afternoon wind pipes up around 1500, when the land begins cooling down. It blows 20-30 knots, which combined with all the day's solar, provides good nighttime power for Cups. We've yet to have to start the engine to top up the batteries.

We still have a couple of hours of daylight for boat chores before evening descends and we take advantage of them … if we don't need a nap. Actually, things are getting done, but there's no urgency about it. Dinner is served between 1800-1900. David picks up evening emails and does a bit of internet while I'm cooking. We decide on the evening's activity … usually a movie on the laptop and David gets it all set up. The cold creeps in when the sun goes down. We wrap up in blankets on the settee and snuggle up to eat dinner and watch our movie.

The wind calms down during the evening insuring a pleasant night's sleep. Very accommodating and courteous of the Namibian wind gods, I'd say. Around 2200, we head to bed with our iPads for before-sleep reading and perhaps a game or two (on the iPad  ;-).

That's it! One day ends and another is on its way. We're on a pleasant sched at the moment interrupted only by something we choose to do which alters it. Really … the cruising life is difficult … but you gotta do what you gotta do.

Boredom Aboard?

 

I just read an article about a woman who is feeling guilty because she's so bored living aboard her boat. She admits she's in the middle of paradise, but after awhile, she says, even paradise can get boring. I related the article to David and asked: “Do you ever get bored on the boat? Do I ever complain about being bored?” Actually, it's a question we're asked often and the answer is always “NO!”.

Truthfully, I guess the only time we are ever bored is the first two or three days on a new passage if we're fighting off seasickness. We can't read, we can't putter, we just look at the horizon and try not to succumb to the seasickness. It's pretty boring until we've regained our sea legs and then our world becomes interesting again. We certainly get itchy once in awhile when the weather keeps us in one place longer than we'd like to be there, but we always find more than enough to keep us amused and occupied. There's usually so much to see and do, there's not a chance of boredom setting in.

I suppose it would be easy to get bored if you weren't engaged in anything. We have more diversions aboard than we can handle sometimes. There are the mundane daily chores of cooking, cleaning and general boat stuff. David always has something on his “to-do” list for boat repairs or maintenance. I'm always behind on my writing, the website, photo edits and blog posts. That doesn't include what may be happening around us … weather, marine animals, a port, a new walk, birds … the list is endless.

Our longest passage...73 days from Cape Town to Charleston, SC was marked by two stops along the way...St. Helena Island and Ascension Island. We stopped at each for a few days and then continued on.

I compiled recipes and completed a cookbook en route, plus keeping up with my journal and the website. David did several projects, fished everyday and maintained the boat en route and, of course, we were sailing at the time. On Day 73 when we spotted the “C” buoy and began heading up the Ashley-Cooper Rivers into Charleston, we had mixed emotions. Great to be getting to land and civilization again, but you know what? It would have been okay to just keep going a while longer. There is no boredom aboard Nine of Cups.