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.

Dancing Lessons

This blog post was written and queued before Casey's death. If we stumble a bit over the next few days, please understand.

“You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching” … William W. Purkey

I love dancing. David does not. Right off the bat, we're looking at a compromise. I love the freedom of expression as my body moves with the beat and the rhythm. David does not. He feels foolish, oafish and clumsy. This is not freedom for him … it's agony most of the time. It's hard to “dance like there's nobody watching” when you're in a crowded room and you know there are lots of people watching, ready to comment on your expertise and style, or lack thereof.

Did you ever take dancing lessons? I took tap and ballet for about two weeks as a kid. I was not a naturally graceful girl. I was awkward and couldn't quite manage the steps in sync with the rest of the class. I'm a solo kind of dancer. No Electric Slide for me. I like to march to my own drummer, as it were. The dance teacher suggested another avocation for me.

David and I took ballroom dancing lessons once while we lived in Denver. We chose a course offered on the far side of town so no one would know who we were. We learned to waltz and two-step, cha-cha and rumba. We did pretty well until we attended a wedding shortly thereafter and remembered nothing. We concentrated so hard on our footwork, we really didn't enjoy the dancing at all. So much for that. We are decidedly not Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers or material for Dancing With the Stars.

Even though David dislikes dancing, if we're at a place where we can dance, I can usually coax him onto the dance floor later in the evening … after a few beers, say. He's good for a slow dance and maybe one or two fast dances and then he's done. I make the most of it while I can. In the Dominican Republic, we learned to do the meringue. It takes little body movement and David found it easy to learn. “Just pretend you have to pee”, a friend instructed us. To this day, we refer to it as the pee-pee dance.

We've seen lots of dancing in our travels. Each place seems to have traditional dances and movements. We've been invited to join in some and others, we just prefer to watch.

We dance on board sometimes. I'll put on a CD with a good beat or maybe a slow, sultry kind of song and we dance around on the tiny salon sole, enjoying the moment and each other. He'd rather sit through “Flashdance”, “Dirty Dancing” or “Footloose” than have to dance himself though.

All that said, when a good looking Argentine woman invited David to tango in Buenos Aires, he was on the floor in a flash. Hmmm … he must really like the tango.

Living Ashore in Foreign Countries

 

On a couple of occasions during our sailing career, we've been either in a boatyard that would not allow liveaboards (Uruguay) or doing a boat project that didn't lend itself to living aboard, e.g. sanding and varnishing the boat interior (Ecuador). In those instances, we opted to find a place to live ashore and it was always a great adventure.

In La Libertad, Ecuador, the boat was hauled out at the Puerto Lucia Yacht Club and with the help of a local friend, we found a rather large “unfinished” house to rent. Much of the house was in a construction state, but the master bedroom was finished and the master bath, though a bit rough, was useable. The kitchen had basic appliances, but the countertop was tile-less with only bare concrete and there was no kitchen door. Since it was only a block from the marina and very inexpensive ($100/month), we decided we could make it work.

I regularly had to shoo roosters out of my kitchen and ducks came in quite uninvited. Jelly came with us, but was useless when it came to herding large birds. It wasn't until I was walking upstairs from the kitchen to the bedroom in my skivvies that I found the owner was still living in the house. What a surprise … actually a double surprise since we later learned his teenaged son was also living there on occasion. Our local friend was as surprised as we were, but the owner said he didn't have any other place to live and it was such a large house, he didn't mind us being there. Hmm...a whole different perspective on a house rental.

In Piriapolis, Uruguay, we negotiated the rental of a furnished “casita” (tiny little house) for two months and made sure we were the only occupants. Again, the rent was cheap ($125/month), but since it was further away from the marina, we also added the use of a pair of bikes into the deal to ride back and forth to the marina. The casita was cozy and kind of romantic ... until the rains came. It seems the backyard was more lake-like when there were heavy rains and the low threshold at the back door allowed a torrent of rain to enter and pool in the dining area. Several inches of water had rugs sopped and wastebaskets floating on more than one occasion. The landlady told us this happened every year … what can you do about the rain? Hmm...

The stories are amusing now, and I guess the point of this post is that these surprises, though a bit bothersome at the time, are the stuff good memories are made of and we wouldn't dream of trading these experiences for a generic hotel room. Living ashore was distinctly different than living in the marina where most of our interaction was with other yachties. We survived the minor catastrophes and chocked them up as little annoyances. We enjoyed our time living in neighborhoods, getting to know our neighbors and delighting in the fact that my favorite vendor at the fresh market knew me by name.