Six Months In

People keep asking me (with suspicious looks in their eyes) "Are you still enjoying living on your boat?".  My automatic answer is "YES!".  But let me think about the real answer for a moment...

Still "YES!".  Do we miss living in our townhouse? Not really.  Are we tired of doing laundry at a public facility?  Not a deal breaker.  What about all the things that need to be fixed all the time?  Now that one is kind of getting to Bruce.

Six months ago, we moved aboard so that we could test all of our systems before we leave.  Well, test them we have, and as the saying goes... cruising is just fixing your boat in exotic places.  We just aren't traveling to those exotic places yet...  Maybe that's why Bruce is grumpy about all of the fixing of things going on.  The constant repair jobs haven't yet begun to wear on me, largely because I still go to work every weekday leaving Bruce to tend to the piddly little things.  Rest assured we are saving the big jobs for the time when I can help him.

We tore into projects with vigor in the beginning.  The winter months were perfect for doing projects.  There was nothing else to do!  But as time has passed, our vigor has waned.  We have begun putting things off... making an ever growing list of things to fix or improve once I quit working and have more time.  That's OK with me though.  I (still) enjoy doing boat projects and welcome the learning experience.  Ask me that one again in a year...

The weather has been a bit of a challenge since we moved aboard.  Has it always been this crazy or is it just that we notice it more now?  No, it has really been crazy.  We have had constant "winter" for six months.  (If the temperature falls below 80˚ for more than two days, it's winter!) We usually lose winter in about February and here it is May and the temperatures are STILL in the 70s most days!  Not acceptable!  It also seems as if we have had some hellish winds along with the cool fronts that have me doubting my ability to leave the boat some mornings...  At least we are living at the dock for all of this...  I lie in bed at night and try to imagine how it will be with similar weather conditions when we are "out there".  I guess we'll hunker down and get some reading done...

One thing we've discovered about living on the boat that we hadn't expected, is that we are always "home" instead of "away".  Most of our time on the boat was previously for play... but not now.  There are chores to do that somehow seem to take up a lot of our play time.  I'm not sure how this happens but it does.  Poor Bruce wants to run and play evenings and weekends...  But I'm tired from work or need to get some things done that were normally done at the townhouse.  Friends come to their boats and we hardly find the time to hang out.  I really have to remind myself that Bruce is here all of the time and needs a bit of fun.  There will be time for boat projects soon, and we need to spend some quality time with our friends and family before we leave.

It really amazes me at how comfortable I am here.  It's like being inside a cozy protective womb where I know I'm safe.  The winds can howl and the temperature can drop... but it's all good inside Dos Libras.  Slowly I'm beginning to trust that she will take care of us.  Bruce says it's like having your home and your car and your boat all rolled into one... but it's more than that.  We count ourselves as lucky every day that we have been able to make this happen.  We can't wait for to see what the next six months holds for us.  Six months down... let the new life begin!