A Cruising Blogger's New Year's Resolutions

No matter where you live it is easy to get stuck in a rut.  You would think that living out here would be different... So why does it always surprise me how good it feels to do something different???

How many times have I envisioned how a place will be and discounted the awesomeness of it only to be astounded at how wrong I was???  So my New Year's Resolution will be to STOP THAT!!!

Waking up in this place just five miles from where we've been for a month... I scrambled out of bed before dawn to sit and watch the world wake up.  The Culebrita Light was hard at work keeping mariners safe from doom...  Even though I have been up there and have personally seen how unromantic the actual mechanism is... there is still something magical about sleeping beneath the protective "sweep" of the light.

Many times we've looked back on our day and marveled at how differently it turned out from what we had anticipated or expected.  Every one of those days began with a decision... Do it or don't do it.  We could easily have just sat around, done boat projects, been lazy and not splashed the dinghy or simply lounged in bed and missed that stunning sunrise...  This brings me to my next resolution.  DO IT!

See what I would have missed if I hadn't got out of bed early today???

Get out of bed, splash that dinghy, dig out your snorkel gear and don't miss a thing!

So we took our own advice and got off the boat today!  So why did all of this hype fall so flat???  The reef in front of us still hides its secrets as we only got as far as the shallow sandy side closest to our boat.  The visibility wasn't great and it was just... well...SAND!

Upside-down Jellyfish

But all was not lost.  Later this week we hope to make a jump to St. Thomas.  Our boat bottom is a wonderland of sea critters right now... so instead of snorkeling around we opted to perform the more responsible duties... and cleaned our bottom!

Bruce went down with our home-made breathing contraption while I floated topside and cleaned the waterline.

I wanted exercise... I got exercise!

The dirty side

He finished about half the job in the much cooler water and came up to warm his shivering body in the sun...  The water was much warmer near the surface so I was able to finish one side of the boat before I decided that my arms were going to quit working...

A rare Bruce-Selfie

As I was climbing out of the water Bruce started scrambling to move his generator and compressor  into the cockpit as a lone raincloud began to dump!  I hung our rash-guards on the lifelines for a freshwater rinse... then I just stayed for a rinse myself!

The joy of standing on a deck letting the rain rinse the saltwater from your body can't be described.

My last resolution ... involves YOU!  I'm going to try to limit the length of my blog posts to make them more easily digestible...  Still LOTS of photos but (hopefully) I will (try to) post more often in smaller bits.

Our day was done.  Both of us were exhausted and thankful of a leftover dinner...  We ate in the cockpit as our limbs began to refuse all further activity.  Hopefully we will still be able to move tomorrow...