It's Tuesday

For those who have not been with us from the beginning, it is Tuesday. Time is different on a boat. We sometimes forget the day, the month, the time of day. We go to bed early and wake up with the start of sunrise. That is not accurate. We wake up and check on the boat two or three times during the night. However, we don't commit to coffee until we are ready to start the day. It has been three years. Three years living on the boat. Three years without the dishwasher, hot shower, flushing toilet, working stove, big screen TV, and everything that we had before the fall. We just celebrated our 5th marriage anniversary and our 20 years of marriage on February 29th. Mike says we should have started living this way 20 years ago. I think he is right. I'm not sure if I would be prepared to do this and Mike would not have joined the Navy. The Navy gave him many of the skills necessary to fix our boat. So, if we had done it 20 years ago, with my son, where would we be now? Depending on the day and the conditions around us, I will give a different opinion. Three days ago, I would say yes. This is what we should have been doing and should be doing now. Today was frustrating. My computer died. This is our only source of income at the moment. I'm posting this on Mike's computer. It doesn't have my software or system setup for working online. I asked Mike today if it was worth it. As always, he says yes. He is out washing clothes by hand at the moment. First he soaks the clothes in a little detergent and harbor water. Then he rinses it in fresh water. We have extra fresh water at the moment. We've had heavy rains for the last couple of days and our dinghy is full. He will be scooping fresh water onto the clothes and hanging them up to dry. The wind has been good and the wind generator (Jenny) is keeping us in power. Every is a survival day sprinkled with a bit of imagination and hope. I'm cooking comfort food now. Instant mashed potatoes, corn, green beans, and mushroom gravy. Take care all. Love you.

Food+energy+water

Food = basic food + energy + water So, for those wondering how we eat and what we eat, here is our blog. For the most part, we only eat one meal a day. The first thing required for a meal is the basic ingredients of, well, hmmm food. We are saving our canned goods at the moment. We had a windfall of money from my last week of work and we splurged. Mike bought sausages, spaghetti, and spaghetti sauce. This is my 6 day meal plan, Take 1 lb. of ground beef, 1 onion, 3 tbsp. of chopped garlic (4 cloves), 1 can of mushrooms, and 1 jar of spaghetti sauce. Brown the hamburger, mushrooms, onion, and garlic until brown. Turn off that burner and start another. Boil about 1/2 a pot of water in a 5 qt enamel pot with approximately 3 tsps. of salt and some garlic powder. Cook spaghetti noodles until they are close to tender. Move the spaghetti noodles into the pan of sauce. Leave the water boiling. Add whatever spare vegetables you have left to the boiling water. We use the bags of cauliflower, broccoli, and carrots when we can afford it. Take three ladles of spaghetti sauce and add to the boiling water. Add 4 good shakes of Cajun seasoning. Add 1 package beef sausage and 1 can of corn. Cook for another 15 minutes. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese before serving. We warm up the leftovers everyday in a little 12v oven. With one small bowl each day, we have a fairly healthy meal. Our average consumption of energy for the initial meal is about a 1/4 of a 1 lb. propane cylinder. A 1 lb. propane cylinder lasts us about 4 days. That includes hot water to bathe and cook with. Snacks, well - Saltines keep us from feeling hungry. We also buy small bricks of cheddar cheese when it is on sale. The main thing is that you have to be aware of all of the elements that go into making food. Water has to be hauled from shore or captured in our rain trap. Propane has to be brought in and is expensive. There has to be either enough sunny days or windy days to use the 12v oven to warm up food and run the refrigerator. Ingredients for food must be bought. Hopefully, we will be in better waters to catch fish, clam, and conch.

A note for Christmas shopping

I strongly urge all friends and family to consider shopping from local, small merchants and from individual artisans this Christmas season. Two of my friends have stores on Etsy. These friends provided moral and monetary support for us in our darkest times. They have beautiful and inexpensive handmade items that would be perfect for gifts and stocking stuffers. The links to their stores are: http://www.etsy.com/shop/RhondaMadeIt http://www.etsy.com/shop/jestersbaubles

Interviews

Recently, we have had several radio interviews and a news report about our lives on the boat and how we got here. Mike's contact on the Friends of the Unemployed website suggested us as person's to talk to about major lifestyle changes. If you are interested in hearing the story or seeing the boat, here are the links. KCAA: The Many Moods of Vince Daniels: KTAE Podcast Player 10:57am Nov 6 Katie and I got our interview is 00:32 to 00:60 on the timer. http://kcaaradio.celestrion.net/kcaa-podcasts/moods/20111105.html kcaaradio.celestrion.net KCAA Podcast Player Swiss Television http://www.facebook.com/l/5AQA1T8gq/www.videoportal.sf.tv/video?id=aeff028a-716a-491f-b1e5-9e0d52445b74

A lesson in engineering

Winds got up to almost 40 knots last week. This was enough to knock down our wind turbine tower, surprisingly enough. It failed at the wooden base, so that will have to be redesigned and rebuilt. The fall also bent the main tower, which I think was too tall anyway. I will be building a new tower of stronger materials, with a much more robust base, and a shorter stance by about 3 feet.

Just a cup of water

Water is a precious commodity on a sailboat. Bathing, dishwashing, clothes washing, and drinking are nearly impossible without a goodly supply of freshwater. In the old days, before Sovereign, we had a dishwasher, a refrigerator with a cold water and ice dispenser in the door and 2 mini-refrigerators, 2.5 bathrooms (2 full baths with showers), a huge double-sink in the laundry room, an inground pool, and a clothes washer. Presently, we have a 65 gallon water tank, no hot water, a Coleman plastic folding double-sink, a bucket and washboard for clothes, and an antique refrigerator about half the size of those used in a college dorm room. All of our water comes from a water hose at the marina dock. A recipe for bathing – First I boil 4 cups of water and pour into one of my two blue and white camping pots. Then, I add enough cold water from the garden hose to make it warm. I take the pot into the cramped water closet where everything is moved out of the way. I then pour the first ½ cup of water onto my head. I shampoo first and then scrub the rest of my body with soap. I normally use another ½ cup of water during this process. Then, a ½ cup at a time, I begin rinsing from head to foot. Finally, I tip the pot over my head and it almost feels like the fleeting memory of a full shower. Total water used equals approximately 6 cups. The final part is turning on the head bilge pump to whisk the grey water away. I sometimes dream of bubble baths. I’ll describe dishwashing, drinking water, and clothes washing in the next post.

Life on board

We have lived on Sovereign for almost three years now. My sister-in-law suggested that some people may have an interest in how we live on a 33’ sailboat and manage the daily business of survival. What has become the norm for us is so radically different from our former lifestyle that I imagine it might seem interesting to others. Dishwashing, bathing, laundry, cooking, working, and grocery shopping are some of the normal things that people do without much thought. For decades, I had a dishwasher, electric or gas stove and oven, refrigerator/freezer, full bath with tub, washing machine and dryer, a car that I drove to work each day, and easy access to a grocery store. That has all changed. I am a technical writer and I wish I had the flare that my brother or husband have in creative writing. Please bear with me as I give you insight into what it is like to live in our new reality. I will write a bit each day on the small, but significant changes that we have made over the last three years.

A two Afghan night

Before Mike left to go sailing, he removed the wind scoop and put a tarp over the v-berth hatch. The theory being that tarp would keep rain off and I could still have the hatch open to keep it cool. It works really well if the rain is coming straight down. There are a few small holes in the tarp but not enough to cause a problem. However, the tarp is so low and tight it is a struggle to get the hatch closed. The hatch is a big, heavy piece of fiberglass and awkward to move at the best of times.

At 2:15a.m. I woke up to the sound of thunder and flashes of lighting. A big thunderstorm was starting. I jumped up and closed the forward hatch as the wind started driving rain in. Then went back to the v-berth to close the hatch. The rain started in earnest as I reached up to start closing the hatch. I struggled for five minutes with rain whipping at my face and shoulders. I couldn't get the hatch to budge. My hands were slippery, rain was coming into my bed. The lightening began striking closer and closer. I grabbed my big, blue afghan and covered as much of the hatch as I could. I held it in place until the wind died down a bit. After about 15 minutes the Afghan was damp enough to stay in place. I dried off and got back into bed hoping the afghan would hold.

At 3:15 a.m. I feel the splat of water hit as the afghan reached total saturation and began dripping water into the v-berth. It is still raining. I grab a new afghan, push the saturated afghan out of the way and cover the hatch with the new afghan. I hold it in place until I'm sure that it isn't going to blow away. I finally get back to sleep ignoring the occasional splat of water. The alarm goes off at 4:19 a.m. and I hit the snooze button. I do that several times and finally just turn off the alarm clock.

I wake up at 5:30 a.m. I'm not going to work today. I have to empty out the hatch cover, take the tarp cover off, empty the dinghy before it sinks, and take the afghans to the laundry, What a marvelous start to a Thursday morning.

I haven't heard from MIke since Friday. I'm worried that he has been going through some of these thunderstorms at sea. I bet he isn't having fun either.