Blogging from A to Z: C is for Calendar

During the month of April last year, I participated in the A to Z Blogging Challenge - one alphabet-themed post per day (except Sundays).  I had such a good time with it that I'm doing it again this year.  I'm loosely organized on the theme of downsizing, minimalism, and small-home living that I've learned in 14 years of living on a small boat.  I'm starting with A is for Anchoring Out, Anger-ing Out, and ending with Z is for Zout and Zwarte Peper (Dutch for salt and black pepper). Click on the A to Z logo on the lower left sidebar for links to many other bloggers participating in the challenge.

The most dangerous thing you'll ever see on a boat

"The most dangerous thing you can have aboard, is a calendar," announced my friend Ellen.  She and her husband James were our mentors on our first trip down the ICW in 2009.  If a calendar dictates your schedule, instead of the realities of the natural world, you might easily find yourself taking off in less-than-ideal weather conditions because, well, today was the day you had planned to set sail, not a day earlier or later, come what may.  Or you might depart without some system working quite right, just because the calendar said today was the day to go, even if you didn't feel ready.  On a shorter time scale, our marina has quite a strong tidal current running through it, and we often see people get in trouble pulling out of their slip because they wanted to leave at a certain hour rather than wait for (or get up early to make) slack tide. Commercial or military ships, of course, get a by on this; they are expected to go at a scheduled time.  I'm thinking of the people for whom the departure time is optional or even arbitrary. Those are the ones who put themselves unnecessarily in harm's way -- or at least, in discomfort's way -- by adherence to a schedule planned in advance without the ability to modify it to accommodate current conditions.

But calendars aren't dangerous just to our physical selves, while we're living aboard.  Sticking to a calendar can rob you of opportunities to feed the soul too.  What if leaving when planned instead of staying in port an extra few days meant you wouldn't be able to attend a cool festival happening next weekend, or stick around to cement a friendship with a fascinating person you just met, another cruiser who ironically arrived the day before you scheduled to go?

The biggest danger of the calendar, though, happens while we're living in one place for a while.  The calendar invites us to fill our days and we build up a list of things to do.  Some are cool things, like getting together with friends to try a new restaurant, or signing up to volunteer for a worthy cause.  Some are important parts of adulting, like going to work, or dentist appointments or doing our taxes.  And some are just flat-out busy-ness of modern life in a city, buying groceries and doing laundry and replying to emails and shopping and spending and juggling.  Soon, every single day has a to-do, or multiple to-dos, planned. And then there's no time left for spontaneity, for watching a sunset or getting lost in a novel or listening to bird songs or helping a neighbor.  Sara, in her blog Wondertime says it so articulately:

...the best days are not the ones where I get the most things done. The best days are the ones without a list leading the way, where we just let the day unfold and explore the world however we feel that day and let whatever happens, happen. They are the days when we take the time to wonder.

Of course, its unrealistic to expect never to have plans or schedules or to-dos on the calendar.  Still, it's nice to strike a balance and resist unnecessary structure. The name of our species is an important reminder -- we're human beings, not human doings.

Sunrise at anchor, Beaufort, SC.  When we had jobs, we always set the alarm an hour early.  This was our time to sit quietly together with a cup of coffee and talk about anything and everything, before the pressures of the day began.

On our way to the tall ship today to discuss our schedule, we stopped on the dock for about 5 minutes watching this snowy egret fish for his supper.  I'm fascinated by the way birds take advantage of the artifacts of human life.

A Blog Post About ... Blogging (A Bonus Letter B Post for the A to Z Challenge)

I'm coming up on the 9th anniversary of Life Afloat; and this rainy day makes a perfect time to reflect on the hows and whys of my blog.  Or the whys and hows ...

Why blog?

I started, really, out of a desire to educate.  At the time we lived aboard in Annapolis, MD, and I caught a comment about liveaboards being similar to a homeless guy in a cardboard box parked on your lawn.  And that reminded me of my original reticence to tell my new boss where and how I lived.  At the same time, our local newspaper put out an invitation for community members to write lifestyle blogs for the paper.  For my own protection against restrictive ordinances if nothing else, I thought it would be useful, in a town that billed itself as America's Sailing Capital, if people understood why someone would want to do this crazy thing of living on a sailboat and traveling, that we weren't all crazy dropouts and rebels and losers, but ordinary people with an extraordinary love of the sea. I wanted to share a tiny bit of this life with people who would otherwise never come close to it. I pitched the idea of the blog to the newspaper, which they accepted immediately, and Life Afloat was born.

I'm no longer in Annapolis, so no longer writing about Annapolis issues for the Annapolis paper, but I transitioned the articles I wrote for newspaper blog to my own site.  In addition to helping me hone my writing skills, I've found that blogging has made our life afloat richer with the connections we've made. I've made some awesome friends through reading other cruisers' blogs; some of these have transitioned to friendships in the physical world as we've shared anchorages,or in one case I met some interesting people online only to discover that our boats were in the same marina! Other online friends are people we haven't met IRL (yet!! We've got plans to meet blog friend Ellen (The Cynical Sailor and his Salty Sidekick) later this month. She, and I, along with fellow boat-bloggers S.V. Cambria and The Larks of the Independence, are participating in this year's A to Z Challenge.)

I've had lots of opportunities for perks or sponsorships (getting free or reduced-cost items in exchange for reviews), everything from boat-related products, anchors, swimsuits, restaurants that are near to or pick you up from marinas, guidebooks, the list is endless. The blog has also been a steppingstone to other things because of the visibility; I’ve been invited to co-author a book and have gotten paid speaking engagements through people I met via blogging.  And another funny small-world-type current example: one of those paid speaking engagements was a seminar on blogging for Cruiser's University (part of the Annapolis Sailboat Show.) I was chatting with friends Lisa and Alex here in St Augustine and it evolved through our conversation that she'd been in my class some years ago! (Her blog Tiki Trek is inactive now because they aren't cruising right now.)

My blog is also something of a journal record of our trips; and I can see how we've changed when I look back on my early writings. Of course there's also the practical matter of keeping family and friends up to date and not worried; yikes, my dentist and my insurance agent both read my blog too. Finally, blogging can help prepare you for senility. I'll get together with a friend for lunch when we are in the same town, and start to tell a story, and he/she will say, "Oh, you told that one already! I read it in your blog!"

Some how-to tips; some of these are boat-blog specific but they're mostly applicable to any blog:

• Use your own voice. Write the way you speak -- casual, informal, fresh.
• Figure out who your audience is: other boaters, your family, general public, and let that direct your content and context.  Cruising is extraordinary and that most of the people who find your blog won’t ever get to experience it.
• Avoid making your posts into a trip log. Wind speed and direction, which sails you set or doused, or what you had for breakfast is only interesting if it’s part of a larger story you’re telling. People don't want to read what happened as much as they want to read about how you felt about what happened.  Don't let your blog become a chronicle of "what we did."  Next thing you know, you will be blogging that today I went to the mall, and walked the dog -- bor-ing! It's all too easy, especially with sailing/travel blogs, to fall into the trap about writing about the chronology of the trip, but what is really interesting is the stories, the people, along the way. 
• Get to the point or focus quickly so people know where you're going. Although sometimes there are long stories to tell, and that’s okay, in general brevity is key.
• Pictures! Use photos whenever you can; in fact sometimes you may only have some photos and no words other than photo captions. Try to get at least one photo with each post. Note: this point is do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do, as this post is pictureless! I'm generally not a very good photographer, and often struggle to find the right image to focus my piece.  
• Take the time to respond to reader comments.  If there are too many to reply to, acknowledge in a post that you read them all and that you appreciate people taking the time to share their thoughts.
• Think links. You can send readers to a relevant article, to another post, or to more information about a topic. This could be a process similar to a footnote, offering more info without interrupting the flow of your main point. It also solves copyright issues: don't copy and paste something from another author into your own blog, just send readers to the source.
• Reach out to other bloggers, it’s a lovely way to create community and make friends before you find them in an anchorage somewhere.
• Don’t let posting to your blog become a chore. Do it when you’re inspired and leave it alone when you’re not in the mood or too busy. The last thing you want is to be chained to a glowing screen while anchored in paradise.
• At the same time, it’s much easier if you post regularly. Waiting too long between posts becomes daunting because you have so much “catching up” do to.
• Safety and security: If your blog is public, be discreet about giving details. (Common sense: Don’t post, “We are leaving our lovely boat sitting at anchor unattended while we go ashore to explore for a few days; sure hope she’s okay.” Save that story for after you get back.)
• If you really want to practice your writing style, two books I found great: Roy Peter Clark, "Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer," or Paul Spencer Sochaczewski "Share Your Journey: Mastering Personal Writing: The (Surprisingly Easy) Techniques Professional Writers Use to Write Personal Memoirs and Travel Stories That Connect with Editors and Readers."

Blogging from A to Z: B is for Benefits of Minimalist Living, on a Boat (or anywhere)

During the month of April last year, I participated in the A to Z Blogging Challenge - one alphabet-themed post per day (except Sundays).  I had such a good time with it that I'm doing it again this year.  I'm loosely organized on the theme of downsizing, minimalism, and small-home living that I've learned in 14 years of living on a small boat.  I'm starting with A is for Anchoring Out, Anger-ing Out, and ending with Z is for Zout and Zwarte Peper (Dutch for salt and black pepper). Click on the A to Z logo on the lower left sidebar for links to many other bloggers participating in the challenge. 

Running in place may make the hamster happy, but it wasn't working for us -- ultimately we left the rat race to live on a boat! (image from ClipArtPanda)

It was the late 80s or early 90s, Dan and I were in our early 40s, an age when the expectation was that we would be entering the "high-powered" period of our careers -- we were old enough to have finally built up some expertise, still young enough to have lots of energy, and the idea was this was the time to work hard and start earning the big bucks!  And we did ... until we realized that we were spending so much time earning, that we were missing out on a lot.  Like seeing the shifting light of the day, of the weather and the seasons, from our windowless cubicles.  All that money we were raking in was going right back out again: long workdays left us too tired to cook, so we ate dinner out several times per week, and paid someone else to clean the house that we had no time to clean ourselves, the rooms we rarely had time to use anyway.  We needed off this treadmill!

We started small -- negotiations with our bosses allowed us to each cut back to working 4 days per week with no overtime.   We were generally able to keep our favorite "core" projects, but had to give up some committees, and knew this path would lead to being passed over for some career opportunities down the road.  We also knew we were going to have to cut down on lifestyle somewhat. Ultimately it was going to lead to moving to a smaller, less-expensive house, and then a yet-smaller house, and then to a boat.  We had been trading big chunks of our lives to our jobs in exchange for money to buy stuff; now, we were saying no to the money, and taking back our time!  We spent those newfound 3-day weekends with friends, hiking or camping or canoeing, building a solar greenhouse, reading, creating, cooking.  Truly, the best things in life ... weren't things.

Now, a 33-foot sailboat has been our home for the last 14 years. We live in less than 300 square feet -- just over a tenth the square footage of the average American house.  Of course, the smaller living space means we have room for only very few possessions (every piece of clothing I own has to fit in a space about the size of two airline carryon bags, for example, three small shelves plus 5 hangers).  It's as if you had to fit everything you own into the cabinets of an average kitchen: not just pots and pans and food and dishes, but also your sweaters and hiking boots and tools and books and towels -- everything.  We've learned to collect intangibles instead -- friends, memories, adventures, ultimately take up no space.  And we're happier than we ever were.  Modern science backs this up, as studies show that experiences make us happier than material possessions.  But we had our epiphany back in the 1980s, so I've got to get points for doing this before it was cool.

A few of the benefits we've discovered of this minimalist lifestyle:

• Smaller living space costs less to build, heat, cool, and maintain; a smaller boat costs less in slip rental and utilities, smaller sails and lighter lines, than a big one. Saving money = more free time.
• We also save time -- cleaning a small space takes just a few minutes.
• We're collecting friends and memories instead of knickknacks that need to be dusted. That saves money, and space, and time, and the hypothetical knickknacks would fall off their shelves in rough seas anyway.
• Since we only have space for one of each thing, we don't have to make decisions about which of several similar things to use.  Making these decisions, that ultimately don't matter in the long run, wastes time and energy and accomplishes nothing.  I wrote about these "micro-decisions" in last year's A to Z challenge.
• To the greater good, we're decreasing our ecological footprint and using less of the planet's resources.

Blogging from A to Z: B is for Breaking News!

During the month of April last year, I participated in the A to Z Blogging Challenge - one alphabet-themed post per day (except Sundays).  I had such a good time with it that I'm doing it again this year.  I'm loosely organized on the theme of downsizing, minimalism, and small-home living that I've learned in 14 years of living on a small boat.  I'm starting with A is for Anchoring Out, Anger-ing Out, and ending with Z is for Zout and Zwarte Peper (Dutch for salt and black pepper). Click on the A to Z logo on the lower left sidebar for links to many other bloggers participating in the challenge. 

Dawn's light revealed a welcome tall ship silhouette against the brightening sky (this photo is from 2 years ago, at dusk, but the effect this morning was similar)

During last year's challenge, I mapped out posts for all the letters, and got to "B" before being overtaken by events.  My planned "B" topic fell by the wayside as I opted instead to write a requiem for a fellow liveaboard who died of cancer the day before.

This year? Again, my planned "B" post was overtaken by events, although a happier occurrence.  On March 31 we learned that our beloved El Galeon would be paying a last-minute visit to St Augustine before continuing on their way north for the summer's tour to Nova Scotia and the Great Lakes.  And again we'll be on board for at least part of the voyage, though the details are not yet firmed up.  Like most cruising plans, whether for a big boat or a small one, flexibility is key.   I'll keep you posted!

In any case, since my "B" post was already written, I'm doubling up! (Actually, tripling up...)

Blogging from A to Z: A is for Anchoring Out, "Anger-ing" Out

During the month of April last year, I participated in the A to Z Blogging Challenge - one alphabet-themed post per day (except Sundays).  I had such a good time with it that I'm doing it again this year.  I'm loosely organized on the theme of downsizing, minimalism, and small-home living that I've learned in 14 years of living on a small boat.  I'm starting with A is for Anchoring Out, Anger-ing Out, and ending with Z is for Zout and Zwarte Peper (Dutch for salt and black pepper). Click on the A to Z logo on the lower left sidebar for links to many other bloggers participating in the challenge. 

Instead of being on land looking out to the water, we're on the water, looking back to the town.

When I tell new people I meet that we're not really "from" anywhere; that we live on a sailboat and travel north or south with the seasons and our whims, the  general response seems to be admiration for our adventurousness and our freedom.  Publicly, we always describe our lifestyle with enthusiasm. And yet, privately we had been recently feeling less charitable; frustrated and restless, grumpy with each other and with what felt like the clutter and congestion of our everyday land-focused lives.

Dan finally put his finger on it -- we have been off having adventures the last year, spending the winter scuba diving in Aruba and the summer crewing on the Spanish tall ship El Galeon, as well as smaller road trips in rental cars to Annapolis and Key West, but our boat has not been out of the slip for that entire year, the longest period we've been stationary in the 16 years that we've owned this boat. The boat at the dock in the downtown marina has been a convenient launching pad and base of operations for our wanderings ... but because we were staying in one place anyway, living aboard afforded us nothing -- aside from the "cool factor" that enhances our image -- that a small condo wouldn't have served equally well.  Better, really, because compared to that hypothetical condo, the boat is quite a bit more cramped, and often damp.

In the normal course of life afloat, cramped-and-damp is a small price to pay for the benefits of being on a boat that actually takes you to new places.  So it was time to take those benefits we'd been earning, and last week, after two days of preparing and testing systems that had not been run in months (and despite all those preparations, still forgetting half the steps on our underway checklist!) we carefully backed out of the slip.  Our destination was a mooring on the north side of the bridge, a scant half-mile -- or a world -- away.

We made it easy on our out-of-practice selves, picking a calm day and timing our departure near slack tide; still, we were glad the mooring field was nearly empty of people to see us fumble our first attempt to pick up the mooring.  After the second try, though, we were securely tied, and before lunchtime found us lounging in the cockpit taking in our new surroundings.

We had all the comforts of home, we were in our home, but were away from car horns and clocks and tourists walking the docks. We had told our friends that we needed to do some things that couldn't be done in the slip, like checking the autopilot, and we did check it, but mostly, we just needed to shake the cobwebs from our sails and our minds. Our boat was our own private island, away from it all, and instead of a full to-do list, we were letting the day unfold however it would, without plan or schedule. The light shifted in ancient rhythms as the sun settled westward and the tidal currents reversed.  Eyes used to close-focus on computer screens now looked toward distant horizons; engine and human sounds were replaced with the squawking of gulls and the chuffing of dolphins circling our boat. That short exposure to the natural world was all it took.  I could just feel the shift, feel the easing of tensions, relaxing muscles I didn't know I'd been clenching. The stress and the grumpiness were gone, like hitting a "reset" button in our brains.  It was the tiniest of stay-cations, and simultaneously a dramatic reminder that the whole point, the reason we were living on a boat and making the compromises to comfort and convenience that we were, was to be in touch with nature and satisfy our wanderlust ... boats are made to move!

The sky is so big, out here!

Day slowly settles into night, on its own time.

Blogging from A to Z Again! This Year, My Theme Is ...

Last April I was inspired to do this crazy blog challenge; one post a day for the month (except Sundays) and the topic of each daily post was based on a letter.  I learned about the challenge on April 1, so for the first week I was one day late.  Still, it was (in retrospect) a heckuva lot of fun, and a great writing kickstarter.  So this year, I'm doing it again!

Today is the day to announce your theme.  Of course, I've already got the theme of "life afloat," so this is a theme-within-a-theme, so to speak.  After 13+ years living aboard a small sailboat, I've learned a lot about downsizing, minimalism, and tiny home living that's not restricted just to boating.  So much of this style I take for granted, so this year's blog challenge is my chance to revisit it, summarize it, and pass it on.  A few letters -- B and Q and W come to mind, are going to be about blogging in general, just to keep it real.

Because I learned about the challenge at the last minute, last year, I had no time to pre-write my posts; my "planning" consisted of writing down at least one nautical word for each letter of the alphabet just to prove to myself that the writing would be possible, and then each day I had 24 hours to write that day's post.  This year, I had plenty of advance notice ... and guess what?  I didn't take advantage of it to actually write any posts in advance!  Again, all I did was make the alphabetical list of topics, from "Anchoring Out, Anger-ing Out" to "Zout & Zwarte Peper (Dutch for 'salt & black pepper')."  I'm looking forward to the challenge and the freshness and the informality I get from posting with those short turnarounds, but the procrastination is also a consequence of my basic personality type (which I'll have more about when I get to the post for "W.")

There are almost 500 bloggers signed up for the challenge; links to their blogs are here.



If you are also an A to Z challenger or a blogger on a theme similar to mine feel free to post a link below.  See you in April! 

Gender Identity Confusion (for ships) -- Factoid of the Day

In Spanish it's el galeon, not la galeon -- male!

In English tradition, ships are referred to as "she." In fact, a ship is the only noun in the English language that has a gender, as my friend Ellen (The Cynical Sailor and His Salty Sidekick) explains in an amusing blog post titled "It's a Girl!"

Why are ships referred to as female? The rationale varies.  In ancient times, ships might be given female names to honor the sea goddess(es), invoking a benevolent feminine spirit on the vessels that would carry seafarers across treacherous oceans. I've frequently heard the romantic notion that referring to ships as "she" stems from the tradition of boat-owners, typically and historically male, naming their vessels after significant women in their lives — wives, sweethearts, mothers.  Some traditions said the ships were named after women because the captain was "married to his ship."

It lead to this politically-incorrect-but-a-product-of-its-time sign that's been popping up on my facebook page recently:

Politically incorrect, but a product of its time

Double entendres aside, the ships-as-female tradition is far less universal than it seems.

In Spanish, all nouns are either masculine, and use "el" as the form of the word "the" to describe them, or feminine, and use "la" for "the." There is no "it." There's  not a lot of rhyme or reason to the gender of nouns; knife and hat and floor and book are masculine and use "el," while window and spoon and mountain and scissors are feminine and use "la." But at some point last summer I realized that the tall ship we were on was called "El Galeon Andalucia."  El Galeon. El, not la.  Spanish words for all kinds of boats, from dinghies to fishing boats to sailboats to our mighty galleon, use "el." Masculine, unlike our English tradition of referring to boats as "she." I asked a couple of the guys about it while we were on watch one day and was told, yes, the big galleon is masculine.  "After all," they explained, as their sketchy English met my sketchy Spanish, "the ship is a manly man, big and brave and strong to protect the crew. Four hundred years ago, it took a manly man, to sail across the Atlantic."

Whenever visitors would compliment the ship and say, "oh, she's so beautiful," I'd smile and tell them that story.  "Thank you, and did you know that Spanish ships are male?"  ...and I'd explain the historical logic.  And when the above witty sign came up in my groups, I explained the Spanish historical logic to them as well.  Then I polled the group members and learned that ships are male in Spanish, French, and Russian; and female in English, Italian, and Dutch. Fascinating!

Infested! Aaaaack!

The only species of cockroach I want to see around here -- deceased! 

Yuck!! We started the year to learn we have cockroaches!

We've always been wary.  We are careful of what we bring aboard that critters or their eggs could hide in.  We have a "no cardboard aboard" policy rooted in the traditional cruiser knowledge that, especially in warm climates, the little nooks and crannies, and tasty glues, of corrugated cardboard serve as lovely roach nurseries. (Okay, we're not perfect; some cardboard does come aboard, specifically the boxes from red wine and laundry detergent, but we try to transfer the contents promptly and get the packaging off the boat.) But it wouldn't really matter what we do, how perfect we are aboard, because a friend here at the marina told me she has seen them crawling down the dock and up onto a boat from there!!!  We also keep a few roach tablets in the likeliest places, under the sink and in the trash can locker for example, and that has always been sufficient, until now.

It had been chilly and rainy, and moisture makes the pills less effective, and heck, if the insects had crawled aboard from dockside (yikes!) no amount of housekeeping we could do would prevent them totally. We claimed there were two species of roaches aboard: damn roaches, these are the ones that were quickly turned into squished flat roaches with the aid of a slipper or piece of paper towel; and f-ing roaches, these being the ones that scurried away too quickly for us to kill.

So we spent New Year's Day cleaning out and sterilizing all the lockers in preparation for a store run for borax to poison the little beasts when the stores reopened January second. In the process I discovered enough dried lentils, powdered coconut milk, jars of vegetarian "chicken soup" concentrate, and Gatorade/Crystal Light to soothe even the most extreme food hoarder. How had this happened? We seemed to have two reactions when finding a particular food or specialty ingredient that we liked.  Either we'd buy a bunch of it in case we didn't find it again when we wanted it or where we were currently cruising ... only to discover that after a while we burned out on it and had a bunch extra never to be used.  Or, we wouldn't stock up, assuming we could buy it when we wanted it next ... and then once we got to counting on it, next time we went shopping it was discontinued or only available in stores in the previous region we had been cruising in. Lose-lose.

Next came a game of Provisioning Tetris with the food storage containers to put everything back in the lockers. When I said one of my New Year's resolutions was to dump some baggage this was not what I had in mind.

By Day 3, after we had doubled down on the roach pills, I found a big juicy dead one in our kitchen utensils drawer. (The good news is that sucker was dead, the bad news was, well, **gasp,** roaches.) The drawer was also quite wet from our recent rainy humid weather, chilly enough for condensation, and several plastic spatulas and tools were showing dark mildew. I soaked everything in a solution of Clorox bleach and lukewarm water, then scrubbed, rinsed, and air dried. Sprayed the inside of the drawer itself with a clorox sanitizing solution. Sorted through the contents and got rid of duplicate tools and reorganized; again not the kind of "dumping baggage" for the New Year that I had intended. Then I faced this most important question: I found 3 wine cork removers and two beer bottle openers cluttering our very limited and very precious space; what drink should I reward myself with?

* * * * *

All seemed well for about 2 weeks, and then we had another insect population explosion.  Fortunately my friends had warned me to expect this; it was the second generation. Although we had killed off all the adults shortly after New Year's Day, the eggs they had laid continued to grow and had now hatched.

This time we decided to dust everything with boric acid roach powder.  The stuff worked great, although application was surprisingly tricky.  The package instructions said to "create a barrier through which cockroaches and other insects must crawl."  They advise putting it under sinks and stoves, below the bottom drawer of dressers or cabinets, around baseboards.  We did that, and added a heavy application in the engine room, but in the analysis we learned how terribly three-dimensional our boat-living situation is, as we found they could crawl not only up from the bilge into our living space, but across from wiring or plumbing access or down through vents.

A fine coating of white dust at every interface, everywhere they could crawl through. Good thing we don't have pets to worry about.

* * * * *

Roach update: we have now emptied and cleaned and reorganized every single locker on the boat. Every locker, and odd little spaces like under the trash can and next to the water pump, have been recharged with roach pellets and/or dusted with roach powder . No further evidence of the little nasties. Side benefit: after this thorough sorting of our possessions, we're one more item checked off the list of "things we have to do before we head out cruising again." (But I still can't bring myself to say thank you to the little insect who gave hizzer life to get me motivated!)

The "Last Step" -- Completion of the Stairs Project

Here it is, the final form of the stairs:

We posted photos of  the "before" and "during" phases back in early November 2015, but the project technically began in the summer of 2014. Which means that all in all, we spent a year and a half working this thing.  And a huge amount of frustration and finicky details.  There are several places where the result is not perfect ... but it is perfect for us! Now on to more interesting projects, as we continue being energized to do all sorts of things aboard, getting psyched for next winter in the Keys.

Virtual New Year's Eve Party

We're  having a "virtual" New Year's Eve party here at Life Afloat.  We're sitting around the fire, sipping bubbly and chatting about the year in review:

* What was your favorite memory or most memorable day of 2015? Being at sea for the Perseids meteor shower in August. A close runner-up, acting the part of a "shipwrecked sailor from 1740" at a candle-light open house at a historic fort here in St Augustine last January.

* Someone new you met this year? Oh, so many people! The whole crew of the Spanish tall ship, and their friends and girlfriends, the whole extended family. The ones who stand out the most in my mind are ... oh, never mind, that would be all of them.  I learned from the genial cook David; and the bosun Xoco, who had participated in the initial construction and remained so passionate about the ship; the steady presence of Xavi the first officer; a volunteer that I sponsored who turned out to be a great fit -- she was both a (US) Navy brat and an archaeologist; 2 college student volunteers -- even though we were literally as old as their grandparents, it was fascinating to me to be friends with them as equals, shipmates; carpenter Juan who managed to be a good friend to Dan even though neither one of them could speak more than a few words in the other's language; engineer Ramiro, at 6'6" the ultimate gentle giant, he was always so protective of me;  effervescent photographer Karen, I know some great artists who are tortured souls and seem to draw inspiration from their pain, she gets her energy from utter joie de vivre; fun-loving yet hard-working agent Fernando and thoughtful, helpful teacher Kiki; Jenny, the only woman on the engineering staff; quiet competence of chief engineer Angel; and safety officer Gonzalo, who everyone totally trusted to distribute the shared tip moneys, he was so careful and detail-oriented; Roger who patiently instructed me on the basis of Spanish politics...and that's just part of the crew! Also newly met this year, several friends' new babies, Mallory, Ainsley, and Rina.

* Did you say goodbye to anyone this year? No deaths in my close circle, thankfully, but I allowed some unfulfilling friendships to fade away. (Hint: several of them supported the "wrong" candidate in U.S. politics. One of my friends pointed out that if you can let politics divide you, you weren't really friends in the first place, and I think that's true. At the same time, some things so clearly show your basic character/values that a friendship cannot heal.)

* Something you did for the first time in 2015? I strayed 100 feet from my comfort zone -- straight up, and straight down! I went deep diving in Aruba in February 100 feet below sea level, and climbing the rigging of the tall ship, 100 feet above sea level. Ate chicken. (Well, that wasn't the first time ever in my life, but it was the first time in about 30 years).

* Someone or something you influenced? Gotta be, the kid around 8 years old who, after learning that Dan and I live on a ship, looked in amazement and said, "You mean you don't have to have a house even if you are a grownup?" Close runner-up: A couple of years ago we did presentations for a homeschool group about navigation in the 16th century, and real pirate history. The kids made a day of it, dressing as pirates, etc. Afterwards much of the class, still dressed in their pirate clothing, and parents went out to dinner at a local Chinese restaurant buffet. I remember shocking all the kids by the example I set -- instead of healthy food selections, I went directly to the dessert bar and took 3 helpings, cake and pudding and pie.  "Hey," I defended my selection, "a pirate's life is likely to be very short before they are caught, remember I told you about that in class? Life's uncertain, eat dessert first!" (They loved it! LOVED it!) Two years later I got a note from our hosts.  She had overheard the kids playing "Two truths and a lie," a game where you make 3 statements about yourself and the other players have to discern which is the fib. One of the kids used, "I've eaten dinner with pirates at a Chinese restaurant," which of course was so outrageous that everyone would naturally assume that was the fib.  (But of course, it was true.) What delighted us was that 2+ years was a quarter of this kids young life, and what stood out was our wacky event. Now that's having an impact with living history!

* Something you are looking forward to in 2016? Spending another season with El Galeon, yes, but mostly, traveling with our own boat. We're considering moving it to Key West for next winter.

* What did you learn last year (new skill, something about yourself, anything)? This was surprisingly difficult! I've learned lots of facts, like how to say "dawn" in Spanish or that rice works better if you add salt to the cooking water. I've re-learned that I'm fine living in group settings, and that I'm okay spending the entire summer with only about 40 pieces of clothing.  That included warm- and cool-weather, t-shirts and shorts to long-sleeve pants and shirts, long underwear, hat, gloves, jacket, and foul weather gear, nice going-out-with-friends clothes and ship's uniform shirts.  My previous experiment in living with 33 items for 3 months stood me in good stead here. I was surprised to learn how much mental energy we spend just keeping our lives going (blog post on this soon!). On the ship, someone else worried about what to cook for dinner, someone else worried about maintenance, about where to visit next, etc; even about what we should wear that day (your uniform, of course: blue for coming into port or leaving port, white for talking with the public). How EASY life was, even though we were working very hard long hours every day, when we didn't have to spend our off-time just maintaining ourselves. The other thing I was surprised to learn was how much I **HATED** having my brain get fuzzy during the deep dive, even though we were warned it would happen. You would think, if I hate to have my brain get fuzzy, that I would not enjoy drinking wine or beer, hmmm....

* Did you make any resolutions last year? How did they turn out? Will you make any for next year? Only one: Have More Adventures, which I think came out rather well. (**ahem**). So for 2016, I'm going to repeat that one, and add "Ditch Some Baggage" (both mental and physical); and hope to continue writing/blogging.

(Feel free to add your own answers, in the comments below, or on Life Afloat's Facebook page)