Blogging from A to Z: F is for F. A. Q.s, Flat-Surface Syndrome, and Favorite Things About Living Afloat

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. 

What kind of boat is Cinderella?
Cinderella is a 33-foot Caribbean Sailing Yacht (CSY).  Built in Tampa, FL in 1980 for the charter trade, they have a reputation for being both elegant for their day, and very sturdy.  We have owned the boat since July 2000 and lived aboard full time since November 2002.  We lived in a marina in Annapolis, Maryland, for six years where we did a complete refit before we took off to go fulltime cruising beginning in September 2009, and have put on over 10,000 miles since then.  We are the fourth owners.

Where have you traveled?
On this boat, Lake Michigan, the US East Coast, and the Bahamas.  On other people's boats, everywhere from Canada to Trinidad.

How do you live in such a small space?
Actually, we have everything that a land-based home has: a place to cook, a place to socialize, a place to sit and think, and a place to sleep.  As you can see in this tour of our boat, those places are all pretty compact, thanx to built-in and multipurpose furniture.

How has it affected your relationship? Do you drive each other crazy being together every minute?
If anything, it has made our relationship better.  Living in close quarters has put us more in sync with each other's moods.  We respect each other's virtual privacy (which I'll talk about when we get to letter "V.")

What about your stuff?
Living on a boat does force you to think carefully how much stuff you own because you have limited space to store it. We did a lot of downsizing, and our music, books, and photos are basically all digital. We've learned to be pretty selective about the rest, streamlining our clothing, cooking, and hobbies. Priorities are straightforward -- first you make room for safety equipment, then tools, then "everything else." Overall not a bad way to think about it, on water or on land. As a rough guideline, for every 10 of something we had on land - books, shoes, clothing, toys - only one came aboard.

Do you have electricity?
At the dock, there is a white pedestal at the head of the slip where we plug into the electrical supply with a fat yellow cord we nickname the umbilical cord. That gives us ordinary household electricity throughout the boat. Underway or at anchor, of course, it's not like we can plug in an extension cord from the middle of the Atlantic. We have solar panels and batteries to make our own energy and store it, and everything is 12-volt like your car.   We have a small inverter to make regular household-type (110-V) electricity but we rarely use it.

Do you have heat?
When we are at anchor and off the grid, we have a built-in heater that uses diesel fuel or kerosene and keeps us toasty.  It's so efficient that we've never needed to turn it up to more than halfway.  at the dock with electricity we can run an oil-filled space heater that looks like an old-fashioned radiator; quieter, simpler, and less expensive than the kerosene.  The best way we've found to heat the boat, though, is to sail south in winter!

What about air conditioning?
We've got that too, but again only when we're plugged in at the dock.

How do you get fresh water?
The white electric pedestal also has a faucet for a garden hose.  We uses that to fill a tank on board that holds about 120 gallons of fresh water.  If we're being careful that can last us 3-4 weeks.  Of course at the dock with a water supply nearby we don't have to be that conservative, and we go through that in about 2 weeks. Compared to water use on land, that's still a very small amount.  Some boats have desalinization systems to make water from sea water, or to catch rain water, but we haven't found them necessary.

Err, um, what about the bathroom, and what happens when you flush?
We have a bathroom, or "head" in boatspeak. When we flush the toilet, everything goes into a holding tank, where it is pumped out once a week or whenever we request, by the marina, and carried ashore for treatment.  It does not go overboard.  If we are underway, of course we can't use the holding tank indefinitely with no way to empty it.  When we are more than 3 miles offshore, then we can legally switch to overboard mode; our head has a special macerator pump that guarantees solids are ground up completely before dumping.  The kitchen sink does go overboard, and that is why we -- like most liveaboards -- are very careful to use biodegradable soaps and other environmentally friendly products.

Have you ever lost anything overboard?
We know so many boaters who've lost cellphones, car keys, purses.  Dan lost a pair of prescription sunglasses once when he was helping another boat dock and a tossed dockline hit him in the head, knocking the glasses into the sea.  Now all our glasses have safety straps around our necks and our keys have floats attached.  We never get on or off the boat while holding our phones, they are zipped into pockets or backpacks. And for all our care about the "gap," we did have to hire a diver once to recover an antique dagger, part of Dan's pirate garb, that slipped into the water.

What about storms?
We joke that floods are no problem, we'll just float higher, and the extra water will give us more places to explore.  But, seriously, there's a lot of preparation that we must take in to account for predicted hurricanes or big wind events.  And lightning is one of my biggest fears.

What about high tide? 
Our tides here in St Augustine have a range of about 6 feet from new moon high to low.  The docks are attached to sturdy concrete piers and they float up and down with the water level, so they always remain at the same comfortable level next to the boat.

What is Flat Surface Syndrome?
Well, that's my name for the accumulation of clutter that happens when we've been stationary for a while. Our boat has lots of ingenious storage solutions, all kinds of nooks and crannies and built-ins.  But when we've been at the dock for an extended period of time -- like now -- we tend to get casual about putting everything away; in fact some things don't even have designated homes just now.  Pretty soon almost every counter or tabletop or other flat surface has a few (or more than a few) items residing on it, thus the name flat surface syndrome. In a small space, even a little bit of clutter has an outsize impact on making it feel like we are out-of-control messy.  Worse, every single one of those things must be put away, "stowed" somewhere before we go sailing, or it will end up on the floor, likely broken.  Needless to say, looking at hours of cleaning up before sailing puts a crimp in our spontaneity!

And finally, what is your favorite thing about living on a boat?
You mean, I only get to pick one? I love living every day the way other people pay to live on vacation. I like the closeness to nature, really feeling the weather, the change of seasons, the water in all its moods. I love the view from the cockpit, things over, under, and on the water: sea gulls, ducks, dolphins, turtles, fish, manatees, herons and egrets, sunrise and sunset and how huge the sky is when you're not surrounded by concrete.  I like living intentionally; living on a boat you are so very aware of the environment and your impact on it (and conversely, it's impact on you!).  The small space forces us to be so much more thoughtful about our choices, aware of our ecological footprint, and our materialist, consumerist culture. And pumping our own fresh water, making our own power, being independent of the grid when we're underway or anchored out or in a storm,, gives us a whole different appreciation for the boat, our little bubble of light and warmth in a big and sometimes friendly, sometimes hostile, but always indifferent sea.  I love the boat community; individual members come and go but the vibe remains the same -- eclectic, tolerant, and supportive. Finally, if you get bored with your location, or want a change in the weather, or don't like your neighbors, you can just pick up your anchor or untie the docklines and ... leave!

Blogging from A to Z: E is for Experiences

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.

"Well, but surely there's something you like to collect!" This cute (but maybe not super-practical) teapot is for sale here. 

Gift-giving can be challenging. It's tough to intuit something that a friend will really love, and risky to put the emotional energy into surprising them with an unexpected item, though extremely gratifying when you get it right.

When we lived in Colorado, I had a friend named Joan who was way ahead of her time, a minimalist long before minimalism was cool. my friend Joan told me that one year in late November, anticipating the family Xmas reunion and gift exchange, her family asked her what she collected.  Nothing in particular, she replied. Then she told me that one of her aunts asked her to choose some category of things to begin to collect, so they could gift her with things when she and her husband came home to the Midwest for the holidays.  Joan came up with green pottery, seemingly at random, more to placate the aunt than because she really loved it, and in later years they built special shelving in their dining room to display the various pretty green platters they were given.

Think about that for a minute.  This aunt asked her to take up a hobby collecting something, anything, not because Joan needed it or it gave her pleasure, but so that they could give it to her to show that they cared.  Twenty years later it still baffles me.  I have this image of these lovely, well-meaning Midwestern ladies who perhaps had been so brainwashed by material culture that they couldn't fathom how to please their niece without buying her things.  

All of that goes triple on a boat.  We just don't have room for collections (other than digital books, music, or photos of course, that take no space, but didn't exist at the time Joan told her story), or even very many non-essentials.  Heck, we don't even have room to box, pack, and store gifts for mailing to distant land-based friends! So for gift-giving occasions, we learned early to seek things that never come in the wrong size, style, or color, never don't quite match the recipient's style, and don't require complicated shipping other than a simple envelope.  We give gifts of experiences.

Over the years we've given an annual family membership to a local natural history museum, concert tickets, a cooking class for two.  We've pre-paid a cleaning service, and sent friends for a day's sailing charter trip. A spa day or race car driving would work too. In a slightly different vein, I have one liveaboard friend who says, "If I can't eat it, drink it, or smoke it, please don't gift it to me." My friend Christy, masterful hand at this, gifts each of her nieces a memorable girl-trip for their 10th birthday -- this year, there was a trip to Disney World.  I'm betting that gift will last forever and never wear out.

Memories, education, friendships, health ... these most important things aren't "things" at all.

Blogging from A to Z: D is for Decisions and Micro-Decisions

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.

Make a decision ... even if it's wrong.

Q: Why do you always find what you're looking for in the last place you look?
A: Because after you find it, you stop looking!

This class of joke, humorously reframing the obvious, was my brother's favorite when we were kids. But it also is an insight into the way some of us -- like me! -- make decisions. There are people who do diligent research and consider all possible options to discover the objective "best" action/purchase/anchorage/whatever; and there are the people like me, less patient, maybe lazier in some ways, who list the characteristics that the ideal action/purchase/anchorage/whatever needs to have, and the first one they encounter that meets those criteria is considered good enough and is chosen. Bang, thanx, done, no looking back.  Nobel laureate Herbert Simon first described these two approaches in 1956, and much work since has indicated that too many options can lead to decision paralysis, and that people who try to make the best possible decision ("maximizers") may end up less happy than people who make the good-enough decision ("satisficers"). Here are links to some relevant articles about these concepts, ranging from very simplistic, to more scholarly, and one woman's personal takeoff.

I knew there was something weird about my decision style when I realized that I had literally spent more time choosing a bottle of wine, than I spent choosing my new car.  But looked at with the maximizer/satisficer framework, it makes total sense. I don't have enough information to make a completely informed selection from among thousands of bottles of wine.  I might narrow it down -- dry red wine from South America in the $10-$15 price range, for example -- but that could still leave dozens of choices. And, it's a difference that doesn't really change anything in the long run, what I call a micro-decision -- a choice between things that are so similar that in the long run it doesn't really matter which you chose because the impacts are identical.  Micro-decisions are exhausting precisely because there's no objective way to decide with the available information and tomorrow you probably won't even remember, either way.  Buying a car was easier: I wanted a reliable car, a convertible, under $25K, that got at least 30 mpg highway. The criteria were clear and the choices were somewhat more limited, and like the children's joke, the first one I found that met those criteria, I bought, and stopped looking.

Besides, decisions take time and energy, and I'd rather spend my energy doing different, more fun, things. Among my friends I have a reputation for decisiveness, I think it's really that I'm too lazy to agonize over details that don't really matter in the long run, a "difference that makes no difference."

Last summer as crew on the Galeon, we lived a life where many of the decisions of everyday life were made for us.  What to wear today? That decision was made for you by the watch captain or other officer; blue logo shirt if we were docking or leaving port; white if we were talking with visitors.  What to have for dinner? That was the cook's problem to figure out. Much of the other infrastructure of adult life was someone else's job as well: engines or carpentry were someone's full time job, as were navigation, route planning, paperwork, arrangements with marinas (and paying dockage, oh my).

We worked, and worked hard, but at the end of the day it was strangely refreshing to be truly done. There's an almost unnoticeable chatter going on the back of your mind at all times, all the little 'stuff' related to running your everyday life.  How often, during the last hour of the work day, are you distracted with thoughts of the errands you need to run on the way home?  "Need to stop by the grocery store to get lettuce for the salad tonight, and stop by the dry cleaners to pick up my suit, and oh yeah, swing past the hardware store to get another gallon of paint for that project we've got to paint the guest room on Saturday, and hit the ATM..." All that clutter was stilled; cooking and uniforms and maintenance were someone else's full time job, not what you did in addition to your main job. It was wonderfully liberating, and a reminder of how much energy those background decisions and micro-decisions take.

Living on a boat in general cuts through a lot of those decisions, two ways.  Maintenance takes on a different urgency -- you don't get to decide to defer fixing that leak, or the boat may sink in the meantime! And some of the other micro-decisions become moot points as well; there's simply no room for twenty pairs of shoes or a dozen different coffee mugs to choose among. If you've only got one of each thing, you don't have to decide.

(N.B., this of course is very familiar to anyone who's been in the military, or even to some extent lived in a college dorm, and it's not what I'd want forever because ultimately the price you pay in return for not having to deal with all that stuff is that you give up a lot of control over your life, but darn, it's a great break!)

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!