Publish Date: Sunday, April 5, 2009
…You know you are a cruiser! There are a ton of things I could have named this blog. When you call your bathroom a head…when you call the kitchen the galley…when you call your bed a birth…when you call the left port (and the right starboard). Yes, if any of these things are true, you are a cruiser.
Being a cruiser in some respects is similar to living on land. You still go to school, cook dinners, watch movies, play games, and make friends. However, all of these things on a boat come in a different form than on land. For instance, how many times in a house do you have to turn on the generator just to be able cook a batch of cupcakes! Or when your friends are not the people at your lunch table, but rather the nice boat over on mooring ball 13 who drove their dingy over to say hi! Even going to school or driving to dinner (using the dingy of course) is a completely different experience. Here are some other examples:
- Grocery Shopping. Or, as the title says, provisioning! Grocery shopping on a boat is probably one of
Outside the Pink Store...one of the larger ones
the most differing scenarios on a boat. To start, when I walk now into a a grocery store with more than two isles and dairy that is before it’s expiration date, I am in shock (the bahamas
Washing off the provisions on the swim platform!
provisioning is sometimes lacking). After you provision, getting things back to the boat is often interesting. It is easy to load things into the trunk of a car, but when you have 20 knot winds and waves, its a bit more tricky. When you are in foreign countries, all cans and fruit MUST be washed off before they even come off the swim platform (we use a shower, not salt water). Besides that, NO cardboard comes on the boat (Bye Bye cereal boxes).
- Another difference is, as I mentioned before, getting around. When you are in a car, you don’t have to make decisions such as whether to stand up or not, whether to pull the choke out, or whether you’ll be back by nightfall (if not you have to get your navigation lights and turn on the anchor light)!
- School is super different. Aside from doing the normal things such as geography, my favorite history
Doing school...PAJAMA DAY!!!!
, and spelling, I am also learning all about navigation, maintaining a boat, and all sorts of other things! We are actually starting celestial navigation in math soon! In science, we often test the depth and visibility as well as current in a certain anchorage. Blogging is part of Writing!
- When you live on land in a house, It isn’t custom for people to drive up to your house (carrying a loaf of fresh baked bread) knock on the door, compliment your house, and invite you
One of our sunset occasions with people we met only a few hours earlier!
over to theirs for happy hour! However, as a cruiser, this is common to see! On several occasions, we have been going along with our daily chores when a dingy full of friendly faces pulls up to the back of our boat, often carrying fresh fruit or baked goods, and begins a conversation. Before you even know where they are from, you have them in for happy hour! Also, on land, I highly doubt you ask the question “what type of house do you have?” or “Where do you hail from?”!