Boat envy

A brush from some boat work we did.

When we went to see a movie at another kid boat, I have to admit I got a little jealous. Their boat is quite a bit newer than ours, has a nice modern layout, and is just not as tired as our 20-year old boat. I realize that they have a lot more money than we do (they still own their house and are having a vacation home built in an exotic locale) and spent way more on their boat than we did. But you have to appreciate a boat that looks clean after you have cleaned it.

The feeling only lasted a short time though. I actually love our boat. It is home and it is right for us. The boys can live in it and drop their cars on the floor without ruining a perfect finish. It's our home now.

Also, what we are finding is that having a newer boat does not preclude spending a ton of time and money on fixes. The spending-too-much-on-boats club has a lot of members.

Plants

We bought some mint (for mojitos, of course) and basil. We will see whether (1) they survive our brown thumbs* and (2) we are allowed to bring them into the Bahamas. We already failed a little by putting the mint and basil in the same container as they have different sunlight needs.

*The aloe plant that another boat on the dock gave us is already looking a little yellow despite being "indestructible."

Here fishy, fishy

We went fishing at Anglin's Pier last night. Even if you're not fishing there is a great view of the ocean (although you have to pay a small amount to get on the pier). Sometimes there is really good shrimping--a woman we talked to at Sailorman said she got 60 pounds with very little effort. But there haven't been any good shrimp runs this season yet.

The pelicans will steal your bait if you're not careful.

We didn't catch any keepers and fed the fish a lot of shrimp bits (the fishermen that were having success were using squid and bigger poles it seems; I'm sure there was no other reason) but it was a lot of fun. Another guy caught an eel and a ray.

We saw one guy who tags sharks for research spend 20 minutes trying to reel in a 6-foot shark. He kept running up and down the dock with his pole, ducking under everyone else's poles. In the end, it got away when he handed his pole to someone else and went down to the beach to get to the shark. Before he went down to the beach, he said that no one else should go down to the beach with the shark there. No problem.

One of the fisherman next to us gave us a good sized bluefish that Matt filleted up for dinner. There must have been a school coming by because while we were there 6 or 7 were caught.

The picture above was Conrad fishing while trying to explain the finer points of fishing to a 6-year old girl who was on the dock. It was a contest for who could talk the most. They both won.

So did you win the lottery?

We have been asked indirectly and directly how we can afford to quit our jobs and live aboard a sailboat. No, we did not win the lottery or inherit money. So, just how can we afford to sail off?

Simple. We saved a lot. Simple, like lose weight by eating less or squeeze the toothpaste tube from the bottom and work your way up. "Simple, maybe, but not easy."

That's a quote from the movie "The Prestige". If you haven't seen it and you plan to, then--SPOILER ALERT--skip the rest of this paragraph. It's about two rival magicians. The way that one of the magicians performs the ultimate illusion is by living with his twin as a single person. The line (simple, maybe, but not easy) is uttered right before a montage that depicts the life of the twins and includes the purposeful severing of fingertips and daily betrayal of loved ones.

Our 'saving' montage would be way more boring and would include paying off credit card debt and student loans, rehabbing a 2-flat and renting it, bringing our lunch to work, and using an old flip phone* (me, not Matt--he can only take so much). It would leave out the vacations and weekly sushi habit. It's all very unexciting but we found that it is true that if you train yourself to want less, you don't feel like you're missing out.

We have been fortunate in many ways. And we are not recommending that everyone make the same choices. Some people would rather gouge their eye out with a toothpick. But you do have a choice. I love this post about time versus money. Of course, one of our big assumptions in all this is that we will be able to cruise pretty inexpensively. Others have done it so we know it is possible. In future posts, we plan to publish our actual costs so you can see how it is going.

*I swear my phone had a "G" on it the other day--as in not 3G or 4G connectivity, just G.

Oh, mast off

 

 

When we had our 26 foot Pearson on Lake Michigan, one year we lowered the mast ourselves with a couple of guys. I'm not saying it was a good idea, but it happened. Another year the crane operator dropped the mast due to mishandling. There were no serious injuries or damages. Today when we had our 67 foot mast taken off to have some work done, it was a whole 'nother ball game.

A mistep by this crane operator would mean serious injury or death. It really drove home how much bigger this boat is than what we are used to. Docking this beast was also quite the experience with the tide and wind fighting against us. There were a couple of times where we got close to scraping the hull a bit. But we avoided any damage to the boat and/or totally embarassing ourselves. So I guess we can play in this league for now.

Hurry up and wait

 

So far there was not a hitch. The workpeople, to be sure--riggers and

what not --were most annoyingly slow; but time cured that.

 

Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson

 

We are reading Treasure Island right now. It was written in 1883 and yet here we are in 2013, waiting for the riggers. They recently informed us that they could not install our new mast tracks without taking the mast down. Nevermind that two weeks ago they said they could.

So Friday we are having our mast taken down. Oh, well. It will give us the opportunity to inspect everything and install a new anchor light and radar mount without Matt getting a superwedgie going up the mast again.

Instead of this week, maybe we can set sail next week. Sigh.

 

  

 

Yesterday we played tourist and spent the day at the Miami Metropolitan Zoo. We practically had the whole place to ourselves. It is much more spread out than the zoos back in Chicago. They rent 4-wheel bicycles to facilitate getting around. There is also a tram and a monorail. Conrad and Mark spent most of their time digging in the dinosaur sand pit and jumping off a rock (things you can do for free outside of the zoo).

 

We met up with Shelley and Sanders, friends from Chicago who are in Miami for a few days, and ended the day with mojitos, which is becoming a theme for our time here, and Conrad tried escargot. Read his post about our day here.

  



The unmitigated joy of it all

We went to the boat show in Miami on Friday. It was cold, gray and rainy. Our jackets were not waterproof. Mark was being difficult and prompting disapproving looks from strangers (sometimes as he ran straight into them). As is often the case in such moments, I felt like a failure as a mother.




On the water taxi to the other part of the show.

Some hot chocolate to warm up.



We took a water taxi and bus to the other part of the boat show, which took so long that when we got there we had to turn around and come back so Matt would be in time for a seminar. He was helping the broker that sold us our boat give a talk on "project boats." Yeah, here's a tip for you. Don't buy one. Just kidding. Sort of.

While Matt was at the presentation, the kids and I walked around the show. At one point, as we walked along the waterfront, Mark decided to go tearing as fast as he could along the sea wall. I was yelling after him to stop, chasing him (while trying to keep Conrad with me) and having visions of him tumbling down into the water. A couple of times he looked back to smile and make eye contact and then keep going. From a distance I saw a security guard and then later an older woman stop him momentarily but he must have convinced them that it was okay for him to keep running because they let him go.

When I finally caught him I was extremely irate. I was about to start chewing him out for not listening when he broke into a huge grin and said, "I'm so happy!" "What? Why?" I asked. "Because this is so cool!" That and the ecstatic look on his face melted my cranky-mom heart right down. It's hard to stay mad in the face of such pure joy. Well played, little man. Well played. Of course, he still got a timeout for not listening. Yeah, sometimes Moms have to be jerks.

The snapshot above (sorry, it's hard to take dolphin pics with a slow, crap camera) shows a few of the dolphins that were playing along the seawall. At one point they were right next to the crowd of people watching and several dolphins were diving down in a circle. If you could bottle the happiness that dolphins bring to people, man, you would be rich.

We ended the day with mojitos and fruity drinks for the kids and, despite the weather and difficulties, some great memories.