rudderless

Stifling

I know I’ve belabored the heat of the last month, but I felt somewhat justified when I heard today that after one of the coldest winters on record in South Florida (and no complaints about that!), we had the hottest May ever. Ever. This morning the heat index was well over 90, before 9 AM. We look forward to a climate where winter is the time to batten down the hatches and cozy up around a fire. To make slow-cooked food and loaves of bread in an oven. Right now the oven is off limits. In fact, I have cooked little other than coffee this week, trying to keep the boat at a reasonable temperature in the late afternoon. It’s a good challenge- finding ways to feed a family with veggies and salads and bread baked in someone elses’s oven. If anyone has a favorite no-cook recipe, I’d love to have it. My sister’s black-eyed pea salad is on the list for this week.

These are time I miss my grandmothers. Peachy would have had an entire compendium of recipes fit for the Southern heat. Granny Ross would have had practical suggestions, and maybe a jar of homemade pickles from her sister’s garden. When it starts to feel hot on our little yacht, I try to imagine not so long ago, living in the southern part of Georgia, in the summers without air conditioning. Or living in Houston, Texas, where my mom grew up, lying under the attic fan on hot nights, running across hot asphalt, barefoot. East Texas can be a very hot place.

Recently I came across a recording of my grandfather, telling the particular circumstances of his birth, on August 20, 1917. He was born in a small town in Eastern Alabama, not far from Columbus, Georgia, where he lived as an adult.

“I have often wondered what it was like to birth an overweight baby in Camp Hill, Alabama in August of 1917. Must have been terribly hot. All the windows would have been open. I think the house had screens, as I was told. There was a spigot over the porch, with fresh water. That was the sum total of the plumbing other than chimney pots and a privy in the backyard. Dr. Louis Hamner presided over the proceedings, I’m told, and apparently they went quite normally for those times.”

Quite normally for those times. As hot as hot can be.
I wish I could channel some of that normalcy, just to ask a few questions. Get some advice, and continue to feel grateful for my particular situation, with wet kids every night and the cool confines of our boat to slip into.

Twenty Three Months

Dear Roo,

This is the last of your month-birthday letters before the big TWO! I wrote twenty four letters to Sophie and I swore up and down that despite the fact that you were second in line to the throne, I’d do the same for you. We did it! We have reflected on nearly two years of milestones and stories, hard months and lovely ones.

This month? A lot of both. Two is coming on like a freight train, in all the textbook, headstrong ways. “I do it” is the endless refrain, from putting clothes on, to buckling carseat straps, to using sharp scissors. I do it. Most times you actually do, and I’m the one who needs to be reminded to slow down and let you savor the accomplishments. “NO!” is another fun refrain. Most times you say it just to say it. Just to remind us that you have a say, a voice, in the matters of the day. The opposite of NO is this breathy, wonderful, “Yah.” Never yes, just “Yah . . .”

On the other end of the spectrum, this has been the month of cuddling, loving, hugging, lip kissing. All day long there are proclamations of “I wuv you, Daddy. I wuv Sophie.” Sometimes you’ll roll over in the middle of the night, looking for a stray Binky and then say, “I wuv you Mommy.” When you’ve done something wrong, the “I wuv yous” come out like a weapon. My, you’ve learned fast. It makes me feel good to see you giving us love, as it means we’re giving you plenty of it.

And love there is. So very much, for our impish, mischevious, wonderful you. For you, singing “Puff the Magic Dragon” in the car. You, and your “cool cool shoes” (everything is “cool, cool”). You, eating yogurt raisins. You, holding Sophie’s hand as you walk down the dock saying, “Wook at dat boat, Mommy! Wook at dat!” Always questioning, always noticing, endlessly you.

We love you Lily B, Rosy Roo, RooBot, Roobee, Bobo, Chachi, Baby, Biggirl, Rosy Wandrum.
xo,
mama

Water water everywhere

and not a drop to drink . . .

I just finished the National Geographic issue about water. It had the usual scary receding glacier pictures (there are few things that sicken me more), and a half dozen fascinating maps of the world’s rivers. But the one statement that has stayed with me was the fact that the average American uses 100 gallons of water at home every day. Albuquerque, New Mexico, recently brought their per capita consumption down to 80 gallons, from 140 gallons per day! Where does it go? As I was filling up our drinking water jugs the other night I tried to do the math for us. As a family of four we go through about 58 gallons of freshwater a week, on the boat, for dishes, drinking, washing and cooking. Our toilet/head uses saltwater exclusively. Our tank is pumped weekly by a local pump-out boat to keep it out of the Keys waters. The girls and I shower together at the marina, with a low-flow shower head. Between ourselves and John, we use about 40 gallons a week to keep ourselves clean. We do two loads of laundry a week, which we estimate to be about 80 gallons total. That brings our total family freshwater usage to 178 gallons per week. If you go by National Geographic’s numbers, the average American family of four (like ours), uses 2800 gallons of freshwater per week.

One of the pieces in the magazine profiled a community in Ethiopia where women spend eight hours of their day walking to and from a dirty river to fetch drinking water. They wash their clothes once a year. We are clean, healthy, and well-fed. We drink all the water we want. In fact, we’ve banned juice and other sticky beverages from the boat, so water is just about all our kids drink. John and I supplement with beer. But the numbers seem staggering to me. How is our weekly total just 78 gallons more than the average American uses on a daily basis?

I found a water use calculator for Tampa, Florida and entered some guesstimations for the average family of four- two showers a day, a few baths a week, a lawn to water occasionally (in Florida, for sure!), four loads of laundry per week . . . and sure enough, I hit the 100 gallon per day mark. It must come down to a few things. Our faucets don’t run. They can’t run, as I have a foot pump to feed water to my galley sink. We don’t have a lawn or a garden. If we do in the future, we will most certainly collect rainwater for the plants. The toilet seems to be an enormous consumer. Here in the Keys, we’ve been short on water for so long that public restrooms will often sport the sign, “If it’s yellow, let it mellow . . .” I’m not advocating drastic measures, but for land-based homes, a composting toilet is looking better and better. I’ve seen dishwashers that recycle graywater/rainwater, but they seem to be fairly efficient appliances to begin with. Far better than handwashing. I have made a concerted effort to cut down on our laundry- making sure that the girls clothes are actually dirty. Rosy being out of diapers has helped. And I suppose showering is a state of mind. We don’t shower every day. If we worked in an office or got particularly gross at a job, we certainly would, but years of sailboat living have robbed us of that need. We do spend a lot of time in the pool.

We didn’t move onto the boat to save water. It is a wonderful by-product of our lifestyle, in the same way that energy conservation comes naturally on a boat fueled almost entirely by wind power and solar panels (when we’re off the dock!). But crunching numbers like this makes me truly appreciate how much we were taking for granted. Freshwater truly falling from the sky. Everywhere you look, with every faucet you turn on. And yet it defines entire existences in other parts of the world.

How lucky we are.

Vonk

My friend John sent me this picture a few days ago and it has jogged all sorts of memories. It was early in the morning, in Boston Harbor- I love the city and the sunrise behind him. We were packed into zero-degree sleeping bags on the stern of an open pulling boat. A big storm was coming in. John was not amused. I can almost hear the voice of the NOAA weather operator on his radio. So long ago, and not so long at all.

I wonder if everyone has a John Vonk in their life. A perfect stranger, then a friend, who had a hand in truly shaping the trajectory of my future. I met John Vonk eight years ago, my first day of work in Everglades City, not far from here. He was going out on course, leading a bunch of preteens into mosquito country in a canoe. We often hijacked the school sailboat and tried to short-tack our way to Chokoloskee. We had a grand few months, and then the season ended. The “What, now?” began. He suggested I come to Boston for a WFR class and Watch-O training (Outward Bound sailing instructor training). I had no idea what those acronyms meant. No earthly idea. He even called me an acronym- ERL, “Earl,” my initials. In Boston we froze out butts off on a pulling boat, rode out the worst weather he’d seen as a captain, and then he flew off to his future in Seattle and left me to discover my own. My own John- his friend, and now my husband.

Were it not for John Vonk, I’d never have gone to Boston, not in a million years. He planted the seed, met me at the door, and then left me to my own devices on that tiny island. He invited my John for a beer, encouraged me to dig a little deeper. He was the backstage manager, all along.

I just noticed that he shares a birthday with my littlest girl.

Simple, special

A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. – via soulemama

Mike

Two months into the full-time living aboard we have made a big decision. Our dear parakeet is not making the trip North with us. Tomorrow Mike will join a veritable kindergarten of other parakeets at a lovely local pet shop (where birds are literally free to roam!). He will be happier, but we will miss him- especially Sophie. It comes down to an issue of space, temperament, and fairness. We will soon be off the dock and the hatches will be open all day long. Parakeets need temperatures in the mid-70s all the time, and are susceptible to drafts. Unlike Mike, we are not creatures meant for the Tropics. Sophie spent most of the morning complaining that Key West is “just a hot place.”

We do our best to keep him warm, but he has been nothing but grumpy and bitey recently, leaving us with even less motivation to get him out and about. He is growing up, ready to fly and needs more space. Keeping him caged and swinging with the boat’s motion seems downright cruel. The pet shop owner says that he’s probably molting and will eventually be less grumpy. But our living situation isn’t changing soon, and for a bird who needs constant tropical conditions, we can’t justify making him more grumpy. He would frankly hate Maine.

I think both of us feel torn about sending Sophie the message that pets are temporary- will she wonder when the next one will get returned or passed on? But on the flipside, there’s the question of what is best for the animal. And being with us, in this case, is surely not the best situation for Mike. We’ve tried to emphasize the “this is what’s best for him” part, the unselfishness of her decision, but deep down we’re fairly selfish for wanting and keeping a bird in the first place, not to mention giving him up! Ah, the conundrums of parenthood . . . In the end he’s had a nice life with us and will have a nice life in petland, wherever that takes him. Perhaps I’m giving too much weight to the question of a bird. A birdbrain, afterall.

John broke the news to Sophie and she was bereft, until talk of a puppy emerged. A puppy in Maine, on land, not before. Ahem.
She wrote a letter to her friend Johnathan to tell him about Mike. It was her way of processing it. We drew a picture together. He was a lovely pet, I must say. And will be missed, by all of us. Even Rosy, who imitates his “shuffle dance” and calls him “Michael.” Mikey Mike, here’s to happy life where you can have a girlfriend and all the honey treats a bird deserves. We will not soon forget your green feathers and your close-quarters flights in the boat. Or the time you flew onto the neighboring catamaran, and then back, petrified of what you were capable of. Thank you for being Sophie’s first real pet.

I can guarantee he won’t be the last.

Our own oil slick

I am a solid week behind. I was just meandering through the blogs I frequent and found myself reading about Mother’s Day. Which feels like a year ago.

Needless to say, it has been a long week. I spent Mother’s Day in the pool, at a party and at the park, trying to give John space to work on the engine (a messy, smelly job). After much debate, and many attempts to solve the problems with the old Bukh, we have decided to replace it. We can’t get parts for it, we can’t get it to work, we have so many questions about what condition it’s in . . . By Monday we felt confident that we’d found a great Japanese replacement. But much to our dismay, there is not one Yanmar 3YM available for sale in the United States. We are on the list for shipment in late June. Let’s just hope our engine gets on the boat from Japan! The good news is, it seems to be a fabulous fit. We shouldn’t have to modify much. The systems for fuel and water intake, etc. are already in place. This won’t be the same ground-up overhaul we did in 2004 (which you can still read about!). But still- the waiting . . .

We are trying to look on the bright side. We will have an engine we feel good about, that we’ve installed ourselves and know inside and out. We feel lucky to be able to even make this choice! There is much we can accomplish while we wait. Perhaps it was a nudge in the direction we were supposed to go in.

I will never forget the last frenzied days of our last engine installation. Putting in the exhaust fittings at night. The thrill of throwing off the docklines so we could chug down the Chelsea Creek, secretly hoping our neighbors would stick their heads up and notice us, under our own power! The sweetness of that day will come again. It was so close I think we both could taste it, and while it’s not far off, it feels like a few light years away.

Letting go is a hard thing to do. Especially when the crud comes at the tail end of an all-consuming four-year project (for John, more than me). I wish I could promise him a lifetime of relaxation after this ordeal, but he and I both know that that is simply not fitting with who we are. We’ll work through this and move on to the next challenge. Hopefully one that involves a more frequent change of scenery, a good breeze, a quiet anchorage, and the reliable chug-chug-chug of a job well done.

Super Powers

Tonight we watched The Incredibles for our occasionally-remembered family movie night. They are a family of superheroes brought out of hiding to save the planet. Each one has a particular superpower. Dad is strong, mom is elastic, daughter can disappear, son is super-fast. It’s a great movie, if not a bit much for Sophie. But with our translating and encouragement, she enjoyed it. At the end, she assigned us superhero roles. It started out predictably. Sophie=fast runner. Daddy=STRONG. Rosy began as a baby who can shoot peanut butter crackers, which evolved into super-propeller of Binkies. Mommy, was a no-brainer, apparently. Me=super-shooter of boob milk at the enemies eyes. I am proud to say I have a power no other member of my family can hold a claim to.

Nearly four years of breastfeeding have paid off, in more ways than one! Now, off to save the world in our tie-dyed and gray shirts (John’s uniform). Each in our own particular way.

Lessons Learned

-We pulled the bitter end of the outhaul into the boom because I failed to notice it didn’t have a figure-8 knot at the end. Big mistake. Lesson learned: slow down and double check important lines before making dumb moves. Also, John can fix anything. Absolutely anything.

-Rosy has taken nursing to a whole new level. She’s an addict. Anytime she’s in my lap, it’s “Booby? Booby now? Booby on couch?” Needless to say, I’m ready for her to slow down. I’m not asking for full-on weaning. Just some more sleep. She cried for an hour last night, after I’d nursed her and then told her we were done. She pleaded, “More booby? 234567 booby (I told her we would have ONE booby)? BIG GIRL needs booby! Puh-weeeeeze, booby??” Lesson learned: Rosy is not ready to wean, as much as I am. I have to figure out another way to make bedtime less painful, for all of us.

-Sophie said her first sarcastic comment the other day. “Thank you, World, for giving us this super-hot day. Thank you, Maybe next time, world, you’ll make us a cooler one.” Lesson learned: None of us are suited for this climate. Heat indexes in the upper 90s, in May?? What is the world coming to? John bought them a pool. We LOVE it.

We’re off to fix the outhaul and rig the mainsail, with its cover, and its new sailties. This week we’ve added a radar tower, a dodger (LOVE it!), sail cover, nonskid paint, a working DC panel, anchor chain and line ready to be deployed, shade covers for the hatches, a second leecloth. Busy is as busy does. Sometimes I have to make lists like these to realize that in between the sandwich-making and pool play, we do get stuff done. And we are that much closer to leaving the hot hot heat. We truly are.

Happy Birthday to my sister and almost-Mother’s Day weekend to my mom! More on the Mom holiday to come . . . .

Hot hot heat

It’s hot here. So very hot. Too hot to use most of the unshaded playgrounds around (I mean really, you’d think the Keys parents would organize protests about the lack of shaded playspaces in this sub-tropical part of the country. The slides burn their legs. The swings are unusable. Even the sand is burning hot. I don’t get it). We do quite a bit of swimming. And in Sophie’s case, we’re busy ditching the waterwings, moving into real big-kid territory.

Otherwise, we play on the boat. Today they lassoed each other with vent hose. We’ve gone through two batches of play-dough, which is always coupled with tiny plastic animal play. Elephants get blankets and life jackets and swimsuits. It’s amazing how far even Rosy can take an imaginary game when there’s crumbly (bane of my existence) dough involved. The newest game is “puppet show.” We made a half dozen drawings on characters from Sleeping Beauty and Sophie colored them in. Add some empty cereal boxes on the back and a few clothespins- voila! Instant puppet theater. The real thrill came when I got out the video camera and recorded the show.

Our days have a built-in siesta, thanks to Rosy’s midday sleep. Sophie gets to veg out to a show- Reading Rainbow is our current favorite. So educational and engaging, even for adults. Most of the episodes on DVD are ones my mom taped for us as kids. We play or swim in the afternoons and then make dinner. Once the sun goes down the bodies come out again. We ride bikes, walk the docks, take the dinghy for a spin. Our days in the hot hot heat. Not much to complain about besides . . .