Why do we Cruise?

This article was also published in Cruising Outpost Magazine. See it here.

There is a stereotype that says that most cruising couples are out cruising because the male instigated the lifestyle. On our boat this is not the case. I am the instigator of our current cruising life but in actuality it was the male in my family that started this whole thing.

Back in the late 80s my dad got the cruising bug and over the course of a year my parents and I sailed from Germany to California as we immigrated to the US (more on that here). This ruined me for a "normal" life... no longer would I be able to happily hold down a 9-5 cubicle job with healthcare and a retirement plan. A life of quiet desperation would not do for me. So when I met Mike I started telling him about sailing and cruising. After some adventures aboard our pocket-cruisers we started saving to make full-time cruising a reality.

I imagine preparing for cruising was easier for me than for someone who has never been. I had a pretty good idea of what to expect and what the lifestyle entailed. What I didn't expect is how much the cruising community had grown. There are cruisers everywhere! With the advent of GPS, global communications, solar, watermakers and the like, this lifestyle has opened up to any adventurous soul with some money in their pocket. 

Long gone are the days of listening in on people calling home over the VHF* (via the marine operator), asking big ships to confirm positions and weeks spent without any news from home. With up-to-the-minute updates via blogs and Facebook some of the allure of cruising has gone missing.

Of course we revel in all of this luxury ourselves. We have 3 huge solar  panels to keep the gadgets going, a watermaker to take daily showers at anchor, 6 or 7 GPS units, a sat phone and countless toys. But our boat is also ready to run without all of these things - comfortably - just like we did it in the 80s.

Heading out to cross the Atlantic aboard Joy in the late 80s. 

 Camille at anchor

* After crossing the Atlantic we tried calling my grandma in Germany via the Marine Operator. The operator asked my dad with whom he would like to be connected. Rather than giving the phone number my dad simply said: "My mother-in-law". 

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This post was written as part of a blog-hop. Visit the Monkey's Fist website for posts about this topic written by other cruisers or check out these topics:  

Relationships Aboard
Pink and Blue Jobs Aboard
Leave it or Bring it: Stuff
Provisioning
Fear
Swag and Approaching the Natives
Clothes and Laundry

Relationships on Board

Without 9-5 jobs, cars and a big house Mike and I spend a lot of time together. People who don't live on boats are often amazed at how we are able to cope. They think their mate would drive them nuts.

While we do sometimes drive each other nuts I don't think much more so than when we lived "normal" lives. In the past we worked for the same company and drove to work together, had lunch together if we didn't eat at our desks and lived far away from close friends and family. We've always spent a considerable amount of time together.

To get some space on the boat we usually end up in different parts of the boat - Mike likes to do his boat-chores in the cockpit and does most outside maintenance. I'm more of an inside person. When we lived in a house Mike liked to work out in the garage and I was in the house or yard.

When fights do erupt - and they do! - luckily neither one of us is one to hold a grudge very long. And after a bit of cooling off time we usually can't keep a straight face when when our eyes meet.  Most fights really are silly when you think about it. And thankfully both of us had great role-models. Both of our parents have been married over 40 years!

It's also important to get off the boat. Experiencing the world around us just shows us even more how petty most of our issues really are. And at the end of the day we live on a boat in paradise!

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This post was written as part of a blog-hop. Visit the Monkey's Fist website for posts about this topic written by other cruisers or check out these topics: 

Why do we Cruise
Pink and Blue Jobs Aboard
Leave it or Bring it: Stuff
Provisioning
Fear
Swag and Approaching the Natives
Clothes and Laundry

Pink and Blue Jobs Aboard

Pink's Point of View 
Our division of chores hasn't changed much since moving aboard. Mike used to drive us to work (we worked for the same company) and now he mostly drives the boat - he is a much better boat-handler anyway. I've always been the organizer and cleaner. Mike's used to fiddle with things in the garage, now he fiddles out in the cockpit. We both cook and we both stand watches underway. I like to make the boat cozy and comfortable just as I always did our homes on shore.

Mostly we just divide chores by what we each feel like doing and what we're good at. The problem on a boat comes when he's better at fixing things than I am, so he ends up with a lot more work sometimes. Like maintaining the engine, outboard and generator and fixing things like waterpumps and watermakers and going up the mast. I try to pay attention and learn but I think guys just have more years on us in learning about engine stuff. Maybe it's an innate guy thing, who knows? 

So I do the laundry, keep everything clean, handle our finances, research parts for repairs and organize some more. All of our food stores and spare parts are tracked in an iPad app and there is nothing we can't find (except for that one part we actually need). And I take pictures to make sure our lives are documented. Lots and lots of pictures which also need to be organized and then shared with friends and family.


Blue's Point of View 
I do blue jobs... I do pink jobs... I do green jobs, brown jobs and even black jobs. I have a hard time categorizing by color. This is probably why I am so disorganized in the "home".

For example, a few days ago we heard the oh so dreaded sound of a dying macerator. I disassembled the macerator and cleaned up the chopper blades. What color would one ascribe to this job? Isn't cleaning a pink job? But I was "fixing" a pump, which sounds "blue" to me. The pump is for "black" water though, so I would categorize this as a black job.

I would like to get on my high horse and say that I am an awesome team player and that on a boat, if you see a job that needs doing, you should get on it. I feel as though I am selfish when it comes to cooking which most would categorize as a "pink" job. I mostly do it because I am very hungry. But how about grilling meat? Burning meat over a fire has to be a "blue" job! When cooking is done outside of the kitchen how does it become a "blue" job?

I do the vast majority of the "blue" jobs on the boat. I fix this and fix that, lube this and lube that. However a lot of times the pink worker comes over and tells me there is a better way to do a blue job. She does have a very good eye for detail and when she applies her good eye to a task there really is no better. I have to catch myself sometimes, set my ego aside, and listen to the pink worker. Though sometimes she is wrong... ;-)

Snowy Egret on the beach

Walking to the beach

View from our boat of the Sierra Madre Mountains after heavy rains on New Years Day

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This post was written as part of a blog-hop. Visit the Monkey's Fist website for posts about this topic written by other cruisers or check out these topics: 

Why do we Cruise
Relationships Aboard
Leave it or Bring it: Stuff
Provisioning
Fear
Swag and Approaching the Natives
Clothes and Laundry

S.P.A.C.E.

I am a bit obsessed with organizing. I drive Mike nuts because I'm always "organizing his stuff away". I try to go through one area of the boat at least once a week, reorganizing and tossing things we no longer need.  On a boat there is not much space for any unimportant items.

Our "garage" is the guest bed, there are boxes of tools in our bedroom, and food and spare parts under our bed. As I'm writing this I'm sitting next to a pillow filled with spare blankets. We're surrounded by our stuff! Living in a house it was easy to put stuff out in the garage or into a closet. No need to look at it day in and day out.

The garage

When we lived on land we had a vacuum to keep the carpet clean and a big mop-like sweeper to keep hardwood floors clean. But what to do on a small boat with not much floor space and varying availability of electricity? You buy smaller versions of the same items - either rechargeable or 12 volt - the best is to have both!

Our boat came with a rather large upright rechargeable vacuum. Our first thought was to get rid of the thing. Mike already had it sitting on the dock to sell or give away. I brought it back aboard to vacuum the rugs and it hasn't left since. I use it everyday to sweep up and am grateful I kept it. So much easier than crawling around on the floor. The best part is that a little handhelp pops out to reach small spaces!

There are larger items than the vacuum on board, but this is the biggest item that we really could do without.

Do you need some help getting organized? I use the SPACE formula when I organize. To learn more about organizing check out books by the organizing expert who came up with this.

S - Sort - make piles of like items
P - Purge - get rid of what you don't need
A - Assign - assign every item a "home"
C - Containerize - use drawers or bins to keep like with like
E - Equalize - take 5-10 minutes every day to maintain

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This post was written as part of a blog-hop. Visit the Monkey's Fist website for posts about this topic written by other cruisers or check out these topics:  

Why do we Cruise
Relationships Aboard
Pink and Blue Jobs Aboard
Provisioning
Fear
Swag and Approaching the Natives
Clothes and Laundry

Provisioning and Lessons Learned

Before heading further south into Mexico we spent three months in Ensenada (60 miles south of the border) getting Camille ready and driving across the border to San Diego once a week to buy parts and gear. During this time I was learning what types of food are available at Mexican grocery stores but we had a hard time weening ourselves from what's familiar. So we filled Camille to the waterline with all of our favorite foods from Trader Joe's and cases of wine from Whole Foods (only $2 per bottle and much better than the two buck Chuck from TJs!). In retrospect, the food is the same here, just some labels are different (and in Spanish of course).  

At the US-Mexico border. Waiting to get into the US. This usually took about three hours!

Not quite a year later and some of that food is starting to expire! And we're left wishing we had stocked up on things other than food. Not to mention that food is MUCH cheaper in Mexico and we could have saved a ton of money!

Case in point: We are currently adding a new sunshade to the cockpit and in order to install the twist snaps (which we brought back from our recent trip to the US) we needed a lot of stainless steel machine screws. We went all over town to find size 6/32 machine screws in half inch - we should have bought more when we were in the states. Stainless is nearly impossible to find in this country! Especially when you need a specific size. Either that or it is extremely expensive. We were able to find one inch screws at the local marine store (think: a third to half more expensive than West Marine) and Mike had to cut them to size.

Parts for repair and maintenance for the boat are also pretty hard to find and cost at least a third more because import duty and taxes have to be paid. Forget about getting anything shipped here. It is not cheap and might not make it! Better to fly back when you have a long list of needed items.

If we had to do it over we would buy more spare parts and trinkets for the boat and a lot less food before leaving the US. Though we have spare parts for nearly everything on board, Murphy's law mandates that only the things you don't have spares for will break - like our galley faucet which luckily was available at Home Depot. Note that not all Home Depots are created equal. When you first walk into the chain in Mexico you feel like you have been ported back into the US but you soon notice that the selection is limited. No stainless screws, nuts or bolts for example...

To provision for passages or long periods at anchor I have a master list of all the items we have bought before and eat/use regularly. My master list is kept on my iPhone in the Reminders app. Things we do not need are listed as completed and before we go shopping I go over my list and uncheck the items we need to buy. While/after shopping we click on the check box and once again complete the item. 

The more we spend time away from grocery stores the more I learn how much of an item we will need and I usually just guesstimate quantities while shopping (one/two per day of such and such). Fresh items are the hardest to plan for. After a week and a half we are usually down to a few apples, oranges, limes, onions and potatoes. Avocados will ripen overnight in this climate but will last over a week if kept in an open green bag in the fridge. I also use green bins in the fridge. Carrots, and jalapenos, and even things like strawberries will stay fresh longer. 

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This post was written as part of a blog-hop. Visit the Monkey's Fist website for posts about this topic written by other cruisers or check out these topics:  

Why do we Cruise
Relationships Aboard
Pink and Blue Jobs Aboard
Leave it or Bring it: Stuff
Fear
Swag and Approaching the Natives
Clothes and Laundry

Fear

A couple weeks into our 21-day Atlantic crossing from the Canary Islands to Barbados we were sailing along nicely while I was fast asleep in my bunk. It was that magic time when things always seem to go wrong - around 2am. I was awoken by a loud thud and a strong jerk which felt like the boat had come to a sudden stop. It was all hands on deck. The boat had indeed stopped moving, though the sails were still full and trying hard to pull the boat. 

Had we run aground in the middle of the Atlantic? We checked the bilge for any intrusion of water and after finding a slow trickle we grabbed some flashlights and checked around the boat. And there they were: faded yellow buoys attached to an old fishing net surrounding our boat. We pulled up on the net and started cutting it back but it just kept going and going like one of those magic handkerchiefs. In the beam of the flashlight we could see a thick line leading down into the deep dark sea. We later learned the net had been hung up on the propeller and broken our strut in half. 

After having seen but one boat in the past two weeks my mom suddenly saw a light on the horizon. We called them on the VHF and they responded immediately. We told them of our troubles and they offered to help. When they pulled up next to us we were looking at a 55 meter (180 feet) luxury yacht - the Lady Ghislane of London - then owned by British billionaire and member of parliament Robert Maxwell. 

They offered to have their divers cut us loose in the morning but until then they did not want to waste time by waiting around. They tossed us a line and proceeded to tow us through the rest of the night at 10-15 knots! We had never seen those kind of speeds on our boat and it was not without some damage.  We had a few bent stanchions and nearly ripped the cleats out of the deck before we attached the tow line to the mast. 

Our wake while being towed

At first light their divers cut away the net and line.* We had a slow leak the rest of the crossing and in Barbados hauled the boat to make repairs. Since we were participants in the ARC (Atlantic Rally for Cruisers) our story was written up in the 1994 edition of Jimmy Cornell's book "World Cruising Handbook".

This event took place in 1987 when I was 14 and cruising with my parents. I recall not being scared at all. On the contrary. Something was finally going on! After two weeks at sea it was a welcome relief from the routine. 

How would I react to something like this happening today? Panic comes to mind. Being over a thousand miles from land without a GPS-enabled EPIRB (GPS didn't exist back then) trapped in a piece of rope attached to an unknown item in the abyss and unable to move forward is not a favorable situation. 

In the years leading up to our current cruising adventures I still had that same fearless attitude and didn't think I would be scared venturing far offshore on our own boat. Boy was I wrong. Something about growing up and learning about everything that could go wrong has made me a lot more fearful of the sea and traveling by boat. 

The good thing about no longer being fearless is that I now think (obsess?) about everything that could go wrong and try to plan accordingly. Working as hydrographers, Mike and I were lucky to have had our share of safety courses and monthly drills where we learned how to deal with most major emergencies.

The next time you find yourself sitting in your cockpit while underway, look around. What is the first thing you would do if someone fell overboard that instant? Or one of the shrouds failed? Or a battery overheated and started smoldering? Are you ready for Murphy to take over your boat?

* We asked the crew of the Lady Ghislane how we could pay them for their efforts. They declined and instead asked us to make a donation to the UK volunteer maritime search and rescue organizations, which my parents did after we arrived in the US. The owner of the yacht tragically fell off his lovely ship a few years after our chance meeting.

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This post was written as part of a blog-hop. Visit the Monkey's Fist website for posts about this topic written by other cruisers or check out these topics:  

Why do we Cruise
Relationships Aboard
Pink and Blue Jobs Aboard
Leave it or Bring it: Stuff
Provisioning
Swag and Approaching the Natives
Clothes and Laundry

Boat Swag & Approaching the Natives

Boat Swag
We've seen several boats that tout their blog address in big letters on their boom. Others wear hats and shirts emblazoned with their boat name and website. We stand out enough with our terrible language skills so we try keep to our boat and ourselves from looking like a walking advertisement. Currently we carry one piece of boat swag: Boat cards. And to save money we make them ourselves (see our DIY recommendations).

We are currently considering one other piece of boat swag. A boat stamp. When I cruised with my folks in the late 80's we had a stamp with our boat name attached to a shiny silver handle. It was heavy and made a lot of noise. If you have ever dealt with customs in some countries you know how much noise they like to make with their stamps. And the more papers to stamp, the better. Thwack, thwack, thwack.  We never had any trouble with customs.  Vlad on Bettie del Mar just bought a customizable stamp and thinks it has eased his bureaucratic dealings.

Making boat cards

Interacting with Locals
Before leaving to go cruising I thought a lot about something we could bring with us to give to the locals or to trade for fresh food. Some ideas were T-shirts, toothbrushes or school supplies for the kids. So far I haven't stocked up on anything to trade or give away simply because I haven't found any one thing that doesn't take up a lot of space and that I think would be useful to most people. So far, we have simply given or traded what we have on board or went out and bought what was needed. If anyone has a good idea for an easy-to-store item to buy in Mexico that can be traded/given away and will be useful to the people as we head west, please let me know.

Mostly trading works out just fine and everyone thinks they got the better deal, but sometimes you can be left thinking, What just happened?

A couple of friends of ours who are cruising the Sea of Cortez were anchored in a small bay enjoying the afternoon. A panga pulled up alongside and asked them if they wanted some fresh lobster. But of course! was their answer. They gave the fishermen some chocolate and batteries in trade for the lobster and the fishermen were off to pull fresh lobsters from their traps. Here most of you probably think that they just took off with the goods never to be seen again, but you would be wrong. Our friends watched the fishermen drive out to their traps and come back a while later. Empty handed. They said they had checked their traps and they were empty. The fishermen apologized profusely and drove off - with the batteries and chocolate.

(I just realized that this story might be misconstrued. By no means do I believe that the fishermen stole the chocolate and batteries. It was merely a misunderstanding. Probably due to a language barrier. Our friends laugh about it to this day and it's one of their favorite stories to tell)

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This post was written as part of a blog-hop. Visit the Monkey's Fist website for posts about this topic written by other cruisers or check out these topics:  

Why do we Cruise
Relationships Aboard
Pink and Blue Jobs Aboard
Leave it or Bring it: Stuff
Provisioning
Fear
Clothes and Laundry

Clothes and Laundry

Living on a boat comes with some restrictions in storage and living space - to put it mildly. Long gone are the days of browsing through my selection of tops hanging in neat rows on individual hangers. On board Camille my clothes are crammed into a couple of bins set atop the closet. Yes, we do have a few  nice closets, with shelves and room to hang things, but that space is taken up by food, tools and spare parts. 

Our Wardrobe ~ Mike and I were lucky to have had very relaxed jobs where jeans and t-shirt were the norm, so switching to shorts and T-shirts/tanks was easy and our basic wardrobe hasn't change much. At work we used to wear flip-flops in the summer and we are now barefoot most of the time. 

Towels ~ Towels require a mention of their own because they are used daily and take up a lot of space. We don't like to use those small camping towels - we're not camping after all - so we mostly have normal terry towels that claim to be fast drying. We have beach towels, shower towels, towels to sit on in the cockpit and the dinghy, towels to clean the deck, towels to wipe our feet... the list is endless. And they all have to be washed!

Warm Clothing ~ We keep warm clothes on board because it can get pretty chilly at night out on the ocean - even in the tropics. When not in use warm clothes are stored in vacuum bags to save space and keep them from getting mildewy. 

Storing Laundry ~ Dirty laundry takes up a lot of space in a small boat. We now tend to wear clothes a lot longer before they are deemed "dirty". Once dirty they are put in a small basket on the seat in our cabin. When the basket gets full clothes are transfered to a canvas bag which gets stuffed under our bed until laundry day. If we are transferring laundry to shore by dinghy it is loaded into dry bags to keep the saltwater out.

Laundry Options ~ Some bigger boats (like my parents' boat Prana) have marine washers on board, which are a washer and dryer in one unit. We don't have enough space aboard Camille for such extravagances. We can either do laundry by hand, at a laundromat, or have someone else do it. 

Laundry at the Laundromat ~ Here in Mexico it's quite affordable to have someone else do our laundry, which is what we usually tend to do. At some marinas our laundry gets picked up, washed, fluffed and folded, and dropped off the next day - and it only costs about about $1-$2 more per load than doing it at the laundromat ourselves. 

Laundry at Anchor ~ When we are at anchor for long periods of time I wash a few things by hand in between laundry days. I wait until we are making water so I don't have to feel bad about using too much. I fill the kitchen sink with water, add some light detergent and ammonia, rub them together a bit and then let things soak for an hour or so. Next I drain the water, put in the dish drainer and start rinsing (the dish drain keeps clothes from stopping up the drain). While I'm rinsing individual items the items below are getting their first rinsing and by the time I get to the bottom of the pile everything has been rinsed pretty well already. Then I wrap them around the faucet and twist until most of the water it out and hang them on the rail.

Using Saltwater for Laundry ~ Being surrounded by water makes you think that doing laundry should be easy on a boat. Unfortunately, salt water leaves a moist residue when not completely rinsed with fresh water, wasting more water than simply using fresh to begin with. 

Don't Try This at Home ~ When my parents and I sailed from Germany to California, when I was in my teens, we didn't have the luxury of a watermaker. During out Atlantic crossing, I tried doing laundry by putting it into a mesh-bag and dragging it behind the boat. To add soap I drizzled it into the water and hoped it would run through the mesh-bag. Not only did the bag just skip above the surface but I nearly lost all my clothes! 

TIPS

• For small items I use a carousel clothes dryer. It holds a lot of items, folds down small and is easy to load.
• Ammonia is great because it doesn't suds up and is therefore easy to rinse out - it's also great at neutralizing any unwanted scents.
• I love the grip clip clothes hangers! One will hold a towel all by itself. Also great for hanging up sarongs to make shade. I bought mine a Fred Meyer's but they are also available at Walmart, K-Mart and Amazon.

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This post was written as part of a blog-hop. Visit the Monkey's Fist website for posts about this topic written by other cruisers or check out these topics:  

Why do we Cruise
Relationships Aboard
Pink and Blue Jobs Aboard
Leave it or Bring it: Stuff
Provisioning
Fear
Swag and Approaching the Natives