One Year In - 10 Things We've Learned

So it was exactly one year ago today that we moved aboard Zephyr and set sail from Portland!

Right before we stepped aboard for the 1st time as the new owners!

The lessons we've learned, the experiences we've had are too many to name and we're so incredibly grateful for it all. We thought we'd put our 3 heads together and come up with the biggest lessons learned in this first year of living our dream. Next week we'll each write our own personal lists of personal lessons learned, so stay tuned.  

1. You can live with a lot less - when we moved aboard from the Dupe we were quite cutthroat about purging our worldly possessions. At the time it was very emotional to give up our 'stuff' and we definitely weren't sure we'd be 'OK' without it. The emotions were high as we bid adieu to our bed, couch, books, most of our wardrobes, kitchen stuff, etc. Now a year later we rarely even miss those things. Sure we're doing laundry A LOT more because we both only have enough clothes to get us through a week and when it comes to dressy occasions we definitely have to 'recycle' a lot. Jill, being a girl, struggles with this a tad more than Tim but there's also a great sense of peace coming from the simplicity. 

2. Tim can't cook in a Galley - When Tim attempts to cook in the tiny galley that is our kitchen the word 'shit show' is an understatement. The crashing, banging, expletives and "angry Tim" episodes abound. The galley is a practice is patience, planning and patience. Your counter top is also the access to your fridge. Your fridge is a deep pit with bins barely balanced upon one another like a cruel game of tetris. Tim has taken on the role of grill master and Jill is galley wench. We eat pretty darn good aboard. Our favorite meals:

Jambalaya, black beans & rice, stir-fry and fajitas. 

3. Two People and a Big Guy can Survive Aboard a Boat - Patience. Communication. Sense of humor. Those are the keys to surviving in 500 sq. ft. with 2 people and a Big dog. There's no "I'm just going to sneak behind you" - there's no sneaking, there's slipping through, there's just moving out of each other's ways and waiting, maybe giving them a little sass about taking their sweet time...  

4. We're not retired, nor rich - Sailing off into the sunset for months (years) is our end goal since we're not retired or trust fund babies we're going to have to figure out how to do this while making an income. Plans are in the works in that regard. Doing all that we need/want to do to our boat is a work in progress, a LONG (maybe lifelong) work in progress. We aren't rich so most of the work we do is DIY. We don't have the budget to hire boat yards, or specialists so we do a lot a lot of Internet research, YouTube clips and message boards to learn how to do something. It's not a fast way of getting the all work done but it's what we got. Choosing to do this when we're young rather than retired requires a lot more patience and perseverance to see it through. 

5. Sense of immediacy doesn't work - Refer to above. When you're out sailing it's about the journey not the destination. If we're impatient or antsy the wind doesn't care. A sailor on a deadline is a recipe for disaster, you make poor choices about weather, you push your boat too hard and you could end up dead. 

6. Summer is way better than winter  - This one sorta goes without saying but we've definitely realized why living aboard in New England in the summer is pure bliss. You feel like you're on vacation all the time. You're the envy of all your friends and boat neighbors. But around this time of year is when people start feeling less envy and have a bit more pity.

7.  You learn to love zippers, hatches and portholes - Life on a boat is deeply embedded into the elements - the glorious and the not so lovely. As we've written about before, we are very closely connected to the weather around us. We live, breathe and soak up every ounce of the weather. When the morning sun shines and the breezes pick up we unzip the many zippers of our cockpit enclosure, when the evening dew sets in we zip them back up. When the rains start we run around madly closing hatches and fastening portholes and then as soon as the rain stops we open it all back up. We love being able to let the weather into our living space and when we want to be dry and warm, zipping it back out. 

8. Cockpit Speakers are the Bomb  - enough said. 

9.  It's not all cocktails & hors d'oeuvres, but when it is it's awesome - We've definitely become masters at the sundowners and Happy Hours. The boat is almost never without some nice cheese, crackers, salami and olives and of course copious amounts of rum. The thing about boating people that we've learned is they do know how to kick back and soak up the sunset. It's a daily ritual and we've taken to that habit quite nicely. Sure, there's days when there's work or errands or chores but the boat friends we've made over some cocktails and snacks are great. 

10. Think things through - whether it's how to bring the boat into the slip, how long a passage from one port to the other will take, how to cook a galley meal or how to get to something buried deep in a locker it's all about the forethought before acting. You have to step back before acting and think it through, think about your bail out if the docking goes wrong, think about what you'll need to cook the entire meal, plan out exactly which waypionts you'll hit on your passage. It's a practice in discipline and patience and one we're still working on. 

So there they are - a few of the overarching things we've learned as we've gone through this first year. We aren't going to sugarcoat and say it's all been delightful but we have had  a lot of great times! When we moved aboard a year ago, we promised one another that we'd give it a year and if either one of us wanted off, we'd both bail. We're happy to report today that we're both still in it to win it! We're no where near close to giving up on this dream in fact we just keep pumping it with dream gasoline! Thanks for following along with us! 

A Week Ashore

We are back aboard after a week house sitting for some friends in New Castle, our old 'hood. This was first time since we moved aboard in September that we'd spent longer than an overnight off the boat. Jill was just coming off of some the most stressful, busy weeks at work she's ever had and Tim had just finished a BIG project deadline so needless to say it was a welcome respite. Not to mention over the course of the week we both got colds and were sick so having a big couch, a pellet stove and a big TV was nice. We also had 6 chickens to tend to, homemade egg nog to shake and a fish to feed. We decided we would blog about what it is we missed about land life and also what it is we missed about boat life while on shore. 

What we missed about Land Life:

• Toast/Having a Toaster: on the boat a toaster is just too much counter space and eventually when we're cruising or on anchor it will also be too much power. So we do without. But it sure was nice to have a toasted English Muffin or slice of bread on the way out the door in the morning. 
• A shower in the next room: it was quite nice to be able to fall out of our bed and stumble into the next room for a shower. At the marina we choose to use the showers up at the marina building to conserve water aboard and to keep the moisture introduced in the boat to a minimum to reduce condensation. So it was nice to be able to shower in the next room rather than get all dressed in clothes, jackets and hats and trudge up the dock. 
• A full kitchen: The boat's galley is small, it's workable, but it is small, including the oven. It was nice to have a full sized oven to roast a chicken in. We liked the front loading fridge with french doors, rather than the 'bottomless pit' fridge we have aboard. It was nice to have counters to put things on and a dishwasher! That was a real treat! 
• A couch: It was nice to have full sized, wide couch to lay out across, especially being sick. The boat's main salon has 2 benches or 'settees' and they are OK. They are meant to serve as 'couches' and as 'berths' while at sea. The current set up is something that is on our list to fix because the cushions are really stiff and the general flow of the salon is overall cramped. Tim's woodworking brain is scheming all the time for our plans. 

We want to push back the couch to flush up against the shelf to allow wider sit space. 

And though these few things seem so trivial, we love that life aboard a boat has allowed us to appreciate these trivial things and to be grateful for them. That's probably the best part of this whole experiment - it reminds us daily to appreciate life and most of all to be thankful for it.

What we missed about Being on the Boat:

This is mid-tide, the ramp is sort of steep

• Rocking to sleep: Our aft cabin bed is so cozy and the gentle rocking of the boat in the water with the sound lapping against the hull is so soothing it lulls you right to sleep. 
• Knowing what the tides are doing: Every time we come home to the boat you can't help but notice what phase the tide is at. The ramp that leads from the shore to the docks is either flat when it's high tide or STEEP when it's low tide or somewhere in between. We didn't even realize what the tide was when we were ashore and we missed that. 
• Knowing what the weather is doing all the time: Same as the tides, we live in the weather, from the sound of rain on the hatch, to wind wooshing through the stays, to ice crystals coating the deck in the morning - we always know what the weather is up to. In the house we often found ourselves hardly ever looking outside to see what the weather was doing. We truly missed being connected to the environment around us. 
•  Being surrounded by our dreams: The boat is the physical manifestation of our shared dreams of travel, adventure and freedom. We love sitting aboard and thinking about the places we'll go, the things we'll see, the projects we'll do to get ready. Living aboard the boat intimately connects us to our dreams and never allows us to lose sight of them. Being in the house we were disconnected, we felt less inspired, less excited. 
• Living a life less ordinary: Though the boat comes with it's fair share of challenges (as I type this Tim's struggling with a drinking water faucet installation that is testing his perseverance and patience - another blog will have more detail, minus the expletives) we (almost) always love the challenges, we love the feeling of conquering the challenges, whether its learning how to cook dinner or how to stop a coolant leak, and in turn learning something new. While most folks write Christmas lists full of stuff, we can't. We don't have space for stuff. Our lists are full of the practical, the utilitarian, and experiences, rather than stuff. 

We don't doubt that some day maybe we'll move back ashore and be land dwellers once again but we'll have a  new sense of gratitude and until then we love living out a life less ordinary out here in the Piscataqua River. 

The chickens were a constant source of entertainment for Toby 

Reasons Why Wednesday: One with Nature, One with Eachother

Reason Why #8: The Connection to Nature

"You hear that? It's raining."
"I love how I can feel the wind pick up because the boat gets rocked in her slip and then just like that it dies off."
"Is that frost on the hatch?"
"My towel won't dry in the cockpit, the humidity is up."
"Oh the sun's out - open up the porthole in the head, it needs to air out."
"WOOF!"

Life aboard a boat is as close to nature as you'll get outside of being in a tent in the woods. Our awareness of the outside world is heightened daily because we're out in it with just a layer of fiberglass between us and the rolling sea, a rope of nylon protecting us from currents and tides trying to pull us out there. We hear the first drop of rain on the vinyl cockpit enclosure and furiously run around closing hatches and putting the tarp over our bed (fixing the leaking hatch is on the fix-it list). Our halyard starts to slap the mast and we know the winds have gotten up above 20 knots. The shorebirds caw at night and we know its a mild enough night for them to be fishing for dinner. Toby crawls up on us during the night we know...well, that happens every night so who knows what's up!

This is from her listing - we've MUCH improved since then

But it's funny how the connection to the outside world which seems so interwoven into our lives also breeds a wonderfully warm and welcoming inside world. Our 'main salon' is comfy, the warm teak interior reflects the light and creates an ambiance that is so welcoming and comfortable. The little galley has its share of frustrations (you pretty much have to be double jointed to get a pot out from under the oven). But meals taste better when they come out and the smells from sauteing garlic or baking bread fills our whole living space. We live communally - like it or not (mostly love it) - we are literally always around one another. We do at times trip over each other or each other's belongings (Tim Feet) and it's a great lesson in patience, life aboard is a continual lesson in patience. There's no frills or foyers, no sitting rooms or verandas - when you enter our boat, you enter our lives and we really do love it (so far...)!

Turmoil, Tumult & Elation

Turmoil: A state or condition of extreme confusion, agitation or commotion 

Tumult: A violent agitation of mind or feelings

Elation: Pathological euphoria 

Yup, that pretty much sums up the last week in the world of Jill, Tim and at times Toby. There's been so much going on it's hard to sleep, hard to catch your breath, hard not to want to hide under a pillow and wait for life to calm down. But that's not what this experience is all about - it's about rejoicing in the tumult, embracing the turmoil and soaking up the elation. 

Let's get the elation part out first - the boat is "good to go!". We heard from the broker and owner today that the 4 major things that we needed resolved in order to close on the boat are fixed and she is ready for us! Her shore power system was fully reviewed and verified in good order by a marine electrician this morning, her hot water pump is working to produce hot water, her VHF is in working order and the exhaust plug that blew during our sea trial is plugged once again (i.e. no more hole in the boat, no more water rushing into the engine compartment). The check from the bank for our boat loan is in the mail to us this afternoon arriving tomorrow and the closing is scheduled for Thursday. 

WE ARE ELATED!  

This news could not have come at a better time because since the sea trial last Tuesday we've been in moving and purging mode of our land life. This weekend we rented a U-Haul and packed up all of our furniture to give away to a friend of my mom's and we stored a few important/sentimental items at the Cape house. There's no more pictures on our walls, there's no table to eat at, there's no couch to lounge on, there's not even a shower curtain in the bathroom at our Duplex now. Our home life is in utter turmoil. 

As everything else was being packed & moved this
was the only box that remained

Leaving our stuff behind at the Cape House yesterday afternoon - our record player, our photos of friends and family, the wooden jewelry box that Tim made me our first Christmas together - was very emotional. Knowing that these things were no longer going to be in our daily lives was hard and at the time we hadn't received word that the boat was going to happen - talk about tumult, we were riddled with it the whole 3 hour ride home last night.

This weekend as were ridding our lives of our stuff for a boat that we didn't know if we owned yet we were a mix of emotions. It was hard to be alone because the "what if" thoughts would take over. Analysis Paralysis was running rampant. We sought out times with friends to remind ourselves that what we're doing is awesome, exciting and worth it. We had to be reinforced and our Cape friends delivered in such a big way - thank you to our families, Michelle and family, Catta, Kyle and the beauty that is Cape Cod for helping us during this tumultuous weekend, we needed it more than you'll ever know. 

So today we sit with a boat that's good to go, a check on its way, a crew at the ready to sail the boat with us from Portland to Portsmouth next weekend and our families planning to welcome us upon our arrival on Sunday. Our house is a mess, there's more moving and purging to be done but for now we're embracing the feeling of expectation and sheer excitement! 

Stay tuned...

Reasons Why Wednesday: Purging

Reason Why #4: To Embrace the Art & Beauty of Purging 

So recently a team of anthropologists from UCLA published a book called "Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century" it looks like a coffee-table book with big, glossy photos of the living rooms, garages and bedrooms of 32 middle-class Los Angeles families. However, the book has a deeper story line, one that totally sums up why Tim and I are buying a boat and moving aboard and hope to one day raise our children aboard -- American families are being buried by and stressed out over our "stuff". 

The researchers called their findings "disheartening" and "troubling". The book shows garages so full of bulk boxes of fruit snacks and 500 oz. bottles of laundry detergent and skis and float toys and old baskets and storage boxes that the cars have to stay in the driveway. There's photos of shower stalls full of laundry because there is so much clutter everywhere there's nowhere else to put it. They talk of these fantastic backyard 'oases' with the best furniture the outside living section at Target had to offer and yet 50 of the 64 parents studied never stepped foot outside and less than a quarter of the kids did. The family dining table was covered with mail and books and toys and the families never sat together for dinner - Mom in one room on the phone, Dad in another on the computer, the kids watching TV or playing video games. And then there's the toy obsession for kids -  America has 3.1% of the world's kids and 40% of the world's toys. The children were DROWNING in their toys and yet all they wanted to do during this study was watch TV to see more commercials of more toys they want. The consumerist culture we seem to embrace has resulted in a clutter-filled and very stressful life for our society and our next generation isn't showing signs of slowing their constant need for material possessions either. 

OK, off my soapbox and back to our Reason Why. We are just as guilty as anyone else of having "too much stuff". Our little 2 bedroom duplex is full - every closet full to the top, every dresser full, 2-3 junk drawers, stuff under the back porch and in the basement.This lifestyle choice we are making to move aboard a boat with approximately 250 sq.ft. of living space is causing us to embark upon the very cathartic, emotional, at times overwhelming experience of purging. A famous Farrell family saying is, "Everything must go." There's a long story behind that but it couldn't ring more true for us these days. Our friend who's living on his boat told us we will have to "ween" and all the books and blogs we consult also say there is this "weening" process that one goes through with their stuff where you move aboard more than you'll ever need and slowly you'll realize all you need is some warm clothes, good beer and a good mug. Isn't amazing that we liken the process of a baby maturing off of breast milk to the process of giving up our material possessions? 

We did the first round of purging this weekend - the upstairs storage closet. There was one particular bin that I've moved with me the last 3 times we've moved and never actually opened it because I knew the process of purging the contents would be emotional. There were old notes that were passed between my best friend Tierney and I in math class in high school. There was a middle school "slow dance diary" of every song I'd slow danced to with a boy. There were countless concert ticket stubs, festival maps, a "Welcome to Aussie Land" banner made by my amazing Australian friends when my parents arrived in Brisbane. There was poems written about road trips I'd taken from NOLA to Chicago and a "100 things to love about college" list that was added to for 4 years. There were palanka notes from college retreats and even the beer festival program from the day Tim and I met (I didn't purge that!). These things recalled fantastic memories of amazing people that may or may not still be in my life and though that thought is bittersweet the memory of these people and those times is still as poignant as ever. I don't need to hang on to some crumbly, half faded note to remember the care package my mom mailed me my first week in college, I can still taste the brownies. Or the lab report from my 7th grade Science Fair. I can still feel the pride from the moment I heard my name called. They are just material representations of life stories and the reality is I will never sit with my granddaughter and go through that bin of old things. I'll tell stories, show photos and sure, the details will fade or embellish with time but that's the beauty of life -- it's living the moment, making the memory, telling the story, not holding onto the things. 

This life path we are embarking upon will provide such amazing stories and moments of inexplicable challenge and beauty that no material thing could ever represent. The constraints of life aboard will challenge us to fulfill our lives with moments and experiences rather than gadgets and toys. When we buy something new, something old must go. Our future children will learn to love a strange piece of driftwood on shore as much as some plastic playmobil toy. Our living space won't be surrounded by our stuff but instead will be surrounded by the ocean, the wind, the damp dew in the mornings, the cold frost at night, the cozy teak interior. Our time won't be spent using our newest gadgets or things but instead we'll spend our time learning to fix a faulty cooling line or charting a course to a new anchorage. We will have no choice but to eat together at the table every night. And we'll spend every single day experiencing the outdoors in some meaningful way whether it be shoveling off the deck, walking up the dock with Toby or sipping coffee in the cockpit. 

So for us the "clutter culture" of American society is stopping now. We are taking a path less traveled and trusting that life experiences will provide far more happiness for us than things. 

"I believe we would be happier to have a personal revolution in our individual lives and go back to simpler living and more direct thinking. It is the simple things of life that make living worthwhile, the sweet fundamental things such as love and duty, work and rest and living close to nature." -- Laura Ingalls Wilder