Life Four Point Zero

As we peek at the calendar this week, we notice that we have moved beyond the halfway mark on our journey! In some ways, it doesn’t seem possible that we have been living aboard Thalia for seven months. In the same breath, though, it seems a very long time since we lived in our Bedford, NH home; the boys running around the yard with neighborhood friends. We talk of home a lot — missed friends and activities mostly — yet now this also feels like home and we acknowledge that we will miss this life when we must resume our land-based lives. In a way, knowing that we have passed the halfway point nudges us to now hurry to see all that we can in the time remaining. However, this life is supposed to be one of slowly taking in other cultures and enjoying the day to day.

While some ideals remain ambiguous in my mind, one thing I’m certain of is that I feel compelled at this juncture to do a highlights tour of our journey so far and, hopefully, bringing in some pictures we haven’t yet displayed of our past wanderings.

Come back with me to Portland, Maine … late June, 2006.

Continue reading “Half Way Mark, A Look Back Ep. 38”

Like a clutch of shipwrecked sailors, we have found a way to deal with the sudden change of life ashore. This is our first full week of living ‘on the hard’ as they say. Thalia is parked up in the yard at Bobby’s Marina here in Sint Maarten, but we are trying to continue our normal routine as much as possible. We’ve actually stepped up the pace of school a notch, doing 4 full lessons a week now. While you school-aged kids reading this may be envious of our kids because they get 3 day weekends, these 4 day lesson weeks will be necessary for them to stay on track each week through about July without taking vacation weeks. With the Calvert school program, you can decide to take vacation weeks off like normal school kids, or just keep an even pace going for the entire year, and we have chosen the later. So far, the kids are adapting well to the new pace, as long as both Karen and I have the time to work with them steadily through the morning. I don’t know how teachers do it with 20+ kids… it is truly a miracle that they keep themselves together and get the class all moving in something like a forward direction. Hat’s off to you school teachers out there!!

Continue reading “Life, Interrupted Ep. 37”

As I have explained a few times to my older son, it is often best to assume the mind-set of expecting change as the inevitable. When we get too set in our comfortable day-to-day lives, even the smallest change like a new teacher assignment for a child can send us into a tail-spin. Something much larger, like the lose of a loved one, is much more disrupting emotionally and psychologically but we might be better able to deal with the big changes in life if we don’t head into that tail-spin for the smaller ones!

Of course, we recognized that this year would be one of constant changes for us — new “home” in ever changing ports, constantly changing means of provisioning, unexpected weather and boat maintenance and, potentially, a different language or currency to accommodate. So, sometimes we get a bit stuck to the things within our control, like our upcoming travel plans or the islands we want to keep on our “hope to visit” list. When something happens to alter this, we all need to remind ourselves that change is inevitable and then adjust to the new situation.

Continue reading “Thalia Travels South East to Saba Island and Beyond … or not?! Ep. 36”

If you read many tales of long-term cruising sailors, eventually you run across a time in their travels where they discovered an urgent need to change gears. By this I mean getting off the boat for awhile or inviting friends onboard — something to mix up the experience a little. We did both of these this past week. Three wonderful friends of mine from Bedford flew down here for a four day weekend of sailing while Karen and the boys got to stay at a beach resort on Tortola. For the guys, this was the second installment of the winter respite concept, having tested the idea out with much success in Key West, FL last February.

So, with bags in hand and eyes agleam, the guys — Steve, Matt and Don — walked off the plane and made the 5 minute stroll to the dinghy dock at Trellis Bay for a little fun in the sun. They made me promise to make sure they were prominently displayed on the website, so we’ll kick things off with a few profiles! Continue reading “A Fork in the Road Ep. 35”

Since Tom wrote his piece of this week’s log before I had a chance to write about the week from my perspective, I knew I had to play off of his chosen title of, “A Fork in the Road”. I thought maybe I would write, “the other fork” or some such jumble of words. Then, as I thought of the experiences that the boys and I had during our 4-night, 5-day stay at Long Bay Beach Resort I knew the title had to encompass our reliance on restaurant food while we were off the boat.

Tom’s friends very generously put our kidsOur and I up at the resort while they enjoyed touring around on our boat. As the trip came into view, the boys and I all eagerly anticipated sleeping in a real bed–one that didn’t move, taking a real shower and letting the water run while we soaped up! It is the little things you miss! And, I would be misleading if I didn’t mention my excitement at the prospect of not washing a dish for 5 days! Nor cooking a meal, nor lugging the food for the meals from grocery store to dinghy to boat. There were several restaurants on the resort grounds, which was a good thing since the resort was quite secluded from surrounding villages or eating establishments. The interesting fact was that only one restaurant was open at a time for the evening meal! Our first night at the resort, the open restaurant was on the more dressy side… heavy on the etiquette!

Here is a picture of the boys after our first hot hotel shower as we make our way down to the restaurant.

Continue reading “The Dessert Fork Ep. 34”

What kind of New Year’s resolution did you make for this year? Eat more healthy? Start using that gym membership more often?

How about turning all of those ‘some day’ thoughts into reality? We’ve chatted with a lot of people on this trip who said they hope to some day take a trip similar to ours. But there’s only Monday through Sunday — no some day — in the week. If you’ve thought about some day taking a break from work, while you are still healthy, perhaps before your kids grow up and grow out, perhaps to get to know your spouse and kids better, or just because you’ve worked all of your life and everyone needs a break once in a while, then get out there and do it now! It will be a tough decision to make when you are in the comfort and safety of your current lifestyle, but you won’t regret it!

Continue reading “A Bubbly Beginning to 2007 Ep. 33”

I understand that you New Englanders had a pretty mild Christmas, with temperatures around 50 degrees. Well, add a measly 30 degrees to that, throw in some swaying palm trees, and a 20 dinghy raft up to take in the Davis Murray and the Barefoot Band and you have a Christmas Eve in paradise. Add a turkey dinner ashore followed by some reggae music and that about sums up Christmas Day! But I suppose you want to hear more details about our week and we’d love to share them, so here goes…

We left off last week with our exploits in Francis Bay on St John, USVI’s. We continued to stay there through Christmas – a one week stay in total and the longest time we spent in one spot since Hampton, VA. We met up again with our Maine friends — Alex, Gulley, Alasdair and Azaline — the hearty campers over at Cinnamon Bay. They offered to shuttle us all over to the southern extreme of St John, a point of land named Rams Head for an afternoon hike. What a delight it was to see parts of the island by car, and when we arrived at the parking area for the hiking trail, we immediately settled into the path down to the water’s edge and waited for the rest of the group to be shuttled over.

Continue reading “Santa and His Dolphin Duet Ep. 32”