Knock Knock! Who’s There?

Not me, that’s for sure.

Sabine hit the water last Friday, and we’re still in that early sailing season flurry of activity. The spring cleaning is largely done and the water system has been flushed free of anti-freeze from the winter. While I can now swish some highly chlorinated water in my mouth when brushing my teeth, I still wouldn’t drink an entire glass until the inline filters are installed. And that installation is somewhere on the list next to “install anchor windlass” and “put the sails on.”

We’ve begun our weird summer existence of living part of the time on the boat and part of the time aboard. Now that I am set up for that kind of life, it’s great, but it takes a bit of planning each week. We ask each other what nights we want to stay aboard and what nights we want to stay at home. There are things to do at home like get the mail and do the laundry. Which days will Todd be busy and can’t bring the dogs in to work with him? The dogs go to work with Todd on most days, so they just commute with Todd from the boat instead of from the house. But there are some days that they just cannot go with him. Like today, for example. We have a function to go to after work tonight, so we stayed at the house last night and left them home today. Tonight we’ll stay at the house, but tomorrow night we’ll probably be aboard. I think.

Deciding to stay aboard is often done on a whim usually over a flurry of emails between Todd and me. And for that reason a matching set of toiletries have been bought to keep aboard. Prescriptions now travel in my purse. And a change of clothes that I can wear to work is now kept in the stateroom closet. I wear jeans to work most days, so I don’t care about wrinkles or stuff like that. Todd keeps a set of his work clothes hanging in the truck or at work.

Food remains to be an issue. The only thing I have in the fridge on the boat is beer (and I hope that Todd thought to toss that roast beef sub from Sunday) yet I haven’t bought groceries for home either because we haven’t been there all that much. (Yes, it is possible to eat too much Subway. I wonder how that Jared dude lost all that weight eating Subway all the time. I can’t do it for more than a few days.) But that will be remedied when I can be bothered to buy some staples from the supermarket. I have to buy just enough so that things won’t spoil at home or aboard, yet enough so that we’re eating healthy and not overdosing on burritos and pizza.

But overall living on the boat is a healthier lifestyle. We don’t beach ourselves on the couch in front of the TV, because there is no TV aboard. We might watch a movie from Netflix on Todd’s iPad before bed, but that’s just about it. We do things around the boat and we’re more active. We go to bed with the sun and wake up with it the next morning—and because of that I am more inclined to jog in the mornings I am aboard.

And now to respond to the email from Todd, “So, wanna stay aboard tonight or tomorrow night?”