1/15/16    Friday     Stuart, FL

YIKES! A tornado watch! "...take shelter in a sturdy building..." or "...seek shelter in the lowest floor of the building..." WHAT building? I'm on a boat. How about the bilge? That's the lowest spot but that is pretty small. I don't think all three of us would fit and what a mess if we did. David and I packed some dry clothes in our backpacks, put the kitty carrier together and her halter on her, just in case we had to make a quick exit from Grace. Wait. We don't want to make an exit from Grace. That's one of the reasons we named the boat Grace, because of the Grace that has brought us this far. The storm passed to the south of us and blew itself out and away from us. I'll check in on cousin Nancy whose town was under tornado watch longer than we. We had a lot of rain and some wind but I don't think it was sustained at 30 mph as expected. And, except for the leaking skylight we were snug. Our new wind scoop doubles nicely as a leak deterrent on the forward hatch.

So while watching out for tornados (and watch spouts) we got a bunch of stuff done on the interior of the boat. We finished the planned maintenance and ran the boat to check for engine leaks of water or oil or diesel. I finished the second galley curtain and put the bright white thing up, only to decide to shorten it to fit more appropriately behind the glass storage shelf...and have more light.

We had a serious financial discussion. See me wrinkle my brow and scrunch my eyebrows. Turns out David thought we'd need to draw down our savings on a regular basis in order to afford our sailing adventure. I, on the other hand, thought we might make some small money from renting our house and living more frugally than we do at home and during the winter. Well, so far we're sort of meeting in the middle - NOT making money and NOT having to dip into savings, so far. We are spending slightly more than we're bringing in...but with the dinners of beans and rice and selling our bodies...no, just kidding...we are living comfortably, reading more, eating more lightly and selling off things we discover we don't need...and buying bicycles. I don't get it. But it's okay. Hey! January has been BIG bill month (think Long Term Care Insurance) for the last 5 years. Why am I worried this year? Because I'm on a boat and that is unusual and you know what b.o.a.t. stands for.
We also tip-toed into the conversation about such a trip again next year. Hmmmm...

Meanwhile, I'm watching T.V. in the Captains' lounge while David is riding his bike to the food store. And, footage of the FIRST football Super Bowl - before it was the Super Bowl (1965? or 1968?) - has been pasted together so, tonight, we can all watch that first game...between Kansas and Green Bay Packers, I think. And I'm not even being tongue in cheek. This is exciting news and I'm sorry that I won't stay out late enough to see the film. Apparently a man who played in that game will get his own copy of the film.

David may decide to volunteer at the boat show tomorrow. I think I'll volunteer to go to yoga since I missed again today...the tornado watch, you know. Hoping we'll get ourselves to move on in our journey early next week. 'Go West young (or old) people.'

1/14/16    Thursday   Stuart, FL

Disappointment. I missed yoga this morning. Just started too late and couldn't move quite fast enough getting off the boat. So. Coffee and a warm shower and a visit w/Mary commiserating about past bad weather and boat/travel challenges.

David and I came back to the boat and took Grace for a warm-the-oil- up spin...then, dove into maintenance! Roll up the rug. Open up that engine compartment. Drain that oil. Get that oil filter casing off. Take that impeller out. Change those sacrificial zincs. Etc. Then put it all back together again. Not a single screw or bolt left over. My husband is amazing. All this between lunch and before our English friends, Joann and Craig, came at 5:00 PM for drinks and chips. TaDa!

Now I'm slightly drunk - 3 Dark & Stormies are a bit over my limit. Glad I'm not driving tonight. Dinner is eaten. Dishes washed. Leftovers ready for soup tomorrow.

Life is good.

1/12 and 1/13/16     Tuesday and Wednesday    Stuart, FL

Oh dear. Ordinariness is setting in - the regularity and comfort of... Home, Home on the Boat (to the tune of Home on the Range). We get up. We make coffee. We drink coffee. We talk about the day and what task we each hope to accomplish. We brush out teeth. We feed the cat and scoop her poop (I'm the poop scooper...snarl). And we're off and running or reading or motoring or...or...yoga-ing or doing the laundry or phoning....those regular things we humans do in our daily lives, if we're lucky.

Tuesday, the day after my birthday celebrations, David took off to get boat maintenance parts. I think I stayed around the boat and did some novel reading. He returned and I took off to the Captains' lounge to do some computer work for Freeport Players and a recommendation letter for a young friend applying to uNCSA. Back home on the boat David did said maintenance work - part of it continued into today and another part will go into tomorrow - I was the helper, am the helper and will continue to be the helper, handing him paper towels, tools, trash bags as needed. I made a quick dinner and prepared for the FP Board meeting. After the meeting, with snow storm in the background in Maine, our United States of America President was giving his final State of the Union address. I love my President and am so proud to live in the country that elected him! Then, beddy-bye.

Rough night of disrupted sleep. I kept hearing a new bumping noise (things that go bump in the night) and worried, without getting up to do anything about it, that the dinghy that I may have tied to tightly was wearing a hole in its side from bumping the hull of the sail boat so often. Turns out that the dinghy didn't sink and appears none the worse for wear and my close hauled tie up. Phew!

Today - Wednesday - David took me in so I could go to my yoga class - Yin, very relaxed/released stretching. Delicious. Tomorrow is the Vinyasa strength class. I stopped at the bike shop and bought my basket and put it on. And got another photo of that/those amazing lizards.

Back at the boat David had made a maintenance repair successfully. Both of us were tired...from yesterday's work, yoga, and the lumpy sleep, so decided to close up the engine compartment and read or/and take naps and get a fresh boat maintenance start tomorrow...with new energy. So we did. David took off to get a haircut and take a shower. Dinner made and eaten we played a couple games of Take II, declined an invitation to go to a comedy night in town, and soon I'll be back to reading a new-to-me Louise Erdrich novel, The Round House

Life is good. Blessings abound.

1/11/16    Monday, Stuart, FL        my BIRTHDAY!!! 68th trip around the sun! Looking fwd to more.

What a terrific birth day celebration. Long sleep, as desired. Coffee. Chilly morning so I put on my jeans, long-sleeved shirt AND fuzzy for the dinghy ride to the dock. We boarded our bikes (I have a new berrrinnnng bell on mine now) and took off into town for "breakfast out." The omelet was less than stellar but the "out" part was terrific...and we biked there and enjoyed all the other folks in the cafe'.

Our spiffy Dahon fold up bikes. I figured out how to use my backpack as a bike pack. Comes w/68 yrs of cleverness.

Then off to the Lyric Theater to take some photos, hoping to keep inspiration high among the Freeport Players Board for obtaining our own theater space...showing what other people have done in their communities. Then, off in search of bicycle baskets. We rode and rode and rode...to lots of places we'd passed, individually, on our various bike trips this week. Finally, the baskets in the first bike store we visited a couple days ago (and decided to NOT by those bikes which, it turns out, were about 3Xs more expensive than the ones we bought!!!) are the least expensive and so close to exactly what we want that we'll go back tomorrow and get two. David and I had split up by this time and I hung out in Shepherd's Park near the marina to make some phone calls and enjoy the sun.

Regular lunch crowd of ibis(es?)

I talked w/our renter, Kathy, who seems comfortable and delighted with 7 Lavers Pond Rd. Maine has had a week of winter and now January thaw but really high winds yesterday. Glad to have responsible folks in the house. And I made a couple phone calls to uNCSA to chat with Admissions and Drama folks about Ella Werner who is applying to the senior h.s. program for next year. Fun to talk w/ the admissions guy. I've never used my "status" as alum. I still don't take my various status(es) and credentials and various employment titles as seriously as others take mine or theirs. Just can't quite wrap my head around the power/influence that comes with that sort of positioning. It's a bit of a deficit, as I'm sure I could have much more influence for good if I DID know how to use my/those credentials that others put store in. My friend, Phil, who is on the Freeport Players board w/me, tells me how impressed he was that the President of the Board (that would be me) interviewed him as a potential board member. Really?!? Shoot. I was just nervous that my questions would seem trite. It might be that knowing the Principal of my elementary school so well (my mom taught there) has stunted my growth in the influence peddling arena. Similarly, some friends are impressed with my courage of leaving home and traveling down the ICW on a boat for 8 months. I'm impressed, too, but not THAT impressed. Just doing it, day by day. As everyone does their lives, day by day.

After the park I moved on to the Marina to read my book and, finally, get a photo of the lizard, the 8" one with the orange head. There are smaller ones w/out orange heads. The orange head one stands up high on her four legs. Lizards move the legs on one side together then the other side together - homo-lateral(?), unilaterally (?) then do a kind of plie' bounce w the front legs, sort of like a pigeon walking except the lizard is standing still. Such interesting movement!

Little Lizzy - 4" - check out the toes!

Orange head Lizzy on Plam

Lizzy coming out of the (probably propane) Fire Pit that is lit at night.

Had a great long phone visit with NYC dear friend, Diana, while I was sitting on the dock in the sun. I gave myself the present of talking to several friends today and so enjoyed all the Facebook wishes. Cousin Kathryn's husband, Lew, played Santa Claus and brought mail that we'd been waiting for that had been forwarded to their house here in Stuart. We got the boat parts from American Diesel and a BIG envelope from Shannon which included Christmas cards, a Delorme gazette of Florida we'd requested and a couple of zines. Perfect timing for a birthday.

Tuna casserole for dinner. A birthday phone call from Maggie and Shannon in which I learned about Maggie's role in the Freeport high school One Act Play, among other things. Great, long conversation. And now....what a terrific day. Appreciating all my turns around our Sun and looking forward to many more. Probably will accelerate even more as the years wobble on. Loving my life, my friends, my challenges, my accomplishments, my family, ALL my travel companions on this journey on earth. Blessed, I am.

1/10/16   Sunday    Stuart, FL

Wow! What happened to this day? No photos. How boring. Still haven't been able to get that lizard in the phone lens...yet.

It was a cloudy, blustery day. We even had little whitecaps here in the mooring field. I thought to get up and go early to the Green Market (farmers' market) to see if any baby bok choy was available. Not only did I not get up early. I didn't get off the boat until after 4:00 PM. Up early? Just didn't seem worthwhile. Actually, I was up and making coffee around 7 AM but moving slowly, sore from yoga and biking yesterday. And it was cloudy but the sun did come out and it got hot...for about 1/2 hour.

We had coffee. Then French Toast on the foredeck then made it a day of beauty and order, home improvement projects. David put up the wind scoop he got yesterday at the nautical yard sale. It works GREAT! It is a triangle with one angle attached to the forestay and the other 2 points along the cabin top on the port and starboard sides, high at the forestay and lower at the back ends...making a corralling effect of wind into the fo'c'sal and galley. Ventilation in those stuffy areas, at last. Now if we could rig something to work the same way in the aft cabin!!! So that is definitely a home improvement!!!

I had a great chat w/Sybil in our tradition of talking on the day between our birthdays. For 2 days she is my older woman friend and then my/her advantage runs out. Then I beat our run to within an inch of its life. It IS gratifying to see the dusk and some of the cat hair leaving on the breeze. I finished a repair to the forward hatch screen. David did some looking and deep thinking about our solar panel hook up. And we both did some thinking about a better version of refrigeration, how much it would cost, if we knew enough about this present system.

Laundry happened. It was easy and now we have clean, un-kitty littered sheets. We had a sweet visit with a YOUNG, married couple tonight. They have been married 7 months and are sailing/traveling from their GA home on a 32' sailing vessel, Ariel. They are so opposite - she is fiery and processes everything out loud (even more than I do!!), he is stoic and circumspect; she is about hotels and room service, he is about tents and campfires. Phew! They have a hard row to figure out how to negotiate their hopes, fears and small spaces. We did a bit of marriage counseling.

Looking forward to a long snooze tonight.

1/9/16    Saturday  Stuart, FL   Sybil Huskey's birthday!!!

Well, today was a "SCORE" day. There was a nautical yard sale in a park in town. We arrived around 10:00 AM and split up. About 20 minutes into the saunter David called me on my cell."I'm standing by 2 Dahon folding bikes." Okay, I'll come right over. Where are you? We figured it out and there they were AND for only $75 each or 2 for $140. Well, we don't need 2 since David already has one. BUT why not and we can sell our bike. They were being sold by someone who is docked at Sunset Bay so transporting them back to the boat wasn't going to be a problem. We folded them up and put them in his car and I went off to Yoga!

Yoga was terrific, hard. Olga was the teacher for this class, too. She's just a lovely teacher. Lots of reminders and yoga philosophy sentences to help one through the more challenging holds. "Breath." "
deep breathe, in....and out." Loved it, feeling my muscles strain and learning a couple of new things. Her tactile aid was good, too, pulling my ribs forward in a seated forward fold and laying them along my thighs. A lifted heel in a lunge. and forward fold with feet mat width apart. Oooh, feel those inner thighs!

David met me after class and announced that he had to rush back to the boat to get the anchor that someone wanted to buy. Well, alright. So we both hoofed it back to the dock then took the dinghy back to the boat, retrieved the anchor and...there went David....without me. Uh? Wha? On well, kitty and I will sew. So I started sewing the velcro onto the screen. It is supposed to stick but, on fabric, it is not so secure so I'm sewing it as well as having the sticky stuff. SOLD the anchor so the bikes cost us about $40, total. Well....we did have to buy locks...bringing the cost up to $36/each. And, we'll need baskets but will wait to check the thrift shops before making a purchase. When we sell our original bike we might be $60+ collars to the good....and that feels good....given that I've overdrawn MY account. Oops!!!

I just seemed as if all the right doors were opening for us today - bikes, anchor, yoga....oh, and a haircut at half-price -

Appreciating all these gifts from the universe. And this gift from the book I just finished: "..if you believe yourself worthy of the things you fought so hard to get, then you become an instrument of God, you help the Soul of the World, and you understand why you are here." A challenge is to truly believe ourselves "worthy". And, always...why am I here? But that doesn't challenge me so much these days. I'm just asking for guidance to live generously and with compassion and actions that benefit life. I no longer need to understand why I'm here. I'm just here. Now what to do with the opportunities.

Kitty guarded the boat again today while we gallivanted about. There were lots of lizards out today, enjoying the sun. There are several that are about 8-10 inches long, orange/yellow on both ends and a brown/green in the middle. Stunning. Haven't yet been able to get a photo they are so fast to scurry out of visibility.

Still waiting for our mail to arrive, probably not until Monday now. This would be an easy place to grow roots. The amenities are top notch with showers, laundry, patio, lots of deck chairs, lounge with popcorn and wifi. In the afternoon it, the lounge, is often filled with teens doing their homework, I assume. Seems a number of live-aboards have children who are being home schooled or who are keeping up with work from their home schools. Who knew?

Rain now and lightning all around.

1/8/16     Friday     Stuart, FL

Yoga. Yes! I accosted a woman with a yoga mat on the dock yesterday and discovered she was taking a class about 3/4 mile from here. Got the info and went today for a Yin class. Now Yin yoga is a little more passive than I prefer, give my love of action and movement. The class was excellent, though, and, ironically, right in line with a new book I'm reading. This teacher's approach was to remind us that Yin was about releasing control or the illusion of control. My new book, The Alchemist, is about staying in the present and, thus, being able to respond, rather than trying to control the/our future. All this today. Before noon! So tomorrow I'll take the yin/vinyasa class and get some movement as well as the more subtle releasing into a pose. I liked that this teacher talked about relaxing/releasing and something about how to do that when we encounter people/ideas that make us angry, and our need to control those people. Not possible. Only able to influence through living our lives...in the present.

So, I took the dinghy into the dock to walk to yoga. Such a liberating thing to leave the boat - and David and Amelia - and travel solo. I know I do it pretty easily but usually David and I travel together, leaving the boat together as we have only one dinghy. I wonder how we can translate sharing a vehicle when we get back to living on land with one car. Maybe we'll learn to use our bikes more though biking in Maine is much different than biking in flat Florida.

We DO continue to look for a folding bike for me to have so we can bike together. Hmmm. Duh.

Back on Grace David and I had lunch then he took off in the dinghy, borrowed a bike and made a grocery run. I had a nap and a read and phoned my friend, Elizabeth, needing to have some voice time w/a Maine friend.

A lovely day, all in all! David and I had a beer on the aft deck in a light rain storm that produced a rainbows and these pretty sunsets.