So, What Do We Do All Day?
Here's a typical day in the life on
anchor:
0600 – get up, start coffee
0615 – download weather data, review
vs yesterday's plans
0630 – tune in Marine Weather Center
on SSB and listen to forecast and passaging recommendations
0715 – prep, eat, clean-up breakfast
0800 – local cruisers' net on VHF
0830 – start generator, monitor the
batteries charging, run water heater, run watermaker, and start
clothes washer if needed.
Plan the rest of the day and any small
fix-it / cleaning projects
0930 – Finish up email, FB, blogging,
1030 – start main tasks of the day:
move the boat; snorkeling/lobstering; big repairs or maintenance;
inventory on provisions or supplies; cleaning; trip to town for food,
parts, or fuel (a grocery run can take 3 hours!); professional work
tasks; hide from horrible weather in our bunk and read; planning our
next route segments; etc.
1200 – lunch
1230 – continue the day's tasks
1500 – check in on progress of solar
charging and status of batteries
1630 – happy hour
1730 – start dinner
1900 – wrap dinner
1930 – movie or book
2100 – shower and abed
0100 – up to check anchor and get any
radio traffic, eg sailmail and weather faxes
This all varies with location, plans,
and weather. Like in the last five days we have been boat-bound by a
fierce cold front which had us extremely busy looking after the boat
as the front came in and bashed us around in the anchorage, and now
it's really cold and blowing hard
so we are doing small inside projects like replacing broken window
screens and cleaning detail things like hatch trim and all those
computer wires that seem to sprawl when you aren't paying attention.
Underway, it's very different. We
stand 4-hour watches, generally, so a 24 hour day has 3 watches each.
We are more relaxed about day watches and we tend to blur who is
running the boat vs who is doing support stuff like meal prep. We
generally will make breakfast just after dawn. Dinner is the big
meal of the at-sea day, we will both take the time to sit for 15
minutes of gracious living as my family would say (the boat can run
itself for that time with no attention). Nights are generally
(hopefully!) quiet with the off-watch person asleep and an extra reef
pulled in to ease the boat's motion and speed. Heavy conditions are
different in that the boat takes much more attention and the work is
much harder., gracious living gets replaced with just looking after
ourselves and the boat.
Not a lot of sitting around in the sun.
“It's not a vacation, it's a lifestyle.”
