WDWDAD?

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.”