Sweating away in Margaritaville

I have a sneaky suspision that a lot of people think since Hans and I moved aboard the boat we must be living a tranquil Margaritaville dream.
I suppose that could be true (if we liked Margaritas, which we don't) but it's been more like a bad tequila nightmare.

Every morning I arise at six AM when Wilbur's inner alarm clock tells him he's lonely and desires my company.
Now.

After some wild gyrating (on Wilbur's part) I take him to the 'poop deck' for a visit to his potty patch. We then retire to the salon area where I can sometimes coax him into taking a mini nap.
Sometimes.

Next up is boiling water on the stove for coffee, and we use a french press since we don't have electricity at anchor. Breakfast is usually cereal if the milk hasn't gone bad and I learned my lesson early on and we now use powdered milk (don't knock it, it's better than nothing). I also had to forego real cream in my coffee and I owe the good people from Cremaora an apology for ever sneering at their wonderful product.

Making any meal on board involves very careful and calculated moves on my part to keep any refrigerator door openings to a minimum. It also requires some fancy footwork in order to avoid stepping on the dog who thinks the galley floor is a fine napping area.

Before we set sail I remove heavy items from shelves and lay them on the settee so we don't have a reenactment of our first day at sail where we had horrible rolling waves and watched the TV fly through the air just missing the dog. The remote however hit him right between the eyes.
As soon as the engines are running (using battery number one! but remember to switch to number two when at anchor) I get to turn on the inverter, switch the batteries to ALL for optimum charging, plug in the computers, phones, cameras, and my absolute favorite; turn on the refrigerator. It won't freeze anything on battery power but it will slow down the melting process of the three bags of ice I have stowed away (I'm not sure what will happen if the day arrives and there's no ice for my bourbon!). We can also take advantage of the extra power and take showers.

Hans usually waits until I'm in the middle of cooking, washing dishes, rinsing the potty patch etc...to suddenly announce "Let's hoist the jib, the sail, the genoa..." and nothing is more fun than bashing your elbow on the outboard motor we have mounted to the rail when you're wildly winding the winch in order to haul up the jib.

This whole process is reversed when we turn the engines off and we can do that any number of times during the day.

Entertainment, in addition to my binoculars (when we're in the middle of the bay they're not fun at all but maybe Hans should keep an eye on the freighters), is:

Fly swatting (Hans may be more accurate but I'm vicious!).

Keeping the cat on board while tied to a dock (our laughter over Chlorox's sneaky foray to the deck turned into into hysteria when she took a graceful leap to shore for a look see).

Find the cat (who can hide in the tiniest corners and I'm waiting for her to venture into the engine room at the wrong time).

Staying away from the big boys in the freighter channel and let me tell you they do not fear the Knotty Cat.

Comparing our very colorful and many bruises, and after three weeks it would appear we've taken to beating each other with winch handles. My shins now look like a toddler's (when my kids were little I referred to them as 'bad banana' legs).

Trying to find some way, any way, to keep cool!

We tied up to a dock last night and with 14 wonderful hours of electricity we slept with the fans on and I virtually turned the refrigerator into a freezer. I nearly fainted when I found out the marina bath house was air conditioned and seriously considered writing Hans a Dear John letter, and then hiding in there for the rest of the summer.

So if doing all the above with the added pleasure of feeling and looking like a greasy sardine all day long appeals to you, buy a boat (I know where you can get one!).

I wonder if I could sue Jimmy Buffet for false advertising!












Chlorox is thinking, "If I look innocent enough maybe they'll leave me alone and I can make my escape."



































Right before she went on the lam.















































Not a good picture but one of the many freighters we've seen.
Yesterday one crossed our bow from just a few thousand feet away!

Here is Wilbur with a frozen two liter bottle of water. I wrapped it up and put it next to him. I have no idea what I'll do tomorrow when everything will be thawed out and the temperatures are expected to be in the upper 90's