Saturday, March 19, 2016

finally, an update.


I'm a few weeks back from my trip to the British Virgin Islands and I have lots to tell you.

First off, I promise this is the last time I'm away from this blog for so long. It's been hard with a small person needing and wanting all my time and energy and what seemed like this momentous eternity of treading water on this dream of ours. We had some hiccups. Our plan was to leave last fall. Obviously that didn't happen. It was a matter of waiting too late and simply not doing what needed to be done to Interlude that tripped us up. There were so many questions about how and if we were going to proceed with our potential cruising lifestyle this spring. Plenty of things hinged on one major piece of the puzzle. It wasn't whether we could financially make it work, it wasn't whether or not we were prepared to cut our ties with the creature comforts land life afforded us, it wasn't how we planned to raise a VERY busy toddler on a boat. Really, it was me. 

The decision of how to proceed depended on my seasickness. I haven't spoken about it much because it creeps up on me sometimes and not at other times. And when it has crept up on me, I've been down for the count. I start out sleepy, then nauseous and then eventually, occasionally, I vomit. Sorry for the visual, but if you've ever suffered with motion sickness, you feel my pain. It's not really ideal for someone who plans to live and thrive on a boat 24/7/365. Yeah. Imagine being sick all. of. the. time. Sounds miserable, right? The thing is that my sailing experience had been day sails on San Diego Bay (where I NEVER got seasickness), and on Lake Michigan. Any of you who have sailed on Lake Michigan know that she can be a blessing and a bitch. They don't call it the windy city for nothing. What comes with the sometimes spectacular wind is waves. Big, fat, tall waves. And they're super fun when they're coming on your beam. Note the sarcasm. Being tossed isn't fun, but it's a part of sailing.

Which brings me to my second of all....We are going sailing come June. Our cast off date is still based on the weather, of course. We have some projects to get taken care of and some preparing we need to do (more in my next posts about these projects). What lead us here is this: I went to the BVI for sailing school a few weeks ago as a live aboard and I wasn't sick the entire week. I started the few days before sailing school by hydrating myself properly and taking super doses of vitamin c (which I had read about here) starting right before we got on the boat. As long as I kept a snack nearby and kept my fluid intake up, I felt great. And that's how it went for a week. 

Honestly, with all that there was to be done, I don't know that I would have been sick anyway. I took a few American Sailing Association courses with a sailing school out of Nanny Cay in Tortola called Sistership Sailing School. If you are a woman or family looking to get comfortable on the water, I highly recommend looking into this. It was a great practical on the water training. Mostly it was familiar but I did get to experience some new things like: anchoring, mooring, and man-overboard drills. I got more comfortable with docking, jumping (hoisting) the main, and the rules "of the road" of sailing. There are areas I will continue to work on, but I feel confident and empowered by the week I spent sailing with Pat and the other 3 ladies on the crew with me. 

So, I'll be updating this blog more regularly and telling you all about preparations for our departure. We've got some awesome families who are going to help with a few projects that are upcoming and we couldn't be more grateful to them. Looking forward to sharing all that is to come with you guys.

And now, here are some photos from my adventures.