After my friend Lacey commented that my blog posts made it sound like every day was vacation and that, in reality, it was not that much different than “real” life just in a different setting, I decided to write a post about our daily schedule. Except that there really is not a daily schedule, nor a weekly schedule, or a monthly schedule. Not having a daily schedule can be hard on all of us. I like schedules. I like predictability. Schedules and predictability are definitely not at the top of cruiser life characteristics. Every day is new. Every day is different. We met new cruisers yesterday, and we had a difficult time saying where we were anchored or what anchorage we had come from (we know, we just don’t know.) This mostly amazing life does tend to blend the “where on the map are we today?” and “what day is it?”
We do have some dates on the calendar but how we get to that date is everyone’s guess. When we were in Alaska, we knew we had to be in Juneau to pick up Paul’s sister Sophie on July 12th but until then, who knew. For now, we are working on the goal of being in Panama by February 21st so Paul can fly “home” for work. We also need to get work done on the boat, so that we will be allowed to head to the Galapagos (for example, we need to get the bottom of the boat scraped so we do not introduce any foreign matter to the ecological system). But as far as the time until February 21st, we just don’t know. Do we really like where we are anchored? Have the kids connected to new friends? And – a big factor – what is the weather like for the next passage?
Some day to day similarities do stay consistent and are not that far off from everyone’s day to day. I feel like I spend the majority of my time in the kitchen; can anyone relate? I make breakfast (Andrew seems to only eat chocolate chip pancakes, although occasionally I can get him to eat oatmeal). I clean up breakfast. I make lunch (I sometimes try to let the family handle their own lunch but that seems to result with eating chips or saying they are hungry and finally making something at 4pm). I clean up lunch. I make dinner. I clean up dinner. And now, I will be adding the 100 stages of sourdough bread making to the kitchen schedule. (I am only sightly exaggerating).
When we are anchored or at port, schedules are more unpredictable based on trying to meet up with other families (for example, as soon as we pulled in our current anchorage, another kid boat sent us a message about the amazing turtle release we got to witness yesterday evening) or doing an activity I have found for the area. Our days at sea are a little more predictable, so here is my best shot at giving you an example of “daily” life of the SeaXII. Mornings tend to be late for everyone. We all like sleep. Paul gets up by 6a.m. daily to start work. I roll out of bed between 7:30/8 and hopefully have a little time to make my coffee and take it to the hammocks in the cockpit to read daily news, do my Babbel lesson and read a few pages of my book. Claire and Andrew wake up at a similar time and, no longer allowed to do electronics in the morning, read a book and hopefully fill out their journal. Sometimes I try to get excercise in. I then make breakfast. I start school with Claire and Andrew and work for 2-3 hours (math is taking a long time because I am teaching two grades in one year and I am using 3 curriculums – crazy). We usually do math, language arts, science and social studies (they are currently memorizing states and capitals). I then make lunch. I then sit with Hannah and Kathryn for their math lesson (I kind of enjoy re-learning middle school math and want to be able to help them if they have questions. We also found their google search history was copying and pasting all math questions into google…..). We go over any school projects. Before dinner, it is cleaning, organizing, helping anchor or drive. The day goes both slowly and quickly (who can relate?). And then dinner. After dinner, we watch a movie or tv or play a game. This is ideal but rare. So many other factors seem to pop up (see? not all that different than day to day life).
If we are motoring 24 hours, we all take turns driving. Paul takes most of the day while he works. Around 5, Kathryn and Andrew take over to give Paul a break. Ideally we have dinner together in the pilot house. I try to head to bed by 6:30. Hannah and Claire drive from 7-9. Hannah and Kathryn drive from 9-10 (Paul naps in the pilot house, so he is nearby). Paul drives 10-12. I wake up and drive 12-5 and then Paul takes over around 5am.
We haven’t motored 24 hours in awhile, so usually we pull into an anchorage and drop anchor and try to get the kids outside before it gets too cold, but then it is so hard to get back into school mode. Or we try to go to the beach for lunch, which turns into 3 hours and then we don’t have enough time to finish school or feel too exhausted or out of brain space for school. Oh well, this is cruiser life. Hopefully we are learning so much everyday about life, science, history, math (do we have enough fuel in the day tank to make it to our next destination?). It will all work out. We will all be fine. I worry too much. Sound familiar?