It's 3:39 a.m. Insomnia has followed me to this new life, or is it the new beginnings that create the inability to sleep? We had a very busy and productive Sunday. In the morning, while Jim was off the boat, I decided to try an experiment; I had been storing laundry in a Canadian Tire plastic blue box in the ensuite shower. I thought “why not step into this box while having a shower, experiment by leaving a couple of articles of clothing in it, letting the blue box catch the majority of my soapy water, thus saving the bilge pump alot of work, less clean up for me, allowing the few clothes to soak, and, the added bonus of letting my feet soak too. How clever is that?! All went well and I was feeling pretty pleased with myself; however, as I turned off the shower, the bilge pump started....and continued....and continued....and would not stop! Anxiously, I scurried to the Nav Station to turn off the pump. Nothing changed; still that loud noise as I fluttered about naked and dripping wet. My mind raced with visions of expensive burnt out motor parts because of my lack of experience in the ways of boats. I grabbed some clothes, struggling to get my wet skin into them and hurried to the cockpit, looking anxiously for Jim to appear, and to my relief, he had returned! Fortunately, it was not a serious problem, simply a noisy one, but it unnerved me just the same. One last note on this incident;
I have a little habit of using J-clothes for everything, and the pattern is
yellow for face
blue for body
green for floors
pink for toilet
Well, when Jim returned to the boat, I was still beside myself with worry and we stood in the ensuite (very crowded with 2 as it barely holds 1 medium sized person). I was chattering away to him, on and on about the incident and what I had tried doing on the main switches in the Nav station, etc., while at the same time, drying my inner ears with a J-clothe. All of a sudden, Jim said "ewwwwwwwww pink!" (see if you can figure out what I did).
Due to the accident the previous night when a glass of wine found its way on top of Jim's laptop, Sunday afternoon was an expensive adventure. After finding an appropriate laptop replacement, checking out cell phones (unsucessfully as there were none available with our requirements), we then proceeded to West Marine for the purchase of a boat barbecue, followed by stocking up on our wine supply and more groceries. By the time we returned home, it was 7 p.m. I made supper while Jim worked on setting up the barbecue. By about 8:30-9:00, I was so tired I stumbled into bed.
There are many adjustments to living on a boat. I'm not missing television very much, which surprises me. I do think of Oprah at 4:00, but that's about it. So far, there continues to be so much to do that by evening, we're simply too tired. I do find it an inconvenience not having the internet at my fingertips. What is interesting though is that when I do have access, all that interests me is mail from loved ones. Jokes remain unopened. Storage is a challenge at the moment. I awoke with new ideas on my mind of where to put the extra food supplies; also thinking that more than a 4 piece place setting in the galley is totally unnecessary and realizing that more simply wastes space.
If I could name but one thing about boat life that is unpleasant, I would have to say it's the toilet (head). Although Jim had the pipes changed, the main head always has an unpleasant odor, and both heads are difficult and annoying to flush. When nature calls in the middle of the night, and the handle requires pumping about 20 times in order to flush the contents into the holding tank, it's difficult to return to sleep after all that racket! My worst experience was pumping vigorously, only to have the toilet's extremely unpleasant contents spray themselves over my face and clothes! I was not impressed.
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