We haven’t cracked a school book since Monday, but many lessons have been learned this week. Besides the responsible traveling lesson they learned on Tuesday, we’ve learned:

1. It’s very easy for things to fall overboard and if no one sees it or cares to retrieve it, it’s lost and gone forever. To prevent this problem everything must be stored in a safe place or tied to the boat. This is an ongoing lesson that we’ve discussed in theory, but now we’re seeing the practical reasons.
2. Doing simple jobs to completion. Like that cup of juice that someone left on the table. I’ve asked for it to be cleaned up several times and saw it get moved from one place to the next but never getting cleaned up. The problem with this is that it will eventually spill. Since we are not in “the land of plenty” anymore, a spill uses up paper towels or a cloth towel that needs to be washed, it uses up water which has to be made using fuel, it uses mom’s energy in the hot cabin which drastically lowers mom’s mood meter into the red.
3. People from other countries don’t wear these full coverage bathing suits we’re used to, sometimes they don’t see the need to swim with clothes on at all, and aren’t shy about it either. Once again, we’ve had this discussion that you shouldn’t criticize other peoples choice in swim wear. Especially with boaters where they have to wash and dry clothing with water that they either carried to the boat or made using fuel to run the water maker.
4. You don’t always get to sit where you want to on the bus. (see lesson 4)
5. Waste and gluttony. Both mean you’ve used up too many supplies. Yesterday Brian took the kids and me to the grocery store. We walked a sweat dripping half mile to the main road where we were lucky enough to catch the bus right away. The bus is a van similar to Volkswagon van with 4 rows of seats that fit about 4 people each and cost about $7 for 5 of us. The door slides open and everyone crams in where ever they fit. Then the wild ride begins through the narrow streets, driving on the left side around people and parked cars, heading into traffic half the time. At the store we loaded the cart with the necessities. There is a minimum selection. Small apples for $1 a piece, was the fruit selection, we didn’t get them. One type of cheese, it’s a very delicious white cheddar from New Zealand, 17.6 oz for $6. In the end we spent about $90 for just less than a week of food. That sounds about right to me. Now for the trip back. Everyone filled their back packs up and ‘jumped’ on the next bus back, walked that sweat dripping half mile back to the boat and went swimming. Now when the kids say they’re hungry, they know what we have, they carried it, and they know what their choices at the market are. Next time they go, they can be sure they select foods that will satisfy them.
6. Water and power conservation. We’re waiting for the man at the shipyard to make the solar panel rack, he hasn’t started yet, so we have no idea when he’ll be finished. Those panels should adequately supply us with enough power for our refrigeration, lights, one movie a night, and electronics charging. Until then Eric runs the engines for a few hours a day to keep the refrigeration cold and charge the batteries, and the generator to make water and charge batteries. Hopefully, the panels will take care of everything except the water. Yesterday we used more than 40 gallons of water. Our water makes 40 gallons an hour using reverse osmosis. This means a high pressure pump forces sea water through a fine membrane that removes everything except the H2O. This boat has electric pumps that pump the water from our tanks to each sink and the shower hose in the back. You have to be really careful with the pressure pump because it can be wasteful. Today we’re going to fill the solar shower for our rinse offs and see if that cuts back on the water, and someday maybe get a foot pump in the galley for dish washing.

I have lots of lessons to learn. Eric said this boat is as complicated as the space shuttle. Roy and I learned how to work the anchoring mechanisms, and that’s about it. There are about 50 switches at the nav station, then there are all the other systems on the boat, plumbing, electrical, refrigeration, engine, and sail. I’ll never learn them all, but do need to be familiar with where they are and how to work them. Until then I think I’ll look for something to clean.

 
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Here’s another lesson.  On a sail boat, anything you hoist up with a halyard, should always be tied down to the the deck as well.  For instance, sails are attached to the boom or the forestay so when you hoist them up, they can be pulled down as well.  The flying ballerinas had their swing chair hoisted up and tided down as well, but someone had the bright idea to take the line off the bottom so they could hoist it higher.  Then it went up and wrapped around a shroud about three times.  Oops!

Next, Roy got hoisted up.  Eric put him in a rock climbing harness and attached it to the shroud so he wouldn’t swing from one side of the boat to the other.  I can’t believe it, he wasn’t also fastened to the deck, but it was thought that his 75lbs of boy flesh would allow him to use gravity to be lowered.  Everything went well and hopefully a lesson was learned.  I also described what it would be like if something like this happened while we were underway in the wind and waves, hopefully caution can be exercised when messing with halyards.

Food! I’m very interested in learning about the local foods.  One reason is that they are less expensive than food shipped from the U.S. and another is this is where it’s grown, and also let’s be flexible and open minded.  Today we’re having star fruit and passion fruit.  Do you know how much this stuff costs at Von’s?  It was delicious, sweet, ripe, but only Brian and I enjoyed it.  I couldn’t get anyone else to go for it.  They’re all going to get scurvy!

Since I made the kids carry all those supplies, I figured we could treat ourselves to Christmas Cookies.  Sugar cookies from one of my cabin cookbooks, taste the same.  I even shared a few with the guy from Prague on the next boat over.  He said he’s been speaking Russian for 60 years and is learning English here in Grenada.  I think he’s doing much better with English than I am with Russian.