It's Been a Lovely Cruise

 George takes a walk along Wrightsville Beach, NC.

Jimmy Buffet was right.  George agrees. We're sitting at dusk on a spiffy clean Aunt Aggie, having our final gin and tonics and eating stale popcorn.  Here is my last blog posting.

A couple of months ago I thought of the lessons I learned by living on this boat.

1.  Move slowly and you will get fewer bruises. 

I got this terrible bruise on our first week, when I tried to swing onto the boat like 

the workers in Mobile did.  

2.  Everyone's boat has a leak. We were invited to dinner with some of our favorite folks, who have a fancy, bigger boat.  The hostess was serving lots of different dishes because she'd discovered her pasta was getting moldy due to a leak.  (I was surprised and happy.)

3. Size only matters if you are uncomfortable. We have been happy and content on our 35 foot boat even surrounded by bigger and more expensive craft.

4. Having less of everything is a pleasure.  Since we have a small refrigerator, we eat fresh food; I had to spend time looking for the right, small piece of art; we wear our favorite tee shirts.

5. Take care of health issues in the daytime.  In the middle of the night you will think you have appendicitis. At least twice in remote locations, I worried that I had appendicitis.  This was not gas.  Once it was stress; the other time it was lower back pain.  George's sprained ankle also was a worry in the night.

6. Find a repetitive, calming activity that you can do when you are under stress. 

Knitting and playing solitaire worked for me.

7. Accept help when it is offered.  A woman in the medical center emergency room in Little Current, Sally, offered to drive us to the pharmacy.  We hesitated and then let her.  She saved us time and money + we had a pleasant experience and memory.  

8. Watch the wind. Before this trip I never noticed wind direction and speed.  For a beamy boat like ours, wind makes the difference between an easy trip and a miserable one.

9.  Trust your math. This was important in reaching swing bridges that open only on the hour and locks that open at 9:00 am.  Sitting in a river and waiting for a bridge is hard work.

10. Take your drink over and visit with the neighbors at 5:30 pm.

11.  It's easier to stay on course if you have a marker at the horizon. Just looking at the compass and trying to stay on 135 degrees is hard.  If we can look at a cloud or the end of an island, we can easily steer.

12. You’ll have more fun if you plot your own course. We often traveled with other loopers for a few days.  It was a treat to be together at night and a relief to plan together.  But everyone makes his/her own plans, and that way we are only responsible for ourselves.  Several times we had to decide whether to go in iffy weather when others were leaving.  Those choices are lonely, but we want to be responsible for our own joy and trouble.  No blaming other boaters. Being alone for a few days made the reunions sweet.

                                                           "These moments were left with
                                                            May you always remember
                                                            These moments are shared by few
                                                            There's wind in our hair
                                                            And there's water in our shoes
                                                            Honey, it's been a lovely cruise"

Mothers' Day at  Solomons Island, Maryland