San~San Adventures

 

Gia played Port Orange Soccer and won a medal and Tournament Ball.

G & Gia Cutting up Pumpkins

Josh was over to help celebrate!

A party at school, Glenda the Good Witch from the Wizard of OZ.

Since we have been back we have sold the boat. She sold realy quickly, thanks to a great website GR made. 42pearson.livesaildie.com

Once we arrived at the slip where San~San would call home I jumped onto the dock to tie us up and sprained my ankle. I wasn’t used to the concrete docks. Ouch! Then we walked about a mile to our house to retreive GR’s car that had been left in the garage for almost a year. When we got there the car battery was dead and the car would not start so we walked back to the Marina. Another mile on my bad ankle, ugh. I was out of commision for about 2 days with this swollen ankle. So GR had to unload all of our belongings off San~San and into the house.

Once we were getting accustomed to the house we had to move from one house and into another. We put 2 rental signs out front of the 2 properties and whichever one rented first we were going to live in the other one. Well wouldn’t you know the house on beachside we were living in was the one to rent. So we packed again and moved into Ponce Inlet.

Our house now is much larger than our living area in the boat or in the Daytona Beach house. We were not complaining about all the extra room! Just like with a boat, with a big house comes maintenace, new carpets and some landscaping and we were sitting pretty comfortably.

GR has finished his Official US Coast Guard Captain’s license, something he has been longing to do for some time. Making good use of all the Sea Time he has acrued over the years. I have taken my PADI – Open Water Diver course and taken the Bartending course, a story I wrote about Gia catching her first fish in St. Thomas made it onto the pages of Lattitudes and Attitudes! Gia has learned to ride her bike with out training wheels, and is riding a skateboard as well as attending Pre-Kindergarten at Warner Christian Academy.

We have maintained friendships with several of the cruiser’s we met while we were at sea.  Barbara from Ooh-La-La drove over to trick or treat with us on Halloween night. Ryan & Morgan from Endorfin came to Daytona to visit and we had a great time catching up at their fancy hotel room. Nate & Jenn called us Christmas morning to say the were going to go skiing.  The large family of Liahona, that we met in Turks & Caicos have also since sold their boat and moved back to the states to continue their adventures. Josh, our first crew aboard San~San, also completed his Captain’s license with GR and is working out of Ft. Lauderdale on different vessels.

We are still in the market for our next boat home and constantly looking. we have one that we like a lot right now, but just waiting for the right time to make the move.

It has been 12 months since we returned to the States. Unfortunately, this does not feel like home. This feels very temporary. It took a while to get used to living aboard. Several months in fact. In the first few months, living aboard felt like camping, like a vacation. As time went on, living day to day, breakfast, lunch and dinner; long passages, longer days just sitting, resting, being patient. Fixing mechanical issues became more tedious practices reminiscent to living in the states, in a home only with much less convenience. Such as not so many Home Depot’s or ACE Hardware stores.  Our eating habits where limited to what we could keep fresh in our small fridge or in the pantry (dry goods) While on the boat we longed for a different menu, this became such a way of life that we feel now looking back that we could go back to that lifestyle.

Try to imagine moving everything you truly need into one bedroom. Include your kitchen, refrigerator, bathroom as well as bedroom and living area. You must of course include the fact that you are almost in constant motion since you live on the water. At first, it may sound so barbaric. But I miss it so much.

Things I think about when I dream about living aboard again are…

waking up with the sun…

falling asleep to the sound of the wind and the waves…

seeing the dolphins swim in our bow wake…

jumping off the boat into the water…

playing games…

reading books…

sunbathing…

walking miles and miles to get the civilazation… or to get away…

meeting new people, in new places…

solitude…

accomplishing a project…

navigating…

cooking…

I used to be excited about going back to Florida and living in a house. But now all I can think about is moving into a boat. The freedom of living on the boat is unexplainable. No ego, all are the same, no impressing others, all are accepted at face value, all are pure as the son of God. No materialistic selfishness, possessions are unimportant, family and time are important.

This is something clearly lost in the American culture. Here I notice the media, and celebrity ideals have pushed their ways in to the home of Americans everywhere. I feel like everyone is looking for something and do not realize that they already have it.

When I look at others who say they are going to leave and haven’t or that they want to leave but… I am sad. I know they happiness the want to know, I had it but I am not sad for myself. For I carry it with me daily. I remind myself of the happiness on the boat and I am complete. Free and complete, this life is only temporary… in more ways than one.