Living Aboard a Boat
Ramblings From the Dockside
There's No Place Like Home (Even When It Feels Too Small)
Thursday, February 05, 2015TheCambrians
I didn’t advertise
the fact. It would have like hanging a sign in Cambria ’s window that read, “Come on aboard. There’s nobody here to stop you.” But on a cold winter’s morning back in
December, we packed up our truck and boarded a ferry that took us across Puget
Sound and on a 1900-mile road journey to Kansas where we spent the holidays
with our family, stretching our legs (along with most of our personal
belongings) for two months.
It was pure
bliss.
If, that is, you ignore the two weeks
we were down with the flu. The
cold. The snow. And the ice.
Or the fact that there isn’t an ocean within 600 miles.
Which we do because there’s a lot
more to Wichita , Kansas Cambria .
After another brutal 1900-mile
journey that turned into 2000 miles so we could avoid one final mountain range
and the possibility of snow (something we were desperate to steer clear of
after having just slogged through Western Wyoming, Utah, Idaho and Oregon in
the freezing rain and snow), we stepped aboard Cambria for the first
time in almost two months. It wasn’t the
welcome we hoped for or would have ideally wanted, but it is the one we
expected: a boat torn apart, smelly and green from two months of being
unattended and closed shut.
After spending so much time on land walking
around freely and stretching our legs (as well as our belongings), it feels
cramped in here. Too cramped. We know that will change in time, but the
first days as are always the hardest.
And then there’s the long list of
things we need to do before the cruising season starts eight short weeks: plan
our route to Alaska, make reservations to visit Glacier Bay, clean and seal the
decks with teak oil, clean the mildew that’s made it’s home on the underside of
the cockpit canvas, provision, finish the headliner project, service the
outboard motors, administer some TLC to the dinghy and on and on and on. But the list will have to wait. Right now we have to address the elephant in
the room – the piles and piles of junk we took off the boat for our trip that
now needs to be put back.
It’s a little
overwhelming to say the least.
I’m tired. It’s difficult not to be. I’ve been awake since 3:00 this morning and wasn’t able to get
back to sleep in this place that now feels strange – albeit temporarily. The sound of the rain hitting the cabin top,
waking me only slightly at first but inviting the list of all the things I need
to do into my consciousness.
So, here I
am. No closer to accomplishing these
tasks or feeling any less daunted by them now that I’m up, simply wondering . .
.
Where did
the time go?
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