Newby impatience

So, the last question my hubby asked me before he proposed was are you sure you want to live on a boat someday?  To which I responded “if I didn’t I don’t think we would still be together.”  I have dated a few guys who I thought were anti the “white picket fence” only to find out that they definitely had white picket fence mentality.  I wanted to be with someone who would sacrifice it all to live the everyday in a way that truly encompassed every moment of this fast paced life. 

I am bringing this up not only to reflect but in reaction to my last post, I have been a CLOD (cruiser living on Dirt” for way too long now.  We had decided after 10 months of trying for a baby 7 years ago that we would not have children and just hot the high seas.  We went out on the town to celebrate our big decision, bought a big sombrero and called it our hat of change, and wanted to embrace change and make the best of it.  Within a week we found out our beautiful little Willow was on the way. 

So then, Willow has always been aware that one day, after more babies come, we will be sailing away and travelling all over the world together as a family.  Then after 6 years of trying for a second baby, we decided to have hubby “snipped” buy the boat of all boats, sell all of our earthly possessions and head out October 15^th   for wherever the wind blew us.  October 1^st we had found out that our boy is on the way, due May 25^th. 

So we are leaving one year later with another crew member of Team Ryer.  We are so excited.  You would think after all these years of waiting this would be why I am impatient, but that is not the case.  It is the past year that we have been here that has been the ultimate test of our patience.  Last summer and fall while we made the necessary efforts to leave, everyone was supportive and I think ultimately dumbfounded that we were actually going to go do this for real, so all comments were positive.  But since the new baby news has gotten out, an awful lot of people think and feel that we were going to or should stick around now.  Go back to work, kids into school, and get our heads out of the clouds.  Become weekend sailors and stick the kids into every lesson out there.    

So in my last blog, I think I wanted to better explain to those “you are making the wrong choice for your family” people why exactly we are still doing what we planned.  Baby number 2 makes it even that much more important to follow through with our life’s dreams for our kids. 

I also realized though that most of those who read my blogs are already sailors and living the dream or completely understand why we are doing what we are doing.  So to those people who took their precious time to read my writing, thank you for your patience and support, and I hope you continue to read! 

 And to all those leftover with the thoughts of our need to change our plans..  talk to me after a couple of years of sailing, and hear my kids read and write and also be well travelled, and be able to teach you a thing or two.  Talk to me then.   

William Shakespeare
Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we might win, by fearing to attempt.

I hear the term is CLOD.. but not for long!

Cruisers living on dirt.  That is what we are now but hopefully not for long.

It has been a long-ish winter of keeping it cool as a risky pregnant lady, but the consistency of change in our life has been rapid.  So much so that we have four places to live and want to be down to one by July 1st.  We aim to be anchored somewhere between of Mahone Bay and Lunenburg floating for mid May to wait for baby and Willows last month in the Waldorf School.

We have left our gorgeous cottage in the breathtaking Sunny Brook.  I think we need to anchor there for a bit, it doesn't get any better!! Nice and sheltered too.

Nova Scotia has a crazy reputation for places to sail as it is the North Atlantic, but really, if you are following all of your cues from the tell tales to your radar and GPS and are properly prepared you should be just fine, fog an all.  It is the place that has created my addiction and and is completely to blame for my wanting to raise my kids at sea.

Why I want to raise my kids on a boat comes from a desire for  my children to look at the earth with a deeper understanding and a broader perspective than that of a person who only knows what the majority realizes with a certain geographical boundary.

There is a team effort that parallels no other.  We all have to do our best in order for the team to be the fittest, there is no going any further than anyone else on a boat. Everyone moves at the same pace, which is the pace of the boat.  So you are only as strong as your weakest member.   A true team.

From the strong cohesiveness of a team is born a close relationship that blocks walls from within.  All the walls or competition comes from outside the boat, and thus outside the relationship that exists between the team members on the boat.

An openness between members also ensues due to the small space and knowledge of each others activities, giving no privacy.  You have to become as comfortable with your team as if you were alone, and that can be a difficult task in the beginning.

Knowing this from taking social anthropology, and history. followed by a management degree, I have the history of humanity and how we made history.  From a perspective of total impact on the earth as a whole,  the first 2 world wars being mild compared to the total annihilation of the earth through commerce.  We are a society of massive change and destruction due to the technological advancements that completely ignore the true needs of the earth and its inhabitants.  We as humans nor animals nor plants can survive long term the way the people on this earth are headed right now.

So I feel, overall we  should all be going back to bare bones.  Start your own garden, look into alternative energy sources, look into buying completely local and organic. Get out from behind your screens and roll up your sleeves and get dirty.  Take back your family's life and help society live longer as singles and as a whole.

To think that rant came from why I want to bring up my family on a boat.

In the day to day,  every trek is a field trip.  We prepare ourselves for the trip, we travel the trip then we experience the research. Not much different than the preparation a child receives in school for a field trip. The difference being instead of pages to color and new vocabulary to learn before the trip, followed by a bus ride to the destination and a 2 hour tour with 30 of your peers.  We learn the geography, the mathematics of getting there and the culture/history/language/landscape once we arrive.

The best part of all this of course is a child who is part of the most cohesive team oriented family going out to experience the world being properly prepared, confident and excited to learn and see it all with their own eyes.  Understanding first hand the importance of why we need to be respectful of everything and every one along the way.

Okay, time to get back to "the lighter side"  once we have healthy baby boy, and Willow is done with her schooling for the year, the plan is to sail "up".   Hubby and his friends having sailed out of the Halifax Harbour all their lives have only ever sailed "down to Chester, Lunenburg, Mahone Bay area.  We intend this summer to do it, we will sail "up" to the Northumberland Straight, visit my family cottage and home and make a couple of trips to PEI to check out the festivities.  Sail back to Halifax for a wedding in Early September, then prepare for our final departure south for the end of September.

Well, that's all the wind I have in my sails for today, until next time in Sailing Mamas Galley.

My First Galley

I have created the start to this blog many times in my mind.  I have had about 20 to 30 perfect starts come to me as I drove, cooked, bathed Willow, listen to Mark about the technical aspects of a diesel engine, and even at the baby doctor.  I have decided to start at the start!  The start to this blog anyway, and why I am starting one at all.  I have already said in my 'about me' section that this is to share my trials, tribulations, and adventures with whoever wants a peek  inside our crazy life.

I have a such a crazy amount of things to consider lately that it is all getting out of control!!  Many  considerations that I have now would never cross my mind if I wasn't intending on moving onto a sailboat with my 6 year old, brand new baby boy, captain hubby and our lovable cocker-spaniel.   It would seem that everything I have to get done now, needs to be done on a boat as well!  On top of that is the fact  that you can never be fully prepared for everything that comes up either, a good example of this would be my first galley on the boat.

One of my first considerations right out of the gate was cooking on the boat without a working stove.  Its not broken, it just needs a bit of tuning up as it sat over the winter, but it wasn't something that happened for me in time to utilize last summer.  I admit we did eat out far too much and I loved every minute of it, but knowing that pulling off this adventure of ours is going to take a big financial commitment... meaning we have to make every penny count,  living with all the comforts of home, is a thing of the past.  So if you scroll up and look at me sitting on the deck with my trusty Coleman stove, this is how I cooked for the rest of our summer season.  I definitely had an airy kitchen with a great view!!!

That is what I am referring to when it comes to trials, tribulations and the best part being the adventure of it all.  I think I will be learning ways to overcome and approach new situations forever.  I think everyone does really, but this lifestyle has a rather steep learning curve, especially as you first start out.    But the resulting life of maintaining this lifestyle is why we are doing this at all.  To travel the world in our home like a snail, or periwinkle like they say on the sea, and see the world with our kids, experience things that we would only ever read about in our current mainstream life, is our lottery.  As we dare to dream, we adjust accordingly, and hope for the best!!  Here we go!

A taste of the list from the top of my head of things that have been occupying as of late include such things as these;

1)How to put the baby down for a sleep, use a stationary bed with a rail?  Will the tilt of  the boat turn the baby and contribute to suffocation?  Or go with a hammock, which remains undisturbed by the movement of the boat....  but if things get really rocky, could the hammock hit the neighboring walls in the boat?  Or do we strap him in a car seat and tether it right  to the boat and call it a day.. so not sure yet!!  This is a do it yourself mom site that posted a homemade baby hammock...  very simple idea and she was smart about following safety laws too.

http://www.make-your-own-baby-stuff.com/baby-hammock.html

2)Strapping the kiddies to the boat so they don't fall off.  You have the sailboat itself where we will have the rails completely done in a netting (which took 2 days to attach to the boat!!) and also unless in the cockpit, they will have to be tethered to the boat while not on a dock, mooring or at anchor.

3)Getting to and from the boat, and getting from the tender to the boat which is 2 different things for a 6 year old compared to a newborn!!  And sometimes even a hubby...

4)Cooking on a boat, pre prepared meals, food that doesn't need refrigeration, even though we have a fridge and freezer, we have to also consider the power it takes to run these luxury items!!

5)That thought leads me into the research we are doing for alternative power options, solar, wind, generator, and most of all how to use less energy all together.


6)I have become someone who firmly believes that we should do our best to eat organic and local, and to do this I stay on the internet doing pretty consistent research on where I can get these items while making sure they are credible and maintain the same expectations for themselves as I do.  Now while sailing I will have very limited access to the internet and have to try to stock our galley with these items with very limited to no research to my options on each new community we enter.
Halifax has a great market, I was always happy with my visit and take home, every visit was an experience.


http://halifaxfarmersmarket.com/

7)Limited use of the internet really will be a tough one for me, I am a junkie for information.  How to parent, how to eat, how to get over pretty much any perceived crisis, how to stay in contact, how to vent, you name it it seems to happen on the internet for me.

Educationally for the kids I think limited internet use could restrict us in a variety of ways, but I also think we can get to local libraries and wifi cafes and that will be helpful...  on the other hand, maybe we will have our heads and hands free of this technology long enough to experience our lives in a richer way.

8)Education is another item to consider, public school is out, Waldorf is where we are now, which we love love LOVE.


http://www.waldorfns.org/

But we are not sure which way to go as far as homeschooling curriculum. We are looking into Waldorf and Oak meadow which seems basically the same.
 I have always liked Calvert, and many sailing moms use it and swear by it.  It is an easy decision to go with Calvert as you can rest assured that your child will get the education required to return to any mainstream schooling system at any time.  They provide a full year of educational materials divided up into lessons that parents can easily deliver, and everything you need is included.  School in a box as I have heard it referred to.
This choice would be quite different than the Waldorf philosophies, so we really have lots of thinking to do yet still.
After meeting many homeschooling parents on land, I have found out that there are many great choices out there, some moms use  a different curriculum for math then they do reading and writing, some just get the public school system and make sure they cover everything in there!  I was surprised to find out that on average, if you teach the public school curriculum at home, one on one, it only takes an hour and a half a day.   To be fair, so do most homeschooling programs.  Many will do their schooling right after breakfast before changing out of their pjs, then when done, the whole rest of the day belongs to family time.  I have been doing research into homeschooling for a few years now, and I am very excited to have the opportunity to experience this with my kids, especially if we can manage to incorporate our sailing adventures into our learning environment.

So many things to think about and we haven't even come close to what to wear, you can't take much, but you have to make sure you have a bit of everything at the same time.

We got rid of so much stuff.  The cloths that we had were unbelievable, the coats and boots and shoes, toys, wedding gifts, kitchen appliances and dishes. We had a garage full of stuff, an attic and a basement.  The constant dwindle seemed endless.   We had already had many garage sales and had the diabetes association come and haul away truck loads before we bought the boat.  But when we did finally decide to make our purchase, the task still seemed dauntingly big.

Finally quickly approaching October we had gotten ourselves so we only had a few big items, and our baby stuff in the attic of our Bridgewater home to deal with.

Then, before I could get to that attic to sort through all the baby things I had so carefully tucked away, I got the flu.  Rested for a few days, and didn't seem to get any better!  Then in my sorting travels, I stumbled across this unopened test, woke up the next morning and saw the sign.  The big plus sign!!

So I did a double take...

Well, then I told Mark.  He was very happy about the news and said right away, well, we are staying the year.  I was shocked!  All I could think is we can't not go!!!  This might not last!!  But here we are and I am 25 almost 26 weeks pregnant and the boy is kicking like a future soccer player.  I was in shock for a bit, one day I took in the library when Mark had a meeting to attend, and I decided to look up a few things about my current stage in the pregnancy, and this is what I found.

and this..

I had some concern..

SO there was only one thing to do...

I took another test.  Ready or not, here he comes!!!

We had to jump into action pretty quick because as far as we knew, I was to be on bedrest by 12 weeks following a surgery, according to what the doctors had told us 6 years ago when we had our wee Willow.  So trying to keep things relatively on the down low, but also needing to tell way more people then we were completely comfortable with, we got started on our very quick transition to prepare for all that was to come.  We got Willow into full time Waldorf, we found a very cute little 3 bedroom furnished cottage on Sunny Brook next to Hermans Island, and we had tenants successfully move into our Bridgewater home. 

We had gathered up our winter apparel from Moncton at my parents house and we unloaded the boat, took out the mast and are keeping it in East River for the winter.  TADA!!!!  Ready for winter.  I ended up with more of a light duties role as things are better for me now than they anticipated, so even though I still can't do a whole heck of a lot, I am not on bed rest.  

And Miss Ulidia, our new home awaits until spring...  See you soon!!