Living on a Sailboat exploring the world
It’s sometimes hard to believe that we moved onto Sava two years ago! December 5, 2018. Which means we’ve spent two years living on a boat. Happily, we’ve survived and in some cases even thrived through all the crazy twists and turns that boat life – and life – have thrown in our way. We started out so ignorant and naive about life aboard, but we’ve done and learned a lot in two years.
After almost two years sailing and anchoring in the Caribbean, Sava and her crew needed some TLC. Sava moved to Curaçao Marine for bottom paint and more while we moved into an apartment in town. We only took two weeks away from the boat, but it made a world of difference! During that time, we made our boat nicer to live on, which is good for all of us.
We’ve done a lot of work on Sava over the years, but we didn’t focus on cosmetics. Fixing the engine, batteries, watermaker and everything else was more important, but since we know how that stuff works now, we can make life on Sava better! While in the yard at the marina, we prettied her up inside and out! Since we made our boat nicer to live on, she’s like a new boat to us and we love her all over again.
We rented a one-bedroom apartment while Sava was in the yard, which meant a thorough boat clean. First on our list was emptying the boat: we took out all the food, defrosted the fridge and freezer, and scrubbed all the cupboards and storage lockers. We vacuumed the boat multiple times since we had shore power and did such a good job cleaning Sava I was almost sad to restock her!
While Domino took a few days to get used to living on land, she eventually made herself comfortable.
When it comes to physical activities, I am a slow learner. I need lots of practice to get adequate at most sports. On the plus side, I am game to try most anything and willing to practice. I am at least adequate at skiing and paddleboarding and more than adequate at a few other sports, but it all took work! This is a post about my most recent failure, but don’t worry. I won’t be depressing, because I agree with the genius quoted below.
“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.”
Albert Einstein
Regular readers of this blog know I am used to failure. Whoops. I did it again. Here’s my story about how trying to be a freediver was my most recent failure.
I love to scuba dive. I love the water. In fact, I used to be a pretty good swimmer but it’s so much easier with fins and a snorkel that I don’t swim without them much anymore. When I was in Utila I first noted the availability of freediving classes for the public. And that sport is growing, at least from what we’ve seen in the Caribbean. In Bonaire, you can take freediving classes from one of the world champions, and he is the real deal. In September, Brian and I signed up for the class.
We took the AIDA2 freediving course and it is amazing!
I loved the breathing exercises and worked my way from a static breath-hold of 1:20 to over 2 minutes. Once we got moving in the water, it was even more rewarding. Using the long fins made me feel so powerful and aided my 40 meter dynamic swim in the shallows! The technique wasn’t easy or natural for me, but I picked it up after a few tries and thought I was golden.
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