Wednesday, July 10, 2019

Sailboats Are Loud

We’ve been on the sailboat portion of our vacation for two nights now.   I’m learning things.   I haven’t the slightest clue how to do the things required to actually sail the sailboat, but I’ve made myself useful in several areas.

Yesterday after the marina staff came out to where we were anchored and replaced the missing prop by scuba diving under the boat—which is just all kinds of cool in my opinion.  We stuck around St. Thomas, sailing around a good portion of the island to prepare for two things today.  First we’ll be visiting Hans Lollik, the island we had a view of when we were here in last December.  And second we’re better positioned to head to St. John, where we’ll stock up on fresh water and maybe visit a beach.

We’ll probably get a chance to see what it’s like to get off a boat that’s been moving underneath us for two days, only to find our brains incorrectly tell us the solid ground is moving underneath us.   I lost my hat yesterday to wind but good news, we’re stopping in the exact port I purchased the hat from in December so I plan on buying another one.

Some additional things about being on a sailboat.   First and foremost‚ it’s loud.   It’s not unlike our electric car, which is super silent moving along under the electric motor.  It’s everything else that makes our Tesla cars less than silent.   The wind noise as you move through the air, on land for the car and at sea for the boat.   There are other noises too, like the air conditioners, which we turn on when we’re not sailing to cool down our cabins for sleep at night.  

It’s the generator and the air conditioners that make the boat louder than I’d anticipated while lying in our cabin at night.   It’s July in the Carribean and I’m thrilled to have the air conditioning.   If you’re a fan of ambient noise to sleep, you’d drop off to sleep in no time with the hum of the generator and the blowing of the fan underneath the foot of the bed, circulating the air through the  room.

Two of our boat members didn’t feel well yesterday: my husband and my son.   Neither got to the point where they vomited, but they didn’t feel well for several hours.   We gave them both a few of the motion sickness options that can be taken at the same time and my son was running around on the bow of the sailboat with Andrew later in the afternoon.

The Big Boy Update: My son came on deck this morning where I’m sitting here at the table writing this blog post with a plate in his hand.   “I’m having an 'Andrew Egg!’”  Andrew, prefers a fried egg on top of buttered toast.   My son idolizes Andrew.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:   My daughter said out of the blue today, “Mom, if you had just one wish, I know what it would be.”   I was writing this blog post at the time so I answered sarcastically, putting my hand on her shoulder and said, “for you to not talk to me until I finish writing this?”   She said, “no, your wish would be to have no more pain.”    That almost brought tears to my eyes.   I told her I loved her and that was a very special thing to say.   I didn’t tell her I would wish for her eyesight instead of my pain though.   As obvious as that choice would be any of us as parents, I don’t think she would understand.

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