we're getting fitter
25 February 2014
Jackie woke me up at about 4am, but not to wish me happy birthday, she woke me to say she was getting wet, it’s raining and the hatch above her side of the bed is open. Being vertically challenged it’s not something she can easily reach, so she gives me a prod and half asleep I manage to close the hatch, being careful not to trap any fingers as it slams shut. It’s just one of the things that have become part of our day to day routine on board Picaroon that you never have to consider when you live in a house, but living on a boat, in the Caribbean, it’s something you just take in your stride before promptly going back to sleep.
So here I am, up before sunrise floating about in Salinas bay, in Puerto Rico, in the Caribbean, on my own yacht, and today I’m clickety-click, all the sixes, sixty six. Pelicans lumber across the bow, an unlikely design for a flying creature, mostly beak, beating their wings occasionally as they head out towards the rising sun in search of breakfast, just beyond the mangroves. The sun casts patterns on the mountains about a mile away, but here on the deck of Picaroon I’m still in the shadow of a large cumulous cloud that is having a battle with the rising sun, and a faint down draft, could signal another shower on the way. All is quiet, except for the distant cries of a dozen or more cocks crowing, and the whirring of wind turbines on the surrounding sailboats.
The life of a live-aboard sailor is very different to the pictures I had in my mind all those years ago when we started to plan this adventure as we slipped into the autumn of our years. Giving up work to loll about on palm fringed bays, sipping G&Ts at sunset, seemed like a perfect retirement plan, but the reality has been something of a rude awakening. I don’t think either of us has ever worked so hard, in fact, we may even be getting fitter than we’ve been in years. To be able to wash up and shower we have to collect ten gallons of water, every day in two large jerry cans, and ship them from the marina jetty out to our boat. We fill them on the quay, man handle them down into our rubber dingy, and lift them up onto the deck of picaroon. Five gallons of water is heavy, believe me, and sometimes we’ll do this twice a day.
We have no car and the nearest shop is about a mile away so we have to walk there and back, in the heat of the day carrying provisions, usually wine, but it’s the only way, there’s no taxis here in Salinas. It’s a pleasant stroll though, past the sugar cane fields and dodging 4x4s as there are no pavements to separate us from the traffic.
The jobs that we’ve had to do on Picaroon often involve contorting your body into yogic poses to get to some bit of equipment that needs attention. Take yesterday, trying to coax six huge heavy batteries out of a hole, and up onto the deck using a block and tackle, and the principle of levers. Yes folks it’s all science and brute force, another day in paradise. Scrubbing the decks, heaving on bowlines, toting provisions, fetching, carrying, pumping up the dingy every day, it’s got a leak that we still need to get to. So all in all we’re getting fitter, it wasn’t part of the plan but there you go, in fact we’re probably fitter than we’ve been in years,………… now where’s that glass of wine and my cigar, after all it is my birthday