CARLA's BLOG
WHY I AINT GOT NO POSTINs SO FAR.......

(Casey's, the English teacher aboard, suggestion for title...)

It has taken seven ten months of cruising to finally face my procrastination of blogging. (The following post I mostly wrote 3 months ago in La Paz, Baja Mexico and now I'm posting it from San Carlos, Sonora because one of my friends back home is making me get with the program!)

There were a number of other things I really thought about doing at 7:30 this morning while everyone slept and I finished making the coffee. This time I gathered my entire self, brain and steaming mug included, into a corner of the cockpit with my clipboard, pen, notes, and VHF radio. (So I wouldn't miss the cruiser's net at 8:00). I told myself I would give it a half hour to sit there and write, (using the same trick I employ to get myself to exercise) and now here I am with my first blog post! (--If you don't count the Facebook post I made in Turtle Bay last November). Of course I didn't actually start until the cruisers net was over, and I went longer than my allotted half hour. Now I'm feeling as righteous and satisfied (surprisingly) as those times I manage to do a few push ups on the poop deck.

Our new friends on Sailing Vessel (S/V) Del Viento, here in La Paz Baja CA Sur, gave me the nudge I needed. I was telling them that Facebook and all the other bloggers out there made it seem like my posts would be lost in the crowd. It wasn't like the old days on our previous cruising stint aboard Briar Rose (1994-1997) when I'd handwrite my journal, make a few different copies and mail them home, and then they'd be passed around and copied some more. I'd think to myself, who has time these days to read one more blog? To add one more thing to their computer to-do list? I contemplated doing it the old way for fun. (But then I did nothing at all.) Mike, on the sailboat Del Viento, an avid writer for cruising magazines and blogger himself, reminded me we really are just blogging for ourselves, to preserve our memories. And I know that we do have family and friends who do want to know what's going on, and that a brief phone call, email or Facebook can't really portray the flavor of what's going on.

I've been remembering how obsessive I was about journaling on Briar Rose. Do I really want to do it again? - Wanting to include every detail of scenic beauty, humorous event, and live-aboard challenges (so that folks back home knew what it is really like) while on the other hand wondering if all the details will bring an onset of death by boredom to family and friends?

Perhaps having a crew of six (including Cat) now instead of the Briar Rose two, has made a difference in my journaling motivation level. Finding time in the day to devote my 50-year old, single-tasking brain to blog-posting isn't easy when living on the 41 foot Dawn Treader with all these people I'm supposed to care for.


Cruising with two teenagers and a tween is a different animal than cruising as a childless couple in your early thirties. Del Viento knows this also. We were surprised to learn that they too, had cruised before children, nearly the same time period as we had 19 years ago! And like us, they are doing it again with their kids: their daughters Eleanor 10, and Frannie, 8. Our differences are that the first time they sailed they came from the East Coast and went westward through the Panama Canal to Mexico, and we started on the West Coast, to Mexico and went westward across the Pacific. This time we are both switching - we through the Panama Canal, and they to the Pacific!

Cruising on our Cascade 29' in our early thirties, back in the mid 90's was in that time period of history where there were barely any home computers in existence. And if you owned a cell phone it was the kind that plugged into your car. ("Oh, call my new car phone!", the technological vanguards of those times would have said.) Half way through our trip we were lucky enough to receive a laptop from Casey's mom just when they started to become popular. We were stunned to be owners of that colorful screen aboard when we first got it. Of course there was no internet with it but we used it for a word processor. Now it feels as if we spend 70% of our cruising time on the ipad or computer. Back then as childless 30 somethings we did spend time typing on our Toshiba, but also more time on socializing, and quietly reading. I spent more time finding the perfect words for the journal (I'm projecting, since I've only written a few paragraphs so far). We had much less laundry (but it had to be hand-wrung. I insisted on a machine with spinner this time, thank God.) And of course we schlepped MUCH less grocery tonnage around town than we do now, with 5 mouths and a cat to feed.

It's funny how something as wonderfully useful as our devices and internet can make you feel frustrated a large part of the time. After homeschooling, our days seem to be divided between trying to make some sort of download or program work, waiting our turn for the ipad, or wishing there was enough on board-battery power or enough pre-paid internet cell-plan balance to use the computer.

The remaining time left in the day is often spent doing laundry ashore (so we can get a big batch done all at once) and launching a walk-across-town, grocery-store expedition (they're rarely in a covenient location to an anchorage). Very little time is allocated to actual cooking. (So, no different than Ferndale on that score). And so the difference being on the boat and home is that I get my exercise grocery shopping instead of at the Bellingham Tennis Club, a lack of abundant electricity, and the dolphins and pelicans outside my kitchen window. We end the day with dinner together, a card game or two, and lots of reading. (Addtl note since 3 months ago: we got a hard drive and downloaded a bunch of movies from Del Viento so now we treat ourselves to movie nights if our SOC - State of Charge - is sufficient on the batteries, as well as my bod's.)

I find myself not taking for granted the computer and internet access even more than ever though. Those were the days back home with internet was always working, always there. One of the entertainments aboard is Casey and Tommy playing "Cyber Bullies" - which they nicknamed a card game where they team up against fictional characters. Using bluetooth they each have their own device and are partners at the same time. I get to hear them hurl good natured insults to their cyber competitors or at each other while each staring at a different screen but that is the same game. Also, internet makes me feel comfortable when we arrive new places, being a resource to find what we need in towns, and a method to connect with home as well as the friends we have made along the way already. We've also used it to fill out our homeschooling curriculum.

As an aside, our kids continue to be our go-to's with techie questions at an increasing rate because of some mysterious work of evolution or because of their parents' devolution process. They are dismayed when Casey and I began inadvertently calling the Ipad the laptop, probably because we are using our old Toshiba laptop case from Briar Rose to carry our Ipad around in. (My friends back home would also enjoy knowing that I continue to use my striped winter beanie cap with the pom-pom to carry my kindle around in, because I'm still too cheap to spend $44 on a kindle case.)

Another difference between those non-techie days in Briar Rose time and now on the Dawn Treader, is that there was plenty of quiet with just the two of us. I don't know if the lack of quiet now is due to the sheer numbers of those living aboard, or because of the times we weren't speaking to each other on a 29 foot boat, or because we were in places too hot for the exertion of forming words with our mouths, or because now we are anchored in front of the shore of La Paz, which night after night has speakers blaring into the wee hours a mixture of bad karaoke, bands, drumming practice for Carnaval, mariachi and sirens. One time I even heard someone practicing the piano on a loudspeaker blaring out over the harbor. We do love to hear the joyous laughter coming from the forward cabin (which weirdly seems to happen most when it's past bedtime), but not so much the bickering when they're bored, and musings about dreams and various science questions when we're trying to focus on something important like if our anchor is not holding and we're drifting down onto our neighboring boat. It can be a challenge to get all 3 to stay quiet while doing their math, or if it's too quiet, checking if their eyes are not on outer-space, the cat, or on the pattern of eraser shavings.

Whereas Briar Rose days found us making friends with all ages of cruisers, we now focus our social hunt on finding other kid-boats. We've been surprised at how few we have met since we left, but we have made friends quickly with those we have found. The kids form an instant connection, no matter the age or gender difference among the kids. And that is true for us adults as well, easily forming friendships with other boats due to our common, unique lifestyle. I'd say that that is the best part of cruising!

Our homeschooling is a mix of subjects we have put together for Cavan, in 9th grade, Tommy, in 7th grade, and Sophia, in 5th grade. The kids all are doing Saxson math from text and workbooks, Synergy Spanish from Marcus Santamaria's website course, History of Western Civilization audio course from Parkland College on iTunes U, science from a "Common Core Standards" text book and CK-12 we got online, book reports and blog posts assigned by Casey the English professor - "Mr. Un-Fairbairn" (a play on their former principal's name). We have some biology and chemistry textbooks we haven't delved into yet. We have a downloaded typing program they practice on 3 x a week on the computer. Tommy and Cavan are also studying chapters from an SAT prep book and Cavan is also studying an SAT math prep book. Cavan keeps up with his trumpet, Tommy is learning the guitar on a downloaded guitar course. Sophia is learning a little bit on the flute from me. We've volunteered at the La Paz animal shelter, building benches out of pallets, pouring concrete to make a ramp, and walking and bathing the dogs. We've attended a lecture about the whale sharks by a biologist in La Paz, after having swam with them a month earlier. There is not a day that goes by that I don't wonder if we are putting our kids at an educational disadvantage. Then I remind myself the world and what we need is accessible, we just have to make it work, find it, achieve it. Nothing is written in stone, we can adapt or change what we are doing whenever we want to. That is the beauty of what we are doing at the moment.

And that is my first blog post on the Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Ta Da!

Now time for you to wake up and get back to Facebook. See you there.

The world's most famous non-blogging blogger (per Casey),

Carla