The girls are always embarrassed to hang the undies out on the line to dry, so instead they hang them inside. On the other hand, it doesn't bother me at all to have our undies flapping in the breeze up on the life lines and why would it when the alternative is above my head while I'm trying to work at the desk! Now before Nancy sends me an email questioning just how clean those tightly-whites are...that's a RUST SPOT you see in the photo! So stop with the harassing emails already!



We are also happy to report that "teak madness 2012" is over and we have at least 2 coats on the interior wood. I know we need 4-5 or even 6 coats, but we are out of both matte and glass varnish and have decided to not pay double the price for it down here in Mexico and will just buy more and finish the job when we get back to Port San Luis, CA. Two coats will protect it enough for a few months...isn't that what everyone always says when they half-do a project and never get back to it? Maybe, but after the huge amount of work and heartache of living in a torn-up boat and breathing teak sanding dust, this is one boat project we won't leave half done!

I did just get an email that my anchor chain was just put on a truck and is now on it's way back to La Paz. Total cost to regalvanize 300ft of 1/2" anchor chain weighing 750lbs $277USD. So the final count down clock has begun and when the chain arrives, we depart. It's starting to sink in, this going back to the States thing. But a funny thing happened on the way to "going home". There is a growing realization that we are ALREADY HOME, here on the boat in Mexico. We don't really know when the change of attitude happened and it's not like we are smugly pronouncing we are no longer Americans. At some point in the last 4 yrs of living on a boat in Mexico something changed for us and the boat, where ever we happened to be floating at the moment, became home for us. Lori and I noticed this in the last few days as we were talking about our plans and it just didn't sound right saying we were "going home", because we already feel like we are home.

It's a bit hard to explain because I don't want this to sound like the typical Ex-pat rant you so often here down here in Mexico about how bad things are in the States, as they get their social security, disability, and pension check deposited into their bank account each month. It's trendy and even the "enlightened" thing to do these days in the Ex-pat community to bash the States, heck at times it's easy to do, but life in the States, the good and bad, is what allows so many retired cruisers and people to live in Mexico very comfortably while at the same time bashing the States with their hand out.

We view Mexico and living on the Boat as "Home" simply because it is, it's our reality. It's not that we don't want to go back, but just as our life in the States seemed comfortable and normal, now life on the boat here in Mexico seems comfortable and normal. Jason is 13yr old now, will be 14 in December, and he has spent the last 1/3 of his life living on a boat in Mexico. Normal to him isn't having an IPad, Iphone, or having 24hr/day connectivity with his friends via the computer. Normal for him isn't American Idol, TV, Sitcoms, school yard politics and bullying, or seeing his mom and dad for an hour a day during the week and maybe for 4 hrs on the weekend. His reality and "normal" is living on a boat in Mexico where you change anchorages based on the season, you respond to VHF calls at 2AM for help without thinking or pausing, and the other boats in the anchorage would do the same for you. When was the last time you stopped to offer help to someone broken down on the side of the road? Normal for Jason is spending time together as a family in the space smaller than most people's living room. Normal is hearing his mom and dad talk through issues of the day both financial and marital. The word Normal certainly means something different to a life in modern day American when compared to life on a 50ft boat in Mexico. Normal will also mean something different for us when we are back in the States, and still living aboard our boat.

I see the "normal" that people tell us we should be excited to experience and get back into, and frankly, that normal looks more like the definition of crazy when looking up from South of the Border.


Home isn't where you are from.
Home isn't where you are going.
Home is simply where the people you love and want to spend time with are. For that reason, missing the people we love back in the States, we are looking forward to returning, but we are just not ready to start calling it Home yet. Home for us will always be where our heart is, so keep an eye out for our heart at the local Mexican Street Food Carts!