As new liveaboards, Tom and I wrangle daily with the increased level of effort that daily tasks require on a boat compared to an apartment.

This hit me most recently during a hot Sunday morning grocery trip. Formerly, I would shop without thought of available storage space in the refrigerator/ freezer/ pantry as space was plentiful.  Now, the reduced size of all our dry and cold storage must be factored in and more attention paid to cost and avoiding waste, as we have finite space and a fixed income.

At our apartment, I would park right in front of our door, bring the groceries in, usually in one trip, throw everything into the appropriate places while enjoying the air conditioning, and I was done! I also took for granted the fact that stowing food at our apartment required minimal bending, kneeling and reaching.  It’s a different kind of undertaking on C Ghost.

At the boat, I park 100 yards away from our sailboat in the sunny, humid, marina parking lot, fetch a dock cart and load it with groceries from the car. Wheel the cart down the pier as quickly as possible to the boat as the frozen foods start sweating.  Carry the bags down the finger pier, step with them over the water (carefully!) onto the boat, and down the companion way stairs.  Lay the bags on the galley counter. Return to the finger pier and the cart. Usually this takes three trips from the cart at the finger pier to the galley, as I can only carry two or three bags at a time down our gunwale safely. If Tommy is not neck deep in a project, he will help.

In the galley, I sort items on counter into categories: freezer, fridge, and dry goods (quickly, as it is 88 degrees out). Repackage cold and freezer items so there is no cardboard, anything leaky is sealed or put in a plastic bin or bag, and quickly stow, trying to maintain some semblance of organization in the freezer and fridge and hoping to remember where I put things. Glance anxiously at the temperature read-outs of the cold storage to make sure I haven’t let too much cold out (normal for us is 37.8 for fridge and 19.7 for freezer).

Then, I prepare the dry goods at a more leisurely pace, again discarding all cardboard (attracts roaches) repackaging cereals, crackers, pasta, etc. into moisture-proof bins that fit well into our dry locker.  Gather up all the trash (especially anything that will get smelly quickly in the heat), toss into cart, and return cart to the parking lot of the marina, dump the trash in the dumpster. Whew!

Other tasks are similarly altered. No longer do I pop a Keurig cup into the machine, and enjoy a cup of coffee that takes two minutes to prepare. Oh no, the machine and K-cups take up too much space and the Keurig machine is a tip-over hazard if the boat heels.  Instead we brew TWO pots of coffee each morning, since Tommy drinks dishwater, and in my ideal cup of joe the spoon will stand straight up.

Because I have more discretionary time in my life now, I find myself (mostly) more willing to spend the extra time to do these tasks “the sailboat way”. I move, kneel, bend, and stretch much more than I ever did when I was land-based, and I think that’s a good thing, although I also take more ibuprofen now than I used to.

When stressed or annoyed or stymied by the increased level of effort-this happens at least daily-I try to think of how much harder it must have been for Pilgrim women who did everything by hand, and then died in childbirth without epidurals. Somehow this fails to comfort me. As I totally lose my cool-frustrated, twisted like a pretzel with my head and one arm deep in the top-loading fridge, trying to capture a fugitive lost item that has rolled back to the deepest, darkest part of the box, I just scream, “G-#@d&%!! Nothing’s EASY!!”

This is Tommy’s cue to lay low (not to say cower) until the storm is over and his maniac wife has returned to some semblance of sanity. It’s also my cue to take a deep breath, and maybe take a break for a while-go look at the osprey chicks in the nest, or walk down to the water’s edge, or bury myself in some trashy, delicious and salacious bit of news on the Internet.

This new way of living requires a higher level of effort. I need more patience and more  mental and physical flexibility than I currently possess.  Some days I feel like I am really getting it- on my way to being a natural.  On others I am a clumsy bitchy cranky mess. It remains to be seen how well I will ultimately rise to this challenge.