Question #3: What Do You Do for Food? 9-19-09

This takes a bit of planning due to the constraints of our small fridge and freezer but we have lots of room for dry goods. I have about 50 recipes from Cooking Light and I wish that I could say that I’ve used all of them like the blogger/chef Julie in the movie, Julie and Julia. I stock up with these recipes in mind and it makes life simpler.

Our 6,000 mile trip has placed us within the vicinity of grocery stores most weeks. The problem is how to get to the store without a car. We walk, bike, have a push cart and about every 6 weeks, rent an Enterprise car to really load up. I should have taken a picture of this as we come back with a mountain of food that has to find a home somewhere aboard little Baby Grand. We discard all cardboard to decrease the bulk and this also cuts down on the chance that we will be taking bugs on board. Our cabinets and bins are organized for paper products, cans, soda, snacks etc., but if you looked inside, it might not look too organized. I keep a list of products we’ve used just like at home so the grocery list is already done. Bread is probably the hardest thing to keep fresh so we use Joseph’s Pitas which have a longer shelf life and are only 60 calories each.

We eat out about 1X per week which is a budgetary decision. Eating out costs as much or more than docking in a marina for a night so we try not to do both. We make it a social occasion with other boaters. The boating community is big on pot-lucks and I have standard recipes (broccoli salad, party bean dip, pasta salad) for these. I will not win the gourmet award with these but I have to accept the limits of my supplies.

We have another week before we haul-out, the food supplies are dwindling and it is time for creativity to use as much in the fridge and cabinets as possible. Here I am making a Boboli Hawaiian pizza with leftover sauce, canned pineapple and ham. Pretty good. We’ll donate all our unopened non-perishable goods to a food shelf.

We have lived well the past year and sharing the evening meal together has been a highlight. There is nothing like the backdrop of a beautiful waterway and good company to end the day.

Question #2: How Do You Live in Such a Small Space? 9-18-09

Most of the time, quite well, thank you. You’ve seen a lot of pictures of the outside of our boat but I don’t think I’ve shown you the inside. Even though we measure out at less than 200 sq. feet of inside space, it is a well-designed, multi-purpose space ,decked out in rich teak wood and totally surrounded by large windows which makes it light and airy. It’s redone in new upholstery/foam and the blue/beige color scheme is nautical and pleasing to us.

Picture #1 shows our main salon or our “great room.” It has his/her matching settees, a drop-leaf table used for dining, desk, or workbench (Bob, make sure to put down the quilted cover). Everything is built-in so every square inch is used. There is storage underneath every space which allows us to stock-up on provisions for at least 3 weeks.

Picture #2 shows our downstairs steering and navigation station. When we dock or anchor for the night, the nav station becomes our TV/reading lamp area. We have Direct TV, XM radio, Wi-Fi or Air Card so are pretty well-connected when we can get a signal.

Picture #3 shows our galley or kitchen. It has a 3 burner propane stove and oven, microwave, multi-use counter space, and a 18”X19”X29” fridge which included a 12”X12”X7” freezer section. How can you live with only that amount of refrigeration? It takes planning-- we can go 3 weeks if I pack the freezer with individual serving sections of meat and plan out our menus a bit. I know a lot of Loopers have standard size fridges plus extra freezers but these take a lot of power to maintain. The one thing we’re really missing is ice cubes and we have been known to walk the docks at Happy Hour, saying, “Please, sir, can I have some cubes.”

Picture #4 is our sleeping area or V-berth as it is literally shaped like the letter V. There is storage below our bed and the closet area is to the left. You cannot be into multiple outfits and coordinating accessories and live on this boat. I am more of an REI uniform gal so the closet space works quite well for me. I like the minimalist approach to clothes but this would not be for everyone. Our bathroom or head is to the left and is quite small but it has a sink, vanity, toilet, and small shower. We tend to use marina bathrooms when we’re in port and it has been quite adequate but definitely not sumptuous.

Picture #5 shows our backporch or aft deck. It offers an additional 8 ft.X10ft space for relaxing and entertaining and there is storage below the entire area.

Picture #6 shows our upper station or flybridge with our bimini down so you can see it better. We have a lot of storage up there (bikes, grill, etc.) and it is a great place to take in the view.

Do I wish we had more space sometimes? Sure. Bob would love a LazyBoy. We’ve done quite well and have shared space pretty well. A small space has to be picked-up and luckily we are both on the neat side.

On land, we have “downsized” to a 1400 sq foot condo in Denver but all we really need is the 10ftX20ft 3 season porch to feel like home.

Frequent Questions about Living for a Year on a Small Boat 9-17-09

I got my hair cut yesterday and the stylist asked me the 3 questions that we’re usually asked. I don’t know if I’ve addressed these in this blog and hopefully we have some answers.

# 1 Question: How do you stand your partner for 24/7?

Bob and I have both been asked this so it’s not a male or female thing. I must admit that I kind of worried about this too. We’ve been married 40 years, get along reasonably well, but for most of those years, large segments of every day were spent working, with friends, parenting and pursuing independent activities. Now for our year on the Loop, we’re going to be shackled together 24/7 on a small boat with no escape---yikes.

We’ve been boaters on 26-30’ sailboats for 30 + years so knew that the small boat part would be less of a problem for us than other Loopers. We did a practice run with the relationship part by taking 2 three week cruises aboard Baby Grand: the first, a 1500 mile boat delivery, 12 hours per day trip from the Chesapeake to Lake Superior; the second, a leisurely 3 week cruise to Isle Royale and the Canadian north shore of Lake Superior. We noticed a pattern—we do really well with the difficult stuff, work great as a team when the engine is misfiring after picking up a bad load of diesel, we’ve lost steering from the upper helm coming into a narrow harbor, or our anchor has dragged near rocks, but somehow get irritated with each other with the small stuff.

Since most of life is the small stuff, we needed a solution. I am a former psychotherapist so, of course, thought of going to a couples group to work on our Venus-Mars communication issues. Bob would rather have a root canal than go to a therapy group and offered a very creative alternative—if one of us experiences the other as not listening to a concern that is then getting bigger, either will say the code word, “reset” to alert the other to “stop (this is important), look (at each other) and (really) listen.” I loved that this was Bob’s idea and it really distilled a lot of very effective psychological tools into a very doable plan. Try it-it really works. This is not to say that we did not each harbor fantasies of having the other walk the plank or cast them off in the dinghy and going on solo. We had to work it out as literally to leave the dock, we have to work as a team.

Let’s talk about the 24/7. The 7 is a given but is it really 24? Bob and I did our daily numbers: subtract 8-9 hours for sleeping/napping; subtract another 4 as I get up early and Bob stays up late; subtract at least 4-6 hours for reading, trip planning, TV, blogging, other independent activities, and miscellaneous and you are down to 5-8 hours--doesn't that sound easier. It helps that we’re both pretty independent, low-maintenance types ,share all of the boat duties and both really wanted to do this trip.

I think that a lot of Loopers spend more time figuring out the "perfect boat" and less time figuring out how to live together. Size really does not matter as much in this. We’ve learned to live LARGE in a very small boat, support each other more, not sweat the small stuff as much and laugh at our mistakes. I hope that we can take what we’ve learned with us.

Love Note to Bayfield, our homeport 9-14-09

Hi everybody! Hope you are doing well and that you will have a warm September to continue cruising. Apple Festival is just around the corner and I can smell the apple pie from the Candy Shop.

It’s been a year since we left beautiful Bayfield to do the Great Circle Loop. We have done about 5,900 miles so far and are now anchored in Lake Champlain which is like a hybrid of a very small Lake Superior and a Colorado alpine lake but I don’t ever have thoughts like “Kitchi-gummi doesn’t give up her dead”—that was last September in Whitefish Bay with 6-8 foot seas, the most stressful crossing of our whole entire trip. If you can boat on Lake Superior, you can do anything.

This Peg will not be back in Lake Superior for quite awhile but we are sending you a new Peg, Loopers Peg Miller and her husband, Dave. You will probably notice their 44’ Tollycraft, Sea Ya, docked in the marina. We have told them how beautiful Bayfield is, how great the boating is in the Apostle Islands and how welcoming all of you are. Stop by and introduce yourselves and ask Dave to tell you about his special Navy escort out of a high security area. Anyone can make a little wrong turn.

Bayfield, the Apostle Islands and the BYC have been the benchmarks for us to measure other ports and we can report to you that you have rarely been surpassed. Even the Abacos in the Bahamas seemed to us like a turquoise blue Apostle Islands minus the bears but way more tiki bars.

It was fun to see Jill and Wayne, Frank, Phyllis and Gretchen as well as Vonnie and Erling in FL and to email with many of you along the way. I probably should have posted our website, and here it is http://www.babygrandadventure.blogspot.com/

We will be doing the Canadian canals next year and coming back into the Great Lakes and taking a few years to explore the Georgian Bay/North Channel area. We’ll keep the website going so join us on our adventure.

Wishing you fair skies and calm seas (We’re powerboaters now)

Peggy and Bob