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Transitioning to the world of to-dos

Jan 3rd, 2013
by Sara.
5 comments
Wondertime girls at Roberton Island, Bay of Islands, New Zealand

Wonder. Time.

I realized yesterday what it is that has been driving me crazy lately. Anxiety has been creeping into my soul once again, a sense of hurry that starts as soon as I open my eyes each morning. The feeling that there is not enough time in the day. Going to bed each night thinking of what I didn’t get done that day and wondering if I can get it done tomorrow.

It’s my new to-do list.

One of our most favorite places in Auckland so far? The library!

One of our most favorite places in Auckland so far? The library!

I haven’t had a to-do list for well over a year now and as we head out of cruising mode and into – what? – work/school/errand/shop/whatever-you-call-this-not-moving mode I’ve starting making the lists that ruled my life before we spent all our days exploring little bits of land by sea. It seems there’s a lot to do to fit in to city life, and more importantly, make and spend money which is mostly what every metropolis seems about. I’ve got lists of things to buy, places to explore, homeschool activities to sign up for, items to complete for our work and student visas, books to read, blog posts to write, boat projects, appointments to make….

Did I not have these things before? What has changed exactly? Sure, some days were busy during our time in the islands. When we got to town there were provisions to buy, laundry to drop off, ice-cream cones to eat. Emails to write. Um. Hmm. I guess that’s it. Must be why I hadn’t had to jot down any tasks – there really weren’t any.

But we must have eaten a lot of ice-cream because here we are working on that cruising kitty again. And doing that in a new country requires a bit of red tape. And the price of not having a to-do list for a while simply means that quite a few things just got pushed into the future and we’ve finally met up with them. Then again, I just like making lists and tend to jot down any old thing that crosses my mind to do.

But then those lists tend to rule my days: I check my daily tasks in the morning and plan out how I’m going to get them done. The girls beg for pancakes but I make oatmeal again because pancakes take too long to make and clean up. I feel anxious when the girls want to get out the paint when I’m planning on heading out in an hour to the laundromat. Everyone wants to walk to the playground but I am struggling with the fact that I have 10 starred emails in my inbox…. By the end of the day I am exhausted and – of course – I check my to-do list and defer the four undone items for tomorrow.

Pt. Erin Community Pool

We love hot summer December days at the pool

One of the lessons that cruising has taught me is to take the lessons that cruising has taught me and bring them to the life we live when we are not moving. This one: that the best days are not the ones where I get the most things done. The best days are the ones without a list leading the way, where we just let the day unfold and explore the world however we feel that day and let whatever happens, happen. They are the days when we take the time to wonder.

We had such a day last weekend: Saturday morning dawned with a list of things we needed to do to go visit friends who live several hours up the coast for the weekend. We packed, made a treat to bring, showered. Out in the parking lot we found a screw embedded in the front tire of our car and drove out to a tire shop on the way out of the city (resulting in four brand-new tires to replace the bald ones). At noon, we found ourselves sitting in northbound traffic with the rest of Auckland’s residents heading out for a long New Year’s weekend. After taking nearly two hours to travel what normally takes 20 minutes, we phoned our friends and regretfully made plans to visit after the holidays. We felt terrible.

Nothing to do!It was a beautiful sunny summer December day so we headed over to the community pool for an afternoon swim. On the way home we got an invite from some new friends for a BBQ dinner at their Auckland home and drove over that evening. The wonderful visit and dinner culminated with a night stroll under the full moon to a park reserve near their home. We walked in the dark into the trees which led to rock caverns that were illuminated with the tiny fairy-lights of glowworms. It was absolute magic, an unforgettable evening for everyone. I couldn’t have planned that day if I tried and tried.

So this morning when I woke up I did the best thing I could think of to reduce all the weight these to-dos have been putting on my soul and our days: I started deleting them.

The view from our cockpit - our new playground!

The view from our cockpit – our new playground!

With her rust stains, chipped paint and bowsprit, Wondertime sticks out like a sore thumb amongst all the other slick and fast New Zealand boats. But we love her anyway.

Here’s Wondertime in her new Auckland slip. With her rust stains, chipped paint and bowsprit, she sticks out like a sore thumb amongst all the other slick and fast New Zealand boats. But we love her anyway.

 

Merry Christmas from the Crew of Wondertime!

Dec 26th, 2012
by Sara.
2 comments

Treats for Santa We arrived in Auckland last week, after Santa granted us an early Christmas gift of a new damper plate shipped from the UK which got us motoring along again. With the remains of Cyclone Evan hot on our heels, we had a quick overnight trip 130 miles down the coast from the Bay of Islands into our cozy slip here in downtown Auckland. Our first days in the city have been a blast with amazing playgrounds, parks, pools, libraries, museums and shopping just a short walk or bus ride from the boat.

This Christmas, we are thankful for arriving here safely and with so many stories and memories of the last 18 months of travelling together as a family that it seems overwhelming at times. The hardest part is definitely the wake of family and friends we’ve left behind and are missing very much this season. Just know we are thinking of each and every one of you and wish you a very merry season and the time to look back at all the amazing memories you’ve made this year.

Wondertime - Christmas 2012And look forward, as we are, with excitement and joy at all the memories to come in the coming year.

Wondertime girls - Christmas 2012

Familiar But Foreign

Dec 4th, 2012
by Sara.
11 comments

Our first days in New Zealand were not very glamorous, or should I say glamourous, but it has been thrilling to be here even though our first orders of business were to get started on our long list of chores that have piled up during our time lazing around in tropical paradise. We’re in rural country up here in Opua with miles kilometers kilometres of roads winding crazily through rolling green hills dotted with sheep exactly like we’d pictured it here. You can’t really do much without a car so that’s the first thing we bought (after plunking our $2 coins in the shower meters, our first hot showers since Niue in August). We picked up a sweet late 90s Subaru (this may be something like our 10th Subaru) and immediately drove to the grocery store where we gleefully filled our cart with fresh NZ strawberries, blueberries, apples, avocados, zucchini, and bottles and bottles of cheap delicious wine. Which I thoroughly enjoyed after the 10 loads of laundry finished this week….

Meet “Kiwisube”…she blends in.

Beautiful spring produce, all NZ grown

While walking around dainty little Kerikeri we felt a little scruffy, even for laid-back Kiwi standards, and made the hair salon our next stop where all four of us got a little snip snip. Here’s Holly getting her first haircut ever:

Holly’s curls get an adjustment

Our cruising kitty is not really set up for 1st world living so we pretty much had to get on the job-search program right off the bat. Thanks to old cruising friends who lived in Auckland for several years after sailing here, Michael had appointments set up with several IT recruiters practically moments after we tied off our docklines. As you may have guessed, one of the tricks of this lifestyle is to combine the many chores that seem to pile up with pleasure, so we took a field trip down to the metropolis of Auckland last week.

“Look! It’s a school of sheep!” -Holly

It was a grey, drizzly three-hour drive to the city from Opua and as we crossed over the bridge into downtown Auckland we had complete deja-vu: with the weather, the sailboats scattered across the waterways of the city we could have sworn we were driving into our hometown of Seattle. But not the Seattle of today, more like the Seattle of my childhood: New Zealand’s largest city has half of Seattle’s population and although we were warned about all the terrible traffic, we found ourselves cruising easily through the downtown in the middle of the workday. The city was incredibly clean and largely populated with small, local businesses. We grabbed coffees and warm milks at a hip cafe in Ponsonby and then toured the nearby Westhaven marina which we hope will be home soon.

Wondertime family in Auckland

While Michael was at his meetings the girls and I window-shopped and lunched at a tiny sushi restaurant together. We gleefully visited every bookstore in a 5-block radius.

Sushi lunch in Auckland with my girls

Holly happily buried in books

This week we are still in Opua, waiting for the arrival of our new damper plate which is being shipped in from the U.K. We hope to get the boat down to Auckland by Christmas, but in the meantime are enjoying kicking around in Northland. We drove to Whangarei for the day and explored the local parks which included the beautiful Whangarei falls and a lovely Kauri forest. On the way we also toured an ancient cave which is populated by glowworms – one of the many life forms unique to New Zealand. Leah is fascinated with caves and hopes to do more challenging spelunking in the future.

About to enter the amazing Kawiti glowworm caves

Wondertime girls at Whangarei Falls

It’s been wonderful to be back in the land of forests again. At first, it felt like we were back home in the Pacific Northwest. But then the details begin to come into focus. Instead of giant Douglas Firs there are ancient Kauri trees. The song of Tui birds ring out through the treetops, marvelous tree ferns tower over our heads. The greens everywhere are more vivid shades than we’ve seen before. It smells like the forests we remember, damp and mossy, but there are scents in there of spices and flowers that are all new to us.

We visit the fantastic giant Kauri trees of the Puketi forest

A tree fern

We’ve only begun to scratch the surface of all the beautiful new things this lovely country has to offer.

Life Goes on in Tahiti

Jun 26th, 2012
by Sara.
7 comments

We’ve been in Tahiti for over two weeks now. Tahiti – sounds exotic, huh? Beautiful women everywhere, tattooed muscled men, white sand beaches, showers of flowers. But we arrived in Papeete with a list of things to do and despite our initial decree to just enjoy this island paradise and not focus on the list so much, we’ve found that a city is a city, no matter how exotic and the list always wins.

Leah talks to Grandpa 4000 miles away

We’ve shopped, we’ve washed the boat and many loads of laundry (albeit at $9 a load in the coin washer everything’s been washed in the sink). We’ve visited the giant Carrefour store (a sort of French Walmart) a number of times bringing back cartloads of crackers, pasta, chocolate, cheese, meats, produce and boxed French wine. Our diesel and water tanks are full, engine oil changed, calls made to family, our few bills paid.

It hasn’t all been work here though; we met up in the park with friends to celebrate an 8th birthday, Leah had a slumber party with another 6-year-old girl on an Australian boat we met here, we took the bus to the Tahiti museum for a field trip one afternoon. The girls were delirious with delight when we treated them to Happy Meals at the downtown McDonald’s and I must admit my strawberry shake tasted like mana from heaven.

After sampling the ordinary delights of Tahiti we were all set to sail to Moorea in the Tahiti-Moorea Rendezvous this past weekend. On Friday I got out a mirror to look at a tooth that had been aching a bit for the past few days. Back in Mexico, I had gotten a long-needed crown (my first) on one of my molars. Apparently this crown was temporary as it had developed a lovely hole right in the bottom surface and I could see my tooth right through it.

We got on the bus and headed downtown from our anchorage near Marina Taina. There was an English-speaking dentist right across from the yacht quay so we went straight to his office. Happily he saw me right away. “I am obliged to remove your crown,” the French dentist said. “Ohay,” I replied with my mouth open, palms sweating. He poked and (after numbing the tooth) drilled around for a bit. “You come back Monday for a root canal,” he stated. Oh boy.

Shopping with Holly, Papeete Marche

Later that night we met another American family on a boat and the dad happened to be a dentist. We talked for a while about my options. “Honestly, since your tooth is on the top and in back and it will just end up coming out eventually you might as well have the thing pulled now and get out of Tahiti,” he opined. As thrilling as having a tooth pulled in Tahiti sounded, that was my gut feeling too as the tooth had given me loads of trouble over the years.

We stayed in Tahiti over the weekend and arrived at the dentist’s office Monday morning. I spoke to him of my desire to have the tooth extracted rather than undergo weeks of expensive visits to try to repair the half-rotten thing. He refused. “That is just stupid to pull out a perfectly good tooth! Crazy! I won’t do it!” I paid my bill for the previous visit and left with my head spinning.

Two hours later, with another dentist’s name in hand we are back on the bus to this office which is near the marina. I am in tears the entire ride. My crownless tooth is killing me now. I don’t want to pay $1000 to a complete asshole for a root canal and another crown that will take two weeks to complete. I want to leave Tahiti; we only have three weeks left on our visas and the rest of the Society Islands to see. But right now, I want to get on one of the planes that take off every few minutes from the airport the bus is passing and go back to the places I know. I want to drive my car to my old dentist’s office in Olympia. The girls hug me, say “feel better, mama.” Living so close together we share so many things, emotions included.

We find the new office easily and this dentist sits me down to examine what is left of my tooth. He is much friendlier with a clean, modern office. After taking a quick x-ray we discuss the options. I tell him that I would really prefer to remove the tooth. “That sounds like a fine solution. You can come back tomorrow to have it done,” he smiles warmly. I make my appointment and we walk to the store for ice-cream before heading back to the boat to cook dinner.

Update 27 June: The tooth came out quickly and without a hitch yesterday. The dentist was excellent (Dr. Dairou), I couldn’t feel a thing and three things were confirmed:

1. The more nervous I am about something the less of a big deal it really turns out to be (see: “Rounding Cape Scott”).

2. Keep trusting my gut: the tooth’s roots were all twisted and wonky and the dentist said a root canal would have been impossible.

3. As Leah suspected, the tooth fairy does not bring money for an a adult tooth. I only got a new toothbrush and a packet of dental floss. Boo.

Countdown to cruising: 4 days to go

Jun 25th, 2011
by Sara.
1 comment

A few months ago I came across the blog of another family of four getting ready to go cruising. Like us, they have two daughters less than three years apart in age. Like us, they are planning on cruising their sailboat in Mexico this winter. Not only that, the parents also cruised as a couple in Mexico before their kids were born as we did. Always excited to keep tabs on other soon-to-be-cruising families I bookmarked their blog to keep up on their pre-departure activities. We soon had “met” online and were looking forward to possibly meeting up in Mexico this winter.

However, this family is getting their boat to Mexico a little differently than we are: it’s already there. A really good idea, I’m thinking at this point in time. Not only that, they had lived in Washington D.C. for the past 10 years or so. In order to get to their boat, they sold just about everything they owned, including their house, packed everything up in a small trailer pulled by their Ford Escort wagon and have been traveling for the past month cross country, visiting friends and family on their way westward, and then southward, as they get closer to their new floating home.

When I read that they would be passing through Washington, I got in touch and told them we’d love to have them stop by if it was in the cards. Indeed it was; yesterday they emailed that they would be passing through Olympia today and so we made plans to have them visit us onboard Wondertime.

This is what we love about cruising folks: just minutes after we’d invited this delightful family aboard we were all, adults and kids alike, talking like old friends. Leah gave their girls a tour of our boat as they were a little mystified by what life afloat is like. I think they like it because all four girls were busy playing right away with squeals of joy floating up from below.

After only two hours or so of getting to know each other, Leah and Frances especially (both 5-and-a-HALF) were fast friends. When it was time for the Del Viento crew to hit the road again, they reluctantly hugged each other good-bye.

“See you in Mexico!” the girls called out to each other as our new friends drove away.

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