About Me
The Family
Alright so between all these family pages you're probably wondering just how many people are on this boat. Well, I'll clear that up. On Serendipity there's my dad (Jeff), my mom (Pam), my two sisters Marcie and Jillian as well as Buddy the beagle, Whiskers the cat and the newest addition to the family, my kitten Kapu!! I'll talk more about him later. And sometimes Jamie, our older half sister, comes to visit. She lived with her mom in Vermont before she went to college. That's the family.
The transition, House to boat
Moving from a house to a boat is a big phase and the cruising life takes some getting used to, but it's an amazing way to live. The first change you notice is size, although we each get our own room on our fair sized boat. They are considerably smaller than the ones in our old house. Also the upper area of the cat' containing the galley (kitchen), the living and dining rooms together and the navigation station are all notably smaller than a house's. One of the next is that you no longer have unlimited water use; you can only go so long without making water (if you have a water maker) or hauling it. Another change I realized was that I didn't need as much stuff as I thought I did and I learned to prioritize so as to fit everything that's really important to me.
My
Hobbies
Well on a boat you can't always count on being near a movie theater or a mall or something so you usually have to entertain yourself. On a boat, if you have siblings, you're lucky to have someone to play with ,Marcie and Jillian play together all the time. Arts and crafts are ideal, I do a lot of beading and some crocheting and Marcie draws a lot. Another ideal activity is reading I love to read, the boat is stuffed full of books in every nook and cranny, reading is a great way to pass the hours. Of course there's always the water sports: swimming, snorkeling, kayaking, inner tubing and scuba diving (check out my scuba diving page). They're all lots of fun and convenient for the lifestyle. Tubing, however, usually requires some bribing of Dad so he'll maneuver the dinghy.
The one thing I really love that I can't do very often while cruising is horseback riding. I took lessons when we lived in Florida and I'm still saving up to hopefully get a horse some day, but horses and boats don't mix or rather shouldn't mix. We've ridden a few times since we've been out and it's been really fun but I definitely miss riding more frequently.
School
No, we don't get a permanent reprieve from school, we home school or as we call it boat school. I would say the best part of home schooling is the flexibility. If we want to take a day off and go for a hike or in to town we can! We don't use an over all curriculum like a lot of home schooled kids do, although I do "Saxon math" a good math curriculum. Otherwise, we just piece together textbooks for different subjects. Oh yeah, Mom and I do a Spanish program which I like a lot. One thing I have to say about home schooling is it involves a lot of self motivation, much more, I think, than in a school.
Before we came out sailing Marcie and I were in a Montessori school in Boca Raton, FL (Jillian wasn't in school yet) and I was ready for a change anyway, so I guess it was good timing to start cruising, except for the whole horse factor. : (
Sailing
Sailing can actually be a lot of fun, if you aren't seasick, of course, but that isn't as big a problem as most would think. The more passages you make, the less frequently seasickness occurs. The trick is to wait for the right weather, low seas and a light breeze is my idea of perfect conditions, then the trip should be great. I can help out with a lot around the boat now, I can raise and lower the anchor, furl and unfurl the jib a.k.a. the head sail, tack the jib, I do a lot of dealing with ropes, handle lines and fenders when coming up to a dock and lots of other little things here and there. I've even started driving the boat (very recently).
The Boater Life
Wow! Where do I even begin? There's so much to say about it that if I said all I wanted to, it would be pages and pages of info that I doubt anyone would be able to read all of by their own free will. I also doubt I'd be willing to type that much! So I'll be brief and only talk about a few things in comparison to the whole thing. Okay, I'll start at the beginning when we decided to go cruising. We, of course, didn't just leave that very day. There were things to do before we could take off; the first of which being to buy a boat. So Marcie and I were able to finish out the school year. When I told my friends about our plan, there was a lot of confusion and a lot of questions, one person even asked me how we would get food. The answer is simple, we're not just floating in the middle of the ocean bobbing up and down. We have been sailing from island to island, for the entire time we've been out mostly in the Eastern Caribbean island chain.
This paragraph is under construction in other words it's not finished.
Kapu!
We got Kapu a few months ago at a marina in Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela, as an early present for my 14th birthday. Every time my sisters and I see a dog or cat, we all, of course, want to keep him/her. But Dad was always firm in his answer, no, with good reason, as we already had two pets on board, more than many dared to have on a boat. But when I saw the litter of kittens that some of the other cruisers at the dock were trying to find homes for, I couldn't resist hoping for a way to convince Dad. After talking with Mom, who was just as eager as I was, we devised a plan... I was to write a persuasive letter to Dad addressing all his concerns. Then, let him think about it and discuss any remaining hesitations; hopefully impressing him with my maturity in handling the matter. Once that was done with, I still thought Dad was going to say no, when he surprised me and brought the kitten to the boat for a "trial" to see how he did with Buddy and Whiskers and on the boat. The trial lasted one day before we decided he was a keeper.
Kapu is all black except for a handful of white hairs distributed over his body and the grey underside of his tail. I know, I know you're thinking any minute now the boat will sink or the mast will explode or something, but he is the most lovable kitten I've ever met and he is sooooo cute! Though he does make his share of trouble, like all kittens.
Kapu is growing like crazy! He's already almost the size of whiskers! Despite his size he's still a kitten at heart. And he won't let me forget it; he frequently attacks my legs as I walk by and he really likes to be chased back and forth in the hall by my room.