I sat in the cockpit watching the clouds float by wondering what exactly my next move would be.  Its still a bit too cold to be on the hook so a game of cat and mouse with the weather persists. Its a dead calm one day followed by icy cold 30 knot winds the next.

I could feel the cold biting into my fingers as I worked on deck but didn’t dare go below into what was once a warm safe sanctuary.  I had been banished to the cockpit while Hurricane Serena had her way with what used to be my galley.

I never realized how much of a minimalist I was until Serena came along.  I literally can fit all my personal possessions in a shoe box.  Trying to move her aboard for our cruise has been challenging but rather than all at once I have been taking baby steps.  First her tooth brush, then a cubby for some clothes, a locker here or there, now she has taken over the whole boat.

I’ll never understand why she needs 4 types of oil to cook but I keep making space and we have plenty of it.  Monday is going to be exciting and frightening as I’m teaching her to dill holes so we can build spice racks and finally install reef lines.

Each week more and more provisions find their way to the boat and are swallowed by our cavernous bilge lockers., in ten days we will do our final stocking with every last penny and from that point forward the clock to find odd jobs to restock the kitty will start ticking.

If you can’t learn to organize you will simply need a larger boat, we have the space and will fill every last drop.  Every time I get frustrated and start day dreaming about a larger boat I remember this quote by Nigel Marsh

“There are thousands and thousands of people out there leading lives of quiet, screaming desperation, where they work long, hard hours at jobs they hate to enable them to buy things they don’t need to impress people they don’t like.”