So what’s it like to live on a boat? PART 2
Wednesday, July 04, 2018
Date: 4/7/18
Location: Airlie Beach
20 15.88 S
148 42'.09 E
Weather: The sun has finally come out again!
Author: Kylie
I thought I would tell you a bit more about what its like to live on a boat and what a typical day entails. But the more I thought about it, the more I realised there is no typical day! We live by the weather and what we do on a sunny day is so very different to a cooler windy day or a moving day. We have been enjoying not having any moving days the past few months whilst we are in the Whitsunday area but as we start to head south again soon we will most likely be back to entire days out sailing.
We make the most of the good weather and pack in days worth of activities into those days, and then when its less than ideal we get onto the school work, the cleaning & maintenance or the grocery shopping.
So on a good weather day this is what we get up to....
- We are generally up a bit later than we would be at home- yay some sleep ins!
- We love having breakfast out in the cockpit, we chat about where we want to go or what we want to do that day.
- At this point we have to think about what's for dinner as there is no takeaway and no microwave for defrosting the meat later in the day.
- Then we are off snorkelling, swimming, kayaking, fishing walking or exploring for the morning.
- Lunch some times gets bumped back a bit because we are having so much fun! And the dreaded washing up of the breakfast and lunch dishes must be done.
- We might get out again for some more activities or move the boat to another anchorage.
- By around 3pm we are thinking about showers as its too cold to be showering outdoors in winter much later than that.
- Dinner in the cockpit- we aim for before the sun goes down.
- Cleanup & maybe half a movie before it story time and bed.
That's a pretty ideal day!
I know you all are probably thinking what do you do with all your spare time? It is definitely more relaxed than whilst we are at home but really it rarely feels like we have spare time and it has been a different experience with the kids on board too.
Everything takes a lot longer on the boat too- we don't have an easy access fridge like at home so just getting out the milk and yoghurt for breakfast takes some time, not to mention the small washing machine or the trips to the supermarket on foot and by water.
Today was washing day- this is what the boat looked like!
I suppose our spare time at least for the kids and I is whilst we are moving. But its kind of limited as I can't sit on the computer or I feel sea sick, so I do quite a bit of reading whilst we move. We have all read a lot this trip. The kids have been enjoying us reading them Roald Dahl and Enid Blyton books and Mia has now started on chapter books herself. Pete has re read all the Harry Potter's and is past halfway through all the Marry Poppin's books. The kids occupy their moving time with their nintendo DS when ever I will allow it.
I have been spending some down time hand sewing. I like to craft and couldn't come away without something creative!
Living in such a small space can be challenging but we have all coped quite well with that. Messes accumulate quickly and when you are sailing everything must be put away because the boat leans over and anything sitting on tables or benches goes flying!
One of the best parts of this trip has been the quality family time. It has been fantastic to spend so much time with the kids to watch them learn, grow and develop.
A bit about schooling on the go.
Mia is in year 1 this year so for the 6 months of travel we have enrolled her in the North East Public School of Distance Education. Our experience has been excellent!
Prior to leaving we took the time to go down to Port Macquarie to the school base to meet Mia's teacher. Mrs Stone showed Mia her office space where she had a photo of each of her students on the wall. Her class has quite a few year 1 students but there are also students in other years. If your family had more than 1 student enrolled they would both have the same teacher. Most of Mia's class are travelling students.
It took us a few weeks to get into the routine of school work. However, each week follows a similar routine so its not real complicated. You don't have to be a teacher to supervise your childs schooling! I have done the majority of the school supervision, it just works best for us as Peter has more jobs around the boat than I generally do.
Mia's teacher suggested we would need to do about 2 hours work, 5 days a week for year 1. Keeping Mia motivated to do school work has been the hardest thing of all. She just wants to play and do all the fun activities not school work. In fact when I asked her last week what the highlight of her trip so far was, she said not having to go to school :( Here I was thinking she would say snorkelling or similar. Mia loves going to school normally but we have realised it is the social side of school that really appeals to her.
We don't do the school work every day. We wait for the average weather and then squeeze several days into one, so probably we average school about three days a week but for more than two hours at a time.
Each school pack is normally about 4 weeks work and it gets posted to where ever you request. We have been having ours sent to post offices along the coast that we can walk to to pick it up. I have made a video of Mia opening the most recent pack so you can check out what comes in a pack.
Mia has a lesson with her teacher each week on a Tuesday- well if we have phone service that is! If we have decent internet access we will do a google hang out so that Mia and the teacher have visual contact, otherwise it is just on the phone. Mia has been very shy with the process and the conversations are a bit one sided but that has been improving.
Once the work is completed we pop it back in the pack, along with the books and send it back to the school. All the postage is covered too.
Well thats all I can think of at the moment but if you have any questions let me know.
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