Well, we are still here, working away the summer.  So far it has been too much work and too little play.  Even what seems like an exciting job, like working on a pirate ship, gets old when you do it a lot.  And the pirate ship has more drama going on behind the scenes than a reality tv show, and that is getting old too. 

Our plans to go traveling this winter in our boat are feeling intangible and far away at the moment.  Our efforts to put away a bunch of cash is progressing more slowly than we had hoped. 

But even though I may be feeling burnt out from working 6-7 days a week at two jobs, Capt K finally has a new exciting job that he is enjoying a lot.  And how could he not?  He gets to take a fun sporty boat out in search of dolphin and wildlife sightings!  How cool of a job is that?  He is working for an ecotour company that takes small groups out on sightseeing expeditions in the waters around St. Augustine.  He truly is Capt K now!

In other news, we have been housesitting for the last week and have been thouroughly spoiled by having a/c, a huge bathroom, and wonderful things like floors and countertops.  It has been a nice break from the boat, almost too nice.  Although we love our boat, we are a bit sick of living on it right now.  We might need a longer break than a week….but even though the idea of renting a studio apartment is appealing, it would slow down our money saving plan even more. 

So it goes.  We are cruisers in the drudgery of waiting to go cruising.

I know some of you may be wondering why we haven’t been posting much lately….the reason is plain and simple.  We have been working a lot and there doesn’t feel like much to report.  Even a job as “exciting” as working on a pirate ship gets routine when you do it every day.  There is enough “drama” on the pirate ship with the crew and management for a reality tv show, although even that gets old…

Captain K, however has a fun new job that he is enjoying.  He is working as a captain for Ecotours, a small excursion company that takes out small groups to look at wildlife.  What a cool job!!!  He is learning a lot and getting to see a lot of rare dolphin and manatee encounters. The other day he got to hang out with a whole group of mating manatees! How romantic! Well, not really….but interesting!

Although we have our goal of saving money to sail to the Carribean/ Central America this winter, at the moment that feels vague and far away. We are just plodding along trying to beef up our bank account, which is not happening as fast as we had hoped.

We did have a one week respite from living on our boat. We got to housesit for a wonderful lady who has graciously let me set up my floor loom, which I use for weaving, in her house. So we not only got to luxuriate in air conditioning, but I also got to weave to my heart’s content! Here is a bit of what I’ve been weaving:

We fully appreciated the marvels of a house, with all it’s wonders such as countertops and floors. Our cats came along too, and made friends with the dog we were taking care of! Truth be told, as much as we love our boat, we are a bit sick of living on it right now. If we were traveling it would be one thing, but just living on it while working is making it feel small…

There you have it, the drudgeries of cruisers waiting to go cruising.

We are in yet another phase of “lightening our load”.  Last summer we put the stuff that had made it through at least 4 rounds of downsizing.  This is the best of the few belongings we still have, the things we just could not bear to get rid of.  It has been sitting in a storage unit for almost a year, waiting for us to figure out what in the heck we were going to do with it.  Last month we came up with a plan a, plan b, c, and d for how to get the stuff out of the storage unit in upstate New York.  Cap’t K went to New York for his sisters graduation ceremony and through a crazy set of intense and unusual circumstances came back with a rental van full of our stuff.

We stuffed it all in another storage unit and now face the daunting task of downsizing once again. Along with that comes the question “how much more do we want to downsize?” “Is it worth it to keep stuff we MIGHT need someday!” At what point is the value of our sentimental possessions that we aren’t using but don’t want to get rid of not worth saving anymore?
We haven’t quite answered these questions yet. At the moment we are so busy working we don’t have much time to do much else anyway! But hey, now that we have a storage unit here we can offload some extra crap off our boat and put it there!