life on board circumnavigating | Jackie Parry

Living on board a compact ten metre boat is not for the faint-hearted!

Cruising is not all about calm seas, wind propulsion and dolphins at sunset. For a start moving from land to boat is confusing, frustrating and tough! You have to sell or store all of your belongings and live without ninety percent of what you usually live with!

Here’s more cruising realities you may not be aware of:

Flexibility is a must. Even with a large engine room you’ll have to learn to bend yourself into a pretzel.
Once in the engine room, you’ll learn how to perform miracles to unscrew, twist, replace…
The top of the mast sways a lot, even at anchor in dead flat water.
Bruises accumulate. The vice in the workshop bit me every time (until I told him to stop!)
Finding free WiFi on anchor is incredibly exciting.
It’s possible to live cheaply on board (read Cruisers’ AA to find out what I am talking about).
While preparing your boat for oceans, riding your bicycle sixty-seventy miles a week while balancing the equivalent of a small truck load, will become perfectly normal.
Movies, concerts and shows are replaced by slowly swinging on anchor, devouring the three-sixty-degree moving vista, and watching the sunset.
Barbados!
Just a couple more knots of wind can make the difference between a peaceful sleep and a fitful one.
Resourcefulness becomes your middle name.
It is a fantastic relief to be cut off from emails and phonecalls (which is how we cruised).
You will never have enough rags on board.
The laptop and camera become cherished items, to constantly capture those memories that fade with wine, oops, time!
Life on board is hard work, but immensely satisfying.