Sometimes I think living aboard must be a
bit like fighting a battle, but hopefully with less chance of coming to serious
harm. A lot of time is spent in planning and preparation, followed by brief
periods of action and excitement, and quite a bit of doing nothing much at all.
As a recovered workaholic, I’ve found the ‘doing nothing much’ part the hardest
to handle. Of course busy people dream of lounging about on deck in the sun,
novel in one hand and cold chardonnay in the other. Nice, but even I can’t do
that for hours on end – and, believe it or not, sometimes it is cold, windy and
raining!
Besides the constant boat projects, most of
the cruisers we’ve met have interesting and creative ways of using this time.
Many people write, of course, whether it’s keeping a log or a blog of their
journey, scribbling poetry and stories or the full deal – published novels and
non-fiction. Along the way we’ve met John Otterbacher in Deltaville and read his book Sailing Grace, Christine Kling in Fort
Lauderdale with her Seychelle Sullivan series and now fellow Aussie Dave Elliot
whose novel Time Sailors I’m
currently enjoying on Kindle.
Lauren and Olivier
Wander down Ponton 2 and you are likely to
see Natalie making furniture, Christine embroidering, Rene studying wine or a
classic from his film collection, Lauren painting and writing whimsical
children’s books, Olivier cooking, Florence crafting beautiful jewellery... Meanwhile as Jill of all trades and master of none, I write a bit, paint a bit,
sew a bit and attempt to play the harmonica!
This should be our last week in Monastir.
Our final job is to attach a new VHF antenna to the top of the mast, then it’s
provisioning, packing up, negotiating visas/customs etc
and off we go! The plan is to head to the small Italian island of Lampedusa
(about 80 miles away) then on to Malta for a couple of weeks.
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